Can a volunteer pastor in Gold Coast who entered into business by accident achieve phenomenal success? The answer is yes. This is exactly what happened to Kody Thompson though he never expected it. In fact, he’s recently been featured on news.com.au, which is the biggest news site in the country.
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Growing up, Kody was interested in sports and outreach programs. When he was 16, he was very active in his local church and ran youth programs that helped young people find hope and purpose in their lives. Faith was very integral to everything he did.
Though Kody never showed much interest in business, he admired how his father, the former CEO of a large company in Bendigo interacted with his staff. Little did he know that he would someday be running his own business and interacting with his staff the same way his father did.
Accidental Entrepreneur
Unlike Business Blueprint consultant Luke Ahearn who knew he wanted his own business at a young age, Kody never thought about business. He was a full-time pastor while his wife worked as a teacher. After a few years, they decided it was time to leave Bendigo and move to another church in the Gold Coast.
The Thompsons knew that the church in the Gold Coast was where they needed to be. So when they found out that the church couldn’t pay Kody, he decided to start his own graphic design business to earn money.
Since he launched his business kind of accidentally, Kody literally had no idea what to do. He was using excel spreadsheets for his accounting and pieces of paper and a pinboard for his project management. When he asked his father, who was a CEO for a large company for advice, he suggested to “find a business coach.”
Then a friend recommended Dale Beaumont, saying there was so much value at his free events. Kody attended a free business workshop that Dale used to run called New Rules of Business, and he was absolutely blown away. He couldn’t believe how generous Dale was in giving so much free information.
What You See Is What You Get
Kody was drawn to Dale’s generosity and his values. The Business Blueprint founder was focused on family and on helping other people. Kody liked Dale’s authenticity, which is rare in other coaches.
Kody wanted to connect with people who had good values in their business. He could see that the way Dale interacted with other businesses was not to build an empire for himself but to really make a difference and impact in the world. He admired the way Dale treated other business people and conducted business ethically.
“The person that you see on the stage is what you get,” Kody affirmed. “Dale has helped me shift my mindset and see the possibility of what business can be.”
Kody knew then that signing up with Business Blueprint would be the right decision.
Exactly What He Needed
“The thing that sets Business Blueprint apart from the other groups that I was looking at was that it was able to give me help right now,” he explained. “It was exactly what I needed.”
The Business Blueprint membership came with awesome benefits like 4 annual live conferences, interactive webinars, and an online library of resources that Kody could access anytime he needed to. He made use of step-by-step training videos and also took advantage of the business consultants at hand. Best of all was the community that gave Kody extra support and helped celebrate his wins.
From Dale, Kody learned leadership, how to scale his business and practical things like what software to use or what technology to leverage to grow his business.
Principles in Life and Business to Live By
Dale’s great values convinced Kody to choose him as his business coach. But Kody himself has his own principles that has helped him in his life and business. He shares 3 of them below:
• Live for something great
“All great businesses come out from people wanting to live for something greater than themselves,” Kody revealed. He believes that everyone is created with different gifts to impact the world. If people live for a purpose higher than themselves then they can create something significant for humanity.
Build a business to impact your clients and make a difference in the community.
• Champion others
Behind every great business is a great team. Kody always tries to help people understand that they are important and that they have something important to share with the world. He champions his team to be the best that they can be.
• Focus on the positives
In business, there will always be many things that will challenge you and tempt you to give up. Kody credits his faith as a pillar that helps him to let go of things that he can’t change and focus instead on the things that he can. He also tries to enjoy the journey and focus celebrating the successes.
After meeting Dale, Kody feels like a different person. He now thinks of life in a bigger way. “I feel like now I have the confidence in myself to dream big, to create something huge and have the skills to match it.”
Doubled Financial Turnover
When Kody operated his first business, Design Fox, he was doing everything by himself. He knew that it was impossible to scale if he remained a one-man team. So after he attended Dale’s event, he hired his first virtual assistant and went on to build a great virtual team in the Philippines.
Design Fox then became Lightning Sites after Kody decided to change his business model to create a better experience for customers. His concept of selling websites through wired subscription helped fill a hole in the market for small businesses. With this, he could offer a higher quality website with unlimited support at a set fee.
In 2015, Kody earned $110,000 in turnover for Design Fox. A year later under Dale’s mentorship, he earned double that amount with the new business model he adopted for Lightning Sites. Last year, he earned over $500,000 which means that his business has doubled every year ever since he joined the Business Blueprint membership.
“We have over 50% profit,” Kody revealed. “We also have way too much work now” he laughed.
Bigger and Better in 2018
For Kody, business is just a tool that helps him enjoy life. And he didn’t expect the level of success he has achieved now. “I don’t think I would have been able to scale this quickly without Business Blueprint.”
Considering the volume of work in their backlog along with new subscriptions, Kody expects that the financial turnover this year will be around $750,000. He plans get more people on board so he could build the capacity to help more people with their websites. He has already hired 6 new staff and plans to hire more.
Kody, however, is determined that his team will maintain the same level of quality they are doing now when it comes to delivering websites.
“Our goal is to hit 500 subscriptions by the end of 2018,” Kody said.
He credits Dale’s mentoring, which has been a huge help to him. “I trusted in his experience and got results from doing what he said.”
For business owners who want to achieve the same success as him, Kody has this to say. “Find a mentor, who has done it before, is generous, has great values and most importantly believes in you.”
Read Kody’s awesome feature on news.com.au.
