For Kazakis, strategic planning involves looking at his business metrics, sourcing feedback from his team members and comparing these results with where he projected the business needed to be.
“I look at my metrics and then get any one my team members involved if I’m analysing part of their department. I’m constantly getting feedback from the people who are also executing the strategic plan.
“We look at how many enquiries, referrals, acquisition value, what is our life-time value, what is our retention rate and what is our conversion rate from inquiries. And obviously out of all those figures comes profitability. I don’t have a need to consider how good my logo looks, or how many likes I get on Facebook, those ones I don’t care about at this stage.
“I love systems, but I prefer the word structure. I firmly believe in giving good people the opportunity to become great by giving them the structure in which to become exceptional. I’m a firm believer everything you do in business needs to be making you a profit,” he says
As a boy, Kazakis’ parents were always busy running their textile business. This has inspired a strict rule in his life to always be home by 6pm.
“I have a rule in my family and in my life that I need to be at home by 6pm every night to have dinner with my children and my wife. It’s also what I share with my clients and if I’m not doing it, it doesn’t look good.
“So home at 6pm, dinner, help with my kids’ homework, put the kids to bed and between 8.30 and 9.30pm it’s mine and Terry’s (his wife) time. Between 9.30 and 10.15pm I’m really wrapping up what I didn’t get a chance to wrap up before I left the office to make sure I’m prepared and in control for the next day. I’m in bed around 10.45 and then I wake up at 5.30am and do it all again,” he says with a laugh.
Despite spending quality time with his family, Kazakis says switching off can be hard.
“You can’t be so involved in what you do that at 6pm it’s a switch off. It’s not easy to go home after you’ve had a massive success or you’ve had a client who is right on the edge and just turn off. I’m lucky enough that there’s a mutual respect in my marriage that if I need to call a client after dinner or stay in the office till 7pm I can.
“I don’t work weekends, I’m not missing a football or a tennis match with my children. As much as I love my parents and they are amazing people and they did an amazing job raising me with what they knew, what they didn’t realise was they didn’t have to work that hard.”
One of Kazakis’ favourite pastimes is watching the footy, and in 15 years he aims to be the president of the Collingwood Football Club.
“I’ve done a bit of work with Eddie McGuire so I won’t challenge Eddie, but in the next 15 years that’s one of my goals. I love the football, the boys love the football, it’s a good part of life,” he says.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, his future looks hectic. Kazakis has plans to expand his online products, establish an offering of professional services for small businesses and write 12 books (he’s almost completed his first one).
“We’re embarking on an aggressive online strategy, it’s not about how popular we are but it’s about being effective. We’re steering away from the social media spotlight, we’re really focused on not being just another one of those. There are a lot of really good people doing it, but there is also a lot of mediocrity.
“Our online push is really about delivering what we’re doing right now face-to-face as a webinar experience. Our global expansion will first come through our online offerings of the program. In the last two weeks we’ve put to the world our first four webinars and the feedback that’s come back from our trusted and non-trusted sources have been exceptional,” he says.
Because of the new online developments, Kazakis says he will also start tracking his online metrics.
We’re embarking on a much broader net strategy now so we’ll have to start tracking our hits online too, whether it’s our website or our webinar or our daily blogs. I don’t want to have gut feel about things, I need to know things are working,” he says.
Kazakis says he doesn’t usually plan in 10-year time frames, but thinking ahead he hopes the business will have expanded to become a dominant force in business coaching globally.
“In 10 years’ I personally believe that at least 500 of our BOD 12 clients will have gone on to be benchmark global businesses. Fifty CEOs will be running 20 BOD 12 programs per month each, I envisage we will be global and I’ll have personally just written and signed off on my 12th book. I will be paid $50,000 a day to present at conferences globally and I’ll be living nine months of the year in Mykonos with my wife.”
His ambition radiates and, while his plans are grand, he has the temperament and the knowledge conducive to success. He proudly proclaims himself to be “a results-oriented deliverer of profits” for his clients, but he’s also philanthropic.
“I’ll be giving back 25% of my income toward building environments for third world children who don’t have the opportunity to learn business and I’ll be spending 30% of my time touring the world, teaching them the art of business and the art of respecting money,” he says.
He’s been a member of the Red Cross for more than 18 years and has acted at intervals as chairman, vice chairman and treasurer of the Victorian Greek division. Throughout this time he’s contributed significantly to the organisation monetarily, but prefers to donate anonymously.
“It’s not about the shining light syndrome. You can give back and no one needs to know.”
One of his key tips for aspiring entrepreneurs is to find a mentor and be willing to invest in them. As a young man in his early 20s, he took over the operations of his parents’ textile manufacturing company, eventually restoring the failing business to profitability. His first move was to find himself a mentor. He appointed an elderly South African man named Basil Port, who he describes as “a pillar”.
“He was an amazing man, with an amazing temperament with an amazing ability of just listening and asking questions. He taught me to think about my worst case scenario and to always have a plan B.”
As his business continues to evolve, he remembers the lessons his mentors taught him along the way. Now it seems the roles have been reversed, as Kazakis passes his lessons onto clients.
