Branding Built to Last: How Communities Create Loyalty | Lana Taylor

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That's how we've always just wanted to be seen. We're the moms next door helping the moms next door get their dream home. Lana Taylor is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and as a co-founder of Three Birds Renovations, a multi-million dollar brand transforming the home renovation industry. She's built a global community guiding over 40,000 women through their renovation and styling journeys. It's a high stakes game. A lot of money is spent off in people's life savings and

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this is important for the business, the business of renovating. [Music] Lana is a powerful voice in brand influence, inspiring women to create homes they love and lives they're proud to lead. People saying, "Thanks for your inspiration. Thanks for your online course. I've renovated my home and it has changed our lives." Do you think you could have built this business without the community? No way. We know that 30,000 or 300,000 women helping each other. How cool is that? Versus just

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three. Whether it's really small or really big, I think the home is just crucial as that, you know, destination. This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio. We're excited to have you here. Yeah. You showed up in style. Thank you. Yeah. on brand for us. So, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Your office is um interesting. Yes. Yes. It's been described as the Hell's Angels of branding. Uh so, we're about to go through a bit of a rebrand, perhaps. I saw some walls that had just been um jip rocked and if you need any

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renovating advice as you go. Please do. Some are a bit questionable. Yes, they are questionable. They are questionable and we have no idea what we're doing. So, feel free to bone pick and tell us how we can improve. Yeah. Well, just to open this up with a bit of a stat here, um, something that blew my mind and my team were researching this was that the ABS figures showed and revealed that the value of new renovations in New South Wales alone uh, hit a record higher of 3.9 billion uh, over the year to June 2024. Mhm. And

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with alterations in Sydney totaling 2.7 billion, which is obviously this industry is taking off, what's your opinion on like where the trajectory of this space is going? Well, I don't see it slowing up because I think, you know, in Australia there's a huge love affair with real estate, with renovating, with buying and selling, with building new. Um and almost whatever situation you're in, there are all there's always room for home improvement. So whether it's a big renovation, a little renovation, you

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know, even when we saw coming out of co whilst yes, some of the costs had gone up to renovate, a lot of people felt, you know what, I want to invest in my home because I was trapped there for a period of time and I realized that I need more space or I need an escape from my kids or from my partner or something. And you know, there's there's always a reason to renovate your home, to add value to your home. You know, it's a great investment strategy that you also get to enjoy and that really impacts

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your life positively, how you interact with your family and friends. There's a huge feel-good factor there, and that's priceless. Um, and so it's I I just don't see that slowing up anytime soon. And you mentioned something there and uh we experienced this as well where we're in lockdown and we were like, okay, like we got to make the most enjoyable space possible if we're going to be stuck in this. When you're thinking about the Australian household and the family dynamics, um why is the home so

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important to people? Well, it's what you come home to after a day, you know? So, it could be the kids are at school. Um you might be out at work or or you're at home, but you're home maybe alone and the rest of the family's out of the house. It's that place where you come back together. It's convergence. It's you reunite. It's your moment to check in um either formally or just unofficially just seeing each other. Just being in their presence. I had to tell my daughter the other day

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that um she's a teenager and if she had her way, she'd never be home. She's out driving around everywhere. I said, "I just want your presence in the house from time to time. Even if you're in your room and I don't see you, it just makes me feel good that you're there sometimes." So I think that it is really important for that sense of human connection um to for to come home to a an address a place that you are actually in sort of four walls together whether it's really small or really big. Um I

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think the home is just crucial as that you know destination and you work with a lot of Australian families and you've probably seen a lot of different situations and circumstances. You've got a massive community with over 40,000 people. When you think about the home dynamic and the renovating of a space, what does this do for people's psychology, their health, their well-being, their family dynamics, their relationships? Like, is it actually, I guess, any evidence-based improvement in

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people's lives when they take the time to curate their living space? 100%. We have so many unsolicited testimonials that come our way with people saying, "Thanks for your inspiration. Thanks for your online course. I've renovated my home and it has changed our lives. Um, how they connect with their family. You know, some people had old kitchens that were originally in a separate room in the middle of the house cuz that's how they built the houses in those days. And nowadays, everyone wants that open plan

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living where you can be in the kitchen and see the kids in the dining and the lounge room and see them swimming in the pool, for example. And we are just inundated with people telling us their stories around how it they're so much happier because of the practicality of how they can interact with their family and their friends. You know, a lot a lot of people, you know, Australians love to entertain, but they can be like, "Oh, but I never had the space to have, you know, my extended family over for a

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barbecue and whatever. It was just too pokey or we were all in different rooms." And the way people say now I can entertain with my extended family or I can I can cook for the family and be connected. You know, you got a lot of people, not me, who love to cook. And um if their kitchen is really turned into the heart of the home, then they can be in there creating food for the family and still be part of everyone, you know, fuffing around the house. I I can agree with that. We have we we have like quite

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an old house and the kitchen is like tucked away in a corner far away from the living space. So when there's something happening, you know, whoever's in the kitchen is kind of tucked away and everyone's enjoying themselves. You're saying that it's more of the hearth of the home. Like how do we I guess think about design in a way that allows people to have more practicality but also have better experience and better memories and so forth. Exactly. And and that, you know, our whole

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purpose at the end of the day is to help women feel happier in their homes. So that's what it's all about is home happiness. Um and then we just work backwards from there of well how does someone feel happier in their home? Well, it just works better, you know. So it might be a new floor layout. It might be getting that on suite bathroom you've always wanted to. So you weren't a family of six sharing one tiny bathroom and you you get your second bathroom. There are so many elements to it and um

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the impact on people's lives is enormous. You know, as much as it sort of feels like a light and airy type of business that we're in, it's very, very serious. It's a high stakes game. A lot of money is spent. Often people's life savings. And how that home turns out is crucial. And we don't want people to have regrets of they didn't get what they paid for or they blew their budget. Um, you know, this is important business, the business of renovating. So, you mentioned something there

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regarding blowing a budget. And I've watched Grand Designs and you see this famous story where, you know, we're going to do it on a budget, we're going to get it done in 2 or 3 years, the host comes back like seven or eight years later. They're still renovating their house, their marriage is on the rocks. Like, like how many horror stories have you experienced? Yeah, I remember a Grand Designs episode where they're still trying to make their own bricks and dry them out in the yard out of clay

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and they still have never dried to build the house. So, look, Grand Designs is not really, I think, reflective of um a normal Australian renovating experience. However, uh it is fraught with danger renovating. You know, there are lots of horror stories of where it has taken much longer than someone wanted to. And time is money. You know, you you might be renting somewhere else while the home's getting renovated. You might be living through the renovation with all the dust and the tradies turning up at 7

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a.m. The stress that places on a family um is enormous. And so and then you know the risk of perhaps spending more than you can afford can be devastating. You know I've heard of horror stories where you know someone planned to spend a million which is a lot and the budget the the invoice ended up coming back at 2 million. So that is a huge budget blowout that um was devastating for that family and I think they eventually had to finish the renovation and sell the property um to pay the bills because it

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had just totally run over. And so that's a whole lot of what Three Birds is about is trying to make sure that we are giving um people and women in particular the tools and the confidence to renovate within their means and not blow the budget and get the home they can afford and a home that they love because you can get a home that you love on any budget. Even if it is new cushions in your lounge room, that can go a long way. And so that's why we also even created our styling school because we

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understand some people don't have the budget or inclination to renovate and knock down walls, particularly if you're renting. You can still transform how you feel in a space through the power of styling. You know, your furnishings, your paint color, your rugs, your artwork. I mean, you know it in your space here. Um, a lot of it comes down to the styling. And then with Three Birds, why do you think that you as a collective resonates so well in the market? because I understand the majority, like you said, is women, uh,

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but you also have a ton of men in your community. What is it about the dynamic or what you've created here that really permeates into culture? Because you guys aren't just succeeding. You're really starting to become like cult status, uh, hardcore fanatical fan base, community. Um, and it's really fun to watch it flourish and grow and transform. But like, what is it that you feel has touched a nerve? I think it's how we started. I think that you know it's 10 years ago uh that we started and the

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fact that we it's a really authentic story about how we have taught ourselves really how to renovate and do this game. You know, between Bonnie, Erin and I, none of us have qualifications or um training in renovating homes. We've taught ourselves this along the way as a group, as a threesome. We bought our first house. We're just going to flip that for um a profit. I think we made like 20 grand each or something. Um, and that's that's where we started. But, uh, we then just learn how to do it better

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and better and better. And the fact that, um, we're very relatable because I think a lot of the women we talk to see us as the mom's next door. And that's how we've always just wanted to be seen. We're the moms next door helping their moms next door get their dream home. We aren't um, qualified interior designers or architects. and we can't even lean on trady hubbies uh cuz that we don't have them and our our husbands really are of no assistance in what we've been

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building. And so I think you the magic dust as I would call it is how very relatable we are. Um women can see themselves in us. Um particularly the friendship that the three of us have and how we've shared that along the way in the journey. You know, we're always told by friends and women, "Oh, you're living the dream." And I'm like, "Really? What's living the dream?" And they're like, "Well, you're renovating homes, which is just so exciting and amazing.

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You're working with your best buddies. You left the corporate world. You're you're actually in a bit of a man's world of building and everything, and you're we're loving your designs as well." And so, we just ticked all the boxes, which I think created this organic swell of support of women saying, you know what, I'm really enjoying this journey. And it's and they were engaging on it on many different levels. Aspirational, inspirational, emotional. Um, yeah, all the makings of

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a really solid brand. So, would you say from a like a branding perspective, it's less about look at us and what we're doing, and it's more about look what you can do for yourself. For sure. Look, when we started out, to be honest, it was a bit of, hey, let's share with you what we're doing, and it was about what we were doing. Um, but then it quickly became obvious to us that the bigger picture is about what everyone else can achieve and all the other moms next door. So, when it became really clear to

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us that we're here to help the other moms next door get their dream home, um that really unlocked everything we did around um our online schools, our uh discount card we've launched, the community, the private community Facebook groups that we've set up, the events we hold, and we've really got the brand to a point now where it's women helping women. So, we have women posting their renovating questions and challenges in a group at 8:00 a.m. and they have 35 members of the community

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helping them by 9:00 a.m. solve a problem. I haven't even got out of bed yet and the problem is solved. And then when we've got international students, you can post your problem at midnight in Australia, go to sleep, wake up at 6:00 a.m. and all the American students have been helping solve your problem. So, you're literally having your renovating solution solved while you sleep. That's the power of a community. Damn. Okay. Now, when when we go into the community component, you know, there's a debate

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right now about where social media is at and everyone's talking about the era of followers and subscribers is kind of a pass by era. And now we're in the era of community building. What is community building? like just unpack that because I think people have a misconceived notion of what that could be. Well, I think there are lots of different forms it can take. You know, for us, we have lots of different layers to our what we would call our community. You know, someone that just happens to follow us

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on Instagram is a part of our community. Okay? But we might never have a much of a two-way conversation with them. They just it's a one-way conversation. They look at our post, they might like it, and that's all we ever we don't even know their name, right? unless we went in and looked at them as a follower. But then there are so so there actually there are the people we reach just who view our content. Then there are people who say, "Hey, I saw it. Now I'm going to follow one of your channels. I'm

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going to follow you on Instagram." Um or I'm going to subscribe to your YouTube channel. Then we have people who say, "You know what? I'd love to have you turn up in my inbox, so I'm going to become an email subscriber. I want to give you my email address. Email me when you've got new stuff to share." Um and then we also have the people who say, "You know what? I want to learn more. I want to become a student. I want to enroll in one of your online courses. So

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then that's the next layer within our community. And then and then within that we have a community called our fourth bird members. So who doesn't want to be a fourth bird? Do you want to be a fourth bird? I want to be a fourth bird. No, everyone does. And that's why again we never set out to create a membership group called fourth bird, but we responded to everyone saying I want to be a fourth bird. So we have thousands of fourth birds and they all know that they're not the one. They all know that

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they all know each other and we um invite them to our projects in person really and we put on a spread of amazing food, drink, an afternoon of the community meeting in the flesh, partying with us in person, seeing our projects up close, touching the beds, the flowers, looking at the landscaping, looking asking us questions, and that's like our tightestknit community. And so we have all these different levels and layers of our community and how we engage. And um I certainly don't think that it's, you know, the end of of

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followers and subscribers and what have you. But I do think you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket and you know not have you want to have email addresses so that if Zuckerberg and everyone go crazy at some point and say, you know what, that's it. All of social media is gone. It would be heartbreaking for us to not be able to have a dialogue with our um community because all of a sudden social media shut down. I mean, I think people felt like that when Tik Tok went offline for like one minute.

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wix.com/studio. Okay, so let's go into the fundamentals of community building. Do you guys have a criteria or a structure or anything that you try to keep top of mind when you're putting these people into different communities, creating online programs? Are there any rules of thumb of best practice to make sure you're serving them in the right way? Well, I think it's just really trying to think about what are their needs, you know, and not creating products that you think you want to

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sell, but creating products that you think they want to buy. And I mean that's not rocket science. And you know coming from my FMCG background I remember at Proctor and Gamble the age-old adage of um the consumer is boss, right? The consumer is boss. And so that will be a great guidance for anyone in any business to just think about that. And and I think what was great is because we never set out to create the business quite in this way. We have simply sort of developed our products off the back of what the

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consumer, our community has been asking for. So they're like, "Teach me how to renovate. Okay, let's create an online rena school." Then we get the feedback, but I'm not renovating. I'm just renting or I can't afford to renovate. Okay, let's create styling school for those people. Right. Right. And then we get the feedback of I want to be a fourth bird. Can I be a fourth bird, too? I want more. Okay. let's try and create a an environment um where people can get

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closer to us can learn more, see more, save more. So that came about and then you know our most recent evolution of delivering something to our community is our three birds dream discount card. Now we didn't set out to say hey we want to launch a discount card. What we did was look at, hey, we've got a really big community. You know, even if we just take Instagram, a million followers on Instagram, but we've only got 40,000 students. That's a big gap between 40,000 students and a million Instagram

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followers. So, it's pretty clear there's a lot of our Instagram followers who aren't interested in doing a course. That's okay. That's fine. It's not for everyone. I mean, if you're renovating or styling, you're you're mad not to do it, but that's okay. um there's a whole bunch of people that aren't interested in that self-development and self-arning. So then we thought what are they interested in? What matters to them? And this was you know last year or

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or probably earlier two years ago that we were developing this and what was really clear there was a cost of living crisis. Um everyone wants to save money. No matter who you are in the world, no matter how rich you are, you want to save money. Uh, in fact, I think Aldi is is well populated by some of the more uh affluent people. They love shopping in Aldi. They love a deal. Um, but also people who um are on tough times and struggle street, they want to save money, but everyone also wants uh to

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continue to improve their home or we want them to be able to improve their home. So then we thought you know what we have spent 10 years building up lots and lots of relationships with retailers suppliers in renovating building styling furniture home wares. We've got amazing relationships with them. Why don't we negotiate a whole bunch of discounts that will be available every single day to someone and let's package that all up into the three bedstream discount card and people can buy it for a one-off fee

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of $149. Sorry, not one off. They can buy it for a 12 month membership of $149 and get access to discounts on 50,000 products. That's how many are on there. 50,000 products every single day of the year. You don't have to wait for Black Friday sales. You don't have to wait for end of financial year sales. You get to save the money when you needed it in your home. So, if you need to be doing your tiling next week, you can save on your tiles today. If you're wanting to buy bed linen um for your

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Airbnb, maybe you know uh you will save on your bed linen today because the discounts are available every single day of the year. And that's something we were really firm on in negotiating it with the retailers. We're like, "No, no, no, it's got to be available every day because we thought that's what our community would appreciate." Um, and that's still very new for us and we're still growing that card card holdership. But that's an example of where we just

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thought really hard about what can we do next to help a large portion of our community that we haven't yet done and we feel really great about bringing that to the market. And that card, I've heard firsthand accounts from people that have saved thousands of dollars on renovations just because of the discounts they get access to, whether it's paint or timber or tiles or whatever. Obviously, you're just very centered on how do we make sure we're providing value, more value than we ask. Absolutely. And that's why

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we we feel really comfortable whenever we um put a new product into the market that we know that um we would sell this to our best friend full price to our mothers, to our brothers. We are that confident of the value there. I mean, yeah, the card is a great one. We're charging $149 for 12 months and you could buy one rug and save $200 like that from one purchase. you've you've saved more than it cost you. Then spend the next 364 days of the year buying other things and it's just all pure

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savings that you otherwise couldn't have got. So we just feel so proud of that, so good about it and we just, you know, I'm always shouting it from the rooftops with my iPhone ads. I mean everyone's feed just talking about the value that our products bring. Now, if you think about this, I guess gap in the market, no one was really filling this gap previous to what you guys are doing. Maybe a few televised shows or what have you. In your opinion, why was no one else filling this gap in the Australian

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market before you guys? Um, it's a good question because for sure no one was doing what we were doing and they're not even really now. people are doing parts of it, you know, and and like a show like The Block, you know, was huge and is iconic in Australia and they certainly are providing Renault Inspo and and Grand Designs that you mentioned earlier. Amazing renovation inspo. There's a certain um commercial feel to it that that you guys Oh, I think that's grown as well over time, the commercial

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feel. Um, and I think and I mean when you're in TV, I think it has to just to fund TV these days, I think it has to be commercial or else they can't afford it. Um, and so I think I think where it came from with us is that it literally was born out of an authentic desire to just renovate homes and share that content because that's genuinely how we started. We we weren't intending to create a community at all. that organically happened when we told people what we were doing and started to show

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them. They wanted to follow us and then the following, you know, on Instagram just grew exponentially without us spending one cent on advertising. And so I think because it just grew so organically and authentically. Um we were the first I think to really take it to social media and in a very um authentic relatable way which was hey we're just like you do you want to follow our journey and no one else was doing that and it wasn't because we were clever that we just stumbled into doing that. So we didn't set out we we then

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became clever and thought hang on how do we do this properly but at first we just stumbled across the organic ground swell of support but we never set out to create that and you guys didn't just build a service you really built a voice and a template in the market and I want to highlight this because I think when you're on social media and you're trying to consider maybe I want to become someone in this space for me that person was Chris Doe I remember going home after having spoken with Gary Vee and he

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just blunt told me, "Go start a [ __ ] business." And I was like, "All right, Gary." I get home and I'm like, "Okay, how do I start an agency?" Punch it in on Google. Kristo comes up. He's like the template. Yeah. Right. You know, when a chick a chick's hatched and it looks at its mother and it's like that's that's the template. I looked at Christo and I was like, "Okay, cool. What's he doing? Okay, he has a team. He builds brand identity. I'm just going to try to

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run with that template." So I think community building is so important because that was very much the incubator for the very genesis of me coming into the branding sphere. Was there anything like that for you out there or were you just blatantly figuring this out on the tools on the ground piece by piece house by house? Yeah. No, it was piece by piece, house by house. uh for sure uh you know I mean there was definitely an element of my marketing training and expertise that I had fine-tuned at my FMCG companies for 15

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years. So I I definitely took a lot of learnings from that on how to grow the brand in a way that made it mean more than just um Renault pictures and Renault inspo. You know, for me, I remember Bonnie and I were chatting, you know, quite early on around and and for me, my sort of mother little chick moment or whatever was not a template or a person or something in with regards to threeirds, but for me, I always go back to Maslo's hierarchy of needs, which for me is is at the core of all great

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marketing. Um, you know, and I we created early on like what is the threeirds version of Maslo's hierarchy of needs, which you know, for some of your listeners who can um, you know, if you could unpack that. Yeah. Yeah. Can Google it. It was it's he was a psychologist um, uh, Abraham Maslo in I think 1940s. He created an a pyramid model that understood what drives consumer behavior and motivations and he separated it into a level of needs that humans need and that they progress through in order. So at a very base

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level there's just the need for um I think it's survival, food, water. Yeah. Shelter, just survival, your very basic need. And then once you've got that, you progress through to a need of safety, um you know, a job, money, that type of thing. And then when you move through that, you can move to love and belonging. You know, having a family, having friends, a sense of community. And then the next level is self-esteem. You're confident. You feel good about yourself. And the ultimate pinnacle

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moment is called self-actualization where you feel, you know what, I've reached my full potential. And so how that applies to a brand and to marketing is that you should always think about what would my brand look like or what would it feel like or deliver through each of those stages so that you're not just creating a brand that will only service the most basic level of someone's need. I see. So be more three-dimensional just think bigger. You know, a great example, I used to work in

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skincare, right? Because that's a fastmoving consumer good, skincare in supermarkets. And when you plot that on Mazu's hierarchy of needs, you know, at a very base level, it moisturizes my skin, you know, and removes dryness and itchiness. But then you if you think, well, what does that do when you feel like your skin is feeling better? You start to feel good. You might get compliments from your friends or family. Hey, you're looking great. and you know, wow, well, it could be the moisturizer

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I'm using. And then you maybe I've had women say after using skincare products, I got a job offer and I think it's because I portrayed so much confidence because I was really confident in my skin. And then ultimately, you're like, you know what, I feel my skin is the best it can be and I feel really happy and healthy and I'm projecting it my full potential in life. All linked back to a little moisturizer that you could buy in the supermarket for $20. But the point is is therefore you should market

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at that higher order level of what a product can do for you rather than it's just going to relieve dry itchy skin. Right? So if I think of three birds versus us just creating a brand that was you know what there's some renovating picks and tips you know go for it your life we then talk about the higher order need of safety of we're going to help you avoid mistakes. So we're going to help you avoid mistakes by teaching you more. So, we're starting to move through the needs and then you know what? We're

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going to give you a sense of love and belonging by bu building this community of like-minded people who you can see are sharing your problems and you're helping solve each other's problems. Then you move to self-esteem of we're here to help you feel confident to have those challenging conversations with your builder about what you do and don't want and to make sure that you're not getting ripped off or that you don't think you're getting ripped off. Then ultimately, it's self-actualization.

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You're getting your dream home and you feel like, you know what, my home is an extension of who I am and it makes me feel frigin amazing. And that's what Three Birds is about. And I get goosebumps when I think about it. You're just explaining that. Amazing, right? Because Maslo's hierarchy of needs took us there to know that that's what Three Birds needs to be about. Not renovating tips and tricks. That is way too base. We can do better. And that's what we've tried to do. And with the Maslo's

00:31:13 - 00:32:07

hierarchy of needs, you guys have filled that whole pyramid. We we uh we're trying and we always are, you know. I mean, another great example is we created a few years ago our own project home with Rosson Homes. So, we designed a project home that was called the Three Birds Dream Home. Almost like the Barbie the Barbie camper van or whatever, the Barbie dream home. We created that which was our best of the best design we could do with all of our years experience. and Rosson um developed it into a project

00:31:40 - 00:32:47

home that someone could buy and put it on their block and we built it. Um the first one we we built uh actually our CEO at the time spent her life savings on building that. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. Wow. She she put her money in. She still lives in that home. I checked in with her the other day. She still loves it. Um but you know that's an example. I remember when we did Maslo's I did have the idea of people can not only look at three birds houses they can live in one and

00:32:13 - 00:33:12

that's was something that I we put very high on the pyramid was someone being able to live in a home that we've designed for them. Have you uh seen the Martha Stewart documentary? Yes. I loved it. Yeah, I did too. I think she's remarkable and one of the messages that she had in there very early on in her career was, you know, Martha, what's the whole point of this? And for her, it was making everything beautiful. She was obsessed with it. Whether it was doing it in her own house, uh whether it was

00:32:43 - 00:33:47

helping someone else have that aha beautiful, you know, host a space moment. Is there a conscious thought pattern behind how you and the team address the market wherein how you speak or how you deliver the brand or how you create a frame around it like what's the thought process behind that? Yeah, we definitely have tried very hard I think from very early on to create a brand look and feel and a brand identity that we try and preserve and a tone of voice. you know, we have it all written in documents of

00:33:14 - 00:34:14

what is our tone of voice, what are our um what's our DNA, our brand DNA. And you know, for example, some of the things we want to come across as is, you know, um approachable, um likable, humorous, uh humble, you know, we've never wanted to put ourselves up on a pedestal that people are like, "Oh, wow. You know, they're amazing and and I'm not. They're up there and I'm down here." We've always wanted to try and make sure that in how we present content, how we joke around, how we're

00:33:44 - 00:34:48

very open about the fact that we have no expert uh credentials in this space is to just ensure that we remain relatable um to our community, which are the moms next door. And so we definitely always have a little check box of, you know, is there a bit of humor here? Um is there, you know, are we making fun of each other? Is everything still beautiful, though? So, from the get-go, we've wanted everything to look beautiful. So, even when we photograph the homes or mid- renovation, you know, with timbers

00:34:16 - 00:35:20

all exposed, cords hanging down, whatever, we always wanted those photos to look beautiful because usually they look crap, right? It's pretty hard to make a renovating site look attractive or a wheel being a wheel being a wheelbarrow look bookw worthy. But if you open um our books, you will see pictures in there of a wheelbarrow um and a ladder leaning up against a wall that's half pulled down and it's amazing. We put it in a coffee table book because we thought it was so beautiful. So, we did want to try and

00:34:48 - 00:35:58

make renovating go from being this sort of ugly, terrifying, scary, upsetting, you know, um something that would just make you cry, which we felt was the way it was presented until we came along and said, you know what, it doesn't have to be so awful. It can be beautiful. It can be uplifting. It doesn't have to be a nightmare. It doesn't have to destroy you. And that was very early on we realized we wanted to show a the uplifting side of renovating, not the stuff that destroys you. Um, which I

00:35:24 - 00:36:19

think some of the shows had gotten to that point of it being very drama drama drama. Um, and we wanted to say, you know what, we wouldn't do this for a living if it was that awful. Like it's it doesn't have to be that awful, but you do need to have a certain mindset. And we try and teach that in, you know, a lot of our online courses about how you think about something. You know, just the other day in our community yesterday, Tracy was not happy with her kitchen and she said, "The scoloping is

00:35:51 - 00:36:39

not quite right. Should I hold my builder accountable? Should I not?" And the community all answered and I put in my two cents worth Tracy and I said, "You know what, Tracy? You're probably going to have stools in front of it anyway. That scoloping will probably never be noticed by anyone other than you knowing it. You could hold your builder accountable, but you've told me that that's going to set back you moving in by Easter. It's they're going to have to rip out the kitchen and redo it,

00:36:15 - 00:36:58

which they're willing to do. Um, you've got to decide what it's worth to you and whether or not you think that's worth doing. And the builders or whoever had offered some compensation if we'll give you a couple grand back, uh, what do you want to do? And I said, it's your call, but you know what? If it was me, I'd probably just say, I'm okay with this. I will take the compensation because I think I deserve it because you didn't get it quite right. But I don't need you

00:36:37 - 00:37:33

to go and rip up the whole thing and start all over again. Um, and it's, you know, it's all those little elements that are so nuanced in so many of the stories that we hear and how the community all comes. It's a very self soothing community where everyone comes in to help solve the problem. And think of how Tracy now feels. She feels she's had all these wonderful points of view and she can now go and make an informed decision. And I said to her, ultimately, it's up to you. There is no wrong or

00:37:05 - 00:38:02

right way to approach this problem. You have to decide what can you live with. And I just love being able to help in that moment, which could be quite upsetting to help her get a great outcome where you know what, it's not the end of the world, Tracy. These things happen. Renovating never goes perfectly smoothly. It just can't. So, it's how do you manage the problem without it destroying your life? This feels like a a really big brand exercise because like you said, the public perception of

00:37:33 - 00:38:52

renovations was uh nightmare on Elm Street and and you guys are really trying to add a different lens. You're reframing the perspective. You're saying no, renovating can be beautiful. Uh developing and building can be beautiful. It can be a a fun positive experience. Positive, creative, uh, you know, liberating experience. Yeah. And if you think about the target demographic, like you said before, the bullseye is around 40, predominately women. What thought process went into, well, her perspective of the world is this,

00:38:13 - 00:39:19

we're going to proactively change it to that. What's this transition you're trying to shift in her mind? Well, you know, to be honest, um, we didn't necessarily think about her. We thought about us in that we are her and she is us. So, we just knew that that's what we've seen and that's what we've experienced and that's our perception of the industry is that it is it was just yeah, negative. It was just a bit of a nightmare on Elm Street. And so, and we felt that we would

00:38:46 - 00:39:51

appreciate being on the receiving end of a more positive outlook. And we knew that if that's how we would feel, we're pretty sure that's how she would feel. So, that's what's great when you are you are your target market and they see you as them as well. And, you know, we literally started out just like a lot of the women in our community. And so I think that gave us a real advantage there where it was just innate to us of what to do. And for example, we every home we designed, we just put the lens

00:39:19 - 00:40:22

on, we're going to design it as a home we'd want to live in. That was just the lens. And you know what? It turns out other people wanted to live in it, too. And soc we just through being very true to what we believed in um that was actually how we started off. And then it it turned out unsurprisingly that that's what the community liked as well. What's the ROI in feeling in renovating and how do you get that right so you don't end up blowing out your budget? Well, uh the first thing is is that you can

00:39:50 - 00:40:48

definitely create a beautiful home on a budget. So just because blinds are more expensive doesn't mean they're more beautiful and just because they're cheaper doesn't mean they're they're ugly or and only practical, right? And we know this because when we started out, we bought, renovate, and sold the first five properties. So the first five properties we did, we put all our money on the table, you know, reorggaged our homes and went and bought these homes with cash, the three of us. And so we

00:40:19 - 00:41:20

had to make sure that there was an ROI there. And so we had to make design decisions that uh we could afford to spend and that we thought we would get more for at the on the other end. So, we were really renovating on tight tight budgets, but uh four of those five houses were all in magazines afterwards. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, house number one, we weren't in a magazine. All right, I'll forgive that. No, no, no one knew who we are. But house two was on the front cover. House 3, four, five, and

00:40:50 - 00:41:55

actually every house since has been in in a one of Australia's beautiful home magazines. So, that's such proof that you can do beauty on a budget, but you need to be smart and you need to plan. And you, you know, we often say if you're going to renovate, you should really start planning 12 months out cuz it takes 12 months to work through your plans, do multiple iterations with your builder, get quotes, do a proper scope of work, comparison quotes with trades, working out is GST included, isn't it

00:41:22 - 00:42:26

included? putting it through your budget spreadsheet, you know, and these are all templates that we provide to help because it is there is a lot to go through and if you don't plan, you end up making rush decisions. Rush decisions will inevitably cost you more because they might not be right and then you have to fix them. You haven't had time to really shop around in your head or even online for getting a better price on something. um you know and uh it's there is so much that goes into

00:41:54 - 00:42:45

renovating that and people often are not expert at doing it might be the only time they're going to do it in their life and that's why with Renault school I've even said to my brother my brother tries to get free advice off me I say where's your vision board he says I refuse to do one I say well I refuse to help you I he said never in a hundred lifetimes am I going to do a vision board and I said well uh you will pay the price with a renovation that is not going to feel cohesive. So, we just go

00:42:20 - 00:43:15

hard at each other, right? And I'm I'm not giving him the help because I don't I can't help him if I don't know what his vision is. So, you know, the point is it takes a lot of planning because and then you can work out where to spend, where to save, where you can do things on the cheap, where you can't compromise, where you can't do things on the cheap, and you need to just invest. I'll give you a great example. Benchtops, kitchen bench tops. There's not really a cheap way out of that.

00:42:47 - 00:43:41

there really isn't. And they really add value to your home. Um, you know, if you put in a really cheap laminate benchtop, the resale value is not going to be great. You're not going to feel great in it. Um, that's somewhere where you'd spend and get some sort of stone benchtop. Um, that's really the standard. You've got to do that. But you can save elsewhere. And furnishings is a great place uh where you can save. Um, you know, and and then you got the Three Bird Stream discount card where the

00:43:14 - 00:44:16

savings just stack up. Yo, my name is Dane Walker and I am disgustingly obsessed with branding. I had to figure out a way to do branding every single day. So, I branded myself. Then I started my agency Rivalionary and hired a team of branding mavericks hellbent on creating brands so good that they'll make your competition their pants. So here's the thing. You want your brand to go viral and Rival makes brands go viral. That's why we're offering you a free 30inut branding session to get an expert's opinion. If

00:43:55 - 00:44:49

you don't believe me, the proof is in the pudding. Here's what clients have to say about Rival. Rival is trusted by brands like Nutrition Warehouse, Light My Bricks, and Voomie. So, if you want to absolutely smite the competition and make your brand go viral, hit the link below and book in your free 30-inute branding session. Now, you talk about a hot spot in the house, which is the kitchen benchtops. I totally agree. Uh, whenever we're looking around at houses, it's always been the kitchen first.

00:44:22 - 00:45:17

Like, what am I dealing with? I do a lot of cooking for the kids. What are the other hot spots where you cannot cut corners when you're doing a renovation? Yeah. So, yeah, definitely the kitchen. Uh we always invest well in the kitchen. And the other one that particularly when we were, you know, renovating to sell, uh we always prioritized the um parents bedroom or the main bedroom because often in the houses we were renovating, they were just smaller in the you know, back in the day, those bedrooms, all the

00:44:50 - 00:45:45

bedrooms were almost the same size. There was no such thing as a master suite. Not that we use that term anymore, but a main bedroom. And most main bedrooms back in the day didn't have an on suite. It's really standard now that you've got to have a main bedroom with an on suite. So in all of the renovations that you know we did and that we do, we will try and create an oversized main bedroom. know, steal from the kids' bedrooms, from other bedrooms, from the study, from wherever to make

00:45:16 - 00:46:14

that a real wow. So that when potential buyers walk in, or the homeowners come through, it blows their hair back and they're like, "This is sensational with size, with the furnishings choices, with the walk-in robe or the robe choice that you put in there, and a killer on suite." And a killer on suite often looks amazing with some sort of skylight in it over the bath, over the shower. It's just it skylights are amazing. So, just something to quickly throw out there. Sky there's no such thing as a

00:45:45 - 00:46:40

bad skylight. Okay. Uh put them anywhere, everywhere you can. They just add height, dimension, natural light. They're a great way to transform a home skylights. Okay. Okay. And now when you're thinking about the thought process behind this and you're building this community and you have a construction site and you have design and then you're trying to film content and there's all these things happening at the same time. How do you walk that tight rope of I'm trying to run a

00:46:13 - 00:47:15

business but I also have to make content. It has to be beautiful and we have to curate everything. Your mind must be going 100 miles an hour. But how do you manage these different things all happening simultaneously? Yeah. Well, it's taken a bit of time, but we've had time. You know, we've been doing this now for 10 years, but we have got a team and we've got some really good systems set up now. You know, we've got a process where everyone in the company knows that when we're renovating a home,

00:46:43 - 00:47:38

we're renovating it for the point of helping it deliver on our purpose, which is the mom's next door helping the mom's next door. So, if we're not creating content, then what's the point? Yes, it's wonderful for that one group of homeowners that we're doing it for, but that is helping, you know, four people. We want to help more than four people, and the only way we can do that is through the content. So, the team knows on the construction site that, you know, don't go and um create don't go and

00:47:11 - 00:48:10

construct something amazing or build this in killer fireplace today or paint this wall if the cameras aren't there. and that was going to be a key teaching moment or a real or great piece of renotainment, we want to capture it. Um, so everyone works in sync knowing that when we're renovating, yes, we want to create an amazing home for the homeowners. Um, but we have to capture the journey along the way or else what are we doing? That is not the point. So we have a really good process set in

00:47:40 - 00:48:40

place with you know content team who's in touch with the construction team who's in touch with the design team and everyone knows that it's one big team event and um we all have to communicate and make sure that everyone's getting what they need and we've just become really well oiled a welloiled machine is what I'd say in terms of our content creation. So, I want to go deep down the rabbit hole with you on content because I think that you guys, whether you want to admit it or not, have mastered it,

00:48:11 - 00:49:03

like absolutely crush it. And with content creation, it's a weird one. A lot of business people look at this as a box they need to check in order to have a good business. It's like, okay, every business needs to have content. Let's get someone to go do that. It's it's such a difficult thing to master. I would say it's like learning guitar. You can play the strings, but it can sound like [ __ ] So, how do you make sure from the jump that you're you're capturing this at the right tempo so it

00:48:37 - 00:49:32

continuously resonates and builds an audience? It doesn't bore them. It doesn't turn them off. It doesn't feel like you're trying to pitch or sell something. Was quality production non-negotiable from day one or at what point did you really start to go we got to get really good at this? I think we've always from day one we wanted to share only good stuff, you know, but it was we started sharing it on our Instagram account in 2014 and it was really just for family and friends to

00:49:05 - 00:49:54

see where are the girls up to with their little property development gig side hustle over there. We'd say, you know, day one stuff coming down and you know, we we always wanted that to look nice because we were proud of what we were doing and we just wanted those posts admittedly just with a phone. I don't even know if it was an iPhone. I don't know what we were photographing it on, but we were doing something on our phones. I don't think it was quite back in the Blackberry days. Um, but uh we

00:49:29 - 00:50:24

just yeah, we wanted it to be nice, but it was all very just, you know, manual and just doing it all ourselves. And that was fine. And that did the job brilliantly. And I think I'm trying to remember. Yeah. Then it was at about house three that it was, well, look, we've got so much more to share of our journey. we really probably need to get someone to properly film this. You know, me walking around with a phone is not really going to do the job. So, I think we always just put ourselves in the

00:49:56 - 00:50:54

shoes of what would we want to watch, what do we want to see, you know, and because again, we are the end the end consumer, the audience member, the community. We just really judged on what do we like to look at and we watch lots of lots of renovation shows. So, we knew what we liked to watch in that space and we thought, okay, well, what's our version of that? but probably a bit more raw at first um because we weren't experts at what we were doing so we just wanted to share the journey

00:50:25 - 00:51:22

um and uh but then you know really really quickly I think we did some production for house 3 with somebody else and we took a break house four and house 5 is where we then got on board a proper production company and said we're going to invest in this but the great thing was we had some partners or sponsors um that were on board saying we will help fund that show um so that you can use our products in that in that house. And we're like great, we love using Dulux paint, we love using James

00:50:54 - 00:51:58

Hardy products. It was no compromise from us. Um and that's how we were able to start funding or or paying for the cost to make the program for our audience to watch for free. Um, and so it sort of then snowballed from there of where we just wanted to set a really high standard of this content needs to look great and be something we're really proud of. And so we never for a moment have scripted on that at all. It's like it is a non-negotiable actually to use your term. It is, but we've had to be

00:51:25 - 00:52:19

really flexible in knowing that over the last, you know, if we've been putting out content for eight years, um, what people want to watch has really changed and platforms have changed. When we started out, Tik Tok didn't exist. Reals didn't exist. Um, so we made just long form content back then, you know. So it could be Yeah. 20-minute episodes. That's our form of long form, not your form of an hour and a half movie length. I think any point uh anything over 90 seconds now long. Yeah. Exactly.

00:51:53 - 00:52:42

Exactly. Everyone has such short. So what do what do we describe this as? What's this called? Like a a marathon. Super long format. Yeah. Yeah. This is the marathon. Marathon format. Um Yeah. We then just evolved as the platforms evolved. So, you know, then it' be like, "Oh, wow. You know, Instagram, you can post videos." And so, then we'd create shorter content and then they brought out reals. And so, then we're focused on making realels, but you don't want the big production company coming in to

00:52:17 - 00:53:10

maybe make a real. So, we have a content team and a content creator who's really great at making content on the iPhone because that just suits the format. Um, but then we have a wonderful relationship with Real Focus Films, who is our production company. We've worked with them for ages. um around the type of YouTube shows we want to make which we now can also post on Instagram because Instagram changed and said you can now post long form content whereas they used to not allow anything over a

00:52:44 - 00:53:33

couple of minutes to go on the platform it would just cut it off mid episode we'd be like oh no so we didn't used to even be able to post episodes on Instagram but now Instagram I think to compete with YouTube have said no no no it's okay you can post your Instagram has felt very schizophrenic the last 5 years it's like Reals are hot now. Now it's about carousels. Now it's back to reals. Now it's about photos. Now it's about carousels. Now it's about long format. Like make up your mind. Yeah.

00:53:08 - 00:53:58

And so all we can do is have our fingers in all those pies and try and provide the content to our audience across all those platforms in all those different ways. A carousel here, a real here, a long form here, and just see what's working. And sometimes reals are killing it, and then they just sort of drop off a cliff and then like, oh, don't people want to watch that anymore? And then all of a sudden these carousels swipe across. Everyone's loving that. And we just try not to be too knee-jerk because

00:53:33 - 00:54:24

it can depend on the format or it can depend on what we actually showed at that time. And you know, we don't um nail it every time at all. Sometimes we'll post something we're like, "Wow, that really didn't work." And I sometimes will post a um to the WhatsApp chat that we've got like, "Hm, um I thought this was funny. Clearly no one else did." You know, even sometimes we post a funny quote which is sort of around, you know, based around um the home or something. And sometimes I think

00:53:59 - 00:54:51

it's hilarious and then it just didn't perform and I'm like, "Oh, okay. No problem." You know, because it it's okay. It really is kind of free to post, you know, you don't pay per post. Um, so we just keep putting up content and keep seeing how it goes and responding to what people are liking and what's going well. And to be honest, I think that we've I think we can do better. you know, right now I feel we've kind of got into a bit of a world of where, you know, we do have a bit of a

00:54:25 - 00:55:20

formula and I think we need to continue to make it fresh and make sure we don't get into a funk um and a rut of how we share the content and that it it is new and different. So, we're constantly thinking how do we make it a bit different moving forward so that we're just not samesy and like we were, you know, five years ago. And so we're always talking about that and I think you know we've got lots of meetings coming up where we'll be talking about how do we want to do content differently

00:54:52 - 00:55:51

moving forward so that we're always you know fresh and always blazing trails as best we can in this space within that like as the algorithms change as you jump between different platforms and different types of content you guys definitely have a curated vibe and presence across platforms whether it's the website the YouTube the TV show do you have a couple of true lines that you're like we can never compromise on these things. And for an example, uh with my personal content, we have a rule

00:55:22 - 00:56:13

where it's like if there's no exchange of value or entertainment and it can't be enormously felt or enormously understood to give someone an aha moment or never thought of that moment, we don't post it. So there's a couple things where we just try to hold the line on what is good and what isn't. Do you have any um notions around what you should or shouldn't do with content? Yeah, I mean we have so many so much different type of content. You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about

00:55:47 - 00:56:39

our episodes and the rules we have around our episodes of, you know, is there some real renovating footage there? I don't want it to be all just recaps. Like, was there a real renovating conversation in that moment or not? And, you know, is there some humor and is there some of this? And we like to check all those boxes, but that's with a 20-minute episode. Then, if I just look at, you know, posts that we've put up on Instagram in the last week, none of them are an episode. What are they? And how did we have guidelines

00:56:12 - 00:57:15

around that? And we are so I I think the the driving force for us is thinking, you know, is there is there something of value for an audience member to take away? And it can be there are so many different ways to take away value in the space of home renovation. You know, sometimes we'll have a real direct tip. You know, I just posted one the other day. Um, it it was a bit silly of how cool white and warm white lighting globes change the color of paint, right? And I explained piece to camera just on

00:56:45 - 00:57:37

an iPhone posted on our Instagram saying, "Look at how" and I used a light a special light globe that changes as I clicked it to all different temperature warmths and you saw the paint color change. I think you'd find it interesting. I think that's fascinating. We've been testing it here in this wall. Yeah. Right. And so I I did that. That was a teaching tip. Very direct. And then I also then used it on my face just as a gag to be stupid cuz I'm I'm I don't mind being silly. Um but that was

00:57:11 - 00:58:05

really to try and be informative, right? And we just try that, right? But then the next post might be us showcasing one of our students homes that she's just finished. She's so proud of and she's like, "Look at this." And we think it's amazing, too. And we post a carousel swipe across of all of her content and her story and what she loved about it. And then the next post might be um might be teasing something that we got coming up. And then the next post is a testimonial from someone who just

00:57:37 - 00:58:43

saved $3,000 using the discount card. We just go there's so much the wealth of content. We are actually content rich. We really are. And as you say, it's that can be really hard to come by is great content. We have got so much content to tap into that. Um and particularly because of our community, right? So, how amazing to tap into what our community is renovating right now rather than just what we're doing. You know, we're only doing it a handful of houses at a time. Less we've got 40,000 students out there

00:58:10 - 00:59:09

doing their own home projects, documenting it because everyone is a document m documentary maker these days doing amazing jobs. That is like wow. And what amazing social proof that you don't have to be a bird to get your dream home. Look at Sarah, Janine, Hannah, you know, and we just sh love sharing all their stories because it's so powerful. And so, it's a win-win for us to tap into our community's content, and they love seeing their stuff up on the Three Birds page. They're like, "Oh

00:58:40 - 00:59:37

my gosh," and then they share it to their stories and say, they literally say, "Oh my gosh, I'm just so excited. Three Birds have shared my project." And it's just this winwinwin. It's like no one loses out of that because our audience gets to see more examples of homes coming together and more inspiration. The homeowner is delighted because they get a real pinch me moment. They feel really chuffed that they've made this achievement. And we got some content to share and we actually didn't

00:59:09 - 01:00:11

have to lift a finger in that moment because we were busy over constructing over here and we got some content over here to share. So, um I wouldn't I guess I'd say that we are really spoiled for choice and we don't have particular guidelines. It's almost too hard to have put them on other than our own personal judgment before it goes up of is this good enough? What's your advice around leveraging content for a successful commercial outcome? And let's say that that's not the goal. But if you're

00:59:40 - 01:00:39

watching how all of these things interplay together, when you guys crush content, build a platform, grow a community, all of a sudden partnerships want to collab, uh companies want to reach out and do collaborations with you guys and so forth. So if we think about the investment of content and then the commercial reward that can come from that, how much of that is planned and how much of that is just opportunity farming essentially? like we make a ton of great content and then opportunity arises from that. Like how do you see

01:00:09 - 01:01:24

that? How do you plan for that? How intentional is it for you guys? Uh and for people who are in business, should they be finding ways to leverage this for themselves? Yeah. Well, I think in terms of um in our company, the content that we make and put on our channels uh is really not about um uh the collaborative dollar from partners. We really think about what does our audience want to see. And so it's opportunistic that for sure we have loads of partners in our content um but we didn't create the content in order to

01:00:47 - 01:01:43

get them into it. That's not the driving force. We create the content that we think our audience is going to want to see. And then absolutely um because we've got so many relationships, we know, oh hang on, we're about to do this project. Dulux will want to be involved with that and um woodcut flooring going to want to be involved with that and what have you. We go from there. But then we definitely actively create content for those partners to to use on their channels. And that is very deliberate where we

01:01:14 - 01:02:09

will make content that they specifically want for their channels and we will film that specifically. You know, it could be giving a tour of all the bathrooms in the house. Um, and us pointing out all the products we've used for Reese tapware and we give that to Reese because they're like, "We really want all our audience to see all the bathroom taps you've used and all the kitchen taps and how they all join together. Can you make that video for us?" Yes, we can. and we intentionally create that

01:01:42 - 01:02:34

content at their request and we charge them for it. So that's sort of the difference between content we give them and content we create for us. When we create the content for us, we're very much driven by um what is the good content that our audience wants to watch. And usually like again I said before, it's a win-win. They usually want to know what color paint is that that you've used. Our audience want to know. So then we want to say it's dual scallwag half. And then Julark's like,

01:02:08 - 01:03:04

"Well, that's great because that's wonderful that you've integrated us into the content on your channels." Um, and that's an investment in us as well. That's great. Uh, but it was effortless for us to talk about that because we know our audience wants to know what paint color is that. So, it's never forced. It's never hard. And we very much try to not force any content out there that we don't think our audience is interested in just because someone wants to pay us to do that. we will

01:02:35 - 01:03:28

often say, "No, that is that's off-brand or that's not even in our category or that is not interesting to our audience member." Um, so we don't want to talk about it, so we're not going to take your money and talk about it. That's so important. And I think a lot of people get this wrong. A lot of people when they make content for the business, they're just thinking about how do I generate leads? But you're saying, how do we act in service of our community so

01:03:02 - 01:03:53

we can genuinely be a voice for them? we can genuinely hang out, connect, have a conversation. And why would we ever compromise that if that's the core pillar of our brand? Yeah. And it's it's what you know what we built the brand on was that and we just have to be so so true to that. But it's interesting that you found other ways to help create content for others. So Reese plumbing is like, "Hey, we need content." You're like, "Cool. We'll hook you up. We'll

01:03:28 - 01:04:15

film some stuff. You pay us. We're not going to post it on our feed, but we'll give you the content so you can post it on your feed." Yeah. it. That's really important because they struggle for content. I really feel for them. You know, so many of our partners, they're like, "How do they get great content of tapware? What do they have to go and renovate a whole house, pay all that money just to get some great bathroom shots?" Uh, no, don't worry. We will do that. We will get you the bathroom shots

01:03:51 - 01:04:52

that you struggle to get. And to be fair, that's not unique anymore. Lots and lots and lots of people are out there creating beautiful renovations with lots of product featured in it and are able to provide that content. I think we just probably do it at scale. They've been doing it for longer and we have this wonderful you know trust element with our audience that you know they really care you know what is threeirds chosen and why and we take that very seriously. We know when we choose something, people are going to

01:04:22 - 01:05:18

want to know, well, why' you choose it? And can we stand by that decision? And we will never, our partners know. We get to choose what's in the home. You don't get to tell us, oh, hey, we've launched this new, we want you to just feature this. If we don't believe in it or or it does not suit the aesthetic or it doesn't suit the design or practicality, we would just say, "Yeah, that's a that's a hard pass. We won't be we won't be using that. Thank you. Well, there's

01:04:50 - 01:06:01

always this argument about authenticity and trust and being professional and yada yada. What's your thoughts on like trying to look professional, look the part, and really create something polished versus what trust really is? Because I think people often misconrude what trust is in a community. What do you think it is that really builds trust in people that are becoming fans of what you're building? Uh I think it is I I think the trust for us with our community has come from time time and

01:05:25 - 01:06:21

the honest way we've shared sort of what we're doing. So I think them seeing you know the fact we've said look uh we're not experts at this. We're just going to give it a go. You can follow our journey see what you think. Um, and I think even in our show and in our content, we often show us changing our mind or being unsure about something and I think they really appreciate that. So I think it's you have to earn trust. You just have to earn it and that can take time and runs

01:05:53 - 01:06:52

on the board of where you know you just can't. We didn't earn trust in doing one house you know or sharing one house on our Instagram. It's taken years to just build up trust over time and for every engagement I guess interaction they have with the brand they're like yeah this this brand kind of understands me or I can see myself in these women or I do believe they understand me as a an audience member and again I think we're very lucky because we are the target market. So it's it's just really easy

01:06:22 - 01:07:21

for us to relate to what our audience is going through. You know they're going through a renovation and struggling. We're probably going through a renovation and struggling. you know, we there's no such thing really as an as an easy Renault, but it doesn't mean it has to be a negative experience. It's that you tackle it. You challenge you you um can handle the problems, the challenges. You don't let it paralyze you. You sort of feel empowered to handle it. And so, um yeah, I think just trust takes time

01:06:52 - 01:07:50

and runs on the board. Um and you just have to be authentic. you know, I think everyone will be able to see through something that's not real. Um, you know, and I think telling stories like being, you know, storytelling of how something's come together, not just here it is, but how something's come together and people being on that journey. Now, looking at the industry as a as a whole, you guys have definitely carved out a new way of doing business, and it's fun to watch. for those that are, you know,

01:07:21 - 01:08:26

potentially on their own or they don't have friends that are experiencing this and they're trying to go on this route themselves and they're thinking to themselves, look, I'm intimidated. This is a tough market. Like, what's your advice to those that want to take that leap into their own business idea? Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I do think that if you can find someone, a like-minded person or people so that you're not in it alone from the get-go, I do think that can help relieve some of the stress and

01:07:56 - 01:08:50

worry. You know, certainly for us, you know, buying a house between three, just even divided up the cost meant I only had to come with one/ird of the money versus if I did that on my own. Um, and that ability to sort of share the worry, the stress with others, I think is really comforting at first. Um, and even if I look at some of what our students have done where they've gone into business with someone else to go and flip properties for a living, I can see that they it's really helpful to have

01:08:23 - 01:09:28

had someone else there. So, but it's got to be the right person, you know, and I think don't just don't just do it with a friend because they're your friend, you know, just see have they got the do they want the same things I want? Do they have the same ambition? do they um you know do I think we're going to be on the same page in making business decisions because I think that that will set you up for success. Um and I think the other piece of it is to um whilst I know I said you know go all

01:08:55 - 01:10:10

in, commit all in don't overextend yourself financially on that front because that will put enormous stress on you. And so if you can ease yourself into the cold water, so to speak, with a few steps along the way where if it doesn't work out, it's not your life savings gone. I think that is a much smarter way to enter into that business that you're thinking of than having risked it all. Um, I don't think that's necessary and I think that that would add huge stress and also could be very

01:09:33 - 01:10:31

risky. Um, and if you can find a way to ease yourself into it, like we did, where we eased oursel in with doing a few property flips where we thought we'll probably just break even at, you know, at worst we should break even. That felt kind of like a safe entree into the industry. Um, versus I always said to the girls, imagine we went and bought, you know, hundreds of bikinis from China because we wanted to open up a bikini business and they came over and they were all sewn way too small, like

01:10:02 - 01:10:58

xxs and we couldn't sell them and we had this warehouse of bikinis that there's nothing we can do with and that was truly a sunk cost. That is what we were always trying to avoid as we entered the industry was not having this huge monkey on our back financially of where wow this would be a disaster whereas we always felt with how we did it that we could always just sell the property and at least kind of get our money back and that was always a nice insurance policy for how we eased ourselves into the

01:10:31 - 01:11:31

industry. So, I don't know what that is for anyone else's particular industry, but you don't want to, I think, just out of the blocks overextend yourself financially for where it's do or die and you are stressed out of your mind because chances are things aren't going to go perfectly to plan straight away and you want to just be able to stay the course and give yourself breathing space to grow, to grow with the business and to extend yourself financially in a way that you can afford.

01:11:01 - 01:12:11

Do you think you could have built this business without the community and the social content? No way. No way. No. There is there is no business without the social content. Without Instagram, dare I say it, we would continue to just do everything in private and that just would have gone nowhere. We were in the golden era of Instagram growing organically. So that was crucial. And then in terms of the community, Instagram sort of was where it all began. And the community is our future for sure because you know it's much more powerful

01:11:35 - 01:12:31

and sustainable for us to start to show that three birds is not just about Bonnie, Aaron and Lana. That's a very limiting point of view. Three Birds represents women helping women get their dream home or the Mums next door helping the moms next door. We just happen to be three of them and the three original gangsters, the three OGs, right? And we'll be that forever, the first three. But we don't want to be the last three. And we know that 30,000 or 300,000 women helping each other. How cool is that?

01:12:03 - 01:12:53

Versus just three. So that's why we're really focused on the community and bringing them to the four of the brand and showcasing them more and getting them connected more because they're the future. They're the future. You know, we'll eventually have to retire. Hatchlings. They're our baby birds, we call them. Uh but some of them like, you know, were older than us and they're still baby birds. But yeah, our birdies, you know, that's they all call themselves affectionately birdies, which

01:12:28 - 01:13:25

is lovely. And that's the community, and it's the most beautiful community. They're so helpful, so positive. Um, and I can just open up my phone at any time and just see the community all helping each other, and it is really incredible. Like right now, while we've been recording this, the community has been helping solve each other's renovating problems. Is that not insane? That's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Do you think that a sense of belonging and community is crucial in business?

01:12:57 - 01:14:03

I I think so. Yeah. I think it is for the team members in the company and I think it is for a brand that is of any scale. I think even if it's a brand where there is no actual technical tech technical community but you want the person wants to feel a part of something um even if there aren't actually other humans that they're interacting with but a part of yeah like a movement or what something represents and what it stands for um you know I mean even you know even you know the sports shoes brands like

01:13:30 - 01:14:32

your Nikes and your Reebok they don't necessarily have community members talking to each other but they can create a sense of a movement of people who are not athletes out there um running and pounding the pavement and you're part of that community and that movement of health and well-being even though they don't have literally people talking to each other even though I'm sure they also do. Um but yeah, that's what I'd say about that. So, let's take I guess business at large and creating

01:14:01 - 01:15:02

content, social media, hanging out with your tribe, creating a sense of belonging. I talk to a lot of people in business and they entertain the idea of like maybe I should make content. Uh they're trying to get the edge. They don't have the massive ad spend that they would wish that they had. And they're looking at this as a way to potentially grow their business. Two frames of thinking. One is you show up with a genuine service for your industry. You're like, I'm here to help empower women legitimately, even

01:14:32 - 01:15:33

if I didn't get paid for it. Which I think is a part of why you're so successful at it. The second componentry I think is about well, it takes a tremendous amount of taste, work, effort, grind, and sometimes an investment with little ROI, but it can summount to a massive ROI if you give it a tremendous amount of energy. Would you be as bold to say that business owners if they're not thinking about this, they could be really missing out on growth opportunities for their business? Absolutely. Yeah. No, for sure. I mean,

01:15:02 - 01:16:07

just that, as you said, that sense of belonging. Um, you know, just to not think that you have to tell a story somewhere along the way and content is a great way to do that. um you know I don't know what product you're selling that is selling at the top of the pyramid of Maslo's hierarchy of needs if you're not telling a story somewhere and content is the way to do that. So um for for sure you need to be doing that as a business owner big or small big multinational companies are doing that.

01:15:34 - 01:16:56

One last spicy question. Um this can also sound a little complicated. What would you want to say to women listening to this who may feel that they're not strong enough to potentially jump into a male-dominated industry? Uh, do not be afraid of that. Jump in. I think it might surprise you of how compatible women jumping into a male-dominated industry can be. Like honestly, I we were welcomed with open arms by the men in this industry. we really were. It was at no point did we feel crappy or like we weren't welcome.

01:16:16 - 01:17:21

Um maybe we just got lucky, but we wor with a lot of men along the way and it was it was great. I think it's not fearing their judgment of why are you here and should you really be here? Um, I think that it would be wise to certainly build up your knowledge bank because knowledge is power. And I I think it's just a bit silly if you were to go into um any industry where you want to do well and not have done a bit of research to know what you're talking about and build your confidence. A bit like when you're

01:16:49 - 01:17:50

talking to a builder, if you really don't know what you're talking about, that does become a bit useless and it doesn't build your confidence at all. So, I think that doing your research is is really important. But I think um taking the plunge, you know, and just backing yourself that you you can you can handle this. If anything, they're more afraid of you than you are of them, you know, like I would agree. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that and like I said, I think they might surprise you

01:17:19 - 01:18:18

where it's actually an opportunity for great relationships, great partnerships. I think men and women can work brilliantly to and jumping into a male-dominated industry go and how exciting. You're one of the first ones there and there's your point of difference straight up and you're getting people's attention and people know who you are. I think it's it's amazing and you said about the compatibility between the two. What is that like? Why do they compliment each other? I just think that there can be a

01:17:48 - 01:18:52

masterful moment around different styles and even emotional IQ um of how to approach something. I think there is just something there which makes them great partners. I would agree with that. I think uh the best sales reps I've ever met in my life are all women and there's a duality that they have that sometimes guys can't quite get and it's the ability to, you know, disarm a woman faster. woman to woman can disarm faster than a male tow woman potentially. Um, and then also the ability to kind of

01:18:21 - 01:19:09

play different roles or different cards with a man. So, I think even I watch my fiance on calls and she can disarm dudes in seconds. Like a macho dude who's like being a little blunt, she can unravel them like nothing else. Whereas me, it's it's going to take me 10 15 minutes. So, there's a combative nature of you're trying to one up me, mate. So, I think it's so true. There's there's a dynamic there. And I think that you have to learn the language of the lands. You

01:18:45 - 01:19:52

have to understand your craft and skill just like with anything. Um, but I love your take on it. It's it's refreshing. Yeah. Yeah. When this is all said and done, from a business perspective, how would you like to be remembered? Well, am I dead? Like, is it or am I still alive and just retired? You can choose. Okay. I think I'll just be retired if that's okay. Okay. Um, uh, I think and look, that's a long way off. I I have no plans on retiring for a long time. I love love being in the business world.

01:19:17 - 01:20:40

Um I think it would be Oh, well, I I know that I just want to um have no regrets. That's just it. Just no regrets. Um and that I I operated at the peak of Maslo's hierarchy of needs of where I feel I reached my full potential. and for me to feel that way and for others to know me and look at me and think, "Yeah, wow, Lana Lana really gave that a good crack." Um, and that's it for me is just that I left nothing on the table. Um, and that's that's it. Beautiful answer. I can relate. I I have

01:20:00 - 01:21:00

this theory where I just want to die empty. Yeah. Right. That's the dream is is to just lay it all out on the table. I heard um someone said this recently and it it it still comes up. I can't remember where I where I heard this uh but it was someone was saying that when something's tough and obviously I've got little kids and you're waking up at 4:00 a.m. and you feel like crap and you have to do all this, you know, stuff to be a father. Um they said project yourself forward until

01:20:29 - 01:21:26

you're the age 90 and then come back to this moment from that perspective and how grateful would you be to be back in this moment? And there's there's a magic component of adding gratitude when it doesn't really fit when you don't feel like it. You feel like crap. You don't want to go to the gym. You don't want to do that meeting. You don't want to have that, you know, staff member um go through the process of, you know, managing or whatever you're dealing with. It's it's trying to add that

01:20:58 - 01:21:55

gratitude from the future perspective of like, I want to die empty. I want to leave it all on the table. Let's come back to this moment as if I'm on my grave. Yeah. Another really nice way I I've heard it said before is don't die with the music in you, right? Okay. And so I just think that it's just thinking, you know, what is that? What is your music and making sure that it has been shared with the world before it's over? Yeah, goosebumps. That's a good one. Okay. What's a quote or a mantra that

01:21:27 - 01:22:28

you've carried with you on this journey that you wished uh anyone on this journey would immediately implement? Right. Um well, I think I've already rolled out rolled out a few. That was one don't die with the music in you and and one I said earlier which is you know not to fear failure but be terrified of regret. I really really believe in that. Um, and something that I even tell my children to this day and I still believe in, it's very cliched, but where there's a will, there's a way. And I just

01:21:57 - 01:23:16

believe in that. So, you know, if you've got the will to make something happen, you will find a way. Can you unpack that a bit further? Um, uh, sure. You know, if it's the desire, it's the power of desire where if you really want something to happen, you will be resourceful enough to find a way of making that happen. Now, it's not as simple as saying, you know, I don't know, I want to be a billionaire. Um, that's all it takes. I mean, if your will is, I want to be a billionaire, uh,

01:22:37 - 01:23:46

there is a way for you to f you can find a way. I have no doubt someone can find a way to get there. Um, and but you you need to have more than just the will. But it's the most important thing I think is the point is that if you don't have the will, meaning the desire to achieve something, um, then I think you're pushing [ __ ] uphill. That's going to be very hard. You will not find solutions to your problems. You will not overcome the hurdles. uh you need to have the will and when you have that desire you will

01:23:11 - 01:24:15

find a way you will be resourceful. You know they say that um necessity is the mother of invention meaning when you really really need to do something uh you will find a way of inventing it. A great example during co right so many things happened that people thought we can't do that. You can't just run a company from home and everyone's at home. All the things that you would have thought were impossible, people found a way during co, you know, a good example is the rugby league um the rugby league

01:23:43 - 01:24:33

competition got entirely moved to Queensland. Everyone played in Queensland because co wasn't as big there. And if that had ever been proposed for any other reason uh to the NRL of, hey, let's move the whole competition to Queensland, they would have said can't do. You got Queens, you got um New South Wales teams, you got uh teams in Melbourne, you got teams in New Zealand. They can't all go and live in Queensland. Then what about their families? Do they all go and live in a bubble? Well, that's what happened. They

01:24:08 - 01:25:11

all went and lived in a bubble, right, of co-free Queensland or playing in a bubble? Um and the UFC did the same thing. Yeah, exactly. They went to an island. They all went right. And so that would have been preposterous until it became necessary. And so when it then eventually where there was the will of we got to keep the competition going, they found a way. Let's move them to to Queensland and put them in a bubble and they played. So that is the idea of where there's a will, there's a way. I'm

01:24:39 - 01:25:36

really excited for you. I'm pumped to have had you here. I'm conscious of time. Um but yeah, you just have such a remarkable story. The three of you guys are absolutely crushing it. Uh we'll make sure to put links to everything you've unpacked uh in the descriptor here. And um yeah, genuinely from the bottom of my heart and my team's heart, like you're out here crushing it. People love you. We have friends and family that are following your stories and love your cards uh and what you guys have

01:25:08 - 01:25:57

created. So yeah, humbly I'm just appreciative of what you're creating and how you're leading the community and you're doing it from a really good place, a kind heart in service of others. And um I'm excited to see what you guys do next. Thank you. I have never talked so much about the business in my life. You had a lot of questions. So we didn't even get through them all, but you crushed it. You absolutely crushed it. I can talk a lot. I can fill the space. Thanks for having me. We loved having

01:25:33 - 01:25:46

you and we would certainly love to have you back. Thank you so much. Okay. [Music]