How Opes Partners Used Content and Trust to 10x Growth [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 104]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:15

Ed McKnight

The really important lesson I think from there is they ask, you answer. Endless customers will not work at a company with a boss, is not on board, are not interested. You've got to be in a company where you've got the freedom to be able to pick it up and run with it.

 

00:00:23:16 - 00:00:36:16

Alex Winter

Welcome back to Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter, and today we have a very special guest calling in from the other side of the world. Ed McKnight. He's a resident economist, and he also is a partner at Opus Partners. Ed, welcome to the show.

 

00:00:36:17 - 00:00:37:20

Ed McKnight

Great to be here, Alex.

 

00:00:37:21 - 00:00:43:01

Alex Winter

Thank you so much for taking the time. What time is it over there where you've let everyone know where you are? Where are you calling in from today?

 

00:00:43:03 - 00:00:47:19

Ed McKnight

So I'm calling in from Christchurch, New Zealand and it's about 8 a.m.. Wow.

 

00:00:48:01 - 00:01:07:01

Alex Winter

Okay. And it's about 5 p.m. here in the studio in Connecticut. Wow. Very cool. So we're so excited to have you on the show. You have an incredible story, an incredible journey that I think is going to be so beneficial for our viewers and listeners out there. So before we get started with your journey, can you just quickly paint the picture of what Opus partners is and your role there?

 

00:01:07:01 - 00:01:10:06

Alex Winter

And just a little background on on what it's all about?

 

00:01:10:08 - 00:01:32:02

Ed McKnight

Ishmael. We're a property investment company, so when people are thinking about their retirement or wanting to become financially free, we help them create a plan for how they're going to do that. And then we go and find investment properties that they can buy. So I know that in the states and this investing in property isn't quite as big as it is over here in New Zealand, but over here, that is a major way that people invest for their future.

 

00:01:32:02 - 00:01:33:18

Ed McKnight

So we help people do that.

 

00:01:33:20 - 00:01:53:06

Alex Winter

That's fascinating. And it's I don't know why it isn't as big of a deal here as it is over there, but it's really true. You guys build this into people's actual financial portfolios for retirement and for longer term investing, which is really smart in my opinion. Something I want to get into as I get older here, but so let's talk about the early days of adopting endless customers.

 

00:01:53:06 - 00:02:02:22

Alex Winter

At the time it was, they asked you answer before it evolved into endless customers. How did you find out about the book? And like, where did this all start for you and for your journey?

 

00:02:02:23 - 00:02:28:18

Ed McKnight

So it actually started before I worked at opus. So I worked for a website design agency, and I was in the gym at the Remuera Rackets Club and in Auckland, and I put my headphones in to go for a run, and I listen to a podcast. I've got no idea how I stumbled onto it, but it was Marcus Sheridan talking about marketing, and I was like, this makes sense.

 

00:02:28:19 - 00:02:59:03

Ed McKnight

It is so simple. It is so obvious. All you have to do is answer your customer's questions and their worries, their concerns, and then they'll want to use you because you're so honest. And I was like, this is just so refreshing. It was really like, why isn't everybody doing this right? But what was interesting was this was back in 2017, and I wasn't at a company where I could actually do anything with it, because my boss at the time wasn't on the journey, and I didn't have the freedom to be able to do anything.

 

00:02:59:05 - 00:03:24:08

Ed McKnight

So I packed that for a couple of years, and then eventually I got the offer to come and join Opus Partners. And the mandate was to, you know, start the economics department. Yes, but also run all of the content marketing. They really wanted to get into content. And so I turned up on my first day and they ask you answer, which is now endless customers was basically in my bag because this was what I was going to implement here.

 

00:03:24:13 - 00:03:50:10

Ed McKnight

And so the really important lesson I think from there is they ask, you answer endless customers will not work at a company with a boss, is not on board, are not interested. You've got to be in a company where you've got the freedom to be able to pick it up and run with them. Now there was a bit of now there was a bit of an issue with Opus Partners because the company was going broke at the time, and I didn't know that.

 

00:03:50:14 - 00:04:11:01

Ed McKnight

Oh no. So I picked up and started credit card debt. We started a podcast. We've now got the number one business podcast in New Zealand, which is very cool. People love property over here. And I started running Facebook ads and Instagram ads, but the credit card kept getting turned off because we didn't have any money. We kept running out of money.

 

00:04:11:01 - 00:04:20:20

Alex Winter

Oh geez. So you would like actually place these these media bias on social and on these different outlets, but then the credit card wouldn't let it work, so they weren't going out. Nothing was happening.

 

00:04:20:22 - 00:04:41:22

Ed McKnight

And it's so funny that my, my boss now, my business partner, Andrew, at the time, I said, well, well, what are your goals? And he said, well, we sold 120 properties last year. We want to do 200 this year. And I thought, okay, that's probably a goal that I could help you achieve. I think we could put out a lot of content, make that happen.

 

00:04:42:00 - 00:05:00:00

Ed McKnight

And it wasn't until about a month run that my other business partner, Olly, was driving me to the airport and he says to me, yeah, because the company's not doing so well. I was like, but what do you mean? You sold 120 properties last year? That's really good, right? He says no, no no no no no no. We sold 81.

 

00:05:00:02 - 00:05:19:12

Ed McKnight

And I was like, oh wow. So so I'm not I'm not aiming for a 66% growth this year. I'm aiming for about accountant. Figure it out right now. But 125% or 130% growth. Right. And so because of that, we had to get scrappy. We couldn't spend a lot of money, buy a lot of Facebook and Instagram.

 

00:05:19:12 - 00:05:41:01

Ed McKnight

And so I keep getting turned off. And so we really did start leaning in on doing the free stuff. So we already had a website. It didn't cost us much to start writing articles. We could start a podcast pretty quickly. We only spent $2,000 on the recording equipment that lasted us for five years, and got us to about 8 million downloads on our podcast.

 

00:05:41:03 - 00:06:09:08

Ed McKnight

But the funniest thing happened when we started writing articles, and I didn't know anything about SEO or being found in Google at the time. And so I was on a call with a company in the States that were an SEO agency trying to get us ranked better on Google. And I listened to what the guy had to say, and after a while I was like, this was really good, but I think I'm going to give this thing a go myself before before I work with an ad agency.

 

00:06:09:10 - 00:06:39:05

Ed McKnight

And I remember so clearly he said, good luck. And the funniest thing is, six years later, we took our website traffic from about a thousand people, or a thousand sessions a month, to well over 100,000 sessions a month. Wow. And when you compare that to our population in New Zealand, it's only 5 million people. So we are the size of a relatively small state over in the US.

 

00:06:39:06 - 00:06:42:04

Ed McKnight

Yeah, I think that's pretty good. Good going.

 

00:06:42:06 - 00:07:01:15

Alex Winter

I would say that's incredible. That's better than pretty good going. Unbelievable. What were you. So you had this buy in from the get go. And I admire you for really having like the system that resonated with you and you believed in it and you brought it into this organization. How did you hold your ground with with your two business partners now?

 

00:07:01:16 - 00:07:17:21

Alex Winter

Why, yes. Now, business partners at the time of your bosses, how did you hold your ground in those moments where clearly there was some communication gaps? One owner thought they did 120 homes, the other one said a different number. There was clearly some gaps, like how did you get them to buy in and believe and trust in this, this process or this system?

 

00:07:17:23 - 00:07:43:08

Ed McKnight

I didn't wait for them to believe. Okay, so I was so strong headed because I was 26, right? Yeah. And when you're 26, you think that you know everything. You think that you are God's gift to the universe with your intelligence and what your capability is. So and so I came in really hard headed thinking, this is what I am going to do.

 

00:07:43:12 - 00:08:07:18

Ed McKnight

I have this book, I have this process, I've listened to a lot of podcasts, not just from markets, but from lots of different content people. I am just going to implement what I have learned, and I am not going to let Andrew or Olly or the sales team get in my way, because I know what I need to do, because I've read it and I've listened to it, and if I just do this thing, surely it will work.

 

00:08:07:20 - 00:08:30:05

Ed McKnight

And I know it doesn't always work out. That's simply for everybody else. Yeah, because we all have different situations. But it actually did work out for me. You know, we we started the podcast. We did it every single day. The only reason we do a daily podcast, and we've done over 2000 episodes now, is because Neil Patel and Eric so run the Marketing School podcast.

 

00:08:30:09 - 00:08:38:07

Ed McKnight

And back then they did it every day, and I listened every day. And so I thought, well, we'll just do that. And it kind of worked.

 

00:08:38:09 - 00:08:53:18

Alex Winter

It's genius. It's genius. I love that you just roll your sleeves up and put in the work and went for it. And you had mentioned earlier. So buy in is a big piece that we just discussed, but also investing in the podcast. You said it was about $2,000 to get the equipment to start it off, and it lasted for five years.

 

00:08:53:18 - 00:08:57:19

Alex Winter

I mean, that sounds like a pretty sound investment in my opinion.

 

00:08:57:20 - 00:09:11:15

Ed McKnight

Definitely was. I originally thought that maybe we'll do it even cheaper than that. Like I was like, let's just get some of the pal mix and get going and be real scrappy, and we'll just try and see if it works. But it was actually Andrew who said, hey, if we're going to do this, let's do it right.

 

00:09:11:15 - 00:09:26:13

Ed McKnight

Like, what's the equipment going to call stars like two grand is like Grant do it and it just worked out. We were really lucky that it was at the time. This is probably a bit nerdy, but it was at the time we rode had just released the RODECaster, which is like a really good piece of equipment for podcasts.

 

00:09:26:13 - 00:09:29:00

Ed McKnight

And so we just bought that and went with it.

 

00:09:29:02 - 00:09:43:19

Alex Winter

That's excellent. Yeah, that's what we use here in studio as well. It's a great piece of equipment, and it doesn't take a lot to really start to create meaningful content that builds trust in, that resonates with your audience. So I love that you did that. Let's talk a little bit too. I want to get into the building phases.

 

00:09:43:19 - 00:09:59:08

Alex Winter

Right. So you started the podcast. You started to write articles on your website. You're starting to get some some groundswell. What was the journey like as you were implementing it, and did you hit any impediments like, can you paint that picture for us as you were, as you were starting to really implement endless customers?

 

00:09:59:10 - 00:10:11:07

Ed McKnight

Well, at the start, the real issue was it was just me. I was the first ever person on the content team. And, you know, I'm also trying to do the economist side of the role as well.

 

00:10:11:08 - 00:10:14:22

Alex Winter

Yeah, that's a dual role. That's that's not easy to work both hats.

 

00:10:15:00 - 00:10:33:13

Ed McKnight

And so I reckon about eight months and we saw that it was working. And so I was actually over at a conference in Vegas and Andrew turned to me and said, what should your next hire be? Because this is going quite well for you. And I was like, we need a videographer. That is the first thing that we need.

 

00:10:33:17 - 00:10:52:23

Ed McKnight

And I know that. And at they ask, you aren't seeing less customers. It says hire your content writer first or your content manager first. But I kind of thought, well, that's kind of me. That's my role. So we'll hire the videographer next to just help out with doing things like editing the podcast, because we were we were not editing it at that point.

 

00:10:53:02 - 00:11:12:22

Ed McKnight

It was just going out completely raw. We didn't cut out any ums as stumbles. I don't have time to edit it, right. So we just put it out there and said, we'll see what happens. And people started listing. We got a few complaints around it. Maybe the production wasn't perfect, but that was our start and people still go back and listen to those episodes today.

 

00:11:13:00 - 00:11:38:05

Ed McKnight

Six years later. But it all started out in theory, DIY theory, DIY, and we probably weren't sticking directly to the endless customers frameworks because we were really going in on the podcast. So article writing kind of fell a little bit by the wayside. We weren't really doing the three articles awake that unless customers told us that we should do, but we were making it through.

 

00:11:38:05 - 00:12:03:22

Ed McKnight

We've been making some progress, but what really slapped me in the face is about 18 months into this journey, I'd hired a videographer and a marketing manager. So there were three of us in the team now, and we were growing and we're really happy. And then for whatever reason, I went onto the impact website, you guys, website, and I did some sort of quiz about like, how good are you at?

 

00:12:03:22 - 00:12:27:20

Ed McKnight

They ask you out. So I thought this will be a laugh. And the funniest thing is that even as I was reading, they ask, you answer the first time you kind of understand like, oh cool, Marcus has got this, this agency, they help you implement, they ask, you answer. But over here in New Zealand, we're very DIY. We're very like, that's cool, but I'm going to see how far I can take this myself before we bring in somebody else to help me do it.

 

00:12:27:20 - 00:12:33:16

Ed McKnight

Because why would I pay someone to do it myself like that? Is that is appealing. Tality. Yeah. And so I really.

 

00:12:33:19 - 00:12:51:02

Alex Winter

Feel I can totally relate to that. I think a lot of business owners can, because I feel like most business owners are DIY and want to want to get it done. So I think a lot of people can relate to that. So you said you tried doing the DIY thing for a bit and then what happened? You had did you have a moment where you realized that maybe you needed a little support or a little help?

 

00:12:51:04 - 00:12:57:16

Ed McKnight

No, no, no, not at all. What it was. I'm I'm a little arrogant on the website. Take this quiz.

 

00:12:57:20 - 00:13:00:05

Alex Winter

The score. Right. You're doing the scorecard.

 

00:13:00:07 - 00:13:17:22

Ed McKnight

Yeah. I think it must have been there. And then I get an email, been like, would you like a meeting? And I thought, why not? Why not? Let's for you. I'll go do that, have a meeting and, we honestly talked to somebody, I think his name was Mike. It impact, and that didn't kind of really go anywhere.

 

00:13:18:00 - 00:13:36:11

Ed McKnight

And then he said, let's have a meeting with who was your your head of learning at the time at Christie Priory. And I was like, okay. And I didn't know this at the time. But behind the scenes, Mike had said to Chris to pray, these guys are really arrogant. They think that they are God's gift to they ask you out for endless customers.

 

00:13:36:13 - 00:13:57:13

Ed McKnight

And so I had a meeting with Chris and he basically slapped us in the face, told us that our website was terrible and that we weren't doing it right, and that these were all of the things that we needed to do. Now, there are two ways you could approach that. You could respond to that. Right? In my position, you could either be like, this guy is a jerk, I don't want to work with him.

 

00:13:57:15 - 00:14:14:21

Ed McKnight

Or you could do what we did, which was say, this is great. All we want is somebody to tell us what we're doing wrong, tell us that we're losers, and that we just need to do these 5 or 6 things and we'll be okay. And so we did that. We start working with impact. At the time, we didn't have a content writer, so we hired a content writer.

 

00:14:15:01 - 00:14:47:23

Ed McKnight

We completely redid the website. We went real hard on articles because we weren't really sticking to the framework that we knew and love, and that's actually where we went into our second phase. We moved out of kind of a DIY, really messy phase into, okay, we're more structured with sticking more with the endless customers framework. And over the next couple of years, I mean, yes, the property market went off in New Zealand as it did, and most of the world, but we went from about 200 sales, you know, 2 or 300 sales, well, up to about 550.

 

00:14:48:01 - 00:15:01:16

Alex Winter

Up to 550. Wow. Which your initial when you started, I, if I remember correctly, was the goal was to get to 120. So you've well surpassed that number at this point. Wow that's impressive. That's impressive. And but the.

 

00:15:01:16 - 00:15:03:04

Ed McKnight

Interesting are you go now I was.

 

00:15:03:04 - 00:15:26:09

Alex Winter

Going to say so after you took the I love your your self-awareness by the way. I just I love the humble. Like we were arrogant and we had to we thought we had everything figured out. And I just totally respect that because I felt that way in the past, too. And it's pretty eye opening when you meet somebody like Chris, who's a coach and can, like, really help you that accountability partner and be like, hey, you are doing pretty good, but here's all the things you're doing wrong and how to fix it.

 

00:15:26:11 - 00:15:40:03

Alex Winter

And then I think being able to take that and really apply it, it's it's a game changer and it's clearly a game changer for, for your business. So once you got the coaching, what what turned into the next phase. Like where did that take you from there? Like when we start to talk about scale.

 

00:15:40:05 - 00:16:01:18

Ed McKnight

So then we built our team a lot. So I ended up hiring a couple of graphic designers. We also hire I ended up I also ended up hiring somebody to help me prepare the podcast. Like, after five years of doing it myself. Like, I would spend every single Sunday preparing seven episodes of the Property Academy podcast for the next week.

 

00:16:01:23 - 00:16:22:22

Ed McKnight

And after a while, I realized I don't really want to be doing that for the rest of my life. So I hired somebody and and we probably grew the marketing content team to about eight people in total. But after a while, the property market did really poorly. So the total number of transactions in New Zealand fell 42%. So the market contracted by 42%.

 

00:16:22:23 - 00:16:23:08

Alex Winter

Wow.

 

00:16:23:13 - 00:16:51:21

Ed McKnight

And we were so lucky we only shrank and our worst point 18%. And I'm really grateful for all of the investment that we had done in our content and in building our brand, because while some of our competitors were down not just 42%, which was what the market had done, some of them were down like 80%. Yikes. In terms of the amount of turnover they were doing, we were down only 18%.

 

00:16:51:21 - 00:17:12:13

Ed McKnight

So while our competitors were laying off staff having to shrink down, we didn't lose a single person or we never made a single person redundant because the market was shrinking. We were able to hang on to all of our staff. Now, there was, it was a dumb idea that we did, at one point where we did, shut down the company.

 

00:17:12:19 - 00:17:30:21

Ed McKnight

But I'll tell you that story as part of, following endless customers, a lot of people say you've got to you've got to turn your business into a media company. We hear this. You've got to start a podcast. You've got to start a YouTube. You've got to write articles. You're no longer a building company. You're a media company who happens to do building.

 

00:17:30:23 - 00:17:53:08

Ed McKnight

Right now. There are some very good messages in that. But one of the wrong messages that I took was, okay, if we're building a media company and our podcast, our YouTube, our articles are going really good, why don't we buy a media company? And so we bought new, property invest in New Zealand or New Zealand Property Investor magazine.

 

00:17:53:10 - 00:18:02:23

Ed McKnight

And we also bought and formed investor magazine. So we bought the two print publications, two magazines that, most well known in New Zealand to talk about investments.

 

00:18:02:23 - 00:18:04:04

Alex Winter

Okay.

 

00:18:04:06 - 00:18:29:11

Ed McKnight

That went terribly. We lost $1 million. I kid you not. We lost $1 million over about 3 or 4 years buying these magazines, investing in them. They will. They were loss making because the advertising market has has not gone well. I'm not sure if you realize this, but print media turns out is dying. And, probably part of the arrogance we thought would be able to turn that around because we were we were doing so well on the digital side.

 

00:18:29:13 - 00:18:39:02

Alex Winter

There's so much success that you start to think that you're almost it's almost like the invincibility cloak, like I'm everything's going to keep going this way. And it sounds like unfortunately it didn't.

 

00:18:39:04 - 00:19:03:13

Ed McKnight

Well, I ended up flying Marcus Sheridan over to New Zealand to talk to our team. And we were sitting down having breakfast, talking about all of the issues in our business empire, what could we do next to get better? And I said, hey, I've been thinking about these magazines for a long time, and I walked them through the numbers and I said, I've got to tell you, that sounds really dumb.

 

00:19:03:15 - 00:19:27:16

Ed McKnight

And so I was like, yeah, it is dumb. You've told me what I kind of already knew inside. So it's always tough to kill your babies, as we call them, which is if you have this business that you like, in this case, the magazine business. And we're doing it because we we're trying to become a media company. But then when it doesn't work out, you do have to kill it and just chop it off and say, okay, we're not going to get a return on that investment.

 

00:19:27:21 - 00:19:44:10

Ed McKnight

And so there's just a really good lesson here for anybody who's maybe on there becoming a media company today that you don't always want to copy what the mainstream media or what other media companies are doing, because not all of them are successful. If you go hard on the digital side, I found that it works really, really well.

 

00:19:44:12 - 00:20:00:00

Ed McKnight

If you're trying to go down the print side or creating a magazine or I say some people creating digital magazines, my personal experience is that that has not worked. It has not delivered results for that million dollars spent on the magazines. I think we might have got two sales over four years.

 

00:20:00:02 - 00:20:12:05

Alex Winter

Wow, wow. That must have been tough to have invested that in taking the time to really to really like go full into that and then to have it not work. That must have been that must have been tough. I can only imagine.

 

00:20:12:07 - 00:20:36:20

Ed McKnight

The really tough part is actually at that point I was in business, you know, that my, my business partners are and Andreoli. That cut me in because it had gone so well and they were like, we want to keep you around. I'm like great, wonderful. And the really tough part about that was having to admit to them that I had this idea about buying magazines, and I'd lost them $1 million.

 

00:20:36:22 - 00:20:56:02

Ed McKnight

Yeah, you know, I'd like part of that. I'd lost myself money, but it was. It's fine. It's okay to lose my own money. What what was difficult was admitting to them that it hadn't worked. And then I had felt that I'd let them down. That was the tough part. Not even necessarily the million bucks, just the high.

 

00:20:56:02 - 00:21:09:22

Ed McKnight

We tried this. It didn't work. And I hate this idea. I pushed for it. And I'm sorry it didn't work, because I do feel like I've let you down. And probably one of the most refreshing things was when I said that. Like when you're kind of very honest about that. Yeah, you took.

 

00:21:09:22 - 00:21:13:14

Alex Winter

Full accountability for that, which is not always easy to do.

 

00:21:13:16 - 00:21:32:00

Ed McKnight

No. But then when Andrew said, hey, look, it's okay. We went, we went some, we lose some. And it was like, okay, fine, now, now we can move on because it wasn't even the money or the like. I could say the logical decision. It's the emotional side of if we close it down, we have to admit we failed.

 

00:21:32:04 - 00:21:48:05

Ed McKnight

And actually that's kind of stupid that that so many of us, we get ourselves into that point. But I really understand why now buy a lot of us hold on to things even when we know we shouldn't. But it was so wonderful when Andrew said, actually, we're going to be okay. Let's just move on. Yeah.

 

00:21:48:07 - 00:22:07:10

Alex Winter

Cut your losses and focus on what's working. Yep. That's that's amazing. Great story. So I have to pick something apart really quick. You had said in there that you you became a partner. Can you tell us so can we just rewind quickly because you started off as, as like, I guess head of head of marketing while you're also in your dual role as an as an economist.

 

00:22:07:12 - 00:22:18:12

Alex Winter

But where did where did the where did it change where like these winds were starting to happen and clearly the numbers were going in a great direction. And then it sounds like they made you a partner. Can you just tell us that story?

 

00:22:18:14 - 00:22:41:16

Ed McKnight

So even before I got to opus, I was always very aware that the way you make money in life is not by being an employee. You've got to be part of something. And I remember very distinctly lying in bed at night. I must have been 23 years old, staring at the ceiling and thinking, I've got to get equity in a company, because that's how I'm going to get ahead.

 

00:22:41:17 - 00:23:00:05

Ed McKnight

And so I tried at the company, had worked beforehand, I worked for friends counting. I tried to get equity in that. And you know what? Life doesn't always work out. So after two and a half years, he eventually said, no, I'm not going to cat you. And and that's fine. That was that was tough to to realize, but that was fine.

 

00:23:00:05 - 00:23:23:00

Ed McKnight

So I moved on to the next company. And I was very clear with with Andrew and Ollie from the start. I want to get Karen, I want to be an open partner. And if you make that upfront, you put that idea in their heads. And probably two months in, I think Andrew saw that what we were doing on the content side was just starting to sprout.

 

00:23:23:00 - 00:23:51:07

Ed McKnight

A couple of couple of things were going in the right direction. There was some momentum, but it took two years before we sat down and we talked about it. And this isn't this is an Aids negotiation tactics. But, I didn't really embedded myself into a lot of the content. So I was on the podcast with Andrew. We were doing the YouTube together, and because of that, I was I want to say I've created a lot of value for them, which was very good.

 

00:23:51:07 - 00:24:08:16

Ed McKnight

I was very happy about that. But I was also very clear that I wanted a slice for myself. And so when Andrew and I sat down and talked about it and he said, how much do you want to get paid? Oh, it's not how it should be. How much of the company do you want? And I said, I want 25 to 20%.

 

00:24:08:18 - 00:24:27:06

Ed McKnight

And I only set it that way, 25 to 20 to to give him a little heart attack. It. Oh my God, I don't want to give you a quarter of my company. And then to the 20%. And then at that meeting, Andrew said, okay, so 20%. And I was like, yes, that's fine, because that was the number that I thought that I wanted to get is I thought it would be 5%.

 

00:24:27:07 - 00:24:47:01

Ed McKnight

I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right. If you want me, this is what I want. Otherwise I'll go do something myself, because I can say that I've now got some experience and some skills where I could do this again for myself if I have to. And so there. And that wasn't trying to be all like, hey, give me 20% of your company or I'm going to leave.

 

00:24:47:05 - 00:25:07:04

Ed McKnight

It was like, you know, just very genuine. This is what I think my life looks like. If you say no to this. And I probably didn't say it that explicitly, but I'm very lucky that they were receptive to that. And it all worked out. But it wasn't it wasn't instant. It was a three year buy in where I had to hit some targets.

 

00:25:07:06 - 00:25:18:01

Ed McKnight

And, and I had to hit those numbers before I got x percent of the company over three years. So it was it was five years from when I started to when I got the full 20%.

 

00:25:18:03 - 00:25:32:13

Alex Winter

Yeah. Now that makes total sense. But you also proved your value. I mean, you became a spokesperson. You helped build out this team. You'll implement the system. The numbers are going to like. There were a lot of really great wins that you you worked very hard and earned to be able to be in a position where you could negotiate like that.

 

00:25:32:13 - 00:25:48:02

Alex Winter

So that's very, very impressive and cool. I also want to talk to because you're you're quite the big thinker, and I've met you in person, a couple of times that impact lives here and there, and it's been such a pleasure. But you your wheels are always spinning. I'm so inspired by you when we talk. And I feel like you.

 

00:25:48:07 - 00:26:10:16

Alex Winter

You've taken this system, and you've also really broken out these great ideas into, like, very unique things that are unique to opus, into into your company. So for instance, I have your, your area analyzer and I want to talk a little bit about that and also about opus AI and some of these new tools and these new things that you're rolling out that are really, in my opinion, still rooted in endless customers, but a very out of the box and progressive and just very exciting to see.

 

00:26:10:16 - 00:26:14:11

Alex Winter

So where do we start? You want to talk about the the area analyzer first?

 

00:26:14:13 - 00:26:32:04

Ed McKnight

Well, just before we get to it, it's probably important to say that after you do everything within the book that you can't, the book is really targeted. If I can say this at the kind of first 2 or 3 years of this journey. Okay. And after you've done that, we found that we had a little bit of a plateau.

 

00:26:32:05 - 00:26:57:08

Ed McKnight

Now, that's not to scare. People often say, don't, don't do it. Because that plateau was our business was ten times larger by revenue from when I started. Right. That's so yeah. So it's a pretty good plateau to hit. Yes. But then we found that we were kind of like, okay, we've done it doing more and more articles or doing going from seven podcasts a week to ten podcasts a week probably isn't going to give us that much extra growth because we've already done that play.

 

00:26:57:13 - 00:27:17:17

Ed McKnight

So what is next to us? And Marcus is very clear that they ask you to answer endless customers is not just a marketing book. It is a business philosophy of how do you give your customers what they want. And he said, and you know, you can tell I've read the book about seven times. Anything that can be bought online will be bought online.

 

00:27:17:19 - 00:27:52:01

Ed McKnight

And so you take it back to that principle and say, what does that look like for us, especially in a world where because of AI, people might be searching lakes. And so the first thing I did was say, well, one of the big things that people search for when they are buying a property is they will Google Oregon property markets, or they might Google, what's another city and, and and Arkane Salem and property markets and they want to look for what's happening in my city or what's happening in my county or my suburb.

 

00:27:52:05 - 00:28:17:21

Ed McKnight

Right now, there are about a thousand suburbs in New Zealand. There are about 67 different major cities. There are 40 there, but about 16 regions overall. And so I thought, well, could I have an article that takes all of the data about these and just has it there so that when somebody is searching for any of these things, our website would come up now writing over a thousand articles and updating them every single month is going to be very difficult.

 

00:28:18:03 - 00:28:38:06

Ed McKnight

Yeah. And so I talked to my web developers, my web developers, and some of my best friends. I talk to them, every single day. I have a fifth standard 15 minute meeting with them. And they say, and I say to them, well, if I give you the spreadsheet and it's all templated out and all you have to do is put this, this number into this sentence, could we do that?

 

00:28:38:08 - 00:28:57:04

Ed McKnight

And I said, yeah, we could do that. And so that's what Area Analyzer is. If you Google Opus Partners area analyzer it will come up. And you can search for any of those thousand suburbs in New Zealand, any of those 67 cities, any of those 16 regions. And there is an article like, it looks like I have actually written that, but it is just Excel formulas.

 

00:28:57:04 - 00:29:18:16

Ed McKnight

And it's important to say this is not I because I work in a regulated industry. Right. We've got a government regulated, the equivalent of the SEC in the states. Sure. Where if we put out false information, the government is not going to like us very much. And so I couldn't trust AI enough to say, well, here's the data, just spit out some paragraphs and we'll put them on the website instead.

 

00:29:18:16 - 00:29:49:03

Ed McKnight

I used AI to create the Excel formulas so that if the data is up or down it, it changes the sentence. So it actually looks like something you would read. And so we are able to update over a thousand pages on our website. And I literally did the other day, 15 minutes a text 15 minutes for me to download the data out of the various real estate portals uploaded into the website, and within an hour a text May 15th minutes, but it takes the website an hour to think process the data and get it out.

 

00:29:49:05 - 00:29:56:19

Ed McKnight

And so we're able to, to really educate the market in a way that and I don't believe any other media organization in New Zealand has. Yeah.

 

00:29:56:21 - 00:30:13:03

Alex Winter

That's fantastic. I love I just love the way that you have figured out how to leverage AI in a different way. So instead of like having it just do everything for you, you're using it for very specific reasons to create these algorithms, to give you the information that you need. And 15 minutes to do that that would take.

 

00:30:13:03 - 00:30:19:21

Alex Winter

And anybody else that isn't using the tools or the technology you're using. I feel like that would take days, if not weeks, to do the same thing.

 

00:30:19:23 - 00:30:42:18

Ed McKnight

You just know. The amazing thing, though, is that the technology to do it always existed. We just had to implement it. And there are so many times in life that there are things like that. There is technology that exists, but unless you know how to use it, right, you're not going to get the benefit. And so I'm a big believer that you don't have to get ChatGPT to do everything, but you could get GPT three to educate you on how to use the tools that are already at your disposal.

 

00:30:42:20 - 00:31:08:17

Ed McKnight

The other thing that's interesting about Area Analyzer, and we've also done this to create over 200, reviews about developers because effectively, our products that we're selling, houses that property developers are building. And so one of the reviews that we can or types of reviews we can create, well, does that property developer guy out or does that property developer Mike Greer, do they do they build good properties?

 

00:31:08:19 - 00:31:28:10

Ed McKnight

I spent about four grand getting the data around how many properties are all building, and I spent a little bit more money with the web developers, but we were able to create 200 reviews automatically in that same way where I didn't write them. But, I created the formulas and we were able to create 200 articles like that.

 

00:31:28:12 - 00:31:52:05

Ed McKnight

And the most interesting thing about that, once developer database and area analyzer, which I already talked about, is because we created these tools, people are now searching for them. So when I first came out, just like everybody else, I saw that people will stop searching for informational queries. They will just ask ChatGPT different things like what's the average house price in Auckland?

 

00:31:52:05 - 00:32:12:00

Ed McKnight

Or what's the median rent in Christchurch? So I couldn't compete with AI on that. But what I thought is surely people will still search for tools and calculators. Surely people will still Google Mortgage calculator because it'll just be a bit more cumbersome to ask ChatGPT hey, can you figure out this, what my mortgage repayment will be for blah blah blah.

 

00:32:12:04 - 00:32:32:13

Ed McKnight

Sometimes you don't know what to ask in, so therefore you want a tool. And so I thought, well, could we create tools like area analyzer, like developer database, like lots of calculators on our website. And what we've now found is that area analyzer developer database. Those are some of the most searched for things or ways that people get to our website.

 

00:32:32:13 - 00:32:50:11

Ed McKnight

So they go to Google and they search for area analyzer, opus opus, area analyzer, area analyzer. And so we're able to go onto Instagram, Facebook, onto our webinars, onto our podcast promoting these things. And now all of a sudden, we've got thousands of people coming to our website because we've created something of value.

 

00:32:50:13 - 00:33:07:05

Alex Winter

And that's the key you're creating. You're not selling people to like, come and buy something from your company. You're giving them a tool that they need and want and are looking for, and it's free. It builds trust. It's a great and unbiased way to get people to start to become part of the opus ecosystem, which is I just think it's genius.

 

00:33:07:05 - 00:33:09:08

Alex Winter

I think it's really well done. So congrats.

 

00:33:09:08 - 00:33:31:02

Ed McKnight

I'll tell you another one, Alex, the one we're going really hard on at the moment is what we call Opus Plus. So one of the other things that I saw when I was using those tools to try and rank higher in Google is that some of the websites that get searched for the most, Facebook, Instagram, any of those tools that you log into.

 

00:33:31:03 - 00:33:55:13

Ed McKnight

So there is a reason I mean, not that anybody ever goes to Facebook on desktop anymore on their laptops. Everyone's on their phones. But one of the reasons that some people still search for Facebook is there is a reason to go to that website. And so what I hate to think about is what how do I make how website, a place where people want to go to, to do a thing, to analyze properties or do something.

 

00:33:55:15 - 00:34:19:21

Ed McKnight

And previously, the way that we had analyzed investment properties was we had created a spreadsheet. We gave it away for free, 18,000 people had downloaded it. And I was really proud of the spreadsheet. But then a new property investment company had just started, and that created this a basic form of like an app that would run the numbers on it, like help you run the numbers on an investment property.

 

00:34:19:23 - 00:34:42:11

Ed McKnight

And I looked at that and I was like, this is pretty rudimentary in terms of of with our ad and their journey. But actually this is where it's going. If they keep going, if we keep doing our spreadsheets and I keep developing in this app, they will be so far ahead of us because this is the way that people at will in the future, like run the numbers on their investment properties.

 

00:34:42:11 - 00:34:45:02

Alex Winter

Right? You said, yeah, you saw it happening in real time. Yeah.

 

00:34:45:05 - 00:35:05:04

Ed McKnight

It was it was so clear. It was so obvious because anything that can be bought online will be bought online. And it was exactly what Marcus said in the book back in 2015 or whenever I first wrote him. And so we binge the spreadsheet, even though people loved it and we spent it probably costs us 64 grand new Zealand in order to stand up the first prototype.

 

00:35:05:09 - 00:35:22:03

Ed McKnight

But we created what is now Opus Plus, which is a way that you can run the numbers, you know, do the do the spreadsheet things. But online. Because what's really clear to me is that people no longer give you their email address to get an e-book that's kind of dead. Nobody's doing that anymore.

 

00:35:22:03 - 00:35:25:07

Alex Winter

It's it's a dying. It's a dying thing. It really is. You're right.

 

00:35:25:09 - 00:35:47:12

Ed McKnight

But you will happily put your email address in to create an account for Facebook or Instagram or, or any online tool to impact, plus any of those you will happily put your email address. And because of course I have to, how else am I going to access my account and so wasted that app. Oh plus plus in September last year, the first version of it.

 

00:35:47:14 - 00:36:11:02

Ed McKnight

And we're going pretty hard on this, but we now have 23,000 people signed up, 23,500 people signed up to I plus plus in the last 6 to 9 months. And so not only has that built a massive database, but in the past when we gave away that spreadsheet, we couldn't see how people were using it. We couldn't see whether people were analyzing their own properties or whether they were looking to buy properties.

 

00:36:11:02 - 00:36:31:20

Ed McKnight

I couldn't see if somebody was in buying mode or not. But with Opus Plus, if somebody is adding in a lot of properties, maybe they are in buying mode for me, but we sell properties. If I can find somebody who is in the market to buy, and I can tell who that person is and what their email addresses and where they are looking and what sort of properties are looking at that person as a potential customer.

 

00:36:31:22 - 00:36:51:14

Ed McKnight

So now with hyperspace, not only are we building this database, but we can see who's in the market to buy and who we should be talking to. So maybe, maybe you weren't going to use opus in the past and you're just going to use our free stuff. But if we can see that you're looking at properties, we can reach out to you and say, hey, have you considered having a conversation with us?

 

00:36:51:16 - 00:37:00:06

Ed McKnight

So this is a way that we can find buyers again. Anything that can be bought online will be bought online. And this is just our next version of that.

 

00:37:00:08 - 00:37:10:06

Alex Winter

I love it. I absolutely love it. Talk about thinking outside the box. That's really that's really great. And it sounds like even though it's a big investment, it's really you have some ROI and it's really paying off.

 

00:37:10:08 - 00:37:28:05

Ed McKnight

Wow. So we're starting to get there. It is. It is quite the enormous expense building these things. I think we're in for about 400 K a year at this point. Oh wow. But we are going real hard on it. Obviously. I would not recommend to anybody starting out with seamless customers that you drop 400 K on web development.

 

00:37:28:07 - 00:37:48:19

Ed McKnight

Because you've got you've got to start with writing the articles and doing the YouTube before you, before you go. But because we've done those things for the first three, four years, and with our business, we've now got the revenue to be able to make those investments. Yeah. So, so I want to say to people who are starting out with endless customers, don't do what we're doing today.

 

00:37:49:00 - 00:38:11:02

Ed McKnight

We are not a good example of how you should start. You need to start with the basic principles of the book grow your business. Then you can start doing it at scale. It's a bit like if you love a gym analogy, you don't go in and say, this massive bodybuilder who's benching 150 kilos or 300 pounds and say, wow, he's doing that.

 

00:38:11:02 - 00:38:26:23

Ed McKnight

So I need to bench that much. Do I need to squat or deadlift that much too? Because that's how I'm going to do it. All of us would say that's patently ridiculous because you're going to hurt yourself, right? And it's just going to work out. You've got to start small and then you build up. And that is exactly the same in business.

 

00:38:27:03 - 00:38:45:08

Ed McKnight

You can't look at another business who's doing things that are 5 or 10 years ahead of where you are. Starting today, you've got to start with those lighter weight dumbbells. You know, the things that are heavy for you right now that are going to help you grow before you get to that point. And so this isn't to do the kinds of things we're doing now.

 

00:38:45:08 - 00:38:52:17

Ed McKnight

Go start in the area, analyze or develop a database. So this is a start with the small stuff. And then this is where it can go after that.

 

00:38:52:19 - 00:39:09:02

Alex Winter

That makes total sense. You got to build the foundation before you can build the house. Right. That I totally agree. Yeah. Very great points. And I think this is a good segue because I want to ask you about the results that you've seen. You know, you've been doing this for. Where are you on your eighth year? How many years have you been have you been doing this now?

 

00:39:09:04 - 00:39:11:20

Ed McKnight

This this is I've just ticked over six years. That opus.

 

00:39:11:20 - 00:39:36:20

Alex Winter

Okay. Oh, just over six. Okay. So six years of of implementing this system and growing and maybe hitting some plateaus. But I'd love to talk about the wins. So for everyone out there watching, listening, just to give them some incentive of what's possible, you said you ten next your business. I mean, if that isn't incentive enough, I'm not sure what is, but what other wins have you seen and what other things really stand out in your mind that you're very proud of and that like along your journey were were just great milestones.

 

00:39:36:22 - 00:40:04:06

Ed McKnight

So one of the big things is in the early days of opus, because they had no marketing, no content. The way they got a lot of their leads was from referrals from mortgage brokers. And so what Andrew, and all he would do is say to mortgage advisors, hey, look, you've got some clients that are probably messing around. I've got a pre-approval from the bank that I can't afford to go and buy a property, but you don't get paid, Mr. Mortgage Broker, until that person goes and pictures a property.

 

00:40:04:08 - 00:40:27:01

Ed McKnight

Well, we can help them do that. And then we both get paid. We sell a house, you get to write the mortgage. And because of that, we couldn't start our own mortgage company. Well, because we started, you know, feeding ourselves, generating our own leads, generating our own brand, we ended up starting a mortgage company. And it is the fastest growing mortgage company in New Zealand.

 

00:40:27:02 - 00:40:52:03

Ed McKnight

And we we have grown into probably one of the top ten mortgage companies in New Zealand within, I think, 2 to 3 years. It is insane how fast we've grown. We've got one of the fastest property growing property management companies in New Zealand as well, you know, so that's where if somebody buys a property, we'll look after it for them so they don't have to do all of the chasing the tenants or doing the rental inspections.

 

00:40:52:05 - 00:41:10:17

Ed McKnight

So a normal, property management company, if they are just if, if they are doing really well, they'll be bringing on about ten properties a month. If not doing really well, we're bringing on about 40 a month.

 

00:41:10:18 - 00:41:11:22

Alex Winter

Wow.

 

00:41:12:00 - 00:41:32:11

Ed McKnight

So we're growing at about 500 a year properties under management. And we are just getting started. Wow. Some of the things through API's past when we can go out to those 23,000 people who have told us where their properties are and whether they own them or not, and how much they're renting for, and the condition of them. Now that we've got their data, the next stage is to grow even faster.

 

00:41:32:14 - 00:41:42:01

Ed McKnight

And so my team is saying, hey, there's only so fast we can grow. You might have to slow your ambitions down. And I'm like, no, we must grow faster.

 

00:41:42:03 - 00:41:56:17

Alex Winter

I love that you're starting. You're starting to feed yourself. And it's it's, it's maybe it's overused because Marcus has it quite a bit, but it's a great analogy. He says, you know, I could I could catch you a fish and you can eat tonight, or I could teach you how to fish, and then you can you can make your own supper whenever you want.

 

00:41:56:17 - 00:42:02:03

Alex Winter

And it sounds like you're really starting to rely less on the industry and creating your own, your own farm.

 

00:42:02:03 - 00:42:22:18

Ed McKnight

Are you? We stopped relying on the industry probably about three months ahead of me, starting because I was like, this is no way to run a business. We're relying on other people's referrals. I once went to a financial advisors conference because my my, soon to be wife is also a financial advisor. And I was saying to people, you guys are idiots.

 

00:42:22:18 - 00:42:41:05

Ed McKnight

If you're just relying on referrals because you can't control that, you've got to be able to control your own business by doing the things like what endless customers talks about. But on top of that, our brand is growing like 10 million downloads on the podcast enter. And I get stopped in the straight constantly. People saying, thank you so much.

 

00:42:41:05 - 00:42:59:15

Ed McKnight

I once had a guy at the airport. I was flying out of Christchurch and he stopped me in the line and said, hey, you have made me a lot of money. You made me rich because of the things we talked about on the podcast, which is amazing. On top of that, we've got New Zealand's number one investing YouTube channel.

 

00:42:59:15 - 00:43:20:06

Ed McKnight

Now we've we've got 30,000 subscribers. I know that's quite small compared to some of the numbers in the States, but, you know, I've had some of my videos get over 200,000 views. I had another guy stop me outside a bank who said, hey, you saved me five grand because I watched your video and you told me about don't don't buy this course about how to pay off your mortgage faster.

 

00:43:20:06 - 00:43:34:21

Ed McKnight

I'll just tell you how to do it. And, it's just really lovely that these, these are real people. I don't tell the the story to say, hey, I'm great. I get stopped on the street. I tell it because I say when you create content and you put it out there, sometimes it's a bit of a black hole.

 

00:43:34:23 - 00:43:54:03

Ed McKnight

You know, our podcast got downloaded a thousand times or 2000 times or 5000 times. But what does that really mean? Right? When somebody stops you in the street and says, hey, that thing you said helped me, that's when you're like, wow, this is this is real. These are real people. And and the content has an impact on real people's lives.

 

00:43:54:03 - 00:44:04:17

Alex Winter

Yeah, it's very powerful. That's that's incredible. And 10 million downloads. That's I don't care what continent or what country you're. And that's a lot of downloads. That's incredible. So good for you guys. Very impressive.

 

00:44:04:17 - 00:44:21:18

Ed McKnight

Well, the other large thing that I'll just tell you, Alex as well, is we've been able to turn those into some other very large media ones. So because, because we've built a brand and some authority in this, we then went to the New Zealand Herald, the largest newspaper in New Zealand and the largest news website in New Zealand.

 

00:44:21:18 - 00:44:39:17

Ed McKnight

And I said to them, well, why don't I start writing for you? I'll write you an article once a week and you can put it on on your website. And those get something like they get read 20 to 30,000 times a week when I write those. But it all started with the podcast and building our brand. You know, five years ago the Herald was never going to let me write.

 

00:44:39:22 - 00:44:57:12

Ed McKnight

And then I went to the second biggest news website in the country, stuff.co.nz. I didn't see the 50 Philippines interested. And I said to them, hey, I write for the Herald, why don't we get Andrew to write for you? And so between the two of us, we cover the the there are only two large newspaper networks in New Zealand.

 

00:44:57:15 - 00:45:05:11

Ed McKnight

We are able to cover both of them and have our content be picked up by both of the largest news companies in the country. Wow.

 

00:45:05:13 - 00:45:27:13

Alex Winter

Genius. I, I love it. I love all these different angles and tactics that you've taken. It's really, really impressive and inspiring. And also for you, you said 60, a little over six years, an opus. What's your journey been like personally? Right. You started out, with, with, like, the dual role. Now you're a partner. What's that journey been like for you and for for your life outside of work?

 

00:45:27:15 - 00:45:54:21

Ed McKnight

It completely changed my life. It really did. Six years ago, I never thought we'd get to where we are. And it's. I mean, it's been a lot of work, but in terms of what it's done for me and my personally, I guess I've been investing in property. Yes. I've always tried to, to make money on the side, but being cut in, Andrew and Ollie did something for me that nobody else has ever done.

 

00:45:54:23 - 00:46:23:14

Ed McKnight

And so so you can probably tell the company's going quite well. That has helped me just immensely. Personally, I was able to buy, quite an expensive house. It was actually my first time I'd bought five investment properties before, before I bought my first time, but I was able to do that. And and what's interesting, Alex, if I can add, I've never told the story before, but when I was a kid, I got a scholarship to go to a school.

 

00:46:23:19 - 00:46:50:02

Ed McKnight

A very nice school. I come from a tiny little farming town. I got a scholarship to go to school right in the middle of, Auckland and a really, really nice area. And it's a school for, for kids who can't afford private school because we weren't rich, you know, we were kind of lower socio economic. Would definitely be in the bottom 50% and and when I went to that boarding school, I used to walk around.

 

00:46:50:04 - 00:47:17:13

Ed McKnight

Oh, and look at all of these nice houses. And I used to thank God one day I will be able to have one of these. And at 32, I mean, it's not it's not the best house on the street, but at 32, I kind of feel like I have done what 16 year old may kind of wanted in terms of having a nice house in that area and being set up, and that is is just amazing.

 

00:47:17:15 - 00:47:35:03

Alex Winter

It's absolutely incredible. And we couldn't be happier for you. Like, that's just a dream. A dream being realized is is an incredible thing. So congratulations. And you definitely have put in a lot of hard work. So it's not like it just happened overnight. You definitely earned it and deserve it and couldn't be happy for you. And that's just wonderful.

 

00:47:35:05 - 00:47:51:10

Alex Winter

Yeah. So before we wrap up, I'm sure people are going to have a ton of questions that are listening, that are watching. What advice would you give people out there? Is there anything that really stands out or along your journey that, like you really think is important for people to keep in mind that might be starting their their journey with endless customers?

 

00:47:51:11 - 00:48:02:04

Alex Winter

Or maybe they're picking up the book for the first time and reading through it and going, oh yeah, this, this makes sense. Just like how you did it. And like, yeah, this clicks and I get this, and this resonates with me. What would you what would you tell them. What would you say to them?

 

00:48:02:05 - 00:48:21:19

Ed McKnight

I think you've got to get over your own inertia. So there will be people listening to this who for years have said, I want to do endless customers. They ask, you answer, I want to do this thing. But for years you haven't done it. I was the same. Yeah, I read the book. I thought it was great. I didn't do anything with it for two years.

 

00:48:21:21 - 00:48:43:21

Ed McKnight

But you've got to get over there and just start. And there will be some things within in those customers that you're like, oh, that's quite scary. Writing articles and reviews of your competitors, talking about the things that are wrong in your industry. Some of those things will not be comfortable because just like the guy who's benching 300 pounds, you know, like they've built their way up to it.

 

00:48:43:23 - 00:49:10:18

Ed McKnight

So you start with what you're comfortable with talking about pricing, maybe writing one of the, a beast of article, you know, top five website design companies, or top five tips for the how to design a website. Whatever industry you happen to be, and start with the stuff that you like. Okay, I'm going to dip my toe in the water and then you will go, you know, I remember the idea of writing articles about our competitors like, wow, that's that's wild.

 

00:49:10:18 - 00:49:28:04

Ed McKnight

Now, we couldn't possibly do that three, four years in. We just laugh about it. Now we're just gonna write them. Of course we're going to do it because it's so obvious. And in the industry that is still so people are really like, wow, that's, that's, that's cheeky. Well, I can't believe you did that. But we weren't always comfortable doing some of those things.

 

00:49:28:04 - 00:49:49:08

Ed McKnight

We had to build up to it. And the other thing you've got to, do pretty quickly as you got to build the right team around you. You know, they ask, you answer endless questions is a team sport. You're going to have your sales team, you know, willing to to share the content that you're creating. You've got to make sure that they're going to want to, contribute some ideas for you.

 

00:49:49:13 - 00:50:01:13

Ed McKnight

Yeah. Our content team is now ISO nine people that we've we've had to build it up. It really is a team sport. They might be one, two, three people being the face of it, but there's a huge team behind them.

 

00:50:01:15 - 00:50:15:20

Alex Winter

Yeah, that's why I said it is definitely a team sport and it takes time. But with with the investment and the time, the results speak for themselves. And we couldn't be happier for for you and for everybody at Opus Partners. So congratulations on your on all your wins and all your success.

 

00:50:15:21 - 00:50:16:13

Ed McKnight

Thanks so much.

 

00:50:16:14 - 00:50:24:05

Alex Winter

Yeah. Well I think that's I think that's our, our show. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to discuss before we wrap up now?

 

00:50:24:05 - 00:50:25:17

Ed McKnight

I think we're good. Yeah, I think we're good.

 

00:50:25:20 - 00:50:37:11

Alex Winter

Okay, cool. Well, we're going to have to check back in with you because I want to keep hearing how things evolve, especially with this new AI, tool that you're rolling out. It sounds exciting. So we'll definitely have to have you back on the show. And thank you so much for your time and for being here.

 

00:50:37:13 - 00:50:38:11

Ed McKnight

No worries. Thanks, Alex.

 

00:50:38:11 - 00:50:44:22

Alex Winter

All right. And thanks again. If everyone at their watching and listening, this is endless customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. We'll catch you on the next episode.