{"id":35186,"date":"2023-10-20T14:37:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/six-strategies-to-stay-on-track-from-an-entrepreneur-whose-business-career-rose-from-a-moment-of-tragedy-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:37:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:04","slug":"six-strategies-to-stay-on-track-from-an-entrepreneur-whose-business-career-rose-from-a-moment-of-tragedy-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/six-strategies-to-stay-on-track-from-an-entrepreneur-whose-business-career-rose-from-a-moment-of-tragedy-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Six strategies to stay on track from an entrepreneur whose business career rose from a moment of tragedy – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was grief and a moment of tragedy that sparked Sydney entrepreneur Matt Catling\u2019s journey to success and a multi-million dollar startup.<\/p>\n

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Now a powerful motivational speaker and founding director of Your Future Now with the tenacity to start and grow new businesses, Catling tells StartupSmart <\/i>he hasn\u2019t always been this way.<\/p>\n

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In his childhood, Catling had a number of learning difficulties and competency issues.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was quite shy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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This drove his father to take him to neuro-linguistic programming classes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWith normal education, I kind of switched off and was in a daydream but this was really powerful.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEven though I tried to make it look like I wasn\u2019t enjoying it, I was really enjoying it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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His father\u2019s strategy worked and Catling soon became a high-achieving student.<\/p>\n

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But shortly after, tragedy hit.<\/p>\n

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On Father\u2019s Day, at the age of 13, Catling and his father had an argument during a family jog and the two decided to make amends by racing each other home.<\/p>\n

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Catling won the race.<\/p>\n

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His father never completed it.<\/p>\n

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On the run home, his father had suffered a fatal heart attack.<\/p>\n

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Library of life<\/b><\/p>\n

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Because of the fight they had before the incident, Catling felt immense guilt and entered a dark tunnel of depression.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s when he found himself in his father\u2019s office, which had been out-of-bounds while he was alive.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe called it the Library of Life,\u201d Catling says.<\/p>\n

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While exploring the room filled with books on life lessons and self-development, Catling accidentally knocked over his father\u2019s briefcase and out of it, a page fell out.<\/p>\n

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It read: \u201c<\/i>If my son was to speak at my funeral, I would want him to know that even though I wasn\u2019t there a lot of the time, I loved him.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n


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The note switched on a light in Catling and he remembered his father telling him \u201cthe key to life is to live it now\u201d.<\/p>\n

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After reading all the books in the Library of Life, he commenced a new journey that led him down a successful career in entrepreneurship and life-coaching.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy father is my hero,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Drawing from his journey, Catling offers a six-point strategy for entrepreneurs to stay on track.<\/p>\n

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Build certainty from within<\/b><\/p>\n


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When you launch into a new business, Catling says the safety net of a stable job is lost.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou don\u2019t have that injection of the wage,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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He says this is where entrepreneurs need to start building a new sense of certainty from within themselves.<\/p>\n

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Trust <\/b><\/p>\n

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As the business starts to scale and you start growing your team, Catling says being able to trust becomes the next challenge.<\/p>\n

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He says this is where you need to let go and start trusting people with helping you grow what you started.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTypically, the first people you attract are the wrong people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut they will teach you what you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Profits of influence<\/b><\/p>\n


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Sharing your value and building rapport with networks is a crucial step.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBe able to communicate your passion,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Part of this process, Catling says, is listening to customers for feedback to improve and fine-tune the value you can offer them.<\/p>\n

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Marketing <\/b><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s no point in building the best website in the world if you don\u2019t know how to sell it, Catling says.<\/p>\n

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Taking the time to research your target market and really listen to their needs will determine whether or not you deliver something of value, he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMarketing is being able to share a message in the language of your specific target market and being able to communicate that message in the environments that your customer is going to hang,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Technology<\/b><\/p>\n


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The biggest businesses in the world have large databases and high levels of engagement.<\/p>\n

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Whether or not your startup is tech-based, Catling says entrepreneurs should take it upon themselves to develop digital literacy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou need to understand it and put some focus in it to leverage your message,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Referrals<\/b><\/p>\n


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Catling\u2019s biggest piece of advice to entrepreneurs is keeping track of referrals.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI measure my business based on referrals when I\u2019m developing products, programs, packages,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt tells me I\u2019m doing something right – the market is telling me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Follow <\/i>StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

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It was grief and a moment of tragedy that sparked Sydney entrepreneur Matt Catling\u2019s journey to success and a multi-million<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}