Richard Anthony and Sam Hussain Podcast Transcript

Hey guys, it's Rich here from The Rich Mix and I'm very lucky to have my good mate Sam Hussain on board on this episode. So welcome aboard Sam.

SAM:

Thanks Rich, glad to be here.

 

Yeah, awesome. So Sam is a local as well. I live in the Blue Mountains in beautiful Blue Mountains in Sydney, Australia and it's getting a bit chilly, isn't it Sam at the moment?

 

Yeah, yeah, it's got an arctic blast coming through at the moment and it's a good old winter.

 

I went for a walk last night, oh my god, I had gloves on and everything and I'm still freezing, you know, I'm still not used to it. But yeah, look, tell us about yourself. You're brought up in the mountains?

 

Yeah, I grew up in Glenbrook, spent most of my life here obviously and went to school in Springwood at St Columbus there with your wife actually.

 

Yeah, awesome. And then what did you end up doing after school? What did you end up doing with your life?

SAM:

After school, I actually left school at the very beginning of year 11 and ended up getting a trade as a heavy vehicle spare parts interpreter with Volvo Trucks down in Penrith, which I really loved and enjoyed that. And then from there, we've always had computers and technology in my house, being that my brother's always, you know, brought it into my house.

 

He's a little bit older than me.

RICH:
Yeah.

SAM: And so I sort of naturally moved into the technology side of it out of my four brothers, four of us are in IT and the other one was in buses.

 

So then moved into the IT side of things and then eventually started my own business back in like 2000 and 2003, I think it was.

Yeah, wow. So that was the, what made you take that plunge? What made you take that risk on leaving?

 

So at that stage, I was working for a company called Employment National who had the contract, the employment contract or whatever it might be for the state government.

 

It was the federal government for the local employment contract. They ended up losing their contract and it went off to somebody else. And at that time they wound up Employment National and I actually got made redundant at the age of I think 19 or 19 or so I was.

 

RICH:
Yeah, wow.

 

SAM:
I was already out there sort of helping other people fixing their computers and doing IT solutions to things like that. So, I sort of naturally moved into that space and then decided to open some retail shops and yeah.

 

RICH:
So from past interpreter to like heavy machinery to big tools to little teeny tiny tools to IT and so working mainly on software or hardware as well or a bit of everything?

 

Yeah, as I said after sort of working as a freelance IT support guy, I opened a couple of retail shops as well selling computers and second hand computers which was quite a booming business back then. Yeah, yeah. And then moving into other things.

 

So yeah.

 

Yeah, awesome. And so in that time now, so tell us about your, so from that journey, what made you get into like obviously now you're a Google specialist, what made you actually get into that that space? How'd you get into it?

 

Yeah, so I merged my business after doing the retail shop, so I ended up merging my business in with my brothers with NetPresence was the business name and we worked very well together.

 

And to get into what we were doing, still doing the IT side of things there, but we found we had a lot of customers who started to use Google ads and we started using Google ads and we started getting asked whether we could help with those Google ads. And, you know, this is going back to, oh geez, 2005, 2006, something along those sorts of lines. The story there is that after in about 2007, I think it was Google Australia actually reached out to myself and said, Hey, look, we're, we're looking at bringing in this, this program called Google Engage for Agencies.

 

It was actually called back then. And we'd like you guys to, you know, be a bit of a pilot for us and help us sort of get this thing up and running in Australia, which ended up being the Google Partners Program, which it is today. And I remember going down to an office in Piedmont, Sydney and Google's office was quite small at the time.

 

I think there was six or six or eight of us, you know, this little back room in Piedmont. Yeah. And now the Google Partners Program is, yeah, it's got thousands and thousands of members all across the world now.

 

So pretty proud to say that we are one of Australia's founding Google partners.

 

RICH:
 Yeah. Fantastic.

 

I know from a little teeny tiny little room with a few guys to, especially being Google, such a big brand, you know, back then. And so, yeah, so you obviously got a lot of experience. So then you thought you'd just evolve into starting a business, focusing specifically on Google ads.

 

SAM:
Yeah. So I love it. I like the, you know, challenges that come from watching, helping other businesses to grow online, you know, using digital marketing, being Google ads or YouTube or whatever we're doing on that side of things.

 

I just absolutely love doing that. So when Blue Water was born, there's a whole long story behind why Blue Water was born, but we've focused purely on Google ads and the Google platform, search engine optimization, Google ads, helping people get found online is exactly what we do. Yeah.

RICH:
And why Blue Water? Tell me about the name.

 

Yeah. So there's two reasons for why my business is called Blue Water Digital.

 

Yeah. One is that at the time when I started Blue Water Digital, I was doing a lot of fishing and I happened to be like 50 kilometers offshore from Jarvis Bay.

 

I really love it out here. Yeah. It's in the open in the blue water.

 

The other reason for it is behind the Blue Ocean Strategy. So to be different and to not, you know, to not be fishing in the red bloody water where everybody else is.

 

Do things differently and, you know, we'll fish in the blue water where the fish are plentiful.

 

Yeah. It sounds better than muddy water, you know. Awesome.

 

But so how do you find that balance? Obviously, work, working for yourself, obviously gives you so much, a lot more flexibility. How do you find that balance with work and your personal life, family time?

 

Great question, Rich. How do we find that balance? I mean, some days you wake up and you say, well, why am I doing this? You know, we're chugging away 70, 80 hours a week, massive weeks, putting it all in while other weeks we may not have as much on our plate.

 

Yeah. I think it just comes down to passion. If you enjoy doing what you do and the results that you help your clients with, it makes it all that much easier.

 

Personally, I don't think I'm very employable. I don't like to be chained to a desk from nine to five. I like to have my own flexible hours.

 

I mean, this morning I started at 5 a.m and I don't know what time I'll finish tonight, but, you know, we've got that flexibility and that time that we get to do what we want to do.

 

And putting, you know, it pays, like you put in the time and the effort, it does pay off. And I think it's not just the time, the hours you put in, it's the times that you do have off, the times where you can go pick up your kids or do something where you normally couldn't if you had a full-time job, you know?

 

100%. Yeah, 100%.

 

SAM:
And that's the reason that I, you know, I've always liked being in business for myself is that I've always been there for my kids to either pick them up or drop them off and attend just about every school event they've ever had. And, you know, all those things to me mean a lot more than obviously just the money. Yeah.

 

You know, so that's it. It's, you know, it's funny, like, it's money is, okay, we need money helps us make choices and be able to do what we want to do in life. But in the end, the end result is we eventually want more time to spend with our family and do things that we really want to enjoy.

 

Because you don't know, everything could just end tomorrow, you know, in your life or your health or whatever.

 

Well, that's 100% why I do what I do. My dad passed when I was fairly young, I think I was 12 at the time.

 

Yeah. And, you know, he worked a corporate job in the city. And it's just, you know, I don't want to be around for my kids.

 

So yeah, and how old was your dad then at that time?

 

I'll get this wrong, but I think he was about 59.

 

Yeah, so still relatively very young, you know. And so yeah, it's like, even like, obviously, my dad, you know, passed away early this year as well.

 

And it's hard, you know, when you lose a family member, it makes you really think about everything, everything. And the rest of your family, how you need to spend more time with them and talk to them, you know, not physically see them, but all the time.

 

But yeah, as long as you're in touch with them all the time, you've got that connection. Because when you have your own little family unit, it's so easy to, because that is your number one, you know, you forget about everything else, you know, so it's really important to spread the love. So, no, awesome, man.

 

So now a little bit more about Bluewater. So you got quite a big team of people working with you.

 

Yeah, so there's 18 of us or thereabouts now.

 

We hired a new one yesterday. So there's 19 of us now. Yeah.

 

And yeah, we serve as clients all over the world. And yeah, through the change with COVID when it all came across, we actually changed our direction a little bit. And we now white label to a lot of other agencies.

 

So we sell Google ads services to these agencies for them to on sale to their clients. Yeah, awesome. So we're now working here in Australia, but as well as in North America and the United Arab Emirates as well.

 

Which country do you like working with? Tell me, which Buffet's in the house?

 

They're all good. They all got their own perks. United Kingdom becomes a lot harder.

 

That's mainly just due to the hours for us, you know, a lot of working with the guys over there, but just the hours start getting a bit ridiculous. Yeah. We tend to work a lot with the east coast of the United States.

 

That's pretty cool for us. It's 6, 7am meetings, which is not a problem. And then on the Dubai side of things, it's normally 4, 5pm meetings.

 

Again, it's sort of, it's really just as part of a little bit of an extended day. It's not anything out of the ordinary. It's cool to see the different cultures and the different economies and the way that the businesses work differently in different parts of the world too.

 

And to be able to adapt to their changing positions and their seasonal trends as well, which is really quite cool.

 

Yeah, awesome. So tell us about, okay, when you're not working with Bluewater and not with the family, what are you doing yourself? What do you enjoy? What are your hobbies?

I love to be outside.

 

You know, my passion is mountain bikes. I love my mountain bikes.

 

I got an e-bike now, I shouldn't say that.

 

You got an e-bike?

 

Yeah, I love my e-bike. It gets me out even more.

 

Well, just be careful to charge those batteries in the house, mate. There's been a few fires with those things.

 

Mine's all Bosch, good quality German stuff.

Honestly, mountain bike, I see them and my God, when they're going downhill, obviously it's a special downhill bike, isn't it? When you're going downhill. But man, it's like crazy. It's like, they don't give a shit.

 

They just like, just go. If I'm going to, something's going to happen, something's going to happen, you know?

 

Yeah, I was actually at a state enduro round hosted by the West Sydney Mountain Bike Club just last weekend. I was volunteering and doing some marshalling there.

 

I did a lot of work with those guys on the committee and that was a state enduro round. So it's basically downhill, but you still have to pedal to the top. But only the downhill sections are counted and yeah, the guys come flying down through there and it's next level for some of the stuff that I do, but I love it.

 

It's great.

Yeah, that's awesome. And then obviously you're a car nut like me as well.

 

Love your old school cars and potentially get something soon. I'll squeeze you out, get something soon. Yeah, we'll get there.

 

No, I love my cars as you know as well. Yeah. And motorbikes too, mind you as well.

 

So yeah, anything with wheels is always fun.

 

Now tell us about, you know, actually we've got a TEDx event coming up later in the month and you're a major sponsor for that as well, which is pretty cool.

 

And you sponsored last year's as well. It was a pretty good big event.

 

I didn't sponsor last year's, Bernie sponsored last year.

 

Oh, did he?

 

Yeah, Bernie from Phelan Strategy and Design. I'll give him a plug. He sponsored last year's TEDx Katoomba.

 

This year I'm sponsoring TEDx Inglewood and I think it's on the sixth of September, the Friday, sixth of September in Springwood. That's looking to be a really good event. Yeah, that's really cool.

 

And you've got Walk It Off. Tell me about Walk It Off and how that started.

 

Yeah, so Walk It Off is a great passion of mine and it really fills the soul for what we do in terms of, you know, giving back to the community and giving back to communities across Australia now.

 

So we started, we founded Walk It Off two and a half years ago in February of 2022 when a mate of mine came to me and said, we need to do something for, you know, men's mental health and wellness in Springwood. It was originally, it was just in Springwood. Yeah.

 

There's a number of adversities and, you know, I've been through my own, he's been through his and we said, there's nothing really for us, you know, for us to go and channel this help and where we need to go. Yeah. So that's when Walk It Off was born.

 

It's a very simple idea. It really is like, we meet every Wednesday, 5.30. We all have a cup of coffee or a tea or whatever it might be, a bit of networking, a bit of a chat. And then we go on a very simple walk.

 

So three to four kilometres, 45 to 50 minutes at a casual pace, have a chat with some guys, get some things off our chest, maybe learn a bit about each other, whatever it might be. And the communities that we have built have just been, it's just been amazing, just been life changing for a lot of those guys. And also, you know, like I said, it feeds my soul.

Yeah. And now Walk It Off has three different communities.

 

So now we have Springwood, Terrigal and Warragamba.

 

So we're looking to expand even further from there. So we've already touched hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of men, you know, across these communities and just seeing these guys come together, you know, every single week as a group. And then we also see other activities that the guys go to on weekends.

 

So it's, yeah, it's a little communities that we've built. Yeah. Amazing.

 

I know that you're helping so many people. They're getting a lot out of it, especially being such a social thing is one of the key things for people with mental health or depression or anything like that is being, you know, hanging out with other people, get out and about, you know, and having to be able to go out for a walk and a little bit of a journey and have a coffee, meet some strangers and have a laugh. I think it's really cool, you know, because a lot of people are stuck in their comfort zones, you know? Yeah.

 

But it's not just the negative side. You think of mental health and you often will just think of, you know, depression, anxiety, suicide, and all the bad sides of it.

 

But people who come together to celebrate, you know, good mental health and positive mental health, you know, they might be having a baby or their wife, I should say, might be having a baby and they're celebrating, you know, that could be a massive win for them. They might've got a new job or a pay rise or a changing career and anything like that. They can, you know, our guys come and talk together and they share those wins as well as help with the negative.

 

So I think it's really important for us to think of mental health as health. It's got to be thought of as health. There's good mental health as well, 100%.

 

Yeah. And that should be celebrated as well. And, you know, as well as we look after the negative sides of it as well, for sure.

 

Yeah. That makes sense.

 

Definitely. And look, anyone listening wants to be a volunteer or want to look at opening territories across Australia, please get on to Sam, you know, we'd love to help, but, but you want to look at expanding Australia wide.

 

That's the goal.

 

We want to, we had a meeting about this only, only last month. And, you know, we would love to be able to reach as many men as possible. So we, we, we try to model a lot of what we do, of what Parkrun does, because I think Parkrun is amazing and the way they operate is amazing.

 

You know, you can turn up pretty much anywhere, like any location in Australia and find a Parkrun close to you. And you know, it's going to operate on the same time on a Saturday morning, turn up, do your five kilometres, have a social, you know, bit of a social gathering and go home. We would love Walk It Off to be exactly the same, turn up in any location across Australia, find your closest Walk It Off, Wednesday night, 5.30, start a walk at 6.00 PM.

 

And the way you get that bit of sort of middle week unload that you might need. Yeah. Awesome.

 

And I love the name. I love the name Walk It Off. Did you come up with that name?

 

I didn't come up with that.

 

It was actually one of the, one of the co-founders, it was actually his wife that came up with that idea. We were rattling our brain trying to come up with, with a name to call ourselves. We called it Walk It Off.

 

Yeah, that's awesome. That's perfect. And it has, you know, it's got multiple, multiple different, different meanings there.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it.

 

I think it's really cool. And I'm so happy. You should be really proud of yourself.

 

And we're in such a short period of time where you've actually got it to, you know, and obviously a team as well that help out, you know, and volunteer. No, it's fantastic, man.

 

We're a registered charity now too, just to put it out there.

 

So looking forward to seeing where we can take it in the next few years.

I'm going to put the links anyway down below on this podcast so people can actually donate if they want to as well, you know, and if they're a local, you know, just come on board, mate. Come on a Wednesday night. What time does it kick off?

 

We meet at about 5.30, grab a coffee, and the walk starts at six o'clock.

 

Yeah, good. That's accessible to anybody. So that's the whole idea.

 

It needs to be accessible for anybody who needs to turn, who wants to turn up or needs that support. And what time does it finish? About seven-ish? Last night I finished about nine o'clock. We actually had a, because we will often hang back and have dinner together or whatever on the very last Wednesday of each month.

 

It's spring where we do a schnitzel night. So the guys turn up $20 schnitzel from the bunker. Yeah.

 

And the guys at Warragamba the following week, the very first Wednesday of each week, we'll do a burger night. So we do little events and things like that as well, just to, you know.

 

It should be like a walk it off, then eat it off and then have a dance it off straight after.

 

I'll be my turntables. Then we can have like a full on dance off, like people doing the robot and, you know, a bit of break dancing and all that. It'll be like the dance it off.

 

Yeah. I don't want to sing my moves, mate. I'll let you end up like breaking a leg or something.

 

Literally, you know, all right. You know, I get down. I can't get back up again.

 

That's it. So that's really cool. And you know, that's such a good charity as well.

 

And, and there is so many different charities around, but, and for me, it's really important because I know being a guy going through ups and downs, you don't really get a chance sometimes to talk to certain people or, or you feel weird talking about with certain people, some people, and it's not as easy going with that kind of stuff, you know? And as you said, like you're good mental health and, and, and you're bad mental health, you know, you, you want to be able to open up. And I think having this kind of conduit about, you know, going and meeting these guys, I think it's really awesome because I know so many people, but don't live in the area that probably would go to these things. And if there was opened up in the area, they would go.

 

I think eventually, hopefully this time in about two, three years, we'll be talking like rich were Australia wide. Now we're everywhere, you know?

 

Yeah. We'll touch base in a couple of years and see where we're at.

 

A hundred percent.

 

So tell us now about now we'll go back to blue water. So where, where do you want to head with the business? We're going to head with blue water.

 

Do you have a plan in mind?

Of course we've got a plan. We're business owners. Yeah.

 

Eventually, eventually the plan will be to sell blue water. We're moving in tomorrow time, but I don't see that being any time soon.

 

I really enjoy doing what we do. And yeah. So we, it'll literally just be continued growth at this point and helping as many small businesses out there as well.

 

Yeah. And you're, you obviously do other things as well. Not just Google ads.

 

You focus on social, social media, do a lot of that stuff as well?

 

We don't do much with social media to be honest. We do a little bit with paid side of things with Facebook, but we, we list to call ourselves a Google specialist agency.

 

So we do Google ads. We do search engine optimization. We help businesses get found online.

 

But apart of that, obviously you need to have a website too. So we can help with that, that side of it as well. Yeah.

 

Oh, fantastic. It's our little niches where, you know, we Google specialized. Yeah.

 

Yeah. That's good. And it's good because if you try to be, you know, do everything, people kind of don't trust you much to think, oh, well, you can't be good at everything.

 

You know what I mean? But yeah, you guys are the best in what you do and, and just focus more on, on Google.

Yeah. Thanks mate.

 

Yeah. So if you didn't have to do any of this, what else would you be doing with life?

 

I didn't have to be doing any of this. I don't know.

 

I can't really picture myself not doing any, any of this, but I do want to do some more traveling. Yeah. All over.

 

Yeah. I want to go spend a bit of time in Southeast Asia. When I was younger, I do want to go back and sort of see some of those countries again and experience more as an adult, because when I travelled, I was, you know, just, just barely a teenager, really.

 

So you lived in Malaysia? Yeah.

 

Yeah. So we lived in Malaysia for a couple of years.

 

How old were you then?

 

Between, I think about 10, between 10 and 12, it was.

 

Yeah. And you still have fond memories of it? Do you still remember a few things?

 

Yeah. Absolutely. And I really want to take my kids back there and sort of show them, you know, where I lived and a couple of the other experiences that we had.

 

While we were living over there, because they hear me talk about bits and pieces every now and then, and said, you know, it's only been for years, dad. When are we going over? Yeah.

 

No, that's it. That's awesome. And I think because your kids, how old are the kids now? How old were your kids?

 

13 and 17.

 

Yeah. So they're at that age where you could go and travel and have a really good time with them, you know, make those memories. Yeah.

Yeah. That's it.

 

I remember like when we were young, we used to do a lot of local things, like go to picnics nearly every second weekend, there was someone's birthday and we'd go to remember paradise gardens they had.

 

And then African, was it African safari, African safari world or whatever it was.

 

Yeah. So we used to go to these places, but they're all closed down now.

 

They're probably, they were just so dodged the way they probably treated animals back then. You know, I think a few people attacked by lions and stuff. Yeah.

 

African lion safari. I think it was cool. Yeah.

 

You can actually jump in your car and drive through, you know, in lines, but you know, back then you people were driving through the little Cortinas, you know, whatever it is. There's nothing that I caged with cars. Like what you do in Africa, you know? Yeah.

 

Well, that was a good day to play cricket and soccer and these days no one does any, you know, it's such a different generation of social type activities that we do with our families compared to, I feel like when I was young, you know, evolution, I think. I try to get the kids off iPads or anything digital. Like the other day, actually it was yesterday.

 

Lola's preschool rang Rachel and said, Oh, I just want to let you know, Lola's actually uploaded a video up onto the platform. She's logged into the app. YouTube star.

 

Rudy uploaded a video. It wasn't a video. She was like a video of eating and Rachel in the background, just talking and gas bagging.

 

And they're like, it's like, Oh no, we can delete that straight away.

 

We good. But, but yeah, I mean, there's just, they're just so she's only five years old and she's like on it, you know, when it comes to, so the wifi is not working, what's going on here, you know, she's like right on everything and she's uploading videos, watching stuff. And yeah, I don't know.

 

We've got to be really careful on what you watch. That's mainly like kids YouTube, really. But it was crazy.

 

You know, Russ, what are we at? A couple of tennis balls back then. Quick about my badminton, my badminton. I was getting into badminton back in the day.

 

Yeah. That's the evolution. We look back at it now, you know, and just how rapidly it's all changed.

 

And that's just the way the world is now.

 

So it's amazing. It's crazy.

 

When we're going to be oldies and looking back and going, look at these guys, you know, look at the guys going to be leading the countries, you know, leading our country and other countries in the next, you know, 2030 years. It's, it's pretty crazy, you know?.

 

In the same time, though, I think, you know, the leaps and bounds that we've done, what's, what's next? I know. I know. Well, you, you're a real tech guy.

 

And how are you enjoying the Tesla?

I mean, I love my Tesla, you know that.

 

I think some car guys don't, don't drive Teslas, but I am. Oh, you know, the petrol head of me loves it. The tech, the tech side of me actually loves it too.

 

So. Yeah. Well, you like it both.

 

You like, you like that and you love your, your normal, you know, engine cars as well. You know, 100%. Yeah.

 

So buy a car. You still, what would you get at the moment? Today, right now. Right now.

 

My own car. Yeah. My own toy.

 

I would buy a Lotus Elise. Yeah. Awesome.

 

A driver's car. 100% driver's car.

 

Not the Lotus Esprit in pretty woman.

 

No, no. I've got a soft spot for the Elise. Yeah.

 

 You know, I love Porsches too.

 

So yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, Lotus Esprit is pretty cool.

 

They're really cool car. And you know what? They're not, they're a car that they are quite tiny. They're really good sports car.

 

No one ever talks about them, but they're like a well-priced sports car, super car, you know, because they are so light and yeah, and they just, they're really cool. You know, they're four wheels, but we keep that quiet. So the price doesn't drive up.

 

We'll keep it on the down low then.

 

Let me get one first.

 

No, also, I know there's so much choice now with cars, you know, like the car market is completely crashed. So it's like the perfect time to buy something right now, you know, and yeah, certainly changed from what it was a couple of years ago.

 

SAM: Yeah. Yeah. Hard to sell stuff, but it's a great, you know, you've got a warehouse.

 

We've had a good, good yarn. Is there anything else happening in the, in the future that any other things that we haven't talked about? That's, that's happening in Sam Hussein's life.

 

Well, really, I think we've touched on most of it.

 

We're, you know, growing the business growing, walk it off. Everything's growing at the moment. So hopefully not my waistline.

 

That's yeah. I mean, I went for a walk yesterday. I was feeling so guilty, you know, yeah.

 

I'll come. I need to walk it off and then go to dance it off later. Yeah.

 

Watch this space. Yeah. Awesome.

 

And well, look, thanks so much, Sam, for coming on the rich mix. Really appreciate it.

 

And thanks for having me.

No, no worries. And let's do it again in, in six months or so and, and see what's happening. Sounds good.

 

All right. You're a legend. Thanks so much, my friend.

 

All right. You be safe.