On today’s Engaging Marketeer podcast, I’m speaking to a very, very old friend of mine, Graham Dobbin. Graham currently works at Dale Carnegie Training in Australia, but he used to be in the UK as a business coach, helping people to grow their business. He decided long ago that he was going to move to New York and essentially start up a franchise out there in Manhattan, which he did to great success. However, the pandemic almost crushed all of that and forced him to pivot his business to do things a little differently. Then he decided, once again, that he was going to up sticks and move everything and go across to Australia for Dale Carnegie. I’m going to be talking to Graham today about what made him want to go to New York, what made him want to leave New York and then go to Australia, and what challenges he faced along the way and how he overcame them.
Be sure to check out the full interview over on YouTube, which includes these highlights:
Darren: You obviously went out to New York to start a new business. What made you want to up sticks from the UK to go to a nice country?
Graham: How long is this interview because I don’t know if it’s long enough? New York’s kind of always been one of those places that I loved visiting on vacation (I can say that now). So I started to explore how to do it. It took me a few months to kind of work through getting a visa sorted, but once I had found a way of doing it, we moved within about 18 months.
Darren: Working and living in America is something I imagine a lot of people in the UK would have thought about doing. What were the main problems that you had with being able to do that?
Graham: At every stage I was told it wouldn’t happen, and I’m kind of one of these people where if somebody tells me it can’t happen, I’m going to look for a way, I’m going to really really push that. I remember when we when I finally found a way, I eventually got the Visa appointment in London at the American embassy, where you have to stand in line and answer the most direct questions you will ever have for about 20 minutes straight. It was like being on The Apprentice. And then they say yes or no. I remember they told me ‘we’re going to take a chance on you’ and gave me a 3-year visa. And the 3 years start that day.
Darren: So when you got there, what was the first thing you did to build your network?
Graham: I started connecting with as many influential people as I could right away. You hear a lot of things about New York, like the ‘city that never sleeps’ and ‘if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’, which I actually do doubt now. So I really wanted to dispel as many of the myths that I could – it was a very interesting first 12-18 months.
Darren: What are some of the differences you found between the ways that businesses are run in New York compared to the UK?
Graham: I’d say in the UK we’re probably more ready to accept people at face value, whereas in New York there is that constant scepticism – ‘is this person for real?’, ‘can they deliver on what they say?’. Here, we’re more likely to accept people until proven otherwise. In New York, I found you have to do it the other way round.
Darren: After you moved to New York, how long was it before you knew that it was a success and it was actually going to work
Graham: It took about 15/16 months of really hard slog with not much happening and then it just want POP.
Darren: So after you moved to New York and made a huge success of it in an entirely different country, you decided to do it all again and move to Australia!
Graham: Well I wouldn’t say it was a huge success in New York, first off. It was going up and then in March 2020, something happened that affected everybody, but in New York it was really severe. I remember watching six months’ work disappear in about three days.
Darren: What was that like?
Graham: I’m not sure if it was more emotional or scary. Everybody had it hard, but New York, and ourselves personally, got hit hard and fast. One of the biggest challenges was dealing with people saying ‘how are you?’ and ‘what’s happening?’, so that was probably one of the more difficult parts.
Darren: I believe you moved to Australia during the pandemic, so you had to live as a prisoner in a hotel for three weeks, is that correct?
Graham: There was only 24 people on our flight, can you believe that? And yes, we had to endure two weeks of quarantine once we got there. To be honest, I was probably doing too much work in that time. With the time difference, I was up doing virtual training at all kinds of points in the day
Darren: So how does Australia compare to the US in terms of business?
Graham: I think it’s closer to the UK. I think New York is a bit of a bubble, whereas other areas of the US may work differently. In Australia, it’s a lot more relaxed. I wouldn’t say slower per se, but definitely more relaxed.
For anybody that wants to get in touch with Graham, he’s happy to report that he’s one of only three Graham Dobbins on the entirety of LinkedIn, so you can reach him there if you’d like (he’s the one in the pink shirt at Grand Central in his profile picture).
Thank you to Graham for coming on the show. Hopefully his remarkable story is enough to inspire a string of new business owners to follow their dreams, even if it takes them all over the world.
