0:03

Have you ever realized your calendar is full and your joy is thin? In this episode, Wes Towers shares the success definition he absorbed as a kid. Busy equals important, and the shift that changed everything. Building real value, protecting what matters, and designing work around life. This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I am your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal. I am a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we are here, the more we miss out and the more the world misses out on what only we can give the Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth. And you will hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves. So you can create a life, first career and become your own version of authentic success, one that is aligned, meaningful, and truly yours. My guest today is Wes Towers. He runs Uplift 360, a digital agency for builders and trades. His focus is simple, smarter websites, practical SEO and growth you can measure. He earned his playbook on real jobs, not in theory, and now helps others skip the painful lessons. Some definitions of success get installed early. Before you ever choose them. For Wes, it was the idea that busy equals important and important equals successful. That belief can build a career. It can also quietly eat the parts of life that you actually want to live. What I respect about Wes is how clearly he names his shift, how he realized success becomes less about motion and more about value, presence and building work that supports the life you want to live. In this episode, you'll hear how Wes built a digital agency serving builders and trades, and what he learned about creating measurable growth through websites and practical SEO, we talk about the busy equals success imprint, how it shows up in real decisions and what changed when Wes started protecting what mattered while still building something strong. And you'll hear his take on trust and clear communication in a noisy market. Plus how he uses AI to streamline operations while keeping the human relationship front and center.

Caroline 2:55

Welcome Wes Towers to Your Next Success. I'm super excited to be talking with you today.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 3:01

That's a privilege to be here.

Caroline 3:02

Okay.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 3:02

listened to a bit of your material just recently and it's, it's good to talk to you in person.

Caroline 3:07

Oh, awesome. Thanks, Wes. All right. Well, as you know then, I love to talk about careers, people's journeys, career transitions, that whole stage of becoming what you're doing now. And we're gonna get into all of the amazing things that you do to help many, many businesses. Uh, but let's go back to your childhood. Tell me a little bit like where were you born? Where did you grow up? In your littlest you. What did you love doing?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 3:37

Yeah, well, uh, as a, I grew up here in Australia, Victoria, just, uh, outside of, of Melbourne in a, in a small town. so we grew up near the beach and, um, I had a really interesting mix of, um, just different, uh, cultures in, in my family. You can't see by looking at me, but I just, uh, saw some photographs of me as a child with, um. China, uh, Chinese relatives and so on. And, and so, uh, we had Chinese heritage and aboriginal heritage and

Caroline 4:06

Oh.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 4:07

of other things. So, uh, I guess, uh, a blend of all sorts of things. But, um, I guess as a child, the first instance where I kind of realized I was good at something and had a passion for something was when I was in primary school. So grade six. There was a new school being, uh, developed. So a splitting of one school into two because the, the, it was just so big and the new school had a competition to design their school logo, and I designed

Caroline 4:32

Oh.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 4:32

one and submitted it and it won. So I guess that, um, recognition of being good at something drove me forward into the design career path that I, that I still pursue today. It's obviously evolved over the course of time, but, um. Uh, into website design, but from graphic design back then. So I think those things, um, when you encourage a child, um, in those early days that they're good at something, it sort of sticks, I think.

Caroline 4:59

Uh, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So being close to the beach and all of that, or I guess, did you, did you do a lot of beach related things too? Or what sports or what kind of things outside of what you were supposed to do, what did you do when you got to choose?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 5:14

Yeah, well we were reminiscing a little bit about all the different things that we used to do back then. There was no mobile phones or cell phones and, and so we would go off playing along the beach, uh, quite a distance from home. We were right on the waterfront, so we would wander along, um, in this quiet area. But mum was, uh, mum and dad were happy with that because we had our dog with us for, for security, which, uh, I dunno what the dog would do if he fell off a cliff or something. You know, there wasn't major cliffs, but if something happened. It was a different

Caroline 5:44

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 5:44

then, wasn't it? We, um, um, worry and concern about a lot of things. Uh, but yeah,

Caroline 5:50

Yes.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 5:51

going to the beach a lot and outdoors, and we play a, a game called AFL footy, Australian rules, footy football.

Caroline 5:58

Oh, nice. Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:00

Um, you might've seen it a

Caroline 6:02

Now like football, like soccer, right? Like foot, but like, like. Or football like? Like football, like Like American football, like the brown ball or football, like European kind of, yeah. Which one?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:14

yeah, Aussie footie is totally different to all of that. We have a an

Caroline 6:18

Oh,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:18

oval footy, but it's not as pointy on the ends, um, the, as what you have in grid eye. Um,

Caroline 6:25

I.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:25

but yeah, it's a totally unique sport to our country. So when other people try and watch it, they've just got no idea what what's going on. Um, but yeah, we, we love it here, so we're, we're really

Caroline 6:36

That's cool.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:37

Yeah.

Caroline 6:38

That's cool. I wonder if your mom was thinking,'cause like, I don't know, we might be similar age or you might be a little younger than me, not sure. But, um, you know, there was this Benji movie, right? And like, if anything got in trouble that dog, Benji would go and like tell people. So maybe she thought that the the dog would come back home and bark twice if you're fine or not, you know?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:58

Yeah.

Caroline 6:59

but,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 6:59

I remember. I remember watching Benji also. You may have had it there. Skippy. Did you get watch Skippy or was an Australian TV

Caroline 7:07

I don't, I didn't watch Skippy, but, oh, cool. I don't recall if it was, I blocked it for trauma for other reasons, but no, just

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 7:15

Yeah. So similar kind of thing,

Caroline 7:17

oh.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 7:17

kangaroo that could talk apparently. And um, you know, it would save the day every time. So yeah. Same, same sort of idea.

Caroline 7:25

Oh, that's cool. All right. All right. So you are growing up, living your best life, and did you have siblings?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 7:31

Yeah. A couple of brothers. Yeah.

Caroline 7:34

Nice.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 7:36

so,

Caroline 7:36

And, oh, that's cool. So you're already starting to take the lead a bit just by age and stage of your, uh, of, of your, of your birth order. What about, what did your parents do for work?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 7:48

Yeah, dad worked in shoe shops, managed shoe shops around here in, in Geelong, just outside of Melbourne. Uh, mom was, uh, mostly at home as a, as a child for me, but before that she worked in, uh, uh, legal, um,

Caroline 8:03

Hmm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 8:04

a legal assistant or something like that. You know,

Caroline 8:07

Interesting.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 8:08

law firms here in, uh, Geelong as well, so, um, yeah. Yeah. They had different, different backgrounds. Um,

Caroline 8:16

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 8:16

yeah, my grandparents owned a business that was, I suppose they owned a few businesses. set up a bakery in a region and then sell it and move on and, and do another one. So I always had it in the back of my mind. People can do businesses um, and also my uncle, he was an architect. He was running a business. So in the back of my mind, I realized people did business and that was a potential thing to do. I, I, I,

Caroline 8:37

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 8:38

Hard to to to go into a, a field that you haven't seen modeled to you to a large degree.

Caroline 8:45

Yes, yes. I absolutely, and, and there are, if you look generationally at, um, a lot of families, you can see similar career themes kind of running through them if you ever go back and, and do that

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 8:58

that's true.

Caroline 8:59

So it's kind of neat. But you're right that. So much of sometimes people's career journeys is just based on, you know, maybe what their parents said or thought or what you saw an aunt or uncle or a close family friend. And that's one of the things that if I get to have the pleasure of working with somebody earlier on and they're trying to choose, there's actually some very amazing assessments that could help open up based on somebody's natural abilities, how they're hardwired to some career fair fields to start the exploration. And then I would encourage, you know, let's try job shadowing and kind of try before you buy or at least learn more about how that goes.'cause otherwise you're just with a very narrow set of choices of what, what's hot, what you've heard that could be good or make a lot of money. And, um, and, and a bunch of trial and error. And there's like, there's a little bit.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 9:53

You

Caroline 9:53

Little more data.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 9:55

Yeah. You just

Caroline 9:55

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 9:56

you're missing out on if you haven't ever seen it or you haven't thought that it's something you can achieve. So I talk, I

Caroline 10:02

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 10:02

FL footy Australian football only a few years ago. Um, we had a, a women's team. Women's teams established, so it was brand new. Um, but the remarkable thing was you know, so no, no, women had been really playing football, but once it started a, as a, like a, a proper level, like a se serious level, all the girls were playing footy. So it was in them that

Caroline 10:25

Ah,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 10:26

to play, it's just that they hadn't seen it yet. So

Caroline 10:29

yes, yes.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 10:31

they've seen it, the opportunity opens up. So I think that's really cool. And as you say, in careers, if you've never seen a career path, you've never seen anyone do it, you, you just won't be aware of it.

Caroline 10:44

Yeah, it's tricky. Okay, so you have won this logo competition for your school in primary school. Then as you got into the next levels of education, did did that stick, that creative kind of.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:00

Yeah.

Caroline 11:01

outlet or what did you find yourself being drawn to?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:04

Yeah. So, um, I was a creative hit. I forgot to say mum was an artist as well, so. Whilst

Caroline 11:10

Ah

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:10

not a career, but it's, it's something that she did with her time. So, um, so the creative kind of side of me was there. And so I went to uni for graphic design slash multimedia, and got my first job after that in Sydney in a marketing company. They needed DESI design work done. Um. It's, things have changed so fast. Uh, well, it feels fast, but I sound like an old person when I say that. But they'd never designed a website, you know, um, year 2000 only had one computer connected to the internet on a dial up modem. our award-winning company. Uh,

Caroline 11:47

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:48

a project to design a website and said, right, you are the young guy. You

Caroline 11:50

Oh.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:51

out how to build that site'cause we've won the project. And so I did that and uh, and found that I really, really loved it. The, um, the

Caroline 11:58

Oh, that's awesome.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 11:59

creative blend. You know, you've got a bit of

Caroline 12:01

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 12:01

so it suits me.

Caroline 12:04

And then did you stay there then for a long time or, and then what happened?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 12:08

No. Um, so I worked for other people. That first company, uh, merged into another business as well. So it was kind of the same, but same but different. And, um,

Caroline 12:19

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 12:20

so I was only working with those companies three years in total before I came down to, so that was in Sydney, and then came back to Melbourne where I'm from. Um, and naively started my own business soon after. So I,

Caroline 12:35

Oh wow.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 12:36

I had no idea how to do it or you know, how to have a client meeting, how to do a proposal. I was sweating so much, you know, in, in, uh, meetings, those first few meetings, just feeling, um, overwhelmed and everything and figured it out. Eventually, luckily enough,

Caroline 12:52

But what was it that made you even think like, oh, forget this, I'll just do it on my own. What was that process?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 12:59

Yeah, it was something I always wanted to do. I think I,

Caroline 13:02

Hmm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:03

suppose looking at my uncle, he worked, uh, in another creative space as an architect, and I, I knew I always, I, I suppose, admired that. And so I thought, well, that might be something I do for my own career path eventually, but. It was far earlier than I anticipated, simply because an opportunity popped up. There was a another

Caroline 13:22

Hmm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:22

who tried to start his own digital agency, what I do, and, um, it was just too much. He couldn't get enough work and, uh, it was just too hard. So he, he said, I'm gonna throw in the towel. and I said, what are you gonna do with your couple of clients that you've still got? And he said, well, you can have them. So I said, well, I will. And so I did

Caroline 13:39

Oh wow.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline 13:41

And he just gave it to you? Or did he like sell it to you somehow? You know,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:46

I didn't sell it, just gave it to, there was very little work, um, but it was a

Caroline 13:48

but still,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:49

so it was

Caroline 13:50

yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:50

at the start. So it was just me in the, in the evenings after, after daytime work,

Caroline 13:55

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 13:56

got to a point where I could go, you know, full-time in my own business and then hire, hire a team as well. So, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's kind of. Some somewhat unplanned, but the end, I guess the end goal was planned, but the, the way in which I've sort of

Caroline 14:12

Okay.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 14:12

there has been just, you know, unplanned.

Caroline 14:17

So at what point did you feel comfortable enough to leave the, the full-time thing to just do this, um, business that you were building?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 14:27

It was, yeah. So it was just a simple goal to replace the equivalent to my income, really. So to be able to

Caroline 14:34

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 14:34

time um, build to a point where it was sustainable enough, um, and, you

Caroline 14:40

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 14:40

young guy married at the time with, um, just entering into a, the, our first mortgage as well. So, um, you know, as a young person, all these things sort of can happen at once. And then, you know, soon after having children and so on, so the pressure on finances, you know, only increases over those first, uh, younger adult years. Um, and so just had to build it up to a financial position to be able to, to stay with it because, uh, I love, I love it. I love doing the work, but I love the networking side of it as well. All the things,

Caroline 15:14

Hmm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 15:14

peripheral stuff, I guess to the, to the business, the core function, I just love,

Caroline 15:18

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 15:19

uh, yeah, so

Caroline 15:21

How did you, how did you approach networking, you know, from also from being that young, I guess? Well, in university, outside of the things you were supposed to be doing, were you involved in like a bunch of organizations or did you learn that then? Or is this just part of how, who you are? Are you just always good, good to get along with people, make great friends, or how does that work?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 15:44

No, I wasn't natural at it. I, I think I was, I was fairly shy and reserved and self-conscious, uh, to a large degree. It was just that I'd needed the work badly and a, a photographer guy that I just happened to bump, bump into and he mentioned he goes to a networking group and he invited me

Caroline 16:02

Ah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 16:03

so that one time. And so it was stretching for sure. It was to go there. Uh, with a room full of, um, business leaders who were, who were fairly successful, you know, at that time, just thought, wow, you know, who am I to be in this room talking to these people? But the things you learn from just being in proximity to these types of people, you know, you,

Caroline 16:25

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 16:26

how they present, how they communicate, how they dress, even what you know, the things that they talk about. And you kinda learn just by observation and get better at it and start to learn to enjoy and, and love it.

Caroline 16:38

That's true. That's true. Yeah. A lot of things. It's like you just gotta kind of try it before you're ready. Right? There's, there's no, I don't know that there's really ever a time that someone's ready to get married or ready to have kids or ready to move or ready to get the house. Right. But you just do the best you can. Plow forward and make it work, I guess so,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 16:59

Yeah. I heard

Caroline 17:00

yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:00

about that with, um, the, the cost of children. Like, if anyone did the calculations, they probably would never have kids because it's, uh,

Caroline 17:08

For real.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:09

costs Yeah. Over their life, you know? But, you know, it's,

Caroline 17:13

yeah,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:13

all worth it. It's, um,

Caroline 17:15

yeah,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:16

we

Caroline 17:16

for real. Yeah, we do with all the best intentions and we're gonna do it better than anyone's ever done before,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:23

Yeah.

Caroline 17:23

know? So. So how old are your kids now?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:28

Uh, my eldest, he started working with me, which is really cool. One day a week, he is near 20, he'll be 20 in

Caroline 17:34

Oh wow.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:35

Yeah. And the next one is 18 and 13. The, my

Caroline 17:40

Wow.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:41

Uh.

Caroline 17:43

Okay. So tell us about this, uh, one day a week. Whose idea was that?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 17:49

That was my idea, but he was really excited by it. So he is really creative. So he is studying, um, at, at, at uni uh, university. So, um, and he is been doing graphic design for influencers and so on,

Caroline 18:06

Oh, nice.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 18:07

really aligned to what I do. But he does, he does it for different types of people and I, I just recognized. There was an opportunity to see him or so,

Caroline 18:15

Yeah. Oh, that's nice.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 18:17

yeah. So he comes in one day a week and, um, it's, it's a good working fit for what he does. Otherwise, he's, I mean, he is studying, but also just working, you know, um, making, um, chicken burgers. So he'd prefer to be, uh, he'd prefer to be working with me. And advantage of that is of course, to be able to mentor him to a, to a degree, um, because he is got, um intentions, maybe to one day work for himself as well. So those things I learned the hard way. Hopefully I can, uh, help mentor him to a degree in that path. He'll, he'll make his own mistakes, but hopefully some of the mistakes I made, he doesn't have to because I can help him.

Caroline 18:54

I hope not. Yeah. Now, does he bring his own clients or is he working on projects that you already have?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 19:00

No. So he's doing our work. Um, well he's doing Mo mostly our own social media posting, so, uh, uplift

Caroline 19:07

Oh, that's good.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 19:08

Yeah. And so he

Caroline 19:09

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 19:11

And the social posts, um, and so on, so that, that's plenty to keep him occupied.

Caroline 19:17

Oh, that's so cool. That's cool. So how did you go about, or I guess like when you are, well tell a little bit about your company first, and then how do you help the people know what to do, you know, how to utilize your services to the best of the ability, or how do reach new clients and all of those things. Imagine what your life would be like if your career aligned with who you are, what you do best, and actually fueled the life you want. At Next Success, we support all ages and stages through career transitions from students exploring majors or careers to job seekers actively searching or re-imagining their next move to professionals committed to self-awareness and leadership growth. Stay connected and explore what's possible at nextsuccesscareers.com and follow@nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 20:13

Yeah, well Uplift 360 is the business and it's a digital agency. And so we've niched into the trades construction industry mostly. Mostly. So they're our, our ideal clients. We've got others clients'cause it's been going over 20 years now. So, um, legacy clients and, and some new ones come on outside that space. But that's mostly what we do and it's reason being the majority of our better clients, were, were doing that. So at industry and once you niche in, you kind of learn a lot about the particular, um, types of businesses and you can serve them to a

Caroline 20:48

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 20:48

higher level. So it's been brilliant um that little pivot. There's been micro pivots so many times along the journey, but that's probably the, the best one that, that, um, I've made, it feels as they're cutting off so many opportunities, uh,

Caroline 21:06

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 21:07

better, but it just amplifies the, the better ones. Um, so they're, they're an ideal fit. So, um, yeah. I forget the second part of the question. Did I answer it?

Caroline 21:17

I do too. I do too. But like, I guess, how do you, well, and so you are doing, so digital agency, is it like you are doing their website, you're doing all of the

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 21:29

Yeah.

Caroline 21:30

is it like built off of a go high level or a CC 360 kind of a thing? Or is it that and Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 21:38

We do mostly the websites and the optimization, so search engine optimization, and so

Caroline 21:44

Nice.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 21:44

they'll connect in with whatever CRM they're using, and so.

Caroline 21:48

That somebody has. Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 21:50

Yeah, so there's so many of them. Um, and so it's just a matter of connecting typically the forms into whatever they're using, which is usually a pretty easy, um, process depending on what they're using. So, yeah, so, um, getting their, getting them found online, which is becoming increasingly difficult with the amount of noise out there as, uh,

Caroline 22:11

Yes.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 22:11

all seen, you know, the. Advantage of AI is it can produce content at scale really fast. And, um, that's text or, or videos and, and images. And so because it can produce things so fast, everybody's doing it. And so there's just an overwhelm of information. So you've gotta find ways to cut through that noise and come,

Caroline 22:32

And how do you do that?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 22:33

Yeah.

Caroline 22:34

You know?'cause I'm constantly getting inundated with like. Uh, people trying to approach me from, whether it's LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or email saying something like, oh, you have this podcast, or You, I've seen this stuff and you're not getting recognized because your stuff isn't being done well on SEO. And then I go look at them and I'm like, okay, well, they may have been doing this thing for like a couple months. Cool. Are they just taking their stuff and putting it in the chat, GPT and saying, pick out the good ones, or,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 23:08

Probably. Yeah.

Caroline 23:09

or what? Now if I, if, if it was you sending me, I'd be like, okay, well you're coming in with 20 years of info. I think I trust that, but I don't, I don't know. Right. So, yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 23:22

It is, it is. Because sometimes people will forward those types of emails to me when they, but they're just spam. I've got, because we register the domain names oftentimes for the client, and so.

Caroline 23:33

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 23:34

even domain names that we've registered on on behalf of the client. It hasn't even got a website yet, and all of a sudden they're getting emails to say their website has errors in it. Well, there is no website. It's just, um,

Caroline 23:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the error.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 23:48

Yeah. So, um, but sometimes they're just so convincing these sort of messages because people, like, there's a, they'll have a whole bunch of technical stuff in there, that can scare people. So sometimes people will forward it to me and, and so on, but, you know, by and large it's, it's nothing. Um,

Caroline 24:04

Yeah, it's fearmongering.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 24:06

Yeah, that's right. You dunno again, you dunno what you don't know. So, and people play on that. But yeah. So the key elements I suppose for marketing now is to really drill down to precisely what makes you unique and, um, be really specific in that. So, any, anything that, uh is different in, in your business to the, to your competitors, they're the things you

Caroline 24:31

Mm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 24:32

need to highlight because everything else is kind of generic and bland.

Caroline 24:37

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 24:37

key distinctions are. All of your attention should focus on those key distinctions. let the, uh, let the marketplace, um, educate a about the general. Things, but your uniqueness is, is what needs to sing. So once you know what those things are, those core elements, then you can massage those through all your media, through your social media, through your website, of course. no matter where it is, make sure everything's aligned to those, to those core values, I suppose. And they,

Caroline 25:08

That makes,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 25:09

and change. Um, they're typically a reflection of the founder's personal values and convictions. If it's a smaller business. Um,

Caroline 25:18

yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 25:19

you know, founder led business.

Caroline 25:22

I'm also like when you said how you niched down to the construction industry, I guess you just let the data, you didn't go out thinking 20 years ago, you know what I feel like doing is marketing for construction. But you just, I guess, looked and listened to who were, who was coming to you, who was having the, the greatest results and who you enjoyed working with, and then that's how you chose or.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 25:44

Yeah. It's kind of funny. A lot of people assume that maybe I was in that career path beforehand, but I wasn't, I'm useless at picking up a hammer or, you know, dunno what end of the screwdriver to, to hold. Um, I'm

Caroline 25:56

Right,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 25:56

with all that sort of

Caroline 25:57

but now you have all kinds of contacts, you know, so if there's something.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 26:02

right. Yeah, absolutely. So, but I, for whatever reason, related really well to these people, I suppose, because they're so practical and pragmatic and down to earth, just typically, um, that for whatever reason I relate well to them so I can understand where they're coming from. And I choose not to use too much lingo and things that, you know. The, all the jargon that people can sometimes confuse people with. Um, I prepare

Caroline 26:29

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 26:30

to avoid that as best I can. Some things you've gotta cover, of course, but you wanna fi find ways to cover it in a meaningful way so it makes sense, um, to the, to the market. And I've just found a, that I'm good at that. So, um, that's my, my craft, I suppose,

Caroline 26:45

That's cool. How did you learn it? Just trial and error over time because you know, a lot of what I'm learning and what I've learned is the design is awesome. And the messaging that's in there, it's gotta either be, like you're saying, speaking kind of with you, not above, not below, but you know, how did you learn that side of it?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 27:08

Yeah, that's an interest. I'm not a hundred percent sure. Maybe I would assume it's just because I love people. I like talking to people. I like listening to them. So maybe it's just, it's been the listening skills, I suppose. Um,

Caroline 27:24

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 27:25

yeah, and I'm a founder led business too, so I understand where they're coming from. I, I hire people in different tasks. Um, you know, I've, I've

Caroline 27:33

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 27:33

a lawyer because someone's treading on my, um, trademark territory at the moment. So I've had to hire a

Caroline 27:38

Ah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 27:39

but I'm hiring someone who's, who knows their craft, and I don't know necessarily all the technical stuff gotta cover off. Um, and, um, you know, I just have to trust, on them to, um, explain in, in my understand to my capacity of understanding. So I guess that's kind of where it's at, to, to realize, hey, people don't necessarily know and that's, you know, the things I'm talking about or the technical stuff. And to find a way to communicate what's important to them.

Caroline 28:10

That's a good point though, as far as like knowing how to talk with and deal with people. Cause so much of my, even in when I did before, I had my own business and recruiting and all that, I just thought. I'm just gonna try to be the recruiter I wish I had. I'm gonna try to be the person I wish was on the other end of the phone. Or I guess as you are doing it, it sounds like you're saying like, I'm gonna try to have the perspective of the person who lands on this webpage for the first time and try to make it interesting and compelling enough that they wanna reach out to my client with that perspective. Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 28:43

And sometimes it's, sometimes it's helpful not to know too much about the technical aspect. I had a, a friend who was in, in solar, solar company selling the solar panels for homes mostly. And, um, he, he said an interesting thing, um, that when he hires his sales force, he makes sure that they've got no experience with solar. uh, the, his rationale behind that was they've come from somewhere else, because they've got a bunch of technical expertise in solar, they'll start talking about the technical, you know, all the numbers and figures and all the technical jargon and what it's made of and all that

Caroline 29:23

yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 29:23

This guy wanted people to, wanted to be talking about the, the dollar savings because that's what made sense to the audience. So he, he found it easier if they came into his company without any other preconceived understanding of solar panels. He wanted them to know what was important in his view to, to sell solar panels, which made good sense. Um, so I've kind of tried to, you know, there's ways in which we kind of adapted that sort of thinking so he can think from the customer's point of view, what is it they're really trying to buy here? What are they really needing? How can we

Caroline 29:58

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 29:58

what they're needing?

Caroline 30:00

And what do they really think is important to c and communicating that in a very practical way.'cause see so much of this stuff that you're talking about of how you serve businesses,'cause those are your clients. But the same thing. If there's people who are starting to consider a new career opportunity, like how they can communicate to a manager, how can they, they can differentiate themselves. It's the same process, just a, a slightly different angle of viewing it. As far as as those things? Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 30:28

I think it's a, I mean, with what's happening in AI and career paths and, and everything, I mean, a few years ago I got a business valuation done and it got, came in a whole lot lower than anticipated, purely because the value has said, um, the rise of AI was a threat to my whole industry, not just my business, but the industry. And so that was a wake up call and my career path is my business. And so how do I transition? Like there's a massive potential op, opportun threat and opportunity threats and opportunities often go hand in hand

Caroline 30:58

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 30:59

Um, so I had to think through, okay, what do we need to adapt right now to be sustainable? And what's changing and where do we, how do we position what? For what's likely to become the new, the new normal, I suppose. So think that's in every career path. Those that can predict and foresee what's coming. Their passion and, and yeah. Be in position. Ready? Yeah.

Caroline 31:24

Yeah. And like, and I guess you kind of had that, uh, thrown at you 20 something years ago, right? Where it's like, oh, you're the young guy. Go figure out the website. You know? And so now it's like somebody says AI is about to take your stuff, and you're thinking, wait, really? I don't know. I mean, I, I do still think there's a um, large amount of people that would ra rather talk to a real human about their concerns versus just trusting this AI. Because sometimes you put something in AI, even if you have the paid version and you ask it to do one thing and it tells you something else, and you're like, wait, what? Or it tries to bring back, well, because you are this, and I'm like, no, I'm, I'm still not that, you know?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 32:02

Yeah.

Caroline 32:03

um, yeah. So how have you. How have you done that? How have you dove in as far as this AI instead of it having be your competitor? How's it now your partner, I guess?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 32:12

Yeah. So it's, as you say, it's an assistant, so you still need the expert knowledge, uh, for sure. But it has helped streamline process a whole lot. So we got. We're really diligent on standard operating procedures. So everything gets done consitently.

Caroline 32:25

Oh.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 32:26

the same time, the same way every time, no matter who picks up the projects.'cause if someone's away sick or whatever, um, someone else needs to be able to deal with the project wherever it's at. So I've always been diligent on that, but we had to rework that quite significantly just because new opportunities in technology to streamline all of that sort of stuff that, so, that's re been reworked significantly. That doesn't affect the end client. The same outcomes are achieved, but, that's behind the scenes. But then to think through. It was a real time of a reflection. And what do I want in business? What's important to me? What do I, what am I going to pursue? How I'm going to adapt to what uh, people need? How do I serve people? So it's less about the technical know-how of building the site, because that's becoming easier and easier, and it's more about that expert knowledge. I love, as I said before, I love people. I love talking to people. I love, um, gleaning from them what an understanding of where they're at in their business and how I can support them. So the tools have enabled me to have a bit more time that I can spend more time with people.

Caroline 33:32

Ah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 33:33

And so the humanization, curiously enough, AI has allowed me to be, humanize the business a whole lot more. And that's what I love doing. So, uh, it's working really well right now, but we need, need to stay on our toes because who knows what's around the corner with the technology, being

Caroline 33:50

Correct.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 33:51

we're at. Yeah, so it's fun.

Caroline 33:53

Yeah. Even with some of these, yeah, go ahead. With some of these like AI clones that people can build even of themselves, right? Then you're starting to hear some people say like, well, AI is just gonna take over podcasts, and I'm like, what? Like, come on.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 34:08

Yeah.

Caroline 34:08

Can you imagine if it was just my clone talking to your clone? I would just be a little weird, you know?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 34:13

Yeah, I saw on, uh, I think it was a Facebook ad, one of the, one of the social platforms a, a platform that's proposing that it does all your podcasting for you. It does a, an AI version of yourself and does

Caroline 34:27

Mm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 34:27

after show That's just a new level of spam really. It's just,

Caroline 34:32

Really?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 34:33

There's no authentic anything in it. Um,

Caroline 34:37

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 34:38

yeah, there's no, I, I can't imagine anyone listening to that stuff, but, um, you know, we're gonna have to fight to get through the noise. Uh, if, if people go down that path.

Caroline 34:48

Hmm, that's true. Oh, interesting. Okay. So how about when you were young? What did you think success was? What did you think that that, like what were you chasing or what was your your thoughts around it. And then we'll end up going a little bit later into like, and then now what do you think today? You know, but sometimes I'm not saying this was you. Sometimes people have a thought of what they think it is to be successful. Like, oh, it's the house, the car, the this, the that, the other. And then as they kind of go through life more, they realize, oh, those things that they were chasing aren't actually it at all. Um, what's been your experience?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 35:28

Yeah. Well, I, I suppose as a child growing up in a church, there was a diverse range of different types of people. That's a massive advantage to anyone growing up to see different people and how they function in life and, and so on. But there was, dad really admired this guy Ross um, and so I, I could just sense dad thought this guy was awesome. I, I in turn looked at Ross and thought, what is Ross doing? Why is he so awesome? And I remember dad saying. Ross is really important businessman, and he is really busy. And so I suppose even as a child, a value on being busy, is a,

Caroline 36:08

Mm-hmm.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 36:08

you know, a crazy, that's a crazy, um, measure of success. It should be the, quite the opposite.

Caroline 36:15

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 36:16

starting out, uh, just trying to create busy work, you know, um, starting business and, and you feel as though just if you're doing lots of hours, you're somewhat successful, but. Kind of flipped that on its head. Like it's, it's not about being busy, it's about being productive and efficient and effective and producing value in the world. And, and you can't, you can't do that effectively if you're just focused on busy work. You gotta find ways to bring more value to more people,

Caroline 36:44

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 36:44

less time. So yeah, that was a big shift as a child. It, it's kind of a, I was only thinking about it just walking down the street before, um. The things that sort of stick in your mind, the, uh, assumptions you make based on what you've heard as a, as a child. Um,

Caroline 37:00

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 37:01

Yeah. Move

Caroline 37:01

Yeah, I, I think I, I picked that, I picked up on that as well. And, um, somehow it was like anybody going from, you know, in working in a company or corporate, somebody told me once, like. If you carrying a notebook or something, you're really busy and walk fast with purpose. And I was like, okay. You know? So then I just kind of adapted that and anytime, and I was like, if I'm gonna leave my desk to go even to the restroom, I was carrying a notebook because somebody told me that that meant you were like productive or something. I'm like, what the heck? And then yeah, later I was like, forget it, I'm just gonna walk and be me. And also, you know that, that quest to chase after what you, what the world thinks is success. Sometimes that busy or that you know it, it comes at the expense of relationships

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 37:49

Yeah.

Caroline 37:50

the people that you chose and that chose you as well. So yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 37:54

Yeah. So, so that was definitely an early lesson learned, and I'm thankful that I learned it reasonably early when the kids were young so I could the time into, you know, coaching basketball and so on, and being there

Caroline 38:05

Yes.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 38:06

uh, dance, you know, dropping off and picking up and all those things that happen, you know, for us, probably the same as youth finish at three, 3:00 PM and, you know, so early afternoon finish to go and do activities and, and stuff with the kids. So. I'm, I'm glad that I didn't miss that opportunity because it's only there a moment. And then they're,

Caroline 38:24

I know.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 38:25

So, um, you know that

Caroline 38:26

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 38:27

many different things, um, that you just can't quite see when you're a young fella. I don't think.

Caroline 38:34

And when you see a, a baby, you think like, oh, they're gonna be here forever. Right? And then you're like, oh, well, gosh, I'm not sure. But yeah, mine, uh, mine are, are nearly 17 and uh, 20 as well. So just. I think that's why grandparents are so good because they've realized it and they just spend time and enjoy the time and the moment and however it is. And sometimes, uh, parents are a little bit caught up in the things you're, you have to do,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 39:02

Yeah.

Caroline 39:03

and, and remembering and realizing like, oh, I have to do this too. I want to do this. I chose this person. So, yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 39:10

Yeah.

Caroline 39:11

So now your version of success now is. Like how do you define authentic success for you in this moment?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 39:21

Yeah, it's an interest. It's certainly evolved even past that time, sort of management sort of style. It's, um, building a, a, a career around what, life, um, as well. So I, the advantage of creating your own businesses. You, you design your own career path'cause you can make the business whatever you want it to be, and you create it, whatever it wants to be. So I get to do the things I enjoy. I get to talk to people, I get to meet people. I get to work a schedule that I want to.

Caroline 39:53

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 39:54

and, uh, and growth. I, I mean, I'm still wired by growth. I don't need the extra financial in incentive, but I mean, that's kind of how we measure things a little bit. So early on it was all about getting enough income to sustain myself, which is kind of a need, um, that that

Caroline 40:13

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:13

a success measure. But get past that, it's less about money. It's just about, uh, producing more value for the world.

Caroline 40:23

Yeah. And what do you think is coming next for you? Like what are you looking forward to as far as your, your next chapter, your next success?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:32

Yeah.

Caroline 40:33

What do you want it to be? Yeah,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:35

I've launched my own podcast. I've, I've guested on a bunch last year.

Caroline 40:39

Nice.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:40

And so it was such a learning curve, so it was, um, it was a massive a, you know, I like to be stretched and, and grow, and it gave me opportunity to get better at it. I'm still, I'm

Caroline 40:52

Yeah,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:52

as you can tell, but,

Caroline 40:54

me too.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 40:54

the, the, the next, the next step felt like starting my own. And then, um, I can have conversations with um, people that, that I want to talk to on there about, you know, it's mainly for trades and construction people, so I'm trying to get

Caroline 41:09

That's awesome.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 41:10

Yeah, it's been fun. So there's been a bunch recorded already and I feel like I'm getting slightly better at the interview process, but it's keeping me excited and motivated, you know, to, um, to do something new because I've been working at this game a long time now, um, it keeps me fresh. I feel like, uh, it's something new and exciting.

Caroline 41:32

What is your podcast and is your audience, are you targeting just people in Australia or are people in construction trades all over.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 41:39

All, all over. Most, I've only had, I think I've recorded about a dozen and I only released maybe four, I think. And, um, I, I think I've only interviewed two Australians outta that dozen. So, you

Caroline 41:51

Oh wow,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 41:52

the, all over the world. Canada and US, and I think one from the UK yeah, so it's, it can be, anyway,

Caroline 42:01

and,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 42:01

any trades and construction people would be a perfect guest as well.

Caroline 42:06

And what is the podcast title?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 42:08

Built, Trusted Chosen.

Caroline 42:11

I love it. Oh, I love it. That's so cool. Yeah, it makes sense. Like, oh, that's so cool. Feel, trust, and chosen. Oh, that's awesome. And so you tell the stories of like them and their business or like how, what's your format? Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 42:23

It's pretty, it's kind of like how you model your own, so I've got some rough kind of questions to fall back upon if, if I get a bit stuck. But

Caroline 42:33

Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 42:33

just feels like conversations, like I'm talking, talking to a mate. I try to keep it as natural feeling as possible. So sometimes, sometimes there's not many questions at all. There was one guy who had lots of thoughts and it was just me um, listening to him really, uh, and just, uh, prompting in different ways in which,'cause there were so many ideas, so just prompting which direction we might take it was more kind of like guiding, guiding

Caroline 43:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 43:00

than, uh, anything else. So, But, so I'll learn the craft a bit better and, you know, build an audience. It'll take time, but, um, I'm enjoying it.

Caroline 43:10

That's right. That's right. Well, and but the same things that helped you with your business that you already had, you know, foundationally understood those about the consistency and all of those things, especially with, you know, helping other people's social media and all of that. It, it's just the same thing. So, yeah. I've, I hadn't intended to have a podcast. It was supposed to be a radio show, turned into a podcast and I just kept doing it. And then through pod match, kept meeting so many awesome people that I went from one episode a week to, then I just jumped to three episodes a week'cause I'm like, well, I'll just, I've got it. And then even I was thinking like, well, maybe I could jump to four episodes a week. And now I'm like, okay, forget it. You gotta keep something so that I have time to serve clients have time to be there while the kids are still, you know, relatively in this area. But I, I'm super excited for,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 43:59

Yeah,

Caroline 43:59

uh,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 44:00

Yeah,

Caroline 44:00

podcast and say,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 44:01

I can imagine your business side did, I suppose we're digressing a little bit, but I can imagine there's a massive need for it. The, I guess the shake up of everything that's going on, uh,

Caroline 44:13

yeah.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 44:13

it feels like people have gotta figure out the transition to their new career journey and what, what does work look like for them and how does that balance into their life? Um, all of these things since COVID, I think people are thinking about it a whole lot more. So positioned, uh, for the perfect business. I think people need support in that.'cause you just don't know what you don't know.

Caroline 44:33

That's right. Yeah. And it's, it's by choice or by force. A lot of these transitions come and some of it is just like, you know, for my own journey, it was partially just this like nagging feeling like this isn't it? Like this can't, this can't be it. And I was just becoming someone at home. That I didn't wanna be, my joy wasn't there. It was just this like underneath anger and angst and just mad at the world. And part of it was because I was allowing myself to stay in a situation that wasn't fully utilizing all of who I was. And so that had cause some strain on my performance, not my performance, but my relationships and my own wellbeing. Were feeling that strain. And finally I needed to just kind of break free or break through into that next chapter. And I was like, man, what can I do? How can I help people with this? Oh, I'll make my scientifically validated data-driven assessments as foundations and really help uh, people sort it out if they really wanted to get it, like to the core, what is the challenge here? What is the issue? What, what I love my life to look like. Then that's what I try to, you know, do my best to help them through. But not everyone's ready. Um, some people are just in the, I just need a new job. That's it. I just need a new job. And what they don't realize is they could get a new job and they could find the same problems on just different faces. So it's a lot of internal.

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 46:03

yeah, we just accept, we just accept things as, as normal, but maybe there's a whole more joyful experience that is just outside of our understanding. I mean, you, you spoke of the things that steal your, steal your joy. I mean, we've all got them to a degree, but it's not until they're pushed to a point where it's great enough that you want to make a change. Um, that's the thing. Yeah.

Caroline 46:28

Yeah, it's a whisper. A whisper, a whisper, and then you're gonna get sat down,

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 46:32

Yeah,

Caroline 46:33

So again, by choice or by force, but something, something can kind of come to a head. Yeah. So. Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about your career journey, your awesome success in business, tell people if they are in construction, trades, et cetera, and if they're thinking this guy sounds awesome, or trying to to start their own business, or they already have it, how can you help them?

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 47:01

Yeah.

Caroline 47:02

How do and how do they find you? Yeah

Wes Towers - Uplift 360 47:04

The easiest way would be the website uplift360.com.au. You will find the podcast there as well, if that's the, what you're interested in. So, but if people want to, they can book a strategy call with me so we can talk about some of these things and how they might apply to their own business.

Caroline 47:20

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Wes, thank you so, so much for all of your time today. I am excited about, uh, releasing this one and, uh, definitely wish you all the utmost success in your podcast and continuing with your business as well. Thank you so much.

47:41

Wes, thank you for this conversation. I appreciate how you redefine success around value, presence, and work that supports the life you want. Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.