Maddy Avery splurged $1 million on a yacht for her business as she believes it will only lead to further success.
An Australian boss has revealed why she spent $1 million on yacht when she quadrupled her profits after rolling out a controversial change change for staff. Maddy Avery runs Birdcage Marketing in Queensland and she credits her success to allowing her staff to work however, whenever and from wherever they want.
The millennial boss told Yahoo Finance that giving her team the ultimate flexibility didn’t retract from their productivity, with their happiness boosting their profits. Some may say the $200,000 profit from a strong 2024 wasn’t enough to support her choice to buy the luxury item.
But Avery argued sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
“We’ve actually just bought a big yacht, and we’re going to start doing charters and bougie events,” the 35-year-old said.
“With everything that we do, it’s like, ‘Why can’t a marketing agency have a yacht?'”
The vessel was no small chunk of change and set Birdcage Marketing back by $1 million.
But she reckons it’ll be all worth it and said it’s a lesson for other business owners to get creative with how they spend their money.
“That’s how I see business evolving now, like we are in the AI and personal brand era, and people freak out about personal brands,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“People think it means being an influencer, but that’s not what it means.
It means that if you are smart enough to create something, like for me it’s my TikTok channel, which I created around myself, not around my business.
Do you have thoughts on workplace flexibility? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
“Because of that, I can generate revenue for my marketing agency. I can teach other marketers and business owners through our marketing school.
“I have a creative studio space. I can have a yacht charter business.
“I could go and launch like merch or stationery or software… it just opens up so many different avenues, rather than keeping us in particular categories.”
Birdcage Marketing’s profit sat at a little more than $54,000 in 2020, which was just after she brought her new staff policy.
The number jumped to more than $206,000 last year – and she thinks this is a direct result of having a team that worked the way they liked.
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Avery had been running her business for a few years, however, after growing her team to 14 people by 2019, she realised something was off.
“We had staff members poach clients and all that kind of stuff,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“It all kind of came to a head where I was like, ‘It’s not f**king working’. It’s not having the desired result.
“People aren’t happy. I’m not happy. The bank account’s not happy. The clients aren’t happy. So let’s just change it.
“I just feel like the underlying factor is to give people more trust, make sure they’re happy with their work, and everything else will fix itself.”
After being micromanaged in a past job, she decided to do the opposite and opened the floodgates to allow her staff to be in control.
Maddy said her team is incredibly hard-working and she believes a lot of that comes down to giving them flexibility to work how they want. (Source: Instagram)
They have been free to suggest different work arrangements like start times, days in the office or at home, and even the tasks that they perform.
The 35-year-old said this has worked perfectly because the business is based in Mackay, and some staff have partners who work in the mines.
This means their out-of-work responsibilities with their kids can change week-to-week and she’s given them flexibility to adjust to that accordingly.
If a staffer proposes a new way of working, she’ll give them around six weeks to prove they can operate under the individual setup before committing to it or telling them to go back to the drawing board.
Avery said every worker has their own “unique” way of working and it’s paid off massively.
She admitted this approach might not work for every business, but she suggested bosses should “try it” by relaxing the reins slightly and seeing what happens.
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