Full Transcript for From Scarcity to Seven Figures: Scaling a Business by Mastering Your Numbers

We are still probably, like the one we're doing at the moment, we are still front funding all of the furniture. 40 00:01:40.595 --> 00:01:44.136 We're front funding the office that we're leasing in another town. 41 00:01:44.596 --> 00:01:47.517 We are putting some cash in, but we're not actually giving any cash to the owners. 42 00:01:48.105 --> 00:01:56.954 I think that's probably, but then you would have picked that, wouldn't you, knowing what your strengths are and gone into that deal, knowing we can actually do this if we need to. 43 00:01:57.014 --> 00:01:58.115 There needs to be a value add. 44 00:01:58.375 --> 00:01:58.556 Yeah. 45 00:01:58.696 --> 00:02:03.140 I think you also need to be quite confident that you're going to grow it and you know that. 46 00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:06.183 I wouldn't want to do it with a day nursery or something. 47 00:02:06.203 --> 00:02:09.827 I don't know how to run a day nursery, so I couldn't just go in and do that model on a day nursery. 48 00:02:10.888 --> 00:02:15.191 I also know that the bank would support us if we got in trouble and we needed to just cut it and get out. 49 00:02:15.211 --> 00:02:20.355 The bank would give us the loan because effectively they know that we know how to run accountancy practices. 50 00:02:20.856 --> 00:02:22.297 So, yeah, I think you need to know your industry. 51 00:02:22.597 --> 00:02:24.599 But we've had lots of clients that have done those deals. 52 00:02:24.779 --> 00:02:27.601 So, again, another way that they often happen is where there's property involved. 53 00:02:28.001 --> 00:02:33.282 So if you're buying a freehold property, say you've got a freehold property for a million pound, maybe you're paying half a million for the business. 54 00:02:33.783 --> 00:02:36.463 Quite often they'll say, well, I'll give you the property value on day one. 55 00:02:36.583 --> 00:02:38.104 So we'll give you the million pound on day one. 56 00:02:38.424 --> 00:02:43.405 That half a million we're going to do on a deferred vendor note effectively from the seller. 57 00:02:43.685 --> 00:02:47.366 So again, they're getting some money on day one, but they're only getting it on the bricks and water. 58 00:02:47.386 --> 00:02:50.587 They're not getting it on the business as such. 59 00:02:50.727 --> 00:02:53.288 So again, that's another way that we've seen that happen in the past. 60 00:02:53.468 --> 00:02:54.248 So yeah, it does happen. 61 00:02:55.088 --> 00:02:57.290 I don't think it happens as often as what people say. 62 00:02:57.671 --> 00:03:04.698 And I think you need to have a fair amount of credibility in that industry and potentially a bit of a net worth to do it, probably. 63 00:03:04.718 --> 00:03:07.982 A lot of it's PG, isn't it? 64 00:03:08.062 --> 00:03:11.706 Yeah, I suppose it is putting your neck on the line, isn't it, as it were. 65 00:03:11.766 --> 00:03:12.526 So it's... 66 00:03:13.273 --> 00:03:15.234 Yeah, I don't think people would do it if you didn't have anything. 67 00:03:15.254 --> 00:03:16.774 I think doing the first one would be tricky. 68 00:03:16.814 --> 00:03:17.994 You need something, don't you? 69 00:03:18.154 --> 00:03:19.635 Like you say, some sort of credibility. 70 00:03:19.655 --> 00:03:21.115 I think so. 71 00:03:21.235 --> 00:03:30.918 So with the no money down part then, other than credibility and so on, so it's nurturing that relationship a little bit, investment of your own time into, let's say, the owners of that company. 72 00:03:31.558 --> 00:03:45.604 that might be open to that sort of... Because also there was something else I read about that sometimes, depending on what tax bracket they are and so on, it's actually more tax efficient for the owner to step aside with this drip fed money. 73 00:03:45.825 --> 00:03:46.825 Is there any truth in that? 74 00:03:46.845 --> 00:03:48.426 Well, they're gonna get, it depends how they own it. 75 00:03:48.446 --> 00:03:52.487 So they're either gonna get a substantial shareholder exemption if they own it in a company, which means they pay 0% tax. 76 00:03:53.848 --> 00:03:59.733 or they're going to get it at business asset disposal relief, so they're going to get it at the 14% or 18%, depending on when the exit happened. 77 00:04:00.314 --> 00:04:03.277 So, yeah, there is an element of truth in that. 78 00:04:04.698 --> 00:04:10.203 I think, especially where tax rates are going up, so when you're on a tax year end, I mean, it used to be that was 10%. 79 00:04:10.603 --> 00:04:15.388 So when it was 10% going to 14%, a lot of people are like, we want to jump now because we're going to cement the 10% rate. 80 00:04:15.908 --> 00:04:18.090 Obviously, if that's not there, that doesn't sort of... 81 00:04:19.371 --> 00:04:41.271 you know it's a catalyst isn't it to get business deals done so i guess the solicitors and accountants are very busy around tax rises yeah but at the moment it's quite static so hopefully still isn't hopefully it'll stay static i don't know if it will crazy isn't it yeah it's absolutely crazy so take us back a little bit so what got you into finance originally uh 82 00:04:44.283 --> 00:04:45.684 That I didn't want to go into finance. 83 00:04:46.085 --> 00:04:46.245 Oh. 84 00:04:47.186 --> 00:04:47.947 Did I want to go into finance? 85 00:04:47.967 --> 00:04:49.028 I wanted to be a stockbroker. 86 00:04:49.048 --> 00:04:50.509 I just wanted to make money, to be honest. 87 00:04:50.609 --> 00:04:51.030 Really? 88 00:04:51.290 --> 00:04:52.752 That was probably the truth for us. 89 00:04:52.772 --> 00:04:56.575 So when I was 16 to 18, I probably just wanted to make money. 90 00:04:56.595 --> 00:04:59.438 I probably wanted to be a millionaire. 91 00:04:59.458 --> 00:05:01.100 I think that was always a dream as a kid. 92 00:05:02.161 --> 00:05:04.483 I don't know why, but it was something I always wanted. 93 00:05:04.503 --> 00:05:05.364 Yeah. 94 00:05:06.145 --> 00:05:07.406 I couldn't get a job in finance. 95

00:05:07.686 --> 00:05:09.608 So I couldn't get a job as a stockbroker. 96 00:05:09.628 --> 00:05:10.909 My grades weren't very good at school. 97 00:05:11.870 --> 00:05:15.373 And luckily the job that I went to, well, I ended up buying it. 98 00:05:15.473 --> 00:05:19.417 The company I went to, no one applied for the job as a junior accountant. 99 00:05:19.977 --> 00:05:20.478 So I was in. 100 00:05:20.658 --> 00:05:21.118 So that was it. 101 00:05:21.138 --> 00:05:21.298 Yeah. 102 00:05:21.438 --> 00:05:21.839 In the door. 103 00:05:22.059 --> 00:05:22.259 Yeah. 104 00:05:22.980 --> 00:05:23.881 And that's how you got into it. 105 00:05:24.181 --> 00:05:25.002 Well, I fell into it. 106 00:05:25.602 --> 00:05:26.123 I fell into it. 107 00:05:26.183 --> 00:05:27.243 I'm not sure if I loved it. 108 00:05:27.364 --> 00:05:27.984 I love it now. 109 00:05:28.224 --> 00:05:28.585 Yeah. 110 00:05:29.666 --> 00:05:31.827 I don't really like the account side of the accountancy. 111 00:05:31.847 --> 00:05:32.908 I like the helping people. 112 00:05:32.988 --> 00:05:38.233 I was going to say, do you love the strategy part of it, the business side of it, or do you actually love the numbers side of it? 113 00:05:38.273 --> 00:05:39.154 I hate the number bit. 114 00:05:39.174 --> 00:05:39.774 Yeah, yeah. 115 00:05:39.794 --> 00:05:41.095 I'm actually very good at the number bit. 116 00:05:41.215 --> 00:05:43.958 I've got better accountants than me in our team. 117 00:05:44.078 --> 00:05:46.019 There's better tax people than me in our team. 118 00:05:46.660 --> 00:05:49.882 I think I'm a good problem solver and I think I'm good at challenging people. 119 00:05:49.922 --> 00:05:54.264 So I think I'm good at challenging our tax experts or our accountants and saying, have you thought about doing it this way? 120 00:05:54.584 --> 00:05:55.944 And they say, yeah, or no. 121 00:05:56.285 --> 00:05:57.745 And then we go down another route. 122 00:05:57.765 --> 00:06:00.707 I think that's one of my stronger points. 123 00:06:01.007 --> 00:06:04.548 I don't really think I'm the world's best accountant. 124 00:06:05.149 --> 00:06:06.449 You probably shouldn't say on a podcast. 125 00:06:08.010 --> 00:06:13.413 No, but I'll tell you what, though, because accountants, I think, get a bit of bad press regarding, I don't know, 126 00:06:14.593 --> 00:06:34.460 personality fun I suppose or actually thinking outside the box rather than just you go and buy the book you think you don't want that certainly not in today's world you need to think outside the box I think it's probably why you've been so successful in your accountancy firm side of things because you're the person that's thinking outside the box and they're the ones giving you the guidance and the right way of doing the numbers so to speak to keep the HNYC happy and the clients 127 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:36.362 You're saying, well, actually, have you thought about this? 128 00:06:36.422 --> 00:06:37.404 And they go, actually, no, we don't. 129 00:06:37.424 --> 00:06:44.474 Because I think sometimes you get so bogged down in the day-to-day and the rigid numbers and the rigid laws that it's a bit hard to see. 130 00:06:44.855 --> 00:06:45.976 I think, yeah. 131 00:06:45.996 --> 00:06:47.799 Because you're that person, aren't you, doing it? 132 00:06:47.819 --> 00:06:48.079 Yeah. 133 00:06:48.139 --> 00:06:49.822 On an entrepreneurial side of things, I would imagine. 134 00:06:50.022 --> 00:06:52.905 I think for me as well, I've always had a knack of retaining weird detail. 135 00:06:53.145 --> 00:06:55.787 So I've got, we all have our weird ismy thing. 136 00:06:55.967 --> 00:07:00.351 But my ismy thing is I can notice things very, very, like irrelevant things to most people. 137 00:07:00.371 --> 00:07:01.572 But to me, they're quite relevant. 138 00:07:01.612 --> 00:07:02.253 Yeah. 139 00:07:02.353 --> 00:07:03.214 And then I retain them. 140 00:07:03.434 --> 00:07:04.515 But yeah, I forget everyone's name. 141 00:07:04.695 --> 00:07:05.856 So I'm really bad at names. 142 00:07:05.876 --> 00:07:07.277 But if you told me something totally around. 143 00:07:07.297 --> 00:07:07.838 Yeah, exactly. 144 00:07:08.458 --> 00:07:10.260 Yeah, don't try me because I get it wrong. 145 00:07:10.460 --> 00:07:14.981 But no, if you ask me something really random, if you gave me a fact and asked me in two years, I'd remember it. 146 00:07:15.281 --> 00:07:18.022 So I'm very good at like saying, oh, do you remember this about that client? 147 00:07:18.042 --> 00:07:18.922 And everyone's like, what do you mean? 148 00:07:18.962 --> 00:07:21.102 And I remember from the meeting that they said this. 149 00:07:21.322 --> 00:07:24.883 So yeah, that's again, something that's helped me a lot probably. 150 00:07:26.424 --> 00:07:29.324 I do worry as I get older, I might lose that skill and then I'm worthless. 151 00:07:29.484 --> 00:07:31.465 I'd have to just go and sit in the corner on my own. 152 00:07:31.545 --> 00:07:32.745 But yeah, we'll see. 153 00:07:33.345 --> 00:07:33.905 I doubt that. 154 00:07:34.386 --> 00:07:41.870 So we had a quick chat beforehand about, so you're now going into helping other businesses and business owners, say to speak. 155 00:07:41.890 --> 00:07:42.130 Yeah. 156 00:07:42.310 --> 00:07:44.071 Would it be fair to say like a mentor or coaching? 157 00:07:44.411 --> 00:07:48.053 We seem to be offering all of those sort of services and accountancy now. 158 00:07:48.073 --> 00:07:49.314 Well, that seems to be more my role. 159 00:07:49.334 --> 00:07:50.914 So my role is obviously running our team. 160 00:07:50.934 --> 00:07:52.915 We've got quite a big team now. 161 00:07:53.276 --> 00:07:56.217 So my role is running out, well, I don't even know if it is, we've got people who run our team. 162 00:07:56.237 --> 00:07:57.358 I don't know what my role is anymore. 163 00:07:57.698 --> 00:07:58.278 I seem to be, yeah. 164 00:07:58.298 --> 00:07:59.218 You're on

podcasts. 165 00:07:59.298 --> 00:08:00.319 Yeah, I do podcasts. 166 00:08:00.379 --> 00:08:01.499 That's it. 167 00:08:01.679 --> 00:08:04.300 So yeah, helping people, helping companies to grow. 168 00:08:04.420 --> 00:08:09.742 That's probably the bit that I'm actually more passionate about than doing the accounts. 169 00:08:09.802 --> 00:08:10.702 Why do you reckon that is? 170 00:08:10.882 --> 00:08:13.583 Like, why do you think you've kind of gone down that route now? 171 00:08:13.623 --> 00:08:16.744 What have you seen that's made you think, you know, there's a bit of a gap there. 172 00:08:16.844 --> 00:08:17.504 I couldn't help that out. 173 00:08:18.856 --> 00:08:21.017 I don't know if it's even a gap. 174 00:08:21.297 --> 00:08:24.979 I think the thing for me is if you're growing, you've always got opportunity. 175 00:08:25.119 --> 00:08:26.940 So opportunity is a massive thing for me. 176 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:27.760 I like opportunity. 177 00:08:27.780 --> 00:08:29.361 I like giving opportunity to my team. 178 00:08:29.801 --> 00:08:32.962 So if we don't grow, we can't give people in our team opportunity. 179 00:08:33.002 --> 00:08:34.363 We can't say, do you want to become a manager? 180 00:08:34.403 --> 00:08:35.403 Do you want to run this office? 181 00:08:35.423 --> 00:08:36.244 Do you want to run this? 182 00:08:36.284 --> 00:08:37.604 We can't do that if we're growing. 183 00:08:37.624 --> 00:08:41.306 If we're just going to stay as six people, then we're just going to stay as six people, aren't we? 184 00:08:41.906 --> 00:08:47.188 So that's why I've always personally believed in growth, because I think that we should give opportunities to other people. 185 00:08:47.548 --> 00:08:50.370 It's not necessarily that it lines my pockets more and it makes me more money. 186 00:08:50.410 --> 00:08:53.931 It's actually the fact that I can actually, I don't know, make my team's lives better. 187 00:08:54.131 --> 00:08:56.952 And that's one of the things that I strongly believe in. 188 00:08:57.332 --> 00:09:02.074 I'm very grateful for the opportunity I was given when the person offered me the job and no one else wanted to give me the job. 189 00:09:02.374 --> 00:09:04.255 I think I paid him back for it. 190 00:09:05.116 --> 00:09:06.976 I believe that growth gives opportunity. 191 00:09:06.996 --> 00:09:09.577 I think growth also allows you to buy your way out of problems. 192 00:09:09.958 --> 00:09:10.258 So... 193 00:09:10.938 --> 00:09:18.324 If you've got money coming in, it doesn't matter if a mistake happens potentially because you can buy your way out of it or you can get the experts in to help you get out of the problem that you find. 194 00:09:18.404 --> 00:09:23.348 Or if you've got a bit of a complicated case coming in, you can go and get real experts to come and help you with that. 195 00:09:23.688 --> 00:09:25.910 If you're not growing, you can't do that. 196 00:09:26.450 --> 00:09:27.451 So growth's important. 197 00:09:27.471 --> 00:09:29.953 I don't think it matters what industry you're in. 198 00:09:31.254 --> 00:09:36.398 I've got a lot of rules in my head that I obviously made when I was a kid and one of them is stand still, go backwards. 199 00:09:36.438 --> 00:09:38.620 And I do always tell myself that. 200 00:09:38.680 --> 00:09:39.540 So if we don't grow, 201 00:09:40.401 --> 00:09:43.544 I have like an internal breakdown, a big internal breakdown. 202 00:09:43.684 --> 00:09:44.044 Really? 203 00:09:44.064 --> 00:09:44.925 Yeah. 204 00:09:45.265 --> 00:09:49.589 So we've had periods in our life where we haven't achieved more profit than we did in the previous months. 205 00:09:50.690 --> 00:09:52.191 And that really hurts me. 206 00:09:54.301 --> 00:09:59.383 It's funny you mention that about the growth and we'll come back to the other bits in a sec, but I'm similar. 207 00:09:59.744 --> 00:10:05.466 I think that all the while you're growing, like you say, you create opportunities, not just for yourself and for the company, but the people within it. 208 00:10:06.387 --> 00:10:11.309 And it allows you to keep hold of the good talent and attract good talent. 209 00:10:11.909 --> 00:10:17.272 Because if you're like you say, if you're just an office of six and that's it, you've been office of six for 10, this is mundane. 210 00:10:18.232 --> 00:10:27.978 then why are the really good guys going to be staying with you because they'll probably see a bit of a sniff over the garden fence, someone's doing a bit better, and or trying to attract some good people, saying, look, we're growing and so on. 211 00:10:28.038 --> 00:10:33.521 It's a bit of an exciting, or more of an exciting journey, isn't it, really, I think, if you have that mindset. 212 00:10:34.382 --> 00:10:36.803 But what are your thoughts on this? 213 00:10:36.843 --> 00:10:38.865 But I think it comes from the owner. 214 00:10:39.765 --> 00:10:40.365 What the growth? 215 00:10:40.545 --> 00:10:40.985 Yeah. 216 00:10:41.005 --> 00:10:47.107 Because if you're not growing as an individual, how can you better yourself and come up with better ideas? 217 00:10:47.507 --> 00:10:50.688 So I think you've constantly got to grow, learn, develop all the time. 218 00:10:50.708 --> 00:10:51.548 Definitely got to learn. 219 00:10:51.648 --> 00:10:52.969 I'm a big believer in learning. 220 00:10:53.369 --> 00:10:56.290 I listen to so many books, audio books. 221 00:10:56.310 --> 00:10:58.410 That's literally the thing I do is audio books. 222 00:10:59.251 --> 00:10:59.411 I... 223 00:11:00.891 --> 00:11:02.572 I have lots of friends who are entrepreneurial. 224 00:11:02.733 --> 00:11:07.596 I have lots of people that I was talking about, you know, networking that I go to with the different people in the same view. 225 00:11:08.096 --> 00:11:09.557 Those sort of people inspire you. 226 00:11:09.597 --> 00:11:10.338 They challenge you. 227 00:11:10.358 --> 00:11:12.239 They make you do more. 228 00:11:12.599

--> 00:11:16.702 Probably if I went and hang around with some of my friends, they probably wouldn't challenge me in that way. 229 00:11:16.742 --> 00:11:20.045 They would be talking more about the football scores from the night before and not. 230 00:11:20.525 --> 00:11:23.566 about the best sales funnel in the world, whatever it is. 231 00:11:23.926 --> 00:11:26.708 So I think hanging around with those people does help. 232 00:11:26.788 --> 00:11:34.551 Obviously sometimes it causes you a bit of anxiety and a bit of fear of missing out on some things, but I think it helps. 233 00:11:34.611 --> 00:11:35.671 Growth for me is so important. 234 00:11:35.691 --> 00:11:38.533 I think the thing for us as accountants that I realize really, really young, so. 235 00:11:39.313 --> 00:11:41.516 When I first bought the business, we didn't have any money. 236 00:11:41.796 --> 00:11:44.921 We were in a bad place to the point we couldn't pay our staff effectively. 237 00:11:45.762 --> 00:11:47.764 And I never wanted to go back to that. 238 00:11:47.885 --> 00:11:52.751 So that was the bit where I had a complete scarcity of money and I was so, it kept me up at night. 239 00:11:52.771 --> 00:11:53.192 It was bad. 240 00:11:54.393 --> 00:11:58.116 roll on now, it still seems to be a scarcity of money, but we're making a lot of profits. 241 00:11:58.156 --> 00:12:00.098 I'm not quite sure where the money's gone. 242 00:12:01.439 --> 00:12:05.802 But the reality is, it seems to be that we concentrated on marketing. 243 00:12:05.982 --> 00:12:10.065 No one ever taught us as accountants how to market, how to sell, how to get leads. 244 00:12:10.386 --> 00:12:11.607 What was the value of a lead? 245 00:12:11.647 --> 00:12:12.667 What was the lifetime value? 246 00:12:12.707 --> 00:12:13.608 No one taught us that. 247 00:12:13.648 --> 00:12:15.750 The books, the audio books taught me that. 248 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:37.191 and they were the thing that i kept reading and i was thinking well what is lifetime value and then we work it out and i was thinking oh this is quite good and then you do the maths you do the the compound interest so at the moment it probably costs us about 200 and something pounds to acquire a client which is nothing really bearing in mind the average client like stays with us for six and a half years so you're allowed to share with that 249 00:12:37.771 --> 00:12:40.133 So the lifetime value is that? 250 00:12:40.173 --> 00:12:43.255 The average fee is five and a half grand, and I think we make about 30%. 251 00:12:43.776 --> 00:12:44.136 Okay. 252 00:12:44.576 --> 00:12:45.257 So what is that? 253 00:12:45.337 --> 00:12:48.459 It's going to be about 10 grand we're making. 254 00:12:48.499 --> 00:12:48.920 Yeah. 255 00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:50.881 So it's then just literally... 256 00:12:51.642 --> 00:12:57.366 So every single month at the minute, we're signing up about 60,000 to 70,000 in new work every single month. 257 00:12:57.406 --> 00:12:58.467 That's off sales pages. 258 00:12:59.308 --> 00:12:59.888 That's brilliant. 259 00:13:00.128 --> 00:13:00.649 Yeah, it's good. 260 00:13:00.869 --> 00:13:04.212 But we've got a big team, so we've got to keep on going. 261 00:13:04.232 --> 00:13:05.372 We've got to keep on growing. 262 00:13:05.693 --> 00:13:05.993 Yeah. 263 00:13:06.133 --> 00:13:06.553 We bought... 264 00:13:08.150 --> 00:13:15.255 So last year we bought an office, well this year actually, it was the start of this year, we bought an office in Chelmsford, which probably didn't need. 265 00:13:15.275 --> 00:13:16.075 Well, we don't need it. 266 00:13:16.095 --> 00:13:17.096 We've got two people in it. 267 00:13:17.116 --> 00:13:17.997 It's a whole floor. 268 00:13:18.037 --> 00:13:21.239 Well, we've got the whole building, but we've taken a floor and rented the other two. 269 00:13:21.979 --> 00:13:24.081 And everyone keeps saying, why have we got that office? 270 00:13:24.101 --> 00:13:26.002 And I'm like, one day we're going to grow into it. 271 00:13:26.202 --> 00:13:49.286 yeah yeah it's becoming more important because it's now getting my focus because i'm like we need to grow into it we need to we need to utilize this huge well it's probably an office space for 25 30 people and at the minute we've got two in it regularly two people in it yeah so it's a bit silly but to me that the opportunity came along we had to do it and i do believe in the next two years we'll have it full and it will be a good office and it will attract talent and it will work 272 00:13:49.781 --> 00:13:51.041 I think that's the vision though, isn't it? 273 00:13:51.302 --> 00:13:51.562 Yeah. 274 00:13:51.622 --> 00:13:52.822 Of the visionary, in a sense. 275 00:13:52.862 --> 00:13:53.562 You can see that. 276 00:13:53.602 --> 00:13:54.903 You can see that office fall. 277 00:13:55.083 --> 00:13:56.003 Well, I believe it will happen. 278 00:13:56.023 --> 00:13:56.143 Yeah. 279 00:13:56.163 --> 00:13:57.524 Some of my team think I'm mad. 280 00:13:57.744 --> 00:14:02.005 Yeah, well, that sort of growth at the moment, I don't think it'll be too long, to be fair. 281 00:14:02.025 --> 00:14:08.407 Yeah, so it's all exciting, but I think you've got to do these opportunities when they come. 282 00:14:08.487 --> 00:14:10.508 I don't know if you know we bought a police station. 283 00:14:10.528 --> 00:14:11.188 Have you seen that one? 284 00:14:11.448 --> 00:14:11.848 No. 285 00:14:12.429 --> 00:14:13.729 Oh, yeah, so that was a good story. 286 00:14:14.550 --> 00:14:15.971 Go on then, tell us more about that then. 287 00:14:16.011 --> 00:14:21.015 So we, basically we bought this police station and it's in Malden. 288 00:14:21.055 --> 00:14:21.776 I've loved it forever. 289 00:14:21.816 --> 00:14:26.500 And I always thought as an accountant, it'd be fun to have police cells to get the people in, to get the clients in the police cells. 290 00:14:26.520 --> 00:14:27.100 Oh, okay. 291 00:14:27.180 -->

00:14:28.321 Don't know why, I just thought it'd be fun. 292 00:14:28.341 --> 00:14:29.242 If they don't pay their bills. 293 00:14:29.262 --> 00:14:30.583 Yeah, I thought it'd be scary. 294 00:14:31.023 --> 00:14:53.048 so um so we got this so basically i kept bringing up the estate agent saying can we buy this police station can we buy it can we buy it and eventually they said yeah you can because they were trying to get resi on it but they couldn't they couldn't get it through so like turn up and buy it so we bought it it's probably the worst deal i ever did so from a property deal point of view yeah it's not how you do it so that's yeah i lost a lot of money from a property landlord investor point of view it was awful 295 00:14:53.328 --> 00:14:53.488 Yeah. 296 00:14:53.528 --> 00:14:55.649 But it's now the most beautiful office in the world. 297 00:14:55.669 --> 00:14:57.350 And I've got cell meeting rooms. 298 00:14:57.670 --> 00:14:59.351 You have to have a look on YouTube. 299 00:14:59.411 --> 00:15:02.033 It's a cool building that we've done. 300 00:15:02.073 --> 00:15:05.215 But yeah, that's, I think, again, all my team thought I was mad. 301 00:15:05.235 --> 00:15:06.315 And now they all think it's brilliant. 302 00:15:06.835 --> 00:15:07.956 It's attracted a lot of people. 303 00:15:08.156 --> 00:15:08.596 Yeah. 304 00:15:08.857 --> 00:15:12.999 A lot of clients have come to us, but also a lot of good staff members have come to us because they're like, we love your offices. 305 00:15:13.019 --> 00:15:13.999 They're so quirky. 306 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:15.400 We want to work in here. 307 00:15:15.640 --> 00:15:16.661 It's a great environment. 308 00:15:17.101 --> 00:15:17.341 Yeah. 309 00:15:17.521 --> 00:15:18.822 All that's important, isn't it, I think? 310 00:15:19.140 --> 00:15:21.801 I think attracting the right team is very, very important. 311 00:15:21.841 --> 00:15:23.262 And sometimes it gets overlooked. 312 00:15:23.602 --> 00:15:23.782 Yeah. 313 00:15:23.862 --> 00:15:27.784 Because you say, well, I'll just give them the systems and processes and the how-to manuals, and they just follow it no matter who you are. 314 00:15:27.804 --> 00:15:29.404 You're like, no, it's a lot more than that. 315 00:15:29.764 --> 00:15:29.925 Yeah. 316 00:15:30.025 --> 00:15:31.365 You know, it really is a lot more than that. 317 00:15:31.805 --> 00:15:35.627 You get the right characters in your organisation, and you can really thrive a lot. 318 00:15:36.467 --> 00:15:38.388 And I think setting that system up, isn't it? 319 00:15:38.548 --> 00:15:41.169 That whole culture, that organisation to have that. 320 00:15:41.509 --> 00:15:41.609 Yeah. 321 00:15:41.649 --> 00:15:43.690 And like the view of your office, I think that's amazing. 322 00:15:43.970 --> 00:15:44.731 The office is great. 323 00:15:44.751 --> 00:15:45.391 The office is great. 324 00:15:45.411 --> 00:15:47.472 And like I say, it probably was a bad investment, but... 325 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:53.886 I don't think there's such a bad investment as long as you can see the long-term plan for it. 326 00:15:54.166 --> 00:15:57.810 The long-term plan now, it's not a genius mastermind, but it kind of is. 327 00:15:57.850 --> 00:16:00.593 It's kind of worked better than what anyone in our team thought it would. 328 00:16:01.194 --> 00:16:06.439 But at the start of it, I did think I was an idiot and there was probably a lot of moments where I was... Yeah. 329 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:08.301 All worrying at night time. 330 00:16:08.462 --> 00:16:09.743 A lot of worrying at night time, yeah. 331 00:16:09.883 --> 00:16:18.934 I think perhaps on reflection on the balance sheet, it might not look the best investment, but I think on an organisation and culture-wise, it certainly sounds like it's a really good investment. 332 00:16:18.994 --> 00:16:20.316 In the marketing videos, have a look on YouTube. 333 00:16:20.376 --> 00:16:20.757 Oh, we all do. 334 00:16:20.797 --> 00:16:22.559 The ones that we've crammed out of here are really good. 335 00:16:22.579 --> 00:16:22.799 Yeah, yeah. 336 00:16:23.180 --> 00:16:23.640 I'll check that out. 337 00:16:23.981 --> 00:16:27.465 And just for any clarity, Maldon is near Chelmsford, isn't it? 338 00:16:27.505 --> 00:16:28.827 So that's just outside Chelmsford. 339 00:16:28.987 --> 00:16:31.109 Because there's another area called Maldon in South London. 340 00:16:31.410 --> 00:16:33.532 So we're the ones outside Chelmsford. 341 00:16:33.552 --> 00:16:35.415 So we've got offices now in Chelmsford, Maldon. 342 00:16:35.435 --> 00:16:36.997 We've got two in South London, Ferrars. 343 00:16:37.057 --> 00:16:39.620 We've got one in a place called Pearly, which is weird. 344 00:16:40.101 --> 00:16:41.903 And then we've got one in Southend now as well. 345 00:16:42.043 --> 00:16:44.466 So we've got offices everywhere across Essex. 346 00:16:44.812 --> 00:16:46.312 So you're a bit like James Sinclair and his Rossi. 347 00:16:46.332 --> 00:16:47.453 He's into taking over the place. 348 00:16:47.473 --> 00:16:48.953 Seems to be anywhere he goes, we're next door. 349 00:16:48.993 --> 00:16:51.274 Yeah, following the money. 350 00:16:51.554 --> 00:16:53.455 Yeah, it's a good place. 351 00:16:53.795 --> 00:16:58.236 It's funny you mentioned about the growth and seeing the vision, because I had this really weird thing years ago. 352 00:16:58.996 --> 00:17:00.397 I used to be into bonsai trees. 353 00:17:00.557 --> 00:17:01.377 Yeah. 354 00:17:01.977 --> 00:17:03.838 And I think it works for any plant. 355 00:17:04.258 --> 00:17:06.659 But with bonsai trees, they can only grow as big as the pot. 356 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:07.140 Right. 357 00:17:07.260 --> 00:17:11.302 I'm sure this works for any plant, but bonsai trees are a little bit more romantic, isn't it? 358 00:17:11.522 --> 00:17:11.682 Yeah. 359 00:17:11.983 --> 00:17:15.024 So I used to think, I used to say to my friends, I need a new bonsai

pot. 360 00:17:15.044 --> 00:17:16.285 And I'm like, what are you talking about? 361 00:17:16.305 --> 00:17:18.686 It was all it was, I needed some more staff or I needed a bigger office. 362 00:17:18.706 --> 00:17:19.407 And that's all it was. 363 00:17:19.447 --> 00:17:22.989 I wasn't ready for it, but I needed it to grow into. 364 00:17:23.089 --> 00:17:23.309 Right. 365 00:17:23.609 --> 00:17:26.451 So it sounds like you've done the exact same thing with your office. 366 00:17:26.471 --> 00:17:28.332 You've bought a massive bonsai tree pot. 367 00:17:28.912 --> 00:17:29.813 Now you're waiting for it to grow. 368 00:17:30.073 --> 00:17:41.826 Well, to be fair, when we moved into the police station, so we had, I can't remember what we had, I might have had 10 people at that point, and I remember us getting it, and everyone was like, so big, we're going to have to segregate it all so that we can have serviced offices. 369 00:17:42.186 --> 00:17:43.247 And I was like, yeah, great plan. 370 00:17:43.408 --> 00:17:47.832 So we spent a lot of money on stupid systems that are allowed to tag in and tag out. 371 00:17:48.433 --> 00:18:02.963 within 12 months we'd filled it with all our staff so there's now 40 odd people in that office and it's full yeah so jumps would yeah at the minute it's stupid and it's a waste of money give it 12 months and then we'll be looking for the next thing to do so 372 00:18:04.744 --> 00:18:06.525 Yeah, without room to grow, you don't grow, do you? 373 00:18:06.966 --> 00:18:07.706 No, definitely not. 374 00:18:07.746 --> 00:18:08.187 No, exactly. 375 00:18:08.207 --> 00:18:08.607 That's what I mean. 376 00:18:08.627 --> 00:18:13.511 You need that because sometimes it can be a bit of a glass ceiling just constantly restricting you from growth, you know. 377 00:18:13.591 --> 00:18:16.873 So you've got the vision, I think, as well, and faith and trust. 378 00:18:17.134 --> 00:18:24.980 But also you mentioned about the bad investment, and you know more than me and certainly with your advisors, you can make a calculated investment, can't you? 379 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.063 You know, OK, well, if it all went really tits up, we know that we've got X amount in the bank. 380 00:18:29.403 --> 00:18:30.204 That's really going to bail us. 381 00:18:30.224 --> 00:18:34.228 So we've got a certain financial backing, you know, investor or whatever that will pull us out. 382 00:18:34.728 --> 00:18:39.893 So we've got the collateral, like they said, perhaps the relationships to pull us through, the relationships with the bank and so on. 383 00:18:40.353 --> 00:18:43.296 And I think so it's not just I'm going to copy John's, go out and buy something. 384 00:18:43.316 --> 00:18:47.380 You've got nothing backing it up, fully PG'd up to your eyeballs. 385 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:50.603 I think you've got to have a bit of a strategy to it. 386 00:18:50.723 --> 00:18:54.605 I think you've got to calculate it and I think you've got to work out, like you say, your fullbacks. 387 00:18:54.805 --> 00:18:56.406 That wasn't our first purchase. 388 00:18:56.426 --> 00:18:58.607 We had several other commercials before that. 389 00:18:58.647 --> 00:19:01.069 That was the third or fourth one in the chain of them. 390 00:19:01.149 --> 00:19:03.190 So we had other things to go back to. 391 00:19:03.210 --> 00:19:06.031 We had other things we could sell if it went wrong. 392 00:19:06.632 --> 00:19:07.992 I wouldn't have done that as a first one. 393 00:19:08.493 --> 00:19:09.553 I probably wouldn't do it again. 394 00:19:09.713 --> 00:19:10.274 Well, I will. 395 00:19:11.234 --> 00:19:13.476 I still fell when I looked at an even bigger police station. 396 00:19:14.397 --> 00:19:15.297 I reckon you will, mate. 397 00:19:15.998 --> 00:19:19.721 I don't think you're done just yet. 398 00:19:20.441 --> 00:19:25.385 So you mentioned earlier on, just off air, about you're seeing some things that had business owners. 399 00:19:25.425 --> 00:19:28.567 I think you had a few thousand clients. 400 00:19:29.488 --> 00:19:34.512 And you were seeing something that you felt you could probably help with, like a bit of a consistent pattern. 401 00:19:35.566 --> 00:20:04.533 now I know I too have started mentoring only just on a small scale and it's only because I've been not forced into it but a few people kept asking me do you know what I'll help you out and I always say right let's check your statements check your balance sheets and all your financial statements have a look at it and some of them have not even checked it they wait for their accountant to send it at a quarter and I'm like it's the fourth month and they've gone for the last few months where do you know where you're even going and some of them are not looking too great and some of them 402 00:20:05.414 --> 00:20:09.719 And when I got to the bottom of one of them, it was almost like, because I had a feeling it was bad, probably why I didn't check it. 403 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.583 And I'm like, but if you checked it, it wouldn't be bad. 404 00:20:12.603 --> 00:20:14.745 Or there's a higher chance that it wouldn't be bad. 405 00:20:15.631 --> 00:20:19.995 So do you think that people check it because they don't really know what to look out for? 406 00:20:20.115 --> 00:20:23.238 Or they are actually just, I know it's bad, I've got a feeling I'm not even going to look at it? 407 00:20:23.478 --> 00:20:25.820 I think a lot of people probably put it off. 408 00:20:26.621 --> 00:20:28.923 So they probably don't want to know, potentially. 409 00:20:28.943 --> 00:20:30.665 I think a lot of people don't understand it. 410 00:20:30.685 --> 00:20:34.368 I think that's another big problem, is that people don't understand what the numbers mean. 411 00:20:34.929 --> 00:20:38.872 And I think another problem is that people look and they go, oh, this is good, I've made a profit, it's all okay. 412 00:20:38.892 --> 00:20:39.152 Yeah. 413 00:20:39.813 -->

00:20:40.453 But is it good? 414 00:20:40.793 --> 00:20:44.035 That's the bit that, so to me, P&L is useless. 415 00:20:44.275 --> 00:20:45.996 I don't really think a P&L is that great. 416 00:20:46.356 --> 00:20:53.139 I think what's more important is that you've got a forecast and a budget and you're comparing your P&L to what you set out as your forecast and budget. 417 00:20:53.619 --> 00:20:55.080 Because otherwise, how do you know it's a good year? 418 00:20:55.280 --> 00:20:56.720 Oh, we made 100 grand profit. 419 00:20:56.920 --> 00:20:58.721 Well done, we wanted to make half a million. 420 00:20:58.941 --> 00:20:59.602 That's a crap year. 421 00:20:59.962 --> 00:21:03.543 It might be good in the fact that you made 100 grand, but you were meant to make half a million. 422 00:21:03.844 --> 00:21:04.484 So how's that good? 423 00:21:05.084 --> 00:21:08.988 So to me, I think whenever we work with clients, we say to them, what do you want to make? 424 00:21:09.448 --> 00:21:14.513 And we've actually created a course with Will actually, we were talking about earlier called Super Profits. 425 00:21:14.653 --> 00:21:15.574 So it was something that... 426 00:21:16.708 --> 00:21:22.032 I believe got me out the shtum a long time ago and Will's added some coaching elements to it and other parts. 427 00:21:22.052 --> 00:21:24.013 But effectively, it all works around budgets. 428 00:21:24.433 --> 00:21:25.694 So what do you need yourself? 429 00:21:26.134 --> 00:21:28.816 What do you need yourself to take home to be able to live? 430 00:21:29.437 --> 00:21:33.119 And effectively, how much do you need to take out your company to give you the money to take home to live? 431 00:21:33.619 --> 00:21:34.940 And effectively, it all works through there. 432 00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:38.102 And it goes on to what's your target net worth that you want. 433 00:21:38.443 --> 00:21:39.423 It just goes through there. 434 00:21:39.443 --> 00:21:45.688 But it's all about making budgets and small steps, compound saving, basically getting your savings up through there. 435 00:21:47.003 --> 00:21:47.924 It's worked well for me. 436 00:21:49.305 --> 00:21:50.085 But we still do it now. 437 00:21:51.066 --> 00:21:52.447 All our numbers are shared with our team. 438 00:21:52.807 --> 00:21:58.471 So effectively, we say to them, we need our marketing team tell us, how many new clients do we need to achieve this growth? 439 00:21:58.851 --> 00:22:00.192 Oh, you need 30 clients a month. 440 00:22:00.572 --> 00:22:03.314 How many leads do we need to get 30 clients a month? 441 00:22:03.434 --> 00:22:05.575 Oh, you need 55 leads a month. 442 00:22:05.595 --> 00:22:06.216 How do we get them? 443 00:22:06.456 --> 00:22:07.717 So all of it's worked back. 444 00:22:07.937 --> 00:22:08.237 Yeah. 445 00:22:08.257 --> 00:22:09.238 Everyone knows where it is. 446 00:22:09.738 --> 00:22:11.279 Once you work it like that, it's quite easy. 447 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:13.681 You just know what

you've got to track. 448 00:22:13.701 --> 00:22:15.282 Yeah. 449 00:22:15.442 --> 00:22:17.623 And to be fair, a few months ago, we had a problem. 450 00:22:17.824 --> 00:22:19.305 And we had a problem that leads dropped. 451 00:22:20.225 --> 00:22:22.026 And that one really did cause me problems. 452 00:22:22.046 --> 00:22:23.927 I was literally like, why are the leads dropping? 453 00:22:24.208 --> 00:22:25.188 What's going on with the leads? 454 00:22:25.228 --> 00:22:26.429 Our marketing's crap. 455 00:22:26.449 --> 00:22:27.910 Why are we not doing this? 456 00:22:29.291 --> 00:22:31.792 And what we'd found out was really we'd stopped a lot of content. 457 00:22:32.233 --> 00:22:34.914 So we'd stopped the content, which stopped the leads. 458 00:22:35.355 --> 00:22:39.077 The pay-per-click was still working, but pay-per-click for us isn't the best leads. 459 00:22:39.197 --> 00:22:40.578 Content's a better lead for us. 460 00:22:41.439 --> 00:23:00.380 and for whatever reason it stopped so then we were like right we've identified it we need to go back and get the content going again the leads start coming in again it all starts working again so yeah i think everything needs to be tracked i'm a big believer in scorecards i'm a big believer in budgets holding yourself accountable and holding your team accountable to them it's got to be the answer really 461 00:23:01.368 --> 00:23:02.770 I think that's really, really good, actually. 462 00:23:02.810 --> 00:23:06.474 When you, like, Brad Sugar's, and you've probably said it before as well, Begin With The End In Mind. 463 00:23:06.494 --> 00:23:06.714 Yeah, yeah. 464 00:23:06.734 --> 00:23:07.815 I'm sure as many people have said that. 465 00:23:07.935 --> 00:23:08.115 Yeah. 466 00:23:08.676 --> 00:23:09.917 But it is exactly that. 467 00:23:10.158 --> 00:23:14.122 And it was one of the things that we were speaking about the other day with a few business owners. 468 00:23:14.342 --> 00:23:17.266 And they were saying, oh, I want to earn, like, 10K a month. 469 00:23:18.006 --> 00:23:20.769 And I was like, okay, I said, but what are you going to get from that then? 470 00:23:20.829 --> 00:23:25.134 And they go, oh yeah, but if I can take out the business, you've got the 25% corp tax that's got to come off of that. 471 00:23:25.474 --> 00:23:27.757 And then you've got, if you could turn 10 grand a month, now you're on like 43% tax. 472 00:23:27.777 --> 00:23:30.820 I said, so probably you want to drop down to 80. 473 00:23:31.521 --> 00:23:33.123 No, actually over there, it's over 100, isn't it? 474 00:23:33.143 --> 00:23:34.144 So it's 60 or 62% tax, I think it is. 475 00:23:34.164 --> 00:23:34.544 What's this, 100? 476 00:23:34.564 --> 00:23:34.965 Over 100. 477 00:23:35.025 --> 00:23:35.585 Over 100, it's 60%. 478 00:23:40.050 --> 00:24:05.041 60% I said so you might be better off of like 8,000 all of a sudden you know perhaps invest in other stuff do you know what I mean keep the money in the business and invest that in other stuff and so on but it's only when you start digging deep it's like the old onion isn't it like layer upon layer you just dig deep and you think okay well I want to earn 10 grand a month you're like okay what does that actually look like and then you say well where are you getting it from the company okay well what does the company look like and you dig it right back to the leads as you say it's amazing but that's exactly how it works 479 00:24:05.762 --> 00:24:12.290 I think once you've worked out how you generate what you're generating, and as long as you generate enough and hold your expenses, then your profit's quite simple. 480 00:24:12.531 --> 00:24:12.711 Yeah. 481 00:24:13.071 --> 00:24:18.458 I mean, there's only a few ways to increase your profit, increase your sales, cut your costs, increase your margin. 482 00:24:18.478 --> 00:24:20.261 That's really the only ways to increase your profit. 483 00:24:21.161 --> 00:24:24.084 So tinker with those three and you've got it sorted. 484 00:24:24.464 --> 00:24:24.844 Yeah. 485 00:24:24.904 --> 00:24:26.145 There's no point cutting costs. 486 00:24:26.165 --> 00:24:28.847 I've seen clients before that have cut costs for the sake of cutting costs. 487 00:24:28.927 --> 00:24:31.409 And I mean, we spend six figures on marketing. 488 00:24:31.689 --> 00:24:33.250 We probably should, I did a post on this. 489 00:24:33.790 --> 00:24:34.911 We probably should spend seven. 490 00:24:35.351 --> 00:24:37.713 If we spent seven, it probably better than buying a business. 491 00:24:38.434 --> 00:24:43.057 The problem is I don't think we'd be able to get the recruit quick enough to get the team in to service it. 492 00:24:43.857 --> 00:24:50.242 So buying another business actually gets us the team ready to do it rather than us just going out and saying, Oh, let's spend the money on marketing. 493 00:24:50.657 --> 00:24:52.398 And it would come with a team, I would imagine, this business. 494 00:24:52.418 --> 00:24:52.858 It comes with a team. 495 00:24:52.878 --> 00:24:53.058 Yeah. 496 00:24:53.078 --> 00:24:57.920 So any ones we buy are typically sort of, you know, 10 people or whatever they are, 15. 497 00:24:57.940 --> 00:25:03.322 Whatever it is that we're buying, we're buying a sort of a smaller accountancy practice that's got a team with it. 498 00:25:03.883 --> 00:25:06.664 So, yeah, that's the reason we would do that over marketing. 499 00:25:06.844 --> 00:25:09.865 But marketing would give us a better return if you look pound for pound. 500 00:25:10.025 --> 00:25:13.306 Yeah, I think cutting costs has a limitation though, which I think you've already touched on. 501 00:25:13.606 --> 00:25:19.627 There's only so much you can cut and then at some point it's like what part comes a detriment to the actual running of the business. 502 00:25:19.967 --> 00:25:25.668 Like you suddenly look for a cheaper system, you go to that cheaper system, you're like actually there's some

key elements that other systems are providing us and now we're done for. 503 00:25:26.108 --> 00:25:29.209 So, you know, sometimes you have limitations on cutting costs. 504 00:25:29.229 --> 00:25:34.270 I think the best thing is you say is look at the top line, build the sales, build the marketing, get the leads in. 505 00:25:34.390 --> 00:25:36.435 I think it's just holding yourself accountable to all the figures. 506 00:25:36.976 --> 00:25:39.522 It's the thing that I've always been really disciplined at that. 507 00:25:39.743 --> 00:25:41.407 And I think some business owners struggle with that. 508 00:25:42.389 --> 00:26:10.525 yeah probably fearful of like we said fearful of actually looking at them and not understanding them properly you mentioned about the leads dropping did you get to the bottom was it the content it was yeah I went through like a little personal wobble probably and that was probably half the reason the content dropped and I didn't really want to do it I felt like I'd built sales funnels that worked without me then I was doing content and we were getting loads of better leads 509 00:26:11.385 --> 00:26:38.212 you know bigger clients i would say and then we uh i stopped out on a little personal wobble journey and uh yeah it dried up so then the marketing team were like you've got to go back out i was ready for the beach yeah yeah i was there yeah i was quite happy not having to do um i don't i don't i don't mind this i don't like the stage bit the stage bit i'm like oh yeah it's not really me they don't teach you that at accountancy college no i bet yeah i don't like 510 00:26:39.672 --> 00:27:03.320 it's um it's funny you mention that and i get what you mean about the wobble because sometimes you're just not i think that's a sign perhaps i don't i don't know i'm not a professional but would you say it's a sign of like a a genuine person when you really don't feel like actually putting content out which normally most of the time has to be a positive tone of voice yeah if you don't feel like it you're not going to fake it yeah so you think you know what i can't bother with this right now 511 00:27:04.262 --> 00:27:06.144 Yeah, I think that's very true. 512 00:27:06.244 --> 00:27:08.166 I don't really like fake content. 513 00:27:08.226 --> 00:27:09.246 I'm not really one of these people. 514 00:27:09.287 --> 00:27:12.870 I mean, I don't smile anyway, but I can't put a smile on and just be like, it's great. 515 00:27:12.890 --> 00:27:15.232 Literally just like, I don't want to do it anymore. 516 00:27:15.412 --> 00:27:17.834 And everyone's like, oh, that's not very good. 517 00:27:17.854 --> 00:27:19.756 All right. 518 00:27:19.776 --> 00:27:21.537 Well, I've had you smiling a few times in this podcast. 519 00:27:21.557 --> 00:27:22.518 That's a sign of a good time. 520 00:27:22.778 --> 00:27:23.239 That's good. 521 00:27:23.259 --> 00:27:23.960 But no, it's... 522 00:27:25.387 --> 00:27:27.610 Yeah, I think it's part of the

business journey. 523 00:27:27.670 --> 00:27:28.852 I think it is. 524 00:27:29.092 --> 00:27:30.575 You know, I've been doing it 20 years now. 525 00:27:30.615 --> 00:27:33.379 I've learnt there's good bits, there's bad bits, and there's bits that are all right. 526 00:27:33.419 --> 00:27:35.402 So, and I think it doesn't matter where you are. 527 00:27:35.482 --> 00:27:37.665 It's like that all the time, isn't it? 528 00:27:37.685 --> 00:27:37.945 Yeah, yeah. 529 00:27:37.965 --> 00:27:39.007 Just going through it, so... 530 00:27:40.049 --> 00:27:41.030 Funny you mention that actually. 531 00:27:41.070 --> 00:27:49.056 So we mentioned obviously like Rob Moore before, then he's got a business partner and his business partner is an absolute genius, absolute genius. 532 00:27:49.277 --> 00:27:57.003 And he's, so they've got this massive organization, few hundred million, all this stuff, different departments and so on. 533 00:27:57.743 --> 00:28:02.445 And part of this legacy mastermind thing that I'm members of, I get to see them. 534 00:28:03.245 --> 00:28:10.127 And Mark said, someone asked, what's your biggest income of leads, your biggest marketing campaign, and how did you set it up? 535 00:28:10.688 --> 00:28:12.248 And he's pointing to Rob Moyes like him. 536 00:28:12.668 --> 00:28:19.531 Because he literally, we've got a massive team of sales, and he brings in more of his content more than our entire team of sales. 537 00:28:20.131 --> 00:28:23.372 And you're like, he goes, when he switches off, it just drops down. 538 00:28:23.812 --> 00:28:26.073 We had a period where everyone from Edinburgh was contacting us. 539 00:28:27.013 --> 00:28:30.376 I don't know, we've got about 10 clients off from Edinburgh and we were getting lots of calls. 540 00:28:30.937 --> 00:28:32.038 And we're like, why are you ringing us? 541 00:28:32.098 --> 00:28:35.381 And apparently it was a YouTube video or YouTube something or other. 542 00:28:35.421 --> 00:28:39.124 It was going around and it just hit a trend or whatever it does. 543 00:28:39.444 --> 00:28:39.925 Wow. 544 00:28:40.085 --> 00:28:43.008 So for ages I felt like we were quite big in Edinburgh. 545 00:28:43.128 --> 00:28:44.769 And that trend stops anymore. 546 00:28:45.169 --> 00:28:45.590 But yeah. 547 00:28:45.950 --> 00:28:47.111 Power of content though, isn't it? 548 00:28:47.131 --> 00:28:49.113 Yeah, and you never know when it's going to come up. 549 00:28:49.293 --> 00:28:49.553 Yeah. 550 00:28:49.873 --> 00:28:52.335 And I think that's the good thing about content. 551 00:28:52.355 --> 00:28:53.236 They say that a lot, don't they? 552 00:28:53.256 --> 00:28:55.318 If you put it out there, it's there. 553 00:28:55.618 --> 00:28:56.339 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 554 00:28:56.359 --> 00:28:57.139 And it's there forever. 555 00:28:57.219 --> 00:29:02.263 And it sometimes repeats and someone watches it and they're like, oh, I like him or I don't like him or whatever it is and they jump on it. 556 00:29:02.323 --> 00:29:02.524 Yeah. 557 00:29:02.764 --> 00:29:06.467 So I think content's important, really important. 558 00:29:06.647 --> 00:29:07.067 I agree. 559 00:29:08.809 --> 00:29:09.009 Yeah. 560 00:29:09.129 --> 00:29:12.792 I mean, a amount of accountants we see that we buy that say we don't advertise anything. 561 00:29:13.032 --> 00:29:15.134 And they say very proudly, oh, we get loads of referrals. 562 00:29:15.154 --> 00:29:15.995 And I'm like, we get that. 563 00:29:16.055 --> 00:29:19.018 But we also get loads of people who didn't know who we were because we advertise. 564 00:29:19.038 --> 00:29:19.758 So we get both. 565 00:29:19.978 --> 00:29:20.959 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 566 00:29:20.999 --> 00:29:23.041 But yeah, so I think advertising is important. 567 00:29:23.061 --> 00:29:25.183 Marketing is important. 568 00:29:25.303 --> 00:29:30.008 We've now got two full-time marketeers that work for us, which is quite unusual for an accountancy firm. 569 00:29:30.388 --> 00:29:30.869 Yeah. 570 00:29:31.669 --> 00:29:33.431 Yeah, they work full-time on growing us. 571 00:29:33.451 --> 00:29:34.172 Yeah. 572 00:29:34.692 --> 00:29:42.576 But I wondered, is it quite unusual for an accountancy firm to have sort of like a personality like yours that's constantly on the content front and constantly promoting in that way? 573 00:29:44.137 --> 00:29:48.700 I only ask because it's more like a traditional industry, would you say? 574 00:29:48.820 --> 00:29:52.442 Or is it kind of on that turn now that it's kind of coming to a bit more of a modern time? 575 00:29:52.902 --> 00:29:54.603 There's many people doing that same kind of... 576 00:29:55.223 --> 00:29:59.744 I think the qualified accountants probably are still quite traditional, shall we say. 577 00:29:59.764 --> 00:30:03.285 I think there's probably some out there that are more flamboyant. 578 00:30:04.426 --> 00:30:06.826 Yeah, I was never meant to be an accountant. 579 00:30:06.866 --> 00:30:07.507 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 580 00:30:07.527 --> 00:30:08.367 I just fall into this. 581 00:30:08.527 --> 00:30:09.507 Oh, yeah, yeah. 582 00:30:09.747 --> 00:30:11.008 It's one of those. 583 00:30:11.908 --> 00:30:13.048 But no, I think it's good. 584 00:30:13.068 --> 00:30:14.349 It does give us a little quirky edge. 585 00:30:14.909 --> 00:30:15.389 I think so. 586 00:30:15.649 --> 00:30:17.890 I mean, to be fair, I just think I just like business. 587 00:30:17.910 --> 00:30:18.250 I like business. 588 00:30:19.090 --> 00:30:19.871 I like buying things. 589 00:30:19.891 --> 00:30:20.611 I like selling things. 590 00:30:20.651 --> 00:30:22.433 I like doing things. 591 00:30:22.453 --> 00:30:24.535 I think you should always just say yes and work out. 592 00:30:24.875 --> 00:30:25.756 We said that earlier, didn't we? 593 00:30:25.776 --> 00:30:27.958 I'm a big believer in say yes and work it out later. 594 00:30:27.978 --> 00:30:29.079 Yeah, Richard Branson. 595 00:30:30.320 --> 00:30:30.860 Do that a

lot. 596 00:30:31.220 --> 00:30:31.861 Yeah. 597 00:30:31.881 --> 00:30:32.642 Puts you on a good journey. 598 00:30:32.662 --> 00:30:34.263 I think it is, isn't it? 599 00:30:34.283 --> 00:30:35.764 It sort of keeps you alive, doesn't it, really? 600 00:30:35.784 --> 00:30:36.425 You know, so... 601 00:30:37.262 --> 00:30:41.207 Oh, I've always said I don't want to get to the end and then say I regret not doing that. 602 00:30:41.247 --> 00:30:46.594 I'd rather do it and fail or do it and not enjoy it or just do it and never do it again. 603 00:30:46.815 --> 00:30:47.095 Yeah. 604 00:30:47.235 --> 00:30:47.696 Not do it. 605 00:30:48.256 --> 00:30:49.077 Yeah, exactly. 606 00:30:49.097 --> 00:30:52.382 So I always say yes and then if I don't like it, I won't do it again or I'll just go home. 607 00:30:53.042 --> 00:31:15.137 yeah yeah exactly yeah that's it yeah i mean i think we've covered off like what's a good growing strategy uh like checking your numbers etc and that sort of thing but what if let's say for instance like because there's quite a lot of um service-based business owners that like listen to this podcast and what would be some good key areas that they could probably focus on and some of them are like 608 00:31:15.617 --> 00:31:17.378 I've just got two, three people working for them. 609 00:31:17.578 --> 00:31:17.819 Yeah. 610 00:31:17.879 --> 00:31:19.100 Plumbers, window cleaners and so on. 611 00:31:20.340 --> 00:31:21.881 What sort of things would they be looking at? 612 00:31:21.921 --> 00:31:24.503 Let's say they're part-time on the tools or full-time on the tools. 613 00:31:24.523 --> 00:31:25.324 Yeah. 614 00:31:25.344 --> 00:31:25.804 That sort of thing. 615 00:31:25.824 --> 00:31:26.625 But they want to grow. 616 00:31:26.645 --> 00:31:31.068 They have that hunger that you have and they just want to get to that next level. 617 00:31:31.128 --> 00:31:32.669 What kind of strategies would they adopt? 618 00:31:32.969 --> 00:31:34.289 Yeah, I mean, I believe scorecards. 619 00:31:34.470 --> 00:31:38.671 So for me, scorecards are where every single week you put the key numbers into your key metrics. 620 00:31:38.691 --> 00:31:40.212 What's that, kind of spreadsheet or something like that? 621 00:31:40.232 --> 00:31:40.832 Just something basic? 622 00:31:40.872 --> 00:31:42.372 It could just be a bit of paper with the numbers on it. 623 00:31:42.392 --> 00:31:42.592 Oh, okay. 624 00:31:42.712 --> 00:31:44.513 But yeah, I mean, a spreadsheet is how I would do it. 625 00:31:44.573 --> 00:31:47.034 But it could just be literally a pad with some numbers on it. 626 00:31:47.094 --> 00:31:51.495 I mean, we've got a, I've just got 50% of a financial advisory business. 627 00:31:51.515 --> 00:31:53.556 And it's in its infancy, to be fair, that company. 628 00:31:53.996 --> 00:31:55.717 So there's four people in it at the minute. 629 00:31:56.237 --> 00:31:57.999 And we've worked our scorecard out. 630 00:31:58.019 --> 00:32:00.701 So

one of the things that we're looking at is average age of our clientele. 631 00:32:00.961 --> 00:32:01.942 How many clients do we have? 632 00:32:02.042 --> 00:32:04.003 How much funds do we have invested? 633 00:32:04.744 --> 00:32:07.486 What's our recurring revenue off of those funds? 634 00:32:07.546 --> 00:32:08.627 Where are the leads coming from? 635 00:32:09.408 --> 00:32:10.869 So we're just updating that every week. 636 00:32:11.149 --> 00:32:13.491 And obviously then you can start to see the numbers increasing. 637 00:32:13.511 --> 00:32:15.733 You can see when they drop, so how many new leads have you got? 638 00:32:15.773 --> 00:32:16.873 How many inquiries have you got? 639 00:32:17.194 --> 00:32:19.756 What's your open quote rate at the moment? 640 00:32:20.136 --> 00:32:23.178 All those things allow us to see that we're going the right way. 641 00:32:23.198 --> 00:32:24.800 And obviously you want each number to grow. 642 00:32:25.420 --> 00:32:50.645 you want to incentivize when they do grow um so to me any business could do that it could be you're a builder or a brickie or whatever it is electrician and you might be someone how many quotes have i done this week what's the total value of quotes if you've done 20 quotes that week and the week after you've done five why what's what's dropped it what's what's the reason behind it um to me that's important because i think then you can start to see trends and if you do it for years you can really see trends and 643 00:32:52.005 --> 00:32:53.806 I've had moments where the phone doesn't ring. 644 00:32:53.826 --> 00:32:54.846 I mean, we've all had that. 645 00:32:54.926 --> 00:32:55.786 The phone doesn't ring. 646 00:32:55.806 --> 00:32:57.027 And you think, oh, God. 647 00:32:57.047 --> 00:32:57.887 You're ringing it yourself. 648 00:32:57.907 --> 00:32:58.227 Well, yeah. 649 00:32:59.147 --> 00:32:59.608 What's going on? 650 00:32:59.628 --> 00:33:00.088 The phone's... 651 00:33:00.408 --> 00:33:01.568 But you think I'm out of business now. 652 00:33:01.588 --> 00:33:03.609 You don't remember, oh, you've got all the other revenue coming in. 653 00:33:03.629 --> 00:33:04.649 You just think, oh, that's it. 654 00:33:04.689 --> 00:33:05.069 I'm done. 655 00:33:05.109 --> 00:33:05.390 It's gross. 656 00:33:05.450 --> 00:33:06.110 I've finished now. 657 00:33:07.090 --> 00:33:08.030 But then I look at the numbers. 658 00:33:08.050 --> 00:33:09.331 And actually, the numbers don't lie. 659 00:33:09.451 --> 00:33:13.032 So what happened two years ago is probably going to happen the same time this year. 660 00:33:13.052 --> 00:33:13.532 And it does. 661 00:33:13.792 --> 00:33:15.453 If you look at the numbers, they're quite static. 662 00:33:15.473 --> 00:33:15.633 Yeah. 663 00:33:16.985 --> 00:33:18.025 And I think that's important. 664 00:33:18.045 --> 00:33:24.427 I think as a business owner, when you lose belief, if you can look back through the history and say, actually, it worked then, it

will work again. 665 00:33:24.707 --> 00:33:25.627 It will work again. 666 00:33:26.007 --> 00:33:28.227 And yes, what would they track? 667 00:33:28.247 --> 00:33:29.568 I think it depends on the industry. 668 00:33:29.688 --> 00:33:32.828 I think one of them I would always track is quotes and conversion rates. 669 00:33:33.409 --> 00:33:37.890 Because I think that tells you, I mean, some people say, oh, yeah, I always get 99% of every job I quote, I win. 670 00:33:38.270 --> 00:33:39.190 You're probably too cheap. 671 00:33:40.230 --> 00:34:09.877 no one should be winning 99% that's true but loads of people say it and I think you're too cheap, why don't you put another 30% on it and see if you still win 99% if you do put another 30% on it and see if you still win 99% you should not be winning 99% of the work you quote something's wrong or you are the world's best salesperson in which case I've got a job for you contact John it's funny you mention on the quotes conversion etc because and being too cheap and so on 672 00:34:11.338 --> 00:34:20.101 I kind of feel that, again, just going back to the numbers part of things, understanding the numbers, that you can understand your break-even point, what must you earn minimum. 673 00:34:21.162 --> 00:34:30.726 And then when you're going into a bit of a quote deal, you know what's the minimum you can go to if you're trying to negotiate, let's say, a larger contract and you're trying to grow, you're trying to get a portfolio of work or whatever it is. 674 00:34:31.686 --> 00:34:35.368 Because whenever you get a portfolio of work, you have to kind of price it a little bit less, so you can win it and so on. 675 00:34:35.808 --> 00:34:42.072 But it's understanding your numbers, and then all of a sudden you go in there with that power, don't you, of knowing, right, I know that I've got to walk out this meeting with no less than. 676 00:34:42.592 --> 00:34:44.954 X. Yeah, because then you know exactly what you need. 677 00:34:45.034 --> 00:34:47.475 And I think in a lot of service industries, it works. 678 00:34:47.655 --> 00:34:55.080 So if you know what your GP is, especially if you're like a gross profit, so if you're a construction company and you know what your gross profit is, you know what your below the line is. 679 00:34:55.420 --> 00:35:00.063 So if you know that you're making 10% gross profit and your turnovers, or you're below the line's, 680 00:35:00.703 --> 00:35:20.508 100 000 you know you've got to turn over a million pounds to break even effectively yeah yeah once you know those numbers that's powerful because then you actually know how much sales you need or you need to get your gp up so i had a meeting with a client the other day i said to me gp's 12 and they're like what does that mean so well if it was 18 you'd be making 200 grand profit over what you need oh okay 681 00:35:20.988 --> 00:35:21.929 They're like, oh, I didn't know that. 682 00:35:22.049 --> 00:35:25.894 So then we were like, well, how much do we need to quote more to get it to 18%? 683 00:35:26.375 --> 00:35:31.382 I mean, 18% we didn't achieve, but we did get it to about 15%, 16% on jobs, and he was still winning them. 684 00:35:31.602 --> 00:35:33.865 So all of a sudden then, well, that's better than where we were. 685 00:35:34.506 --> 00:35:34.766 So... 686 00:35:35.906 --> 00:35:39.991 Yeah, I think in service industry, it's important that you track your numbers. 687 00:35:40.171 --> 00:35:41.292 The numbers are the key thing. 688 00:35:41.312 --> 00:35:43.155 I mean, obviously, service is the main thing, isn't it? 689 00:35:43.215 --> 00:35:46.539 Customer service in the service industry is very important. 690 00:35:47.500 --> 00:35:49.462 But people buy people. 691 00:35:49.482 --> 00:35:51.264 If you're a nice person, people will buy you, won't they? 692 00:35:51.985 --> 00:35:52.786 Or buy your service. 693 00:35:52.806 --> 00:35:53.467 Definitely. 694 00:35:53.687 --> 00:35:56.809 It goes back to our content, doesn't it, and personality and such. 695 00:35:56.849 --> 00:36:01.812 People resonate with you and connect with you and you can get business from it, as your numbers have rightly shown, really. 696 00:36:01.972 --> 00:36:02.172 Yeah. 697 00:36:02.492 --> 00:36:03.553 I mean, a lot of ours is cold. 698 00:36:03.673 --> 00:36:05.554 Like I say, a lot of ours is cold sales as well. 699 00:36:07.235 --> 00:36:08.356 But again, that's important. 700 00:36:08.516 --> 00:36:12.178 One of the things we did for cold sales is we actually trained all our team how to sell. 701 00:36:13.139 --> 00:36:14.980 I used to take all the sales calls, and that was... 702 00:36:15.720 --> 00:36:41.980 quite successful we probably had a better conversion rate but then i was like this is stupid i can't grow a business and me be the only person who does the sales so now i don't do any cold sales we'll not do them so unless someone rings up and says i want to speak to john i will not i won't ever jump on a cold sale call let my team do it we've got a sales system they go through it all we've built some tech around it it's all quite systematized but personable and it is genuine um 703 00:36:43.061 --> 00:36:43.662 And it works. 704 00:36:43.902 --> 00:36:49.187 And I think that's an important skill that I've taught lots of people that other accountancy firms wouldn't have taught them that. 705 00:36:49.668 --> 00:36:49.928 Yeah. 706 00:36:49.948 --> 00:36:52.010 Because typically it's the partner that does the sale. 707 00:36:53.285 --> 00:36:53.985 Ah, okay, right. 708 00:36:54.025 --> 00:36:55.386 It's an investment sort of thing. 709 00:36:55.406 --> 00:36:57.026 Well, they're worried that people are going to steal. 710 00:36:57.046 --> 00:36:58.867 They're worried that the team are going to steal their clients. 711 00:36:58.907 --> 00:37:02.948 If you've got the connection with Brad, Brad's going to go with you when you leave Pocknell's. 712 00:37:03.468 -->

00:37:03.949 Oh, right. 713 00:37:04.049 --> 00:37:04.449 I see. 714 00:37:04.469 --> 00:37:06.469 Well, I think, well, if Brad's happy with you, let him go with you. 715 00:37:06.930 --> 00:37:07.130 Yeah. 716 00:37:07.150 --> 00:37:07.870 Why would you stop it? 717 00:37:07.890 --> 00:37:07.990 Yeah. 718 00:37:08.010 --> 00:37:09.190 I don't want to upset Brad. 719 00:37:09.330 --> 00:37:11.971 I don't want to upset Jake or whoever it is in my team who's taken him. 720 00:37:12.011 --> 00:37:13.252 So let him go. 721 00:37:13.272 --> 00:37:13.712 Yeah. 722 00:37:13.732 --> 00:37:14.472 Have a good life. 723 00:37:14.692 --> 00:37:15.793 We'll shake hands and move on. 724 00:37:15.973 --> 00:37:17.353 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 725 00:37:17.393 --> 00:37:18.654 So I've never really got that. 726 00:37:18.714 --> 00:37:21.114 And a lot of the firms are very protective of their client base. 727 00:37:21.134 --> 00:37:21.995 And we're protective. 728 00:37:23.115 --> 00:37:29.470 people work with people if you like that accountant that works for me and they go around the corner then you're going to go with them and why would i stop you like yeah 729 00:37:31.362 --> 00:37:34.264 It's actually true, actually, because I stayed with my accountant when she changed over. 730 00:37:34.284 --> 00:37:34.384 Yeah. 731 00:37:34.725 --> 00:37:35.806 She changed over firms. 732 00:37:36.546 --> 00:37:37.107 When you moved. 733 00:37:37.487 --> 00:37:38.268 I moved with her, yeah. 734 00:37:38.328 --> 00:37:39.208 Yeah, you trust her. 735 00:37:39.389 --> 00:37:40.610 You've got to stay with her. 736 00:37:40.890 --> 00:37:41.550 Yeah, yeah. 737 00:37:42.251 --> 00:37:46.414 And we've always, yeah, I don't know, I don't think I've looked at things like a normal accountant would look at them. 738 00:37:46.434 --> 00:37:47.235 I've looked at them more. 739 00:37:47.615 --> 00:37:50.057 So my background was I worked in a shop since I was 12. 740 00:37:50.257 --> 00:37:50.458 Yeah. 741 00:37:50.478 --> 00:37:51.118 I worked in a shop. 742 00:37:51.478 --> 00:37:56.543 The best thing that I loved about that shop was I got to meet loads of people, and every day it would be morning, how are you, we'd have a chat. 743 00:37:56.783 --> 00:37:57.063 Yeah. 744 00:37:57.243 --> 00:37:57.983 Everyone left happy. 745 00:37:58.203 --> 00:37:58.783 I left happy. 746 00:37:58.943 --> 00:37:59.544 Everyone was happy. 747 00:37:59.804 --> 00:38:06.866 And I think for me, I've always liked recruiting people from pubs, shops, McDonald's, like anywhere where you've had to deal with people. 748 00:38:07.026 --> 00:38:08.486 Because that to me is important. 749 00:38:08.886 --> 00:38:11.227 That's the most important part of business is dealing with people. 750 00:38:11.907 --> 00:38:15.748 Accountancy probably is a bit of it, but I know a bit about tax law, but... 751 00:38:16.568 --> 00:38:29.080 effectively just dealing with people if you deal with people correctly like that's a big way to winning any service industry isn't it yeah definitely so yeah that's something that we've always recruited in i've always enjoyed those types of people i think we've always had a good team 752 00:38:30.498 --> 00:38:32.960 Do you know who else does that as well, recruits people from anywhere? 753 00:38:33.580 --> 00:38:34.181 Richard Branson. 754 00:38:34.381 --> 00:38:34.641 Does he? 755 00:38:34.821 --> 00:38:35.762 Oh, they are. 756 00:38:36.382 --> 00:38:37.903 That's the third thing you said, actually. 757 00:38:37.963 --> 00:38:39.484 I don't know what I'm going to buy. 758 00:38:39.725 --> 00:38:40.045 Yeah, yeah. 759 00:38:40.205 --> 00:38:42.427 Obviously, English version, but Richard Branson's English as well, isn't he? 760 00:38:42.687 --> 00:38:42.967 Yeah. 761 00:38:43.227 --> 00:38:47.190 So, yeah, I think with – isn't there so many areas of business, though? 762 00:38:48.458 --> 00:38:54.924 I think we've spoken about recruitment, marketing, sales, figures, finance figures, relationships. 763 00:38:55.164 --> 00:38:55.384 Yeah. 764 00:38:56.125 --> 00:38:56.805 It's the funniest part. 765 00:38:56.845 --> 00:38:58.187 I think it's brilliant business. 766 00:38:58.347 --> 00:38:58.667 I do. 767 00:38:59.067 --> 00:38:59.408 I do. 768 00:38:59.768 --> 00:39:00.548 It's brilliant, isn't it? 769 00:39:00.569 --> 00:39:02.710 You know, but yeah. 770 00:39:03.111 --> 00:39:11.298 So say you've got everything all in hand, your scorecards, you've got your scorecard in practice and it's working well and you're doing it daily, weekly, monthly, whatever it is, and you're understanding it. 771 00:39:12.699 --> 00:39:14.360 What's the power of getting it right? 772 00:39:14.881 --> 00:39:16.362 What leverage can you get from it? 773 00:39:16.722 --> 00:39:18.263 what are your scorecards? 774 00:39:18.463 --> 00:39:22.766 Yeah, just understanding, let's say scorecards, because that was the example you used, and that's a great example. 775 00:39:22.786 --> 00:39:24.587 Scorecards, budgets, what's the leverage of it? 776 00:39:25.107 --> 00:39:29.510 For me it means I can sleep at night, every night, knowing that nothing's gonna go wrong. 777 00:39:30.351 --> 00:39:31.692 So that's one big leverage, isn't it? 778 00:39:32.152 --> 00:39:36.975 Or I think probably nothing, not that nothing's gonna go wrong, I think it's probably because you foresee things when they probably go wrong, don't you? 779 00:39:37.355 --> 00:39:44.600 You start to see a little bit, you've clocked the numbers, you've known the trends, you're like, okay, do you know what, we're coming to a bit of a grey area, I know this from the last ten years, 780 00:39:45.040 --> 00:39:48.463 here's the numbers, here's what we've done in the last 10 years, let's just follow it. 781 00:39:48.803 --> 00:39:52.106 You're almost seeing it rather than waking up one morning and suddenly your phone goes dead. 782 00:39:52.126 --> 00:39:53.808 Yep, I know this anyway, I've already got a plan

in place. 783 00:39:54.288 --> 00:39:55.409 Yeah, I agree, that's true. 784 00:39:55.549 --> 00:39:57.972 The thing I would say though is people think profit's a bad word. 785 00:39:58.012 --> 00:39:58.532 Now I don't. 786 00:39:59.113 --> 00:40:00.394 I don't believe profit's a bad word. 787 00:40:00.414 --> 00:40:02.195 I actually think what it is is a safety blanket. 788 00:40:02.556 --> 00:40:07.940 So for me, I say to my team, we've got to make X profit and it's going to be seven figures plus this year. 789 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:09.221 We have to make that as a profit. 790 00:40:09.241 --> 00:40:09.522 Yeah. 791 00:40:09.962 --> 00:40:11.884 And everyone thinks that's a lot of money and it is a lot of money. 792 00:40:12.184 --> 00:40:13.605 But the reality is we've got a lot of people. 793 00:40:13.905 --> 00:40:17.428 So when things go wrong, we need some and things will go wrong. 794 00:40:17.729 --> 00:40:19.390 When they do go wrong, we need that buffer. 795 00:40:19.410 --> 00:40:22.252 We need that security that, OK, we've had a bad three months. 796 00:40:22.333 --> 00:40:22.993 It doesn't matter. 797 00:40:23.213 --> 00:40:23.974 We've got the buffer. 798 00:40:24.194 --> 00:40:24.855 We get through it. 799 00:40:25.375 --> 00:40:28.477 To me, profit is the thing that keeps people there. 800 00:40:28.657 --> 00:40:37.362 It keeps it going, keeps the business going, it allows you to market, it allows you to do whatever you need to do, get legal or whatever it is, it helps you in that period. 801 00:40:37.743 --> 00:40:43.586 And I think a lot of people work in a business that effectively pays them a wage and doesn't make any super profits, i.e. 802 00:40:43.606 --> 00:40:44.667 the fat in the business. 803 00:40:45.067 --> 00:40:52.412 So my whole thing with super profits was, I need X to live and I need to make X more so that I've got some super profits, which is fat in my business. 804 00:40:52.432 --> 00:40:53.032 Mm-hmm. 805 00:40:53.132 --> 00:40:57.156 Once you've done that for 10, 15, 20 years, all of a sudden you've got quite a lot of super profits. 806 00:40:57.677 --> 00:41:00.360 And then at that point you actually do feel like, well, what can go wrong? 807 00:41:00.600 --> 00:41:00.840 Yeah. 808 00:41:01.201 --> 00:41:02.522 And that's a nice place to be. 809 00:41:03.303 --> 00:41:07.988 I still think every day that something is going to go wrong, but when you actually look at it properly... 810 00:41:09.295 --> 00:41:13.076 It probably shouldn't and it couldn't really go wrong, if that makes sense. 811 00:41:13.456 --> 00:41:15.717 But I think, like we said, there's so many areas of business. 812 00:41:15.797 --> 00:41:20.439 It's like, you know, one time you just turn away from some particular area just for a few minutes. 813 00:41:20.719 --> 00:41:21.199 Yeah. 814 00:41:21.279 --> 00:41:22.179 You know, you just drop it. 815 00:41:22.199 --> 00:41:24.020 You know, it's just crazy, isn't it, how it works? 816 00:41:24.395 --> 00:41:27.517 I think like everything as well, when you said, why do people not look at their numbers? 817 00:41:27.657 --> 00:41:30.079 It's like, for me, my weight's always been a problem. 818 00:41:30.339 --> 00:41:30.979 I don't know why. 819 00:41:31.019 --> 00:41:32.860 If I sniff a weight, I get definition. 820 00:41:33.101 --> 00:41:36.203 If I sniff a cake, I get fat and I sniff more cakes than I get weights. 821 00:41:36.603 --> 00:41:37.383 So that's a problem. 822 00:41:37.664 --> 00:41:39.345 But it's a bit like that with profits. 823 00:41:39.405 --> 00:41:44.128 I think if you look at your P&L regularly, like I look at mine, like, I don't know, every day. 824 00:41:44.248 --> 00:41:47.010 I actually reckon I look at it every day, which is pretty sad, really. 825 00:41:47.030 --> 00:41:47.690 Yeah. 826 00:41:47.770 --> 00:41:51.071 If you concentrate on that and you concentrate on, are you on track with your numbers? 827 00:41:51.872 --> 00:41:52.992 You'll be on track with your numbers. 828 00:41:53.272 --> 00:42:01.015 Because if you're not, that's something that when you go and have lunch with your colleague, you say, oh, do you know that our leads are down this month or this day or whatever it is? 829 00:42:01.135 --> 00:42:01.935 And they say, no. 830 00:42:01.975 --> 00:42:03.076 And you say, well, we need to fix that. 831 00:42:03.696 --> 00:42:04.676 And then it gets fixed, doesn't it? 832 00:42:04.836 --> 00:42:04.996 Yeah. 833 00:42:05.076 --> 00:42:07.557 If you don't look at it for four months, all of a sudden you've got a big problem. 834 00:42:08.118 --> 00:42:08.578 So that's... 835 00:42:09.633 --> 00:42:11.935 Yeah, I'm pretty anal on my numbers, weirdly. 836 00:42:12.195 --> 00:42:15.058 I wish I was more anal on my scales, but maybe that's the one I've got to work on. 837 00:42:17.380 --> 00:42:19.362 Well, I think it's probably whatever matters. 838 00:42:19.382 --> 00:42:21.584 And if you're having a good life, then, you know, like, so be it. 839 00:42:21.624 --> 00:42:23.686 You know, what harm can it do? 840 00:42:24.327 --> 00:42:30.293 But one thing I've noticed in my experience is, and I only realised this the last couple of years, and you'll probably say, well, that's obvious, Brad. 841 00:42:30.773 --> 00:42:43.139 But when you want to go and borrow money, or you want to go and, like you say, if you want to acquire a company, or you want to get a loan from a bank, whatever it is, the first thing they look at is your sheets, your financial reports. 842 00:42:43.819 --> 00:42:50.322 So if you're focusing on your numbers, they're suddenly looking, because your attention goes, as your flows and so on, the results show. 843 00:42:52.003 --> 00:42:55.246 All of a sudden, they're looking better, so now you can go and get better deals. 844 00:42:55.626 --> 00:43:00.450 And that's the leveraging of your focus, as it were, all your hard work. 845 00:43:00.470 --> 00:43:12.419 If you focus on the

numbers, like you say, daily, weekly, monthly, just for 12 months, you will see some better numbers on your balance sheet at the end of it, and you'll be able to then go and ask for more money or acquire companies. 846 00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:16.943 Yeah, I mean, anyone who does a weekly P&L will make more profit that year than anyone who doesn't do a P&L. 847 00:43:17.963 --> 00:43:41.459 almost or wait three months to their accountant or wait six months till after the year end or nine months till after the year end to be told what it is if you're looking at it every month every week you will make more profit than if you don't ever look at it that i reckon almost is guaranteed advice but i don't know if i can guarantee it well i'll tell you what i think you're well you're certainly in a good position to give that advice anyway but yeah it's uh it's definitely something you should focus on 848 00:43:41.794 --> 00:43:42.855 Yeah, yeah, definitely. 849 00:43:42.895 --> 00:43:43.516 No, I agree. 850 00:43:44.817 --> 00:43:47.039 So let's say, for instance, you get to a certain size. 851 00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:47.520 Yeah. 852 00:43:47.900 --> 00:43:52.284 And we touched on it a little bit earlier on about drawing profits and so on from the company. 853 00:43:52.885 --> 00:43:58.871 Do you have a bit of a strategy that you advise your clients, let's say, of like the 50K, 100K, so on? 854 00:43:58.891 --> 00:44:01.914 When you get to 100K and you don't really want to give another 20% to the government. 855 00:44:01.974 --> 00:44:02.074 Yeah. 856 00:44:02.094 --> 00:44:02.214 Yeah. 857 00:44:03.075 --> 00:44:05.618 What would be a good strategy for wealth investment? 858 00:44:05.939 --> 00:44:08.882 If you go much higher than that, you're not giving 20% to the government. 859 00:44:08.902 --> 00:44:12.447 So it's only on that 100 to 125 that you're losing the personal allowance. 860 00:44:12.467 --> 00:44:16.111 And that's where the marginal rate of 60% comes in. 861 00:44:16.812 --> 00:44:19.255 So we have clients who earn 250, 500, a million, whatever it is. 862 00:44:21.573 --> 00:44:27.316 and they don't really care about that because it's so far over that they're actually paying 45, 46% on the whole lot. 863 00:44:27.516 --> 00:44:28.296 How does that work? 864 00:44:28.556 --> 00:44:29.777 Because it tapers back down. 865 00:44:29.797 --> 00:44:32.839 So effectively what it is, it's the fact that you've lost your personal allowance. 866 00:44:32.999 --> 00:44:36.920 So if you went 110 grand, on that 10 grand you've effectively paid 60%. 867 00:44:37.721 --> 00:44:40.042 So that's why people say don't go over the 100. 868 00:44:40.542 --> 00:44:48.546 If you went to 250 grand, you're effectively paying 45% plus the NIC on it or whatever rate it is, depending if it's dividends or PAYE. 869 00:44:49.066 --> 00:44:49.347 So... 870 00:44:50.407 --> 00:44:52.290 Yeah, I think we try and keep people under the 100. 871 00:44:52.330 --> 00:44:54.554 We try and keep people under the 50 if they can afford to. 872 00:44:54.574 --> 00:44:56.497 But the reality is some people can't afford to do that. 873 00:44:58.353 --> 00:45:03.456 I don't think I'm not a big believer that tax, like the tax tail should wag the dog effectively. 874 00:45:04.336 --> 00:45:04.676 I don't know. 875 00:45:04.776 --> 00:45:06.217 I think sometimes just pay the tax. 876 00:45:06.237 --> 00:45:08.178 If you pay the tax, you can live the life you want to live. 877 00:45:09.018 --> 00:45:11.300 And so I'm not all for don't pay tax. 878 00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:14.081 I think paying tax and making profits allows you to leverage. 879 00:45:14.101 --> 00:45:16.262 It allows you to buy commercial property. 880 00:45:16.282 --> 00:45:17.803 It allows you to buy residential property. 881 00:45:17.823 --> 00:45:19.184 It allows you to live in a nice house. 882 00:45:19.224 --> 00:45:21.285 It allows you to drive a nice car, whatever it is. 883 00:45:22.822 --> 00:45:27.526 who wants to live on 50 grand a year, but have 7 million pound in their company that they can't touch. 884 00:45:27.706 --> 00:45:28.487 I mean, that's boring. 885 00:45:28.787 --> 00:45:29.088 Yeah. 886 00:45:29.488 --> 00:45:31.309 So in one day, like, I don't know. 887 00:45:31.390 --> 00:45:32.791 Also believe that we should do things. 888 00:45:32.811 --> 00:45:34.352 Like I'm a big experienced person. 889 00:45:34.452 --> 00:45:37.595 I, as a child, I didn't really get the experiences. 890 00:45:37.635 --> 00:45:39.537 So now I'm like, well, I want to go skiing with my kids. 891 00:45:39.737 --> 00:45:40.397 I want to do this. 892 00:45:40.417 --> 00:45:41.418 I want to do that with my kids. 893 00:45:41.438 --> 00:45:42.439 I want to go to Euro Disney. 894 00:45:42.459 --> 00:45:43.060 I want to do this. 895 00:45:44.172 --> 00:46:02.045 it all costs money so i have to pay whatever rate of tax it is yeah to get it out and do it so yeah do we advise clients yeah we do but i also think clients have got to live a life that they want to live and enjoy the life that they've got personally otherwise you're just worth looking at it saving money for no reason 896 00:46:03.322 --> 00:46:06.463 Yeah, because I always say like the time is the most expensive currency. 897 00:46:06.543 --> 00:46:08.944 So it's kind of, you know, like can't get that back. 898 00:46:08.984 --> 00:46:10.784 Like we won't get this back now. 899 00:46:10.804 --> 00:46:11.865 We'll always go to more money. 900 00:46:12.665 --> 00:46:15.406 I leverage everything, which is a bit sad, really. 901 00:46:15.426 --> 00:46:16.986 I think that again, I don't know what book it was. 902 00:46:17.026 --> 00:46:17.546 I read a book. 903 00:46:17.586 --> 00:46:18.647 It was like, get a dog walker. 904 00:46:18.667 --> 00:46:19.487 I've got a dog walker. 905 00:46:19.507 --> 00:46:20.147 That's a bit sad. 906 00:46:20.167 --> 00:46:22.428 I've got a dog that gets walked by a dog walker. 907 00:46:22.568

--> 00:46:23.768 I'm stupid, isn't it really? 908 00:46:24.088 --> 00:46:26.689 I do walk it a fair bit, but my dog gets walked. 909 00:46:26.709 --> 00:46:29.230 So if I don't, if I let it down, the dog walker doesn't let it down. 910 00:46:29.370 --> 00:46:29.630 Yeah. 911 00:46:30.150 --> 00:46:51.327 i literally have got all services because i've got a pt i've got this i've got that but it's because it means that i'm quite like rigid with what i do with my time i'm quite rigid with the fact that i do it it gets done and that's me me out if that makes sense so yeah time is quite precious isn't it very very i think you look did you look at something like high value and low value tasks 912 00:46:51.827 --> 00:46:54.449 And then kind of try and outsource a low value and concentrate high value. 913 00:46:54.569 --> 00:46:55.490 We've definitely done it before. 914 00:46:55.530 --> 00:46:56.911 But then at the same time, I think you can't... 915 00:46:57.432 --> 00:46:59.273 So we have a gardener, but I mow the lawn. 916 00:46:59.734 --> 00:47:01.875 And everyone says, my wife goes a bit mad about that. 917 00:47:01.935 --> 00:47:03.096 She says, why are you mowing the lawn? 918 00:47:03.237 --> 00:47:04.397 Because it takes quite a long time. 919 00:47:04.417 --> 00:47:05.578 Because it's four acres, love. 920 00:47:07.187 --> 00:47:08.307 Yeah, but I enjoy it. 921 00:47:08.527 --> 00:47:10.448 That's the one, it's a job that I enjoy. 922 00:47:10.728 --> 00:47:21.130 So, and quite often it used to be, although it hasn't happened recently, I'd put the headphones on, have an audio book and I'd just walk up and down, putting the worst zigzag lines ever in a lot. 923 00:47:21.850 --> 00:47:23.931 Which a gardener would have done a lot better than what I did. 924 00:47:24.471 --> 00:47:27.111 And she'd say, you just wasted however many hours on it. 925 00:47:27.151 --> 00:47:29.152 And I'd be like, yeah, and it was the best time I've ever had. 926 00:47:29.172 --> 00:47:29.352 Yeah. 927 00:47:29.372 --> 00:47:29.832 Yeah. 928 00:47:31.132 --> 00:47:35.241 So, yeah, I think sometimes it's not about outsourcing everything to protect time. 929 00:47:35.261 --> 00:47:38.268 If you enjoy it and it gives you a sense of purpose, you should do it, shouldn't you? 930 00:47:38.615 --> 00:47:41.457 Yeah, when I say high value and low value, I meant high value to you. 931 00:47:41.637 --> 00:47:43.137 Yeah. 932 00:47:43.197 --> 00:47:44.658 That sounds high value to you. 933 00:47:44.858 --> 00:47:45.078 Yeah. 934 00:47:45.258 --> 00:47:49.181 Whereas other people that really just hate mowing grass would say, oh, my God, I'll just get a gardener. 935 00:47:49.421 --> 00:47:49.961 Yeah, get a gardener. 936 00:47:49.981 --> 00:47:51.442 But for you, you've leveraged it, haven't you? 937 00:47:51.462 --> 00:47:56.464 You said, okay, well, I'm doing it, really enjoying it, away from the screens, but I'm listening to an audiobook at the same time. 938 00:47:56.484 -->

00:47:57.265 I don't want to weed. 939 00:47:57.485 --> 00:47:58.285 That is not me. 940 00:47:58.385 --> 00:48:00.206 I don't want to put out all the good flowers. 941 00:48:00.286 --> 00:48:00.546 I would. 942 00:48:00.566 --> 00:48:01.267 I've been a gardener. 943 00:48:01.287 --> 00:48:01.707 It's never. 944 00:48:03.868 --> 00:48:09.556 So you mentioned obviously about advice and books and so on. 945 00:48:09.616 --> 00:48:13.201 So what would you say is the best bit of advice you've ever been given? 946 00:48:13.221 --> 00:48:19.570 I don't know. 947 00:48:19.870 --> 00:48:20.371 I don't know. 948 00:48:20.511 --> 00:48:20.872 I don't know. 949 00:48:21.856 --> 00:48:24.558 I remember a guy once saying you can live to work or work to live. 950 00:48:24.658 --> 00:48:28.160 I remember that being one that was said to me when I was very young and that's always stuck with me. 951 00:48:28.520 --> 00:48:34.764 So I think it probably stuck with me when I wasn't actually enjoying my job as much because I thought, well, actually, I'm not enjoying this. 952 00:48:35.584 --> 00:48:38.066 I'm getting paid okay, so maybe I should carry on. 953 00:48:38.106 --> 00:48:38.966 And now I'm loving it. 954 00:48:38.986 --> 00:48:41.227 So now I'm like, well, actually, I've got the best of both worlds. 955 00:48:41.508 --> 00:48:45.050 But there was a point in employment in accountancy where I was like, I'm not enjoying this. 956 00:48:45.790 --> 00:48:46.971 Should I really be doing this? 957 00:48:48.798 --> 00:48:49.839 I don't know what else I'm going to do. 958 00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:50.319 Yeah. 959 00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:51.700 I'm getting paid all right. 960 00:48:52.360 --> 00:48:56.723 So then that was probably a bit, and I always remember that as a part. 961 00:48:57.404 --> 00:49:04.088 I think I've also had stories like, make sure you don't regret anything in your life. 962 00:49:04.228 --> 00:49:06.410 You know, what would you think on your deathbed? 963 00:49:06.430 --> 00:49:10.252 Things like that, which again, I'm always, like I say, I'm a big yes person. 964 00:49:10.272 --> 00:49:11.293 I just want to say yes. 965 00:49:12.594 --> 00:49:14.595 I think if you're saying no, you might regret it. 966 00:49:16.503 --> 00:49:31.552 I mean, you've listened to a lot of audiobooks, and you would know this anyway, and I think whenever you listen to these audiobooks and these people that have lived long lives and they've written something at the end or they've written a book towards their end, they never mention that they wish they earned more money. 967 00:49:31.572 --> 00:49:32.192 No. 968 00:49:32.853 --> 00:49:34.234 It's always related to time. 969 00:49:34.254 --> 00:49:34.774 Yeah. 970 00:49:34.914 --> 00:49:36.295 And mainly time with people. 971 00:49:36.895 --> 00:49:37.516 Experiences. 972 00:49:37.876 --> 00:49:39.657 Experiences, yeah. 973 00:49:40.354 --> 00:49:51.083 And also some of the best things I think I've had experiences I had is

when people have said you've done something really, really good for someone and you didn't even notice you'd done it. 974 00:49:51.403 --> 00:49:58.209 So like at someone's, at one of my colleagues wedding, the father of, well, the groom's father said to me, thanks so much for what you've done to my son. 975 00:49:59.009 --> 00:50:00.270 And that one was a good one for me. 976 00:50:00.290 --> 00:50:01.031 I was like, Oh wow. 977 00:50:01.231 --> 00:50:03.353 I didn't really realize I'd done that much. 978 00:50:04.053 --> 00:50:07.096 But bits like that are things you'll always remember. 979 00:50:07.716 --> 00:50:08.500 It's amazing, isn't it? 980 00:50:09.103 --> 00:50:10.229 And you were helping somebody else. 981 00:50:10.904 --> 00:50:12.045 I like helping other people. 982 00:50:12.065 --> 00:50:18.347 Yeah, I think most people do, but sometimes I don't know how to do it. 983 00:50:18.627 --> 00:50:23.469 I think that's probably the most rewarding thing, and it's not necessarily like giving money or doing something. 984 00:50:23.790 --> 00:50:27.251 It's actually investing in people, giving them the time, giving them the opportunity. 985 00:50:28.031 --> 00:50:33.594 That's the most amazing thing ever, and I think I was lucky that people did it for me, and I want to do it for as many people as I can. 986 00:50:34.594 --> 00:50:36.535 I hope all my team do really, really well. 987 00:50:37.095 --> 00:50:38.456 I will support them as much as I can on that. 988 00:50:39.222 --> 00:50:42.327 Well, I think that's probably why you started your venture of helping other business owners, isn't it, really? 989 00:50:42.648 --> 00:50:43.469 Doing exactly that. 990 00:50:43.790 --> 00:50:44.991 Yeah, it's an important thing. 991 00:50:45.192 --> 00:50:48.297 Well, you've got a lot to offer, to be fair anyway, so it's really good. 992 00:50:49.138 --> 00:50:51.242 So the worst bit of advice you've ever had? 993 00:50:54.829 --> 00:51:08.124 I think there's lots of bad advice out there don't buy a police station I think there's lots of bad advice out there and I think the internet is great but I think the internet is also the worst place to get tax advice the worst place to get pretty much any advice 994 00:51:09.325 --> 00:51:12.427 I think you should always challenge everything you hear on the internet. 995 00:51:13.027 --> 00:51:22.453 I really am not, like I say, I think you mentioned it earlier, I really am not a big believer in earning 50 grand because it means you pay low tax and have an awful life but have loads of money in the bank in the company. 996 00:51:22.473 --> 00:51:23.634 I'm not a big believer in that. 997 00:51:24.714 --> 00:51:26.535 I think you're only here once and you've got to enjoy it. 998 00:51:28.136 --> 00:51:28.537 Brilliant. 999 00:51:28.757 --> 00:51:29.237 Yeah, good. 1000 00:51:30.872 --> 00:51:47.388 So what do you think, like let's say for instance if you've got a business and you're not checking numbers and you don't

really know where to start, where would be a great place for them to start right now, the listeners to start immediately? 1001 00:51:47.955 --> 00:51:51.559 I would get your bank statements out and I would work out what you're spending every month. 1002 00:51:52.199 --> 00:51:53.461 I would start with your personal. 1003 00:51:54.161 --> 00:51:55.863 What are you spending every single month personally? 1004 00:51:56.423 --> 00:52:01.949 I would then work out how much is your company making and is it making enough profit to pay your personal bills? 1005 00:52:02.429 --> 00:52:06.633 Literally, I'd start personal, do company budget, and then I would work out where I am from there. 1006 00:52:07.454 --> 00:52:10.037 Because I think without looking at your personal spending... 1007 00:52:11.780 --> 00:52:19.951 yeah that's the first place to start I think people don't associate the two they don't associate what they spend personally in the business as two things and they are they need to be tied in together 1008 00:52:21.777 --> 00:52:33.764 What I've noticed about you, John, is you're a people person, like personal, because you've mentioned it a few times and many, many people talk about, oh, it's all about the business, the business, you know, that's the thing you've got to focus on. 1009 00:52:34.564 --> 00:52:43.129 You focused on everything you've said when I've asked those questions have been like, from personal aspect, what do you want out of it from the business owner's point standpoint? 1010 00:52:43.809 --> 00:52:49.713 I think that's quite refreshing because normally people or people that help other people tend to focus on just the business. 1011 00:52:50.493 --> 00:52:54.535 Whereas I think you're focusing on the person or the people and saying, okay, what do you want from it? 1012 00:52:54.915 --> 00:52:55.876 And then work backwards. 1013 00:52:56.877 --> 00:52:58.778 And I don't think you've done it intentionally. 1014 00:52:58.798 --> 00:53:04.641 I mean, it's just the way you probably just like mindset is, you know, which is a great way, by the way. 1015 00:53:04.781 --> 00:53:05.481 It's amazing. 1016 00:53:05.501 --> 00:53:06.222 It's quite refreshing. 1017 00:53:06.597 --> 00:53:11.141 I always think I had a meeting before this and I said to the person, he said, oh, I can't get to that level. 1018 00:53:11.161 --> 00:53:11.861 And I said, why not? 1019 00:53:12.502 --> 00:53:13.603 Why can't you get to that level? 1020 00:53:13.803 --> 00:53:14.403 He's like, I don't know. 1021 00:53:14.423 --> 00:53:15.464 No one's ever asked me that before. 1022 00:53:16.425 --> 00:53:17.806 I thought, well, you could get to that level. 1023 00:53:17.906 --> 00:53:18.747 And I always say that to everyone. 1024 00:53:18.767 --> 00:53:19.888 Everyone says, oh, you can't get there. 1025 00:53:19.908 --> 00:53:20.488 And I'm like, why not? 1026 00:53:20.528 --> 00:53:22.990 Elon Musk did it or Jeff Bezos did it. 1027 00:53:23.090 --> 00:53:23.911 I said, why can't I? 1028 00:53:24.652 --> 00:53:25.552 But I haven't done it yet. 1029 00:53:25.593 --> 00:53:26.233 So obviously I can't. 1030 00:53:26.333 --> 00:53:28.415 Yeah, I think you will do. 1031 00:53:28.815 --> 00:53:30.416 A few more police stations yet. 1032 00:53:30.456 --> 00:53:33.339 A few rockets. 1033 00:53:33.679 --> 00:53:35.721 John, where can people find you if they want to get in touch? 1034 00:53:36.101 --> 00:53:37.884 So, yeah, we're on YouTube. 1035 00:53:38.004 --> 00:53:40.107 We're on Pocknell's website. 1036 00:53:40.168 --> 00:53:40.628 We're there. 1037 00:53:40.648 --> 00:53:41.670 We've got a few companies. 1038 00:53:41.730 --> 00:53:43.192 So, yeah, look us up, Pocknell's group. 1039 00:53:43.873 --> 00:53:45.216 Pocknell, do you want to spell it out? 1040 00:53:45.336 --> 00:53:47.740 P-O-C-K-N-E-L-L-S. 1041 00:53:48.020 --> 00:53:50.424 It would help if I didn't have an Essex accent when I said it, wouldn't it? 1042 00:53:50.604 --> 00:53:51.666 Okay. 1043 00:53:52.567 --> 00:53:52.988 No, brilliant. 1044 00:53:53.008 --> 00:53:54.650 Well, John, it's been an absolute pleasure. 1045 00:53:54.731 --> 00:53:56.113 Thank you so much for coming on. 1046 00:53:56.133 --> 00:53:56.994 I've really enjoyed it. 1047 00:53:57.174 --> 00:53:58.777 And you've given away tons of advice. 1048 00:53:58.817 --> 00:53:59.338 It's brilliant. 1049 00:53:59.358 --> 00:54:00.259 So thank you very much. 1050 00:54:00.299 --> 00:54:00.600 Thank you.