The reality of business? Scrappiness and hustle<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Debunking business myths: do you need a business plan?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dream-Plan-Do-Review Process<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n What is creative avoidance and how can you, er, avoid it?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you need lots of money to start a business?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t need a website \u2013 here\u2019s what you do need<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes money-saving exercises are expensive, weirdly<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t underestimate critical analysis<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have a dozen ideas before breakfast? Here\u2019s how to implement them<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know about the concept of glass and rubber balls in business?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s such a wealth of knowledge that we\u2019re going to tap into today. But I want to start by learning a bit about you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you\u2019ve helped literally thousands of business owners to start ventures and become successful. But how did you get into the weird and wonderful world of business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because you started your career someplace quite different, is that right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. So it was completely by accident. And I\u2019ll give you the brief summary without going back as far as the midwife holding me up by my feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was lucky and fortunate to be blessed with a grammar school education. But I didn\u2019t realise just how privileged I was to be in that position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And at the age of 15, I\u2019ll be quite honest, I was more interested in going out, hanging out with mates, playing football, basically doing the stuff that young boys do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I ended up being quite disinterested in school and ultimately leaving to start a Youth Training Scheme in hairdressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that probably isn\u2019t the start in life that most people would associate with being involved in the business. It really didn\u2019t work out. I was there for all of six weeks. You probably could say I wasn\u2019t cut out for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And pretty soon afterwards, I had to work out what I was going to do it myself. Because the way it was looking, it was likely to be a supermarket job or a stacking job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something that, whilst it\u2019s very important, wasn\u2019t necessarily going to help me reach my potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Added to that, the fact that I\u2019d left home by that point as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I applied for every job in the newspaper and got three interviews. I got two interviews at accountancy firms and one in the army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got offered both jobs in the accounting firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that was my introduction to the world of business at the age of 16. Not having a clue what accountants did, not having any idea about tax or what the difference was between a chartered accountant and an unqualified accountant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of his stuff was new to me, but that\u2019s what got me going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you knew it wasn\u2019t hairdressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s right. It\u2019s really showing my age, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that I\u2019ve referred to the Youth Training Scheme, which could be otherwise described as slave labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think I earned \u00a331.50 per week and a 50p allowance towards my bus fares. So that was the apprenticeship scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think by that point, it had actually been rebranded to modern apprenticeships. So that was fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the other bit that showed my age was the fact that I actually was looking for a job in a newspaper. I mean, how antiquated is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Well you see, I remember those days too. So if you\u2019re old, I\u2019m old. We\u2019re old together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so you\u2019ve trained as an accountant and you are a great accountant, but you are a business expert and that\u2019s mostly because you\u2019ve owned several ventures. In fact, you still do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell me about creating businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah sure. So as you say, I am an accountant by training. I would actually contend that I\u2019m a great accountant. I would sometimes say that I\u2019m the world\u2019s worst accountant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found that within my accountancy career, whilst I understood the value of accountancy to businesses, I didn\u2019t particularly enjoy the hard graft of being an accountant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because actually, whilst it might seem quite simple, it\u2019s actually quite a task to be an accountant and to stay on top of all of the tax legislation and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So over time, I found that my role naturally evolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First of all within my firm, where I went from being an accountant to advising businesses on software, then moving through to selling and building my own client portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then building a sales team, then building a marketing team and so on. But alongside that, I was actually involved in the management buyout of my firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I was involved at quite an early age, making an offer to buy into the firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we had two formal management buyouts, which led me towards being a joint shareholder in the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that was, I guess, my first exposure to running a business. But I always had the mindset that once I owned the business, I wanted to be running it as if it was a turnkey business and making sure that it wasn\u2019t reliant on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So building a management team, building a leadership team and finding a way to step away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I had hoped that that would result in me going away, sitting on a beach, not doing anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s not in my personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the moment I stepped away from the business, I started doing other stuff. And that\u2019s what led me towards starting a couple of businesses, investing in businesses and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s been a great fun journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I suppose that\u2019s the point of difference about you when you\u2019re giving advice, you are actually coming at it with all these different perspectives because you\u2019ve lived it as a business owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve not only run businesses and spoken to loads of business owners and you have the accounting stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That must be quite unusual to be able to bring all of that together in one package?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, quite possibly. There\u2019s also been another side to it I guess Bex, which is, I\u2019ve always noticed that there\u2019s a disconnect between what\u2019s taught in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The academic curriculum around business is all very much focused on share price valuations and formalities of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I like to put it as big shiny glass offices in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where business studies are focused. And if you were to believe the structure of the academic syllabus, you\u2019d believe that there are only 700 businesses in the UK and they\u2019re all multimillion corporations, employing thousands of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas the reality is that businesses are actually like the business that my dad ran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My dad was a partner in the family business of locksmiths. And I\u2019ve never known anyone work harder than he has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019ll go out very early in the morning, doing jobs backed up throughout the day, whilst his brothers are running the shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019ve seen the reality of business and I guess the scrappiness and the hustle. And the fact that actually, every pound has got a value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing that disconnect to what\u2019s taught both within schools, but also within professional qualifications and at universities and through business links and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a very real difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess one of my drivers for that business advice and what might come out from that is that I\u2019ve tried translating the jargon and the technical stuff and actually bring it into relatable, actionable tips that business owners can use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, let\u2019s debunk some of these myths then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because there the London office with the business owner that wants to create a company that\u2019s going to change the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re going to grow 200 times every year and might need things like a business plan, and loads of startup capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if you are just trying to start a company to make a living and support your family, what do you actually need? Do you need a business plan? Do you need to be going for a loan to get going?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, and no. That\u2019s an unfortunate answer, but let me explain it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some businesses really can benefit from that stuff. But if we were to talk about the average small business for starting up, the reality is that most businesses don\u2019t need a loan and they\u2019re not particularly capital intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, there is an amount of money needed to start up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I guess one of the challenges that I see is, down to human nature, that if you start a business and you decide to take the leap into self-employment and you\u2019ve got, let\u2019s say, 12 months worth of living expenses, I can guarantee you, that you won\u2019t start truly working until month 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is the unfortunate reality for most people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are more driven by fear and the pain of being broke than the, I guess, the target-driven mindset of going out, getting it and smashing results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We might see all the social media noise about being go-getters, but the reality is, most of us are lazy and we just need to look back to our school days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When did we do our project? The likelihood is a week before submission, at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can look at how we do things in our day to day lives. When we set a task, do we do it straight away or do we wait until the deadline?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of us tend to put it off because why do it today when we can do it tomorrow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So on that basis, I\u2019m a genuine believer that most businesses don\u2019t need as much capital as people fear and actually running it on a shoestring can sometimes be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do they need a plan? Yes, they need a plan. However, I don\u2019t believe it necessarily needs to be a business plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I talk about it in my book, The Dream-Plan-Do-Review process, and that every successful business has a great dream, it has a plan, actually has a business owner taking action, which is the most important part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then a review against the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the word plan doesn\u2019t necessarily mean a ream of A4 paper with executive summaries and SWOT analysis and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This stuff is useful for raising funds and the process of producing it is useful because it helps you think about the business objectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality is that most businesses actually need an operational plan, a tactical plan rather than a templated business plan that, let\u2019s say, the bank has told them to prepare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What most businesses need is, day one, I\u2019m going to take these three actions. Day two, I\u2019m going to do this. Day three, I\u2019m going to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then within those actions, a marker as to what success is and the contingencies that rely on the step before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So as a business owner, you understand what\u2019s truly essential to be working on, because business is really simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s about getting customers and keeping them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We all over-complicate it beyond that, but for a small business, it\u2019s about finding your customer, winning them, charging \u00a310 for something that cost you \u00a35. It is that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Provided we can tee up all of our actions so that that is the end result, then we\u2019ve got a great plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we\u2019ve got the best 200-page document with all of the financial projections, all neatly done and calculated to a penny, that\u2019s great. And your accountant will be happy, and your bank manager will be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you\u2019ve got more chance of winning the lottery than those numbers being penny perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s about finding the right balance of planning and focusing on operational success, rather than doing it as a tickbox exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I suppose a lot about planning is down to the founder and how their mind works?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because if you are someone that works well with things jotted down, then perhaps a written plan, a formal document that keeps you honest, you\u2019ve got everything in one place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a lot of people\u2026 And we\u2019ve had entrepreneurs on this show, an amazing cake maker called Autumn Rabbitts<\/a>. She had a plan, nothing written down, all in her head, but she knew where she wanted to go and that\u2019s what worked for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. And this is it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think one of the challenging parts of starting a business is, I mentioned about the dreaming, the planning and the doing, and they all take three different types of mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the dream needs a really big picture, optimistic, strategic view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to be looking at, I don\u2019t necessarily just want to open up one cake shop, I want to open up 10 cake shops, 20 cake shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the dreaming stage, it\u2019s about finding a dream that\u2019s sufficiently compelling to get you out of bed, but also it doesn\u2019t seem so unrealistic that you think, \u201cWhat\u2019s the point because I\u2019m never going to achieve this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the dreaming takes a blend of entrepreneurial dreaming with a dose of reality, whereas the planning\u2026 To do the planning properly takes a real engineering mindset almost, and you need to almost disregard the dream and then start getting down to the nuts and bolts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To do both of those successfully actually takes two different skill sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You take in the action of running the business, and then you\u2019re bringing in the uncomfortable conversations like speaking to customers and selling to them, taking on staff members or possibly firing staff members, having negotiations with suppliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, a very different mindset to working behind a spreadsheet, coming up with a plan or sitting back on the beach and dreaming up of something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is difficult to have that balance across the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the review stage, where you go back and you look over what you\u2019ve done, that\u2019s the bit most business owners hide from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think the reason why is, because they know they\u2019re going to have failed in one of those areas, because none of us are superhuman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even if you get all that right, no business can succeed without execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s almost like you can have all the dreams sorted, you could have done your research, you can have the plan, but unless you\u2019re willing to put in blood, sweat and tears to make it happen, then all of that is for nought, really,<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I always talk about creative avoidance and, again, it\u2019s my fundamental belief that humans are lazy. And I know we are not all lazy, but I know I certainly am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And often we find stuff to do, that we feel makes us busy and important and makes us feel like we\u2019re being really productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take to-do apps, for example. That is the worst kind of procrastination for me, even though it\u2019s superficially about productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is my favourite time-wasting activity? Downloading a new task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what\u2019s the first thing I do? I put five tasks in that I\u2019ve already completed so I can hear the noise when it makes when I tick them off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a perfect example of creative avoidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where business owners will typically start creatively avoiding what they need to do, is by designing business cards and then redesigning them and over-obsessing about their logo or their website, rather than just outsourcing it and getting on with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you say, Bex, the reality for all businesses is that the market is the judge of your product or service and you need to have those conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to be going out there and asking people to give you money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you don\u2019t get given money, you haven\u2019t got a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we touched on earlier that it could be a bit of a myth that you need a lot of money in the bank to start a business, and that actually a lot of businesses aren\u2019t that capital intensive, but I\u2019d like to drill into that a little bit more and discuss what you actually do need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you start with 12 quid to incorporate in Companies House \u2013 I think that\u2019s still the fee. I should check that So that\u2019s like the basic, but what else does every business need?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure. So nowadays Bex, I think every business it\u2019s safe to say needs a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality is that with the changes that are going on externally with Making Tax Digital and the filings at Companies House online, you need a computer to run your admin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you need a computer, but you can always repurpose your own computer for your business, but you might need to go out and buy one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality is, but you need a place to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, again, that might be perched on your kitchen table. It might be an office. It might be a shop. But you need somewhere that you can operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this is where I think sometimes trying to run it too much on the shoestring is a problem, you need enough cash so that you\u2019re not operating in the monkey mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s the monkey mindset?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a saying from The Chimp Paradox [a book by psychologist Steve Peters], a fantastic book about the fact that when you\u2019ve got worries, you don\u2019t necessarily think logically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a business owner, if you\u2019re starting your business and give up your job with no savings whatsoever, that\u2019s a whole lot worse than going into it with 12 months\u2019 savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every one of us will have a sweet spot based on our own experiences, and that will be experiences from childhood with how our families run their personal finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you grow up seeing your family dividing up the pound notes and working out how they pay for bills? Was that even a problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of us run a financial red line and some of us need a whole lot more security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So understanding that level of security you need as an individual working out what that amount is and then having that put aside, has to be deemed to be a capital investment in the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then of course there\u2019s equipment or initial stock of products and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the things I suggest to a business if they\u2019re stocking products is don\u2019t stock products until you\u2019ve got sales, or at least commitment of interest for sales, whether that\u2019s preorders or similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure that you keep your stock level optimised, when you need that level of stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So yeah, there is a capital need. But what is that capital need? It depends business by business. How long is a piece of string?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you say that for example, every business needs a website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is that something that\u2019s a prerogative now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think every business needs a web presence. However, do they actually need a website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m going to upset a few people here. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as important as it was 10, 15 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But actually, businesses didn\u2019t place as much importance on it 10, 15 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I can look at my own business and I\u2019m going to be very open with you Bex and vulnerable here. Our website is absolutely shocking and it\u2019s being redesigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We found out it was shocking because we went on to Google. Yeah, you don\u2019t tend to check your own website. We went on to Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We realised that some of the images have been pulled down, the formatting\u2019s dreadful, and it\u2019s out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality for most businesses nowadays is that I believe the social media presence that they have is actually the social proof plus for websites nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, if you\u2019re an e-commerce business, you need a functioning e-commerce tool, but most businesses that I see are doing quite well. Actually use an off-the-shelf tool, the likes of Shopify or so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they just take it, they add their product and move on with the template.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they focus on driving traffic to it rather than building up a bespoke website. Whilst a web presence is essential, I think it is so much more than a website nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And would you say that when you\u2019re in the research stage, it\u2019s actually worth looking at what time-saving apps and kind of tech options are out there to save you all that stuff like the web build or laboriously creating tweets on, tweets, social posts on multiple platform forms if you can do it all through one. Is that part of a necessary part of planning now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely, because I feel that most business owners see that they want to take the route of least cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And sometimes that route of least cost is the most expensive because they will try to reinvent the wheel and do stuff themselves rather than paying 15, 20 quid a month for a social media platform or \u00a3200 or \u00a3300 a month for a social media agency, they will try and do it all themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plus, they will try and do their books themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plus, they will try and build their website themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there\u2019s only one finite resource that we\u2019re all limited by which is time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think the test of whether somebody will truly go from self-employed to a successful business owner is if they can let go of this stuff early and trust the technology and trust other people to do it for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s great advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And because you\u2019ve helped so many businesses, I feel like you must see time and time again the same stumbling blocks coming up and even like cross-sector, cross size of business, there tends to be a few sticking points that are just almost universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d love it if you could share one or two of those with our listeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, of course. I\u2019d always say that execution is the most important because, without execution, it\u2019s just a good idea or a pretty business plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That one I don\u2019t think needs too many examples because we all know people who only talk about their next big business idea. We all know people who come up with big plans and they just don\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I don\u2019t think that one needs too much explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The one that I think gets underestimated is the lack of review and the lack of critical analysis on what you\u2019ve done because we\u2019re all scared of admitting when we got things wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And once you get into the flow of running a business, it is busy. It is tough and it takes up time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s really hard to sort of sit back and look at whether my dream still relevant in today\u2019s world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was my plan correct or do I need to change my course of action?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been countless examples. You have so many it\u2019s really hard to give you specifics because most of them do end up in failure, but I\u2019ve seen that time and time and time again where business owners just follow a path blindly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s very similar to the analogy in Stephen R Covey\u2019s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where he talks about the ladders up against the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever read the book, but he talks about that there could be a few ladders up against a few different walls. And if you\u2019re climbing the ladder, often you tend to try and go faster and faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But sometimes you don\u2019t check that you\u2019re climbing up the right wall and that can be a trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know what this reminds me of? It was the advice when we were all kids that when you finish your exam, you should read over your paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I remember always being one of the kids, and all my friends were the same, we resisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You just didn\u2019t want to read the damn exam paper. You didn\u2019t want to see what you could correct. It\u2019s so stupid. It\u2019s the stupidest thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of all the points we could have got if we just found that spelling mistake or that we\u2019d use the wrong name or whatever, but it is totally human nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And how do you then, you\u2019re a busy guy, you\u2019ve got lots of stuff going on, how do you plan to review your life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure. That\u2019s a really good question, Bex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019m going to, first of all, start with my businesses and then I\u2019m going to move it to life as well, because I think that both of them are important for business owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within the businesses, what I\u2019ve realised very early on is that my mindset isn\u2019t rounded enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My approach, my personality, isn\u2019t rounded enough to be able to do all of this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know that I\u2019m great at coming up with ideas. I\u2019m what used to be called a naughty kid, with what\u2019s now known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I have more ideas before breakfast than most people have in their life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So ideation isn\u2019t a problem. Implementation is OK. I\u2019m really good. If there was a job of just running up and kicking the ball in a football match or a rugby match and seeing how far you can kick it, I would do that bit really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\u2019d run out of puff by 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not a completer myself and I\u2019m certainly not detailed enough or critical enough to be able to review adequately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve made sure that I\u2019ve got the right team around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for example, in d&t my business partner, Ben, is the polar opposite of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s a glass, we would normally say that I\u2019d see it as half full, he\u2019d see it as half empty. It was literally pouring out the top and he would be saying, \u201cThis glass is completely empty and we need another five bottles of water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we\u2019ve got a very different mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And whilst I\u2019m very big picture, he\u2019s very detailed. We work as great foils against each other, and we can both test each other\u2019s thinking. It was a difficult relationship at first until we really understood those differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019ve tried to do that within my businesses because I knew that was a weakness of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve tried to get the right people for the checks and measures. So for example, we\u2019re a firm of accountants, but we have a financial controller in place. We have a finance team, rather than trying to do it all ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of life, I think that\u2019s a really important, I guess, use of words that you had there, about how do entrepreneurs do that in life as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because we can get so caught up in the hustle, that we actually forget why we are doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We forget what that dream was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was the vision to retire on a beach, or to spend more time with our family?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t want to go off on a tangent here, but it\u2019s important for business owners to think about how they can critically review not just the performance of their business, but the performance of their whole life and the impact that the business has on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s such an interesting point. And it\u2019s been something that I have been asking so-called successful entrepreneurs for a few years, just for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have any regrets, or do you feel that you\u2019ve sacrificed a lot to get where you are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there\u2019s always a pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The people who I think are really successful are the ones saying, \u201cActually, no, I kind of got a great family and I\u2019ve got hobbies and I\u2019ve got friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there are the ones that say, \u201cYeah, I didn\u2019t see my kids grow up. I haven\u2019t had a holiday in four years. I\u2019ve got a heart murmur,\u201d or whatever is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You think, \u201cIt\u2019s just an interesting kind of added layer when you consider what is success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It really is. And it\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you mentioned it, I actually had a cold shiver go down me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I certainly can\u2019t class every area of my life as a success. I\u2019m 17 stone. And I would love to say, that\u2019s 17 stone of muscle, but the reality is there\u2019s probably a pound or two of body fat on there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So certainly my health has been sacrificed along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m very fortunate that now I get to spend a lot more time with the family, but there\u2019s been a lot of time that\u2019s been sacrificed in my past, which has had a dramatic shift in my life because of the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there\u2019s been a number of balls that I\u2019ve dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And one of the things that I always try to think about as a business owner is the concept of glass balls and rubber balls. Because ultimately, running a business is like juggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, I can juggle two balls I think. Three balls and I start getting tested. Four balls, I\u2019d have to be really lucky to keep them up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might have gone to clown school and you might be able to juggle 15 balls, I don\u2019t know. But there will be an upper limit on the number of balls that you can juggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when you\u2019re juggling those, there will be a tipping point at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s say it\u2019s from four balls. You can juggle four balls, but you can\u2019t juggle five. You\u2019re going to drop one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happens when you drop a ball?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it\u2019s a rubber ball, it bounces back. So it might be, that if you\u2019ve got an average team member or an average customer or something in your life that\u2019s not really that important, that\u2019s a rubber ball. It will bounce back. It will get repaired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if it\u2019s a glass ball, it\u2019ll shatter, and that\u2019s something that can\u2019t be fixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s really important when considering that balance and how you approach your business, that you focus on the glass balls, not the rubber balls, and you make sure you catch those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that\u2019s your health, that\u2019s your family, that\u2019s your wellbeing. It could be your spirituality and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everybody will have their own glass balls. But ultimately, you need to make sure that they\u2019re the ones that are protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love that analogy. Is that a Carlism? This, \u201cI see rubber balls and glass balls\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know what? I\u2019m going to take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, I\u2019m going to use that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not. I\u2019ve heard it from somewhere, but I\u2019m going to take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you found this episode useful. Remember, there\u2019s more! Look out for part two of this episode, dropping soon, for more Carlisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, make sure you follow Carl on Instagram<\/a> and Twitter @carlreader<\/a>. And for goodness sake, go buy his latest book, Boss It.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Full disclosure, one of the testimonials on the cover is from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get a bit more detail on some of the themes from today\u2019s show, head to sage.com\/podcast. See you in two weeks for the next instalment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wherever you\u2019re listening or watching, subscribe to Sound Advice on Apple iTunes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also on Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\nYou can be an accidental entrepreneur<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The reality of business? Scrappiness and hustle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Debunking business myth: Do you need a business plan?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Dream-Plan-Do-Review Process<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What is creative avoidance and how can you, er, avoid it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Do you need lots of money to start a business?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t need a website \u2013 here\u2019s what you do need<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes money-saving exercises are expensive, weirdly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t underestimate critical analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Do you have a dozen ideas before breakfast? Here\u2019s how to implement them<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Do you know about the concept of glass and rubber balls in business?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Carl Reader:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Inspired by this small business story?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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