E27: Mindset, mistakes & scaling a food business

Speaker A: I was actually working for Hermes at the time. So drove past, saw it up for rent, called, uh, the number, went and viewed it. I thought I could maybe do something here. Been a journey, man. Simplify the model. What do people experience when they go to a Jamaican takeaway?

Speaker B: So what are your goals?

Speaker A: Just a few little hot spots that I like. When we go bigger, we're gonna have to, like.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Founder Stories. As always, we bring you relatable and inspirational business owners. Today is no different. We have here Michael, uh, who's the founder of Marjay's. I think I said that right? Yeah, yeah, got it. Which is a Caribbean takeaway restaurant. Not takeaway slash restaurant. Takeaway restaurant.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So we go there, we order the food and we take it away, which I do on a regular basis. Uh, and it's based right here in Birmingham. Uh, so welcome to the podcast.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me, mate.

Speaker B: Um, just a bit about founder stories. If you're new here, it's always about helping entrepreneurs and business owners with real life, actionable advice, uh, strategies, tips, stories to inspire. So I'm excited about this one because we've known each other for a while now. Um, every time I take my boys for context to come, their haircut, a new era, um, which I always forget. The area in Birmingham where your restaurant is.

Speaker A: Kings Norton.

Speaker B: Kings Norton. Um, the first time I went there, I was hungry, so I googled Google map restaurants around. I couldn't believe how high your reviews were. So I was like, this can't be right, but I'll try it. Got the food, took it home. Um, it's unbelievable. I'm not just saying that because you're here. And now every time I take my boys to get a skin fade, which they want, like literally every 10 days now, I come around the corner and get food. Um, so I'm super excited, actually, because we never had time to talk about business. Um, and a little bit, if we get into it, about both of our journeys and potential to transitioning some of our business to Dubai and looking at emerging markets and how that even came about in your thought process. So hopefully today we can share your story, some lessons the viewers or listeners can gain insight from that. Not just the ones in the food and beverage sector, though. I think you know, any aspiring entrepreneur, especially on your journey, your transition from what you were doing before, which is totally different to what you're doing now, um, can be inspired and take a lot from it. So let's start with where you are at now. And then as Always. I will loop back to kind of how you got here. So tell me a bit about your takeaway restaurant. Um, what kind of food is it? I always say, who is your ideal client? But I guess anyone that's hungry would be your ideal customer.

Speaker A: Uh, so long story short, my mom lives about five minutes away from the site. Um, I was driving past one day. I was actually working for Hermes at the time.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Delivering parcels, like in between, um, what I was doing before. So dream drove past, saw it up for rent. Obviously I've lived in the area for years. It's always been a busy calf. Just like a greasy spoon calf saw. It was up for let, called, uh, the number, went and viewed it. I thought I could maybe do something here. All my family cook and whatever and there's no Jamaican places local really. So I was like, have a crack.

Speaker B: Anyway, are you cooking at that point? Can you cook or that?

Speaker A: My mom's cooking.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So how the business starts, she's, she's decided she's gonna cook.

Speaker B: So you've gone, you've seen this and then have you gone back to her and said, look, I've seen this.

Speaker A: Yeah. And she's like, how are you gonna do it? And maybe because at the time, she's now retired, she used to, yeah, she used to work in mental health as a nurse. So she retired from her job. So she's just chilling. So I go and view it and then when I get there, the estate agent knew who I was, like through, um, mutuals and whatever. So, uh, I view the place, whatever, whatever. Then as I'm leaving, I say to him, let me take your personal number and we can chat about deal structure, like how we can get it across the line. So he's like, yeah, cool. So, um, he knew who I was. Called, um, him a couple of weeks after. He's like, um, I can tell you what other people have offered, where your offers are going to rank. So I was like, okay, cool. So he was saying that the offer that I'd put in was a decent one, but there was two other interested parties. Somebody had offered a longer term and somebody had offered a, uh, longer time on the break in the lease. Yeah. So he's like, if you want to get it, you need to go longer. So I said, I'll take it on a six year lease with a three year, uh, break. I think the other party wanted it at four years and a two year break. She's like, that'll probably do it.

Speaker B: Uh, and that's a big commitment, right? Because you haven't done this, you've not done pop ups or tested this, festivals or. Nothing to do, you've just gone, I back myself.

Speaker A: Yeah, nothing to do with food. So I'm still doing Hermes. So when I'm driving through the area I can see other people viewing it. So, so I'm like oh my God, this is, I need to get this unit, whatever. So anyway, he comes back to me and he's like, landlord's still looking at the other offer. So what, what had happened was they wanted 1800amonth for the unit. No, 1660. So it worked out to uh, 20, 000 a year, uh, for the unit that was for shop flat above.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So I was like okay, cool. But initially it would have been 21 6, which was 1800amonth and they were offering to drop it to 20 I think just to get someone in there.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I was like, do I really want to miss out on this unit for the sake of 140 quid a month extra? So I went back to the agent, I called him, I said listen, I'll offer this, yeah, and I'll also go back to the 21 6. So I was like, fine. So he was like, boom. Calling me. Yeah, you've got it. So it's all right. Great. So now I've got to sort the money out and I've got a bit of money but not really enough. So one of my friends calls me and uh, he's in the studio and he tells me to come down. He's just chilling with these guys that wanted to meet me. So I was like alright, cool. Went down there. We started speaking anyway and one of the guys was like what's your credit score? Like? So I was like it's pretty decent, like 7:30 or something like that. And he's like uh, I've got this link at Clear Score, I can sort loans out and whatever. So I was like wow. Anyway, thought he was full of it. Yeah, you know, as you do. I'm like pinch of salt. Anyway, so a couple of days later after I met him he's like

Speaker B: send,

Speaker A: uh, me your login details for the clear school things. I send it to him. He's like I'm gonna get my guy to have a look. So yeah, then he calls me back and he's like give it a couple of days, log in and see if you've been approved for anything. So I was like yeah, cool. Logged in. It's about four days later, triple like guaranteed for 10k. So I was like wow. Plus, on top of what I had at the time, I was like, I can probably wing it and do this.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So I'm like, okay, cool. So accept the money. It goes into the account. It's a 16.6 APR. This is like back then, you probably wouldn't get that now. So it was like 12 and a half back on 10K over three years. I was like, it's fine, it's like 350amonth. I'm like, yeah, okay. Um, I'm probably all right. And then about a week later, something just said to me, check again. Logged on to my clear score again, checked another 10k, boom, do it, triple up, guaranteed. It's in my bank within an hour. Got 20K. Now I'm like, okay, I could do this. I'm gassed. I'm like, yeah, so, yeah, so we go to lease stage now. Head of terms get signed, um, pay the three months deposit. The solicitor whacked me. It was like a four grand legal bill back and forth in for three months. And like, we started the negotiation. No, no. December 2021. And it took until I think the first of April to get to get the lease agreed. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: There was backstory in my head. It's like, okay, we've agreed the price, you've agreed the terms, you've agreed the break. Sign on the line. Done.

Speaker A: Exactly. I would never go through that process again now. I wouldn't. I don't think I'd even really use solicitors for simple leases like that. And I'd just be like, send me a draft. Yeah, I'll have a look at with my team. Yeah, I'll send it back. Amendments. You have a look. That's it. We sign.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost like they're creating work.

Speaker A: Of course. Yeah.

Speaker B: That's what they do do.

Speaker A: Because they're both the solicitors, they're back and forth in and they're making sure that they're racking up a bill. Learned a lot. Anyway, um, had to add loads of things into the lease because initially they said I could have the right to sublet the upstairs. Because I was thinking if the business takes a while to take off, I'm going to need the income from upstairs. Naturally. So halfway through the negotiations, the agent calls me and he's like, the landlord's, um, not wanting to allow the right to sublet after we've started the negotiation. And that's what they'd obviously said. So I was like, oh, my God. Called the solicitor, solicitors, like, no way. They can't do that. It says on the advertisement on the website where they've listed it that you've got the right to sublet. So we go back hard baller. And then they come back, they're like, oh, yeah, no, it's fine. They just tried a load of stuff. Then I had to get the right, um, security attend. You put in the lease, which basically means at the end of the lease, I get the option to extend. They can't pull the rug. Um, there was a couple of bits we had to add in. Uh, they wanted me to personally guarantee it. Didn't want to. But they were like, you've got to. So I personally guaranteed it. Um. Yeah, get the keys. Me and my mom, we go in there first of April, we spend two months, just me and her.

Speaker B: Just.

Speaker A: It was. It was.

Speaker B: And she'd backed you, Right? That must have felt good. Yeah. No, to go to an idea and she's not coming at you like a lot of people would and rightly. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? It's a big risk, but she obviously asked those questions, you answered them, and then in the end she backed you to do it, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. So obviously she's naturally like, it's probably going to take three years to take off. Like, da, da, da, da, da, da. And I'm like, yeah. In my head, I'm like, we'll be all right after three months. How wrong was I? But, uh, she backs me. I showed her that the money was in the account. She's like, all right, cool, let's do it.

Speaker B: And when was this? We are, like, into almost April 2025 now, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. So this is 2022.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So we opened June 6th, 2022.

Speaker B: Okay. So you'll be coming up on your three years.

Speaker A: Coming up on three years. Yeah. So it's taken up until now to actually get like, okay, now this is working. Seeing some money coming in now. Um. But, yeah, it's been a journey, man. It's been a journey.

Speaker B: Do you think you could have fast forwarded if you know what, you know now back then? What would you have done differently to get to the point where, you know, month on month, like we spoke about when I came in last time, week on week? You're highly profitable.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: What's the thing, uh, you would have done sooner? Or does it just take time for people to know?

Speaker A: Like, it definitely takes time, but what. What I understand now is marketing can bring time forward.

Speaker B: So your advice would be actually for you, whether it's learning and development or partnering with someone you trust.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You need to know marketing. So either you need to know it or someone that you trust is to

Speaker A: come in and run it for you. Yeah. So what I'd done was it's funny story actually. My, my dentist, her partner does marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So he was trying to sell a car one time and his Porsche, she'd posted it on her story like this car's for sale, whatever. So I reposted on my story because I've got a decent following and he messaged me and he was like thanks for posting it there. Then we connected. He's like I got this marketing company, blah blah. So we started speaking. He's ended up now doing my marketing. So he. He charges me a monthly consultation fee and he runs all my ads and does all that. Gives me advice on how to grow and whatever. And he's got like big clients that are spending like 10k a day in ad spend and stuff like that. For me, I'm tiny compared to.

Speaker B: Yeah. But he can use those to do the learning which you can then apply to your business.

Speaker A: He optimizes the ads and knows what he's doing and all of that. So I've started working with him.

Speaker B: And what were you doing right at the start? You were just. You put it on Google Maps.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Use your own following because you know 30k or something.

Speaker A: I don't use mine at all.

Speaker B: Okay. Is that just a decision to make it? Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because I didn't want it to be a thing of we're coming because it's him. I wanted them to come because it's okay.

Speaker B: So let's just. In its own right for viewers, listeners. They don't know what I know because I've been listening to your.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Music all morning. I sent a load of links to my wife to say play this to Jackson in the car. I've got two boys.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The. The big one likes house music. He's. I don't know, I think he'll probably be a DJ when he's older. And the little one is just obsessed with hip hop. Anything to do with rap.

Speaker A: Maybe not R B but rap.

Speaker B: He just, he's coming to me now with tracks.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Telling me. Oh H is dissing Central C. I don't like Central C anymore because he's manufactured nine year old.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Crazy. So I've sent her a couple of links of your tracks to um. Particularly the one where you have filmed it when you were in the back of a Car that was like take

Speaker A: one first ever one.

Speaker B: 30 million views.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Something crazy.

Speaker B: He's gonna love watching that. But yeah. So just tell me what you were doing in your past life before you had gone into that interim job of delivery and then come up with this idea.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, started messing about with music and rapping in School Year 7. Messing about and then like we'd go on stage in school. So I was like a little bit known in school, locked it off, then like didn't bother with it from I was about 16 till about 22. Got back into it and was just writing, writing, writing, writing. It was almost like therapy for me. So I had like notepads full of lyrics. And then one day, I think it was like Christmas Eve and my brother and his boys were all in the house and they put some beats on and I was just like going through them and they were like, wow, like, you've got, you've got to do this whatever. So I was like, you know what, I want to do it, but I know I'm gonna need money. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, this is 20s, 2014.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'm like, okay, got this business plan. So I take the business plan to Prince's trust, this is in 2015. Now get funded by Prince's trust to do a maintenance company. So eco friendly maintenance people will remember. So I was doing like anything outdoors, uh, or patio, driveway cleaning, window cleaning, trees, gardens, anything, just pull up in a van, do it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But yeah, I was doing that. So I set that up first. I said to the lads, let me do something where I can make a bit of coin and then I'll do the music. So started doing the music now, but I've got the company now. Yeah, yeah, that's doing quite well. Word of mouth spreading. I'm getting jobs, it's the summer, whatever. And we're trying to get hold of P1zero, which is the local YouTube channel for everybody to put music out or whatever, end up getting through to them, do a video. And this is like back when no one's really getting a million views or 100,000 views or whatever. 100,000 views is hard to get at that time. So do the video. I completely forget about it because I'm doing other stuff, but I'm back to uh, just, you know, the maintenance company, whatever. And then the guys call me after like four days. I haven't checked the views, the comments, nothing.

Speaker B: Boom.

Speaker A: I've done like 50k in like 3 days. So these like called me, they're like, yo, everyone's going crazy. I'm like, wow. And then they called me back a couple weeks later. They were like, jamal Edwards wants to get hold of you. I don't know if you know who that is. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, I heard of him.

Speaker A: Yeah. So he's got an MBE and he was like, one of the first big YouTube channels in London. So he called for me and was like, I want to work with you. So, yeah, started working with him and he was managing me for a while. Uh, rest in peace. He's passed on now. But, yeah, things started taking off. Did that for a couple of years and then, yeah, pivoted. Wasn't really in love with it anymore, and then took the restaurant on.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a mad change, but I guess we spoke about this in the kitchen. Like, uh, I mean, you didn't make that point that you weren't in love with it. So maybe, I guess if you're in love with it, with the talent that, ah, I can see that you've got, you probably would have kept kicking indoors long enough to probably make it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In some, um, form or another. Right. But, yeah, you have to have that. Ah, I was watching, uh, Drive to Survive yesterday on Netflix with the kids because they like that, and they're talking about, uh, Daniel Ricardo. And he can see in him that he doesn't have that, like, fire in him anymore. So to be one of the top 20 drivers in the world, it has to be everything to.

Speaker A: You gotta be hungry.

Speaker B: You can't have anything else. Yeah. You have to eat, sleep, think, like, 100. And you're willing to, like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Miss meals. Because it's everything going into that. Right.

Speaker A: Of course.

Speaker B: That's what it takes.

Speaker A: It's like. Like when you watch AJ Box now compared to a couple of years ago, he's. The hunger's not there anymore. Yeah, it's kind of a little bit like that for me. And the wake up call was going to my. One of my accountants, like, years ago, and she was like, to me, you've put 54K through your personal bank account this year. You got nothing left to show for it. You're gonna have a tax bill now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What are you doing? And I was like, 54K. But it's all the music videos, two grand paying directors, paying for Beats, paying for studio, paying for, like, sets, models, all of that. And I was thinking, like, I'm spending this in a year. Uh, and my Spotify at the time is doing like, 300 quid a month. Yeah, bro, I'm making like 4k a year from Streams and I'm spending, like. But there was some people that were coming up with me at that time, and they were, like, going and getting the big record deals, like, whatever. So I was not far off. Maybe I just needed to keep going for a bit longer. But, yeah, like I said, I fell out of love with it.

Speaker B: Uh, and everything is. I think you've got the same mindset as me that, like, everything is a lesson you're learning and there's no regrets because, you know, everything happens for a reason.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course.

Speaker B: Now you've got this great business that again, uh, most people would say, okay, well, I've been running the business for three years. I've got it to be profitable. I'm paying all my bills, I'm well known in the area. Uh, you know, I'm. I'm done now. I'm good. I'll just sit. Yeah. But you want to constantly evolve and do more.

Speaker A: Yeah. Now for me, I want. I want a chain of restaurants across the UK and the brand.

Speaker B: Talk to me about that, actually, like, sorry, you carry on then. I'm gonna ask the question.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So what are your goals? You want to chain the restaurants?

Speaker A: Yeah, I want to go international with it. So, like, we spoke about going to Dubai, maybe Marbella. Just a few little hot spots that I like.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: To. To visit as well, um, where I just don't feel like there's any competition and I would just dominate. So for now. For now, it's just me getting all the systems and the processes in place. So it is actually scalable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I had to learn a lot like SOPs. And for anybody that doesn't know what that is. Standard operating procedures.

Speaker B: Yeah. Like process documents. And there's a really good book that I recommended actually to one of my clients, one of my CFO clients. Uh, they have got a jewelry business in the jewelry quarter. Really, really successful, actually. Yeah. Good. Uh, person you might want to talk to, actually. Young entrepreneur, driven, motivated. I, uh, gave them the checklist manifesto.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: At all goandai, I think it's called. It's actually about SOPs, but written in the context of, um, how healthcare works and how the checklists in the medical industry work and prevent, like, catastrophe in the most.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, catastrophic issues. And if they weren't there, uh, none of it would work. And if you apply those same principles to a business.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: But that's where the roadblock comes because you might hire people and then you might hire cooks in different areas or whatever. But there's no consistency because there's no process, documentation. Right.

Speaker A: And this is what you find especially with Jamaican restaurants. It's like, why have we not been able to scale a model where it is like a Domino's where there's one on every corner.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And it's because of those things, like,

Speaker B: because there isn't a brand like that, uh, at least in the uk, is there?

Speaker A: There's only Turtle Bay that have gone big with it. But then again, it's not Jamaican chefs. It's like a Jamaican inspired menu. It's being cooked by like Sri Lankan and Indian chefs and stuff like that. And everybody goes there for drinks really.

Speaker B: More than food, which is where the margin is for restaurants.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Physical location. Anyway, it's not on the food anymore. Right. We've got a Michelin star restaurant as a client, you know. And he wouldn't mind me saying, he doesn't have that restaurant to be a millionaire. People think, oh, it's costing me 500 quid for a meal. If you knew how much they actually spent on their food and how much was left at the end of it in terms of profitability, you would be shocked.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because they do it for the love. Right.

Speaker A: M. This is it.

Speaker B: And it's other things then off the back of that that make their money.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: The drinks might make a money, but maybe going on TV or having a book or. Yeah, yeah. Joint ventures.

Speaker A: Once the brand is, uh, famous, so to call it, then you make money from other things. But I remember when I was getting started a m couple of my friends have got restaurants as well. Like take it the same as what I'm doing. Takeaways, not really restaurants. But one of my mates said to me when I very first started, he said, just remember, for every ten pound that comes in 250 staff, 250 stock. And 250 is rent and bills. Yep, 250 is yours. So don't be spending that ten pound. Like that's your ten pounds.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good advice. And 250 to be left at the end of it. Pretty good actually.

Speaker A: Yeah. So Marcus, my marketing guy I'll have to try and introduce you to, he's a genius when it comes to marketing stuff like that. But he said to me, he's like. Because we were talking numbers and what I was trying to achieve and he was like, he works with this restaurant in Wolves. I'm m not gonna say the name of it. But anyway, when he met him, they were doing two grand a week, so about 8k a month. He's just got them to 350k a, ah, year now. Like with the marketing, uh, and stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah. And is that a takeaway restaurant like yours?

Speaker A: Not. Yeah, but you can sit in there as well.

Speaker B: It's like a small city.

Speaker A: It's like a vegan sort of vibe. Yeah. So he said with every business, you'll have an operating ceiling. Yeah. You can't see it right now, but he said you will have a certain amount of orders that you can actually achieve each day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: With an amount of people you can fit in your kitchen, how much food and orders you can actually get to. He's like, I will get you there. It's just how long it takes, how long, how much you want to spend on ads and stuff. So he was like, I've got this restaurant that I'm working with now to their operational capacity. Like, they can't do any more orders on a Saturday night. They're doing like, two grand an hour or whatever. They can't do anymore. Yeah. Like, unless they get a bigger unit.

Speaker B: So I was like, wow.

Speaker A: So I'm learning about all these things because it's like, when you're first starting out, you've got numbers in your head and you're like, but can I actually achieve that? Is that possible? So he's made me understand, like, the square foot of the unit and all of that stuff. You're only gonna do so much.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's really important when you're younger, um, like, you are and inexperienced at that point to partner with people, because people do generally, if you find the right people want to help you. I met you, we got along. I want to help you. Yeah. So I'll go out of my way to say, okay, I can do X, Y and Z for you, and I know what your affordability is, so let's find a place that works for you. Yeah. And what can you do for me in return? Okay. You could be a great case study.

Speaker A: You've got a good audience.

Speaker B: Like, we can document the journey of maybe going and setting up in Dubai together. Like that, for me, is how I can get my payback. Of course, you know, not that you can't afford it, but sometimes it's about doing a bit extra for entrepreneurs that, uh, are on an earlier stage, which this guy's obviously doing with you as well. I will help you in that way because it's rewarding to do that and be a part of their journey.

Speaker A: This is it.

Speaker B: Uh, instead of just Seeing them as like another pound sign. And for you, obviously, you've partnered with him. He's given you the benefit of this wisdom and now you're thinking, oh, okay, cool. So it's either open up other locations that you own or franchise the brand.

Speaker A: I've been asked to do that as well. That was one thing I wanted to speak to you about.

Speaker B: Like M. And which one is the best deals.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And like if you, if you watch the founder, uh, with the MacDonald. If you watch the Founder with the McDonald's. Oh, you should go. You should watch that.

Speaker A: I need to watch.

Speaker B: I've watched it like five times.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: If you do that, then you're going to want a franchise because, you know, like a franchise is how McDonald's operates. Yeah, but then McDonald's is different because they actually make their profits on the capital appreciation of the land because they own the land that all the McDonald's is around.

Speaker A: Yeah, I did hear a little store. I need to look into their backstory story properly.

Speaker B: Um, but yeah, there are pluses and minuses both ways. Like if you look at Nando's, I believe that's not franchised. It's all multi site. It's. Yeah, but yeah, then they've got really, really tight margins. I was gonna say. Yeah, they probably do have tight margins, but also really tight and well organized. Like management teams. Yeah, uh, systems people, area managers constantly on it. And you'll get fluctuations. Like you go into Nando sometimes and it's like shocking. And then you might go back like a month later and it's good.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Cuz the area manager's been in and gone, look, this food is disgusting. Why are you not following the process?

Speaker A: Crack the whip and said that, that, that might. So this is what I had to learn. Cuz I was like. When I very first started it opened, I had a chef immediately. I didn't want to cook. I can cook.

Speaker B: So your mom didn't come in and do the cooking?

Speaker A: She did, but we were clashing.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Cuz it's almost like I'm running things, I've invested all this money. You need to listen to me. But then she's on the other foot. Like, you're my son, my youngest son at that.

Speaker B: You're not the boss.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So every little thing were clashing. So I just said to my mom, look, like, it's just, I don't want to harm the relationship. I'm gonna just figure this thing out. So yeah. And then I had to Learn. So I started employing people. The wrong people. Like friends of friends. Oh, my mate. And so I'm employing all these random people who've got no experience, but just know people that I know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Worst mistake. So I get to a, uh, stage very early on where I'm not really having to be there. And I'm noticing, like, the more staff I have and the less time I'm having to spend there. But then what's happening is my phone's ringing.

Speaker B: Oh.

Speaker A: Uh, how do we turn the cooker on? How do we turn the Uber machine on? How do we. So I'm like, every time someone's calling me, I'm making notes of why they're calling me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I'm like, well, I can't moan if I haven't trained them. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Then that's when I get into the SOPs and all of that sort of stuff. So now I'm like, okay, I need to figure out a way to train people on this. Yeah. So I'm like, how. How am I gonna train somebody to do something that only I know how to do? Yeah. Like, for instance, turning everything on in the morning. All the lights, all the machines, they've got a strip light there. Strip, like there, that needs to be open. Shutters need to go on. Radio needs to come on. Like, uh, the gas valve for the cooker needs to be.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I have to literally go around now, uh, and video and be like, right, that light switch there, that's a strip light for this. Turn that on, turn on. Then I can send them that video. Yep. And they can have a look at it. They don't need to call me again to do that.

Speaker B: And then do you turn that video into a written checklist now?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So what?

Speaker B: I've embed the video into the written checklist.

Speaker A: I haven't got that far. What I've done is I've got an A4 page with 12 tick boxes.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And I was speaking to my admin girl now, because with Marcus, he's running ads for catering and for awareness. Ah. Campaign.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I need somebody to chase the leads. I'm busy. Like, whatever. So I've got this girl to do it all. And I was saying to the other day, I said, the difference between, like, the little guys like me and the bigger people is, like, KPIs.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Key performance indicators. She's like, what does that mean? So I said, well, say there's 10 things that, uh, a member of staff has to do. A big company that's got hundreds of staff. The only way they can stay on top of it is by KPIs. So looking at those 10 things and saying, Jamie, you've got 10 things you need to do and you're only operating at, uh, 80 KPI because you've only done eight things off your ten list. She's like, okay. So I said, when we go bigger, we're gonna have to, like, that's the only way we're going to be able to keep on top of each other. So if you've got a cleaner and they haven't mopped or they haven't done this, this, this, then you can be like, look, you're operating at 80. If you don't get to 100 next week, you're gone.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's really interesting. That thing about scaling. I think about a lot. What I came to as well, to take it even up a level is you can put, um, like key result areas, which is just Another word for KPIs, really. But say, yeah, for that salesperson or appointment setter, you might call her, you give her activities that she's got to do, but you give her like KPIs that you can measure. How many calls did she make, how many appointments did she set, how much new revenue she generated? And then you set her targets.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So then you can even stop looking at the checklist because the checklist for you M is a layer below where you even need to look at.

Speaker A: I don't even.

Speaker B: You just look at the results. Yeah. If the results are there, who cares about the checklist? True. Take the toilet example. The only way that you can check that is feedback loop.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So where you've got customers and you're asking them, um, were you happy with the cleanliness of the restaurant?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And 99 out of 100 are coming back saying, yeah, it's spotless. You don't need to go and look at the list on the door.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'll give you, I'll give you an example. So I just hired a girl to sit on the front now because obviously the kitchen's getting busy. We don't need to be coming out to be taking orders and stuff. Especially for customers that are new. They want you to really like baby step them through the menu and how it works. Because we don't have the simplest menu because you can build your own and you can customize it.

Speaker B: Or like I come in and I'm awkward and I just order off the menu.

Speaker A: Yeah, you just like, uh, I want this, I want This, I want that.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because the kids want different things.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So I've trained this girl now and I've given, uh, like two station sheets with a bunch of ticks. And I'm like, do this, like, do all this stuff. So give her the job. But she's in probation period. Yeah. So I was in the kitchen one day just helping out. It was a busy Friday night, whatever. And I heard these guys that were sitting in the actual shop and they were like, um, could we get a cloth and spray for the table? Now that's her job. Yeah. So I hear her say, uh, I'll do it. So she comes in the shop and she's in the kitchen and she's like, can I get cloth sprayed to do the table? So kind of looked at and I thought, I'm not going to say anything right now. So anyway, she leaves that night, but she leaves a little bit early. And she hadn't swept, she hadn't mopped, she hadn't changed the bins. And I'm like, this is crazy now. So I basically got rid of her just for that, because obviously she'd done a week. I'd explained to her, I said, if there's anything that you not sure about, come to me. Yeah, I can train you on it. Trained her on the till, trained on everything, Walked her through everything. A couple of days, she did the mopping. I wasn't happy. I was like, look, this is not good enough. You need to do better. So, yeah, she had a bunch.

Speaker B: Is that the same girl that was in when I came in last time and ordered the food?

Speaker A: Not sure.

Speaker B: Maybe I won't describe what she looked like now.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Uh, if she listens to the episode. But sometimes I think if you've hired people and if you've got a lot of experience, like I have, like 15 years of you, probably 12 years. To get to the point of then understanding how. What's a good hire and how to test them up front really quickly. You can tell just by looking at someone.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Their attitude, the way they carry themselves. Are they looking at the customer? Just with a look like, can I do anything else for you?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, like, you go to Dubai, for example.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Anyone in that hotel, doesn't matter whether it's the cleaner, uh, uh, like room service, the concierge, like, could be anyone from right down at the bottom of the packing order right up to the top. They've all got the look on their face like, are you okay?

Speaker A: Just. Can I help you with anything? Help yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Doesn't matter if it's my job.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: If you want me to walk you down the road to show you this particular shop and then walk back, I will.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's the money thing. You want that? Ah. In your industry, for me, I'd be looking for that look in people's faces.

Speaker A: Exactly. And that's what I would.

Speaker B: This observation. Right.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And I didn't see that in the person that was in there then. So it's probably the same person.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I let go of her. Uh, but like, little things, things I said to her. No phones on the shift. Because, you know these young people now.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: They're just like addicted. Addicted to the phone. So I caught her a couple of times looking. And the worst thing is, is, like, you go into a place to order and the girl at the front or the guy at the front, they're texting and you're there and they haven't even seen you because they're not looking up. Then they look up and it's like.

Speaker B: And I think it's such a shame. Like in my gym that I go to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um. Which hopefully are when I convince my wife to move to Dubai, I won't have to go any longer. Every time I walk up past the second floor, there's a restaurant there. And there's no one in the restaurant. Right. But there's a girl there inside the gym. Inside the gym, you go up to the second floor, there's a restaurant area where you could work and do whatever, order your drinks. And she's always sat there behind the counter, sat down, so you can hardly see her, uh, head down on her phone. First of all, I'm thinking 99. Chance, you're not doing anything productive. You're just on TikTok. So you're young. You could be learning, you could be developing, you could be doing something. You're wasting your time.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: If you got up and walked around when people walk up past that floor, smiled at them, maybe more customers would come in, make yourself useful, go and do something. Rearrange the chairs. Do. So I think the people who have that proactive attitude, she might not get promoted in that gym.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But someone will probably walk past and see her, see her attitude, see her work ethic and go, you know what? You're wasted here. Why don't you come and work in my organization?

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: But they're not going to do that. If she's just sat there with her head. And I think, young, she could be

Speaker A: going around Asking people like, I've seen you training in the gym all these times. What. What stopped you from coming in and getting food?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then the manager thinks, oh, why are the sales up all the time? And they ask her and they're like, you know what? She deserves a promotion. But I think they don't think a lot of the time. Certain people don't think a lot of the time. Two, three steps ahead. It has to be like some direct ROI for them to do something. Otherwise they're not interested in doing it.

Speaker A: That's what I've realized. You got people who are proactive and people who are reactive.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: So like, they wake up and life happens to them versus they make life happen for them. Get me.

Speaker B: And there's certain people, like, I like hanging out and I'd enjoy spending more time with you, for example. Because off the back of a conversation with someone like you. And I hope people get this from me. It's that enthusiasm to do better, be a better person, do better. Like energy. Like you come out of that interaction and instead of them, like, moaning and being negative, you're, like buzzing and you've got two or three ideas to go backwards. 100 and you're discussing, like, you're just both motivated to be the best that you can be.100 then you only want to hire people that could have that same attitude to a certain extent. Right. If your business is expanding.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Over ambition isn't really a thing because there'll always be a place for them. Right.

Speaker A: 100 what I've been noticing now as well is what. What, like, made me aware to it. My brother, he's moved to Northampton, so he's not. He's not really in Birmingham, but he sort of like, will m drop in every couple of weeks and he'll get food. He'll come with one of his mates or whatever. And there was this one particular day came and he was just sat chilling or whatever. And about four or five different people that I know had come to me that day for business advice.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I was just kicking, like, loads of free advice like, do this, do that, that, that, whatever. Yeah. I was like, how?

Speaker B: What?

Speaker A: Because he hasn't seen me, like, in my element.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. He doesn't really see. Obviously he knows I'm interested in business or whatever, but he can obviously see the growth and the knowledge that I've got.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he was like, why does everybody come to you about their businesses? Whatever. So, like, I've got a friend, she's opened A salon spent loads of money and then was like panicking because she couldn't get any customers through the door. So I started helping. I was like, right, you need to do this, this, this, this. So I sent her, uh, just a simple cold outreach, like, new client strategy. So I like documented it all and like sent it to her on email and I said, just spend one hour a day. I said, go and like, go and follow all the local Facebook groups. Follow all the. Find all the popping people in your niche. Yeah. On Instagram you're going to follow their followers because you know that they've indicated that they're interested in aesthetics or beauty. You're going to follow them, they're going to see your page. Then you're going to send them an automated Instagram message. I'll write it up for you. Then you're just going to keep sending it to them. So they're going to see you follow. Then they're going to see automated message, leave it a day or two.

Speaker B: Boom.

Speaker A: Send the price list. Yeah. I said, conversion rate. If you, if you do a hundred messages a day, you might achieve four or five new clients a day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Within a matter of time you're going to be fully booked. Yeah. After like two months she's like, yo, it's going crazy. I'm, um, fully booked, like, bloody, bloody blah. And then like she split the salon into rooms. So she was like, I've got this person that wants to rent the room, like, how should I structure it? So I was like, first they've got a pair deposit, they've got to do this, this, this and this. So one time she had this hairdresser that wanted to take like the main room and put like basins in and have it as a salon. And she was like, I'm going to charge him this. And I was like, think about the time when we were going to go and take a shop from a landlord and what we had to pay and deposit and how it all worked. I said, you've got to run that the same way. Especially if he's taking the front room of your building that's on the main road.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: He's got to pay for that privilege, you know what I'm saying? So help to structure loads of stuff. And then now people just keep coming to me for consulting advice. And I'm not a consultant, but I've learned quite a bit. So.

Speaker B: And is that through, do you think it's through experience or do you also read and educate yourself?

Speaker A: I read and educate myself non stop so like, for the last.

Speaker B: Because you do have a lot of knowledge about, uh, a lot of things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So for someone so young and actually, uh, no disrespect, but inexperience, because three years in.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Is inexperienced in the big scale of things.

Speaker A: So what I did, I took mentors on from young. So I had this Jewish guy, um, he's in his 70s and he just started coming to the shop when I'd first opened.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: He'd used to be in business, so he was giving me a lot of advice and.

Speaker B: Yeah, Jewish people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: A bit of positive racism. They are smart.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: When it comes to business and they are so smart. Right.

Speaker A: So he was telling me all this stuff and I was taking it in and then he introduced me to this guy that's been knighted. His name's Adrian, uh, Roberts. And at the time I was trying to like do this multi site thing. I was probably too early, but that's what my brain was. So he's like, I'm going to bring Adrian down. You can meet him. This old guy pulls a Rolls Royce and that platinum ring, leather gloves on, big. And I'm like, he looks like a judge. I would never meet this guy if it wasn't for Danny, my. My Jewish mate. Yeah. So he comes in and he sits there quietly in the corner. And after about half an hour he said, do you want my advice? And I was like, of course, that's why you're here.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: He's like had clubs in Soho, nightclubs, strip clubs, the lot. He's made millions. He was a millionaire at like 19, this guy. Wow. So he's like, at the time I had this big coffee machine and all of this stuff going on in the shop. And he was like, why are you letting people sit in? This site's too small. He's like, bring your kitchen across.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you can do more volume and just have a couple of seats for people to wait and for people to eat in if they absolutely must.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Get rid of the coffee machine. And he was like, not being funny if you're. Because at the time I was doing breakfast as well.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: He said, not being funny, if I want a breakfast, I'm not coming to a place that sells Jamaican food.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And if I want Jamaican food, I'm not going to come there. If I know you've got a coffee machine machine and you're doing breakfast.

Speaker B: It's too confusing.

Speaker A: Simplify the model.

Speaker B: Yeah. Niche down.

Speaker A: Do what works.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Make it really clear. Ah.

Speaker B: Use your ideal Customer. Right, what's your product?

Speaker A: Yeah, what do people. What do people experience when they go to a Jamaican takeaway? You walk up to the counter, you order your food, you get it, you leave. Yeah, there's a bit of music on. That's it. Do that. It works. You're trying to, like, do cafe slash restaurant. People can sit in. It's like.

Speaker B: Because I guess a lot of people are like that, uh, at the start, you think I have to diversify risk, basically.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So had this big, expensive coffee machine and, like, people are coming in and doing coffees. So then it was kind of like, hold on, I've got 200 quid worth of orders happening in the kitchen and

Speaker B: you're missing your USP because there's a million coffee shops.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: Your unique thing is your ability to cook that 100. Banging. My kids said to me this morning, I was like, oh, I've got the, uh, founder of Marjay's coming in into the podcast. Jackson's like, are we going to get free food? Is he going to bring any food straight away? That's the first thing he said. No, I have a good podcast. Yeah, Enjoy that one because they love it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah.

Speaker B: And then you're taking that away because people are coming, like he said, just for the coffee. Maybe they don't even like Caribbean.

Speaker A: This is it. So I've learned now, 200 quid worth of orders happening in the kitchen. And then Jane from down the road, can I get a latte? And I'm having to stop to that

Speaker B: to go and do this down the road.

Speaker A: I just want a coffee. And then they sit for three hours. They sit for three hours in the corner and they're telling you to change your music now for three quid coffee. And I'm in the back, like, I want to play Bob Marley. She doesn't want to listen to that now. And I've got to. Yeah. So just learned a lot and just kept pivoting.

Speaker B: I forgot to ask this question, actually. The branding, uh, like the name, all of that. I know you have a couple of different spellings in different places, but.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Like the. It's really on point.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I had another guest, actually. She runs Matcha Yard. She won a lot of awards for her drink, which is like a.

Speaker A: Drinks.

Speaker B: Yeah, Spicy Jamaican. Uh, not kombucha. Uh, it's matcha. Matcha.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But in, like a drink.

Speaker A: Coffee, sort of. Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, she went to Japan for two years to study how they make matcha but she's from the Caribbean proper. Got Caribbean accent. Like she won all these awards. Got like an, uh, honor, not honorary. She did the MBA program and then came first in her year. Ah, wow. Now she's got that and she's trying to get that product into, uh, high street supermarkets and all those things. But it's a specific thing. It's not everything.

Speaker A: Now I've realized, yeah, niching down.

Speaker B: It's one product, basically.

Speaker A: Niching down.

Speaker B: I think until you get to a million, really, you should have one target market, one marketing channel and M1 offer. Because it doesn't matter whether you're a product or a service business. If you can get to a million with your one thing, then maybe you can bring in two or three or four.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So that's what I'm looking at now, trying to get to. To exactly that. A million a year. Uh, um. So just through marketing and my thing is these boxes that you can build yourself.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which if you guys, you go on the Instagram, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: You can see those.

Speaker A: Yeah. Marje's Birmingham. Yeah. So don't say that.

Speaker B: M A R, J A Z is the Instagram, isn't it?

Speaker A: M A, R. Uh, J A, Y,

Speaker B: Z, Y, Z. Yeah.

Speaker A: Marjay's Birmingham.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, is the boxes that people can pick what they put in and put it all together.

Speaker A: We're the only ones now in Birmingham doing that. You can build your own Jamaican box.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. You're making me angry. Um, but you weren't too proud, like some people might say, like coming from your background, you know, you're a well known person, you've had a lot of success in the rap game. You might have an ego. You might not want to listen to the advice of, um, your Jewish friend.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, yeah. You didn't have an ego around that. You wanted advice, which is important for people to recognize.

Speaker A: I don't want to take advice from anybody. I wouldn't want to trade places with. Do you know what I mean? And people that have done more than what I'm doing or trying to do, then of course I want to take that advice. But what happened to me early on, for the first two years.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I got coerced by my family into making decisions that didn't align with what I was trying to do.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So I knew from very early on the business model was boxes. Build your own bit of this, bit of that. People will love it. Yeah, yeah. My mom's in my ear, my dad's in my ear. All these people are telling me, but they're like 60 years of age. They don't eat out much. They don't know what's happening. But to choose the path of least resistance, I was like, you know, I'm going to listen to them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It was killing me, bro. I was falling into debt. I was like, the business wasn't working. The model wasn't really working, because I had to learn that if I've got an idea and it's inside of me, then there's a reason for that, and if I follow it, I'll be okay. Yeah, I've always been okay when I do that. As soon as I start doing what other people are telling me to do that don't necessarily know. For instance, I'm not talking about getting mentors in a space that know what the talking about. I'm talking about mom, dad, brother, sister.

Speaker B: And what were they telling you to do? Or what were you doing that you changed?

Speaker A: So what they were trying to make me do was, like, go down a very specific Jamaican, like, menu style. And I said, look, we're in King's Norton. You're not in the ghetto.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So we're not going to have that proper, heavy Jamaican, you know, audience. I said, they're going to want curry goat. They're going to want jerk chicken. And that's kind of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. They might, you know what was on your menu previously?

Speaker A: So I had 10 Jamaican mains to start with.

Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. It's too much choice as well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So now I come in and I go, uh, goat curry wings for the kids, Jerk chicken, maybe four rice and peas. Yeah, yeah. Chicken, goat, uh, wings for the kids, rice and peas. All the sauces on the side.

Speaker A: And what I have. And what happened as well was like, my chefs were realizing that, because so what was happening was I had these 10 mains, and then my fridge was always just running out of jerk chicken, running out of corio. All the other things were kind of backing up, and I was like, this is not making any sense. So I cut the menu right down to at one point to just fried chicken, jerk chicken, curry goat. That's it. Yeah. I was a lot more profitable. Things were flying out. The butchers was noticing the amount of meat I was buying and stuff. And then, uh, the chefs were kind of realizing, hold on a minute. If I'm only coming in cooking these three things, yeah, he's only going to need me two days a week, I'm not going to make as much money as If I'm doing six days cooking all this extra stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker A: I, uh. It took me a while to realize I'm paying these chefs, like, so if I look at the grand scheme of things in terms of wages, I'm paying out more, not only in staff, more at the butcher. Profit margins are down.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: So my profitable items, which are just jerk chicken, Corrie, go over here. I'm using the profit there to go and buy ackee and salt fish this, fish that, chicken. All these things that are not.

Speaker B: Which are mainstream things.

Speaker A: So now I'm like, makes sense.

Speaker B: Because behind. You know what I mean, you buy more of less things, you get a better deal. 100 economies of scale. But it's also, um, a really good documentary. You ever watch Giro Dreams of Sushi? No. No. Oh, you should watch it. Sick. I'm gonna watch it.

Speaker A: You'll have to send me some links.

Speaker B: Remind it. Yeah. Giro J I R O. If anyone's listening. If anyone's listening. Dreams, uh, of sushi. Yeah. Uh, this guy just makes sushi, right? It's a three Michelin star restaurant. Sushi restaurant in Japan. Yeah. You can't book that. It's like, I don't know, a year in advance or something. It's only like six seats in the restaurant. So if you want to get. Have a guess for the chef. So my point is that if you only make these three or four things, like, I would ask my kids, like, would you get better at those four things or worse than when you're cooking 10? You get way better. Right. Every time you do it, you think, how could I make this better? How could I make this better? How could I make this better? So this giro guy, he, uh, won't let people get off rice, right? Boiling rice, for how long before they can move on to the next stage of making sushi, do you think? No idea. A year. Wow. He considers. Yeah. So he hires a chef, fully qualified sushi chef. Yeah. He puts them back on draining rice for a year until he thinks that's minimum time, until you can make acceptable rice.

Speaker A: That's.

Speaker B: How good do you think his sushi is? Wow. So I think in that restaurant, it's profitable. I mean, it's only six seats, but it's probably like £1,000 for a meal. So it's one thing. And do it really well. This is all your core things. And do it really well.

Speaker A: This is it.

Speaker B: What, what, what do you think, uh, drove you to be an entrepreneur? Because you are very entrepreneurial. You're very driven, like do you know where that comes from or is it just.

Speaker A: I don't. My dad was entrepreneurial, so he was like the first in the UK to bring. Do you remember the electric and petrol remote control cars?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like, I wanted one of those petrol cars.

Speaker A: So he had, he had a shop on Washwood Heath Road. This is like going back, back probably at least 20 years ago. So he was the first. Then he started bringing the electric. No, the petrol helicopters.

Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.

Speaker A: We did all the training and stuff and he was the go to guy if you need a repair.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or if you wanted to buy one. Yeah.

Speaker B: The fuel. You saw that growing up, business people coming in and out.

Speaker A: Yeah. Then he had uh. So we were like behind the counter and that. Whatever.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Growing up like that, seeing that. And then he had um, a carpentry business when I was younger as well. So he used to do all that sort of stuff. Bespoke furniture, hang doors or anything wood. That was his thing.

Speaker B: You're looking around, but none of this is bespoke.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So it looks good but it's not expensive.

Speaker A: Grew ah, up watching him and obviously learned the lessons. His pitfalls I saw firsthand as well. So, yeah, always had that entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker B: Um, have you ever worked for someone else?

Speaker A: No. Apart from Hermes, but that was self improvement.

Speaker B: It's not the same thing.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah.

Speaker B: No one's micromanaging.

Speaker A: Never had a job literally.

Speaker B: So from 20 some people are just unemployable. I think I was just unemployed. I hate being told what to do. Working for someone else's profit.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't do it. Got too many ideas. So even in school I used to like buy sweets and sell them, um, and like do that whole thing. So. Yeah, always from a kid. Just always had a little bit of money in my pocket and could figure out a way to make people spend.

Speaker B: Yeah, always that School 1 is a good indicator. I never did that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But Jackson, my little one, I found the other day he, he would um, put in an order. Yeah. With this kid who's obviously most the kids I go to school with are rich. So he's got this 3D, ah, printer, this kid. It's worth like 5, 600 quid. Wow. Jackson's said to him, listen, you print me this, uh, I'll pay you this for it. So he's printed in this little thing that it goes into itself. I don't even know what it is, but it's quite like a fidget toy.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: He's giving him like 2 quid for it. Then he sold it for 10 pound. So he said to his other mate, I'm gonna order this. Are, uh, you agreeing to pay for it at, uh, 10 pound? Doesn't tell him what he's buying it for. Yeah, he sold it for 10 pound anyway. Wow. The next kid, he sold it, uh, for 20.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The school cottoned onto it. One of the kids who was jealous basically that he'd come up with this idea first reported him. Not the kids that had bought it. They were happy to pay the money. It's their money. They brought their own money into school supply demand. And the school said, look, you got to stop doing it. Like, we haven't got anything, uh, against it. And actually we like, we applaud the, uh, entrepreneurialism 100. But they saw the kids competition complain, so you've got to stop doing it. So he made 30 quid and that was the end of his business.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: But I think he'll be a good entrepreneur.

Speaker A: Yeah. He should get into E comm or something.

Speaker B: I'm, uh, gonna keep asking them ideas now. Now they've got all these content ideas for me, but I'm not sure how much I should listen to a 10 and a 9 year old.

Speaker A: To be fair, mate, their fingers are probably on the pulse a lot more than you think.

Speaker B: Yeah, they're on about like, oh, you need to film more point of view videos, dad. Like point of view. It's all about point of view. I don't know what that means to be fair, mate, but, uh, uh, yeah,

Speaker A: it's just building your personal brand, I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah. And a certain, uh, style of video. I stopped doing Instagram, I stopped doing all of that because I just wanted a year where I reassessed, like, what am I actually doing it for? Yeah, of course, you know, outside of the people that can afford to work with growth actor, uh, which is few and far between because typically you probably need to be turning over 500k, if not a million to afford the services. Uh, and then like we spoke about, I'll pick and choose entrepreneurs that I know will get there 100 and work with them before that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: How do I help people and how do I have an impact? Well, if I create useful content that's not just designed to get people to do something, it's actually valuable information. Yeah, put that out there. I'm helping people.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, I can feel good about myself and get fulfillment because it's not just the clients that are paying me. Money that I'm helping. It's also people that follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever. Right. Um, and I think that's where I'm going to get to with it versus trying to use those platforms to directly generate a return.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, there are other ways that I've worked out to do that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so what's your routine now? Like, do you work all the time? Do you have balance? What do you do outside of work? Do you still into music? Do you like to work out?

Speaker A: There's no balance. I just don't think there's any balance until you hit the target with a business. People say that, don't they? They say, oh, balance. There's no balance. You've got to just go all in, all out for three to five years and then maybe, maybe you can balance a little bit. So that's where I'm at with it. So I just live, sleep, breathe it now.

Speaker B: Um, do you keep yourself fit? Do you look at your own diet

Speaker A: and think, oh, I used to be heavy? Yeah, I used to be heavy in the gym. Fell off it a bit now, so I need to get back in there. But I'm. I'm in pretty all right, uh, shape, so I'm not too worried. But mentally I do need to be back in just for the, you know. Yeah.

Speaker B: It's like meditative. Right. If you leave your phone and you're not on it and you get that hour when it's just you against, like a challenge. Different kind of challenge.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I'm noticing now is, like, the mentors that I've got are bringing me forward. So I've just taken on a restaurant consultant.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'll pay him a fee every month. And then I've got Marcus the marketing guy, pay him a fee every month. Because I'm looking at it, I'm like, if I'm left with 3, 4, 5 grand a month profit, it's not really gonna do much for me. But if I invest it back into these people that can tell me how to get to 10k a week.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So I've taken on this restaurant consultant and he.

Speaker B: How'd you find him?

Speaker A: It mental. So I'm quite a spiritual person.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So on my days, like religious or spiritual? Spiritual. As, like meditation, manifestation, all of that. Yeah. Been doing it for years. So I'll go on my days off, like Wednesdays, like, my days off, I went to this, um, takeaway place on the other side of Birmingham just to try it out. Yeah. Uh, so I'm in there, this guy comes in and he's got quite an energy about him. He goes straight to the front and he's like, I've just spoke to Ishmael. He said to come in and m. Make an order and you guys are gonna sort it. Yeah. So I hear this interaction. I'm like, so the girls are like, oh, yeah, no worries. Like, they get him all his food ready, they bring it over to his table. So I'm like, he must know the owner. Like, common sense tells me what, like, what does he mean by saying that? Yeah. Anyway, he sits down and he's like two tables down from me. And he's just taking call after call after call. Height such and such from Da da da da. Yeah, I can give you a call back this day. Whatever. So I was like, sounds like he's onboarding people for something. Yeah. So as he's put. Taking his tray over to the front. Yeah. I just thought, let me, like, just call him. So I was like, yo. And he looks over and I'm like, what do you do? Just out of interest? He's like, I'm a restaurant consultant. I'm like, wow. I said, I've got a restaurant.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: He's like, really? He pulls up a chair. We ended up chatting. Stimulating conversation, obviously. So he's like, take my number. He said, I'm not gonna promise when, but he said, within the next couple of weeks, I'll drop you a call and we'll talk or whatever. Long story short, we end up connecting. And he can see that I'm m. Like, low level compared to who he works with. He works with, like, all the big chains. So like Burger Boy, Boo Dolce Desserts, uh, people who've got, like 10 sites.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So for, like, I'm, um, nowhere near that level. But we connected. And he was, I want to help you. He's a black guy as well, so he was like, there's no Jamaican people that I actually work with. It'd be quite nice and refreshing to do it. He said, I'll come and have a look at your site and go through it. So he comes over, has a look, looks on the sofas. He's like, wow, you're not far off. Like, there's only a couple of things that you need to tweak week to get you there. So I was like, what's your background? Like, what do you do? He's like, um, I was the regional manager at Uber Eats for three years. Uh, so I'm like, okay, wow. So he's like, I'm not there anymore, do my own thing. I said, how many clients have you got? He's like, I've lost count. At least 20, 30 though. And they're all paying him like 2, 3, 4, 5k a month each. So he's doing, he's doing amazing. So he's like, I'm gonna help you. Let. I'll figure out a price that works for you. I know you're obviously early stage in terms of where you're trying to take things, but he said, I just wanna, I just wanna work with you, wanna help and whatever. So we've agreed a price and he's been helping me, but what he's saying to me now is like, I've got. Everybody that I work with is doing like 15k a week up. Yeah. 20s, 30s, some of them. Yeah. So he's like, a few minor little tweaks and we can definitely get you to like probably 15. But he said, you need to be ready for it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he said, the last thing I want to do is give you 100 new customers and you can't manage. So I was like, okay, cool. So I'll write a job description. Get chat to help me write it. Post it on LinkedIn. No, not LinkedIn. Indeed. Yeah. Uh, after four days, we get 173 applicants. I had to turn the ad off because we've. Indeed. I mean. Yeah, indeed. You speak spend. I think it's five pound a day and they push your ad out.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So I set it to five pound a day. I'm sure bigger companies probably use a bigger spend, but for me, I was like, five, four days, turned it off. 170 applicants was like, wow. So because he's given me that advice about, you know, when the orders start coming, you're gonna use staff. So I've started to trial staff now. Found two people that are amazing. I don't have to do anything now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Remember when you came last time? I said, yeah, I'm out of the kitchen. Yeah, yeah. I can sit here on this laptop. And they can handle where you should be.

Speaker B: Your skill set is of course working with these people, training them up. Uh, yeah, working with those people to train and mentor them, writing the sop. So, uh, they do it the way you want to do it, checking the KPIs are moving in the right direction. But then really it's working with your mentors, your marketing team, pushing all of that forward, creating content, 100 menu development. Whatever it is. Do you think there's a certain type? Because, like, I said the same thing. Oh, look, we'll find a price. It's all right. I want to work with you. I want to help you. You need my help?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, that, ah, you're not doing it deliberately, but obviously people want to help you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think there's a certain thing for, like, listeners, viewers. If you are an organized, motivated, like, intelligent, driven person, people will, even people that you can't afford, necessarily help you either for free or a lower rate and to, uh, get you to the point, because they know you're going to be like inadverted commas. A great client. Like, if I message you and say, okay, I'm gonna help you, you haven't done any of your accounts for the last year. Let's get everything up today. I need you. I need this. I need this, I need this. I know within like three, four hours it'll be in my inbox.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Yeah. Whereas I would never agree to help someone who was like, slow, lazy, disorganized, because why would I? Because I've got more than enough going on.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: But if someone's on it with me and it doesn't drain all my time. And I can say to you, also, it's about taking advice. I know if I said to you do this, this and this, you wouldn't just do it blindly. You'd make sure that you felt like it was good advice. But that being said, you'd go and implement it quickly. 100. Yeah. You wouldn't sit on your hands for ages. So I do think that that's a good lesson that a lot of people can take from you is that you can get a lot more if you adapt the way you are with people.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I'll tell you a quick story as well. So I was in the restaurant, um, about two years ago, this guy pulls up, big Range Rover, Asian guy comes in. We start talking, but he's really asking me about business. How, how you doing?

Speaker B: Doing?

Speaker A: And there. And yeah, we're doing all right. We're doing this a day and this a month. And we've just hit a five, a five figure month. And I'm gassed about it and whatever. She was like, okay. He was like, how much did it cost you to get set up? So I was like. I told him the amount. It's like probably 40k. He's like, 40k? You did all that with this? And I was like, yeah. He's like, wow. And then I Said, oh, uh, we renovated upstairs as well. So I partnered up with one of my mates. We put some money into Upstairs. Upstairs now, rent the rooms out. Yeah. He's like, no way. Amazing. Anyway, uh, he leaves, writes a great review, loves the food, and he's saying that he lives on the estate just at the back of where we are.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So he was like, everybody's raving about the food on the estate. So you're doing something good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, he goes, think nothing of it. About a year later, Asian guy comes in. Young guy, though. So me and him get chatting. If people feel like they've got interesting energy, ask them what they do do. Yeah, it's always what I do. He said, I've just finished a degree in business economics. Yes. In my head, I'm like, bing, let. I'll stay in touch with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, we get speaking, and at the time, I was trying to look for some sort of partner to do something bigger.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'd seen this unit in Mosley called Coach House. Um, beautiful building. I'll show you pictures of it, um, in a bit. And, uh, I was telling him about this plan. I said, I want to go bigger. I want to do, like, a bar, restaurant. I'm going to outgrow this place soon. Yeah, whatever. So he was like, you should speak to my dad. He's an investor. He helps people. So I'm like, okay, cool. Anyway, just me being me. I'm like, do you live on the new estate at the back? He's like, yeah. So I'm m like, does your dad drive a blue Range over?

Speaker B: He's like, yes.

Speaker A: I'm like, I've met your dad. He came in, like, last year. Anyways, like, yeah. He's like, give me your email and I'll get my dad to come see you. Anyway, role reverse. Uh, I'm upstairs doing some renovation work. Yeah. My brother calls me. He's like, there's a guy downstairs. Come down. So I come down, it's the dad again. But I haven't seen him for like a year now. He's like, how can I help? So I'm like, what do you mean? And he was like, my son told me to come and see you've got an idea. So I was like, yeah.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: he said, how much do you think you might need? Just in the middle of the shop, like, no one else is in there. Yeah, he's sitting there in his Crocs. Range Rover's outside again. I said, I don't know, maybe 300k. And he's like, didn't even flinch. He's like, let's do it. So I'm like, what? So he's like, yeah, yeah. He's like, send. He's like, you've got my email. Send me the business plan tonight. So he leaves. And, like, I'm still knees deep in renovation upstairs. Yeah. He calls me on the nighttime, and he's like, where's this plan? And I'm like, I haven't got a plan. I've just got an idea in my head.

Speaker B: Yeah. Wow.

Speaker A: Uh, okay. I said, I'll send it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'll go on chat. GPT. I put the basic plan in there and Chat formulates this banging plan for me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, I send it over to him by email. He calls me back the next night at like half ten at night. Yeah. I'm in bed. He calls me. He's like, listen, the plan's amazing. I love it. He's like, let me do a financial model against what you've sent me. Yeah. So I was like, okay, cool. So he takes like three months to send this plan. Anyway, bearing in mind I've said I need 300k for this big unit. 4,000 square feet in Mosley. There's nothing in Mosley. So I'm like, we will just kill it. Yeah. So he calls me late night again. Like, he works mad hours because he does stuff in Hong Kong and all that. So he calls me late. He's like, you buy your laptop? I'm like, yeah. He's like, open your email so I'll show you, for benefit of what we're talking about, what he sent me. Uh, yeah. So he puts together this financial model and he says, I've got the password wrong. He says, go. There's five pages. It's a proper investment document. I've never seen anything like this. Yeah. Ah. So it's everything down to a T. Staff costings, budgeting, investment needed, everything. Um, she's like, go to the last page.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So go to the last page and

Speaker B: I'll edit in a drum roll into this bit.

Speaker A: Yeah. So go to the last page. And he's like, can you see the last page? So I'm like, yeah. So this is one that I done off the back of his. Let me find the one he sent. Anyway, long story short, for the benefit of the podcast, yeah, he's tripled the investment. Yeah. So it's 897K.

Speaker B: He's like, that's what requires.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you've got working Capital. Then he does a pitch deck, a revised one. I send him, like, this little baby thing. He sends me back these full on, like, 30 pages and, like, goes into everything. And I'm like, wow. Then he's like, look, we need a marketing matrix. We need this, this, this, this, all this information. Like, you haven't got nowhere near enough stuff. So I'm like, what? Um, yeah, so I'm like, wow. So now the conversations are going from like, 300 quid a day in the shop to like, yo, we could potentially be immersally doing 82 grand a week. Yeah. Yeah. My brain's getting ready for these combos. I'm like, wow. And he was like, if you're talking bar restaurant, 30, uh, K is like the minimum a week that you need to really be doing or you're failing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So he said, what you'll tend to notice is you'll probably do 10 in a week from Sunday to Thursday. And then Friday night you'll do 10, Saturday night you do 10. That's just roughly what it is. Yes. I'm hearing these numbers and I'm like, wow, I need to go more bar restaurant than takeaway restaurant. And, uh, yeah. So started having these talks with him and then we start negotiating the lease on this new site in Mosley. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so I go and view it. Beautiful building. Da, da, da. And, um, what ends up happening is like, the landlords for the site come to Marjay's. Yeah. So the investor comes and these two. Two guys coming around the table. It's intense because it's a 80 grand a year lease. Yeah. And they want me to sign it. 10 years, no breaks. 800 grand.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So, yeah, when I was viewing it, I viewed it about three times. So when I was viewing it, there was a. There was a couple of roof leaks. Yeah. So I had obviously told my investor, I said, look, the roof's leaking. Whatever, whatever. So they were really pushing us to sign this leash. Yeah. Um, and I had an issue with my roof leaking when I signed the first lease for the King's Norton site. So I was already, like, apprehensive. Yeah. So I said to him, look, what are we doing about the. The roof? And they're saying, like, when you sign the lease, we'll do it. And I'm like, nah, it's not really how it works. 800 grand lease, 80k a year, and you don't want to fix the roof. That might cost 10k, so be dodgier. So my investor basically was not up for it. He was like, something weird about it. It's like they're trying to push you to do it. Yeah. But where it is, you know they're doing Kingsley for Moseley train stations. Yeah.

Speaker B: M. Okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So they're bringing, obviously from New street, there'll be a train line running into Mosley. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So where this place is, the back garden for the place will be Mosley train station. Right. So in my head I'm like, when that comes. Yeah, that's going to be epic for the building because there's going to be way more traffic and everybody who's been commuting into the city and coming back or whatever, they're going to be getting the train. Yeah. So I was like, really up for it. But my investor was like, I don't like these guys. Uh, and then he said, speak to a structural engineer or somebody who knows about the building and get some advice or call this guy. He's been doing it years and he's like 80 grand a year, way too much. He said, I don't even need to see the building. He said, how big is this at 4, 000 square feet? He said, mate, it's 50 grand a year max. Uh, he's like 80k. It's a lot. And there's issues with the building. So he was like, listen, it's going to be 2k for me to come out and do a survey. So I'll go back to Pete, the estate agent at the time. I'm like, listen, Pete, like I need to have this structural guy go in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, are you gonna go halves with me on the survey or something? Because I don't know, like the building is nothing to do with me at this point. Oh no, we won't be prepared to do that. But I'm like, but you know, there's issues with the building. Do you know what I mean? So let's get somebody to have a look and survey and whatever. They weren't feeling it. So again my investor kind of was like, nah, pulled, uh, out. And then we get an email from the landlords solicitor saying that uh, like we're done with the deal now, we're not moving ahead with you guys Anyway to this date, the unit's still empty and this is like last year. Yeah. So I don't know what's going to happen with it. But I was just getting my head ready for those sort uh, of conversations at the time. And yeah, so although we haven't done that investment that investors helped My brain to get to that stage around another opportunity.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, of course that door is still open.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Whilst you explore the other door, which you know you can execute, which is global expansion 100.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And we'll, we'll opening overseas come before a second location in the uk.

Speaker A: So this is what uh, I wanted to speak to you about. So at the moment right now I've got a few friends on the other side of the city like Chelsea Wood and coleslaw and over there.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And they're like, like, bro, please bring a Marjay's over here. We'll even invest.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So now I'm like, do I do that and potentially get tied to that unit for a year, uh, while I get it up and running or do I just do to buy, tell them to invest. But I'll be like, look, invest, but we're gonna go and do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: That's what I would rather do.

Speaker B: Personally, I think that UK is gonna almost stay the same economically over the next year, get slightly better. Whereas every year you don't take your business to an emerging market, you miss out on massive growth potential.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if it was me, I would do Dubai first.

Speaker A: This is what I was thinking.

Speaker B: If you have to physically be in that second location and or have like a local manager for Marjay's number one,

Speaker A: I've pretty much got that gets to

Speaker B: the point that they can be the one that over is the second uk, not you.

Speaker A: Oh, right. Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker B: And then you're only coming back every three months to check on it or whatever. But I know a really good, um, a really good entrepreneur, uh, who runs a networking group in Dubai called Global Partnership. She was on the Apprentice.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Khadija, she's called. So she has a business over here which is um, like high end cafes with a little soft play in there. Not like your soft spoken. Yeah, not like your soft play. Normally that stinks a sweat. It's horrible. You have horrible coffee, disgusting fried food. This is like, I don't know, better than Cafe Nero, whatever that is. Prep maybe. Yeah, with a soft play in there. Just done really nicely. So you can take your laptop, you can work from there, your kids run around, you get two, three hours block of work done and you get decent coffee. So anyway, she lives in Dubai. Yeah. But she comes back once a month when these things are being built and comes back at certain times to check on it. But there's someone there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And she's put, like we Talked about the KPIs in place that get delivered to her daily, weekly, monthly, so she knows everything's fine.

Speaker A: This is somebody that I'll probably need to speak to.

Speaker B: Yeah. When you go to Dubai, I will introduce you to her.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And if you go and it's on one of their monthly things, Thursday, networking event things, then it'll be worth going. Um, because you'll instantly then meet 80, 90 people at that event, are all local and well connected.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so I would personally do Dubai. And what was it that, uh, how did you come up with that thought of let me take it, but let me think about taking it over to Dubai. Did you go there on holiday and see.

Speaker A: No, I haven't been to Dubai yet. See this, I've got a lot of friends that have just recently moved.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And then they, they, I think they inspired me to be honest. They said like, you should do Dubai. Yeah. And then I looked into it and then even from a tax purpose, I was like, there's no tax. No. If I get Marjorie generating a million year, let's say I'm operating at a 40 profit margin, then great. But then I'm going to be taxed. They're gonna whack me. I don't even want to think about it. Dividend.

Speaker B: Another reason to do Dubai first. Right? Because if you move over, uh, I mean this is about your story, but just briefly, if you move everything over there from a head office perspective.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Marketing, branding, you know, your ads running gets rerouted to be running from there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The leverage, the. Not leverage, the leadership. The management and control of your company is done from Dubai. And that will require certain things. It will require you having non UK directors on the board, usually more than there are UK directors.

Speaker A: So my, my head company is in Dubai even though. And that could still run.

Speaker B: This is going to be a big thing, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if you make the change now that your head office company is in Dubai, it runs all the other businesses.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Whenever you're making leadership decisions, setting the Strategy, reviewing the KPIs, looking at the management accounts, all that, uh, making all the decisions at a board level, they're all done from Dubai. So you're not having to live there necessarily, but you're going out there, uh, at least once a quarter to do the leadership and management of the whole group. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You can argue that your company is managed and controlled from Dubai, which means that even if each of the individual companies in the UK make a profit, that profit goes to the Dubai and state in total worst Case if you can't argue for whatever reason because it's interpretation of the HMRC law as well.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: If you can't argue that it's management and control, either you go live there and then that's which is done deal.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or you charge a big management fee and you license the brand and the intellectual property because you've transferred that over to Dubai. You license feed, uh, out to the uk so your taxable profits in the UK go down significantly because you're charging a fee. Because all of your marketing activities and all of your head office activities are being done in Dubai and that company charges a market rate acceptable fee to your UK entities, a management fee. And you're also charging a licensing fee for using the brand. So now your profits have gone down a lot. So you are paying some tax here. But. But the gold would be to manage and control the whole operation from over there. M. But that is its interpretation of the tax law. It's on a case by case basis.

Speaker A: Is that something that you understand and.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that's one area that we've got into. No, we don't outsource it. We do it. We have charter tax advisor in house. And most of the tax work that we do in the UK is very straightforward, like, you know, setting up a holding company a few years ahead of someone wanting to sell their business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Allows them to not pay capital gains tax. For example, setting up trusts for people. You put it on your story. We do that.

Speaker A: I need to understand that a little bit. Ah, yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so like historically I had a trust set up for my kids. Sometimes that would be funding their education or future education and things like that. That's another way of mitigating tax. So yeah, we. But our big area of specialism now borne out by the fact that I want to move to Dubai. I also want to set up my business so it's managed and controlled from Dubai. Oh, okay. Because we have a lot of clients all around the world.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Where we're doing fractional CFO for them. Grow factor for growth factor. Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So if I've got team members in the Philippines.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or I've got team members who are living in Italy or wherever. You know, UK Qualified chartered accountants. But they're not living in the uk. They're delivering this CFO service on Zoom and the clients outside the uk, why am I paying UK corporation tax on it? Does it make any sense? So we re engineered our whole business to be managed and controlled from Dubai. Already it's being done this year.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So that's why I'm, um, spending I don't know, a third to a half of my time in Dubai.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because I am actually running the business from there.

Speaker A: It makes sense.

Speaker B: And then any team members that we hire now will be hired outside the uk Makes sense. So, yeah, it's. I just think when you go there, you'll see that's what I said to you when we first spoke about it.

Speaker A: People keep saying it to me. Everybody that knows me, they're like, listen, you just need to be out here.

Speaker B: When you get there, you'll realize you're meeting people in, in a, uh, a smaller, uh, uh, takeaway restaurant in Kings Norton.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Imagine if you were in Dubai, home of the billionaire, going to networking events with your ability to like, connect with people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The kind of people that you would meet and the doors that would be opened.

Speaker A: This is what my.

Speaker B: If I was you personally, I would be moving there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or at least spending. I mean, I couldn't live there in June, July, August, but maybe September. But at least when it's not 50 degrees, I would be out there. Yeah.

Speaker A: So what my test is going to be is like doing a week, have a look, then doing a month. Because I really want to just see if my business can operate without me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm confident that it could, but that I need to test.

Speaker B: And you'll have to be on the end of the phone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 100. You will find processes that, uh, like

Speaker A: I said, I'll make notes. Why are you calling? Like, not on, like why they're calling. But that's what I'll ask myself and I'll. Notes they're called because. But right now I have a system for pretty much everything like stock list, inventory management, portion control. The next thing that. This is, the main thing that the restaurant consultant has now said to me is the main reason Jamaican restaurants don't do the crossover is because they don't have what's called recipe standardization.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So we said that you need to get your chef.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: To. Because he basically said in, in and around way. Jamaican restaurants are the only restaurants where the chef controls and manages the recipes. Like they're the only person. He said, if your chef got hit by a boss in two weeks time, you'd have no business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's not a business. So me as a consultant, I have to give you that advice and say to you, if we could really start getting this thing moving.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You're doing 20k a week.

Speaker B: Boom.

Speaker A: Your chef, something happens to him, he breaks his Leg. He's off for six months. You've got.

Speaker B: Have you had the same chef then right from the start? No.

Speaker A: Chopped and changed and changed and changed.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you do have a recipe, right, somewhere.

Speaker A: Yeah. But not. No, I, uh, don't actually, funny enough. So I just basically like. Right.

Speaker B: So you bring them in, they cook it, uh, you test it, you say more of this, less of this, whatever, and they continue around about that. But actually if I came to your restaurant, then came three months later, there might be some variation.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Where it might be slightly better.

Speaker B: Yeah. Hope it will iterate 100 because I

Speaker A: like taste test and I'm like, that's m a bit salty.

Speaker B: So I get it. You need consistency, urgency, don't you?

Speaker A: So that's exactly what he's saying. And he said also there's going to be times where your chef's going to be your most important staff member. And he's coming in and he's doing medial tasks, like just little silly things like the fried chicken coating and like little things where once you've got the recipes. Yeah, your kps can do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So then in terms of the whole profitability of the business, you only need your chef two days a week. He's not going to be happy. But it is what it is. Uh, then you've got like your kps that can do all the littler things. He can just come in and do the heavy. Exactly. Because you're not having him for as many hours a week. Yeah, stuff like that.

Speaker B: And I guess we kind of talked about this. I just want to make sure that we've got some practicality in it and we have covered over this, so it might be a bit of repetition. Um, we spoke about you investing in your own learning, like primarily is that reading or do you invest in courses or do you go to seminars or anything of everything.

Speaker A: So I've bought a bunch of books that I'm yet to kind of go through.

Speaker B: Do you put a budget to that? Because a lot of entrepreneurs will overspend.

Speaker A: No. So me, I'm like a lot of YouTube learning.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But very specific stuff. I'm watching like kitchen efficiency videos or like, um, marketing gurus or like, you know, people who are running 100 million pound enterprises. Whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I've started researching M&A now. Business acquisition.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How to like, you know, boom.

Speaker B: And you have a set goal of the amount of hours that you'll spend learning per week.

Speaker A: Just every night when I jump in bed, I just bang something on so

Speaker B: you don't watch, like Netflix. You always learn.

Speaker A: Never for the last five years. I don't watch anything. My thing is, if I want to learn something.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's where I'm spending my time. I'm not watching. I don't have a partner. Would I? Partner?

Speaker B: Do you have a partner? Like a, uh, relationship? No.

Speaker A: No, no, no, no.

Speaker B: So you get away with that, that now, but like, when you've got a,

Speaker A: um, you know, partner Mrs. They want to do.

Speaker B: They might want to like, watch Love is Blind with you or something.

Speaker A: Imagine this. So what I've recently done is a personality test.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because there's like, for every human, you fall into 16 personality types.

Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I've done this personality quiz. It came back that I've got architect personality type.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which basically means, well, there's only 1% of the world's population with this personality types. The same personality type as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah. So now, as mad as it sounds, women that I potentially might date, I'll say to them, just do this quiz. It takes 10 minutes. Yeah.

Speaker B: Because it's not worth the constant confidence.

Speaker A: Exactly. I'd rather see where your head is at.

Speaker B: Who says? Okay, well, that's his routine. I want to support him. Uh, I want to spend time with him in and around what works. I think you're so, uh, wise for your age because two I've identified that already will save you a lifetime of headache. Like, my wife and I, we've learned to live together. And it's taken like, and to be happy, but it's taken like a decade even to the point where now I'm saying, do you know what? I've been getting up at 5 for the last week, and I found it really productive because I can get up at, uh, Dubai time, 9:00am M. And get my Dubai stuff done.

Speaker A: If you wake up at 5 here.

Speaker B: If I wake up at 5.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because they're four hours ahead. Yeah.

Speaker B: So I can get all my Dubai, like, connections, send my proposals when their way to clients.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And my UK team are not trying to talk to me. So I just feel like there's something about getting up, sun's rising. I just. I'm productive. My brain works, right?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: So I'm m saying to her, uh, okay, look, I'm gonna do that, but I'm gonna go to bed at night when the kids go to bed or just after the kids go to bed. So instead of us spending time together watching TV, bear in mind we've been together like 15 years. You're still making adaptations to relationship. Let's go for a walk in the park every afternoon and we can walk and talk and spend time together. And she was like, nah, not interested. Then she thought about it for a while.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then she messaged me, like, I'm really sorry that I wasn't supportive. Like, you're actively trying to spend time with me and I support you because you support our family. So let's try that and we'll see how it goes. Fair. Fair. 1.

Speaker A: Do you read books much or not really?

Speaker B: I, uh, don't really know. I don't really know. I feel like. Because I'm, um. I don't know everything, don't get me wrong. But I've got to the point where I have enough knowledge at the moment. Yeah. Now it's about time to execute.

Speaker A: Executing. Yeah.

Speaker B: I don't need more strategy. Yeah. Whereas you're in the Learning, Execute. Learning, Execute. Learning, execute. I'm in the. These core fundamentals that I have in my head. These skills have been operating businesses for 100 years. Okay, so the new, new stuff. Yeah, yeah, I'll like for email. Um, I've hired a buddy of mine who's in Birmingham to run cold email, but just value emails. Outreach. Yeah. Now my approach is instead of me trying to learn about new stuff, I just pay someone to do it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then

Speaker A: I'm like, what is the point in me learning all this stuff? Because I bought a tax guide. Yeah. Last year.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: A book from. Can't Remember.

Speaker B: There's a newspaper that wrote about, like, income tax and.

Speaker A: Yeah. Just learning it all.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Why am I going to read this book and learn it when there's people who've dedicated their life to it and I can just partner.

Speaker B: I think it's. I agree with both. I think early stages.

Speaker A: Learn a little bit.

Speaker B: Learn so you can have that conversation and also question the advice that say, I'm, um, giving you about tax.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's cool, Simon. But I read in this book that xyz, you still got a point of view, right? Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: So you understand the fundamental principle. But then I think as soon as you can afford it, uh, I, I think it's worth reading. So you get enough of a core base that you could have even done an mba. Right.

Speaker A: I was looking at doing an MBA as well because, uh, there's a website I use. Sorry to call.

Speaker B: No, no, you're good.

Speaker A: Called Udemy. I don't know if you yeah, yeah,

Speaker B: I've heard of it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So there's just like all these courses on there for the benefit of everyone. Anyone listening? If you want to learn something, there's like world leading level people in certain fields. You can buy a course for 30 quid.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I would say yes. Invest in core skills. All this new stuff. Like you, I spent, uh, I don't know, had 20, 30 hours like learning about Facebook ads.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then algorithm changes and everything I've learned is like bs. Yeah. I've just wasted my time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Whereas if I'm paying someone who only continues to get paid if they give me a positive return on investment on ad spend. Yeah. I can then think I don't have to think about that now. Recently, uh, one of the biggest wins I had was I hired a marketing manager because owner, your role is marketing. Right.

Speaker A: You need to keep the vision. Yeah, yeah. Rather than me trying to grow the business. Dire marketing that you're trying to learn yourself. And it's like there's people that like,

Speaker B: you're probably not making the same mistakes as me. Yeah. But it's only recently if we, we set up in 2011, it's 2025 now. It's only this year we've actually got a CRM which has funnels in it to capture people, whether they've said yes or they've just downloaded an ebook or they got a proposal indicate to something that. Yeah. Or maybe they got a proposal and they said no. But then they, they don't get lost. We're collecting them all now. Imagine if I had that CRM and I'd hired a marketing manager in year one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I've just constant leads now.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So what happened with us? Imagine, um, I'm in the restaurant one day, this guy comes in and he's like, are you the manager? I'm like, yeah. He's like, can I borrow you for five minutes? I'm like, yeah, fine. He sits down on the laptop. He goes, just have a look at this. He spins a laptop.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: He's designed the Marjays.com website before.

Speaker B: Before.

Speaker A: He's came in, in the car outside 20 minutes ago. And he's like, this is what we do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: He's, uh, like, do you have your own website? I'm like, no. He's like, are you using Uber? Just eat delivery. I said, not at the minute, but I'm gonna get back on them. Yeah. She's like, right, our company is called Tuck. Well, they're called Great. Now They've changed the name of the company. But he said, basically what we do is we charge you 120 pound a month, we build a website for you and you'll have a back end ordering system. Um, and it's a flat rate. So instead of working the commissions with Uber, Just Eat Delivery, where they're hitting you for 35.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: We just charge you a flat rate, 30 quid a week. So if you do 50 grand a month, it's still 120 quid.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So I was like, amazing. Yeah. Because I can just divert all my traffic.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: In restaurant to marjay's.com if you want to order.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And then they have a four kilometer, uh, radius delivery. So they've. The company is integrated with Uber Eats.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So it's Uber drivers that come and take the food. Yeah. The delivery charge is charged to the customer.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: No commission.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: This is amazing because I'm paying like four or five hundred quid a week.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: In Uber, Just Eat delivery in commission. Yeah. So say I do a grand on Uber, they're going to whack me for like 3, 350, then they're going to charge me that. But I wasn't that registered. So that extra percentage I'm losing, I'm not, I'm not gonna be able to claim it back. So this is mental. So he done that for me. But what he's also done, he's catching all the data.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So all the emails from every single customer. Then every two weeks they automate an email to everyone. It just reminds Marjay's, we miss you.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: All of that. Yes. I'm like, wow. And then I can, I can see, see the back end.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I've got phone numbers, WhatsApp numbers. So important emails. And he's catching all of it. So I'm like, wow. And I logged in the other day and we've been going, I think we've been going about six months now and we've just done our first, uh, 10k in orders just on website.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Pretty decent. So hopefully we're doing that in a week or whatever, but we'll get there. But it's just good to be.

Speaker B: And there are a lot of innovative people now that come to you. Whenever someone says to me, to me on LinkedIn or Instagram, DMS, I noticed this about your website or I noticed this about your such and such. Can I send you a video just to explain it? I'm like, yeah, send it.

Speaker A: Of course it's free knowledge for me, of course.

Speaker B: And if you do a good job, I might not be right for it Right now, like you said about the stats, 100 people. If you contact 100 people cold. If I email 100 people and it gets through to their inbox.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I say, have you ever had a second opinion on your taxes? You know, 100 of them will go, no, but only three or four of them will say, well, I'll have that. I'll take that because I don't like paying tax. It'd be good to see if I could pay a bit less.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 100. And then it's just a numbers game.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But then if you keep in touch with the other 97, at some point, they become the three. Because they're ready to buy.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: One day, something constantly dripping around there without annoying them.

Speaker A: Just giving them value once a month or whatever.

Speaker B: Yeah. If they didn't go for your offer initially, then you just value, value, value, value, value. I'm m not sure you could give them recipes, you could give them other m things. Right.

Speaker A: It's just solving a problem. Like when that guy came in with the laptop, I didn't feel like I was being sold anything. It felt like he was selling me a solution problem.

Speaker B: Yeah. That you didn't even know you had that 120 quid.

Speaker A: That was the last thing on my mind. I was like, you've just saved me.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Like all this money. And people don't.

Speaker B: Yeah, people don't think that, though. It's like with our clients, I never talk about us, but on this podcast it's good. It's a bit of back and forth. Like we do this thing where, uh, um, we will track the return on investment. So if you pay me a grand a month, 12 grand a year, I have to generate your business. 12 grand, whether that's in tax saving or financial advice, that generates more revenue, profit, cash flow, or I have to refund you the difference.

Speaker A: What made you do.

Speaker B: I wanted it to be. So I did this coaching with this, um. This, uh. I don't even know where I got it from. Is either from a book or from coaching, where you have to have an irresistible offer. If you've got an irresistible offer, it should be impossible for people to say no.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if I'm saying to you, look, here's my quote. But if at the end of the year you don't agree that I saved you, let's say it's 12 grand, I'll refund you.

Speaker A: Wow. Yeah.

Speaker B: And if I don't do that, go all over social media, LinkedIn or wherever.

Speaker A: Tell everybody that.

Speaker B: Tell everyone, go on my LinkedIn me, see if there's anyone slagging me off. There's no way.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Because I'll make sure that I make you the 12 grand. Also, I'll only take you on as a client if I've reviewed your numbers and your taxes and I already know I can save you the money.

Speaker A: 100. You do like a snapshot, have a look and be like, okay, yeah, do that.

Speaker B: Yeah. But yours would be like, if you're not happy with your meal, don't pay for it.

Speaker A: Yeah. 100. Or even like the mega box. Yeah. Because my chef said this to me the other day and he said, so on The Mega Box 2, you get two mains, two sides, uh, two drinks and a dipping sauce. Yeah. And he said, the way you've priced it, you're losing money. And I said, no, you're not understanding. Because the way if you individually price it, it works out to like 32 quid.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But if you do the package, it's 25. And I said, that's an offer that people feel like they're getting a bargain. Yeah, you're not understanding. And I said also, if we can sell a hundred of these mega boxes, twos a day, that's two and a half grand, that's 15k a week.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's productized. That's like you're taking the food and putting it into like small, medium and large products. Yeah. 100. And it's more scalable. Yeah. So just, um, to give some sort of quick fire stuff. I think I know the answer to this, but primarily how you're going to attract clients moving forward to get to those or to maintain Those sort of 10k weeks is, is ad spend, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, at the moment, yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. And in your business it still means it's profitable. You're not having to spend so much. Like, do you know what your ROI percentage is on ads? Like, you're not spending 80 quid on ads to get 100 quid in revenue, for example.

Speaker A: No. So at the moment I'm running, uh, two campaigns, like I said, for lead gen on catering.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And an awareness campaign.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'm spending 10 pound a day per campaign, 20 pound a day, 600 quid a month. And honestly, since I've started, Marcus was like, give it a couple of months, you'll start to notice.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Within about the 4 5th day, I had about five new customers and they literally out of their own mouth said to me, I live around the corner, I had no idea that you were here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's come up on my Facebook.

Speaker B: An average order value must be like 50 quid or something.

Speaker A: 25 quid, I would say, per person.

Speaker B: Right. So if they're ordering for, say, a couple. Yeah, might be 50 quid.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then, so you've got five new customers, 250 quid already in five days. Done. 250 quid of your £600.

Speaker A: There you go. And then what Marcus is saying to me is if you get one catering gig, because obviously it's six hundred to a thousand, that's my first package for catering. He's like, if you get one of them, you've covered my fee.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If you do another one, you've covered your spin spend fee. Yeah. It will get to that point. So I checked Yesterday, we've had 23 leads for catering in four weeks.

Speaker B: Yeah. Period of time. If they're leads, they're interested people. Right. They've raised there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You should convert at least a third of those.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That's when the third of those is. What's that?

Speaker A: Eight?

Speaker B: Yeah, eight at, uh, what, a thousand?

Speaker A: Let's say 600 quid.

Speaker B: Okay. I don't know what that is.

Speaker A: Roughly.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's money.

Speaker A: Six. Yeah, it's. It's decent. And then what I've actually put together now is a WhatsApp group with my mom, my old chef.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And my old, uh, line chef. So I've basically said, you guys are the B team and you're gonna do catering. So when the restaurant's running on a Saturday, I can't leave because it's busy and my team are in there. You're the B team. You're gonna take the second jerk pan. The pots. The pans. And you're gonna go do the catering.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, yeah. And that reminds people, I need to introduce you to my, um, ah, client. Yeah. Who's big in the Midlands for that, but has a sub brand that partners with people like you. He'll go in and pitch, win the contract. But they might want Caribbean food. Then he'll just JV with you so he can add then Caribbean food into his pitch deck.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: Okay, that's good. I remember to do that. Um, what, what are your keys to? Making sure. I always say delivering massive value, but it's not value. What are your keys to Making sure? Sure. I must have ordered from you eight, nine times now. Yeah. Um, and every time it's consistently great. Yeah. Ah. How are you going to make sure that that is it? Just getting customer reviews and making sure that they're like, what's your key to continually delivering, uh, a great product?

Speaker A: I do spend time on the days at the chef's Inner. And he, like, let's just say you

Speaker B: live in Dubai now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How are you going to keep.

Speaker A: So I would have somebody check in mystery shopping.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: On the day that. No, not even so much that. I mean, somebody in the kitchen that works.

Speaker B: Okay. Like your number two.

Speaker A: Yeah. And go check everything.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Check that the curry goat's not too salty. Check that the jerk sauce not too hot while the chef's there, because he can remedy it. Yeah. So it's just like quality control on the day, basically, when he's in.

Speaker B: Um. Okay, that's cool.

Speaker A: Um, that's my best way of doing it.

Speaker B: Where would you advise someone if they were looking to get started? Uh, with a similar kind of thing. Like, I guess it's too much of an open question. And we did cover a lot of it. But if they were thinking about starting a business, maybe. What are two or three key things

Speaker A: that I personally now would advise anybody to buy a business over? Starting a brand from the ground up.

Speaker B: Right. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because it brings time forward. And honestly, you're going to spend more than what you're going to pay. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So, for instance, now I've started looking into business acquisition just because, uh, it interests me. So I'll go on. Right. Biz, for instance, and I'll see, I don't know, a pizza shop and it's doing 15 grand a week. Yeah. And it's taken me three years, uh, to get close to those numbers. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he might want 80 grand. Yeah. I promise you, you're gonna spend more than 80 grand in three years, uh, to get. To get to those numbers. And you can walk in that business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And just start.

Speaker B: Change this. Change this. Yeah.

Speaker A: Make it better. Yeah. Then you're doing 40 grand a week.

Speaker B: And even if you wanted to rebrand it, but it's a business in a box, 100%. I didn't even know Right Biz existed.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you've got businessforsale.com. you've got right. Biz.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And honestly, sometimes you look like. For instance. Yeah. My friend, he's an accountant. Yeah. He's been going. Going a couple of years. I wouldn't say he's at your level at all. He was working for West Bromwich Albion bank, doing their accounts or some stuff like that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Long story short, I sent him the other day an accountancy firm that's for sale in Manchester. Right now. They're doing. They're, uh, doing a million a year in turnover. Uh, yeah. With a 40% bottom line. And I can't remember the price that they wanted for it. Yeah. But my thing was, like, I said to him, do you feel like you could. If money was no option and you could buy this business, do you feel like you could run it? He was like, absolutely, yeah. Uh, so I was like, well, all those goals that you have for the next 10 years, you could probably bring them forward if we were able to just leverage this deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And you can get funding for that as well.

Speaker A: 100. So I was talking to him about that, and he was just like, wow, like your brain. Like, he's trying to do the whole. Get a load a bunch of HMOs and put people in and earn that

Speaker B: little thousand pounds a month.

Speaker A: And I was like, we could just be over here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Pulling 400k.

Speaker B: Like, do you think that's one of your keys to success, is that you're always thinking big and you don't really seem to too often get dragged down into the weeds?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You're always up. Uh, well, at least 80 of the time.

Speaker A: I try to. I try to, like, think big and not focus on, like, the medial stuff.

Speaker B: And you have to pull yourself back into thinking big.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: How do you do that? Uh, because I'm definitely guilty of that. And m. One of my biggest mistakes over the last decade now, do you know What? I hit 42, and I feel like I don't want to be grinding at 50. 100. I have to stay. Yeah. Think big now. Okay, what can I do? Oh, my mate's buying villas in Dubai. He's renovating them and flipping them and making a million pounds. Okay, let's do that. Now I'm thinking with a bit of urgency. Um, whereas before, I would just be in the weeds. I'd be always in the weeds the whole time, I think, struggling to get back up in the clouds.

Speaker A: A lot of times when I speak to people, it's not that they're not motivated, it's just that they don't have clarity.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: The exact vision. This is what I'm doing. Blinkers on. That's the goal.

Speaker B: If you're working all the time, how do you get back to clarity?

Speaker A: Buy your time back? Yeah, that would be my simple answer. Like, for me, like I said, sometimes you probably catch me in the kitchen doing your order. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah.

Speaker A: Now I've hired staff that do it better than me, quicker than me. Yeah. I'll pay them. Um, but I've got my time back now. I can focus on the bigger stuff.

Speaker B: But because you can, you're still in there doing your high level work so you can observe better.

Speaker A: Both. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it's just clear clarity, vision, knowing exactly where you're going, not being and not. I learned this year, uh, is there's positive distractions and negative distractions. Now, positive distraction might be you need to get this done for your business, to move the needle forward. Yeah. But you've got to go and do a school run. And God bless your kids, you love them, but it's distracted you away from

Speaker B: what it is that you have to do.

Speaker A: And now I've started to realize, like, yo, my mom needs a lift to the hospital and I need to take her here, but I need to go do a stock run.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So now I'm like, positive distraction, but stopping me from where I need to be. So it's like trying to swap that out for somebody else to do that so they can go and be doing the stock run.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: To go and do this. And that's, that's what I've learned, basically.

Speaker B: And what would be your other two keys to success? I was asked for people for three keys to success. One is thinking big. Definitely. What are your other two?

Speaker A: Mentors.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, mentors. Trying to buy your time back when you get there. Yeah. And staying learning. Stay learning. Yeah.

Speaker B: 100. Um, is there anything that you've found during the way where you really thought, you know, like, f this.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I can't not be asked for this anymore.

Speaker A: Working with family.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Honestly, I had points and it affects

Speaker B: your relationship, which otherwise I've pretty much

Speaker A: fell out with half of my family setting up this business and running it because I tried to hire them as staff. Yeah. And we clashed. Um, and we just don't speak now.

Speaker B: So right up to this day, it's still right.

Speaker A: Right up to this day, my sisters, my little brother. Because imagine it's not about money.

Speaker B: Right. There's a lot in Indian culture where it's about money, like who's getting what. It doesn't sound like it's about that. It's just you rubbed each other up the wrong way.

Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you start to see, see who people are when. In, in a work environment and when money's involved and, uh, just delegating Trying to say, look, I'm paying you to do X and you're not doing this or.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And then like other family are getting involved and it's almost like they don't like how success is starting to look or even that you're trying to aspire to be successful. They don't like how it looks. And uh, yeah, it's difficult. Like family. Never work with family in business, I would say.

Speaker B: Yeah. I've said recently to my wife because she, well, we, you know, were able and blessed for her to look after the kids full time.

Speaker A: Does she do anything in regards to your business helping out?

Speaker B: Nothing.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: But I said to her because was

Speaker A: there ever a point where you asked her to do some stuff?

Speaker B: No, not up to this point.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: That's because I know that the most difficult and most rewarding job is bringing up the boys 100 and for me, that's it. She doesn't need to do anything else. Yeah. I have no resentment, no nothing. Right. If you, if you know, if you want to put a salary on that job, it's like a multi million pound job. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah. You could never. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: You're constantly trying to be better at and it's. You're getting constantly challenged. It's 24 hours a day. But, uh, she is intelligent, she needs mental stimulation. And now they're getting older and like when they're 16, 17, they'll be doing their own thing, whatever it is with us, hopefully. Yeah, maybe it's YouTube channel, maybe it's footballer. Uh, maybe it's like DJ, whatever we said. Maybe it's rapper. I don't know. Yeah, but you need to have something for your brain.

Speaker A: I think 100 and especially at that point when this.

Speaker B: So for her I was like, when we go to Dubai next month or whatever, come with me, come to the networking events, do the meetings.

Speaker A: Definitely.

Speaker B: Like when I have podcast guests and she's around, I'll try and introduce them. Like you'll meet someone that you know will then give you an idea for a spark for something that you want to do. And I do think that's important. Um, but yeah, as a business owner, like, you're okay at the moment because you can. Well, you're not okay. And it's not a great situation that you've had to leave some sort of family members behind and hopefully you can reconcile that. I'm sure you can. Over. Over a period.

Speaker A: I will go out my way to fix those.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's not worth it. And you will have to Sometimes just think, like, I don't see eye to eye. We don't have the same standards or values, but we're still family. I still love them. And, like, all of this stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course.

Speaker B: Um, it isn't worth it, but. Yeah. Entrepreneurialism is a very lonely, very.

Speaker A: And I was place. That's. Like I said, I've compiled a bunch of questions to ask you, and it's like, yeah, we're gonna do a part

Speaker B: two where you're gonna grill me.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that's definitely one of the questions. Like. And I don't actually hear that many people speaking about, like, when you get to a point where you've surpassed all your old friendship circles, uh, with what you're doing. So if you speak to them, they will feel like you're on them, but you're just generally telling them what you're up to. Yeah, yeah. And. But you don't quite have the results yet to be around the new people who are achieving what you're trying to achieve.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Although you probably can have those conversations because you're not there yet. Yeah, they probably don't want to be around you just yet because you're not really there. But then your old friends are like, you're driving this, or you're doing this and that and that. And I'm still on a benefit or.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Even in a HMO or whatever. And that's a void that I feel like entrepreneurs go through. No one really speaks about. It's like, no in between.

Speaker B: It's very difficult, and you have to choose to either. And, uh, you will have some friends, I think that can come along for the ride, even if they end up being lower, but it is just easier. Like, most of my wife's friends.

Speaker A: Friends.

Speaker B: I don't have friends because I just sacrificed that to work. I was like, you know, effort.

Speaker A: I thought that I was the only one.

Speaker B: I don't need friends. All I'm gonna do is grind and then spend time with Kieran. And then when we had the kids and they were babies, I spend time with them. Why would I take time away from spending it with my kids to. To go out with my mates? That's my mentality now. Maybe I would do it differently. Once a week, I, uh, might. Once every two weeks, I might connect with friends. Kiran's done a really good job of staying in touch with her friends, but I do think it's easier. One of them, she's a sales rep for a company, makes good money, probably close to six figures. The Other one makes in excess of six figures traveling all over the world.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Like so on and so forth. She doesn't have any friends in her friendship group from when she was at like primary school. Really little m. Uh, that she's in touch with now that haven't made it to a certain level.

Speaker A: It's crazy.

Speaker B: So if you uh, left some behind, it is very difficult because then you're gonna run out of like commonalities and things to talk to most of the time. If you're just working and I'm just working. What we really want to do is talk about work.

Speaker A: 100. 100. I've been on dates with, you know, potential women that I want to date or whatever and I'm talking about work. And it's like, sometimes that's really stimulating for them. Other times they're like, they're low vibrational some people. So they want to talk about like, uh, my friend said this to me. Are, ah, my friends really being like this? What do you think? And for me I'm like, if they're doing these things while you just cut them out. Yeah. Like little stuff where that's where their heads are. And it's like sometimes you realize that some of your friends as well are um, low vibrational.

Speaker B: But it's difficult. I mean, just to wrap up. And I'll give you a chance just in case there's anything you want to talk about that we haven't. Yeah. You know, I always want to go for an hour and then we always end up going for ways. Um, but. Well, I'm sure we'll do another one. Definitely the one where you grill me. I'm looking forward to that. Like the success that you've had in three years. And I don't think I've had anyone on in such a short space of time that has the wisdom that you've got the mindset and the dedication. And it might. Most people who are listening or watching 9 out of 10, uh, they will not have that dedication that you've got. So they won't be able to start a business like you did. Even if they're listening to this podcast and get it to where you got it to in three years because they don't have the dedication. Tell me to sit in the evening learning.

Speaker A: That's. I've been doing that.

Speaker B: That's not normal. Normal is, uh, you still need half an hour to an hour to like watch a program or whatever because it's. You get conditioned into watching TV as a kid.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: That's the only thing I don't like about my wife and the kids. She's conditioning them to relax by watching tv. And now you're done. Once you've conditioned them, once you get into that mind. But I'm conditioned, too. I can't. If I go out and watch a football match, watch Villa or whatever, get back, and I know it's late, I won't go straight to sleep. I'll watch a program, then I'll go to sleep. But you don't do that. You're learning, you're developing. You're constantly on this mission. I think the only thing you might want to think about, which you probably might do on a Wednesday, although you were researching other restaurants, is giving yourself that workout time or that time back even now. Because you'll look back and you'll think at some point, whether it's burnout or wake up time, like, I've achieved this, but I have made this sacrifice. And maybe I could have achieved it 20 slower, but then got back in touch with friends.

Speaker A: Yeah. My house, social life, stuff like that. But it's funny, because one of my brothers. Friends. Friends, um, he, uh, wanted to set up a restaurant. So my brother calls me, and he brought him to my restaurant, and he basically was like, oh, uh, he wants to get set up. He wants some advice. And I said to him, I said, bro, advice, don't get into food. Yeah. There's way more things that you could do better than this. He's heart set on it. Yeah. And I recently came across a Facebook review that one of my friends had done at his. His restaurant, but they don't know that we know each other. He just posted it. Yeah. So I screenshot it and sent it to my brother yesterday. And I said, people are saying this. And he was like, yeah, he's really struggling. So I went to his restaurant when he first opened. Yeah. And I'm like two and a half years deep now. So I'm saying, you need to do this, this, this, this, this. But I could tell from his energy that he was kind of like, I'm on my journey. I'll figure it out. And I was like, fine. But now, again, year or however long later, you're still having issues. Whereas if you would have listened to me. But so, you know, some people, they want.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So I was, uh, like, okay.

Speaker B: They think they know struggling for whatever reason. Right.

Speaker A: You're struggling now. So I said to my brother, uh, look, my old chef is still about.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he operates at 8 out of 10. It's just that my chef now operates at an 11 out of 10. But I said, if he needs a chef.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I'll hook you up with that guy so he can come and get you so sorted.

Speaker B: It is a very difficult industry and again, it just puts to the fact that the success that you've had that you're now thinking about global expansion.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Is it franchise? Is it like it's brilliant? Like what you've done is great. And I hope or I know that people will take tons from today's episode and for me as well, like inspirational. High energy, high vibration. Is that what we say? High vibration. Right. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't covered?

Speaker A: Um, in private, there's a bits I want to ask.

Speaker B: Yeah, of course.

Speaker A: You briefly touched on it earlier and you said about you wish you diversified some of, you know, money that you'd put into your own.

Speaker B: Yeah. So what I was saying is, for you, my advice is, and you, you want to put everything back into your business and um, you will say to other people and it will be true, I get a better return on investment by putting my money back into my own business and I can control it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But what you don't realize you're doing is you're creating this subconscious pressure on you all the time.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Whereas if you can, my m advice to you would be siphon off a bit of it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Get enough for say, even, I don't know, 50, 100k, go buy an off plan property in Dubai. M let that come, uh, through instantly. That 500k property is now worth 650, 700k. Now you Airbnb it now you're making 100 grand a year.

Speaker A: Exactly, yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, dollars. Right.

Speaker A: I was sort of looking at stuff like that. So at the start of the year, uh, there was a laundrette that popped up in Dirtley and it's been there for 40 years. And the guy's only selling because he's retiring. He's 70.

Speaker B: So it makes money. It just.

Speaker A: My friend. Yeah, my friend Danny, the Jewish guy, he told me about it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So when it went to mark the market, I saw it first, emailed the agent, I said, what's the asking price? He said he wants 60 grand for it. So I said, can you send me 3 years account? So we sent them and I had a look and this place is doing like three grand a month.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I was like, wow, If I put 60 into this, this is generating nearly. I'll basically near enough. Made my money back in two years. Uh, yeah, I'll just be. And he's old school guy, 40 years old. He's not got any vans on the road, he's not doing any service laundry, he's not doing any marketing. Marketing, yeah. I was like I could make this place a 24 hour laundrette and just kill it and probably quadruple what he's bringing. Yeah. So I put an offer forward. I said look, I'll give you 24 and the 36 remaining, I'll give you 3k a month for a year. Uh, seeing as you're so positive that the business is doing 3K.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Then seller finance me the rest. Yeah. And he was like, no, he wants a 60 up front. But I was trying because he wants

Speaker B: to go off and go to Spain or something. But you know what I would say to that? I think part of diversifying your income is buying other businesses and it will be investing in other income generating assets. What I'm talking about in terms of shutting your mind off and creating. Because I got to the point 13, 14, 15 years in where it did get overwhelming, the need to provide for your family, the need to hit your own goals that uh, totally, uh, like we live in this house, multi million pound house, private road, gated house by

Speaker A: the way, all that.

Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah. And you're still not happy with yourself because you want to hit 10mil turnover or whatever it is. Right. So I feel like now if I'd have put a bit of money into a passive income generating asset that covers, that would have covers my bills and all that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: When I wake up in the morning, I'm more relaxed. I don't have that pressure to earn that because there's always that thing or what happens if all my customers go away tomorrow. You don't have that if you've got an asset sitting there just covering your monthly outgoings. So that's all I would say. And it's like an old person's advice. And uh, me back in the day would be like shut up. But now if I could give that to myself, yeah. I would now own, which I don't. Two or three properties pay me 10 or 15 grand a month. So that pays my normal living expenses.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then the business income is on top of that.

Speaker A: Exactly. And that was one of the main issues for me because I was like my monthly outgoings, I'm um, taking out of the business because I'm in the business and I don't have much spare after, you know, all the whatever. So that's what the laundrette would have been for me. Free care month cost covers all that.

Speaker B: Bam. Um, yeah, 24 hour laundrette with like chip and pin and tap and pay and all this stuff. Yeah, I know what you're like, crazy. No, yeah, but, um, that would have.

Speaker A: That would have been the step that would have covered my outgoing. So then the business. Money in the business is the. I'm not spending.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Money and a business account and all that. I'm doing all that, by the way.

Speaker B: That's okay. We'll sort it out for you. We'll sort it out for you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Uh, guys, I really hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Uh, it's inspired you to go back into your business now and take some actions from it. So thanks for coming down.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me, mate.

Speaker B: We'll definitely do another one. Uh, that's been founder stories and we'll see you in the next episode.