E28: How a 21-year-old built Europe’s most exclusive entrepreneur network

Speaker A: Just a normal kid from the centre of Ireland, moved out of the house at 17 to work in Greece in an Irish bar for 40 hours a day on the beach. I shared a shared one. It was literally a one room apartment with eight people. Then I was like, okay, something needs to change. I'm 21 now and living in Marbella.

Speaker B: The CEO and founder of a players club, Mr. James Calligan. Well, how many members are you at now?

Speaker A: 160 something. It's a whole ecosystem built around the longevity of entrepreneurs. They can go and they can meet guys exactly like them, execute like them, dream like them, and also support them and stuff external to their business so they don't have to figure it out or get hit in the future.

Speaker B: How do you attract enough, uh, people?

Speaker A: And so for me it's like your first 20 clients, they should be, you should be undercharging and over delivering stuff. So I sat down with my team and I said 80% of your time, maybe even 70% of your time should be spent doing playbook stuff. The way we create brand is by experimenting with.

Speaker B: Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Founder Stories. I am in Marbella for this one with the CEO and um, founder of a players club, Mr. James Calligan. Welcome to the show.

Speaker A: A players. Yeah, Marbella is, is the players, bro. How do you like it?

Speaker B: I love it. I've been here two days so far and I'm definitely coming back. That's what I'll say. It's just a vibe. Ah, the culture. We'll get into that. But one of my questions actually I made a couple of notes this morning, but one of them is about surroundings and Marbella is definitely a productive place. It's a lovely place to be. So, yeah, definitely coming back. Um, for you being on the podcast, I'm super excited because you've achieved success at such a young age. Like this podcast for me is about, as always, bringing inspiration but having relatable stories so the viewers, listeners can take back practical strategies into their business to try and understand how they can achieve success or make it more likely to achieve success on their terms. So why don't we get started for those of, uh, those of the guys that are listening or watching that don't know who you are, who, who is James Gallaghan? And what is a players club?

Speaker A: Just a normal kid from the center of Ireland. The equivalent to like, I don't know, like Hull in the uk where it's like, it's somewhere you just don't want to be from essentially.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, grew up with amazing parents. They supported me emotionally and spiritually towards where I wanted to be and always told me everything was possible and that's what we made happen. And 21 now and living in Marbella. There's 35 members over here and we're pushing the business for forming partnerships, people like yourself and to buy creative zone, etc. And I'm just, I guess if I was to summarize the journey in one. I've been working hard since a young age. Moved out of the house at 17 to work in Greece in an Irish bar for 40 hours a day on the beach. I shared a. Shared a one. It was literally a one room apartment with eight people for three months. It was actually me and eight. Eight girls sleeping in one bedroom.

Speaker B: Okay, say no more.

Speaker A: Yeah, lovely girls. But you know, it was, it was um, very good time. And I worked hard then and came home and worked hard on just labor and bars and restaurants. And then I was like, okay, something needs to change and we might happen, I guess.

Speaker B: Okay, so I'm gonna reverse back to all of that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We've not had this conversation. We spoke before off air.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I haven't done any prep and I'll only invite guests on this show that I've a journey. Genuine burning desire to understand how they've achieved success at that level.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What is. So let's get back to that, but starting where we are now. If you're explaining to someone and you're in the lift for, I don't know, 60 seconds to two minutes. What's a players club? Who, who's your ideal client? How does a players club help them? Um, just give me a basic understanding of it as if I don't know what it is. Right.

Speaker A: A players club is a network and support place for entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs like 18 to 20, 26. Ideally, we have obviously members that are older. Essentially the whole concept is that, uh, your support and your environment will help you actually last in the game long enough. We wanted to create a place and an ecosystem to where they can go and they can meet guys exactly like them, execute like them, dream like them, and also support them and stuff external to their business so they don't have to figure it out or get hit in the future with something they don't want to get hit with, like a tax bill or like, you know, saving money on taxes or having a concierge to smoothen their time when they're traveling to save time there. So it's a whole ecosystem built around the longevity of entrepreneurs because the Biggest thing that I see nowadays is guys who want to earn 100k a month in 6 months and then what like that list appear very, very fast because it's unsustainable and it's like they probably aren't even registered anywhere in the world as well for something like taxes. And so I want to protect them and their long journey and create an environment that makes their journey sustainable.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: That's the concept.

Speaker B: It's a community of partners that they can access and also I guess a roadmap of you make sure you've ticked these boxes, you're doing things in the right way, you're set up, but also the community of other entrepreneurs. I remember um, Tony Robbins saying that you're at this business Mastery event when you're doing these little exercises and these uh, breakouts. Pick five people that are at your level or slightly above or ideally more make a WhatsApp group meet for accountability every week. And this will be the number one thing you do from this whole event, this 10,000 pound event, just coming away with a community if you don't have one and that's five people. How many members are you at now?

Speaker A: 160 something. And like, yeah, I completely agree and I'm glad me and Tony agree. And um, like the whole concept is if you constantly have either an event to look forward to or a meeting to look forward to, a trip to look forward to. There's that. I think I like operating in sprints, like on a 60 day sprint of I need to get to X goal or operate with X thing and X time. And that's an external motivator to get to these events, to network, to chillax, to I guess reignite the spark in your brain of what's possible. Talk to these guys who are doing even bigger numbers or thinking even bigger and give you new perspective on your business. And the thing is you're probably going to network with somebody anyway. You're probably going to partner with somebody anyway. You're probably going to hire an agency, you're probably going to hire a closer, you're probably going to create a product on E Commerce, you're probably, you can do all these things regardless and you're either going to do them alone, guessing what's right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or you're going to do them with people who you can trust and know that won't fuck you over in the future.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because how many times do you hear nightmare stories about business partners who met like randomly don't really have any backstory or context for people to back them up, whether a good person or not, or they make a nightmare hire and that hire tanks the company. Like these things happen. And um, if you don't have a correct network of people who you know, are trusted and are good at what they do and you see it on the daily and you can travel with them, you can live with them, etc. And you can grow together as one over the next 10, 15 years. You're going to do something like that regardless. But sweater, you're in the right group of people or not. And being not in the right group of people has its downfall.

Speaker B: And so yeah, 100%. A good example is even in my business, like as a partner to A Players, we have access to the A Players community, which is amazing, inspirational for me because I'm 42 and I'm seeing, you know, 21 to uh, 30 year olds. You know, when we went out for dinner in London recently, I did meet someone who was older, close to me, which was nice.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it's inspirational to me. I'm telling my kids that uh, are 10 and 9. Listen, as soon as you're 16 you're joining a Players. There's no thing about it. That's.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.

Speaker B: Because proximity is power.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Right. 100%. So I needed someone to build me a closed AI because we do a lot of tax planning. Now I don't want that tax planning to go out into the open domain, but I want to utilize AI to learn over time so I can recreate these tax reports more quickly and have it come back to me with its own planning ideas. Where would I go for that? Google? No idea. Put the idea into the A Players, uh, group. Someone comes back who's trusted A Players supplier, I immediately trust them because they're part of the network. Exactly what you said. I would never deliver tax, uh, or accounting support to someone who's in A Players and not do a good job. Because it only takes one person that I do a shit job for to go and tell the whole community and it's done.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. So now I've got someone who can help me with this closed AI. Yeah, took me five minutes.

Speaker A: All the billionaires operate with speed. And it's like if you don't have the right people around you, you can't operate with the correct speed or you operate with speed in the wrong direction and that's even worse.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it's like if you can operate with speed but with trust at the same time, that's like the perfect factor. For success. Because you hear all the billionaires here, the Bezos. Yeah. The most. You hear the Rockefellers. Everything. Everyone talks about speed and execution.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we just want to make that simpler. That was always the goal. And, like, the secondary goal was I grew up in Ireland, so I had no inspiration from anybody. A lot of Europeans grew up in small towns. Because the difference with the European market and the American market is in America, you have 350 million people who speak the same language. And, like, they're in different states, but they had similarities in regards to culture. But in Europe, it's like each country has its own different market. You have Ireland, you have the uk you have Denmark, you have Netherlands, you have Sweden, you have Spain, you have France. They all go to their. Go to people who speak their language for advice.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, they don't really trust someone cross country as much. So your market is like, let's say, 1/30 of what they have in the U.S. yeah. And so when we grew up in Europe, we don't have the advantage of, well, uh, money, for example, like, we can't just take, like, credit card loans, financing. None of that is in Europe. And so, like, we're already at a disadvantage based on the area that we have, the market that we have, and access the money that we have. Yeah. So the only advantage that we have is if we come together as people and create an environment and a space and events that, uh, we can use the power of each other and our own leverage. Um, because I think that's where we're behind in Europe. And I always wanted to create that space for younger James, who was searching for people, the right people to grow with.

Speaker B: How did you come up with the idea, though? Like, um, how do you. There are some similarities between things, like Tony Robbins platinum partnership. But that's gone so big now. It's totally different. Totally different. Beast, how did you come up with the idea? Like, most businesses are born about through solving a problem that you have yourself and then offering it to others. So is it that or is it

Speaker A: something el to tell you? I'm going to rephrase that a little bit because, and you said it correctly, but I'm going to distinguish between idea and problem because, like, I don't think you should search for ideas because then I think you're, you're. You're searching for something that isn't an issue.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Whereas if you see a problem and you feel a problem and you solve that problem, that's a successful business because you're solving Pain of either yourself or somebody else's. And it's a collaboration of both. When I was growing up, I was always the organizer of events, buses, house parties, getting the DJs to the house. Like I was. I always organized all of that. And if you needed something done, you went to James in Longford, the place where I'm from. And so it was that natural ability to bring the right people together at the right time or get done last minute. Just executed.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And also the problem that in Europe that I just said to where we just don't have access to the right people or environments or funding. And so if we can create our own environment place where the funding is funded by ourselves.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And outside investors see the power of this network, like then we can start building towards this ecosystem. I believe in Europe there isn't really an um, outstanding one. Maybe there's an older corporate kind of style 1. There's no real like.

Speaker B: No, there isn't. Because isn't we look for partners to partner with to generate referral income.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: All the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Actually that's not how we met. That's another story. But yeah. I cannot find networks like a players. It almost. I mean I'm sure there are one or two, but not in the same. Uh, one thing. I was explaining this to someone in the cafe yesterday in Marbella. She uh, was super excited about a players as in like looking like. Okay, send me the details. I'd like to join. Is it only for guys or are you gonna expect. It's only for guys.

Speaker A: Only for guys. I will always will only be for guys. I have said to some girl and girls in the past that like they should start an alternative for ladies. And it's like, because the idea isn't come here to start your business idea is you have an idea what you want to do. You just want support.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you want the right people around

Speaker B: you to support network motivation framework through the year. That you can work really, really hard in sprints knowing you've got these booked rewards like ski trip or whatever it is.

Speaker A: Exactly. And it's like it's a motivational and it's also, it's like, well, what's probably the biggest thing in the world right now is branding. And so if you're around 15, 20 people who are commenting on your post who are also credible, or let's say I comment on your post, for example, someone goes to my page, sees Iman Gadzi and they're like, now Simon's even more credible in my eyes. Subconsciously because. And so it's like when you have the support network that supports your social media, also extreme amount of credibility because if it's trusted by this person, he's trusted by this person. Then it's also on the trips when you get the branding, the content, the pictures, et cetera, it just adopts your status. Proceed on social media as well, which always brings extra cash flow no matter what industry that you're in as well. So there needs to be an equivalent for ladies. Like I believe that I just will never allow ladies into our community. Because if you, let's say an attractive lady comes into the community, there's 100% chance that this guy's going to talk to her. This guy's going to talk to her. They'll get jealous of this guy, they'll fall out and will fuck everything. So it's nothing to do against women. You just know how men are.

Speaker B: No, no. I mean that's the reason why. So I went to private school. It was a boy school.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It removed everything to do with. She fancies him, he's going out with her, he's upset, he's not doing this. They just, you just get on with your work.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Same philosophy right now they open it up to everyone. Uh, but that's profit driven.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's not driven by the best educational results.

Speaker A: Make one money if we had chicks inside.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because you can, you can, you can have a bigger community, uh, a bigger school.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But the whole reason why they had boys and girls schools was to remove that element so you can focus on what you're there for. Yeah. Which is to enjoy your business, enjoy growing your business and enjoy the journey.

Speaker A: I think people love the idea of profitability. Like we've had so many girls who asked to join. We had one that asked to pay like 7,000 to join. And that doesn't just bring revenue from the girls on the short term, perception wise, that would like attract more guys to join because they'd be like, oh, there's girls. Like rich guys you can't talk to. Girls would be like, let me pay to talk to these, whatever. And so it would track money on both sides. But for me it's like we're playing the decade gamer. And if you want something to be sustainable for a long time, there has to be sacrifice of short term exponential returns on whatever it is. And so we have strict core values that we stick to. And if you're external to that, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen. Or work because I don't believe in the long term vision of just profit over I guess morals.

Speaker B: And is that tie in with your pricing strategy? You don't have to talk about that on here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In terms of what it is but this when it first came out was I would say a twentieth of what for example Tony Robbins platinum partnership isn't for me you get way more with a players. So when I found out how much it was I was shocked to be honest because I expected it to be at least 10x.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Have you done that deliberately so that you can get the right people in up front and then over time it's going to get more. The price point to get in is going to is going to increase.

Speaker A: I want to scale with access and not scale the people because with community you can't scale up people because if you scale people you can't scale community because community is people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I want to scale a price point but I know that me being 21 I wanted to make it.

Speaker B: Still can't believe you.

Speaker A: It's accessible but like not to the point where it's breaking the bank because I don't believe there's much out there that's actually worth. I think a lot of things are inflated right now in regards to pricing just because they can and just because people would pay for which is fine. But for me it's like I would rather take the short term hate of it being like a tenth of what it should be.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And still be selective of who we let in and then with that completely over deliver. Like we are so heavily referral based and so many people talk so all about a players because they're like the value for money that I got. It's just like I can't even conceptualize it.

Speaker B: Like people are not going to get 100 ROI.

Speaker A: There's no way. No way. It's literally impossible. If you hire the one right person or if you talk to the one right business you get one piece of advice or you speed up time by two months in certain projects. It's like the right people is an infinite roi.

Speaker B: Yes. Like sorry to interrupt you. I'm so bad. I get excited. Like yesterday when we sat down.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In I slash. Oh I don't know what you supposed to call that place IO Input.

Speaker A: Output is input.

Speaker B: Oh I got it now.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: You introduced me to someone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Also an A players member. Currently referring business to another accountant. Tax consultant. Not 100 happy with that partnership. There's potential for me to get that referral business if that Referral business comes out, it would add 30% and my business is big for me anyway, I'm happy with it. Yeah, it will add 30 on my top line revenue.

Speaker A: It's good partnership.

Speaker B: How long was I sat there? Four minutes.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, uh, I get it, right.

Speaker A: People don't understand network until they're in and out and trust you don't. They don't get it. And that like that's for me not the hard point of owning a community. Like I don't want to oversell it or anything, but I think it's more of a realization that like when you're in a marketplace that's so untapped, like communities in Europe, which is just an untapped thing because it's dependent on the marketplace, it's like it's going to have to be a realization over here. It's going to have years of content, years of branding, years of indoctrination that this is what you need for it to be, I guess, long term sustainable. And the way I, uh, plan to do that is just create huge events all over Europe. So for example, next year in Ireland we'll have an event with 500,000 people. Next year in Sweden we have an event with other A players, partners with 500,000 people. We're going to go for Denmark. A huge audience in Denmark. Mr. Bay. I want to host a huge one. And so when people go to these events, they get a taster.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I've had people who come to dinners of ours just like we'd invite externally sometimes and they come in to be like, wow, like what was I thinking not being around the right people. It was from like one conversation, then they, then they join.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it needs to be realization. So I know I need to go big or go home in regards to these events and they're going to be hard work and it's stressful running events at a large scale, but I know it's needed and that's the risk that needs to be taken at a young age or just like doing everything you can with no responsibility. And I hope it works. I, uh, think it will. I don't see a downside.

Speaker B: I don't see this not working. My interest around finances is are you taking all the profits and reinvesting that in the growth of a players or are you achieving profitability and cash flow?

Speaker A: Oh, heavy. Heavily. Like heavily cash flow.

Speaker B: Heavily profitable. Yeah. People can work out what you're making because you've got what, 130 members?

Speaker A: 160 members.

Speaker B: Yeah, 160 members and they can inquire to find out what the current price point is. Right. We won't say this on here because this content will sit here forever and then the price point will change.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly.

Speaker B: But people can work out that there's not many 21 year olds, uh, earning the kind of money that you're earning and providing value. So people are happy that you're earning that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because individually they're getting ROI. Yeah.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Okay, let's come back and then we'll get into the detail. So you've gone to Greece.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You're living with 10 girls.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You're working in a bar.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Just talk me through the timeline between then and a players. Why didn't you go to university?

Speaker A: Never wants to. It was, it was concrete in my head from the age of like 12, 13. I wasn't going.

Speaker B: And your parents supported that, right?

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Are they entrepreneurs?

Speaker A: They are, uh, they are entrepreneurs, yeah. Okay. So to explain to my parents, they won't mind me saying this, it's like they have tried a lot of things. They've tried to make a lot of things work. They've always been driven to do more than just like wake up, show up and go to sleep.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They've always been trying. Didn't work out the way they deserved. Like they worked very, very hard. And the reward for what they worked for, you know, they would have been easier to work a 9 to 5 is what I would say. And it would have been probably more financially rewarding. We didn't grow up. But like I actually remember last night having a conversation and someone was like, you know, I did travel much when you were younger and we traveled like a little bit. Like we went to like the Lanzarotes and you know, the places that you go if you didn't have too much cash back in the day. Went to Marbella once in the old town. But like I remember even small things like, you know the paddle boats that you have the slides on and you like cycle out on the sea. Yeah. Like that would be a thing where we'd be like, I don't know if we can do that this year. I mean.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so, but they worked so hard and they show me what hard work was and I actually believe I was born with the best possible balance of seeing the hard work, not getting just given the reward and the self belief of you can do whatever you want. It was like, it was so perfect.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I believe I was given that environment to grow up in. I think everyone Watching, I should believe that they were given the environment to grow up in because they need to show people that were in that environment the way to get out of that environment.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I believe I was given that environment to have. Like people were telling me to always read rich dad, poor dad, thinking, or rich, all this sort of stuff. I read them, but I was like, I already believe, I think this way already. And so it's like I haven't needed to do a lot of the self development work slash breaking them in the Middle east because I was born with, okay, we don't say can't, we don't say impossible, we don't say, I don't know, we don't say maybe. It's like them words didn't exist. And so that was the biggest blessing growing up. And so, um, yeah, they, they were entrepreneurs and they inspired me. And the number one tip I can give for somebody that isn't in something like sales or isn't in the online space is getting to hospitality. Like, I learned so much hospitality. You learn how to multitask, you learn how to handle stress, you don't talk to different types of individuals, handle different situations. And it's just, it's a definition of what business ownership is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: On someone else's back.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And it's like if you can communicate with someone who's pissed off and then next I can go to someone who's a super happy family and next time you go and talk to an old at the bar, it's three different conversations in 10 seconds.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you can communicate that way. Get your point across each one of them and be liked by all of them and be given tips and know that your service is good, that executes into business. And that was a reason that I was in hospitality from very young age, from like 15. I was hired, uh, by a girl in school with dad. And then same concept was going to Greece was simply just wanting to get out of Ireland, get some sun at least just like have some freedom to think, to be in the sun, to meet some new people, shake some hands, meet some new cultures. And um, you know, I met some people there that I still talk to to this day. But it was an experience because I was the only guy there. Um, and how old were you then? 17.

Speaker B: 17. Okay, so that's 17 to 18, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And you started a players when.

Speaker A: I started a players when I was 20, sometimes 22 in October. So I, it was, it was last, it was last March I started because.

Speaker B: Okay, so 18 to 20. What are you doing?

Speaker A: Then I. Okay, so I came home from Greece and I was working in a, uh, shop and I was working in labor, so fixing pallets in a labor house. And then the reason I chose that job was because I could wear my headphones, I could listen to Jordan Belfort sales school, which, uh, which is all I knew at the time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because I was applying for sales jobs on. Indeed. To work with Heineken and Virgin Media to try to get a fucking car to drive. Because I couldn't afford a car while getting a salary at the same time. I was like, let me try. Not two birds with one stone. Got down to the final, um, 10 in a, uh, in person interview in Heineken in Cork in Ireland. And I came sixth out of the five places. Which is biggest, Best in disguise, obviously. And then motivates me to be like, okay, this is the new way of thinking. And then I started following a man from YouTube because he has vlogs which travel on a private chair or something. And I was like, how is he doing this at this age? And applied for his sales, uh, position at the time, at the end of 2022. Got it. At the beginning of 2023, 15, 000 applicants. One or two positions at the time, one of the first four or five sales ups of the company. And the story went from there.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 15, 000 applicants, one or two positions. You got one.

Speaker A: But you know what I like. Credit to success too, is something that David Ogilvy actually says. He says, no matter what you're doing, no matter what agency it's in, become the best of that agency. We said, whether you're a gasoline accountant working at the gas station, go out, talk to your customers, fill their car, go there early on a Saturday morning, look at the accounts, go visit the refineries, go talk to the distributors, go visit the railroads. Understand gas more than your boss.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And by the end of that year, you'll be in a way better position to go and operate either something by yourself or get, you know, some sort of raise within. Within that position.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because the biggest issue nowadays is we see people wanting to move too fast without mastering the thing that they're doing first.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But they don't realize that we're mastering the thing that you're doing first. You will naturally progress, but you will progress with more skill sets. And so when I was working with Iman, I was an sdr and most guys were way too impatient. We had to fire multiple guys who were like, I want to be chosen. I want to be chosen. I want to be chosen. You're not even the best SDO yet.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So like, what are you talking about? And I had multiple conversations where the guys were like, what you want to be? I was like, in the future leadership. But for now, I just want to be the best sdo.

Speaker B: An SDR is sales development.

Speaker A: Represent.

Speaker B: So someone is setting appointments. Yeah. Warming leads up.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: For someone else to close.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So newly recommend, warm it up, put it on the calendar, hope it close.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: There was one day.

Speaker B: You're getting paid for minimal days.

Speaker A: Oh God.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh God.

Speaker B: But you're getting paid to book course.

Speaker A: Yeah. No, I get paid when it closes. So you have to do a good

Speaker B: enough job and get paid?

Speaker A: No, not per booking. That's happened sometimes with agencies, but with like info offers. It's not paid per lead because the leads could be just terrible. And so it's like you need to do a good job in the setting process. And I remember setting the company record one day I was flying back from San Francisco, so I had a, uh, like just 14 hours in a flight. I did 42 sets in one day, which is, I can imagine would still be up there on the company's records. And that was a rewarding day as an sdr. But that just goes to show like there was sleepless nights, I videos on my phone, being up for like 18, 20 hours at a time and just hustling with the worst leads in the company. And it's like that's what I believe is missing. Every person that I see that is successful is so focused on being the best of what they're currently doing. They don't care about the next step. They know the next step will come subconsciously. And that's probably the best advice I can give to someone at that stage. And even, even, uh, at a further along stages. Master the thing that you're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But you had access at that time to Iman Gadzi's program, what he's selling.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Concept of it, how it helps people. So is that when you start seeing the problem that entrepreneurs have or you start seeing that you could do something like this for yourself, but actually it solves a slightly different problem.

Speaker A: It's a really good question. I don't know if that played a factor. So what played a factor the most was the leadership within the company.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Was seeing how they led people and motivated people that weren't earning a lot of money. So seeing how we show business, I know that if we Went to any other offering industry, we probably earn more money. We were still happier being there because we were learning. It matter if we were earning. We were just learning. And Paul, who was CEO at the time, fed into me heavily, like flew me over to the US, bought, um, me my first ever MacBook and just said, I'm feeding into you because I see a younger version of myself and you and leadership is that leadership is like I see you. Potential in this person isn't met yet. Let me feed into him. Because if you feed into somebody's leadership, you don't feed into numbers. You feed into people. And the people feed the numbers and the other people. And so people often confuse. Leadership is like, you have to like drag someone. But like, you know, you need to feed them with your information. You did like bring them to where you are. You need to give them the extra sales and marketing intention you seem to feed into them. And that paid a huge override for him because I wanted on to lead the team, to bring other guys numbers up and coach inside of the program and all that sort of stuff. And so to answer your question, I feel like it was more so seeing how they executed in regards to leadership than seeing how the program operated. Like, that was definitely interesting, but I don't think like overlap too.

Speaker B: It's not similar to a players, right?

Speaker A: No, not yet.

Speaker B: So what are you doing after that? You got promoted? You become a team lead?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, closer. Team lead. First month of closer, I was start on the 10th of the month, given the oldest leads in the company and then finished second on the closing leaderboard after 20 days with like 80,000 cash collected from the bad leads and with the new, with the new setters. And then I was like, okay, like this is, this is game time. Like max, next month. It was always one or two. Yeah, it was always like there was some guys super talented in that team. I was always just back and forth. And so, yeah, I learned from there. And then actually we did an IQ test. So this is very interesting. So with Iman's team in an IQ test, because we had so many applicants that all we wanted to do was see the consistencies in the IQ test of the high performers and then on the application process, people needed to fill in the IQ test and then we'd see their natural dispositions compared to the natural dispositions of the guys that were already successful.

Speaker B: Okay, so like the disc profile or their personality profile.

Speaker A: Exactly. And so that was just a degree of you shouldn't do that in a small company because you need to actually talk to the people and understand and guess for yourself and have variations in

Speaker B: your team as well.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly. So it only really works at large scale because you don't have the time to individually go to every single person.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so that was really good. So we've seen, like, okay, the closers are naturally good here, here, here. The CSMs are good here, here, here. Let's hire from that pool of people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we know it's probably more likely to work. Even though, like, sometimes, you know, the person with a CSN thing wouldn't actually work away. So sometimes there's like outstanders. But on the general, that worked. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. So you are out there for how long?

Speaker A: Outwear.

Speaker B: What. What happens to transition away from Iman G's company when you're obviously making good money? Why didn't you just sit there forever?

Speaker A: I never wanted to be known as Iman Gaji sales rep.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: I. I don't know if it's ego. I just. I. I want. I wanted to create my own name. I knew I. I had time to do that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The. Left. Okay. It was a joint decision because I had started disagreeing with other people in leadership a bit. And I don't want to go into too much detail, but I believe in leadership there should be. There should be discourse. And Jeff Bezos talks about this. In leadership, it's better to have conflict than just conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because you learn from conflict. And, um, sometimes in leadership, conflict wasn't accepted or seen as a positive. Whereas I see conflict and I know the greatest see conflict as, okay, there's a new perspective here that we need to learn or something that they don't know because they look after certain people that we don't know.

Speaker B: Yeah. 100. I read this in entrepreneurship 2.0. If you have a management meeting where you present a new strategy and everyone agrees with it, the CEO is like, okay, we're going to scrap that and we're going to come up with something else that someone disagrees with.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because if you all agree with it, that's not going to work. Uh, we need something where you can see the back and forth. Where I can have converging views.

Speaker A: Yes. And you come to a middle ground.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So you need. Or we keep that same strategy, but we need to reconvene in a week and you need to come to me with the issues that you've got on this.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's like. Because no. No strategy is ever perfect. Very, very rarely.

Speaker B: And all you're Doing is agreeing with me.

Speaker A: Basically. I, I told my team the other day, I was like, I pressed them with an idea and they always, yeah, it's a great idea. I said, I don't like this. I said, somebody, somebody disagrees. Yeah, it's like, I, I, but you need to give your team permission to do that. And so I don't necessarily blame everyone in the team at the time. Maybe they didn't feel like they had permission to disagree because, you know, when there's such a status, play it like when Iman's a CEO. Yeah, you want to just please him. Like majority of people just wanted to be like, I want to want to say in his good side, I respect him, I care for what he's done and that's understandable. And so I feel like maybe as a CEO, you need to give your team permission to disagree. And so last week I got my team permission to disagree. I said, hey, if you think there's a better way of doing it from your perception, you're on the ground more than me. So you probably know I know the overall vision. But I want you to say, hey, based off the talking to five people today, I see this pattern. So I think this could work better. Let's try and let's test. Yeah. Um, so, yeah, a lot of the reason of parroting ways there was just conflict, wasn't seen as too much of a positive. And you know when you're in a company and you feel like one person is bringing down the rest of the team, which was the view because I was disagreeing with a couple of things.

Speaker B: But you wanted to give your input.

Speaker A: But I wanted the company to be better. Yeah, I always did. Yeah, always did. And they, they know that. They know that. I just think I was immature in regards to my communication of my frustration. That's probably my, that's, that's where I probably went wrong. And so it was a conversation me and him had where I was like, I think you want something different from the company than the direction I think that we should go in. And so it's like it's better off you just going and doing something in that direction because they were also going closer towards the lower ticket side of things where I wanted to obviously improve my skill sets. And I think, you know, I'd be digressing my skills if I was going backwards and not forwards. And so just a mutual decision where I was like, look, go do your thing, go crush it. And still huge respect to this day. And actually when I was buying my first Watch. Um, I met the guy, the dealer in Puerto Romano and I got my watch after like half an hour conversation, got up, turned around, and it was a man walking towards me, which is like a full circuit moment, which is just. Which is crazy. And so, yeah, no, it was a great experience. And so that's how it ended, I guess. Or that's what the journey was over that year and a half.

Speaker B: And then is there a gap between that and the start of a players?

Speaker A: It's very small. It was like doing sales consultation on the side, private coaching and, you know, starting a players. Just put it on my story saying, I have this idea I want to execute on first couple of guys going in it. Not having a clear vision at the very beginning, which I think people get over, confused on, and they want to overanalyze the vision of their company before they start it or before they have foundations. And so I was always out to just act with speed and like you figure things out after you build a ship when it's sailing. And so I started. It was like, okay, do I like this? I don't really like this. Let me iterate this. Let me iterate this. Okay. Now this is what our core offer is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's what we need to do to experiment with integrity and be very, very transparent with the people that are in their offer first. And so it went from last. End of last March, so over nearly a year and a half now. So it's. It's been a while and. But we've. We've done.

Speaker B: So you've gone from 0 to 160 in a year and a half.

Speaker A: Yeah. So last month, I think.

Speaker B: I'm not going to swear we did.

Speaker A: If I don't like talking revenue, you

Speaker B: don't need to talk about it. You got 160 members.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We can assume a price point. We're good. Yeah, we know it's good.

Speaker A: It's. It's been good.

Speaker B: It's fast.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But all the members are happy, so it's not so fast. The wheels are falling off.

Speaker A: Right. Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's amazing. It's incredible. So what you're saying is, and this is an interesting point, like, I'm launching a business right now called Grow beyond, part of the Growth Factor Group. Yeah. We've always recruited into the Philippines and offshore teams.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 80% of my staff are offshore, which is why most accountants have a 25% profit margin. My profit margins between 50 and 55%. I don't mind saying that. Right. We still deliver a Great service. Our clients are happy. All the tap, tap tapping happens offshore. All the high level consultancy stuff happens from the uk. Yeah, or wherever we're hiring. Right. Maybe we're hiring someone in Marbella or in Dubai. Um, and when I'm launching this recruitment business, I've hired someone to be head of this business because it's a new business. I don't have time as CEO to be running multiple different businesses. I'll, uh, give them the end goal. I want to get to 500k turnover by the end of the year and they'll work out what the business plan is and they'll come back to me. I would rather just crack on because it's quite straightforward. It's traditional recruitment agency. I recruit you someone, you pay me if you're not happy with them and replace them for free. Done. And if you want, you can pay per month, a little fee and you get support and leadership on how to manage offshore teams. Easy, right? But the person I'm hiring says, no, I don't want to crack on yet. I want a month to do my business plan, my vision, my ideal client profile, my content strategy, my this, my that. Now I'm okay with that because they're in charge of it, but that's a different type of person. I'm very similar to you. And I would just start, no website, no nothing, just whack up a notion site, say, this is why you want to do it. Start picking your medium. Like it'll be email marketing for us because we'll target accountants first and just go, so do you loop back and write down, this is my ideal client for your content guys. This is my vision, this is my. Do you have like a one page business plan that says in 10 years I want to be like this or is it just always fluid?

Speaker A: It's mainly fluid. We want to like, one of our goals by 2028, make 10,000 millionaires through the power of network. That's one of our goals. That's only recently I came up with that. I was actually in the gym like, um, a couple of months ago. And my perception on that way of doing things is you can think all you want that you know who your ICP is, you can think, you know your business plan, but until you go to the market, you don't know how much you can charge. You know who your ICP is, you don't know who's going to pay you the most money because you don't know

Speaker B: enough, you haven't done the research.

Speaker A: And so it's Like I, uh, would encourage anybody starting the business, whether it's in recruitment or whether it's an agency, etc, you go out and you sell.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then you sell to many, uh, people broad and wide, ideally an hour service and you figure out who's going to pay me the most money for the least amount of work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That is like how you operate a business. And so you're weight like in my from he m might know more than me and I could be wrong, but from my perception, it's like you could go away for a month and you could think that you know what you're doing. They go to market, it's gonna be completely different.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it's like, then you have to, you're so stuck in your ways that you're like, then forced and pushing this one way where realistically, if you stayed fluid, you could just realize, okay, for example, when we, when we do content sprints, it's like, hey, we're going to post straight for 60 or 90 days. Then at the end of the 60, 90 days, by the way, in the 69 days, we're trying, we're testing every different angle, type of content, need, want of what we think your audience needs or wants. But we go wide. We like, we don't just stick narrow. Right. And then we don't care about the results, we don't care about the metrics, don't care about the numbers. Then at the end of 60 days we'll turn around and say, this worked, this worked, this worked, this worked. That's our core now.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And so it was never like a stage of let's over plan content.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You execute and then you reassess and because you don't really realize you have time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Business isn't supposed to go from one to a million in a month. It's like you have time. Um, and so we had the same concept with our strategy, uh, for content as I would for business. And I'm not saying that like, maybe at a really, really high leverage scale of like you're starting a business with huge investors in the software, you probably need that plan. But if it's just a recruitment agency, it's like you probably don't. Yeah, much.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I see that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think like, as well, if you're doing it yourself and you're part of everything day to day, you don't need the plan.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Maybe in my case she's right to a certain extent. So she can write the plan and I can sign off on it. So she's happy that I'm on the same page as huh. Her. Yeah, I get that. So maybe it's slightly different. Okay. I want to get into some practical stuff.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Sorry.

Speaker A: That's lovely.

Speaker B: Um, what do you think? Okay, let's. I'm just going to add a question on here.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: In my view, a business should do three things. So this is practical for people. Maybe they don't want to start a community, but they want to achieve some semblance of your success. If you think about a triangle. I learned this from a guy called Takima. Actually, he's a really good coach.

Speaker A: Heard of him.

Speaker B: He runs a community called Black Belt. Charges uh, two grand a month for this community. Uh, but it's all online. They run an event three times a year and it's. It's really around teaching. Why I don't like it is because I want to follow my own way. If you're in Black Belt, you have to follow the Black Belt way. The black belt content plan, the black belt delivery model. Da da da da da. But anyway, he's very successful. He says a business has to attract enough clients. Okay. Has to convert. Attract enough prospects, convert enough prospect into paying clients and then retain those clients. So if we just take. Does that make sense? If we just take each one of those and a business will usually have a problem in each of them, you don't have a problem in either of them. So if you had a leaky or if your business was like a sieve and you were pouring in leads and converting them but they were all leaving, you wouldn't have good recurring revenue. Right. If you don't attract enough leads, doesn't matter if your conversions 100%, you're not attracting enough leads. And if you attract loads of leads but they're bad, they're not actually qualified leads. Or you're just not attracting enough because your ads aren't working or your content's not working or so on, you're not closing enough. So let's take part one, when you started versus now. How do you attract enough people? Because I know that people are applying and you're turning them away. So it's an application process for a players which means you're generating enough leads. And uh, how are you doing it and is it different now from when you started?

Speaker A: Yes, because at the beginning and it's all been organic. So I can speak from my perspective of m. Mainly organic and referrals and to create referrals because I think people often hate on referrals and wear them out. But like if your business is at a referral, word of mouth stage and it's growing that way nicely.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's a very healthy business. And the profit margins are likely, uh, insane. And so for me, when it comes to attracting clients, it's like your first clients should be, let's say, let's say your service. 20 clients. They should be. You should be undercharging and over delivering.

Speaker B: Okay. So they become your evangelists. Right.

Speaker A: They. They spread the word. They. They're your marketing team. And there's a fact that the Average person is 7,200 conversations a year.

Speaker B: Where did you get that from?

Speaker A: Is that day.

Speaker B: I'm uh, not saying it's not true. It's just a, uh, it's a great. It's a great start.

Speaker A: It's either day or year I complete. Because obviously they talk.

Speaker B: People talk a lot. People talk a lot. Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's like, let's say if you even had 20 people talking at 7200 conversations a year.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which I think it's actually more than that.

Speaker B: A year chat GPT1 0 that he would.

Speaker A: I'll, uh, give you 144, 000 conversations is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: That you're not involved in. That's free marketing.

Speaker B: How often do you think I meet someone? It talks to them for an hour. Uh, and don't mention Tony Robbins.

Speaker A: Not too often.

Speaker B: No. Wouldn't. Yeah. Never.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And he will describe that as a raving fan. And there's also this article. I think you've probably read it. A, uh, Hundred or a Thousand True Fans by Kevin Kelly. Is it?

Speaker A: Yeah, something.

Speaker B: I probably got his name wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But that's the same concept. Right. So if you haven't. You're listening to this and you haven't read that, go and Google it. I mean, you'll find it. Kevin. A Thousand True Fans. Something like that.

Speaker A: So there's a concept where it's like there's nothing worse you can do for a bad product than good marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah. And especially at the start because you're pounding a marketing machine into something that you haven't proven.

Speaker A: Exactly. And so the biggest advice I can give for young guys is, or even in general is to create them 20 Raven fans that will do the evangelizing for you that will probably actually carry your community or carry your offer for you because there's such heavy. They've received so much from it that they feel like they owe you something. And so it's like now the 21st person has joined. They came from an ad. They're going to be actually welcomed and looked after without even much of your effort from the other 20 people. And so it's like, I don't actually think that you should want attention until the attention that you already have is good enough. And that's like, the whole concept at the beginning was eight players was so cheap at the beginning, bro. And the ROI and some guys are still paying the recurring revenue from the beginning. That was monthly. It's now yearly.

Speaker B: Oh, I know. It's crazy. You know those 20. Sorry to interrupt before I'll forget this question. Say you're five years down the line. Do you still know who those 20 are? Do you still treat them?

Speaker A: Yeah, they're. They're. They're gloves.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: They're everything to me. They are everything to me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, they would have got clothing at a discounted rate. They would have just be invited to events at discount rate. They would have. They are my core, and I feed into them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, what I learned from leadership was if I feed into my first 20 guys, they will feed into the rest.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And like, uh, if you're a carrying a community by yourself, you're doing the whole concept wrong. It's like you need to lead in and bleed into the. The core guys that, uh, align with your values that will spread the word for you. The amount. There's one guy in particular here in Marbes named Elliot. He's probably referred me like, 80,000 in business just from, like, going out to the gym or to the club. And he'd meet guys Marbella that would, like, align with us. And he just, like, he loves us so much for what he paid. So, like, that's marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, um, I want to talk a bit about the, the black belt stuff that you mentioned.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's like, the reason most people do this and also it's the reason that you're successful versus others that aren't, is he sells the concept of you need to do this strategy. My strategy of this, my acquisition, my content strategy. Because I'm gonna say it, frankly, everyone's actually dumb. Like, I've run a business, but really

Speaker B: they're not qualified to.

Speaker A: They haven't a clue. They're asking the same question 10 times.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And like, it's like, how have you not figured it out by yourself? And it's like some people just aren't allowed to be business owners. And so they feel like, I need this guy's content strategy because I can't Think of my own. I'm not good enough or like I can't experiment enough or I'm not original enough to go think of somebody else's. Think of my own. And so his strategy works well to sell because. But what I feel is I want to create people who can think for themselves. Like I always say to guys, they ask me a question like, well, have you asked yourself the question first? And try figure it out first. Don't come to me and ask me a question that. Because if I train my people and my guys to be able to ask themselves the right question and answer it for themselves, that training to ask the right question and problem solve is more valuable than anything that any strategy you can give. Because them strategies, they fade or trends.

Speaker B: Yeah, it didn't work for me. And it only works for a really specific subset and only if you follow it to the letter. And though, even though you're paying two grand a month for that, uh, uh, you know, a lot of people get a lot of value from it. Right. Great. I'm not going to say negative things about Tacky. He's got good intentions. He's a very intelligent guy. It didn't work for me because you're paying this money. So you're in a position financially to have a team. But the whole concept of the uh, implementation of the education is that you're doing it yourself as a CEO. And I don't want to do that. I want to build a team. So my hours are going down and down and down and down and down. So if I'm building a team, they don't need to have access to that. I'm hiring experts to do it for me. Right. Which is the concept of a players that you've got access to those trusted experts. I totally agree. And then you're not just having the amount of people that I see that are coaches. So there's a lot of fitness professional coaches that do this. They even use the same font as him. Like they've copy pasted his, his deck. There's no, I don't understand where the um, the rewarding bit of running your own business comes from because it's just copy paste someone else's business.

Speaker A: That's m. Somebody that's not, that's not your business. And like what I as, uh, you said this perfectly here is Instead of spending 2,000amonth investing into someone else's strategy, spend 2,000amonth finding out your brand. And it's like if you want to be long term sustainable in business, especially if you're young, you have the time, and you've probably the finances to burn because money is just abundant. You need to test your own shit. Because when you test your own shit, you find your own flavor. And if you're copying somebody else, you're building like a fucking extra leg of their brand. You're not building your own brand that's sustainable. And, um, that's why I think people end up hating their business, because they build business based off 100% of everybody else's advice versus, as in they think they're building into the actual vehicle or the business model that they want to do, but they build them with the strategies of everybody else. And so a players is my business that I wanted to run, uh, with my strategy. Never looked at competitors ever. I see competitors every day having the exact same call to action or bios, say a network partner, travel brand in their bios as well. It's like, it's like, for me, it's like, you're not sustainable doing that. It's like, I understand that you can take inspiration, but you can't take direct inspiration. And actually, I said to my team the other day, I sat down, this is, this is what I loved about the leadership, uh, from Paul and some of the other guys within Iman's team at the time was I learned how to communicate this sort of stuff. So I sat down with my team And I said, 80% of your time, maybe even 70% of your time, should be spent doing playbook stuff. Okay. We know what works. The simple things like the ad setups.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The majority of creatives, the sales process, there's templates. Okay, understood. But I don't want you to spend 30% of your time doing the most random shit that you can do to find something that you haven't seen before. Right. Because like, the way we create brand is by experimenting with scripts, with creatives, with marketing, with branding, with content. And if we experiment enough, we'll find something that nobody else has found that will work. And when you're the first to a new trend, you can create a brand, whereas people are trying to create a personal brand off of everybody else. Yeah, that's not your personal brand.

Speaker B: Easy. Even I've done that. And even recently I've done that. Oh, here, marketing team, here's a profile that I really like. Yeah, let's emulate their content.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's a natural reaction when you don't understand something like, I'm, um, not an expert on content. I'm an expert on. Expert on finance and Tax.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's where you need to hire for. For content, uh, is the hardest hire to hire for.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because you either have the. Because it's not about how it looks aesthetically, it's how it's psychologically affected the person who's watching and what you should go after.

Speaker B: So like for my business, for example, people are trying to aspire actually to a certain lifestyle and financial freedom. And the accountancy allows them to make decisions to be more successful. The tax planning allows them to pay less tax to have more cash. But maybe your content shouldn't be about that, it should be about the result. But it's someone who understands what you should be doing and uh, like you said, experiments enough to work out what works.

Speaker A: So either you pay someone by the hour who is a guaranteed that, you know, the experts train your team. So for example, I paid Dan Martell's creative director €500 for an hour with my head of creative director.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it's like not that Matteo doesn't know what he's doing, he just can know more.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And as a CEO, it's your responsibility. You don't necessarily hire everyone who knows exactly what they're doing because they probably cost too much money. You hire because they have potential to know what they need to do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And then you feed into them. And so you're not going to hire the full training, but invest into them, the team. Because I invest into my team heavily. So. So they can understand the creative flows and understanding the perception of how the top guys operate. And that's like our responsibility as CEOs. I. I believe.

Speaker B: And so that fits with your philosophy of educating your team versus what you could have done is gone in Dan Martell's program and then been indoctrinated in Dan Martell's way of you do it this way and this way and this done that. And said, just give me the high level.

Speaker A: Yeah. Give me the great. I think paying by the hour is probably the best way to learn.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because if you pay by the hour to experts versus for courses, you pay by the hour to get exact strategy and advice. And if you're actually fucking smart and a good CEO, it actually takes a week to execute on everything. Like you don't need to ask questions every day. It's like if you actually want to execute, once every two weeks is enough to meet somebody. Because if you get an hour of a breakdown of what you need to do, you go and execute it and you wait two weeks for the results to come. In and then you bring it back to them. Then you re execute.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Paying by the hour, I think is so underrated. And no one does it. And I've actually promoted a lot of the guys in a player saying this guy with an A players is an absolute fucking legend of what he does. Just pay him for 200 bucks for an hour.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And the ROI is there. And so paying 2,000amonth for a course or.

Speaker B: Yeah, I get it. I have a mentor. He's sold three or four businesses for minimum 30 mil. He's not going to educate me on content and the modernity of business, but he knows how to create a business. He knows business fundamentals. So I can have a conversation with him and just explain in an hour where I'm at and he'll go, you need to change this, this and this. And then I can go away and do it. I might not speak to him for another year.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: You know, right now we got positive pains of scale. I've got a call with him next week. I'll tell him what the issue is. He'll advise me on sales team structure, recruitment and so on. And then I get on and do it. Happy days. So all of this is organic. You're just putting out content. People are probably inquiring on the DMs, um, on Instagram.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you're taking them through a normal, which are an expert in sales process to get them to be educated in whether A players is right for them or not. On a consultative sales process. Right. But the referrals, do you incentivize those? Do you pay a referral fee?

Speaker A: Of course. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker A: Of course.

Speaker B: Too many people don't do this because they think I don't want to pay referral fees for whatever reason.

Speaker A: The way I looked at it is like it's essentially what your ad spend would be. Yeah. It's like if you're going to acquire a new client, I don't need to create certain content, which means you lose hours or you were paying ad spend regardless. So someone's going to go out of their way and simply bring someone to you who's ready to pay you saved money. So pay the money that you would have saved. Simple as that.

Speaker B: Sometimes though, I think like with me we pay such a big referral fee, I could run ads and pay way less. But I'm creating a long term partnership that doesn't stop when the algorithm stops. I'm creating something where I'm happy to give that because I know that's going to Be a quality client. And so actually the profit margins on delivery are better for me.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Because they're a consistent, you know, an A players client. Referral for me will be a good client for next 30 years. Driven. Yeah, they're young. It's a driven entrepreneurial person. Right. So I can afford to pay more than it would have cost me in ads.

Speaker A: So in business, there's diversification versus integration. And I learned this recently. So diversification means, hey, I run a community of lesser. For example, let me go do videography on the side or some extra Castro. It has fucking nothing to do with your business. So it's actually going to hire and take away from the long term and the short term on your business versus integration into your business. What people often get confused is they say, like, you have your business, you just never diversify, which they don't really understand the term diversify that they're using for when they say, I want to add a leg to my business. And to me, that's the healthiest thing you can do. So it's like you have your referrals for your company, then you have ad spend, and then you have organic content.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's three avenues of income. And it's like, well, is it diversifying if you start a podcast because it's not directly helping your clients. Is it diversifying if you organize this referral program? Because you're going out of your way to organize these contracts, you're going out of your way to give extra effort towards this community that does not direct or why on. And so people are too focused on. Here's my one stream. Focus, focus, focus. Don't diversify. For example, I had, uh, the community, and I was like, let me start a clothing brand on the side with my community's, uh, I guess, name on it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I want one of those, uh, tank tops, by the way.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's none left. It got robbed. I need to order. I'll order some more.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Yeah. So pretty sick at the community. And then I was like to. My friend at the time was a business advisor, said, I want to start the clothing brand. And he was like, don't do it. It's diversification. And in my. I took it in and I was like, okay, but you're probably right. Then I sat down and I realized, no, it's not. That's branding.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so there's two lessons there. Number one is no matter who you're getting advice from, you need to be able to discern whether you feel like it's Good enough for you or not. And the odds are if it's not you learned and if it is, you know how to think for yourself, have your own mind.

Speaker B: Like you can work that through though. I get what they're saying because if you're going to start running an E commerce business, yeah, that's not good unless you put someone else in charge of it. But what you're doing is complimentary merch for members. Totally different. Not complimentary as in they pay for it. So there's a revenue stream. Yeah, but it's like this. My kids went to. My little one is so, so. Well, they're both so clever. But the little one wants to talk about business. He's already interested in business. He's only nine. He said, oh, uh, we went to Winkings. Yeah. And they gave us a balloon that was really nice and a hat. But he said, I know why they did it because when we walked back with the balloon in the hat, that's marketing, isn't it, daddy? I was like, what is he? I was about to cry. I'm like, yes, Jackson, it's marketing.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker B: And what's marketing designed for? I teach him when I drop him off to school. More's giving him business lessons. Right.

Speaker A: That's amazing.

Speaker B: I said to him, I'm going to do a, uh, podcast with James. You know James from a players? Yeah, we know him because I talk about you to him. Why would I do that? Why would I have a partnership? Oh, so you can generate additional customers. Yes. But also we want to have partnerships because they create friendships and we can help each other and it's win win for both businesses. So yeah, even kids know that is a good concept. Right.

Speaker A: I, I want to go into a few things there. So to finish off with the branding, it was like it's not an overwrite play. It's like it actually E commerce is a headache, especially with Tony and the margins are ass. And there's some crazy stories about how we had to, uh, do a four hour drive to Sevilla to try get clothes delivered. The day before we were flying to Milan for a hierarchy because we needed to have them there in that time. There was times that they got held in customs in Ireland. The day before we were fine to Rome because we had a RO marathon and it's like, so it was, it was a worth it. Short term mind was awarded no long term mind. When people are wearing our clothes, when it's on the Instagram, does it create more brand credibility and does it just look cool? Yeah. And is it when I'm not there, they're going to gyms, they're going to high level restaurants, uh, etc. And they're wearing the clothes. That's marketing. And it's like it's not an or why. Adds a light to your business and adds credibility to your business. So there's so much hate on doing something that just makes your business more credible in long term. Like partnerships are so underrated. They're there people people don't like, they're so headstrong and I'm doing my own thing. I don't partner with anybody else want to incredibly anybody else. But they don't realize that even uh, like the likes of Fendi right now are like doing partnerships with LA Plaza and Nobu to have interior of uh, Fendi and like Hermes and all this sort of stuff inside of there and like uh, billions as uh, sponsors. It's like, well when someone. It's not a direct or why? Because you're giving away expensive blankets that could have been sold somewhere else. But like now people from nowhere going in, they're like chilling on these Hermes blankets are seeing it or it's on their Instagram stories now I know they have the perception that they've been chilling in space with Hermes blankets and now they're gonna need to go home, buy some more Hermes blankets. Yeah, it's like it's a long term ROI and brand play. And so the reason that we're working together is like, you can bring me clients, I can bring you clients.

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. But also going back to the gen, if I think if you have a genuine interest in helping your clients, the profit flows as a result rather than being profit driven. So I know our first conversation was you didn't say, oh, this is how much money I can make from the partnership. You didn't even ask me what the referral fees were. Your initial thing was. Oh, do you know what? I've had three or four guys that have been struggling with their finances. I want to put someone in place that we can trust. And you having a partnership with Tony Robbins, obviously we want to build our own trust relationship and you have to do that with any partner before you formalize it. But the fact that uh, Tony's chosen you for seven years to be an exclusive partner, that shows a lot. So we can skip forward some of that. You can help providing free support initially and advice for my members. And I want them to have that. I want them to have someone to go to who's not Just going to sell them to give them financial or tax advice.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that's where I think also there's some separation in entrepreneurs who are just profit driven. You can make a lot of money, but it's not sustainable. If you try to help people, you will get an roi, you will get referrals and so on. Yeah, I think that's brilliant. Like actually that section and I want to keep this in as well is so good. If I'm listening to this or I'm um, watching it, guys, I would rewind 15 minutes and just listen to that whole thing again and actually take action on it. Because the way that Tony Robbins scaled into having. I think he's got 800 billion global turnover, something ridiculous. How many of those businesses do you think he's actually running?

Speaker A: Fuck off.

Speaker B: Yeah, they're all partnerships. And I'll tell you now, if I don't get sued for this, hopefully I won't and it won't mess up my partnership is that he'll create a business with. Let me be careful about what I'm saying. Okay. He'll create a business with someone else that you co own. Okay. The revenue from partnership revenue, this is the long term play. It doesn't go into his business and then a referral fee gets paid. It goes into a separate company, separate entity. Then at the end of the month, quarter year or whatever, that gets split according to your agreed referral rate. But why do you do that? Because the recurring revenue from those clients that gets built up has a saleable value. If you own that company, 5050 with your partner equity value, you both are getting short term gains and long term saleable exit value. Does that make sense?

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker B: So that's the difference. He will take it to another level because he wants the back end as well as just this. He doesn't just want cash flow.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: He wants long term valuations. Um, but partnerships are incredible. Okay, so that's a track. Do you want to say anything?

Speaker A: I want to say one more thing because I want to make it as simple to understand as possible for people to imagine how to integrate into their own business. And discernment is the number one skills that the young entrepreneurs can have by the way. To discern information, to apply information that you don't directly apply to you, but you can take it in ways that can apply to you is very, very important. So I'll get it as simple as possible. John D. Rockefeller owned 90% of Standard Oil in the US in the 1800s. He didn't just Want to own the oil. He was like, let me own the refineries, let me own the distribution, let me own the railroads, let me on the trains. And so it's like when you have your foundation of whatever your offer is, it's like, what's 80% of people who's in that offer doing or in that company doing that I can add as a leg that makes me more profitable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it's like, regardless of whether John Duckford had a competition or not, which he would likely drain out and buy and acquire the founder, he was like, that means on the railroads, the distribution. So, like, if they have. If I have a competition, they have to go through me, regardless.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So how can you think like. Like that long term? Not. Not like straight away, but how can you think long term? What legs can I add to my business to make me more profitable that my ICP is more likely doing anyway?

Speaker B: Yeah. And going to someone else and getting a piece of it. Um, and you don't know whether they're going to someone that they can trust.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: So, John, if their business goes bust because they went to someone they couldn't trust, they're no longer going to be paying you money, they're no longer going to be your client. So it's in your interest to create success in their business.

Speaker A: 100%. And so it's like John got the first exclusive partnership deal with the railroads in the US and like, the oil companies were raging, the other competitors were raging, that he got these special rates that they didn't get because he brought in the most business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I think that's a really good way to look at it. And a friend of mine said, and a mentor of mine said, each year you should make one Rockefeller move. And so I love that concept. Each year make one Rockefeller move. And so that's either adding an integration into your business, which is the equivalent of the railroad, the refineries, the distribution into your oil company, or the equivalent is, hey, so there's a competitor now next door. John would go in, he'd undercut the prices in that state, drain that company to the ground, and then hire the CEO of that company for his company to keep expanding. He. It was crazy. And so, like, not to that extreme, because we're not in that stage of business anymore, but, like, what's that one Rockefeller move that you can either acquire in a competitor for insanely low price or some form of acquisition or. Or integrate something into your business that makes you sustainable for long term. And I love the Content. The Rockefeller move. I was like, I love that.

Speaker B: Where did you read about that or learn that?

Speaker A: I learned that from listening to a podcast and also reading his 38 letters to his son. And also just like some YouTube research. And also he's a book called Titan, which I read a bit of. Yeah, I very, very ready read Finnish books. So I read like what I liked. And then I was like, okay, I'm done.

Speaker B: I'll get into that. Actually reading and learning. Okay, so conversion. You speak to people, presumably on the phone, on a call at the start.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And you convert them using the same process that you learn from your role as a closer, uh, within Gadzi, Right?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And you're not trying to convince people. I guess it's very similar to me. I'll show my expertise, I'll give them my advice on what they would do. And if they want to do that with us, great. If they don't, and then there's no chasing after you've presented the offer, how do you sell? Is it like that or is there. Are you. Are you more like pushing them because you know it's the right decision, so you know you're doing it for the right reasons, but you are putting a bit more sales approach into it.

Speaker A: There's. There's two things that. Number one is if I feel like someone just has limit and beliefs, I'll push them. As in, like. Because I know that so many guys who've joined us who've said, james, I'm so grateful that you pushed me that time because I was being a straight up. And look, one of them is living over here now. He's in the best shape of his life. He's earned the best money and he was scared to spend that money with us last summer. And like his Life has just 10x and so like, when I know and I feel the responsibility to change someone, I will change. I will try my best.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Otherwise I'll just say like, bro, like, best luck, you're just not for us. But one of the things to do with offering, which I learned recently enough, is like we were offering the network, the taxes, the finances, the concierge, all in one bundle, including the pricing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And what we learned is like, someone might come to us and not feel the taxes is like their next stage, or not feel that financial investments are next stage, or not feel like concierge is needed. And so they'd assume the price is then the value of all of this.

Speaker B: Yeah. Now get that. I totally have had this too.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so we were like, okay, things need to change. So we just completely focused on selling the network for the trips. It's like, because that's what the perceived value and what the 80% of the guys want to come in.

Speaker B: So we choose education as well.

Speaker A: There's education? Yeah, we have like special guest speakers, all that sort of stuff as well. But it's like from our branding and marketing. Why would they apply and what are they looking to get?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so it's like, make your offer as narrow and valuable as possible within that narrow stage. Okay. Everything else is a free bonus.

Speaker B: So sales is just not about just how you talk to them. It's also about your offer.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because like form part. Because like, let's say you say to them, like, hey, I can have you with your accountancy, your setup, your and other things that come with that, but it's not what they need right now. And then you tell them the price. They're like, but I don't need this. This, this. That's expensive.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Whereas it's like, we're going to help you with this. There's going to be. And, uh, over the next stage, over next six months, this or next year, six years. These are some added benefits that we have just included in this pricing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Versus this is the pricing for all of this. You know, that makes sense. That was like a, uh, lesson that we learned recently was like, your offer is one thing. It's not buy things as much as you think it's valuable. You have to think about your customer, what they think is valuable, and the rest is just free sauce.

Speaker B: What I'd love to know, but I don't think we're ever going to get this answer is why does it take someone like me 42 years to learn these kind of lessons? And you're learning them at 21, not 42 years, but to get to 42. So we used to pitch people as a holistic service. Right. So if we're doing whole outsourced finance team, it's your bookkeeping issue of that returns, it's your end of your accounts. It's all the stuff you need from a legal perspective. So we put this in the boring but needed section. Then we have the tax planning section. Then we have the fluff section where access to client community online course that I've created this, that. And people would constantly come back and say, well, I don't need all that. Uh, yeah, so can you lower the price? Yeah, I only put that in there

Speaker A: because, you know, it was valuable. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So now I took it out. Yeah. And I still give it to them anyway. I just don't give it in the sales process. But I learned that uh, at 42.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How are you learning this at 21? Why are people going so, so far? How are people so far ahead of people who are in my generation?

Speaker A: They're also so far behind because they won't be there at your age. It's like there's, there's two sides to the coin. It's like we're getting exposed to so much information so fast and so what's happening is everybody knows nearly everything.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But what's, what's wrong is they're doing it in an unsustainable way.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so we're. The value of you being in the marketplace 20 years ago to where you've like physically had to go out and like find and probably fucking read books to and do insane research when there's barely Internet to like figure out how to start your business means you are extremely credible and people look at you at ah, your age with your success and be. I want to work with him. Versus the 22 year old who probably knows more because they see your experience and you've been in the game for so long that you probably know more. I think it's such a unique dynamic to where it's like you will always have that trust more than we had that trust. And um, now it's harder for us more than ever because there's so many distractions and so many new business models and new strategies and AI and softwares and the lady in the red dress is at every corner for us. Whereas for you guys it was more like this is what I want to do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean like X trite and there's no simple distractions. Really is simple, very straightforward. And so I don't know how long people are going to last because I'm having conversations with people that I either meet on the street somewhere or I coach inside of some other place. Whatever. I'm like, I don't know if this guy's gonna like last which is sad.

Speaker B: And they're getting there quicker because there's more access to information.

Speaker A: Exactly. Because it's easy, ah, it's so easy to make 10k1. But it's not easy to run a business. No it's not. And um, I'm, I'm scared for the future because I'm like these guys who aren't 10 came on to actually can't function and run a business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They've now got used to this certain lifestyle and perception, but a lot of them won't be where they are. They'll actually have to go back to normal jobs or something else in the next five years. I'm scared of a society's health that we've been exposed to so much and it's so easy right now. And then when it becomes not easy and you're not able to handle that CEO, because you're not made for business. Because I believe entrepreneurship was made in a way to where it's like school system is the school system, because if you break out, fair play to you and you've succeeded, you've won. Whereas now it's so accessible towards like, everyone can do it, so the people who actually aren't made for it can actually do it easily enough. And I don't. I think that society is going to go into a state of depression in the next five years to when these guys can't stay in the business and you have to go back to normal life. And then women's perception of what they should be doing and how they operate is now tamed because of social media. Their perception themselves is low. So I'm thinking, I don't know where, uh, 80, 90% of this market is going to be in 5, 10 years time. It's kind of scary for you and

Speaker B: for people in the community. You're making them aware of this so that you can prepare. Right.

Speaker A: Um, for that time, 100%. It's all about teaching them critical thinking. But then it's also about like, okay, well, if it hits the fan and their business model goes tomorrow, we know we trust them to be someone who can execute on what they're doing. So they probably form some sort of partnership or get some sort of ideation on the next move in the market.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because if you're stuck, it's about being resourceful, Right?

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: If you don't have this community, you don't have access to the resources. Simple.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: If you're stuck and you can't make a decision or you're stuck on something and you're banging your head against the wall, what's the solution to that? Resourcefulness. You can't just go to ChatGPT because you're reading the same shit that everyone else is reading, you need to go to your own people.

Speaker A: It's like if World War 3 happened tomorrow and there's two scenarios. Either you're alone in the countryside of fucking Alabama and you have this one house and you have no shops around you, no People, no basement, no food storage. It comes and you're stuck there and like shit hits the fan, essentially. Or you're in a neighborhood to where there's a shop there, business owner here, guy with guns here, guy with storage for next five years here. It's like, they're going to be fine. Uh, they're probably going to be able to fight their way out or like, together and work it out and they know the next step together, whereas this guy's just cooked. And so it's like if a business model changes or if AI comes in and completely wipes away the need for media buyers or ads or whatever it is, and 4% of the market loses its value, it's like, okay, well, are they going to be around someone who they know they can go to to fix their problems and help fix their problems or partner with something, or are they just like, I don't know what to do. I'm gone?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I love that.

Speaker B: I love the idea of a business that creates more growth, profitability and cash flow now, but also reduces failure risk.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah. Both sides.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because it's. I feel like we don't. We ignore that side.

Speaker B: Yeah. And this side, like, the failure risk of growth at the clients, which is my company as a chartered accountancy tax consultancy, is 0.05%. The failure rate of the market is 96%.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Why? Because most businesses fail because they don't understand the numbers.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And we give them that clarity.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But people don't want to do this reduce the risk of failure stuff because that's boring.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or they want to put their heads in the sand. Okay. Let's start, um, boxing things together. Do you know what? We're going to have to do a series of these because I could literally talk to you all day. Let's, let's really enjoy this conversation.

Speaker A: Let's keep going.

Speaker B: I'm learning as well, which is why I only want to interview people that I can learn from. What are your, um, three keys to success? These are more like quickfire.

Speaker A: Yep. So trickies to success.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Number one is a sermon. So getting given information and being like, no matter who it's, no matter what the sources are not no matter who gave the information, or a YouTube guru was what course it was in. And being like, I don't want to do it that way. I want to do my own way. I think discernment. There's too many, as we said at the very, very beginning, 100 copycats of like, this is, uh, my way or the highway yeah. Of whoever's course you buy and that's just not how you run a business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you're an employee if you can't think for yourself. Other three traits I say is communication skills.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, obviously in my business it's, it's predominant but I, I just talk to whoever I'm close by and so it's just like the sauna theory of if you're in the sauna and there's a six year old man here and you're the only other guy in the saa, just talk. Because if you can find it difficult,

Speaker B: force yourself to do it.

Speaker A: Force yourself to do. Yeah. 100. And so it's having that conversation with the people that you have nothing that you can relate to on and be able to find the middle ground because if you can do it with someone you can't relate on, it just can prove your communication skills when you need them.

Speaker B: And you know what? I'm going to take your advice and put my 10 and 9 year old into hospitality job as soon as they can.

Speaker A: Yeah, as soon as.

Speaker B: It's not for the money, for the skill set.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because like people are so awkward nowadays because like well in hospitality you also can't be in your phone for eight hours. It's the only place that you probably can't be in your phone for eight hours. You have to be just talking and there's not many places you can get that nowadays because if they start their own online business they could become geeks in their own little four walls and that it's not going to help with their communication.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So it's a communication discernment. Mhm. I guess we could just say access.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Access to the right people, access, right opportunities. Because I know like for example if someone gets into sales and they come to me, the odds I can find them a job versus if they go out to the marketplace, ask for one. The odds that's a better job, longer lasting, the higher pain is like 100.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so whether it's business partnerships like or whether it's hiring or whether it's hiring agencies or whether it's econ products, whatever it is, access to the right people with the right knowledge.

Speaker B: Yeah. Don't try and do it.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, how important are surroundings? Like I've come here instantly. I have a different mindset instantly.

Speaker A: It's crazy.

Speaker B: Like a really great thing happened recently where I saw. I didn't talk to you about this. I saw that you were speaking at Mind your business event in Marbella Yeah. So I DM'd the, uh, organizer.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And said, are you looking for any speakers? Have you got any speakers around finance and tax to speak to? What we spoke about credibility. They've obviously gone to my profile, had a look. Uh, Tony Robbins partner. Uh, been around for this long. Credible. He said, yeah. Jumped on a quick call, and then they announced me as a speaker today.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I seen that.

Speaker B: Main stage, baby, let's.

Speaker A: Baby, we back, let's go.

Speaker B: But that is a, uh, mindset thing. Right now. When I'm in England, I'm in my little. You know, I have a big house, but my office is a tiny little office on the front of the house. It's raining, people are moaning, people are miserable. I have a totally different mindset. I come here, Airbnb by the beach, see the sea. Yesterday, AirPods on, bit of Cafe Del Mar, doing a few messages, sat there. Game changer.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So for me, it's massive. But for you, how important are surroundings?

Speaker A: Mine's m. Everything. Like, I don't even know how to conceptualize or put into words surroundings. And what the Ireland, UK and Europe's done is like, they've made it literally incapable of living in the place that you live. It's like, the weather is one thing. And, like, we could probably bear with that if we had access to the right people, the right conversations, uh, co working areas that were funded by maybe even governments or whatever it was, you could probably bear living in our countries. It's unbearable. And so it's like when you go abroad and you see the nice cars, and that gives you the subconscious reminder of, like, I want to achieve that and I can't achieve that. And these people who get out of it, they don't look like the smart people in the world, so I can probably do it, too.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, and then it's also normal, right? Normal. Yeah, normal. And, you know, you go to the gym and you have conversations with, you know, millionaires left, right and center, and then, you know, they give you their perspective on certain things. So, like, I. I can't even say. And if you can't. If you can't watch a podcast like this, where we're talking about all this sort of stuff and realize the power of not being in your four walls in the UK or in Ireland. And I said, being around wealth, opportunities and access, like, how. How can you not see that? And how can you not feel like if you don't have huge responsibility, that it's worth the move?

Speaker B: Yeah. If you don't have kids move full stop. For me now I've got my boys, they're in school, really good education in the uk. They go to a really good private school. They just got already accepted pre 11 plus to the high school. So they don't even have to sit it, which is great. Or it's a just uh, a paperwork exercise. Right. Which is amazing. But I can get away to Dubai for four days every month. I can come to Marbella for four days every month. I'm still there with them for the majority of the time and wherever possible I can bring them with me.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And we, we know that we're only there for the education.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And as soon as they hit 16 they can make a decision with us about where they want to be.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But there's no way that I'm retiring and living the whole rest of my life in the uk. Not a chance.

Speaker A: It's just.

Speaker B: Unless it changes.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it's very difficult. Maybe now London, okay. Maybe that's different. There are areas where you can, well there are networking groups, there are co working spaces. Right. That's different.

Speaker A: In demand.

Speaker B: But then if you've got a family, you don't want to bring them up in central London. So it's, it's very difficult.

Speaker A: Just if you, if you're new to the sun and the right people like you just your life just gets 10 experience, move.

Speaker B: Bit of advice for you. Um, how important has it been as well in your own business? Just planning and minimizing your tax liability and knowing your numbers.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, man, I hired a CEO recently again ahead of operations. I know my numbers, my ROAs, my CTRs, my CAC. The clarity of a predictable business. Well, predictable in quotation max. You're always going to have months, but normally you can put in and get out majority of the time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's like, that's how you run a business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. And um, like having clarity in regards to where to go for taxes and having us having the conversations that we've had recently with um, the people that we had the conversations with.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And knowing that I wouldn't have got that anywhere else and like genuinely saving a ridiculous amount of money and being able to have access that money to be able to invest it now and to be able to reinvest into my business or into the markets. That's like the biggest issue uh, with earning money in Ireland, UK and all that. Sort of a young age is like, yeah, you might earn a lot corporately but like to take it out personally and to Invest it. You're slashing into the money M, you're halving it. It's like you can't sustain or grow really without access to capital. And um, so what I've realized recently is like the most successful people that I've studied, they had access to the brains opportunities in their young age and they found access to capital, whether that's your investors, whether it's your friends or through partners, and they multiply that. And so also have access to our own capital based on tax strategies and setups at a young age isn't as a necessity because you don't want it to come back to haunt you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you also want to have access to your capital to create a good future for yourself in 10 years time.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you are, if you are not nomadic but you know, you're working out where you want to live.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You're in Marbella for a while, maybe you're in Dubai for a while, maybe you go somewhere else for a while. You know, when you meet someone, you might settle, you might pick a place, then it's different. But for now you want to make sure, like you said, you've done everything by the book. Because the worst thing that could happen is you've got this amazing business and then you, you almost get shut down by the tax man because you've done something wrong. Yeah, that's not what we want. And we want to know our numbers. I love that you speak about all of that stuff because what you want to know is okay, if I'm generating this many leads over here based on past data, this is how much revenue will pop out of here. Because I know my revenue and I know my cost is how much profit there is because I know how much I'm drawing down. This is how much cash flow my

Speaker A: business generates input output.

Speaker B: And uh, I would say 99.9 people do don't have anywhere near that input output clarity.

Speaker A: But they spend 2k month and of course if getting more leads and they have no idea what their leads are getting just overvalued.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: It's like hire someone who can show you a dashboard of what your numbers are. Hire an operations guy. Hire a sales guy that can convert them as good as possible. It's like I don't really understand people.

Speaker B: What's next for a players and for

Speaker A: you events and software.

Speaker B: Okay, talk to me a little bit about that.

Speaker A: So, um, to spread word and to give experience of network, as I said, I feel like I need to create an experience, an experience that's different. I want to bridge the gap between new age way of doing things and old age way of thinking. And so I want to have events where it's like a thousand people, but it's like one or two or three guys who are operating heavily, heavily profitable business based on the new way of operating business and bringing in the guys who have been successful in software and business for the last 15, 20 years to implement their foundations and way of thinking and operating to. Because they didn't think let me build a profitable business, they just thought like let me build a business and operate as best as possible. Didn't think about 100k months, they just taught like let's scale a business. Um, and so they would have done that and you know, even losing money for like two years to make money in the long term. So like the way to think is just completely different. So I want to, I want to bridge that gap. And then software wise is, you know, when we talk about Johnny Rockefeller and the integration of um, you know, the refinery distribution and the railroads, I was like, well my competitors and people in this world are networking and I'm not involved in some way or they're hosting events and I'm not involved in some way. So it's like how can I create the digital real estate of networking which is the software that's going to be. And I won't give away the name Tony, give away too much of the concept as well. So I'll keep some things to myself. But it should be out next week or two. The mvp and uh, essentially the concept is going to be well, you know, if I go to organize an event publicly with a players, it's like I put a thing up in my story. People are DMing me. I have to add them to group chats manually, get their phone numbers. I have to resend the itinerary every time. I have to keep them updated. If the itinerary changes, people are asking questions, where is the itinerary? The pin chats disappear on WhatsApp.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The Google Drive links after you host an event or where's that link? Where's them pictures? Everything is all over this. It's a head wreck. And you know it's going to cost you 500amonth to have an assistant minimum, even if you hire from the Philippines.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I wanted to create a software to where it's like I can host an event simple as its location. It's time, it's here's the place where the owner can update the itinerary here's like the links, etc. That's the look, the event he creates event, it comes up on the map. People who either can be publicly, publicly, you know, can see that event based on it being suggested for them, or it's a private event that, you know, you can post your story with a link and they click on the link, the whole itinerary breakdown is there. They can RSVP themselves to. If they're accepted, they're simply added to a group chat. Group has the itinerary, top left corner has the profile, top right corner, network, Adobe on Instagram, etc. If you own your own community, it can have its own badge. And so you can have your own community within the app, uh, itself as well. Okay, so you can see, okay, here's the upcoming events just for my community. Here's the members across the world just for my community. And so it's like if you're coming to Marbella, uh, and you don't know who to go to, you don't know what events to go to, you're just coming here by yourself. You then know, here's the upcoming events in Marbella, here's the guys that are suggested to me based on my profile, and here's any public events that I can attend and worship myself to. And so it's like, uh, access to network, access to my people suggested by your profile. And I'm like, it's good. I know, I know it's going to work because I need it for myself. Yeah, I needed to run events because events are so hard to manage if you don't have everything in one place.

Speaker B: Same thing. You had a problem, you found a solution.

Speaker A: Exactly. And so I know everyone else who organizes. Even at dinner, let's say you're coming to Marbella. M you're like put up in your story, hey guys, gonna be in Marbella hosting the dinner here it's already booked. Or yourself, they can either just pay, uh, video or once they join or as access they, you know, let's say even someone with 15, 20,000 followers or even like an iman for example. Yeah, let's say he was going to host a meetup and he wanted to host a private dinner with 15 entrepreneurs last minute in Miami, puts up in a story going to Miami, it's going to be 5,000 seats. If you want to set the table, puts up the location, time, RCP yourself, attach your profile. Profile had their Instagram, their interest, their revenue numbers, etc, and he can be like, I'd like him at my dinner 5,000 accepted. 5,000 accepted. He's made 30,000 gone for dinner with six people and you know, covered his cost trip. So it's like it can be beneficial for so many type, different types of people and it can streamline the organization of events at the same time. And so that came from just thinking I have this problem as you know, he's ahead of me, how can I fix it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I'm, I'm hoping that goes well. Uh, I'm sure it will. And so that comes together with the events in the software. So that's the plan.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: For next year to flow.

Speaker B: That last question. If a players gets to is there a couple members or if a players gets to a thousand members, how do you create a situation where it's still the same vibe as when it had

Speaker A: 100 tears and specific trips? And so it's like you know, even with the Tony Robbins platinum stuff with people.

Speaker B: Exactly has platinum. Then he has lions and he has something.

Speaker A: So it's like you only want to network with people who are slightly ahead of you and have then sometimes conversation with guys are 10 years ahead of you because like the guys who are 10 years ahead or five years ahead in business terms don't want to daily communicate with guys who are on the lower terms. Even though it's nice to be around

Speaker B: the energy, you might want access to them because they might be a startup that's like in super uh, smart AI guy, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But the turnover is not that great. They're a freelancer so you might want access but you don't want to network with them necessarily.

Speaker A: So think about tiers. Tiers in regards to community access and you know you can have access to the lower level guys if you want, but you can just have access to your main guys. And I'm also thinking about creating a system to where the lower level guys in the community, let's say there are 5 10k a month, can pay hourly based on like the profiles of the guys who are in the higher tier to learn off them just off a discounted rate or just like not within the course because they're actively doing the thing that they're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which is the difference between course because they're odds are not doing the thing anymore.

Speaker B: So they can immediately access mentors.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, it's like kind of like value uh, Patrick with David software. No, he basically has where like he can pay Patrick with David for like an hour of your time. But like okay, it's ridiculous, huge money. But if you could pay someone who's six months ahead of you or two years ahead of you in terms of business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: For an hour of your time. And you know, they're trusted and you can see their profile. That would be good. So I need to find a way to UI that into a players in some way so I can handle the volume, but I just want more software and stuff in place before I do.

Speaker B: Cool. Yeah. Is there anything that we didn't speak about that, uh, you wanted to go? I mean, I definitely want to do another episode because there's loads of stuff I'd like to talk about, but no,

Speaker A: I just encourage anybody who's watching to spend 20% of their day doing the most random things in their business and actually that are business related. Yes. That, uh, can give them an understanding of how they think and how they make decisions and how they can. Because how you think and how you make decisions and then how you assess them decisions and then make better ones in the future is how you run a business. And so if you're copying someone 100% or always looking for the answer from somebody else, you're not building your own business, you're building somebody else's. You're building 10 businesses at once with 10 different perspectives that can't work together. Ah, so one mentor, ideally, ah, perspectives from the outside market on mindset and longevity, etc. But then understanding your way of thinking would be my last piece of advice.

Speaker B: Amazing. Yeah, thank you, mate. Um, like, honestly, I really enjoyed it, learned so much from it and it's opened up a load of conversations that I'll have with you as well over cigar later.

Speaker A: Um, on. Yeah.

Speaker B: Thank you for coming down. It's been another episode of Founder Stories and we will see you in the next one.