How to start a 7-figure business in 2025: Advice from 4 millionaires

0:00 hey friends welcome back to Deep dive

0:01 the podcast where it's my immense pleasure to sit

0:03 down with entrepreneurs creators authors and other inspiring

0:06 people and we find out how they got

0:07 to where they are and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help

0:10 build a life that we love in this video

0:11 we're looking back at previous episodes to take

0:13 the best business advice from some of our previous

0:15 guests so without further Ado here we are to what extent do you think it's

0:20 useful to join an existing startup versus just start

0:23 your own and have a punt and kind of do it anyway it's it's massively useful

0:27 to join someone else's startup like I would highly

0:29 recommend that to absolutely anyone so here's what goes

0:32 wrong with a lot of young people they go to careers fairs and all that sort

0:36 of stuff it's only big corporates that exhibit

0:39 so they end up being funneled down the big

0:41 corporate uh uh path now you can start a business that doesn't exist you can go

0:48 to a big corporate so in the UK

0:50 there are 7,000 large companies that have more than

0:52 250 employees there's 5.5 million businesses in the middle

0:57 that already exist but don't have 200

0:59 50 employees so and the vast majority of them

1:02 have 10 people or less right so it's

1:04 huge hugely stacked between two and 10 people

1:08 is the small business landscape so when you join

1:11 a big corporate you have no idea what

1:13 the whole business does you have no idea what

1:15 everyone else does um they don't bring you in on strategy or any of that sort

1:20 of stuff you are just completely in the dark and they say this is your job go

1:23 do that job and if you can't do it we'll find someone else who can is

1:25 the subtext but when you join a business

1:27 that's four people five people six people you know

1:31 exactly what the whole does you often know

1:33 the revenue you often know theit you often

1:36 know the weekly activity of the entire team

1:39 so you get this kind of feeling and experience

1:41 of what an entire team does and what

1:43 an entire business does and I I would highly

1:47 recommend anyone who wants to start a business

1:50 first do two years working inside somebody else's small

1:53 business oh interesting so like a lot of people um sort of in in our team

1:57 when I talked to them about this or people

1:58 who've done internships with us feel like say

2:00 that oh yeah you know I I I feel like I'm learning a lot and to me

2:04 I'm always a bit confus like like what is what is there to learn like cuz

2:08 we're just like doing stuff but I guess

2:10 for someone who doesn't have experience running a business

2:12 or being in a or yeah it's completely

2:15 different to life in Amazon HQ corporate and it's

2:18 also not too different to what you did

2:20 with medicine where you know you do your study

2:22 and you do your education and then you go and work in a hospital and you're

2:26 working around experienced doctors and you and like

2:30 the theory is all well and good but like

2:31 the two first two weeks on the job when you realize oh this is the dynamic

2:34 between the nurses and this is how you request a scan and this is how you

2:37 do all this other stuff that you never

2:41 and and here's how long this actually takes

2:43 and you know these little things that like

2:45 in a business context flipping back from medicine

2:48 which I know nothing about uh you know just things like uh well how do you send

2:53 out like a big bulk email to a list or where do you get a list

2:57 from or like how do you sit down

2:59 and have a lunch and negotiate a joint venture so

3:03 for me my two years doing that when I was 19 to 21 I actually got

3:07 to sit in on those meetings so when John was negotiating to do a list swap you

3:12 mail your list for our product and we'll

3:14 mail our list for your product I'm sitting

3:16 in on that meeting quietly and going oh wow

3:19 that's how that happened that's the thing yeah yeah

3:21 and when John was proposing oh here's what

3:23 we'll do with the revenue we'll do a revenue

3:25 split and we'll actually this will be the first

3:28 chunk for costs and we'll take that out

3:29 first and then this will be and here's how we'll measure it and it's like oh

3:35 right okay that's just a meeting that you

3:36 have and you just agree that in the meeting

3:38 and then you write it down and confirm it and then you put it in the heads

3:41 of terms okay now I get it yeah I think there's so much stuff like

3:45 this where until you've had experience in a thing

3:47 it's just it's hard to even fathom what goes on like this weekend I was I

3:51 was at this like pH philanthropy conferen type thing

3:54 where there were people from like nuclear policy

3:57 making and like Grant making and I was

3:59 I was asking basic question I was like like what does it mean to like Lobby

4:03 a a congressman and they're like oh you

4:05 literally queue up and then you literally give them

4:07 money for it and wait what that's a thing

4:09 like how how do you contact a government official

4:11 do you just like Google their name and they're

4:12 like well no it's opaque for a reason and you have to do this you have

4:15 like it's just completely mind-blowing that this whole

4:18 world of like government and policy and grants

4:20 and philanthropy that I have zero experience in and like

4:23 I can read all the books but I I wouldn't know how to contact a government

4:26 official yeah unless I know someone who is

4:28 literally doing the thing yeah and you hear

4:30 these fancy titles it's like oh I'm an analyst

4:32 with um KPMG or Goldman Sachs and it's

4:35 like but what do you actually do oh I get given a list of these people

4:39 and then I have to go and put

4:40 these spreadsheets together oh okay yeah okay so you're

4:45 21 you've started your own I guess lead

4:48 generation company okay so is this like let's

4:52 say I am an estate agent and I want to sell houses I'll give you some real

4:56 examples we worked with um financial planners we

4:58 worked with franchise one of the biggest deals

5:01 we did was with franchisors who wanted to sell

5:03 franchises and what we' do is a road

5:05 show of events introducing their franchise to potential

5:09 franchises um now as a $60,000 franchise we

5:12 would get uh 15% of the franchise success

5:15 fee um as our marketing fee okay so they

5:18 paid us um an amount that covered costs first and then we got 15% successfully

5:24 on on top of that so that was a great deal they had put a lot of energy

5:28 and effort into creating franchise we um they when

5:33 when I met them I went to a franchise

5:35 Expo and there were 300 franchise or all trying to say that they had the best

5:40 franchise franchise or as in like five guys

5:42 McDonald's KFC would be a franchise or yeah

5:45 exactly and like those are like McDonald's is

5:47 the biggest well-known franchise they sell you the rights

5:50 to run their business but there's all sorts

5:52 of little franchises like um mortgage broking franchises

5:56 and even things like gardening franchises and franchises

6:01 so um you you basically I go along to a franchise Expo and I see that there's

6:06 300 franchise or trying to stand out and be

6:09 different and I go this doesn't work for anyone

6:12 cuz if you're a customer thinking about buying

6:15 a franchise you've now got way too many

6:17 choices and if you're a franchise or you're

6:20 just standing right next to 300 competitors so

6:23 it's just feeling too weird like too you know

6:26 too um uh it feels too saturated so

6:31 we just basically approached one that I thought

6:32 was great and we negotiated a deal and we did a road show where instead of them

6:37 being shoulder-to-shoulder with competitors we would put them

6:40 in front of 50 people who were potential

6:43 customers how would you find these 50 people

6:45 so we'd advertise do Direct Mail campaigns we would

6:48 do um uh there was something called fax

6:51 broadcasting at the time fax broadcasting okay let's not

6:54 even go I'd have to I'd have to even begin by telling your audience what a fax

6:58 machine is I'm going to make up a random offer so let's say I lose everything

7:03 on my YouTube channel I get canceled overnight

7:05 but I still have the skills I'm keeping in mind

7:08 that my business ideas have to be something

7:10 I can sell for ideally 2K ideally five sales a month mhm I might be thinking

7:15 either web design agency type situation potentially but I've

7:21 kind of been outside of that market for a while or I'd be thinking uh video

7:27 content just quickly you've being outside of that market

7:30 do you know someone who's credible web development

7:33 do you know someone who's a web developer yeah yeah sell them H yeah that could

7:38 work yeah in in my head I was defaulting to oh I guess I'd have to do

7:41 it myself so I need to learn quite a lot of stuff no you don't you

7:44 can find someone who's good at web development

7:46 and you can just go running around selling two

7:48 grand packages for them to build oh okay

7:52 that could work too there you go there's 10

7:53 grand a month what if I was like uh hey I know how to use a camera

7:57 I know how to do video editing uh therefore if I do personal brand video content

8:02 for startup Founders who I know have money

8:05 or business owners like you who I know have

8:07 money and I could be like Dan you have books you want to be on all

8:10 the social platforms I'll show up to your house

8:12 once every month and we'll film a bunch of stuff I'll just ask you the questions

8:15 I'll chop it up content for Instagram Facebook

8:18 LinkedIn etc etc sign me up yeah rock

8:21 and roll of course so that's that's a great

8:24 example yeah and um and you just sign me up and you might say it's initially 2

8:28 Grand and see if you like it and then it's 2 Grand a month after that um

8:32 now you might say uh by the way I've got a whole team I got an amazing

8:36 team of people uh I've actually found um

8:40 I've got lead uh content uh creators here

8:42 in the UK I've also got an international team so that we can do um an initial

8:47 style guide and some signature content and we

8:50 can also do Brute Force content you know

8:52 through our team in the Philippines and then

8:54 we've got a team in Ghana and actually

8:56 we send all the raw footage to them and they create lots of videos and we then

9:00 put that on Tik Tok and all that sort of stuff we see what it sticks

9:02 and bring it all together I'm like wow

9:04 that sounds really great so yeah that would be like I'm really big on the idea

9:09 of the entrepreneur's job is to be the organizing

9:12 force not to do the work so like you keep getting into like oh I know how

9:17 to edit videos it's like it's like that's

9:19 doing the work you you're not being an entrepreneur

9:21 you're being a video editor so the the entrepreneur's

9:24 job is to be the organizing Force you're

9:26 the organizer I don't know how to do anything like Ju Just just on that I I've

9:31 built multiple $10 million plus companies I don't

9:35 know how to do anything like as in I

9:37 don't have any web development skills I don't

9:39 have video editing skills I don't have design

9:42 skills I don't have any skills like I can write all right I can write books

9:48 but um and I can speak but that's it I'm an organizing Force I'm the guy

9:52 who just organizes it I bring together talented

9:55 people and I say hey you're good at video

9:57 editing you should join my team a video

9:59 editor and you're good at designing you should be

10:01 part of our team so all I'm good at is enrolling people in stuff so the sort

10:06 of person who enjoys organizing people who enjoyed

10:09 like organizing University societies back in the University

10:12 days and like organ bringing people together and like

10:16 the entrepreneur's job is to be the organizing

10:17 Force it's not to do the work damn I still keep on thinking it's like yeah

10:23 you know what skill do I have what

10:24 what skill can I offer that's the schooling system

10:27 that's that's the schooling syst yeah you're component

10:29 labor you're like which component do I fit

10:31 in it's like none you're not in the business

10:33 you're the entrepreneur you're building the business um

10:36 your job is to get really clear about

10:38 what the customer is trying to achieve and then

10:40 be the organizing Force to fill that for them

10:43 um and bring together all the people

10:44 that you might need in order to do that so that's your first 10 grand concept

10:48 audience offer sales that's all you have to do it's cheap to do you can do it

10:51 with Microsoft Word you can do it

10:52 with Apple Pages and Keynotes okay before we go

10:56 into to the next stage let's talk about

10:57 sales so sales s sales are scary sales is

11:01 a dirty word I don't want to be a Salesman uh I feel that like emotional

11:06 response of the even the word sales uh how how do we how do how do I

11:11 approach sales for my web design agency

11:14 or for my assuming I'm not doing the work I'm

11:16 just going out there almost everyone's had a positive

11:19 experience with a salesperson and a negative experience

11:22 with a salesp person but that could be

11:23 true for any profession I've had negative experiences

11:27 with bookkeepers I've had negative experience with lawyers

11:30 I've had negative experience with doctors fairly um there

11:33 are good doctors and bad doctors there's people

11:35 who've got amazing bedside Manner and people who are

11:37 really not um that great so when it

11:40 comes to sales the word that everyone says about

11:44 a good sales person is professional they were

11:47 professional um they they approached it professionally so

11:50 what does professional mean it means that they

11:52 ask great questions they give you guided advice they

11:55 are not pushy but they also do give

11:58 guidance um they've done their homework they've done

12:00 their research they've got great product knowledge they listen

12:03 they understand they're trying to get on your side

12:05 to figure out what it is you actually

12:07 genuinely need and they're making sensible recommendations so

12:10 all of those things are professionalism so sales

12:13 is a science and it's a very valuable skill

12:16 that you can use in any profession it doesn't matter what you are or what you do

12:20 a sales skill is a powerful skill because

12:25 sales is listening understanding and then creating a good

12:29 argument for the right solution and being able

12:31 to marry up this is what you this is

12:33 what you're trying to achieve this is what I think you need and here's why right

12:37 so you're creating a path of least resistance

12:40 here's the mental model you should have with sales

12:42 there is the current reality that the person

12:44 has that is their current situation there is

12:46 their desired reality that's what they want

12:49 and then there's the obstacles and criteria that are

12:50 in the way right these are all the things

12:52 that stop them from getting what they want and then there's you who says this is

12:55 the path of least resistance here's what you

12:57 need to do you need to go and do this this this and this and that is

13:01 going to get you from your current reality

13:02 to your desired reality and it's a lot like being a doctor so if you're a doctor

13:07 you're actually it's so similar to sales when

13:10 you see someone who's not happy with their current

13:12 reality you ask them ask them a loot of questions what's going on right you ask

13:16 them a load of questions and then you might

13:18 say the first thing I want to do is a diagnosis I want to do some

13:22 sort of assessment y right so then you do an assessment and then you say okay so

13:27 I think I've got a treatment plan which is just a path of least resistance

13:30 or a solution oh okay what do I have to do well you're going to have to do

13:34 some antibiotics but you have to take

13:36 these every day for seven days okay what else

13:39 do you need to do well you need to do this thing with this thing okay great

13:42 what else do you meant to do well you have to stop doing this okay great so

13:45 that's the treatment plan and essentially you are

13:48 recommending a treatment plan so in there you you're

13:52 talking to them you're asking a lot

13:54 of questions you're doing an assessment you're figuring out

13:57 where are they now where do they want

13:58 to be what's in the way what's stopping them

14:00 and then you're advising them about a treatment

14:02 plan and that's sales that is sales that's

14:05 great sales I guess when I think of sales

14:08 I think the combative adversarial relationship that I

14:11 go into a used car dealership with thinking

14:14 they're going to try and get me to spend

14:16 Ser have you actually ever had that uh like have you actually ever had a used

14:21 car salesman do that to you no I

14:23 haven't but I've I've been yeah I've been imagining

14:26 and expecting it like and I've been

14:27 to these dealerships with my mom and she approaches it

14:29 that kind of when you went and bought your Apple stuff yeah and the Apple Genius

14:33 came up and asked you like what are you going to use it for and you know

14:36 what like what do you do and all that sort of stuff here's what I recommend

14:40 was it a positive or A negative experience

14:42 it was a good experience yeah right do you

14:43 know they do 40 minutes of sales training every day what 40 minutes a day 40

14:47 minutes a day oh wow it's like pelaton

14:49 they have a central sales trainer who does video

14:51 uploads to the iPads they do 40 minutes

14:53 of sales training every day oh wow they do

14:55 a combination of product knowledge and they do

14:58 uh Rapport build buing objection handling and they actually

15:02 make suggestions as to things you can buy

15:04 right now today that's part of their process

15:06 they want you to walk out of the store

15:07 with something but it's positive they're professional

15:11 right they're not pushy they are making recommendations

15:14 they're trying to solve your problem if you

15:16 go in there and say I'm a professional

15:17 speaker and I like to give talks they're going

15:20 to go okay so you use a lot of keynote yep okay did you know that this thing

15:23 here this is like a touch bar and it actually shows you your slides as you're

15:27 going through and you can see your slides

15:28 when you're speaking and you can jump to slides

15:30 from slide it's like oh that I would use that all the time yeah that's that's

15:34 a really good thing that you might want

15:35 to use I want that great let's back let's box it up okay so they're doing 40

15:42 minutes of sales training a day right and it's

15:44 a positive experience Everyone likes Geniuses yeah

15:48 but they're sales people okay so it sounds like

15:52 to go from 0 to 10K all we need to do is come up with some kind

15:56 of concept that we can charge ideally 2K for yep and find a way to land

15:59 five clients a month through a sales process

16:02 through sales process I will say one more thing

16:04 about sales you need to learn how to do

16:06 laps leads appointments presentations sales so you just

16:09 keep a little spreadsheet who are your leads

16:12 who are the people that might buy can you

16:14 book an appointment to speak with them right

16:16 actually get their their commitment to just focus yeah

16:20 can you present them with a solution can

16:22 you actually do a presentation or or an actual

16:25 conversation um and then can you ask them whether they would like to go ahead

16:28 or not and those are the four steps

16:31 lead appointment presentation Sal so great sales people do

16:34 a rhythm of weekly laps they do leads appointments

16:37 presentation sales and they just have a a good

16:41 good salesp person has a dashboard digital

16:43 or physical and they just have a a set

16:45 of leads appointments presentations and sales so laps

16:48 laps laps laps laps and entrepreneurs need to do

16:51 that as well when they're launching something you

16:53 know getting to six figures is literally just

16:55 like sell something to someone like that's it it's all you have to do to get

16:58 to six figures like one channel one product

17:01 one Avatar like that it you don't have

17:02 to do anything else and then you know when you get you want to get to Seven

17:05 figures then you just do that and then

17:07 add the word consistently which is you do you

17:09 know you input put the inputs in the system

17:10 in a way that's consistent so that you

17:11 get a consistent output so it's whatever way

17:14 you acquired those customers whether it was reach

17:15 outs whether it was content whether it was

17:17 paid ads whether it was Affiliates whether it was

17:19 referrals whatever the thing was that got you

17:21 the customers cool do that consistently and you'll be

17:25 a million you know what I mean which is which is still only 20K a week

17:28 it's not like a huge number you know 1 to three is usually uh increasing output

17:34 of that that main thing to a small

17:36 degree um and really just like Baseline efficiencies

17:39 and building out the core team so usually

17:41 at that point going one to three is getting

17:43 the person out of delivery um to a large you know to a large extent and usually

17:47 they get their first kind of first follower first like one or two uh I'm trying

17:53 to think the right word to how to say

17:54 this um competent individuals uh who are helping

17:58 them out and then you know a handful

18:00 of front line and so it's usually like companies

18:02 that 3 million they're like 5 to 15

18:04 employees and so and there's usually really only

18:06 like two-ish good ones um and the rest are okay right and so at that point you

18:12 know going from 3 to 10 is usually where we can it's the minimum level that we

18:16 take people on and it's not because there's

18:18 something magical about 3 million it's that 3 million

18:21 typically checks two boxes box one is

18:23 that they have product Market fit at some level

18:25 people want something from them like something they're

18:27 selling is resonating enough that they can generate sales

18:30 and the second thing I guess there's three

18:32 boxes one is that the second is that they

18:34 have at least one reliable acquisition channel that they're

18:36 currently doing and the third is that they have a core team in place so they've

18:40 demonstrated product Market fit they have a reliable

18:41 acquisition Channel just at least one uh and they

18:44 have a core team a place which may

18:45 be relatively dysfunctional and have very few key

18:49 players but at least they have some semblance

18:51 of structure and so if they have if they

18:53 meet those minimum requirements then we can at least

18:55 start from at Le some level of Leverage um to start helping them grow okay so

19:00 I'd love to talk a lot about that that initial bit that you sort of threw away

19:06 with like oh one product one channel one one avar avar yeah um so for a bit

19:11 context a a couple of weeks ago I I happened to be on on vacation on some

19:15 Greek island and I posted an Instagram reel of like hey this is the creator life

19:18 I'm working on my iPad and and stuff

19:21 and there were a few comments from people being

19:22 like I'd love to live this sort of Lifestyle

19:24 but I just don't know where to start

19:26 and that sort of that idea of I'd love love to be able to you know

19:31 if if we imagine 99.9% listening of people

19:33 listening to this if you told them they could make six figures a year doing what

19:36 they love they'd be like mind blown would absolutely

19:39 love that so I wonder if we can kind of explore that 0o to six figure jump

19:44 uh or sort of process let's say someone

19:46 has got a full-time job let's say they're working

19:48 in I don't know consulting or some Something

19:50 Corporate and they love the idea of I

19:52 want to make a living doing what I love how how how would we break that down

19:55 and this is under the assumption that they

19:56 hate doing what they're doing yes as because I

19:59 I always like to be I was like I've got employees that make million bucks a year

20:02 plus so like you can absolutely become filthy

20:04 wealthy and that's income right and so a lot

20:06 of businesses that are at $10 million a year the owner might only take a million

20:09 bucks in income depending on you know margins Etc and so like a lot of a lot

20:13 of employees will wish for they see Topline

20:16 as income which is just a very employee

20:17 mindset um they're like oh if I make six figures a year I'll make six figures

20:21 a year it's like Well if you really want to make six figures a year I probably

20:23 make 500 Grand a year um you know I mean revenue wise at least if you

20:27 don't want to have just bought your yourself

20:28 another job right cuz so let's let's talk through

20:32 this transition so if you're an employee when

20:35 you make the switch you're still an employee

20:36 you're just employee of a different business that you

20:38 happen to own and you are basically 100%

20:40 of the expenses and so the business itself

20:41 actually makes no money you as the sole employee

20:43 of that thing and the boss um gets to call your own shots but you were still

20:47 the employee right so you're wearing all

20:48 the hats Etc um and so it's relatively nuanced

20:52 you know what I mean like if you had a sixer consulting job and then you start

20:55 Consulting on the side for example through

20:57 your own LLC you have the same job you just got rid of the person who was

21:00 giving you Direction and now you are responsible right

21:03 the thing that most people have to do is they have to go get money right

21:06 you have to go make money and the way you do that is you sell stuff right

21:09 and the way that you can even begin

21:12 the conversation to sell stuff is that you have

21:13 to have people who show interest in the thing

21:15 which means you have to make your products

21:16 known and we do that through advertising right

21:18 and there's five ways to advertise which I

21:20 which I just went over earlier um and so it's like pick one of those five ways

21:25 start doing it on a consistent basis bring

21:28 people in what do you sell them that's

21:29 what the $100 million offers book is for it's

21:31 like this is how you figure out what

21:32 to sell um and then you sell them the thing and then after that you'll have some

21:35 delivery now usually if you have a consistent method

21:38 of advertising and selling with a with a what

21:40 to sell from the offer then you can start getting people to help you uh

21:44 on the level of delivery you have which

21:46 comes down to Breaking the delivery into chunks rather

21:49 than holistically and saying how can I specialize

21:52 the labor because you trying to say I

21:53 just need somebody to do what I do is silly right you need to figure out how

21:56 can somebody do how can I get how can I get five people to do 20%

21:59 of what I'm doing and do it consistently

22:01 right and then you could increase your advertising sales

22:04 is a very high leverage thing in the beginning if you spend all day selling just

22:07 you you would have enough for five people to do work right and so then you would

22:11 have a business you know so let's say

22:12 someone's listening to this and they're thinking all right

22:14 cool I know I like i' I've read Alexis bur he's telling me I've got I've got

22:18 a seller thing I don't I don't know what to sell I don't know if I have

22:21 any skills I don't I don't I don't know what I could possibly offer to the world

22:24 yeah how do we how do we break that down yeah this is actually a topic

22:28 that I um I cover more in the leads book that's coming out soon uh soon

22:32 relative terms six months-ish um everybody knows something

22:37 all right and so the idea is what do you have like everyone has unique depth

22:42 of knowledge in certain areas because you've been alive

22:45 and your eyes and ears have taken inputs period right and so I like to think

22:50 of of people starting like so if you look

22:52 at have you familiar with Y combinator yeah why

22:55 see yeah so yeah yeah so Y combinator is one of the most successful F you

22:59 know uh I don't know if they're technically

23:01 VC they're you know seed Capital startup um

23:04 investors in Silicon Valley and they have

23:06 a very standard deal structure and they have criteria

23:08 for what they look for in companies and one

23:10 of the most important criteria that they look

23:12 for is past experience and so they're okay

23:15 with somebody who's super young Etc but they

23:17 want to they want you to have experience

23:18 in the industry because there's just so much ignorance

23:21 debt that you have to pay down if

23:23 you literally know nothing about an industry like there's

23:26 just so much like if your dad was a mechanic you know so much about cars just

23:31 by osmosis of being around a mechanic for 18 years and so I like to think

23:36 past jobs you've held you will know stuff

23:38 about that industry um the jobs of your parents

23:42 are things that you will know about that industry

23:45 and then you've got personal interests and so I think that if I had put

23:48 those into three buckets it's like parent stuff past jobs

23:51 of self and current interests and so it's

23:54 like of those three things which of those three

23:57 buckets do you think you could help someone do a thing better and so the idea

24:02 is you want to sell the most valuable

24:04 thing right and so the most valuable thing is

24:06 what is the problem that I can help

24:07 somebody else solve that I could charge the most

24:09 money for or in reverse that could make them the most money um and then I

24:13 will be able to charge a percentage

24:14 of the money that I'm able to make somebody else

24:16 in this thing now that's in a B2B setting in a b Toc setting it would

24:20 be how valuable do people perceive uh the problem

24:23 that they have as right whether it's like

24:25 I can teach music tons of people want to be able to learn how to and if

24:28 you're better you know because you've had

24:29 a side interest in that awesome maybe you have

24:31 a side interest because you're really good

24:32 at editing the songs well there's tons of musicians

24:34 who would love who hate that part and would love to have that so it's like we

24:37 all know how to do stuff and all we have to do is package the thing

24:40 that we're doing and I think the big

24:42 problem is that people expect that they're going

24:43 to have a perfect business but if you look at the track record of all of I

24:46 can't think of an entrepreneur besides Chef Bezos

24:48 who's a freak of nature whose first business becomes

24:51 the most valuable business in the world is

24:54 most people have a a graveyard of failures behind them and so the idea is you

24:59 start not with the intention of saying this is

25:00 going to be the one thing for the rest of my life which is the fallacy

25:02 that employees have uh that whatever they pick is

25:05 going to be the thing they're going to do

25:06 for the rest of the lives when in real it's I just have to do a thing

25:08 that I'm good enough at that I can learn the game and the thing is once

25:11 you start taking steps the The Next Step

25:13 becomes illuminated you trying to think 100 steps

25:16 into the future when you have no context

25:18 is is irrelevant because chaos is going to break

25:20 your plan anyways and so do what you

25:23 know exchange I like service businesses to start

25:26 because they are the in my opinion the lowest

25:29 risk to start because you're just it's just

25:30 your time right so service businesses meaning do

25:34 stuff for money like Mo the lawn or cleaning

25:37 windows or service clean houses like whatever like all

25:40 of those are just service businesses right and they're

25:42 fine and a lot of people think they need to have some novel idea to start

25:45 a business when I mean the best

25:48 in my opinion if you're if you're getting into it

25:49 the best way to start a business is just look at what everyone else is doing

25:53 and just try and do it better like

25:55 I mean and there's obvious holes like if you've

25:57 if you've gone to if you've gotten your dry cleaning it's like can I do

26:00 this in half the time as this guy if I do the lawn care what are the things

26:04 people hate about Lawn Care a they leave

26:05 the the the trimmings are around the edges they're

26:07 all all shitty the person doesn't speak English

26:09 that well like well cool then I've got advantages

26:12 right so it's like what are things that I already know how to do or I

26:14 have past experience in what things because I

26:17 have past experience I know that other people struggle

26:19 with that sucks about this thing and then

26:20 I will solve that specific problem and it

26:22 could also be a problem that other people solve too you just try and do a little

26:24 bit better like it's it's just not rocket science you know what I mean and then

26:28 you exchange you start selling your time for money

26:30 so yes you're still trading time for dollars you don't need to readr D Port just

26:34 yet right you're still trading time for dollars right

26:36 but the point is that you're you're you're

26:38 trading that time for money in order to learn

26:41 not to earn you need to earn in order to pay your pay your rent eat

26:44 Etc but the the major thing you're doing

26:47 is you're paying down ignorance debt so the vast

26:49 majority of your income is coming in the terms

26:51 of in the form of Education rather than earning just a quick message from one

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29:08 to it one of the things that I um I took away from your first book

29:11 happy sexy millionaire we can talk about the title

29:12 of that in a moment um but one of the things I really took away was

29:15 the quitting framework yeah um I wonder if you

29:17 can talk through that for people who might not

29:18 have come across it I feel like you know

29:19 it better than me because but I'll but I'll but I'll pop it so the reason

29:23 I wrote the quitting framework is because I

29:25 realized in hindsight that I was able to quit

29:28 things e easier than most people let's take

29:31 one step back why is quitting important in life

29:34 we glamorize starting right but my observation was

29:38 that the advantage I've had as I've said

29:40 was being able to quit fast and with peace and ease and when you just think

29:44 logically about starting something right or saying it's

29:47 also the same with like saying yes and no to things in order to start something

29:51 in life you actually first need to quit something

29:55 else so you can't start a new relationship

29:57 unless you quit the last one you're not going

29:58 to start a new startup unless you quit the last one um you're not going to start

30:01 a new career career unless you've quit

30:03 the last job so quitting and starting should be

30:05 held in equal regard and there should be

30:07 acknowledgement that they have a two-way relationship with one

30:10 another they're both the actions of winners people

30:14 say quitting is for losers and they say like

30:15 starting is for winners in fact quitting and starting

30:18 are both for winners that and the the most

30:20 successful intelligent people I've ever met have

30:23 an unbelievable ability to quit things that make

30:25 no objective sense your quitting that high-paying job

30:29 to go and deal to go and do card tricks at a table in Bristol Darren Brown

30:33 you're quitting that amazing career as a lawyer um

30:37 that your parents are now so proud of you of to go and spend the next

30:41 10 years going up and down the country

30:42 in pubs and cracking jokes Jimmy car it just

30:45 it objectively seems to make no sense

30:47 but subjectively they've reached a certain level of ease

30:50 so I I could relate to myself in the same way in the regard of if you

30:53 look at what I've quit from like stop

30:56 going to school cuz I realized that that wasn't

30:57 going to be the the paper that I got at the end of the process wasn't

31:00 going to be enough especially compared to my brothers

31:03 quit University after that first lecture quit

31:05 my first startup after 2 years quit my second

31:06 one after about six years um and lots of little quitting in and amongst there um

31:12 why was I able to quit with with peace

31:14 in at times when objectively you would think I was a mad man for doing so

31:17 when I was leaving so much apparently on the table and so I tried to make

31:21 a framework a framework that other people could use

31:24 to try and make their quitting decisions through so

31:27 at the start of the framework you ask

31:28 yourself am I thinking of quitting see the you

31:31 know yes or no so if you are thinking of quitting the framework begins and I

31:35 created these two subcategories which you can Define

31:38 for yourself which I think is important to do

31:40 you're either thinking of quitting something because it's

31:42 something's really hard like it's difficult and then which

31:48 would be you know you're running a marathon

31:49 and you're on the 23rd Mile and you're doing it you know to raise money

31:52 for a charity but it's really it's painful it's difficult

31:55 it's it's causing discomfort all you thinking about

31:58 quitting something because it like it sucks and that's

32:00 more of like an emotional mental thing it's

32:03 just it just doesn't feel good to you

32:05 on an emotional mental psychological level so let's

32:08 go down the hard route I'm thinking of quitting

32:09 because it's hard the first question you should

32:11 then ask yourself is is the hardship worth

32:15 the rewards on offer so you're running that Marathon

32:17 you're raising money for that leukemia charity you're

32:20 on the 23rd mile but it's worth it

32:23 the the hardship is worth the reward at the end

32:25 of it if the hardship is worth it don't quit if the hardship isn't worth it

32:31 then you should quit because the the worst thing to do in life is to do

32:34 something that is hard and meaningless like

32:37 those are those are where all the problems happen

32:42 when I think about studies of the impact

32:44 of not having autonomy in your work and working

32:46 on a production line and not having meaning

32:48 and purpose in what you're doing every day

32:50 and how that impacts your health and disease

32:52 rises in your body that is the worst situation

32:55 to be in let's go down the other side of the framework by the way do correct

32:58 me because you know this framework better than I do sp okay we go on the other

33:02 side of the framework so you're thinking about

33:03 quitting something because it sucks you're in a relationship

33:05 you're husband you know the the magic has

33:07 just left the relationship you're in a company

33:10 and there's problems at work but you

33:12 you know you haven't yet had the conversation

33:14 with your boss the next question becomes do you

33:18 believe you could make it not suck right so in the context of a marriage um

33:24 that might mean going to marriage counseling and having

33:26 a difficult conversation crashing it out with your partner

33:28 and you know going through those issues if

33:31 the answer is no it so it sucks and you think you can't change that quit if

33:36 you believe you could make it n not suck the next question to ask yourself is is

33:41 the effort that it would take to make it not suck worth the rewards on offer

33:47 so like you look at how that marriage might look if you were to resolve it you

33:51 believe you can is it worth it is Dave worth it is the is the reward

33:56 on the other end of that process to fix it sucking worth it if the answer is

34:01 no quit you believe you could make it not not not suck anymore but the effort

34:06 it would take is not worth the reward on offer quit if you believe you can make

34:10 it not not suck and the effort it would take is worth the rewards on offer stay

34:15 and fight for it and that's my simple

34:18 framework which is intentionally ambiguous productizing yourself so so

34:23 turning your knowledge in whatever domain and using

34:27 writing as has the ability to scale yourself

34:29 and productize yourself so we did this with ship

34:33 30 for30 which is our course right so

34:35 it's all the things that I and uh my business partner Dicky talk about in terms

34:40 of writing and then we scale it through

34:42 an education course that's writing based you know you

34:44 can also do that with ebooks and you can do that with other assets but the goal

34:48 is instead of providing whatever you're doing

34:50 as a service so being like I'm going to be

34:52 a ghost writer for you or I'm going to be a consultant for you or a editor

34:56 for you right it's all one to one you're you're using time as your measure now

35:01 you're just packaging it digitally and that allows

35:05 you to scale it the the beauty of productizing your service is that you like

35:12 we were talking about earlier you're removing the constraint

35:14 of uh being paid for time that's the whole

35:19 that's like the biggest challenge is as long

35:20 as you're being paid for your time and not

35:23 the outcome it's really hard to have some

35:27 sort of exponential jump in income you need to divorce the two yeah but I guess

35:33 like you know it's it's very useful to start

35:35 up being paid for your time because I

35:36 think another mistake people make is jumping to let

35:38 me create a course and it's like uh

35:40 no one's going to buy it like and that's that's why one of the things that I

35:44 often encourage is start by providing a service

35:48 so it's like start for free prove you

35:51 can do it when you can do it people will pay you trust that that will happen

35:55 and they'll pay you well for it and then

35:57 use the paid work to learn what questions

36:00 do people have what problems are they facing

36:03 what are your unique Frameworks for solving those problems

36:06 right once you get paid to learn all

36:07 of those things then when you go to productize

36:10 yourself you are you're not sitting in a room going well how do I magically come

36:16 up with all these answers right you already got paid to do it so now you're just

36:19 transforming your service into a digital product

36:23 and the whole model for this going back to free

36:26 work is give away 99% of what you know for free right what the mistake everyone

36:31 makes is they go I'm going to productize

36:34 myself and before I tell you anything you have

36:37 to pay for it well it's the same mistake as providing a service right you don't

36:41 walk up to someone and go hey before you know what I can do here's how much

36:44 it costs they're like get out of here

36:46 but if you start by going here's everything

36:49 here's here's here's how to think about it

36:51 here's how to solve the problems here's the interesting

36:53 Frameworks to frames frame the solutions here's everything

36:56 you need to know the person then goes well

36:59 if all the free stuff was so great then what's in the paid stuff right and what

37:04 most people don't realize is most courses most

37:07 books most uh like paid membership communities all

37:11 that you aren't really buying information what you're

37:15 buying is implementation you're buying accountability you're buying access

37:20 to the person that you want to learn from so you can use all the information

37:25 in your course as your free cont content

37:28 it's just when someone pays they're not buying just

37:31 the information right it's that you packaged it

37:34 you're saving them time you're giving them access

37:35 to you you're answering their questions that's what

37:38 someone's paying for all right so that's it

37:39 for this week's episode of Deep dive thank you

37:41 so much for watching or listening all the links

37:42 and resources that we mentioned in the podcast

37:44 are going to be linked down in the video

37:45 description or in the show notes depending on where

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37:57 questions or any insights or any thoughts about

37:59 the episode that would be awesome and if

38:00 you enjoyed this episode you might like to check

38:02 out this episode here as well which links in with some of the stuff that we

38:05 talked about in the episode so thanks for watching

38:07 uh do hit the Subscribe button if you

38:08 aren't already and I'll see you next time bye-bye