FOUNDER #12. £3M Exit, Scaling Up & Selling Fast - William Brown

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1:56Yes. I moved here for two reasons. To not pay tax and for the weather. It's just a city built for entrepreneurs. It just feels like this place is just rising at such a rate, where the UK is skipping at such a rate. How would you turn entrepreneurship into a business? There's so many ways to do it. What's the easiest way? This sounds so stupid, even I think I'm a knob for saying this, but... That 10-month period when selling a company, talk me through that. It was the number one most stressful time of my entire life ever. I was like, if this doesn't close, I do not know what I'm going to do, man.

2:25This is a weird industry because you can make a lot of cash quite fast. It's the best thing in the world, man. It's so fun to make good money, work with good people. You can teach almost anything. I know a guy doing about 70k a month teaching wildlife photography. All the cash I've ever collected through the payment processor the other day, it's about, I think it was$33.1 million. Hold on, hold on. Hold on.

2:51Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host Dodge and I'm the founder of Bournemouth 7s the world's largest sport and music festival on this podcast I speak to proper characters of all lived eventful lives do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall where we've now had over 100 million views where do you live? You went I actually live in Dubai and Bali and okay great I said when you come to England next come down to Bournemouth and we'll get you on the show and he phoned back about 10 minutes later and went how's about i fly you out to dubai put you up in business class and put you up in five star then we come to show i was like done timed it with dubai sevens this weekend so we're finally here so thank you very much it's a very kind offer of you pleasure yeah so let's roll all the way back who is william brown i would say oh god i've done so many weird things across my life i mean uh i kind of got into entrepreneurship when i was pretty young so i used to for example I was skateboarding with my friends, but I would film and edit skateboard videos and try and sell them.

3:55Then I got into graffiti and started a magazine and got that stocked in UK art stores and stuff. Graffiti led me to music, which was my first ever proper career. So I was making electronic music and DJing, played in over 45 countries all around the world. So that was very fun. Is that right? Yep. Oh, wow. And then because of how shit the money was as a musician, yep i started trading financial markets yeah and that one day i had a little twitter account with like 200 followers one day somebody messaged me and asked for my help and that was the start of my e-learning company that i that i built and sold that guy gave me 50 pounds came to my mom's house sat next to me for three hours walked away with a word doc i proceeded to sell that word doc to other people and that was the start of the education company so i built the education company, grew that, sold it, moved to Dubai in the kind of middle of that, started the consulting business that I run now, bought some real estate along the way, blah, blah, blah.

4:54So just an entrepreneur slash founder, I guess. Good for you. So this roll the way back, what age were you when you were DJ in that period there? About 19 to 25. Okay. Okay. And what sort of countries are you traveling to? Everywhere, man. Everywhere. So I DJed in America and Canada. India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, all over Europe, just everywhere, man. It was great. And all dance music? Yeah, just electronic music, essentially. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. And then you got to a point where you met that person. What was the bit when you, how old were you when you set up your company that you actually end up selling in the end?

5:35Yeah. Well, what happened was, so I was about 25-ish, 25, 26 years old. and I still live with my parents I had a few thousand to my name I don't know three four five five k and my friends were starting to get married have kids buy their first house and I was like honestly I felt like a bit of a broke loser to be honest and it was so weird because people thought I was doing really well because I had loads of followers and I was DJing all over the world and stuff but the truth of it was I was getting paid like five or six hundred pounds a show and doing sometimes one show a month or three shows a month.

6:14Sometimes I'd do a tour and do 12 shows in a month, then no shows in a month, then two shows in a month. So if anything, it taught me capital management for damn sure, because I made such sporadic money. And look, I had a decent car on finance and stuff like that to try and make myself feel better, I guess. All for sure. More or less. Yeah. And I just started thinking to myself, shit, like I don't have the money to move out. I don't have the money to buy the car that I want. I can't go on like very nice holidays. I can't fly business class. I can't buy my own house. I couldn't even really rent a nice apartment or house.

6:52And things just started to get financially real when I was 25, 26, when I was seeing these things happen. And I started thinking, well, I've kind of got two options. I can like try and grow the music career, which honestly I didn't want to do. I was getting so tired of traveling very difficult lonely on on the road i couldn't afford to take my girlfriend with me and pay for because if i paid for an extra flight my fees gone yeah for god's sakes so i just remember feeling super like what the fuck do i do and i remember thinking i was applying for a job at a motorway service station to get a bit more money and i felt like such a fucking loser you know and But it was so weird because I was like famous a bit on the one hand to the outside world, broke as fuck on the inside, living with my parents and trying to make sure no one found that out.

7:45It was fucking weird. And then I found, I remember I was DJing in London at this club called Fabric, right? What a club. Great club. What a club. And then I came home the next day and I literally, I remember this so clearly. I got home and there was a trading documentary on TV. super glamorized, not real life whatsoever, but following a mix of traders. And it looked like they were making loads of money very easily from home. So I was like, wow, that was my first ever time learning that you can make money on the internet. I never knew that you could make money from a computer before then. And that blew me away.

8:18So straight away, I went on Google, the first broker that I found, I put 500 pounds in an account. Off I went as a trader. I grew that 500 up to about six or seven K over about half a year, lost almost all of it in a day, which is like a very, very common story for the traders. And at that stage, I took a little bit of money out that I had left. I remember buying a course from this guy called, called Chris. I learned to trade properly, started a Twitter account where I would chat to my friends and other traders and stuff, which is still there to this day. Fast forward six or seven months, this random guy messages me one day and say, say, I've been following your Twitter.

8:59It looks like you're doing well. Can I pay you for some help? He PayPal'd me 50 pounds or$50, whatever it was, came to my mom's house. And that was the start of the business. And that was about 2018. That that first customer came into the business and that company started. And what was that company? So it was a e-learning company in the trading education space. And it evolved a lot over the years i owned it for about five and a half years before i sold it to private equity uh last year okay across the five years we did 16.4 million uh in total so a lot changed pounds dollars dollars okay so a lot changed yeah from my mom's house selling a 50 word document to selling a company to private equity which is crazy did you own 100 of that company yes good for you yeah and uh that's the journey yeah five years later we'd built it and sold it and what was that journey like it's quite easy to say we built a business over five years but within that five years of building a business you know i've been lucky enough to exit two businesses there's a lot of hard graft there's times when you you're thinking is this really going to work yeah you're employing loads of people you're just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks and what works what's that journey like for you actually emotionally and physically crazy yeah it was such a such a story.

10:19I remember when that first guy paid me, my first thought was, hold on a minute, people will pay me just to tell them stuff. And that blew my fucking mind. I couldn't believe someone would give me money to just tell them stuff. And then I thought, well, I kept a copy of that. And I thought if I messaged some of my other followers, maybe they will buy it. And two or three did. And I was like, wow, that was like 200 pounds for basically nothing just to give them information. And then that year, it was 2018. It turned from a Word doc into a much longer kind of ebook and then an ebook with a Dropbox folder of videos.

10:57And I slowly raised the price. That first year I made about 22 grand pounds. Turnover. Yeah. Turnover cash. Just me on my own. The next year I realized that, hold on a minute. If people find me on Twitter and follow me, they get to know me, they like me, they trust me and they want help. So what if I start a YouTube channel, drive that traffic to Twitter and get more people and hopefully more sales? In year two, through doing that alone, we did about a quarter of a million pounds cash that second year. At the end of the second year, that was more money than I'd ever seen in my bloody life. So that alone was amazing.

11:38And in that second year, you built up from 22 grand turnover to quarter of a million pounds and over. How many staff would you have had for that? Oh, dude, I had, I had one support guy and one coach. Okay. Yeah, so the margin was, was absolutely massive. No paid ads, nothing like that. And then at the end of the second year, I bought a coaching program from this guy, Alex Becker, and I learned all about like paid ads and proper pricing and sales funnels and stuff like that. And then in January 2020, I'll never forget this. We, we turned on paid ads for the first time. and then that third year we did 1.1 million pounds so a massive jump just from paid ads basically we just built this like webinar that people would watch and we ran paid ads to this webinar that would tell them who i am what i do and stuff and then they could buy a 2k program at the end of it and that got us to about a quarter of a million a month by really the start of year four okay so you went from 20 grand to a quarter of a mil to 1.2 mil how much to get to that 1.2 mil how much roughly do you spend on paid ads we were back then we were about we about 4x so we'll have spent about a quarter of a million on ads to do about 1.1 yeah okay we did so okay brilliant yeah and then what was the journey after that so the journey after that was well i moved to Dubai.

13:03But the point there is you did 1.1, say roughly turnover. Where's the point when you go, now's the right time to sell? For sure. So year three was when we did 1.1. Into year four, we did 2.7 pounds. And we actually changed the model in the fourth year. We went from a webinar to a sales team. And that's when the company got a lot bigger. We were constantly hiring sales reps and appointment setters and stuff and building much more of kind of professional infrastructure. We had a few different products by that stage that were much more expensive as well. We were spending a lot of bloody money on ads.

13:41We were spending, at our height, we were spending about 7 ,000 a day on paid ads. That was the height of the company, year four, year five. And by year five, I'd, this sounds so strange to say, but I'd achieved all my financial dreams. You know, I'd made like millions of pounds. I'd bought loads of property by that stage. And I remember I was sat in the cafe of the building that I'm in right now, you know, in Dubai, the address. And I was writing in my journal one day, just thinking, what am I going to do for the next one or two or three years? And I felt like I'd outgrown the company because this stage I'd stopped trading.

14:25So I felt out of alignment with the customers. I'd made more money than I could have ever bloody dreamed of. On dividends? Well, I'd moved the company to Dubai by that stage. So we'd restructured it. Fantastic. We can talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Moving to Dubai. So did you move to Dubai on purpose that you wouldn't have to pay tax? Yes. Yeah. I moved here for two reasons. To not pay tax and for the weather. Yep. Those were the two reasons that got me here. Two very good reasons. Two very good reasons. And we can talk about how I ended up in a sec, but I moved to Dubai.

15:01Oh God, when was it? It was May 2021. And how old would you have been roughly then? 30. 30. Okay. Yeah. So I was 30. That was when we were doing about a quarter of a million a month. Cause I remember the month after I moved, everything started to fucking break in the business. Like the ads weren't as profitable. The funnel wasn't working, all this stuff. And that's when we moved from the webinar to the sales team, raised prices, started building more of an infrastructure, like a real business by that stage. Do you regret any at that point? Because it seems like you're really enjoying it. But we've all been there when you get you hiring too many people.

15:35It gets too big. It gets too confusing. It gets too much. And there's times you're sitting there going, what am I doing all this for? 100%. Yeah. 100%. That's when things started to change for the better and for the worst. Okay. For the better, because we grew the business so much. we grew from about 250 to almost 800k per month because of the sales team. So that's great. So we're looking at two mil, roughly two mil turnover to roughly eight or 10 mil turnover at the end of the year for the... Oh yeah, we were tracking for, I don't have the exact number, we were tracking for about 11 million a year.

16:05Pounds? US dollars. US dollars, okay. The year that I signed the LOI to sell the company. LOI? Letter of intent. Yep. Yep. So yeah, for the good was the money and the growth. the bad was my number one worst thing that I enjoy, which is team and management and hiring and firing and meetings. Oh God, it was becoming like a corporation by the end of that company. And I just hated it. And I remember thinking, I wish I could go back to, to the, to the, maybe the third, the third year was the best. It was like me and a coach and a support guy making honestly like just insane amounts of liquid cash it's just crazy roughly i reckon year three with a little bit of ads the margin must have been 71 to 3 percent net profit net profit my god yeah why would you want to why would you want to change it is it is that a case of i'm so happy with this because you look back now and we look back and we think 71 percent net profit, we'll all jump at that all day long.

17:15You must look at that and go, were you at a point where you're going, no, no, no, no. If I grow a bigger sales team and I get more people, we could take this to whatever figure we want to take it. But then you realise by having all these more people, your net profits goes down and becomes more headache. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like, dude, one of my biggest regrets is just driving down the profit margin. So when I sold that company, the margin was about 32. Okay. Which is still good. Is that net or gross? Net. Net is still fantastic. That's marvellous still. Yeah. Yeah. So dude, man, I was not 70, but it's not 70 towards the end of that company.

17:47I was pocketing about 120 ,000 pounds a month net. Yeah. Which is just crazy. But yeah, that, that was the transition from very easy and fun and high profit. And honestly, the two reasons that I made the change were ambition and greed. Okay. I just felt like I can go further. I can build a bigger business. I've got massive momentum and I want more money as well. Yeah, that's interesting because there is, I'm always driving, I'm a lifestyle entrepreneur. I don't like to build big teams. I like to keep tight teams. I like to have teams under 10 people. It becomes manageable, it becomes more fun.

18:20If you start building over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 people, politics, gossip, people are sleeping with each other. Like there's just all the stuff that goes on that becomes unmanageable, becomes unenjoyable. yeah you know you become if you're anywhere like 20 30 40 stuff you're too big to be small you're too small to be big you're caught in this sort of um this wilderness desert area that's just not fun and when i mentor other people i say if you can keep under 10 people it becomes real fun you know you have freedom you have fun um but that's really interesting i really i do appreciate honestly on that what was the point when you said i want to sell or did someone approach you Yeah.

19:00So like I was saying a second ago, I was sat having a coffee, writing in my journal and just thinking like, what do I want to do for the next few years? And I thought, well, I'm out of alignment with the customers. I don't enjoy running the business anymore. I don't need the money from running the business anymore. And I remember writing down, if I had a hundred million in cash, what would I do with my time? If I just did not ever need money again. And I wrote down, talk about business. That's my number one favorite thing to do in the world. I just love it. Same. I can tell. Same, love it. Love it.

19:34So, and the minute that I wrote that down, I WhatsAppped one of my mentors whose mastermind I was in. I was in this financial literacy mastermind and I knew that he'd sold a few companies. Who's that? A guy called Dan Bradbury. Okay. English? In England? Or is he based here? Yeah, English guy. So I WhatsAppped him and I said, Dan, please can you help me sell my company? Yep. And we decided on a fee. I won't say the fee. And he started mentoring me through it. And he held my hand for the first few months. It was November 2022, I think. And then, yeah, November 2022. And then we sold September 2023.

20:14And Dan held my hand through the entire thing. He helped me find an M &A advisor. He helped me do the IM document. He helped me take it out to market. Investor memorandum. and yeah he was the one that largely dan and my m &a advisor dominic i could not have sold without those two guys man no way yeah yeah how long did it take was it you said it was 10 months to you from advisory to actually sale yeah that 10 month period when selling the company talk me through talk me through that it was the number one most stressful time of my entire life ever i missed one of my best friend's weddings i missed uh yeah it was fucking horrible but really worth it like really worth it but bloody horrible it's the due diligence becomes a bull egg there's they want questions and questions and questions and you fire your answers and answers and they think get someone that opens up another can of worms want more questions and i understand if you're buying a company like the companies i've sold i've always had 100 money up front and no earn out i've never gone with the company i never wanted to go the company so then you get even more questions because they need to know what they're buying is correct and i get it but actually for someone like yourself who's selling the company there's a lot of hard graft in there there are sleepless nights is this going to get over the line what happens if it doesn't get over the line what am i doing my life everything can i go and you know you're thinking about what will i go and where will i move to what will i do with my my other half all these questions are all juggling in the air until that piece of paper is signed that 10 month period would you say that was the most stress you've been under in your, in your short career so far?

21:47By far. Cause there was so many, I could tell you like three full stories about all the different things that happened, but just to walk you through the journey. So I said to Dan, can you help me sell? And he was like, yes, I can. He looked at all our numbers. And I remember on our, probably our first call, he said to me, so what do you want to sell for? And I said, if I can get one year's net in cash and basically save myself a year, and that I can go and do my new business. I'd be very happy. He said, you're a fucking idiot. If you sell for one X, he suggested that we go for three to three and a half X.

22:23EBITDA. EBITDA. So that's roughly three times your net profit. Exactly. Why is he, why is he going for three on an online? Why was he pushing fives and sevens and tens? Or was that not, was that not reasonable at the time? Yeah. He thought for the key man risk in the business, for the track record. Okay. He thought three X was about right. I then got introduced to my M &A advisor, who was the one that basically mergers and acquisitions advisor. So he was helping me build the IAM, the sales document. And then he was the one that started taking it out to market. And then within about three months, we had a Canadian venture capital firm that was interested.

23:00We signed an LOI, went into due diligence. About six weeks later, they bought a different company. And we were back to square one. How did that make you feel then? Because when you've got someone on the hook gently and you think, oh, this could be the one, this could be the one. And all of a sudden you get an email the next day. Thanks for your information. We looked at it. It's not for us. How did you feel at that moment? Crushed. Yeah. I remember I was at the Atlantis with my girlfriend having like a couple of days break. I remember I was in the room on my laptop looking at the view when I got the email and they were like, yeah, we're going to buy something else.

23:29And I just, I felt like, fuck, maybe I can't sell this thing. Maybe it's not good enough. Maybe I'm not good enough. So much like doubt washed over me at that stage. But I just thought, let's keep going. Surely we can make this happen. I've always just had this massive sense of persistence. If I don't give up, surely I can learn eventually. It has always been my attitude. So I went back to Dominic, my advisor. He kept sending the IM out. Then we had a private equity firm called Highview from America, interested. And then we signed an LOI with them in April. And then they bought it in September.

24:07so we went into due diligence and they started doing all the usual stuff interviewing the team interviewing the customers he went through the program he put his partner through the program went through all the ads went through compliance blah blah blah and then at the very last minute i was in england about 10 days before closing i remember i was in a hotel in my parents village where they live where they live uh north of england in a place called clitheroe manchester away. Yeah, about an hour north of Manchester. And the founder of the PE firm sent us an email saying something like, we need an urgent call today.

24:45And I was like, why, why would you need an urgent call when we're about to close? Everything's done. Everything's almost ready to go. So I called Dominic and I was like, do you want an urgent meeting today? I'm with my parents. We're going out for dinner or something. And he was like, it's probably nothing. Let's just hop on zoom in an hour. So we hopped on zoom and then the founder, uh, of the private equity firm was on the call. And he was like, listen, we've just re gone through the P and L's and there's this mistake. There's this mistake. There's this mistake. This is, this is meant to be 320 pounds a month, but it's actually 670 pounds a month.

25:15You said this was 2k a month, but it's actually 900 a month. And I shit myself, Dominic shit himself. We were like, oh my fucking God. And then I had to basically go back to my accountant and i paid like 12 grand or something to get them to rebuild all the books as fast as fucking possible and then we got the new books back to them and then basically thankfully they were like right we're still gonna buy you but we're knocking like 300 grand did they chip you did they yeah they did yeah like days yeah like days before that's bad by the way that's not for your behalf that's bad on their behalf anyone who comes in last minute and chips i'm not cool with that we we never knew whether it was like a pe fuck you over strategy yeah or an actual or a genuine we found this i to be honest i mean the guy that runs that p firm is a great guy down to earth hard working very focused really good guy i love him and trust him to be honest i think it was just our fault because for the first few years of the business i was just building fucking ghetto excel of course you're doing yourself working all out yeah i was just going through the amex and going through the visa and stuff and doing it myself and i even told him that in the end i was like yeah i'm not surprised because it's me doing the books and i'm not a bookkeeper but anyway we got it through how long was a quick one how long did you send them the books before they came back last minute and said oh we found this stuff may june july august probably about five so they had all this yeah definite tactics yeah you think oh 100 percent 100 they've sat on that for five months they can come in at last minute knowing roles are verse but you're waiting on your big deal your big payday and they've gone sorry we've just found this and you're like take 300 grand off and you go just take 300 grand I don't care get over the line I guess that was your attitude wasn't it you didn't fight it I remember after that Zoom call I called Dominic and I was walking around the hotel room just thinking I fucking after all these months after all these months all the shit team members wondering what's going on my best friend was a sales team manager and he was wondering what's going on I was like if this doesn't close, I do not know what I'm going to do, man.

27:22Because it's so hard to, when you think you're going to get out. You've switched off. You've switched off. Yeah, I hear you. You know, so I think I, if we wouldn't have sold, I think I just would have turned the company off. Okay. I think I just would have given everyone some money and said, listen, let's move on. Closed it and done my thing. I was just mentally, and this is the thing as well. When they asked me why I wanted to sell, I said to them, because I was pretty much removed from the business, but it wasn't removed from my head. Every day I was thinking, is this team member performing?

27:53Are we going to have to fire that person? How profitable are the ads? Oh shit, the profit margin's down this month. Oh my God, this is happening over here. This fire needs putting out. So yes, I was removed and yes, I was making a lot, six figures a month profit, but it was just in here every goddamn day. You know, when I was on holiday, it was in here. When I'm traveling, it's in here. When I'm relaxing, it's in here. And that feeling, once you sign that piece of paper and it sold the money to the back. Your brain releases all of that and it's gone and you are free. The freedom is unbelievable in the mind, isn't it?

28:24It is. Yeah. It's one of the best feelings in the world. How much did you sell for in the end? 2.6x EBITDA. Okay. Healthy number. To be honest, people can probably work out the sale price because I've just told them the bloody numbers. Yeah, I've told them the numbers. Underground amount, 1.2. roughly three, three and a half mil or so along those lines. Just first of all, congratulations.

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29:29William Brown: That's why at Warby Parker, we've made shopping for eyewear as easy and fun as can be. peruse endless styles in our stores or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations to find your next favorite pair of glasses sunglasses or contact lenses or to locate your nearest warby parker store head over to warby parker.com that's warby parker.com thanks man appreciate it because it's not congratulations because it's not easy to sell a company yeah you're the top 0.1 percent of the 0.1 percent you know most businesses 90 businesses fail yeah you know just uh just to get to a point where there's someone interested in buying your company and get to a point where you've got the business over the line and it's sold that's a huge achievement yeah huge achievement mate i the day that i sold it i made a youtube video right just i just press record and just talk for like 30 minutes all about the entire thing and that's what blew up my youtube channel and helped me build the next business so it's so funny that very day that i sold yeah started the next bloody company on the back of doing a youtube video and going copy we're actually liking this chat exactly wonderful so tell me now then where you are in your life with the new business that you're currently doing so the new company so it's called build grow and exit.com yep and we help people to build and grow and exit these online learning companies basically so we work with some people are beginners and they're doing it for the first time some people are already going and they want to scale some people are ready for exit so i've just taken like that six years of my life and everything I did and learned and turned it into a consulting business to help other people to to do the whole journey as well okay and it started off the back of uh really that youtube video that I made that day about what year we're talking now that was september 2023 three okay yeah so we're about two years in into this new company now and I've just taken all the shits and all the lessons and all the, all the things I did wrong.

31:31And I've tried to do the opposite over here, you know, massive team, small team, drove down the profit margin, tried to keep the margin high, all paid ads. Now it's more content driven. Is it more organic, this one? More or less. Okay. Yeah. We, we, we've just started running some paid ads, but it's, it's super lean. It's really, really lean. How many full-time staff you got on this business right now? Right now. So we've got 12, but we're about to kind of come backwards a little bit on the team. What sort of numbers you'd like to get to in an ideal world? Honestly, this sounds so stupid. You're going to think I'm a knob for saying this, but you know how we were saying earlier, year three was the best year, then I fucked it up.

32:14Well, last year was the best year and I fucked it up again now. So I'm just trying to find the balance between monthly cash flow. The team, the profit margin, the client acquisition side of things. And how quickly do you actually want to grow? That's the biggest one, isn't it? How quick do I want to grow? Yeah. I mean, look, I know that. So right now we're doing about 600K a month cash, right? The profit margin is about 82%. Bloody hell. Right now. 600K a month, profit margin 82%. Yep. That's unheard of. And you know, the reason the margin was so low in the first business was because about 30 to 40 % of that P &L was ads.

32:56Okay. So if you take ads away, boom. And now that we don't have ads, we're keeping that 30, 40%, you know, so paid ads. It's a dangerous game. It's a good game, but it's a dangerous game. It's a good game, but a bad game. You really, really need to manage it. And that's what I've learned the hard way. And I'm trying to do it again right now because one of our missions on the back end is to keep the margin as high as bloody possible and not forget the reason for business in the first place, which is to help people and to make net profit. You know, so that's what we're trying to focus on right now.

33:27So what would you do if you were a business person, an entrepreneur, and then you wanted to go into this space? Are you there to help that entrepreneur go into that space? Definitely, yeah. So about 60 % of the people that we work with are beginners. And it's people that just kind of learn that they can, kind of like I did with the first business, where I accidentally learned, I've got a skill that is valuable enough where other people below me would pay me to learn it. And I think more and more people are learning now that if they've got a skill or a talent or some specialist knowledge, they can sell it to other people, whether it's through a course, a coaching program, a mastermind, whatever it is, and turn it into a pretty bloody good cashflow business.

34:11What is a mastermind? A mastermind is usually a two to three day events where you get 10, 20, 30 people together of all shapes and sizes within one kind of niche, let's say business growth or something. And you put them in a room and let them help each other. So usually like, let's say we were doing a mastermind, you would do a talk and I would ask questions and so would everybody else. I would probably do a talk and everyone would ask questions. And it's just a way to learn from people in the same space to kind of jump ahead a few steps. Yeah. So would you hire people to come and do talks or you actually just bring a community of people together going, guys, you're all going to learn a shitload today and tomorrow and the third day.

34:52All come together. I'll host it. There's food laid on. We've got nice breaks. You're going to swap numbers. Is it that or is it more you're bringing in people to do specific talks for these people to buy tickets to come to? Yeah, it's a bit of both. So for my mastermind, we do it every six months in Dubai. We do 50 people. it's$10 ,000 per ticket for the, for the three days. And it's me presenting for the full three days. And then I bring in my operations director to do a talk, sales team manager to do a talk, paid ads guy to do a talk. Sometimes we get a guest as well. You know, if, if I want to get a guest, I do.

35:32If, if, if I don't, I don't. But yeah, then we just do the three days. We go out on a yacht, we hop in a conference room, have dinner together and just all like I tell them everything new that we're doing. Those guys share what they're all doing as well. And it's, it's so beneficial, man, because you never get to see behind closed doors, you know, and it's so great to see behind those doors and see what everyone's working on in secret in the backend, you know, because sometimes I always walk away with like just one or two nuggets that will grow the business. And it's the same for everybody else as well.

36:06But those one or two nuggets for a 10 grand investment, sometimes that can change the whole shape of your business it could save you six months your business it could save you 100 200 grand in your business by learning from someone else in that same room it's it can make you so much money so fast i've seen people come in at 200 a month learn one or two things and then 200 what a month at 200 000 200 000 dollars a month what they're turning over 200 000 dollars yep okay yep it's this is a weird industry because you can make a lot of cash at a very high margin quite fast okay so it's unlike traditional businesses because you you don't need ads you don't need a lot of infrastructure i mean you could make a coaching program in the next seven days and i could yeah you could yeah i mean for example yeah give me how would you there's a good example how would you you being you now go dodge you could make a coaching program and you'd hit it off how would you do that here's what i would do or for anyone listening how they would do that as well like but for an entrepreneur how would you do that yeah let's let's use yourself as an example, right?

37:05Now you're one of the best in the world at podcasting. Let's use that as the niche. And you want to help people start or grow their own podcast. The first thing we need to do is design an offer. So I am going to help this kind of person or this group of people to get this outcome. I'm going to help people who want to start a podcast to start one and grow one, get the first few views and subscribers and so on and so forth, maybe a few sponsorships or something. Then we decide how long we want to do the program for, which is usually three to six months, like a three to six month program. And then the way that I price these things is I think, what is this worth to somebody in 12 months time?

37:42So if someone worked with me today and I could make them say a hundred K after 12 months, I want to be charging about 10 to 15%. If I can make someone a hundred, I want to charge about 10. Right. So then I calculate the value of where you can, can get someone to and assign a price tag to the program. Then we would need to build the sales process where we can then, for you, I would probably run retargeting ads to your YouTube viewers. Tell them about the offer. Send them to an explainer video. Let them book in a call to inquire about buying it. An explainer video would be what, like a minute long?

38:21Usually about 12 minutes. Oh, 12 minutes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, about 8 to 12 minutes to just say who you are, what you do, how you can help them, what it's going to look like, so on and so forth. you give them the option to book in a call they would speak to you or one of your closers if you're a masochist and you want to have a sales team right definitely not definitely don't do that if you cannot do that don't do that and uh and then they're going to buy the the program okay and if you're selling it for say two three four five k 10 units a month 50 grand yeah okay and within that program are they wanting me in that program or is a program already set have we built a course or how does what does that program look like yeah there's so many ways to do it like what's the easiest way the easiest way and also the most scalable way is to have a course and group coaching and usually you'll see these priced at about three to five k for about six months and you go through a training program and then there'll be themed group calls so for us in our group program that we have i do a call for two hours on a monday and anyone can come to that sales director Tuesday, Copywriter Wednesday, Mindset Guy Thursday, Paid Ads Guy Friday.

39:32And they're all two hour calls and you can just go to whatever you want, basically. So that's the best way to do it. And if it wasn't, if I wasn't doing podcasting, how could you create something like that? But just from my experience of 30 years in business and building brands, building companies, selling companies, and just being an entrepreneur, because I help entrepreneurs at the moment for free, because that's what I know. You look at me there. That's blasphemy. No, I know. I know for you it is, but I'm always on the end of the phone. I help a lot of people for, for free. Um, and everyone's like, does, why don't you turn that into a business?

40:03How would you turn entrepreneurship into a business? That's what I've done, isn't it? So I built the company, sold the company, started a YouTube channel and started making videos about everything that I've ever learned. Right. People find those videos organically. They go to my explainer video, they book in a call and buy one of the programs. So that is what I'd say to you to do if you wanted to build a program where you help uh founders and entrepreneurs to build and grow yeah that's the simplest model is to have a youtube channel where you make long-form talking head videos about everything that you've learned and that's kind of the proof and the value then that gets people's interest you send them to an explainer video that's kind of the glue in the middle and the explainer video would be on like dodgewoodle.com or something along those lines to send them there yeah okay yeah yeah exactly and then they will go to that video to learn about how you can help them you'd give them the option to book a call they would speak to you or a sales rep and uh they would just run them through number one are they a good fit number two do they have the right ideas and the right infrastructure and mindset and then if they do get them into the program yeah okay yeah but i'll be very specific who i'd want to work with because I'm not here for desperate for the money.

41:20I want to work with people. I genuinely know I can help. Yeah. Is that a point where, what's the point where you know they can afford you? Number one, because you don't want to be, if it is a business, you don't want to be a busy fool. And number two, you actually, even if they can afford you, but they're not the right fit, we've still got the say to go, it's just not right for us right now. Have you ever come across that? When you've said no to people? Oh, all the bloody time. Yeah. Okay. Is that because they can't afford it or is it because it's not the right fit? Bit of both. Okay. Bit of both.

41:47So sometimes, so here's how it works, right? There's like three mechanisms in the sales process that make sure you only work with good people. The first is the explainer video. And if you watch mine, there's a section in there where I say, if this is you, I can't help you. If this is you, please don't book a call. If this is you, I can't help you. So in the video, you try and push people away. When they click to book a call and they go to the calendar, for us, there's a 10 question survey that they have to fill out. And some of those questions are, why do you want our help? What's the problem?

42:16What's your budget? for even doing this? What's the timeline for doing this? Working with us isn't free and it's roughly this cost. So that's the second place where you'll stop people coming in. And then on the sales call as well, they'll speak to the person and say, listen, are you sure you've got the time for this? Are you sure you've got the money for this? Are you sure that you want to do this for these reasons? And those three mechanisms will almost always result in good customers coming in. Okay, so you filter out. Yeah. Okay. On rare occasions, some people make it through and then we kind of quickly kick them out yeah right nicely nicely but other than that it's the best thing in the world man it's so fun to make good money work with good people help them get great results I've just renewed a customer a few hours ago that's come back in for another three months yeah it's just the best thing in the world well I love that feeling of helping people helping people and knowing they're getting huge results from it but I've never done I've never charged or anything and I know you're looking at me now again you're mad you deserve to charge yeah look at everything that you've done yeah god's sakes like there's so many people out there i'll tell you a quick story right i once met a woman that also lives in in the well she did live in the address she was making about 17 000 a month teaching knitting she had a 1k knitting community it was a thousand dollars for a year and you would go in the community and meet other knitting women i guess and learn where to buy the stuff from and how to do the patterns and stuff and that just blew my mind man like that it's made me realize you can teach almost anything like i know a guy doing about 70k a month teaching wildlife photography to like old wealthy guys it's just crazy some of the niches it's amazing basically there's a niche for everything you must be sitting there going okay you set up a business there's actually anyone who comes to you there's a niche whatever your niche is and what you're good at there's a niche to set up a business as consultant are you calling it consultancy is that what it is if people will be sent up as a consultant yeah we or a mentor or coaching yeah coaching consulting yeah so if i was to do this what energy do i have to give you're feeling inspired now no i am i'm i'm intrigued more than anything i'm really intrigued what you're saying is i know as i said i help people for free you're looking at me again are you mad i can see that i can feel the energy but yeah so what do i have to do in the week if i had people on board would i have to give them two hours on a monday tours and a tuesday tours how does it work yeah so for us we've got two programs we've they have your mobile number do they whatsapp you do they i'll be interested in the whole package what you think yeah dude i'll tell you so at the moment we have two main things that we sell there's a group program which is a bit slower and lower cost and a one-to-one program which is a bit faster and higher cost right and what would those costs look like roughly yeah so our group program is £4 ,000 a month.

45:05And the one-to-one is£8 ,000 a month. Now within the group, they get the training program and all of the group calls that happen and they can go to as many as they like, basically. And it's just 4k a month and they can stay as long as... So it's a grand a week and they can jump into five phone calls, five Zooms, whichever one they want, a week to ask questions and bounce ideas with experts. Yeah, exactly. And they've got this training program that it's taken me about. It's a long, long, long, hundreds of hours to build this training program. And the video training program basically starts as if you were a complete beginner and goes through offer creation and pricing and how to build your sales on and on and on right to the end of the process.

45:44So that's the group program. The one to one is all of that. And anytime one to one calls with me and my team and a WhatsApp group with me and my team in it as well. so a lot more intensive a lot more hands on I was doing calls this morning before coming here with them but good for them and good for us yeah okay do you enjoy the group or do you enjoy actually having individual one to one where someone's got your mobile and you go okay they're paying £8 ,000 a month they've got me they've got my time they've got me energy I can bounce ideas can they drop your message at 11 o 'clock at night can they drop your message at 3 in the afternoon and you'll bounce straight away back to them put it this way I've done three calls this morning I was answering whatsapps in the taxi on on the way here so I'm always active and that's really more so because I love it if if I didn't love it I would probably be a bit more regimented I'd be like right I'll do whatsapp for an hour here and then not again okay stuff like that but I'm sure there'll come a time where I just don't have the bandwidth anymore to offer it we're already thinking about what we're going to raise prices in Jan just to bring the demand down a little bit because it's a bit intense right now.

46:54But Matt, I just love it. I can see. I just, I come off those calls better than when I went on them. Yeah, buzzing afterwards. You know, they just give me a sick energy, man. It was win-win. They're paying you good money. You're massively helping them. They're massively winning. Are you teaching them how to create a course for themselves? It depends where they're at. So again, there's three types of people that we work with. There's the complete beginners, starting from scratch. And who would that look, give an example, an avatar, or who that would be. Okay. Okay. Who was the last person to come in?

47:25So the last person to come into that program, they're a real estate professional from England and they want to teach others how to do it, basically. So she came in and she was like, listen, I've been buying and selling property for 12 bloody years or something like that. And I want to help other people to do it. So the first thing we do is put her through the training program first to get the knowledge. Then we book in our first one-to-one and we design, kind of like I did for you a minute ago, we design the offer. We design the explainer video. We design the sales script. We decide on a price, put it all together.

47:57And then we build it with them and we help them write it and construct it and all that stuff and launch it. Then we hold the hand. That's one example. Another example was a gardener from America who wanted to do a high ticket program. He's doing about 24K a month now teaching gardening to Americans. Big YouTube channel. A lot of these businesses are driven by YouTube. YouTube, I'm about to say, which is, which, yeah. Okay. So YouTube, not always. It's usually either Instagram or YouTube or ads or a combination of them. Some people just do YouTube, like the knitting lady is just YouTube. The gardening guy is just YouTube.

48:36We are largely just YouTube. So those are kind of the three traffic sources. And that's it really. So that's the beginner. So how much would the beginner be paying you? Well, they can decide. They can come into the group or the one-to-one. Most people come into the one-to-one, actually, rather than the group. So someone's going to commit to the eight grand straight away? Yeah. For how many months they've got to commit for? As many as they like. So you do one month and then stop after the first month? Oh, is that right? Okay, so they're not committed for three months? No. Yeah, some people come in for a month, go and do the work, come back in for a month, and vice versa.

49:10Okay. We do this thing as well, where if you want to buy two up front, we give you one for free. Okay. So if you do want to stay for three, you get a free month in there. That's a bit of an incentive. Pay for two, get three. Yeah, yeah, basically. Which, honestly, most people do go for that, to be honest. But yeah, so that's the beginner. The guy's already moving. We had someone come in. Well, someone's already got a bit of a brand awareness, a bit of a personal brand. Were they coming in the intermediate level? Yeah, man, we worked with a lot of people. I don't know whether you know this, you probably do, but there's a lot of people with big personal brands making fuck all money.

49:46Yeah, that's right. So many people. usually this sounds weird but the more followers usually the less money yep it's so strange and it makes no sense but that's i see that a lot like we've worked with so many people 600k followers one and a half million followers making 10 grand a month 15 grand a month it's crazy and half of them have been bought and half of them have been bought as well those followers yeah but yeah in the middle we work with people already doing it at a high level you know they're already doing 50 100 200 300k a month but they want to do the numbers that we were doing in the old company like half a million a month 800k a month some want to prepare for exit i'm working with a music producer guy who's doing crazy numbers with a music uh online music school that he's got which is crushing so yeah those are the guys in the middle okay and then the top guys if someone comes in as a top guy they usually their problems are systems hiring and firing scaling ads without fucking up the profit margin, preparing for exit, the more serious shit.

50:51Okay. Yeah. I'm allowed to swear on this podcast. Yeah, of course you can. You've had about seven of them. It's fine. I should have checked earlier. It's fine. Absolutely fine. This is genius. And you've stumbled across this or is there someone who you've had as a mentor gone, this is what you need to do, William? Have you stumbled across it or is there someone you've looked at and gone, if he's doing it, I can do it. Mate, the day that that guy messaged me, I had, I didn't even know you could do this. I didn't even know what courses and coaching and masterminds and stuff. I didn't know that you could sell your knowledge.

51:24That he just, honestly, this happened by a very lucky accident. And to that guy, you've changed my life. You know, to that guy that gave me that 50 pounds and came to my mum's house. so yeah i didn't know what this was i didn't know you could even do it until that day i'm real mad it's unreal so give me an example of your last month turnover with a very small team and people buying into your consultancy yeah that's what i call it i quite like coaching stroke consultancy what coaching sounds cooler consultancy sounds more corporate but it feels like you could charge more like is there it's like a fine line isn't there yeah i mean you can call it or whatever you want.

52:04At the end of the day, you're just helping people teach. It's basically teaching. Teaching business to help people grow their businesses. Well, it's teaching anything. It's teaching knitting. It's teaching gardening. It's teaching fitness. It's very popular. Teaching trading, teaching business. Teaching entrepreneurship, business. Yep. Do you reckon that's a good niche? Entrepreneurship business? Or is it not as specific? One thing that's important in these businesses is your accolades and your background and your backstory right the more you've done the faster you can start and the more you can charge and the less you've done the slower you've kind of got to go and the less you've got to charge right because you don't have a brand and a reputation and accolades yet but yeah to give you a snapshot of where we're at right now so there's 12 people on the team last month we did 501 cash collected the month before we did what grand uh yeah usd us okay yep collected collected Yeah, not revenue like cash that hit the payment processor.

53:00The month before was 579. And the margin right now is about 73 % net. I can't believe. Mate, it's genius. I'll show you the P &L. It's genius. Mate, I totally trust you. You know, you're not going to come on live on this podcast and not say what it is. What is, is there a point where the growth can do that initially and then plateau or drop? and then you've got to go paid ads and then you're getting caught up in that paid ads thing again. Have you hit that point yet? Yeah, I always say this to people, right? There's two ways to get traffic, organic and paid ads, right? And they've both got big upsides and big downsides.

53:42So organic, the upside is it's very high trust. If someone is watching long form YouTube videos, they like you, they trust you, they respect you and they're much more likely to buy. The downside is it can be very slow. Very, very, very, very slow, right? Right. Ads, the upside is it's lightning fast. Like we could make an ad today and have a thousand views tomorrow. Yeah. Right. The downside is it's harder to write them. It's harder to run them. It damages your profit margin. It's a lot lower trust. Are they the right people? Are they the right people? Ads can actually damage your brand a bit as well because no one likes ads.

54:16Yeah. You know, like nobody bloody likes ads. There's no value in an ad. A combination of both is the best thing to do. and this is kind of where we're at right now. So we're spending 30K a month on ads. Tiny, tiny, tiny amount right now. Grand a day. About a grand a day. On what? On Facebook and Instagram ads. Facebook and Insta. Yeah. And those ads just tell people, hey, did you know that you can start your own online consulting business? If you're this kind of person, click the ad and watch the explainer video. And I have to say there, the first ad that I saw, that's where I first saw you. Oh, so you found me from an ad?

54:57I found you from an ad. So, and you were in a house, you had the dog in the background, he's like, hi guys, this is what I'm doing. I thought, I like this fella. Yeah. And instantly, because it was real. Yeah. It felt real. This is where I'm at, I can help you guys if you fancy it. And that's when I started to say, I was like, okay. Well, I mean, that's a great example. The fact that we're here because of a paid opt. Because of a paid opt, it's probably worth its money and its weight in gold for an opportunity to like this to happen. 100%. I mean, on ads, we are about 4.2x right now. So if we spend 10, we'll make about 42 back.

55:27So pretty profitable. Perfect. Is that a good number? 4x? If you put a quid in, you get four quid back. Is that a good number? It is, yeah. When you start running ads at low scale, you're usually ludicrously profitable. If you're spending, let's say, 1 ,000, you can - A month. A month. Yeah. A very, very, very low budget. You can make 5, 10, 15, 20 back from that. as as you scale the roi comes down down down down down down down and going back to what i was telling you earlier when i first moved to dubai and we were doing about 250 a month it was like 1.8 okay so we'd spend 100 grand to make 180 grand and then take off your costs yeah as well so one for one we were driving the margin down but would you take one for one no quit in quit out is your minimum four pound in four back technically we would be profitable because about 37 % of our customers renew and stay longer.

56:22So if we were break even, well, we'd get 37 % of people that buy again and that would be the profit, right? But it's a bit of a dangerous place to operate. I mean, you want to be, the minimum for me is about 2X. If I'm 2X or above, I'm happy. If I'm below 2X, things need to change. So right now we're just slowly nudging the ads. We're going to raise the prices in Jan. And we're getting, I shouldn't say this because they're going to see this, but we're getting rid of some of the sales reps. Yeah. All right. I'm sorry if that's you. Chill up, lad. And just kind of, hey, look. It's business. It's business.

56:59There's so many little tweaks that have to happen in a business to keep the margin high, keep customers happy, keep you happy, keep acquiring customers. It's like a never ending puzzle. Yeah. I mean, I don't need to tell you this, you know. what's been your best social media platform and also if you're on youtube say if i ended up creating something a coaching course or consultancy and we set up a new youtube channel the youtube channel we're currently on has had millions and millions of views millions of views and every time a good episode goes up it goes wild if i set up a a dodgewood entrepreneur channel the views will be tiny but it doesn't would it i don't know i don't think you would i don't I think it would.

57:43Because of how big your brand is and how many people know you and how much goodwill you've built in the market, you could start a new channel, which is a very good idea, and call it like Dodgewood or entrepreneurship or business or whatever. I would strongly suggest making raw talking head videos, 15, 20, 25 minutes long, just talking about different topics and things that you've learned about. And when you start, you could maybe email it to your list. You can post it on your Instagram. You could link it on your YouTube community tab. And with your brand, dude, you get thousands of views right off the bat.

58:17Okay. Right off the bat. And then when you get those views, you're wanting to put them into, you used to mention VSL earlier. You want to put them into a website, say a dodgewoodle.com, and then they click on that. They see a video and you said eight minute talk of that video. And then you put them into a calendly with 10 questions. Yeah. So you wouldn't want to send them to a website, right? This is a very common misconception. Websites are generally for information. sales funnels are for conversion. So just a landing page, nothing else. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. This always surprises people. People think you need to have testimonials and an about me and all this stuff.

58:49You actually don't. You need a logo and a video and a button. And that usually converts the highest by far. On YouTube, a good metric to go by is about 400 views per booked call. Okay. So that's about the average of what we see across us and clients. If I put a video out and it gets, say a thousand views or book about two to three calls from it and then they go from the video to the explainer video then they book a call they fill out the survey they speak to a sales rep and then they they buy amazing yeah it sounds so simple and sometimes it sounds so good to be true i was saying that to someone the other day i was literally saying i don't think this is going to last forever it can't be this easy yeah okay forever like we've we was we were adding up all the money all the cash i've ever collected through the payment processor the other day it's about i think it was 33.1 million dollars there's one place for the newest drops in wellness and performance and the biggest sale of the year it's the drop by g &c curating the best of what's new handpicked by the pros who know what works and right now get it all buy one get one 50 off during the semi-annual LiveWell sale.

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1:00:56Yeah, across like last seven years. Like$33.1 million. just take a moment there that is that's really really we talk about unicorns everyone talks about steve jobs everyone talks about these big you're the real deal you've made stuff happen and what i've found is what i'm learning from this is that you learned your trade you did fantastically well you ended up flipping it sold next all of a sudden all the mistakes you made everything you've done i've actually found this new business here i've kind of fallen into it but you haven't because you've got the you've got the knowledge you've got the know-how you've just tweaked the model that's essentially where we are today right i've basically stumbled on it by luck fucked around like a persistent lunatic seven years later it's it's just mad it's just mad it's fucking crazy so where are you at today then tell me where you're at today you've moved to dubai number one are you happy do you want me to answer i want to answer are you happy because a lot of people i know who sell their companies and when we sell companies just for anyone out there when you sell a company, you think someone's going to be jumping out of the, out of the trees and there's going to be champagne spraying.

1:02:01It doesn't happen like that. It's kind of like you're done. You don't like, Oh right. We just sold a company. It's going to have a couple of drinks and you can go and enjoy. So was there a point when you sold that company, did you buy anything that changed your life or did you buy anything really expensive at that time? Good question. I bought one thing. I bought an apartment. Yeah. When I sold the company, I bought a three bed in the place that you're in. I think it was$1.4 million cash. I've bought 12 properties so far with all the money, all outright with cash. All in Dubai? No, no, no. Okay.

1:02:35Eight in England, two in Dubai, two in Bali. Now, no mortgages, all about, I better not say the amount, but like a large amount. Yeah. And that's kind of my pension, kind of my retirement. I see that is. And we live in one of them where the ad was filmed with the dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's that? Was that Bali? That's the Bali home that we just bought. Okay, lovely. yeah um how much did you pay on that barley home forget all the others that barley one because barley is a lot cheaper than dubai a lot cheaper than the uk how much did you pay on that and what did you buy yeah it was 950 000 us dollars okay so roughly what 800 grand 800 000 pounds and we've spent 65 more basically the bottom level was so it's like three floors right and the bottom level was just empty and we've just built a gym a sauna an ice bath and a cigar lounge like underneath quality so now we've got we've got all of that and we got seven bedrooms seven bathrooms pool garden all that cool stuff we're just putting security 800 grand yeah well yeah just plus plus plus plus top thing yeah okay and then the guy that built that sold me another one he was like well i'm building three more you want another i was like yeah go on of course i'll take one more so that is for like family and friends and mastermind guests and the stuff to stay at when when that's ready.

1:03:49But yeah, when I sold the company, I bought the three bed and it's, I thought that was my dream place to live. Right. I was like, yeah, that's my dream apartment. It's three bed. It's on the corner, all these great views. And then I moved in and a few weeks later, someone said to me, so what are you going to do when you have kids? And I was like, oh fuck. Yeah. Right. It's not my dream place anymore. Now I need a villa. Yeah. It's funny, man. And this is one thing that I've learned. Like when I started the business, I swear to God, when I started the business, I wanted, this sounds so gay. I wanted a BMW.

1:04:24I wanted an apartment in Manchester City Centre. And I wanted a Rolex. That was like my wildest dream. And it's just funny, man, how things change. I was sat in the apartment last night and I was just thinking like, what am I doing now? You know, I mean, I'm, I'm building a little software thing that I'm working on with a business partner, maybe buying some more real estate, enjoying the consulting, but things are just simple and fun and, and easy right now. So I'm, I'm a happier, I would say I'm definitely happy. On a scale of one to 10, how happy are you? Eight. Okay, lovely. Yeah. Good number.

1:05:05what about you good number i'm i'm i'm super super happy 10 there's no such thing as a 10 yeah apart from my wife hey um let's say i'll say that everywhere there's no so in my world there's no such thing as a seven there's no such thing as a 10 yeah so when you say to someone are you happy and i say there's no such thing as a seven they've got to say six or eight it makes people go shit okay it makes people think when i say to business like how busy are you to some of the people who work with how busy are you they know they can't say a seven so they've got either say a six or an eight and why not it makes a big difference yeah yeah i'm super happy i'm really really got a nice life and i've built some wonderful businesses and i'm in i'm in a world that is sport music festivals podcasting media you know i've never had a job in my life so i've just been an entrepreneur since a kid and i don't know any different so yeah i'm going i'm not into fast cars i'm not into watches i'm into amazing holidays great experiences good food good friends good people just the and i really enjoy the simple things in life nice walks comfort it's just a fresh air sport just just the simple things that's what i'll constantly constantly on the hunt for every day that and dopamine and gym and feeling good and food they're my they're my things yeah that's that's really good man it sounds like you're a nine i'm not a very extravagant guy i don't like clothes i don't like cars i don't have a car i really like real estate i love really nice homes that I don't know I just love that it's very fulfilling yeah same because where you live is so important I love real estate I like comfort I like comfort I love comfort like you very kindly got me business class over here and that was comfy yeah and then you walk at the back and there's a bar there wherever there's like seven or eight people just around the bar drinking and new people it's bizarre you're up there in the 30 ,000 feet up and you're in a bar having a few drinks having a laugh with random people you would really really really nice Dude, I reckon that's my number one favourite thing to spend money on is...

1:07:03Travel. Business class travel. Yep. Because I'm just scared after all the years of flying economy... Premium economy. On all these ghetto airlines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To some ghetto bloody places around the world. I'm just scared by economy. And I like nice hotels. Me too. I like hiring nice villas. I do, I enjoy that sort of stuff. Dude, you've got to go to Address Beach. You will bloody love the place. Where's Address Beach? It's just right at the end of JBR. Okay, is that where you're staying? Yeah, yeah. Is that the one you said at the top was an infinity pool highest in the world? Yeah. You've got it.

1:07:32Are you going after this? We'll go for a beer. Let's go for a beer after this. Let's do it. Happy days. Yeah. Tell me your reasoning why you moved to Dubai. We know that because of the money and the sun. What made you want to buy somewhere in Bali? What's Bali like? I went to Bali in 96 years and years ago. It's obviously very different than it is now. How would you explain Bali to the listener? The thing is, Dubai is a very heavy, intense, fast place. And it's not somewhere where you come to relax. And when I first moved here, I wanted to just work every goddamn day, every hour of the day and do business and make money.

1:08:15but then when I sold the company and started doing this I just wanted to chill out a bit you know and strip things back and I remember going to Bali with my girlfriend and it was just beautiful man so beautiful peaceful the people are so kind the energy is just awesome and it's so cheap as well you know and we were saving up for a villa in Dubai and then one of my friends showed me the one in Bali and I was like, hold on a minute. So for what is about 10 million in Dubai is one over there in Bali. And I was like, dude, I'll take it. No worries. Good value. There's nothing better than good value, is there?

1:08:51Yeah. That was fucking value. Huge value. Underground for what you've got. Yeah. It is, it is, it is like a, it's amazing, man. It's absolutely amazing. So yeah, I just wanted to have somewhere to go away from Dubai and bloody chill. So how long would you spend in Dubai and how long do you spend in Bali or do you bounce back and forward every month? I would do six months, six months. Okay. Well, six months in one stint or an average of six months and six months? I don't know, man. I don't know. Well, I'm going to, well, we went there for two months and stayed for seven when we bought it. We just didn't want to leave.

1:09:27Yeah. We just did not want to leave that bloody house, man, and the area and stuff. So probably six months Bali, six months Dubai on rotation. And how far? We're looking eight, nine hours, did you say, from Dubai to go to Bali? It's so easy, man. You can get a flight at 1am, get in bed, wake up, get off. It's easy. And how would you explain Bali? Good beaches, good food, good people. Is there lots of sport there? Is there lots of Australians? Is there lots of Europeans? How would you sort of wrap that up? I would describe it as like a peaceful, tropical paradise. I would. That's what it feels like to me.

1:10:01It's just, everyone's chilled. It's beautiful. The weather, the greenery. It's just, it's the complete opposite of Dubai. It's the complete opposite. So it's so nice to come here and go mad and then go there and chill out and come here and get business done and then just go there and relax. That is, I always wanted two homes to go between. And this, this for me is perfect. Do you know what I find about Dubai? when you come from the UK and you're flying to Dubai now, the economy's buzzing, people are buzzing, you're getting contacts, I'm giving contacts to people, they're giving me contacts. People have got money, people are passing money around.

1:10:35It just feels like this place is just rising at such a rate, where the UK is dipping at such a rate. And I can see why so many people have moved to Dubai. And we'll talk about the multimillionaires we keep talking about, where there's 1 ,000, 1 ,500 people moving abroad to Dubai each mile. I'm talking about young Gen Zs are coming out here and going, do you know what? I'm a creator. I want to make something of it. I'll go and get a one bed flat. I know it's more expensive than at home, but I'll pay no tax. But I'm going to meet loads and loads of contacts. It feels like anyone who anyone is a creator or got something about them really is coming to Dubai to build their businesses.

1:11:08100%. 100%. You'd kind of be crazy not to. You know, I remember way back in the day when I got this massive tax bill. I remember I was in a mastermind and I posted them in the mastermind group being like, what do you guys do for tax? Is there a way to optimize it? And everyone was like, go to Dubai, man. You know, it's the best weather. It's blue skies pretty much every day forever, which is amazing. Everyone here is doing something. They're on a mission. One of my friends once said to me, there's like a filter because unless you're making a certain amount of money, it doesn't make sense to come to Dubai.

1:11:41So therefore everybody that does is kind of above a certain line. You know, they're making certain money. They've got certain ambition. They want to go hard and make stuff happen. So, yeah, I think if you, if someone said to me, well, I want to scale my business and focus and go all in, I'd be like, go to Dubai, man. Yeah, I agree. I'd say the same. We're going to be doing a little mini documentary while we're here. Just to chat to people who live out and say, you're British, you're English. What are your thoughts on Dubai? What's the difference between being at home in Dubai? Are you super happy out here?

1:12:12What opportunities are there? What, you know, what are you creating? Who are you meeting? And it seems like every day, I know everyone's posting it on LinkedIn and people are at home again. going, oh, I wish these people of Dubai would stop gnausing everyone off about talking about how amazing Dubai is. But I get it. I see it. I get it. Yeah. It's, it's a funny one, man. People are very, they either hate Dubai or love Dubai. And I think you've got to come here before you decide, you know, come and see how beautiful and safe and, you know, clean and organized it is. It's just, it's like a, it's just a city built for for entrepreneurs it's it's it's just amazing yeah what's your future plans will well i want to become a billionaire yeah is that right so that's like my big you know one of my mentors once said set a goal so big that you know it keeps you going and inspires you so i i think that you know if i'm lucky i think i can become a billionaire whether i ended up i ended up wanting it when I'm there is another story.

1:13:15But for me, dude, I just love building things. I like making videos. I like making funnels. I like doing consulting. I like investing the money and trying to grow it and stuff. It's just a fun game to me. You put yourself a wonderful position to get to a billionaire. That's a thousand million, by the way. That's a million. People talk about billions. It's a thousand times one million. Don't talk me out of it. No, no, no, I'm not. But you could nail it. You could nail it. It's a big goal. there's not many billionaires out there in the UK yeah there's not I'm sure there's a lot more out here yeah I don't I don't really care if I get there I'd love to get there but it's nice to have that goal though it's a good goal it's a big goal for me I'm probably just going to be building businesses for the rest of my life and having fun same and podcasting and podcasting podcasting building businesses you can't beat that that's the best thing in the world amazing William I've really really enjoyed this chat good I've really enjoyed it thank you for your honesty it's amazing what you've achieved in such a short space of time what are you today 30 35 35.

1:14:12Bleak that out. Don't tell anyone. 30. Beep. Mate, amazing. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And I thank you so much for your generosity on flying us out here. My pleasure. Very kind of you. My pleasure. You're a good man. Good to be here. Cheers, mate. Cheers, brother. Cheers, mate. Hi, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favour and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show? Cheers, guys.

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