Everyone Wrote Me Off... Here's What Changed Everything | Adam Stott

24:05Alex Chisnall:what do I do? What do I do, mate? He's like, you should take it. They've got a free coffee machine. That was our level. That was our level, right? And that was our level because we just worked on building sites and stuff and just been, I'd worked at KFC. I'd just been doing these, you know, types of jobs. And I walked in there and I remember I'm chuffed with my free coffee. I'm getting myself a free coffee. And the lady there, Diane, she said, look, go and talk to those people. And if you sell them, they're at the cookers. They probably want to buy a cooker. If they buy a cooker, you'll get paid.

24:39And I went, no. No, I'm getting paid. I've got a salary. And she went, no, no, no. If they buy a cooker, you'll get paid extra. You get commission. I knew nothing about this. It's how basic it was. I was like, what? So if I get them to buy that, you give me more? Like, yeah. Sort of, bosh.

24:54Alex Chisnall:But you just need it explained in those terms, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So off I go and I go and sell a cooker not knowing anything about it. And then I was like, oh my God, it's like I found the way, you know. I actually believe that that truly was a turning point for me. I found something, and this is why. So if I don't joke about it, like not joking about it, but this is why, it's because I found something I was good at. I wasn't good at anything else. And so do you think then by taking that action, that gave you the confidence? Because otherwise... I think it built my confidence, yeah. I think it built my confidence.

25:29It made me feel like I was worth something, like I could do something, like I was good. And I got a promotion there. And I think that just built me up. Actually, this is something you're good at. And I think, obviously, I don't know the whole audience of people that are listening, but it's probably people that have got talent, but they just haven't actually found it yet. And you might need to try two or three things. You might not just found your thing that's your thing. and I really believe that confidence comes from competence. You know, when you do something well, you build your confidence and you become more confident in what you do and everybody's got something they're confident at.

26:09So I think there's a clue there. It's like if there's something that you do, I ask this at my events sometimes, I'm like, hey, how many of you can, who can bake a cake in the audience? And then people put their hand up. I'm like, how good are you at baking a cake? and they'll be like, I am the best cake baker you've ever met.

26:27Alex Chisnall:And I'm like, well, tell me what happens. What mode, what do you do when you're going to go bake a cake? And they're like, well, I get my ingredients and I know my recipes. And the person just changes, like their shape changes, the way they're holding their body changes. They're at a business conference. They're all like, you know, and they just change as an individual. And I'm like, well, look, you've got great confidence in that area. You know the sequence because you know the recipe, you know the ingredients, which are the skills, you know how to build that. Well, the thing is, the reason you're not confident about running a business is you don't have your sequence yet, and you don't have your ingredients yet, which is the skill sets, and you haven't done it before.

27:01How many cakes you baked? Like I baked a thousand cakes. Well, if you built a thousand businesses, you'd feel like that as well, right? So it's going to take time.

27:10Alex Chisnall:And it's interesting. It's a conversation I'm having more and more, and not just in the studio, but outside with people I'm meeting, how little confidence a lot of people have. but as you say if you actually look deep inside you and all the things that you you've done there's something in there that you're good at right and i think you're right i think it's especially you know chatting to a couple people lately and you know not happy in their job to want to start their own business and it's you know it's the safety net obviously of the salary even though they might not be happy with the salary but if you don't actually try a bunch of things, like you say, you're never going to know if you're any good at it and therefore you're not going to build that confidence, right?

27:54And I do think, you know, I don't necessarily think, if we're truthful about building a business. Now, obviously, I went through those stages. I went on to build that first business and I kept building it. And then I studied. So the reason, the way that I grew it, you said, how did I, how did I get there? Is I studied skill sets. That's how I got there, right? I got utterly obsessed with how do I become a better business strategist? How do I build a bigger personal brand? How do I understand marketing? Like, there's a way that this works. So, how does it work? So, I got obsessed with marketing.

28:32I invested in that skill set. The same way as I got obsessed with sales. So, one of the things I did when I started to learn sales, I got obsessed with it. And I read every book and I started to buy training. I was going to say, what did you do? You read books, learn online? Yeah, I just got utterly deep into the subject. And I think a lot of people go very wide because it's easy to go wide. So, for example, it's easy to, you know, obviously I've got a podcast. I love podcasts. I listen to podcasts. But there is a degree of entertainment there as well, right? You know, if we were saying, okay, we're going to spend the next hour and a half speaking about in-depth sales strategies and all we're ever going to talk about sales, then, you know, some people would be interested in that.

29:13Some people wouldn't, if that makes sense. but when you pick a subject and you go totally deep into it and you get obsessed with it and you really master that then that adds to your skill set and then you bring that into your business and you spread that throughout your business to all the people now all of a sudden you're a better sales organization or you're a better marketing organization but you've got a better culture because you've studied it and and that's what i did to to get obsessed with those different things and and that's what i do now is obviously i help people with those different things but a lot of people they want to build a business um they want to be more successful in their lives but they're going broad rather than going deep and and i think that not everybody should run a business i think it's perfectly fine to work for other people i think that's a good i've got amazing people that work for me in the current business i've got 45 amazing people in my previous business I had 120 in the prior business.

30:09So I've had all these. I think that's absolutely fine. If you work with someone and you enjoy where you work in. But if you want to go on the business journey, then you've got to understand the fundamental skills that are required. You've got to get obsessed. You've got to be resilient. And you've got to have an absolute dedication. It's not about 14, 16 hour days. I don't believe in that. Because I do believe that you can have some balance. but I do believe that you have to have a resilience and a dedication to improvement I think that's what building a business is it's like a living organism and it needs to be improved consistently and all the time and keep I do that every day in my business now it's like how can we how can we get better how can we get better how can we get the product better how can we get the marketing better how can we get the sales process better how can we just get everything better every day.

30:57Alex Chisnall:And talk to me, you mentioned before a little bit about personal brands. Why do you think people are still afraid of putting themselves out there? And how much do you relate your success to putting yourself out there and people associating you with your business? I think two questions. The first part of the question, like, why do I think people are afraid do it. This is the thing. There's going to be however many people listen to what we're saying now. And there will be some people that love me. And no doubt, thank you. And there'll be some people that hate me. And that's okay too. And everybody's entitled to their opinion.

31:37And I'm comfortable with that. And if somebody wants to write a bad comment, I'm also comfortable with that. If somebody wants to write a great comment, then I'm very grateful for that. But I think that it's polarizing. You can't have one without the other. And frankly, if nobody loves you and nobody hates you, you're probably pretty bland, right, at the moment. So you're going to have some type of polarizing impact on people. So when it comes to building a personal brand, the reason that I do it is because I'm passionate about what I do. I believe that building small businesses can be easier.

32:15I believe building small businesses can be simpler. I believe that there are people out there that need my help. I know that I can help them. I want to help them. I make money from doing that. I'm very comfortable with that because I know that I provide more value than someone pays. And I think that's the mentality of what you do. But I think there's a lot of people out there that if they do get a criticism or somebody writes a comment, you know, it can hurt. I'm sure you've had it. I've definitely had it. You know, it does hurt, but you've got to shake it off and you've got to move on and you've got to realize that people that write stuff like that and people that want to take shots at you, it's usually more about them than it is about you.

33:00You're holding a mirror up to them and you're showing someone and they find that difficult. And fair enough, it is difficult. I think envy, jealousy, resentment, normal human emotions, but you've got to try and let go of those if you want to build something. So this is what I'll say about branding though. So that's the first piece as to why. And then you said, well, how useful has it been? What branding, building a personal brand will do is it will magnetize the right people towards you. Success attracts success. So if someone wants to be successful and you are successful, they will be drawn towards you because they want to create more success in their life, right?

33:48So it will magnetize success. But it'll also repel people and repulse people that don't want that, right? And I'm okay with both. People that want to win, like that's who I am. If you want to win, then great. That's what I'm all about. If you don't, I don't judge you. I don't have a problem with that. And that's no problem. And that's kind of the mentality. but branding basically culture of success creates success, culture of negativity creates negativity. So I get negativity away from me and I pull people towards me with success. And branding, I mean, I could talk about that for yonks, but I think there's so many instances where branding's helped me.

34:28Helped me get deals, helped me raise funding, helped me to attract better clients, helped me to attract better employees. If every time you walk in a room, people know who you are before you walk in a room you're going to find a lot you're going to find things are a lot easier for you you know and i think that branding definitely does that

34:48Alex Chisnall:and so the journey you're on at the moment what's what's the biggest challenge that you've got at the moment for trying to help you know other people start and scale businesses there's a lot of challenges it's a really good question actually i don't think people ask that that question that much um i built a really good education business which has got brilliant coaches brilliant speakers which is more than me, right? Big business entrepreneurs. And our mission is to help a thousand small businesses break through seven figures in revenue. And we're well into that mission. We were many, many hundreds of people to break those numbers.

35:23And, you know, we celebrate success. The way that we do that is we have a model called the Simple Replicable Business Model, which is how do you create something that's simple? How do you create something that's replicable? So it means you can do the same thing over and over again and really it's five steps. First one is to build a compelling business strategy that can get you to market. The second is to build a brand that attracts the right people and that can be one of three brands. That can be your personal brand, that can be your business brand, that can be your product brands, any of those.

35:56And then it is to build a top of funnel that drives new inquiries into your business, to build a sales system that's repeatable and then to deliver the operation in an effective way. So they're the five things that we do. Now, the challenges with that is there's so many challenges. There's getting the message out to market. There's reaching the right people. There's getting the right team on the mission. You know, we've been scaling. You know, last year we did about 15 million pounds in revenue, taking that to 25 to 50 to 100 million. There's a challenge around growth for sure. I think there is challenges in the marketplace with AI, for example.

36:33Everyone thinks that they've maybe got an advisor in their pocket, even if it's not quite guiding them in the right way. So there's challenges there. There's challenges with lots of competition. So there's a lot of challenges. But I think I'll answer that slightly differently in that there's always been challenges. There always will be challenges. You know, and that's what building a business is. And do you know what? That's what excites me as well. If there were no problems to solve, why would you be doing it?

37:00Alex Chisnall:Why would you be doing it? You wouldn't, right? You wouldn't be here. But in your experience, what do you see? Do you see any patterns with founders trying to scale and what breaks? What kind of some of the things you see? I think, first of all, understanding what scale, I'll tell you what scale means to me. And it depends on what scale means to someone else. So this is when I said the stages. You've got starting a business, you've got growing a business, you've got scaling a business. There's a big difference between growing and scaling. When you're growing a business, you're trying to essentially build a business model that allows people to go through your process, creates a commercial profit, so it makes money, and you're building a business model.

37:42Now, when you're in the grow phase, you're building that business model by testing new products, testing new services, looking at the retention of clients, adding new staff members in, changing your branding, launching new offers, and essentially when you're growing, you're figuring out all the things that work, right? and then you get to a point where you have a model that works. So for me, when you have a model that works, that means you know exactly how to get new clients into your world to take them through a sales process that makes a profit, that delivers a product or service that makes people happy and that they feel that they got value from their purchase.

38:21And that for me is a good business model. If you go into Nando's next week and you go and have a Nando's, you know what you're getting. You know the question you're going to be asked. You know the menu that's going to be put in front of you. You know the products that you're going to get. You're going to pay your money. You're going to be happy with the value. You're going to walk out of there having eaten what you've eaten and you ain't going to moan about it. I don't think I've ever been there and moaned. And some people might have. But just as an example, that for me is a good business model that works effectively and it makes money, right?

38:48Now, for me, the grow phase is about figuring that model out. Then that's when you look at scale. And let's take Nando's example. you've got to get that first restaurant right. You've got to get the menu right. You've got to get the staff right. You've got to get the process right. You've got to understand the scripting, the upsetting that happens within the restaurant, the delivery, the cleanliness, the standards, the interior, the decor. You've got to get all that right. And then you go, okay, so we want to scale now. So how do we reach more people? Well, can we drive more people in this restaurant or do we need another restaurant?

39:22Okay, we need another. So then you say, well, actually, we think that we can roll out five of these. Well, that's when we're scaling because we've got a repeatable model. So I think the problem was with scale to then answer the question would be that people can't scale usually because their business is still messy and you can't scale mess. And if you've got loads of kinks and you've got loads of problems in your business and then you try to scale it, it's a recipe of disaster. I've done it personally where I've been through that. I've lost a business where I pushed it too fast, too quick and it ended up backfiring on me i think a lot yeah i think a lot of yeah yeah but that's scaling too quick yeah tried to try to you know sports injury clinics but literally

40:09Alex Chisnall:tried to replicate that exact model that you talked about but we did not have the right systems and processes in place who enabled us to do that but the opportunity that was kind of sold to me to do that you know you think yeah i'm ready to do that but if you haven't got your own house in order you can't and the right amount of cash the right amount of capital and you know the right amount of profitability and the absolute system to get clients and deliver a commercial profit consistently and i just think people try to scale they haven't got it and it ends up getting very stressful and now you're trying to fix five things where you were just trying to fix one thing you know fix fix the thing and then you do the next thing so scaling for me is when you're going to rapidly increase.

40:52Now, by the way, we mentioned that the way that we've discussed that is we've discussed that as like almost products. It's the same with service is with service when you're scaling service-based businesses, a lot of the time you're just driving more in the top. So you're driving more inquiry flow and then you're taking them through the delivery mechanism and then you're scaling. So it's like, okay, we've got a really good model. It works really well. We've got more capacity. We currently get a thousand leads a week. Let's move to getting 5 ,000 leads to week, right? So you're 5X in the growth and then you're maintaining the delivery, you're maintaining the standard through scale.

41:27I think it still needs to be, the model needs to be right to make that happen.

41:31Alex Chisnall:What's the biggest lesson successful entrepreneurs usually learn the hardest way, do you think?

41:39I think there's so many, isn't there?

41:41Alex Chisnall:I was going to say, there's probably a few in your experience, but... There's so many. I think some of the hard lessons I've had over the time is the one I just mentioned, scaling too soon. And then that is a really, really hard lesson when you then have to start paying off personal guarantees and you've got a lot on the line and you've got a lot of risk. I think that that is a very, very hard lesson. That's why the bigger your business is, the more you need advisors. And I think that a lot of the time people don't think that because you've got it to 10 million. you think you don't need help or because you got it to 5 million, don't need help.

42:23Do you know what? You need it more now than ever. You actually need it more. Yeah, yeah. Bigger problem, bigger risk. And, you know, I think that's definitely a big one. The other one I think is the people lessons. When you're building a business, you build relationships throughout that business and you feel like people with you and you're in it together and you're doing this together and you have these incredible relationships with people. You go through a lot together. But the reality is at some point, the majority of people move on. And even if you have incredible times with them, and even if you do good things, then I think I found that hard over many years.

43:02I've been in business since 2008 now. So not for like 18 years, coming up 20 years in a couple of years. And I think that over that nearly two decades, the amount of relationships and incredible relationships I've had that were incredible for a period of time, and then were not incredible, and you feel like you've got some very hard lessons to learn around relationships and friendships and people take off you as well. And a lot of the time you don't deserve it. I think that's another hard lesson. You are going to have problems as a business owner that you will not deserve the problems that you get.

43:42I like hearing that. No, I do. You know what? I had another great mentor I had. I actually like I had coaching for a year from a lady that was great when I was earning the business. And pretty much the only thing we talked about was the fact that I couldn't get over some of the things that people had done to me because I was like, I wouldn't do that to them. I wouldn't do that to them. That's not how I operate. And I think that that is a hard lesson to learn that even when you do the right thing and even when you're really good to people and you look after people, They don't always look after you back.

44:20And unfortunately, that is business. You do have to separate the personal and the emotions. And that's very tough.

44:28Alex Chisnall:It is. But again, people, right? Yeah. Yeah, that is a tough one. And also, you're not immune, are you, right? I've done loads of things wrong. I've managed some of those relationships badly. So sometimes I've deserved it. And I think that's important. I acknowledge that. I take responsibility that I'm definitely not perfect. I've mismanaged situations. You know, I've upset people I shouldn't have upset at times. I should have been more patient. I've made all the mistakes. But I think that becoming a better leader is very important and being able to manage your emotions and to being able to separate your emotions is one of the lessons that will help you a lot, that actual personal development.

45:08Alex Chisnall:And interestingly enough, next question was, how much have you changed? What type of person are you now compared to what you were? and what kind of person do you want to become almost? Well, that's a really interesting one because I'll tell you 100 % where I was. I can tell you where I am now. But as you build these businesses and you do these things, and I definitely am without a shadow of a doubt a much better person than I was throughout the journey. I think you also get under high stress, don't you, as a business owner? so I think in the early years I was super stressed out all the time I lost my temper at times with people I was I found that difficult I was snappy irritable all those different things um egotistical but I think now I think now I'm definitely a better leader I think I'm more understanding I'm not perfect um by any stretch of imagination but I'm definitely a better leader I lead my the people that work with me work for me in a much better way.

46:14I have a much better balance with the way that I run my business. I spend time with my family, my little boy, I always make time for them. I leave work at work. When I go home, I go home. That's unusual for the beginning, for the first 10 years. I don't think I ever did that. I don't think I ever did that. But I definitely do that now. So I think I've definitely improved. I would like to continue to become calmer.

46:36Alex Chisnall:Calmer, okay. Because I think it's a good quality. like my COO is always calm it can feel like the whole the rain is falling down you know and he's just calm and I still have an intensity that I probably could calm even more I think it's being redheaded it's a good quality isn't it being that you know that cool calm collected thing I kind of drum that into my daughters but in whatever situation in life if you can actually you know just think in that moment about how to move forward rather than let the frustration the anger kind of overcome you. I definitely could work. I think that's definitely something that as I continue to, you know, develop.

47:14Alex Chisnall:And what would you say to, you know, that boy who maybe didn't do so well at school, who maybe is listening now, who maybe thinks they've missed their chance, that there isn't a way to start, that they're not capable of building something? I would just say that you're really good at something. And the thing that you're really good at, if you haven't 100 % found it, you need to really look at what you enjoy. You know, what do you really love doing? And what type of thing do you love doing? Because there's definitely be a pathway there. It's much easier if you do something you enjoy. And I think if you enjoy it, it doesn't feel like work.

47:58I definitely feel like now what I do now running a training business, helping business owners, I just love it. It's what I love to do. And I enjoy it. Therefore, it doesn't feel like work. If something doesn't feel like work and you're passionate about it and you can show up every day and do that, then that's great. So somebody listening now, it's like, what are you passionate about? What do you love doing? What lights you up? And do you know what? If I have to just spend 15 minutes answering that question, because you might not answer it. I remember when I was younger, I was very hazy, very blocked.

48:30So if you have to sit down for 15 minutes now and just write a list of 10 things that you love doing, that light you up, that you enjoy, and don't try to curate them. Don't try to just actually just let it flow and just go, I like doing this and I like doing that and I like doing this. And then you can go, okay, well, from these 10 things that I enjoy doing, where are the opportunities? Could I build a business around that? Could I make money around that? Is there a way I could get into that? Could I work in that environment? And then the other thing I'd say is, whether you like it or not, everyone starts from the bottom.

49:07And I took so much abuse, probably more now than HR wouldn't allow that much, but I did in my early years working, for example, I mentioned Powerhouse or Ford or BMW. I took a lot of stick and I took a lot of digs and a lot of people. And that is quite natural. I think that's quite natural. and you've got to allow that to shape you and you've got to turn up even when you don't feel like turning up and you've got to look at your commitment levels. This is the other thing I'd say that I think has been useful for me. I don't know why I do this, but if I say I'm going to do something, I always do it.

49:49If I say I'm going to do it, I very rarely don't do what I say I'm going to do. So, you know, like today, I would never dream. If I say I'm going to do it, I'm doing it. You know, to the best of my ability, I would always do that. And I think that that reliability is something that young people need to add to their game. Because even just showing up, that is quite an important thing that you've got to do. You've got to show up.

50:13Alex Chisnall:So what's the one thing you wish younger Adam understood? If you could go back and give him that. I think that's a really good question. I think that understanding that it takes time, to a degree. I would say if I could really go back now and say, build your skills. Build your skills. Starting with sales? Focus on skills. Initially, it was sales. And I wish I'd learned marketing earlier. I wish I'd learned marketing. I wish I'd learned branding earlier. I wish I'd learned operations earlier. I think that building skills is absolutely critical to success. because if you don't build them, the business ends up outgrowing you and that feels horrible.

51:01And I think success comes from skills. And this is worst case scenario, right? Let's say that someone listening decides to build their skills based off what we said and they get really good at something. You're only going to add more value to a business by building your skills, which means you're going to be paid more. So worst case scenario, you, rather than watching Netflix, rather than get in and absolutely utterly build your skills. because I think that something happens, especially when you get coaching, what happens is you have a transference of knowledge. So let's say that you've got massive knowledge in an area and I don't have knowledge in that area.

51:38I spend time with you. You're going to transfer that knowledge to me over a period of time. And as I get that knowledge, I'm going to be able to replicate some of the results that you've been able to do because you gave me the knowledge. Now, it took you 10 years to get the knowledge. it might take me three to five months to extract that knowledge from you. And that's incredible, right? So find other people that have done what you wanted to do, spend time with them, be curious, ask the right questions, dive deep into skill sets and identify the skill sets that are going to help you. So for me, marketing is an incredible skill set.

52:16That is an incredible skill set to be able to drive attention, awareness, get attention, get people to step towards you. Incredible skill set. Very valuable in business. Everybody needs it. Few people know how to do it. Very, very valuable. Sales is an incredible skill set. That is something that will make you. Both of those make you money. So you want to make money? My nephew's like, what should I do, Adam? What should I do? He's a young guy. I'm like, get into marketing. Get into sales. These are areas that will drive money. And then branding is also a good skill set. I would prioritize the first two.

52:49Marketing and sales make money.

52:50Alex Chisnall:Very good. Okay, finishing up, quick fire round. So first thing that comes into your head, short and sweet, what is an entrepreneur for you? A creator, somebody that is able to create things from their mind and execute them into real life. So it's like willing them into existence from thought to execution. Like that. And this one I probably answered already, but we'll ask it again. What is a scale-up business? A scale-up business is a repeatable model. It's a business that has a repeatable model that you're able to invest more into in order to grow it and to drive more commercial profit. I don't know how much you're into your music, but if you could pick one song that reflects your life or entrepreneurial journey, what would it be and why?

53:37Oh, I like that question. You're going to think of your favorite band

53:41Alex Chisnall:and a favorite song? I'll tell you what, I've got one. I've got one. Written in the Stars. Very good. I like that. I was listening to that this morning in the gym. And then last one. And again, you can come back to me on this one. Having been on the show, who would you recommend that you know who you think has got a really good screw-it-just-do-it story? I think my mentor, Sarah Williams, someone that I've worked for a number of years, is an incredible person and somebody I've learned a lot from. And if you can get Sarah to do it, you should probably ask her, yeah? Okay, awesome. Adam, thank you very much indeed.

54:14Alex Chisnall:I've really enjoyed it. Pleasure, me too. Thank you. if this conversation resonated with you don't just sit there, act on it make sure you follow or subscribe for more game changing conversations and remember the only thing standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it