The Biggest Risk Is Not Taking One

0:00Here we are, episode two of Simon Says, still ironing out the kinks of this new format where you guys can ring in and ask me questions live. and you guys listening can learn from the people that ring in because often in life we don't know what questions to ask we don't know what we don't know so sometimes by listening to the questions that people have when they're trying to start a business find a dream or figure out how to make their business work by listening to others and the questions that they have you can learn what you're meant to be asking and I hope that in this show today we together can help a lot of dreamers with their dreams.

0:36We're also going to talk about some topical things, some interesting clips out there in the universe that perhaps need a little bit of a discussion to see what we think of them. And hopefully together we can have some fun. We can create a show here. Together we can watch dreams happen in real time, live. I want to first of all say thank you to my new sponsor, high level. They're a CRM platform and I'm personally using them and I really believe with all my heart that this all-in-one platform that helps you build funnels, that helps you automate marketing and manage all of your leads is going to be a tool that helps you fulfill your dreams.

1:19I only work with businesses that I believe can help people fulfill their dreams and no one can do it alone. Nobody. We all need help to make our dreams happen and that includes using tools that help you do it. Plus, from the sponsorship from High Level, I'm able to fund even more dreams and build platforms like Simon Says to help you find out what you need to know to do what you love. Because life is short and you don't want to live with regrets. You don't want to not do that thing that you know you're meant to do. Or more importantly, sometimes figure out exactly what it is you're meant to do and then do it.

1:57Because I believe everything, including making money is really just a formula and i got my dog involved in the episode this week just to show you know at the end of the day even dogs have dreams and his dream is to hang out with me on this podcast right right okay get on your bed because i've got some questions to answer from some dreamers you can help me okay right i think we have our first caller waiting right all right priscilla i think is our first caller priscilla yes i'm here hi how are you doing good it's great a little bit cold but it's good all right i never think of brazil as cold instantly i've learned something new brazil gets cold that that surprises me but i would say 10 days a year 10 days a year okay we caught you in one of those 10 days now brazil i i'm um i'm starting off each of these kind of openings with like let me know how much money you've got in the bank account because i want to know how my advice must relate to your financial circumstances so how much have you got in the bank account right now so i've just sold an apartment so i would say i have probably about 300k um at this moment well i can't i can't i can't really use um right now but but it's there all right why can't you use it well i'm i'm redirecting i would say i'm redirecting my my goals and i'm my objectives in life especially now that i'm reading your book and i'm learning a little bit about possessions right because my dream has always been for example um buying a big house or like my success was all always leading me to possessions and and now i'm reading from from your book i'm i'm learning that i'm not in the correct way of seeing things right interesting well you're you're clearly um educating yourself and uh but i think i think 300 000 pounds should be invested in your future um 300 000 should be invested in your future but let's tell me what you're what you're thinking what your question is and let's see if you even need that money.

4:19Yeah, of course I need. So today I'm a global IT leader, right? I work in a very nice global company. I have a global role that I get to travel, implement systems all over the world. But I always had something inside of me that made me understand that in this world for more i meant to do something big right but i never know i never knew what that was so i spent like all my years putting all my efforts and energy to be in a very nice role and everything and but now i see that this is not it right i need something more i need like to find my purpose and throughout all the years I've always helped people to grow in their career to use my experience to support people do some mentorships and I always volunteered about that right and I would really like to have that as a business as something profitable that could be a return uh in the future so i can use my experience to support people in in um in a scalable level right i'm just wanting to interrupt and just ask you what is the exact question though because i i have to go in a minute i've got another caller waiting what what is your exact question I need an investment of 10 ,000K right now and that we could give a return of investment in five, six months if you would be my investor.

6:12Okay, you don't need an investor. You've got 300K. You can invest in yourself. Why would you not invest in yourself? and and how would you what would be the how is the first step what's the first step to be to have this dream becoming in reality and turning this in a scalable profitable um business well i mean ultimately just before i tell you that i just want to reiterate this a lot of people will ask for investment and what you're saying is when you ask for investment and you've got money what it actually means is you're not confident enough and you want to risk someone else's money not your own and so sometimes if you're not willing to risk your own money it's very hard to convince investors to risk their money you have to be willing to invest in yourself and so you you know people are willing to buy a house or buy a car they don't need you know like but but i'm always shocked how many people are not willing to put the money they have into themselves.

7:15And so that's just one thing to say. I mean, again, I think pitching to me for investment, absolutely fine. Try it. But I always think it's important to make sure that you would invest in you. Now, when it comes to the business model, it's a little bit wrong way around. It should be like, this is how I'm going to make money. Would you like to invest in me? As opposed to like, how do I make money and will you invest in me? And so, but look, I think when it comes to making money it's really simple you just have to provide value to people what is the value and you can start with one customer nearly every single business starts with one customer so what can you do to make one customer happy and and to me it's always like a simple equation if you make one customer happy you can make you can ask that customer to send other people about you so that becomes your marketing and then of course you'll get other customers because if you make one customer happy other people are going to want that same feeling so i i don't fully understand what you're what you're selling but i would just say to you uh call back another time with your business idea more clear and and please invest in yourself because if you won't invest in you other people won't you've got to be the first investor in you next up i believe is davante Devante Devante, okay I'm dyslexic I'm going to get everybody's name wrong on this show I just want to up front say it If you want to call in and we get your name right Forget it, you want to call in for me to help you with your dream 100 % I'm here But Devante, how can I help you?

8:44Hi Simon Firstly I just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to Be on, you know, be on the live review My dream, my dream is I want to open up a football academy in Dubai. You're probably thinking, why Dubai? I want to bring like a new wave, a new wave in terms of UK academy style coaching with my seven years experience of a coach, ex-Manchester City academy coach. I've worked for a private football company for the past seven years. and I want to do this because I want to help myself so that I can help other people. I've realised that I've always had a big dream and I've never really figured out what my big dream was but I feel like I have a lot of experience and I know how to work with kids and I know how to work with people so I want to open up my own.

9:44Got it. What's stopping you?

9:49The finance, the funding. Everything. How much do you need? How much do I need? If I'm going to be totally honest, around 15 to 20k, that's what I would need. How old are you? I'm 22. 22. And what do you do for a living right now? Right now, I'm still a football coach. I work full-time at Manchester City. Right. You work for a football club right now? Yeah. coaching and you're coaching professional players yeah i work with kids i work with children okay so you work or how does how does the monetization work at the football club how do you how does the football club make money to pay for you so i work i work um at manchester city and i work with the with the under nines academy um so i coach them and then i work for a private a football company on the side, which we do group sessions, one-to-ones, technical sessions.

10:52That's mainly how I make my income. Okay. And why do you want to move to Dubai and do this? What's the reasoning? I feel like... Why Dubai? Because I feel like... I feel like... I want to bring UK-style academy coaching into Dubai. Okay, but why Dubai? You've got a connection now? The reason... Okay, no. The reason why I want to go to Dubai because I feel like I want to help the kids in Dubai to feel like, you know, I feel like Dubai is a very rich place and everything's kind of settled there. A lot of kids, you know, they live with parents that have a lot of money. So I want to go there to help the children in Dubai, let them know that even though their parents have all these money, they still have a purpose and they still have a goal that they can achieve without their parents.

11:45through football. So I want to teach them life. Okay. So I'm opening up a business in Dubai. Okay. But I built the initial framework because I'm living in England. I built the initial framework in England. So you're here, you're in England. I think it's great to want an international business. I kind of worry a little bit that you're thinking too much about the money. Okay. Okay. I guess at 22, you think you need money. Let me tell you someone who was once 22, you have the chance right now to take the most amount of risk at this stage in your life. Do you have kids? No. Okay. You have this stage in your life is the chance to take risk.

12:29And you don't realize it because when I was 22, I didn't realize it. But you're thinking about like where the money is and how to get money. and i think this is because there's too many gurus online all talking about chase the money make the money you know blah blah blah don't don't think about the money think about how you can make a difference in someone's life and i think with your football academy training what would i do if i was you i would literally like take a football ground that isn't being used i mean weekends and stuff local football you're living um where are you living it came up I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure there is a football pitch that isn't used on a Wednesday afternoon or a football pitch that isn't used on a Sunday afternoon or a Sunday morning or something right and and I would just start like doing an open day where people can come with their kids and get training from you who you know get paid to do this for a living by a big football club and I just build up a bit of a fan base for you and your brand and I and I wouldn't rush on the money side i think um what's the rush why not just build something where you're bringing value to the world right now it might sound like i started my first business at 15 years old was a was a gardening company doesn't sound very glamorous does it and i built it up and then i built the next business up and the next business up i kind of feel like you need to get your feet wet and just try something and i i think that you know my son used to go to a football academy on a sunday it was 50 quid a month and it was all right it was all right but i'm saying that there's loads of people loads of parents that will pay for their kids to have a little bit of training but i kind of feel like you could start off with not needing to rush into the money piece and figure out how you can build a community around what you want to train i see youtube videos i see social media content around it as well where you can train globally from social media right a lot of the things you must have learned and know you can put on social media why does it have to be for the elite why is it only for the people with money why not branch out a little bit did you come from money?

14:32No, I haven't come from money no No, so you know what it's like to try and want to play something when you haven't got money why don't you service something you know instead of something you don't know? Yeah And I think that you know it might be where your dream lives and we've got a bit sidetracked with this chase for money chase for money vibe don't worry about it go after building something you enjoy doing do you enjoy teaching kids to play football? Yes, I do enjoy it, yeah then why don't you teach the younger youth whose family couldn't afford it and just see if you can be a scout figure out what it is you'd like about the training build a bit of a social media presence have some fun for 12 months just building something without money being the priority i'm not saying don't make money by the way i think you should make money absolutely you will but if you follow your passions and do it well and bring value to people money will come unfortunately people do it the other way around way too often they're like i want money how can i make money give me 15 grand investment and then send me to dubai and let me go and make money from rich people you're gonna fall blah blah blah money money money no build something you love build something that you enjoy doing and then figure out how to monetize it over time because you're not in a rush to make money i don't think you need to rush you've got a job you've got two you're two jobs now i don't think the future of anyone's life is working for someone else because it's not scalable and one day they can just fire you so you definitely got to start thinking about building something for yourself of course but i don't think you need to rush it and i would personally start off with going back to like your roots and helping the younger you and i wouldn't chase the money maybe later you can get these rich people to sponsor people that can't afford to have training you can create like a sponsorship academy right but just go step by step and just go back to your roots a bit.

16:20Yeah. You're right, 100%. Your dream lives there, man. I can sense it. So just touch the grass a bit and remember where you came from. But thank you for ringing in. Let me know how you get on. Thank you very much. Cool. Right. I say our sponsor, High Level. I feel like that was a high level thinking right there, wasn't it? We've got exactly the right sponsor for this podcast. High Level is the right name for what we're trying to think about here. I basically want people to think high level. I want you to come out of this, I've got to make money trenches and think more about like, what will I enjoy doing?

16:56What would I do with no money? What would be the thing if I did it today that would make me feel good? I love helping people with their dreams. I don't think about how much money I can make. I never thought about how much money I can make from helping people with their dreams. Exactly the opposite. When I first made money on TikTok live, helping people with their dreams, I gave that money away by asking someone, what is their dream and that video did really well and i grew and grew and grew so every time i ever made money i wanted to figure out a way to get that money back to the community that have supported me to get where i am today and so i want people to think high level so when i got high level the crm partner as my sponsor i'm like that is the perfect brand not only they're a great product but they really help us all hopefully remind us all to think high level think big so we have some questions sent in from the audience yeah we have some questions from our audience new technology guys jay's now speaking to me so we have questions from gil back from bangkok gil is launching it's two linked passions one is a national swimming initiative for kids in thailand and the other is a docuseries exploring these 77 provinces of Thailand.

18:12She wants to know, how do I connect directly with aligned sponsors and high-level decision makers when I don't have a network or the funding to get into the room?

18:28Okay. So, right, getting sponsors. Basically, that's the question. How do I get a sponsor? And I think people approach this the wrong way. Your question shouldn't be, how do I get a sponsor to support what I'm doing? Your question should be, how can I bring value to a sponsor? so for example i launched a initiative about a year and a half ago where we put a ring doorbell at the bottom of our staircase and we said to people if you've got a dream you can go to this staircase ring the doorbell and pitch your dream and then we'll edit it and put it up on our socials to promote your dream and so the best product for that initiative was the product called ring which is owned by Amazon.

19:14And so we didn't go to Amazon and say, hi, we're going to do this thing. Would you like to sponsor it? We simply installed it all and started doing it. And then Ring noticed it. And so Ring sponsored it because they noticed it. And it wasn't us pitching. So that's one way to go about it. One way to go about it is just to do the thing you're going to do and include the sponsor you want to work with. Okay. The second way is how we got this podcast sponsored is we, we identified companies that we felt were aligned with our values. We identified companies that we felt if they sponsored this show, then they would be able to bring value to our audience and provide services and products that would help our ambition of helping people live their dream, live their dream.

20:07So we then basically approached them with a very succinct message. We said, this podcast, Simon says, will eventually be one of the biggest podcasts in the world where we will help people follow their dream. And just by encouraging people to follow their dream, that should lead to more customers for them over the long run. So are they into the same thing that we're into? Do they care about helping people start a business. And so we wrote to 15 companies instantly, one wrote back, high level, a CRM business that we're working with, I keep mentioning. And they said, yes. And honestly, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

20:46We pitched them what we're doing and they say, yes. Now, I know when you're listening to this, you might be thinking, well, Simon, you've got a lot of followers and you've got a big social media platform. So that's why. And there is some truth to that. There is some truth to that. But people and brands, particularly people in brands, they do buy potential. You have to believe in yourself to convince these people to believe in you. But you do need to follow a process. So very quickly, the final thing I'll say here is try the two different ways. Just go ahead and install the brand you believe in and include them in your content and see if you can get traction.

21:22Second way is approach the companies you really believe in, the ones that you really think are aligned with your values and approach them and try your luck. But sometimes it is just a question of like projecting what you're going to become and letting them know that. So this podcast hadn't even gone live yet when High Level, the CRM partner sponsored it. I mean, they didn't even know whether it was going to be big. We told them we're going to make it big and back us and they did. You have to believe in yourself. I'm getting a theme in today's show already. You're a second person now. I feel like in a way you're listing all the things you haven't got.

21:58You don't have a network. You don't have this. You don't have that. But you don't, you have you and you have your idea and you have your belief and you have access to helpbank.com and LinkedIn and these platforms where these contacts sit for free for you to reach them. So all you need to do is make the effort and stop looking at what you haven't got and start realizing what you have got and take advantage of it. Fight. It's never going to be easy to get a sponsor board but fight and it will happen okay another question from the audience okay that's it

22:41jason wants to create a collectible fashion forward luxury shin pad brand something totally new but he's starting from zero his question is should i trademark before launching or wait and how can i raise the money to begin okay

23:06so i i always think again if you if you look at successful businesses jason that have done well they tend to have started small and scaled up over time so i always use like gym shark as a good example ben francis the founder of gymshark he was working at pizza hut and saved a bit of money and started making t-shirts printing them and then selling one and then making one selling it printing it and selling one sometimes in this race to like be this big brand we forget that it's a step-by-step process so i would make one shin pad i would get one sample made and then i'd probably go and try and get it signed by a famous football club.

23:51I'd go to a football club. I'd hustle. I'd get someone famous in the football world to sign it. And then I would sell it on eBay or I would sell it on a platform. And I think, you know, the way to think about this is, you know, you want to test the market for your product and getting one customer is a great way to test it because how much will that customer pay so i would take that one signed shin plate and i would walk into the street with a with my phone point of view record it and i'd go up to someone hey um how much do you think this is worth and someone could say 10 quid i'm like okay um it's signed by some famous footballer now how much do you think it's worth and they might go i hate that team it's worth nothing or they might go that's my favorite team and my favorite player tell me what you want for it.

24:42I think it's kind of interesting content. The content can make you money and you can do market research on whether people would pay for something. You can find out how much people would pay for it. And you can start to build up your social media. You can start to build up your brand. And, you know, I think people aren't thinking about this enough. And so, yeah, I guess for me, like people always have watched too much Dragons Den and they think it's about raising money and then going to market. Sometimes it's about just making one and going to market and see what the market says. Raising money can trap you.

25:17As soon as you raise money, you might have a boss. So be a little bit careful about the whole raise money, dragon's den thing. You don't want a new boss. You want to build something you love and you want to build it your way. And you want to figure out what the market needs to get market fit. If you get market fit, then investors will be chasing you. Okay, guys, we have another caller. Daniel, are you there? Yeah. Hey, Simon. Thanks for being here. No problem. Let's kick off. Tell me, how much have you got in your bank? I'm a communication specialist and body language specialist. I want to help people to communicate better, to share their ideas, to not be ashamed to talk to anyone.

25:59Sorry about my English. But I have a big community on social media, but I don't know how to monetize and scale my business. okay just stepping back Daniel how much money have you got on your bank account uh now like ten thousand dollars ten thousand dollars okay the money is not it's not a it's not a problem now for me okay so what why the rush to monetize your community then sometimes again like if you think about you must be involved in communities sometimes rushing the monetization can hurt the community so you look at instagram for example these platforms they didn't monetize for years and years they they didn't rush and you must be making money elsewhere you must be you know you must be okay because you've got some savings and like you just said money's not the rush so we can come i can talk to you about how to monetize the community but just before we go there what's the rush because i want to get more freedom to grow my project and leave my full-time job.

27:04I work with politicians most and I want to get out from there. Okay. Well, thanks for your honesty. Okay. So, all right. Well, that's slightly a different thing, can I just say. So, okay. What value do you bring your community right now? Give it to me in a sentence. To get better relations and to not be ashamed to show who they are and to talk to anyone. I think people are really scared to talk and to share their ideas or their projects. And I have the experience to teach the people to do that. Sorry for my English. I'm nervous now. Oh, no problem. No problem. Okay, look, I always think with communities, there's a few different ways to monetize.

27:54Okay? Yeah. So the first is, like, you can say to your community, i want to leave my job and do this full time and um what would you guys be willing to pay a monthly fee to support me to do that if you do so if you do pay a monthly fee how many members in your community like three thousand hundred okay three hundred thousand three hundred thousand okay if if you know if you say look if if just you know a thousand of you pay five dollars then i can i can full-time focus on this uh platform now if if if a thousand of you give me five dollars a month i'm assuming your cost five thousand a month us would cover you right yeah i don't know but i'm guessing right so then then i think okay um then what extra value are you going to bring them so so me community is about what value you can bring your community so what extra because you'll be full-time what can you do to help that community now this this value can come in you can help them make five dollars right so they're all more confident if body language is better maybe they can make they can make five dollars a month by you doing your job better right yeah but um but equally it might be that you you can organize activities where them as a subscriber they get that included in the five dollars right yeah now it's worth you know looking at this um 300 000 members is a healthy number you should be able to get you know one percent to back you of some sort if there's not a thousand true fans in there that are willing to pay five dollars then you probably got a value problem anyway okay probably is if Now, that's one way.

29:50The other way to do it is to get a brand on board. So if there's a company that's very aligned with you, what brand could you align with? Does anyone stand out? A company that you could potentially work with? I think the marketing brand here and some influencer agents. yeah i i'm thinking more like you know uh nike it's probably not the right one but like brands that inspire people but you you what brand can you work with that's maybe not your competitor they're not the influencer agency world to me is a bit they may pay you to help their influencers if that's what you mean that that's more like a service agreement right so they may pay you a fee to help their influencers right that's what you mean right yeah no i'm talking about something else i'm talking about a brand sponsor so um a drinks company for example there might be a drink that you think you know gives people higher energy or helps people like right now i'm not sponsored by them but i'm a big fan of trip so i'm drinking they don't spot they don't sponsor me i just i just like the product what i'm explaining to you is you know like what why you know what brand would align with you and honestly again five thousand us dollars a month for a brand to sponsor you and reach 300 000 customers and join you in your journey very possible you've actually done the groundwork of building the foundation now you need to use frankly probably my sponsor again like to go out and get all these brands on board so make a list of 50 companies they could be clothing brands drinks brands audible equipment manufacturers whoever it is right list out those 50 companies that you believe could bring value to your audience and maybe aligned with your mission and then literally put them in a crm system like high level and start contacting them regularly connect with them find out who the right contact is through systems like linkedin as well and and just get you only need 1 000 people to pay you five dollars or one brand to pay you$5 ,000 or you can sell a service, get 10 clients to pay you$500 and you're free.

32:10You're so close to freedom. You're so close. You just need to implement a system that's going to help you get there. Okay. Okay. I'll do that. You understand the three ways? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clear? Clear. Yeah, yeah. Call me in three weeks. I want to know if you did this. Call me back in three weeks. Don't wait. Okay. Anytime. I know that. I know they're my sponsor. I'm going to say it again because I actually really believe in this product. There's a link in my bio down here. You can get a 30-day free trial of high-level, this CRM program, because actually I think it's going to help you.

32:41You put all the brands in there that you want to reach. You put your community contact in there so you can reach out to all of them. Use a system, a CRM system, to help you track this sales. And then call me back in three weeks and let me know you've got one client or a thousand people said yes. I want to know. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you. And I want to be there when you quit. So I also want to be there when you quit, all right? When you've got the foundation of your income system sorted and you're financially okay, then the next step is quit. So get it done, okay? Okay, great. Thank you. Go, go, go.

33:18Yeah, I look forward to it, Daniel. Thanks for calling in. Okay, I want to show you a clip. It's from an entrepreneur and investor, Naval. I think you guys all know him. He's probably one of my favorite, I guess, entrepreneur content creators.

33:36And we don't need to keep our dreams a secret. Let's have a little listen to the clip, see what you guys think. You can always recognize the first timers because they're too secretive. And you can always recognize the experienced ones because they don't care. Once you've done these a few times, you realize how much execution difficulty and risk there is and how hard it is to get people to listen to you and believe you. Eventually, you end up shouting your idea from the rooftops just in the hope that somebody will actually use the product. So you end up with the opposite problem. And if you do have one of those extremely rare ideas that if it is revealed and somebody else figures it out that it will lose all its value, then it's not something you can execute on as a business.

34:13It's not a real idea. Just the knowledge that Naval drops, it blows my mind. Other than my own personal YouTube video where I share all my business knowledge, there is a video by Naval that you should watch talking about what he knows in business. And it's so good. Listen, if you have a business idea and you think it's special, I've got sad news for you. It's not. Ideas are valueless. Execution has value. Ideas do not. Most first-time founders, you might be one of these people with an idea and you're holding onto it too tight it it's not the way to build a business now there's some caveats to this of course if it's a a certain you know let's say design that you maybe need to protect then sure get get it protected but do not hold back your dream in your head the only way to make anything real is take it out of your head use your words and your mouth and a pen write it down tell everybody about your idea and and i promise you like right now on my live streams i've got about 2 800 people listening if i shared an idea right now that i know is a billion dollar idea i promise you only one person on this live would have the ability to do it the inclination to do it and the time to do it and will they do it near zero chance.

35:50Now, even if they do, good, you've got competition that can spur you on. You need competition to get you to do it. And the irony is the 2 ,800 people listening are more likely to help you do it if you shared it than just you trying to do it on your own. So share your ideas, folks. Don't hold back. Tell everybody. You can bring up the company you think is going to buy this idea one day and you don't want them to know about it because you want to build it first, tell them your idea and they probably won't do it. I'm 100 % sure they won't do it. They've got other priorities. They're focused on other things.

36:27Their planning is 12 months ahead. Do not think people are going to copy your idea. Execute and you'll see. Again, a million examples of this in history of business. Facebook was not an original idea. It was a copy of MySpace. MySpace was a copy of Friendster. You know, these ideas are not original. TikTok is a copy of Vine. Nothing is original. And I'm old enough to know that. So please don't hold on to your idea like it's special. Get it out there in the world. Right. The scenario that someone has sent in on comments, Amit has said, he's in Melbourne, and he has said, uh i want he wants to grow a business to give his family a better life okay it's good reason to build a business he's barely scraping by and needs a break question for simon i've got drive but no money what's the first real step someone like me can take okay when you say you've got drive are you sure because i i think people need to not just want it they need to need it.

37:31Do you really need it? This is why I love investing in people who need it, not just want it. And needing it means that there is no choice but to make it work. Now, a challenge to you listening now is how far are you willing to go to make it work? And so, for example, if I said to you to build the world's most successful entrepreneur network, Let's say that was your dream, helping people with their dreams. That's my dream, right? Let's say your dream and my dream was the same thing. Would you today be willing to go and take care of five people's gardens and dig up their weeds and make the grass nice, make the trees nice?