Why Most Charities Fail – And What to Do Instead

0:00with sponsors like high level i'm able to fund people's dreams build platforms like helpbank.com to help you help people and help you get the help you need and to produce programs like this that hopefully bring you value and answer the questions you have. So our first caller today is Alex. Alex, what's your dream? Hi, Simon. Yes, my dream is to grow my community interest company Generation Soil and doing that to get everybody obsessed with soil and to normalise composting. I never knew I needed to be obsessed with soil. Now I'm feeling it. So tell me, what's your question? How can I help? Yes, we are currently a community interest company.

0:43So straddling the line between a for profit business and a charity. We are sort of struggling along with grant funding. Would it be beneficial to transition to a private limited company to scale the business? this is a great question it's actually quite a complex answer i think i i have a personal belief it doesn't mean i'm right but i have a personal belief that the charity model is a little bit broken there's a lot of restrictions around the charity model so if you want to pay your people really well you get told off almost if that's not not allowed i think that making profit is almost like a naughty thing somehow you know within a charity model and i think that that whole structure, the governance structure of charities restrict businesses from going all the way.

1:30That's my personal belief. I think for-profit businesses that do good don't need the CIC badge. If you are genuine about wanting to help people and you're transparent in your accounts, you can make money as a normal business, pay people well, spend money on crazy. I bought a staircase, for example. There's no way under a CIC structure people would be very happy with that, right? But I'm not a charity. I'm a business that makes profit and I use my profit to do good. So I really love that but it depends is the present grants that you're getting they might be charity buckets right so if you're not a CIC you won't get those those bits of income I don't want to take money from those buckets of income but maybe you need it I don't know do you need it um where we we set up our new project in December last year and we've grown um I think about 800 since then um so it's going very well but because it's such early days um we are really bootstrapping it along um and investment would significantly speed up our progress so yeah it's a tricky one it's hard for investors it's hard for investors to invest in this eic yeah it makes it makes it very difficult because they don't i mean as much as people might not like rich people you know i i I think rich people do actually want to invest in things that are good.

2:48But if they put money into a company's investment model, there's lots more people that can afford to do that than just invest in a charity. But they need a return. And, of course, in the CIC model, that makes it a little bit difficult because you're literally taking profit out of the charity, right, as it were. So, I mean, again, it depends on the investors. There will be investors that will perhaps still invest in a charity organization. I just I guess this is why open AI had to move away from being a not for profit and became a profit for profit business. People don't understand why open AI had to do that.

3:22But it doesn't allow you to really scale and invest if you always run as a not for profit. So it's quite common now, especially with things like open AI being very public about needing to move from being a charity or a not for profit to a business. yes um it's actually important i don't know what happens if you lose all your kind of charity grants how how uh would that be a big problem or you think you can make it up elsewhere uh luckily i'm doing a phd alongside this which is paying me um what you're being paid to do a phd yes i've never heard of that before you're being paid to do a phd tell me how that works um so we get a stipend the government want a load of research into the food system and i'm one of 50 odd researchers looking into it for them right well that's cool but you get that regardless if you're a private company you still get that revenue yeah yeah so at the moment we don't have any grant funding so we are there you go i don't think you need it uh with my phd salary you see sometimes the cic i know why people do it it feels more you know more authentic right because you can say to people we're a cic which kind of seems to like make people realize you're doing good but if you're actually doing good you don't need that badge you know what i mean it's like the b corp thing like if you're actually doing good you don't need these badges i think they're kind of a distraction so i i really and i really feel like you know companies these days like if you i guess another income stream for you is sponsors right people that sponsor what you're doing is that what are your other income streams tell me quickly um so the moment we make uh most of our money from running food education workshops in bristol and we make the next biggest chunk from uh memberships we've got a membership model where we uh collect people's food waste compost it and return the compost back to them um so those are our two main income streams and we're about to open a two acre food forest market garden so we're looking to do corporate days and that sort of stuff up there while producing food it's got to be great before and after videos you can do as well like content can make you money in this space i'm pretty sure yeah i'm i'm just in the early days of trying to get our youtube up and running um i'd love to devote all of my time to this and put the phd on pause but there's a lot of big life decision to make yeah which well look that's always the case when building something i'm making life decisions as well like my son is eight years old he's out in the garden playing without me right now while i sit here trying to help you and people listening you know life decisions that's part of it but i think you're the ins and outs but i just sense it i would say you know you've got to start adding layers of income streams to your platform i think the cic is is a waste of time i think you should just be a limited company but again like everyone's different i just i don't see it really adding value to you because i don't think you need it and it might restrict you that that's my feeling about it but look uh everyone has a different vibe on this one but as you've asked me i would suggest you move to a limited company and just be a for-profit business that does good with the profit but build up your income streams and again like you get getting the workshops that's great i think you could get sponsors there's probably i'm trying to think like garden centers or i don't know the right ones are but like companies that would sponsor what you're doing and support you that would be a good one say say again who who evo yeah yeah perfect i'm a big fan of you exactly uh wait perfect anybody's doing regenerative food let me tell you quite interesting with brands if you go in as a cic they have a completely different department from a sponsorship point of view to if you just go in there as a company looking for a sponsor it's actually easier to just get you company to sponsor you if you're not a cic because if you're a charity bucket they have to put it through a different department and most of the time they already have another charity they're supporting so actually most of the time they can say i'm sorry we can't support your charity we're already supporting someone else whereas if you just go to the general marketing department they always have budget to do stuff so it's another reason i think that the charity bucket will perhaps restrict you because i see i see brand sponsorship as a revenue opportunity for you i i do see social media i mean one of the biggest youtube channels is a guy harvesting wheat and people just have to watch it you know weaving around and harvesting the wheat and so it's got hundreds of millions of views so i see you being able to do something in that space again i might be wrong but um you know introducing a worm to the generative soil you've created i don't know but i just i just see all sorts of fun stuff potentially there um so i would move to a limited model yeah no that's really interesting and uh thank you so much for your time in uh answering my question that's uh fantastic you bet i'm i'm following you now so i look forward to seeing some entertaining content and keep doing what you're doing there will be plenty more thank you very much simon have a good one thank you speak soon guys if you want to support us then please follow us on spotify and youtube it doesn't cost you anything and it helps us monetize this podcast because we're using the revenue we generate from this podcast to fund people's dreams and to allow us to invest in products like helpbank.com and make it good so that you can get help if you need it for free and you can go on there and help someone today if you want to oxytocin hit and you want to help someone you want to feel good want to give back, you can press a button, go on Help Bank and help people.

9:04So by you subscribing to us on YouTube or clicking that follow button on Spotify, you make a huge difference to us. And just a quick shout out one more time for High Level, our sponsor. They're a CRM program. Thanks to them, this podcast is already profitable. And with that profit, we're able to help so many people. But they are a product I believe in. I actually use High Level myself. They're a CRM program that help you manage all your contacts, help you reach out to people with call tracking, manage what you're actually getting through to people when you're not. Sales is the key to making any business work.

9:40So please go check out High Level and there's a link here for your 33-day trial on that platform. It's free. Try it. See if I'm right. I'm not often wrong when it comes to anything business-wise. So I wouldn't promote something I didn't think could help you. And it's a 30-day free trials so go check it out right um if you don't know your dream i reckon i can figure out your dream in two minutes and if i'm wrong i'll give you a hundred pounds so if you think you don't have a dream then sign up link in my bio and we'll bring you on and i'll try and help you with your dream or you can whatsapp us with and say i don't have a dream and we'll bring you up on the show and try to help you equally you can whatsapp us with your dream and your question and we'll also try to help you.

10:23So the next caller, and I'm definitely going to say the name wrong, but I'm going to try my best. Rohan. Rohan, what's your dream? Hi, good evening. So my dream is to make an accountancy bookkeeping firm for the UK clients. So currently I do have a firm which serves the Gulf countries. so i'm looking to win over uk clients over here and that's my dream okay so you called in to get some clients basically i love i love the cheekiness of it you've got a bookkeeping company and you want some clients that might be listening in right i love simple and also any advice how can i get the yeah how can i get the contracts because i've been trying to call emailing them and honestly no one replies back so well that's sales for you yes and by the way i would say i would say are you an accountant so i work as a finance analyst currently and i have a team of 10 to 15 ca's and i'm also my mom also works with me so this is a venture with my mom family business yeah okay but look sales is a very important thing for you to learn okay so when you say you've reached out to someone they haven't got back to you.

11:46What I hear is you haven't reached out to them enough or your message isn't compelling enough, right? If you wrote a message and saying, I can save you 50 % on your accounts cost or Simon Scrib uses my service and let me know if I can help you. You need to improve your sales messaging. Again, I'm saying this not because of my sponsor. It's actually a really good product. You should try out high level yourself. There's a link down below for a 30 day trial. There's a CRM program. I see so many people make a mistake where they don't follow up carefully when they send out a message. They send an email and then maybe they remember a week later to send out another one and they forget when to follow up and they forget to keep communicating.

12:24Right. And the other thing I'll say to you, by the way, you've also got to think about like what clients you want, because when you're trying to get everybody, you'll probably get nobody. So what type of clients do you actually want? So, for example, I work with an agency before and they only work with purposeful influencers. They're very niche. They focus on a niche is actually a good thing because then you know who to target and there's a reason you're targeting them so if you said i only help people that have purposeful businesses i'd be more interested than i just help anybody that replies to my email you know what i mean yeah i do know what you mean uh so as of now we haven't just targeted specific clients we have i just got the list of companies online on the uk government website and i just flooded with emails but i understand your point uh but what if i say right now that we only target purpose companies is that something i can like start don't copy my idea it has to be meaningful to you you can't just fake it like you got to care because there'll be people that will come to you and say oh we're not purposeful and you just say yes then that whole thing's just bullshit then isn't it so you know make it genuine to you but I guess the other thing is like if you're going in company's house and getting emails from company's house, it's all very generic.

13:40You need to find the people that actually run those companies, not the generic email. So do a bit more research. I think, you know, look, I think accounting in general, people want to have someone they trust. So you're better off with testimonials. The best way to get a client, if you're a good accountant, is your existing client recommending you. Do you have any clients in the UK right now? so currently we serve uh the middle eastern companies we have around 20 companies which we serve then we do the account i got it i got it do any what i'm saying to you so you've got no just say no you've got no clients in the uk just be straight up about it right yeah so no you've got no clients in the uk just say that yeah but that's that what you want is one client in the uk who then so happy they tell other people about you right now i don't know you i'm going to hand you over all my financial information and i don't know you and i don't know anyone that's using you that's your problem so i don't know about your clients in uae and so on but do they have an office in the uk and can they transfer it so you get uk business and then you can say we're working for x y company or even better that company then tells other people about you that's the way to get uk clients okay that's a good insight uh so as you are well as a not as a not enough client and we don't have the companies who have offices in the uk but uh when we when we are trying to tap in the uk market there are lots of regulations and the certificates you want so we have all those things according to the government we are we are a company who can take uk data we understand i've got it i've got it i've got to move on to the next call i'm sorry i'm a bit behind today i've got it I get it.

15:25Well pitched on my channel for your service. But I can't recommend you because I've never used you. I don't know if what you've said there is true. But marketing wise, get one client, look after them really well, and then ask them to recommend you. That's your path into the UK. All right. Okay, that's fine. Thank you so much for having me. Nice to meet you. Thank you for calling in. Our next caller is Elish Clark. Did I say Elish right? Elish, what's your dream? Hi, it's Elish. So my dream is to design and make an antenatal class that is focused around mental health for men and women, essentially, because I can't find anything that exists.

16:12and I've already kind of designed the class somewhat and set up all aspects of the business, but I don't know how to market it. I can't, how do you market to someone who doesn't know that they need the service until after they've needed it? If that makes sense. So describe to me your potential client a little bit, because I mean, I had a baby. Tell me how you identify the client. Who are they? so basically anyone that's pregnant um anyone that's just had a baby um essentially if you if you've had a child as in you're the dad you've had a child that person who's birthed that child for you is going to biologically go through changes that can't be helped but within society it's just normalized and it's just said oh oh yeah like oh she's going a bit mad you know it's the hormones you know that it's normalized but it it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be normal it's not normal what we go through it's so difficult it's so hard and I think that we could avoid a lot of those a lot of trauma within women after giving birth and a lot of those really difficult emotions if our partners were educated around it so I have three young babies which is one of the big it is a stumble it is an issue for me at the minute to try and put a lot of time into this because I do have three young babies but when I had my first child I had really because I am a nurse and a CVT therapist I had prepped my husband as I believed and then when it came down to it he wasn't really prepped he really didn't know what to do he he didn't do he didn't contact anyone that we had discussed contacting if I wasn't feeling good and when I asked him about it now he just said well how was I to know I thought this was normal because that's really what is out there that it is normal you know that you will be more emotional that you may feel a bit detached but that that isn't normal it's not normal I get it okay so first of all very important service I had a child I know exactly what you're talking about it was kind of normalized you're right and it shouldn't have been I went through a similar process I know exactly what you mean so there's kind of two marketing strategies that pop into my head when I hear you the first is a long-term one write a book i couldn't i can't believe the power of books i mean i wrote a book called what's your dream but it's blowing my mind how many people love this book read this book help people write a book that's a long-term strategy but that's one way i think people do buy a lot of books around baby time people do buy books i think i've still got half of them um do you have a book or you want to say i feel like you're i have i've started writing an e-book just a short kind of this is what i thought was probably best to do like a short a short kind of brief and then at the end kind of like if you need more information our services are here great if you know what i mean yes 100 but a book is for me when i was having a baby my wife bought every single book there is about it and so if there's a free resource and you've got to title it correctly right the things you need to know that people don't talk about you know something like that right that's one part the other part is i really like the way you talk about this you're very you're kind of very authentic and very real do you do social media right now no and i i know i have to get over the fear of feeling understood and you know yeah and one of them is at the time as well and no one had to excuse yeah no time no i know okay yes it is an excuse yeah yeah yeah time's an excuse and that's okay you know you can do it while hiding holding i just did a video of holding my son you know like yeah that's true i just i think i think okay but time is a good one but it's not the real reason i think the way to look at it if i can put it this way um or i don't know the numbers but i know a lot of people fall into serious depression and there's even suicide around the subject you're talking about so the way i would put it to you and this is going to be a bit hardcore if you don't do it someone dies if you if you don't push through the cringe if you don't push through the cringe and make a video that can help someone today someone potentially could die don't be selfish selfish don't not make that video right that's the way you have to think because it's actually true you can make you can make a tip video today that if someone watches it it could literally save their life right and help them get through this time the tough time they may be having so don't be selfish it's not about you you've got a talent you've got an insight you know there's a problem put that content out stop mucking around yeah that's so fair okay

20:53i'll do it all right i'll start doing it yeah i'm gonna promise i yeah i have a i have a little instagram and i've made a tiktok title and everything and i i am gonna start putting things out there it's just i'm on maternity leave so i'm not allowed to really advertise until i can get a return just go on there and share knowledge every day it's not an advertisement You want to help them. They can't stop you. No contract will stop you sharing what you've learned. Go post every day. I'm going to follow you. And you start posting tomorrow. Just put the phone up in front of you. Share something you know and upload it.

21:30Don't think twice. Next day, put a video, a phone in front of you. Say so, and upload it. I'm going to follow you. If you do not put up a video every single day for the next 30 days, I'm going to block you. Okay. Never contact me again. All right? Thank you so much. Your video tomorrow could save a life. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'll do it. Thank you. Okay, great. Okay, so next up, I set a challenge at the beginning of the podcast today. If you don't know your dream, I'm going to help you find it. I reckon I can do it in under two minutes. And if I can't do it, I'm going to give you£100. So have you got a dream?

22:13If you have, you can ring in and tell us it. Tell me the problem you have or question you have and we'll try to help you and promote you and all of those things. But if you don't have a dream, you can also call in and we'll try to help you make it happen. Right. The person who doesn't think they've got a dream has just come on and it's Chloe Moss. Chloe, if I don't figure out your dream in two minutes, I'm going to give you£100. Tell us a little bit about you first before I try to help you. hello um i'm chloe at the moment i am an account manager project manager at um a web design company um i'm a mum of one um on maternity leave currently um and i guess a bit all over the place because you know with child care costs and stuff like that i just don't really know what to do moving forward um so yeah all right okay i'm actually sensing this might be a big challenge but here we go i'm going to set the timer okay okay there we go ready steady go tell me the most painful thing that's ever happened to you in your life the most painful thing oh i feel like we're getting very deep already um i think probably my dad's not my dad not being around okay and and very personal and don't feel you have to answer this but and what happened um he was just absent um he's well he we found out that he basically had bipolar so just very absent from my life from about the age of eight or nine okay and are you with your partner today for your your child yes yes I've got a lovely black my breasts at the moment at the moment you sound like it's dead really no I should have said that at the moment he's definitely listening at the moment of the moment of the moment and and so um so so you you probably learned something or bipolar is a whole different thing but you learned how important it is to have a dad around right so now you've kind of made sure you've got the right partner in in your life um and you say you're a project manager right now because sometimes your dream is a little bit buried in what you're already doing so there's a liniment of like you really like to help make things happen you like helping organizing a little bit right so let me ask you do you need to earn a lot of money right now um I wouldn't say that I need to earn a ridiculous amount of money but I would like to earn enough money that we're stable and we kind of had to have a good life we don't really need to you know want for things basic things but not i don't need to be a multi-millionaire if that's what you're asking yeah just checking what your financial needs are because i i basically what i see and i've got eight seconds left let's see if i'm right i see you have clearly figured out how to pick the right partner so that what happened to you as a child doesn't happen to you again um i think there's something in that i think that's a that's a thing you figured out you went through a painful experience and of course bipolar mental health that's all part of it but i think that you you don't want other families to have to go through that where they have absent parents it doesn't have just to be men i don't think it's an absent parent in general right i think there's something in that for you you could help people figure out probably for a project management system how to make sure through you know dating that they get the right partner in life that they don't end up having a child and then the child doesn't have a parent uh around there's something in that for me for you anyway I don't know if I'm right otherwise if I'm nowhere near what you think if you're not feeling anything there then I owe you 100 pounds no do you know what it sounds quite interesting because I like have done care job before I even though I like I'm in project management now I'm a bit of a all over the place kind of girl take it go where life leads me um and I really did enjoy that and I enjoyed the connection that I got with people so to be honest that actually could be a really good route and something that I've never really thought about before.

26:28How long's your paternity leave? Um so I'm due to go back in October which is only a couple of months now. Oh it's soon it's so soon. Yeah I know. I kind of I think, you know, I honestly believe that the wrong person in your life, the wrong partner in your life, it destroys everything. If you don't pick the right partner really carefully, I think I'm successful today because of my wife. I can pretty much pinpoint it. If she hadn't supported me in the early years, if she hadn't let me do crazy things and take risk with my money and hers, by the way, I don't think I'd be here today. So that partner literally is the key to happiness.

27:11and I think you figured it out I think there's a formula there and I reckon I tell you what I just think it's a priceless service as well if you could be the person that people kind of I don't know they present their partner to you and you give them a breakdown have you checked all these boxes have you checked this have you checked that you know and it might sound a bit bit um clinical but like their past their history other relations get references from their past relationship you know like I see a whole service that no one does right there and I think you'd be perfect for it because you know the pain of kind of the wrong experience right yeah and it's it's funny because you have to work through so much to actually come to a place where you can find a sober partner when you've had a childhood that's not been that great because of a parent and yeah I don't know where it would start but it sounds very interesting I would I mean you could go on tinder and probably ping people and say you know you're on tinder you're looking for the right person i can help you find the right person i just an extra 10 pounds a month you know on your subscription and i'll give you i'll give you a cheat code to check that these tinder dates are the right people to spend time with because i know so many people that end up in relationships by mistake and next thing you know they're having a kid and you know next thing they know oh my god this is not the partner for me um so i i think there's a this you you should think about this there's something in it for you it really drive you um it might take a bit of time to make money but again i say that i i know people that will pay a lot of money to make sure they don't get the wrong partner they just need someone and you're you're methodical i think i think you could come up with a system to help people check um and again how much is that worth if i spend the next 20 years with the wrong person i tell my whole life it could be destroyed my children's life can be destroyed um so so i think it's a really important service that i've not seen anyone else do yeah it sounds very interesting um and also quite crazy which is quite like me so yeah I'm going to have a tink on that yeah and tell Chris he better help otherwise it will be it's temporary Chris is temporary you know he better help you he better help you otherwise he's out I'll let him know Simon Squibbs said let him know well pleasure thank you today I haven't had to pay out£100 that's good and let me know how you get on okay okay thank you so much Simon I really appreciate it and I love what you do thank you so much chloe i look forward to seeing what you do next take care take care okay so folks if you want to support what we're doing all you have to do is subscribe on youtube it won't cost you anything follow us on spotify it doesn't cost you anything but the more followers we get the more subscribers we get the more we can charge sponsors the more we can charge people to support what we're doing brands charge them to support what we're doing so we can give you knowledge for free, get help for free on helpbank.com, get help for free on this podcast.

30:02So we're funding people's dreams. We've spent over£200 ,000 already in the last few months funding people's dreams. And it's because we have a following. People are willing to sponsor us because we have a following. So if you go and support us, it allows us to continue to scale this help dream machine to the next level. So all you have to do is go click follow or like. It doesn't cost you anything. Okay. We've been doing surveys on Spotify lately to find out how you think, what you need. And we did a survey recently. We asked, we had someone who had 300 ,000 pounds in the bank and she didn't seem ready to invest in herself with that money.

30:47I don't know if you listened to that episode, but it was pretty crazy. So I asked you what you thought of this and what you would do if you had 300 000 pounds saved would you use it to fund your dream how many people do you think said yes and how many people do you think said no percentage wise okay i think we can throw it up on screen and show you yes so we have dreamers following our channel clearly we have dreamers but i really want you guys to go and vote on spotify and let us know how you feel about things like this. I want to understand the psyche of my audience so I can bring you value every single week.

31:25This podcast is weekly. We are live. We're live right now across all social media channels. We want people to get access to knowledge for free because you see, talent is equally distributed, but opportunity isn't. People are not given the knowledge to go after those opportunities, and we want to change that. The purpose of this podcast, us. The purpose of this platform is to teach you business for free, sometimes via someone else's question. If someone else has a question about their dream, then you can learn from that question. On that subject, our next caller is Celeb. Celeb, what's your dream?

32:00Hi, Simon. So I'm the founder of Certified Rubbish, and my dream is to tackle the fly-tipping crisis in the UK.

32:11that was shorter than i thought i was drinking water then that's that's a great short pitch so um flight flight tipping is a big problem i guess tell us a little bit about like how i can help you yeah so um there's a couple of things so the main thing is a lack of education so a lot of people aren't aware that you have to hire someone who's licensed if you hire someone who isn't licensed um you can get fined 600 pounds uh maximum um so a lot of people hire some money to unlicense for a lower fee and then end up getting stung with a 600 pound fine later down the line what's the name of the license in case i do that by accident what's the license the waste carriers license you need and how do we prove it it's like policemen will show you their badge what how do we do a due diligence so it's all it's all online so the environment agency have their own register but we at certified rubbish we have our own register where carriers can claim the listings add contact details so they can actually get hired okay so that's important education but what's your actual problem um so the question i have is so we've seen a decent amount of organic um onboarding but how do i onboard people en masse without spending a fortune on paid advertising yeah you don't want to spend on rubbish paid advertising i had to get rubbish in there i had to try a dad joke of some sort didn't i well look i mean paid advertising i'm not a fan of paid advertising i think it is a race to the bottom but i will say something if you can spend five pounds on a facebook ad and that leads to a 50 pound profit uh you know income you know it's probably worth looking at that there are quite a few companies that do that and if you can i'm sure you probably got some economics around that if you spend five pounds to acquire a client and then they end up spending 50 with you or whatever with you then that that can actually be a quite a good model however i mean i'm i'm like a lately i'm just uh on repeat with this particular piece of advice social media is the new free tv so what would i do if i was you i'd literally show myself picking up the rubbish and throwing the rubbish away i'd probably go through the rubbish i'd even maybe the other way to go is that i go to where people have uh fly tipped that's the right way to put it and i would go through what i would collect fly tipping rubbish myself anyway so if someone has fly tipped it like right near me by the way there is a place where people just seem to fly tip and it's illegal but people keep doing it it'd be kind of interesting for you to go and do that for free and then see what people are fly tipping that would be very popular content and that content would make you money and that will promote what you're doing and and you'd be like the fly tipping kings because people are like, oh, you're the guy.

34:51Have you seen the pool guy or the twins, the Macca twins that we're helping that go clean places no one else wants to clean? Have you seen that? Yeah. There's basically so many people doing it. I've not seen anyone doing fly tipping, by the way. You could win there. But you have to get off your ass and do it. Don't tell me you're not good at social media because I'm just going to lose it because it's not hard. No. So we won the super team and help bank accelerator not so long ago. Oh, right. Okay. since then i've been doing uh tiktoks uh every day i post on um instagram linkedin facebook all the socials every single day um nice oh great well there you go then you didn't and have you had any hits yet um nothing's gone viral but um we've been able to what is going viral by the way how many views is going viral doing uh well most of my videos sort of peak at like 300 views um but we have just just remember how many 300 people is for free yeah yeah this is going viral thing and by the way you can target it a little bit more right you can like hashtag it to your area you know be a bit more focused on what tag the area you're in you know if you want to get it more local um so you know fine tune it but anyway keep going 300 people see you only need one of them to recommend you to someone and that's worth it isn't it's not costing you anything to put those videos are you putting up on all channels yeah yeah yeah so i put them up on on all channels like i said i've been getting a decent amount of engagement with our target audience so getting the actual waste carriers on board has been relatively easy i think you're doing it wrong as well you will you will get more views if you get better at actually making the videos i'll i'll go check this out afterwards but i reckon you're not doing the videos and well enough yet because i see a before and after are you going through the fly tipping stuff what's being thrown away is she showing what people are throwing away no no so we mainly do like education at the minute okay we'll move into entertainment yeah entertainment education is much more fun i do i do entertaining education right so i'm helping someone with their dream there is education in it by the way like i'm helping people figure out what they're supposed to do but it's entertaining so edutainment you know that you want to blend the two together because people don't want to be taught shit they want to enjoy themselves and you can teach them stuff by accident so maybe think about it that way a bit more okay yeah no thank you Simon I'll put some um some really good educating and exciting videos you won 10 grand in that accelerator with help bank right yeah yeah yeah so we uh we've won ten thousand dollars yeah I would I would take a little bit of cash and I'd put it in the fly tipping I put it in someone's fly tipping and say we put 500 pounds in someone's fly tipping somewhere go find it have like a treasure hunt in fly tipping have some fun yeah yeah I like it that's a really good idea thank you Simon thank you you are welcome that's why i'm one of the best marketers in the world thank you goodbye see you soon our next caller i'm very arrogant aren't i listen to me getting all like egotistical i i actually do love marketing and i i think i love coming up ideas for brands and people to make their dreams a reality so feel free to ask me for marketing ideas from time to time next up is snow what a great name snow what's your dream

38:11hi simon hi i can hear me yeah hi i'm so thank you so much for this time by the way i'm really honored to be a part of this so um i'm snow and i'm a chemical engineer turned an aspiring wellness entrepreneur and my dream is to build the well a global wellness platform helping travelers stay healthy, grounded, and connected. Because travelers struggle with jet lag, disrupted sleep, and staying consistent with the fitness routines and all this stuff. So I'm trying to build an app that blends fitness tracking, travel friendly biohacks, and community support. Think about Strava meets Calm and Hustle World.

39:00So I'm going to start with basically the business travelers who need it the most and then over time i see it expanding to digital nomads athletes and leisure travelers so in this one we can ambitious i love it it's a it's a it's a very needed thing so uh what's the question how can i help yeah so um my question would be what is the smartest way to land my first pilot with a hotel or an airline for validation. I wonder if airlines and hotels are quite difficult to break into. I wonder if it's better off working with a travel influencer. By the way, some background noise. Can you turn off the TV or something?

39:48I'm sorry. I'm in a cafe. Sorry, I'm in a cafe. I can't really hear you very well. but yeah, maybe mute for a second while I just answer your question. I would work with a travel influencer of some sort and maybe even make them a partner in the business. Someone that already has the hotel relationships, already has the airline relationships, and they can layer on top what you're doing, and they can also promote it. That's what I would do. I think sometimes people spend so long thinking they have to build it up themselves, try and break into hotels. Just go work with someone that's already doing it.

40:19And hotels, by the way, and airlines, often they have agents. They have companies that are doing their marketing and partnership stuff. So if you can prove that there's some value in partnering up with you early, like, for example, I know for a fact that Hilton Hotels have invested in some apps. You know, they might be able to get them on board as investors. But I wouldn't wait for those hotel partners to say, yes, I would just start and start proving it has value. They'll chase you down once it starts working. I hope that was useful to you, Snow. I know we've got a bit of background noise, but thank you for calling in today.

40:58Okay, our next caller. And I think I've heard of this before. So, Ryan, what's your dream, Ryan? Yes, I'm a 26-year-old living in Belfast, and I want to open a video lead flow service for local trades in Northern Ireland. It seems to me from living in London and working in Knightsbridge, I worked in a bar in Knightsbridge and had the great fortune of seeing a lot of content creators and just sort of in the wake of COVID. And I noticed when I came back to Belfast that that wasn't really happening on the same scale it was happening on the mainland. So I feel like there's a market there, especially for people who, like my dad's a sole trader.

41:49And there's a lot of businesses that they don't kind of afford that white glove experience. So it's kind of like, I think there's a massive market there for, especially in this AI sort of age, where you can be a bit of a renaissance man, do whatever you want, do multiple things at once. So, I mean, my video skills are good. I work in the Department of Health, like in a senior sort of comms role. and I've worked in video for a long time. So my video skills are decent, but they could improve. My question is, is starting off with free videos to get kind of like leads to go from cold to like lukewarm, is that a good idea?

42:29And what's a good sort of winning offer to start out with to get people on board? I think there is a market gap, by the way. I think you're onto something. and I'm always very honest and blunt with people when I hear ideas because I want to give you the best chance of success and I actually really think that you're onto something. There is a market to help people in this space completely agree with you. I think the, first of all, my agency business that I started called Fluid, which is probably one of my biggest successes, my first client I did the work for free to show them it was possible but I picked a really high profile client.

43:04so I worked with CNN and Fortune magazine and once I did a good job for them they told everybody else they're part of a big network those people in those companies are well connected so I think you can do free but you just want to be really targeted about who you do it for so that if you do it for free then you get recognition afterwards so I don't know your local area but picking a business that people respect or know and if you help them they will tell everybody about you is really powerful. And so I'm just saying, look, I'll do it for free for the first five or whatever, show you what's possible.

43:41And if you're happy, just maybe give us a testimonial. And if you do want to carry on, this will be the fee. But if you don't want to carry on, that's absolutely fine. Something like that, framing up, something like that. I think this sort of thing when you're already doing another job is going to be a bit difficult though. This is going to be initially, I think, hard to build up but once you build it up could be a really good business so i think you need to think carefully about like can you do this part-time um and again i've written a book called what's your dream and in the book i talk about like how you shouldn't just quit your job right of course i'm sure you've got responsibilities and you don't want to just quit your job but you can prepare to build something up so you could if you wanted because having options is important but what do you think about that yeah i have a runway of about seven or eight thousand pounds to do this i mean i'm 26 year old my bills are quite low and um it's the first time i've had a financial runway really and i think that i could afford to do some free work to get the foot in if you know what i mean yeah are you but you're working right now right yeah i'm i'm working in like a government role so it's it's not exactly uh an easy job so don't quit yet don't don't quit yet don't quit yet don't quit yet i think you could try to get one or two clients first before you quit um and you and the more if you could speak to like 50 potential clients now before you quit you have income you don't have to rush into anything right so i think just see if if you can get one or two to say listen if this service was available i would do it i think the answer to selling this service my opinion is you take 40 of the revenue that you generate from it so if you help someone do and you let's say you put some people's products up online let's say tiktok shop for argument's sake and you do some videos about it and then they get revenue i think you should say revenue it's going to be a very easy sale that way if you don't ask them to do upfront money you say okay free is one way and then you have a case study but another way is like if i can help you build up your income stream by selling on tiktok shop for example then i i will take 40 of the of the revenue or 40 of the profit depending on what you're saying I think there's no risk for independent traders then, for example.

45:55And you can, but you need a bit of runway. You need a little bit of runway because I think you're going to have to take a bit of a risk on some of those people. And you're going to then do the work and it will maybe do one, two, three, four months before maybe the revenue spikes. Right. So I kind of think like keep the job. See if you can go part time at the moment. But get a client to say yes first. Test it out. and if you see revenue coming in then you've got a case study that proves you can increase people's revenue it's easy to spend money when you know you can get revenue right i would spend money straight away with you if you said simon i'll do this it will make another 10 000 pounds a month for you it's only going to cost you four but i'm going to take it from the 10 000 i've lost nothing and suddenly made 6 000 a month extra you see what i mean yes i think the last thing i had was just um so the pricing's the pricing's obvious to me there that the revenue sure if i can prove that I broke bulk and not revenue and I guess it's like how much do I need to know to be confident that I can bring in x amount of leads x amount of skills because right now I don't have the confidence to do setup well that's that's why you can't sell it as a 10 grand a month service unless you've done it so go do it go get a couple of clients and do it go go go prove it go practice it and if you go to a couple of I would go to the right names like I said I targeted CNN and fortune magazine right i wanted to work for people if i did a good job for them they're going to tell everybody and it's a high profile brand right so i think you should think about the same like it could be influencers by the way i think a lot of influencers are leaving a lot of money on the table they don't know how to make money out of what they're doing that's another angle it's kind of it's kind of videography and all that but it's also a different type of thing you might be able to help them with that but i would go and get a client and i would go and prove my model and then And once it's proven, I mean, again, you're doing this at exactly the right time.

47:45I'm so glad you're thinking about this at the right age. You've got no big costs. You've got no big responsibilities. This is the moment to do it. And by the way, you haven't got a lot of time because as you get older, it's going to start creeping in. You're going to start spending more money. I'm starting to feel a lot ready. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. You've got to do it now. But I reckon if you spend the next six months, don't quit your job. Spend the next six months getting case studies built up. Do it part-time. Maybe then you can go part-time on your job. And then if it starts to see like green shoots and you start to make money for people, no one's going to mind sharing that revenue with you.

48:15You could do a setup fee, by the way. It could be like, look, I'll take 40 % of the revenue and I'll do all the work. But I just need a two grand setup fee. So if you get your cost down to two grand a month, then you only want one client to pay you the setup fee each month. So you need 12 clients a year just to cover your costs. Again, I would probably take a punt and do a two thousand pound setup fee. Right. and then after that it's income from profit i would probably take that punt as a business owner but if it was a monthly cost on me i'd probably say no but if it's a one-off cost it's like gym membership that's why gym membership is a one-off cost then a monthly cost right but i think if you if you could do a one-off setup fee cost and then that covers your life costs you only need 12 clients 12 months and then you can focus on making those 12 clients make money i think you've got a I've got one last question just about the small businesses because they're the ones I can sort of reach, sort of medium-sized businesses.

49:12I'm thinking of my dad's business and sort of family businesses. A lot of them come through phone calls. Is a tracking number linked to the ads that I put out for them the best way to sort of prove that? Because how do I prove that that phone call was me and not? well you do a deal like um you know they say you say loy when you make the booking you get five percent off okay right yeah you know just build a mechanism in there that there's a benefit if someone uses your code right like i have it i have a sponsor right now high level is my sponsor for this podcast show okay and when you click the link in my bio down below it's tracked to me but if they're not doing phone calls but there's a code as well there's a code simon code if you use it they can track how well i'm performing and it's just very translatable on telephone as well but i think just play around with your surname and just say you know lol lol lie i can kind of see people saying it say lol and get five percent off you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah but anyway they're gonna they're gonna know by the way and i i actually think your benefit with videography stuff would be selling online for these guys a lot of these guys aren't selling on tiktok shop for example i mean i don't work for tiktok but i'm i'm shocked how many small businesses aren't selling on tiktok yeah yeah definitely there's such a market there for them and like i see some small businesses that could be so much have so much more influence and i think that's what i want to do it for like you know like at the heart of it that's you know it's a potential for them to grow so well i wish you thanks very much and i appreciate everything you do so thanks for taking the call of course ryan good luck i'm following you now so we'll see we'll see what happens i'll wish you the best of luck i'll be keeping an eye all right so i think we have another caller our next caller is ben ben what's your dream hello simon um so i'm starting a business with my brother and we're looking to help the planet by replacing single-use plastics associated with food delivery we're starting off with something called a pizza saver which is that little tripod thing that you got on top of your pizza is rubbish and we've got an alternative and that's what that's what we're doing trying to replace it i think it's a great idea and you're making me want pizza because i haven't had dinner so tell me what the question is how can i help so all the legal's done and we started sales and we're getting a really good response from the market and it's all very exciting however we're having a bit of a problem with supply chain i'm i'm just wondering if there's maybe something i haven't even thought of just because when you're working with these manufacturers that they will make all these you know bamboo forks knives stuff like this um they're really being hesitant at creating this new product line and i found one factory in china obviously there's a lot of cost with delivery there's also a large degree of hypocrisy coming from you know shipping something eco-friendly across such a long distance i can't get these manufacturers from europe to to just take us on we've tried to do some testing with one factory and there were just a lot of breakages um and then they wouldn't sort of do any product development with us so i just feel like i'm slamming my head against the wall a little bit at the moment i'm wondering if there's just something i haven't really thought of okay ben you you sound like a man with means to me um are you rich ben no i'm not do you know anybody rich um i do yeah well i mean i have an investor lined up but we're trying to sell this initial run um so yeah i guess i'm a little bit joking with you the reason the reason i say this is like i i just watched the american apparel story on netflix which is a bit shocking actually i was a bit shocked by the whole thing but one thing i think they did do well is they manufactured in america which is pretty interesting i think you need to buy the machine and make it here and i know it sounds hard well there's a lot of inventors in england i don't know what dyson's doing he's probably not that busy but like you just need so it's not that hard i i really like the pizza bit too i think you've got something there i see great content around this by the way we just walk up to people delivering pizza and you replace it with like don't use that use this literally you know annoying pizza delivery drivers i think it'd be great content um but i i just i just i think this is obsession of like manufacturing overseas and like you say it's a bit hypocritical considering what you're trying to do um i i think you should put your energies into getting a prototype machine made and england's quite good at this are you in england right uh yeah yeah i think you should put your energy into finding one machine that makes it like again i i don't know technically what you're talking about it's made of bamboo is it you're thinking making about bamboo is it yeah that's the one so it's made with like a die press so similar to how you like cut cookies you know but with bits of wood i get it this is you know every business i've ever built that's been successful i start off with this mvp model right so this is a really dumb way of putting it you're not going to like it but i just say i've got so much bamboo growing in my garden by the way i could go to bamboo now and i'd split the bamboo down the middle and then i would slice it into little cubes and now there you go you've got your first prototype like it doesn't have to be rocket science now once it works let's say the content works you get more orders you can like build up a machine that cuts the bamboo bamboo grows so quick bamboo in england is one of the few things that actually also grows quite quickly england i've got so much bamboo in my garden it's crazy and so then you just like again i don't know if it's some special design or whatever it is but like manually do it until you can get a machine to do it for you and then once you've got the machine to do it for you then you can scale up right yeah i guess it's difficult because we're working with like pennies right in terms of like the p and l because we sell them for maybe between 3 and 5p and then producing something of that scale i get it it's all the economy of scale business yeah i mean look you can't have your cake and eat it can you you can't you can't be an eco-friendly product and then want to get it made for a penny in china you know you have to pick a lane you have to pick a lane i i think there's a market for a slightly more expensive product that does better i mean frankly there's loads of like look canal water and these products that are also proving this people are buying more expensive products in in in the hope that it helps the planet maybe you've got to pick something beyond just the pizza thing maybe you've got to make the pizzas you know like maybe you've got to lift up the profit margin a bit you know and i'm not saying this this is i'm just brainstorming with you now a little bit here but like you know you could take a pizza franchise and you make the pizzas make the profit and this is the gimmick inside the pizzas and you're now making profit from pizzas which is a couple of quid per pizza and this thing in the middle isn't the big deal anymore you know and again if you make the machine or get the machine made i my guess is a machine that does what you're talking about five grand ten grand i don't think it's huge amounts of money and then yeah sure okay it might not be the cheapest thing in the world but there's plenty of you know interns there's plenty of i don't with automation now as well i just don't think it's that hard or that expensive okay i mean if you can't get the product from overseas and it doesn't match your philosophy it's kind of like there's no point in keep going on about trying to get a manufacturer overseas is it it's actually the waste of time place to put your energy you might as well put the energy into what i'm saying try to get it made locally yeah i guess that that's the problem i'm having so maybe i wasn't more specific i can't get the local guys they're they're the ones that won't talk to me so maybe i have to do it myself okay they won't talk to you that that i don't believe i reckon you you got you got in there acting cheap go in there acting rich and then get it cheap all right you know like we want to do this we're going to be massive we want to save the planet right what you got oh you got that okay that's too expensive bring it down like you know maybe you're not you're not positioning everything's sales right everything is sale this is just a sales process if they're not getting back to you you haven't sold it properly good point see what i mean yeah they can invest in you those people making that stuff if you can't afford them and they you could they could invest in you you could do a partnership with these people you can't do this business without a manufacturer of some sort.

57:26So maybe let them invest in you and then let them help you do it. I always think about like, yeah, and there's so, there is a lot of manufacturing happening in England. There is. So turn up at their depots. Go and see them. You know, my brother owns a window cleaning, not window cleaning, a window making company. And, you know, he started off with his own like saw and filing thing. now he's got this massive massive warehouse with all this massive massive equipment in it but he started off just almost manually making the windows himself you know that that's how i've always built businesses too you know you start by making one and then you know and then you make two cost at the beginning won't you know might not be what you want but you can build it up over time but i reckon you need to think about how to build your profit margin into into something else it's it's bigger than just that that item on pizzas no no it's really fair i really like your point around partnerships um yeah definitely something i want to explore thank you simon no problem i've got to do a dad joke ironically you boxed yourself in like pizza box yourself into how you could be doing it get my dad joke in there for the day all right ben thanks for calling up i'm following you now so i wish you the best of luck save the planet for us please thanks again simon good to speak to you, man.

58:42Okay, so that's it. Another episode, another live podcast episode of Siren Says is over. Try to not cry. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't worry, there'll be another one next week. And if you want to come on the show, ask a question, tell your dream, share it with thousands of people, then please feel free to do so. The link is somewhere in my bio. And I want to thank our sponsor, High Level. They're a CRM system that I think is awesome. I use it personally. They sponsors this podcast before we even launch. They're that loyal. They're that good. And if you want to learn how to build funnels, you want to learn how to automate your marketing, it's the tool for you.

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