12 Minutes of Business Advice with Chris Gore | Backed by Funding Circle

0:00So my job is this, voice and out there and speaking and all this kind of stuff. This episode is brought to you by Funding Circle, business finance that backs you. Chris, welcome to the podcast. Pleasure, guys. You're here. Yeah, yeah. You're here in real life. Big question. Who are you? What problem do you solve? I am Chris Gore, co-founder of a company called Spore Group. Spore Group is a workplace technology company. we design and build meeting room video conferencing technology capabilities um we do that right at the back end of the project basically so a client has an office move coming up or a refurb coming up and we'll design and build their meeting room technology solutions i also own a company which we've just acquired we've acquired a company called square dot and square dot is a workplace design company so they do again office move they will do the design and interior design for an office move so multiple business owner own two companies that's who i am nice so these are all

1:00Chris Gore:quite rapid fire questions i think you'll have some unique insight on them right so the first one how do you think business owners should be thinking about cash flow it is the the number one number two number three priority it's like rule number one of business is look after cash flow rule number two is i can't remember what rule number two is so you know you need to and the way that we we personally do that we buy kit right we buy really expensive displays tvs microphone speakers and if a client gives us a hundred grand order for example we need to buy all of that kit from our suppliers it doesn't take long for you to burn for your cash so we have to the way that we look after cash flow is we say to the client well you pay us a mobilization fee the mobilization fee gives us the ability to go and buy all the kit and then we can then back off the rest of the terms with our suppliers so cash flow is like nothing happens without it you can't pay your mortgage with an invoice right so you know it's the number one priority what should what should businesses know before they borrow money um i think know what your forecast is like you get good good debt and bad debt right you know if the interest rates are low and um you know and you've got the access to cheap debt great but it's not great if you haven't got a forecast if you haven't got a pipeline with you guys come in right so you need to i think you need to kind of forward forecast six months eight months 12 months try to understand what your cash flow looks like on a monthly basis and then you can then go right well i've got access to cheap capital i know the next six months are covered through projects or whatever and you can backfill the payments basically so i think you're going to take capital if you're going to take investment or loans or anything like that a get it cheap and b understand what your forecast is over the next few months before you can actually make any commitment so let's say take a look i've got the business idea as many people do but i'm actually ready to start what's the first thing i should do with that idea um i'm of a i'm of the old school mindset i wouldn't go out and get and get investment straight away i'm of the daniel priestly school i know you guys know daniel right i'm of the daniel priestly school which is test the market so cheap landing page two three grand into into some basic ads drive people to the landing page if you get signups it's a waitlist you get signups to the waitlist you know there's a market there don't go and get capital don't put yourself on that it certainly don't buy any personal guarantees or anything without testing the market so i don't know it's not a cash flow answer which is which is you know maybe maybe what you want but might have a bit more old school test the market like don't put don't put yourself into a position if the market's not there you need to know that it's there nice so we go a bit broader and i give you access to everybody's ears at this festival and you've got one piece of business advice that everybody should follow what would that advice be again unconventional answer everyone bangs on about growth right grow grow grow scale scale scale i think the question i'd ask myself is why or i'd ask is why you know if you've got an exit plan and you want to exit for multiple millions of pounds and you need to scale to get to that kind of tipping point where you can exit great but the actual we just spoke about a few minutes ago we're 40 staff now right yeah going from two staff to 40 staff i cannot tell you how many frogs we've kissed with with with people we've hired so i think if i've got the ears of everybody and they've got this kind of grow scale mentality i would just say why like if you're doing 500 grand a year revenue and you've got a nice lifestyle your mortgage is paid for it works not that stressful and that's okay that's okay no not everyone needs to be elon musk you know you can you can be your own person so i think that if i have the ears to everyone i just gotta just ask why that's what that's what i do right so you have to think of a different one now what's the the thing that you see trending that people should ignore when it comes to business advice yeah oh that's business i'm glad you finished when you when you started the question i was like trending that they should ignore is ai slop on linkedin that's the trending thing that people should ignore what what's trending that people should ignore when it comes to business advice that's a good question i think the trending thing at the moment is probably um personal branding right yeah but i don't think people should ignore that so it's not gonna answer your question at all um because i'm on the journey myself right but But other than that, I think what, yeah, maybe the AI thing, actually, because everyone's banging on about SaaS companies and AI agents.

5:39I'll build your agents and we'll do this. There's a lot to be said for a boring business. There's a lot to be said for a plumbing company or an electrics. I own an AV company. We hang screens on walls. We're 40 staff. We're 10 million revenue. Like, AI can't hang a screen on a wall. so i'm not what i'm not saying is like don't start an ai company what i'm saying is maybe don't get pulled away by the by the by the trend and just understand if there's a market there for the thing that you want i think that's that'll probably be my advice nice what's the most underrated skill in business people this people talking um and again before we came on a minute ago we were chatting to your previous guests, weren't we around?

6:22People get screen fatigue. You know, the most underrated skill is getting out, shaking hands, seeing the body language, speaking to people. People buy from people. You know, that's not going away. AI can't buy you a beer, you know, and shake your hand and get a little bit of rapport on a personal level. That's the most underrated skill. That doesn't go away.

6:44Chris Gore:So you're in quite a cutthroat industry. Yeah. there's lots you've got lots and lots of competitors and you always will have what do you think separates the ones that that make it and do well to the ones that don't and disappear um in our space it's pretty it's easy to start an av company right you know you you open an account with it with samsung or whoever and um you get some credit with those guys and then you you crack on i think the difference between us and like a lot of the people that start is i started the company always going back to my point a minute ago i start the company with a view to sell it at some point and in order to sell it i need to make sure that i've got systems in place processes i can scale it accordingly and i think the difference between us and a lot of people that start is they start with kind of this gary in a van mentality i'll go and hang a few screens i'll get a couple of clients and that's okay we never started we invested everything back into it we grew the thing we kissed a lot of frogs um but underneath all of that we set up project management processes procurement process everything's got a process everyone's everything's got a structure flow um and i think that's probably the difference between starting up as a one-man band hanging a few screens versus actually growing a business which has got some value to it it's the process that's it behind it nice and then final question see where i'm excited to see where you take this because you know we love the phone.

8:07What's the best way to win a new customer? Ah, what's the best way to... Take them to Liverpool versus Real Madrid. When Liverpool win 2-0. I was obviously joking a bit there, but I do think that's the best way to win new business. You know, yes, the phone is a really important part. We spoke about this earlier as well. I think the human element of business is actually going to explode. you know, AI slop, AI inbox. I can't open my emails without there being some email rubbish from AI. I think in-person festivals, speaking, handshaking, you know, all that kind of stuff, that's the best way to win it because that's when people buy from people, right?

8:52And ultimately, if somebody buys AV from me and I've got a personal relationship with that person, if something goes wrong on a particular project, they phone me and they go, Chris, there's an issue here and I fix it. you don't get that in a fully digitalized world, which I just don't think certainly in our space works. So that's the best way to win business. People. Amazing. Handshakes. Yeah. Kissing babies and all. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, guys. This episode is brought to you by Funding Circle. To find out how you can get fast, fair, and hassle-free finance for your business, visit FundingCircle.com.