How To Sell To The 1% - James Clutterbuck

0:00Made it to the big time at last. Big time. Big time. You're getting paid the big bucks now.

0:03James Clutterbuck:Yeah, yeah. I got plonked on a desk with a phone in front of me, a roll deck of numbers, sink or swim. And I just went the opposite way on it and sort of downplayed my success and downplayed, made myself out to be the worst boss in the world and was starving hungry and had to sell my children. And I think I've got 52 ,000 followers or something like that. I can walk out in front of a football stadium every single day and say, buy my stuff. When I've put this stuff out there on LinkedIn, I'd go, guess how much this stuff costs? Guess how much our top-end Monaco, like private jet, super yacht, five-star hotel, helicopters, all the rest of it.

0:37James Clutterbuck:And it might be that it's some ridiculous figure like a hundred grand for four people or something like that. Is it ethically, morally right to spend£10 ,000 on a watch? Probably not.

0:50James Klarbach, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Good to be here.

0:54James Clutterbuck:Great to have you. you're finally here we made it maybe it's the big time big time big time you're getting paid the big bucks now yeah yeah um big big open question to kick off james who are you and what problem do you solve it depends who you ask about the problem side of things but um i'm um i run a company called barclay red um we're a vip club events and hospitality company we do everything from you know the high-end monaco grand prix's that sort of thing british grand prix through to royal ascots and corporate events on yachts and all the rest of it so it's we've got a really wide-ranging company we're doing incentive trips and um big events for for major corporates all the way through to mr and mrs smith who want to go to their first grand prix with uh with their kids so we've got a really wide-ranging um company we've been going for about sort of seven years now um and that's really my background is is corporate events um and i've been in it since i was since i grew up about age 26 um having um failed at a professional cricket career um i thought i needed to get in the real world and to have a proper job um saw an advert in the back of the paper do you want to be in sport yes I do um and it turned out it was a tele sales job um had nothing to do with sport whatsoever it was just selling stuff at sporting events um but that was a an eye-opener um in terms of the world of sales and and business and that's where I started sort of age 26 um with a list of phone numbers and a telephone and sell that hard telesales and then progressed through a number of companies from there to being approached by some clients of mine about 20 years ago I guess it would be now to start a company with them and that was my previous agency does very much what we do now and I was with them for about 15 years built it into a big multi-million pound company agency ran its course we went our separate ways and Barclay Red started about seven years ago with one of my best mates from university, basically.

3:14James Clutterbuck:So that's it in a nutshell. In a nutshell. And yeah, the problem is, you always get the sort of sales advice going, what problem do you solve? And I never kind of related that to what we do because it's not a problem. If you can't go to the Monaco Grand Prix on a super yacht, it's not a problem in your life. It's more a need than a want. so it's kind of what want do we solve as opposed to what problem make dreams come true that sort of thing I guess if you were to relate it to a company it would be you know how do we our problem is we want to have a better we don't have a very good relationship with our clients we want to have a deeper relationship with our clients and what we do enables them to do that in a sense so if you want to relate it to a problem that would be it but it's more a business improvement thing or a need or a bucket list thing, that sort of side of things.

4:08James Clutterbuck:So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, there's loads of ways I could unpack that. It feels like the way you were describing it, it's a bit like a vitamin. Like you know that, or maybe something else a little bit spicy, that if you take it, you know you're going to have a good time. I guess let's just rewind. So go back to you walking into that first telesales job. What were your expectations and what was the actual realisation? What did that actually look like? As I said, because I went through, I've been through university and anyone who's been to university will tell you back in when I went, it was a good time.

4:48James Clutterbuck:You know, it was more of a social aspect to it than anything else. So the work side had never really worked that hard academically. academically it was mainly there for the for the for the for the drinks and the and the girls and the sport and all the rest of it so I had a very very social um time at university and I thought yeah this is this is four years of life um at the same time I said I was I was trying to play professional cricket at the time which carried on for another sort of two or three years after that so I was kind of having this sort of dilettante lifestyle of having a little having enough money to buy enough beers.

5:24James Clutterbuck:I wasn't earning a lot by any stretch. I had enough money to keep a roof over my head and have enough beers with my mates. And it was almost like life is going to carry on like this forever. And at some point that stopped. It was, no, this is no longer available. This money is no longer available for you. A lot of my mates were at the time, 26, 27, moving up the corporate ladder a little bit. They'd already had five years in corporate jobs and they started turning up in nicer cars and having more money and better places to live. Suddenly I was thinking, I'm getting left behind here. I'm not earning enough to sort of keep up with these guys, with my mates, so to speak.

6:05James Clutterbuck:I'm just going to have to get a real job. And as I said to you beforehand, I just saw the advert in the back of the paper, sat at my mum and dad, who said, you need to get a job, basically. And I saw this advert saying, And, you know, do you want a career in sports? It's in the back of the Surrey advertiser at the time. It was a contact, such and such a name in Woking. I phoned up, said, I'm interested in the job you've got going. Said, come in for an interview. And it was at the time where jobs were quite easy to get. So I went to the interview and they said, well, this is what we do. We sell corporate hospitality at big sporting events.

6:44James Clutterbuck:You'll be selling that. And I had no real idea what that meant. Didn't know. I said, OK, fine. Sounds good. And it was almost like this is the salary. It was a real low basic. It was like seven grand a year. That was a long time ago. It sounds like nothing now, but seven thousand pounds would pay you rent basically through the year. But obviously you weren't commissioned on the sales, which was quite a lot of money if you sold plenty of stuff. And so I thought that sounds all right because I wasn't used to earning that much money anyway. I thought that's seven grand. that'll cover my rent blah blah blah how much can i earn in commission well it's three percent of all the sales that you make and i was adding that up in my head he said so if you sold that then you get paid two thousand pounds i went you know two thousand pounds at the time i was like unbelievable amount of money for a young man and i thought okay that sounds really good so i was thought that sounds brilliant yes i'm interested he went well you start on monday i literally offered the job there and then because it was just tele sales so it was turned up on the monday morning into this sort of pokey old office in Woking MD the owner was smoking away it was a smoking office and I walked in the game oh I don't know about this and anyway so I gritted gritted and bared it um I got pumped on a desk uh with a phone in front of me a roll decks of numbers and like a big sort of folder full of um sheets that had the product on and it was just basically I said, okay, what do I do?

8:14James Clutterbuck:He said, well, there's all the numbers from the previous guys, from the guy that we've just sacked, basically, that you've come into. There's all his clients and there were his numbers, his phoning. Just phone them and see if they want to buy that. And that was the extent of the training. What now? Yes. And the first few phone calls, I was stumbling and stuttering. Because we didn't have any training. And eventually, a few of the guys in the office would sort of give you a few pointers, saying, well, this is how you need to introduce the company. And it was kind of, it was in the deep end. There was no training.

8:48James Clutterbuck:You know, these days you'd be hauled across social media for onboarding a client like that, an employee. But it would just, in the deep end, sink or swim. And eventually learnt through just sheer practice and numbers. It was, you know, it was hard sell. It was 150 dials a day. And it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. until you sold something. And then if you did sell something, you were well rewarded. So I managed okay for like 18 months and I got this massive, massive client, a telecommunications company, and I just happened to come across them who said, oh, just right time, right place, just sheer luck.

9:31James Clutterbuck:Not because I was a good salesman, but won this massive account, which made me quite lazy as a salesperson because I was just saying, this is brilliant. all I need to do is phone these guys up, get a sale. That's my money for the month. So I just went really, really lazy for the following six months and then got sacked for being lazy, basically. So that was a wake-up. Hang on, I'm bringing all the money in, but the owner said, well, I'm going to take that big client off you because that's all you're doing and now what are you going to do? Oh, that's not fair. Well, that's the way it is. So I got basically unceremoniously sacked, which was a wake-up call.

10:11James Clutterbuck:But that was a real hard sales environment and cut my teeth. And I just, you think fast forward now to nowadays, would there be many sales environments like that? Maybe some, maybe not. But certainly it would be not commonplace now to sort of treat new salespeople like that, especially everything else is going on. And I said that the owner was a real, every lunchtime he'd disappear to the pub or the bar across the road. He would come back stinking of booze at half four and go, why have you made any sales and all this kind of stuff? Fair enough. But yeah, I cut my teeth in it and then got sacked.

10:50James Clutterbuck:And then there was another job in a bigger firm in London, sales and marketing role. And I just applied for that and they liked my background and they got that almost straight away as well. So I never had to struggle too much to find a job back then. But yeah, it was an eye-opener, to say the least, in terms of what work was and what sales was. But yeah. So there might be someone listening now who, that's their first sales job at a university or something, they're selling luxury events. What have you found in terms of actually selling them that works? I mean, I've come from two different sort of backgrounds on it, guess is that um after went through that the those first two companies where i was cutting my teeth and basically you're picking up the phone to decision makers mds business owners ceos direct sales directors whatever it was you're picking up the phone to these guys um and girls and just saying this is what we're selling we're selling corporate hospitality at royal ascot do you want to entertain your clients and it was almost as straightforward as that it was just about being it was just about being in as many hats as possible and it was it was literally a numbers game um if you if you made 150 phone calls and you spoke to over the course of a week i don't know 750 people you might get four or five sales out of that and and 750 725 people tell you to piss off um as and that that would be sales and that worked because it was just sheer numbers game um and i would still say today that i still know some of our competitors today operate in a very similar way and it is chucking numbers at chucking numbers at a wall took as many phone calls out to decision makers as they can pitching what they are selling and just hoping that a percentage of those people will buy so we i do know that style still works but it's sort of it's evolved on through from there into marketing has become much more important to a decision to winning business now.

12:58James Clutterbuck:The marketing needs to play a big role in sales. People need to... Email marketing was probably the next sort of thing after telesales. It was a big thing in terms of that became almost the equivalent numbers game in terms of how many databases can you buy and how many hundreds of thousands of emails can you fire out to just get what you do in front of people that would just generate leads for salespeople. so that worked for a good amount of time then it that it as everything it just dips off a little bit and then the new thing comes in it becomes more um sort of internet marketing google adwords getting your company up search engines and stuff like that and then you chuck as much money as you could at that and how many people can we dump on our website again it becomes a numbers game and of that number of people some will inquire then you obviously pick up the phone to them and then sell in the normal way and that's almost evolved forward to social media has been the same thing as how many people can I be in front of um which has sort of made it probably easier to be in front of more people than than the previous ways which took a lot of money um now you just need a phone and a social media account and you've got if you're good at it you've got access to millions of people um so it's kind of evolved all the way forward in terms of all of those things and there's other there's other other forms of sales and marketing as well but everything has evolved forwards but i still believe that almost every single method works if you're very good at it if you're good at picking up the phone brilliant that's a great method of still still making sales if you're great at email marketing it still works if you're great at sending letters in the post it still works everything still works just depends how good you are at it and you just got to pick the thing that you are good at and and go with that rather than or try a bit of everything, which is what people try and do.

14:54James Clutterbuck:But, yeah, it's interesting how it's evolved and how things work. But, yeah, I think most things do. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned off-air that there's a bit of a formula that your competitors use that maybe people would recognize. Yeah. So because I get quite a lot of following on LinkedIn particularly, and my posts do quite well, generally speaking. so I get a lot of people that like my post. So I know that I've got two or three big competitors who are very established companies in the industry, sort of 20-year-old companies, big tele-sales companies. They've got floors full of guys and girls who are in their sort of early 20s, again, first sales job, second sales job, basically pick up the phone and they all have this script that is, again phone as many decision makers as you possibly can um and hit them with this script which is either we've just had a cancellation from a big company at hsbc or a barclays bank or whoever it might be just that sort of um setting the sort of credibility tone of the government so we've had a table of 10 cancelled at royal ascot by hsbc um they paid 15 000 pounds for it they didn't but but you could have it for seven and a half i'll give it to you seven and a half today and i've only got one table left but they're bearing in mind there's 120 of them in this room saying i've got one table left with the same script and you would think at some point that's gonna sort of run out i know they've been using this stuff these companies have been using this stuff for years and years and years and it works because i know that they fill rooms and rooms and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people at all these major events using that tactic and it's a bit like it's FOMO isn't it it's creating urgency there's one table left I'm getting a deal there's credibility you know it's been written by someone that understands psychology and sales because it kind of ticks every box that you need for someone to trust you credibility oh I need to do it's FOMO I'm getting a good deal oh I need to do it today oh I'll miss out so they they do do that a lot they get told to pee off quite a lot obviously um but ultimately someone buys it and they go they supply it it's a good it's a good event that customer's happy and they get they get a repeat client from the back of it it feels the way you're describing it i was telling you off air that i had a very similar conversation and i was actually like from someone that makes cold calls and gets cold calls i was actually like surprised that i was like bloody hell someone's just shouting at me for three minutes so it feels like your approach is you've seen you've seen the corporate underworld you know what they do you know every kind of trick of the trade and you've said right if they're all zigging i'm gonna zag and do it a completely different way i guess what was the the thinking behind that what have been some of the success stories and i'm sure you've you've come into uh hot water at times as well yeah um so when When we started Barclay Red, this is after I left my previous agency, which was built corporately, normal sales team, normal marketing activities, marketing budget, marketing managers, da-da-da.

18:15James Clutterbuck:So it was a very sort of established agency, and we had a very normal, in inverted commas, way of finding business and getting business. So that ran its course. I'm still, you know, amicable leave, so to speak. And I was still a shareholder there when I left. So it was all very, it just run its course for me personally, because I just felt the joy, almost the joy had gone out of it a little bit and it became, because it became so big, not so big, but big enough for it to become very, very corporately run on a spreadsheet, so to speak, as opposed to the creativity and all that kind of stuff, which I enjoyed.

18:54James Clutterbuck:so anyway started we started partly read up with my one of the best mates from university who's in recruitment um and it was almost like on a whim say okay well we'll just we'll just start it up see what happens and it went sort of started it went sort of six months and getting a little tiny bit of business here and there from people that kind of knew me and previous clients that knew I was back in the game that sort of thing um but it wasn't enough to to bang it for us and I thought But, you know, we had minimal money. We had a little bit of investment money put into the company to cover a little bit of sort of salary here and there.

19:32James Clutterbuck:But we didn't have loads of money in the company. I said to Kristen, we need to do something different here because we're not going to compete with the company that's got 80 telesales people in the room making thousands of phone calls every week. Can't compete with that because we haven't got the sales team. we can't compete with the other big agencies and the other big competitors because they've got hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of marketing spend and they've got a better website than us and they can advertise more and they've got better marketing and they're just going to whatever we do with our minimal amount of money it's just not it's we're going to lose eventually we're going to lose against the big boys if we try and do if we try and do everything the same and we are because that works for them it's going to work for us no no it works them because they chuck loads of money at it and they make it work um through through sort of volume so this is just not we're just not going to go anywhere we're just going to eventually just peter we might we might survive for a couple of years and then we're just going to peter out so we we took two different angles on what we were going to do one was more of a product risk thing which is slightly different area but the main thing we did I said is look we need to run our marketing in a completely different way and I was a big fan at the time of Paddy Power you know um don't know if you've seen their Twitter feed and what they do for their marketing it's very left field very funny irreverent offensive at times um I said why don't we why don't we run our our Twitter feed like Paddy Power and we just we just tell jokes and we do funny stuff um but then I thought I don't really know Twitter that well I just don't know who's on it had a bit of a reputation of being a bit of a cesspit at the time don't know if I could find clients on there and I thought hang on that I was always on LinkedIn from previous agency but we'd only just used it corporately as in you'd go onto the search bar and go manage the directions finance London and get a big old list and they go sales sales lads there's a list of 300 MDs contact them it well we didn't use it in a a marketing or content marketing place but then around about sort of 2018 2019 i sort of went on there and there was starting to be these guys like and you'll know them people like mike winnett and dan kelsell and these sorts of guys that were just producing this content that was just basically funny content um and i was looking at the engagement they were getting on the back of it and these guys are quite funny they're not they're not hilarious they're not like fall if you see it they're just funny there's funny guys they write well write good content but it was so different for what linkedin was that people were going oh that's different that's not dry it's not corporate and it still had a sales message in there as well so i just thought i can do that i could do that for our business because you know i've got a bit of creativity i i know i've got a good sense of humor i can start doing this left field stuff on linkedin and relate it to what we do and start building up um our following that way and we don't need money to compete because you can't the competitor can't compete with me because they're not me so i i sort of built up this persona if you like and i tried lots of different things i did a lot of video stuff like left field video and that sort of it heightened during covid as well because everyone was set at home in their garden nothing to do social media was probably linkedin was the only way people were keeping in contact with each other and through that period I sort of grew as they say quite considerably just by using this left field style of funny content that was again it pushed the boundaries a little bit at times we certainly lost opportunities of clients in the back of it because it's like I'm not dealing with these jokers or that clown he's not serious blah blah blah but But at the same time, it definitely got us a lot of interest from lots of proper business owners and MDs who just like that style.

23:41James Clutterbuck:And I'm fed up with this boring, dull, corporate style of content. I'm saying I really like what you do. And underneath it, I would always have this sort of serious, there would be a serious post every so often to go, they said, by the way, this is what we're doing. I'm not just joking around. and I like if I sort of married the two together quite well. So yeah, that was a kind of zig and zag moment and none of our competitors were doing it because they're all, you looked at all the sales guys and the senior people in our competitors, all their posts are very, very cool for school. So I'm, look at me, this is where I am and da-da-da-da, here's my glass of champagne and let me know if you want to join me.

24:21It was just really sort of braggy type of stuff

24:24James Clutterbuck:and I just went the opposite way. on it um and sort of downplayed my success and downplayed made myself out to be the worst boss in the world and had literally was starving hungry and had to sell my children and this this sort of really sort of went completely opposite from the too cool for school and it was all tongue in cheek obviously but it poked fun at the sort of the style of of content is a little bit um look how successful i am and look how much money i have and here's my lovely car and here's my big house and I was poking fun at that style of it because I was, the sort of business we were doing, we were dealing with people that were genuinely successful, who were millionaires and who were genuinely successful because they couldn't afford us to go on a super yacht at Monaco otherwise.

25:15James Clutterbuck:And these guys, you just realize, these normal guys, no, none of them were shouting about their wealth and success on social media. We had all these sort of wannabes around saying, looking at how successful I am. So it was poking a little bit of fun at that as well, which sort of resonated with people. And then more and more people cottoned onto that style of content as well. So then it's become very popular now, as you know, that style of sort of satire and taking the piss, basically. Yeah, as we all know, LinkedIn is full of very wanky content. It is. So the thing with what you sell, I've always been interested in this, and we were talking not too long ago, but actually there's sales.

25:58Like you say, you ended up in a telesales role. Thanks to TikTok and Instagram now and YouTube and all those things, a lot of young people are being fascinated with sales and being like, how can I be a remote closer and live in Bali? Or how do I be a high ticket salesperson? So I think there probably is a difference when you're selling like courses for a hundred pounds. And then if you're selling kind of boat trips for thousands of pounds to millionaires, what have you found about, what kind of lessons have you learned along the way? Because obviously they are still normal people and I think people get that.

26:37But what lessons have you learned when it comes to selling high ticket products to millionaires?

26:42James Clutterbuck:Number one, they're normal people. As you said, I can't reiterate that enough. I think there's a lot of, how do I talk to these people? do I need to come across ultra professional or do I need to sort of come across in a certain way you don't you just you just know they're just normal because they most of them have come from where you are now ultimately most of a lot of guys and and girls that we come across that are very successful once upon a time they they were they were starting their own company up or they were they were very junior they know the journey um and generally speaking they're quite supportive you know if you're very honest with them so we're just starting out uh this is our new agency this is what we're trying to do and they're as long as you're very honest and yourself that that's number one but i'd say the second thing is um don't be afraid to talk to them and i think there's a lot of trepidation now in terms of picking up the phone i think i think people will find every other method to speak to somebody or to communicate rather than pick up the phone if you've got a phone number there on a on a on a back on the bottom of an email or on a on an inquiry in or whatever it is what i found is especially in the younger sales group and this is going back is that they'll they'll they'll ping an email they'll see the number but they'll ping an email and then they'll find the their profile on social media and they'll try and ping a message that way and it will just be well why don't you just pick up oh send a text message it's like pick up the phone um and okay if you don't get through you don't get through but if you do that that's when you've got most chance to sell um so i'd say don't be afraid to pick up the phone to these guys and then thirdly you've got to know your product inside out you've got you've got to know it you can't you can't bs them um and and part of that is i think a lot of people get obsessed with the sort of the method of sales sometimes as opposed to know your product.

28:39James Clutterbuck:You've got to know your product. If you know your product better than the equivalent salesperson, the competitor, and you can talk about it a bit better and you understand it a little bit better, you understand why the client might want to do it, et cetera. You can understand all of that side of things. You've got a much better opportunity to sell rather than just try all these different methods apart from talk to them. Or then try to bullshit a little bit about what you're trying to sell. And ultimately, it does come down a little. I still believe that even through all this, you can be as targeted as you like.

29:17James Clutterbuck:It does come down a little bit still to numbers. You know, you've still got to talk to a number of people because you're still going to get 80, 90 % notes. Whatever you do, you're still going to get that money of people saying, it's not for me at the time, I can't make it. any because of the style of the stuff that we're selling it's not business critical a lot of it it's sort of some of some of it's nice to have some of it is i'll do it if i have the chance or if i've got time to do it that that sort of thing so we get a lot of um it's not as said it's not a business critical decision for a lot of people so you are dependent you get a lot of reasons why people can't do something so the number of people that are that become no's are quite high in reality.

30:01James Clutterbuck:So you still need that numbers. So lead generation is quite important as well. It's just to make sure your pipeline's full. If you've only got 10 opportunities in your pipeline, you're only selling one or two of them. Then you're wondering why you're in target or why you're not selling as much as you can. Well, you can route it back to how many opportunities you've got in your pipeline. So I'd say those sort of few things are quite key. And that's something that I bang on with our guys about is make sure your pipelines are full. Because without opportunities, you can't sell. Simple as that. And it's just, I think, again, I know you guys are in it, but I think there's so much sales guru stuff on the internet and advice about this, that, or the next thing.

30:46James Clutterbuck:And some of it is just very cloudy and makes it complicated. I think sales is quite simple, actually, at its heart. it's just not many people have the bravery in inverted commas to get on the phone and talk to people and the sort of thick skin to cope with regular rejection and people saying no and having a bad month the best sales people just keep going and keep going and keep going and eventually you'll get your rewards and it's just almost how long can you outstay your competition as well so there's a few things probably pitching to the converted a little bit there but as I said I try and keep sales as a process as simple as we possibly can and simplify it for people because I just think there's so many methods and stuff like that float around and theories that you can't see the wood for the trees sometimes.

31:41I think that's really good advice there's a lot of people who over complicate it and alarm bells should go up because there's probably a course attached to the 100 % method. I'm interested to know, how much do you think status is the driving decision behind wanting to be on that yacht in Monaco?

31:59James Clutterbuck:You'll have to ask the people that book it, if I'm honest. I am absolutely sure that it plays a role for some. And it's look at, yeah, it's almost like, this is what I want to tell my neighbours when I go home. I want to tell my friends and family, this is what I've done. I'm sure there's an element of that. a lot of it is I'm doing something that most of us can't afford to do there's that side of things as well as a little bit of exclusivity and you know it's it's it's probably the same with with all luxury brands you know ultimately you know you go back to clothing and things like that you know if you're wearing a designer brand it's is it any better quality than you know the the t-shirt that you buy Dan Marks and Spencers or Next or whatever it is with no brand on it.

32:48James Clutterbuck:No, not really. It's the same stuff, but you'll pay another hundred quid because of a little horse there or whatever it is. So there's status buying all over the shop in all luxury goods. That's Rolex watches, whatever it might be. So that certainly bleeds into what we sell, especially to individuals. but we have this sort of slightly unique sort of service and product where we are selling, half of it is selling to individuals like the B2C market and half is selling to the B2B market and they're using it for different things. So the B2B might be saying to their clients, they'll come along on a yacht or come along to this lovely event in this beautiful facility and it's kind of the status of the invite.

33:35James Clutterbuck:Oh yeah, that's very nice. and it's like, you've interviewed Rory Sutherland, haven't you? And I think it's like, why is champagne so expensive? It's not that it tastes any better than Prosecco or Sparkling, or other Sparkling wine. The expensiveness is what it represents to who you're giving it to. It's like, I've spent this money on you because you're important to me. So that bleeds into a little bit of the quality of the invite a company might send to its clients. Go, come to Bonaco with us. well you obviously think a lot of me and a lot of my business to spend that on me so there's a little bit of that type of status that goes on and then the b2c thing there's a there's a mix between i want to show off to my mates and i just like doing really nice stuff because i've earned some decent money and this stuff is really nice and fun to do so it can as i don't want to overcomplicate it sometimes it just comes down to i like having fun and that that's it and it's like vip fun it's like monaco we always say monaco is like disneyland for children uh for adults rather and um that's what it is it's just people that have worked hard for a living having fun um and just enjoying the best of life so to speak so and long may that continue because it's not people get a little bit annoyed about the sort of almost sometimes what the industry represents which is like the very top end the one percent and oh it's all right for them But that money that they spend bleeds down and it feeds my kids, puts a roof over my head, employs my salespeople, employs millions of hundreds of thousands of people in the country in the events industry and events space.

35:18James Clutterbuck:So that money all bleeds down and supports a massive, massive industry, which is the way I sort of look at it. So, because sometimes you do get a little bit, you know, is it morally right for someone to spend£100 ,000 for four people to go to the Monaco Grand Prix on the private jet? That's coming to your question earlier is when I put this stuff out there on LinkedIn, guess how much this stuff costs? Guess how much our top end Monaco, like private jet, super yacht, five-star hotel, helicopters, all the rest of it. and it might be that it's some ridiculous figure like a hundred grand for four people or something like that.

35:59James Clutterbuck:And you'll get a lot of comments saying that's disgraceful. So how can you live with yourself when there's people starving and all that kind of stuff? So it's quite an interesting industry to grapple with morally and ethically. But as I said, that money is not just disappearing. It's not a millionaire giving money to millionaires. It's supporting a whole ecosystem beneath it of normal people. How does that sit with you? the ethical moral i'm fine with it because i said i'm i've been in it a long time and as i said i've just seen it support a lot of normal people and a lot of normal people get mortgages put their kids through school raise kids put food on the table whatever it is that's living normal lives on the back on the back of being in that events industry space which is large which is financed either by big business or by wealthy people.

36:54James Clutterbuck:So it's the same with any luxury. I mean, is it ethically, morally right to spend£10 ,000 on a watch? Probably not. But that supports an industry below it. So that's the way I look at it. We're not so different from, say, a top-end car or a piece of jewellery or branded clothing or stuff like that. Nice. And then you've been doing this for many years. So I guess if you could look back on the time that you've been doing it, there's probably been some big lessons. We've been in business four years now, and God, I wish I could go back to Jack four years ago and say, be prepared for this, do this.

37:36What have been some of the hardest kind of waves to reckon with throughout your entrepreneurial journey?