- Joe.
Connor
Mark.
Jason.
That jumper over there, mate.
Swapping fashion for comfort you are, aren't you?
There we go.
Look at you.
Okay, so what is your biggest challenge?
Staff issues.
Getting committed employees.
Well, there's your problem.
They're subbies, aren't they?
So you're asking for committed subbies.
Very, very difficult to do.
And them having the same enthusiasm, morals and qualities.
So what you got here, I know exactly the problem.
That's why I honed in straight away.
Are they subbies or are they employees?
So they're always thinking I'm not completely secure here
so I'm always looking around.
So how do you protect yourself from that?
Because what you got to be careful is
you don't want to build a profitable job.
You want to build a profitable business.
What is a profitable business?
That's a commercially profitable enterprise
that works without you in it.
You want to be building an asset.
What's an asset?
An asset is something that someone wants to buy
when you decide to retire.
So you're gonna get 65 years old
or 55 or 45 or 50 and you're going to say
Danielle wants to retire.
And you're gonna sell the business
and they're going to say okay,
can I meet all your employees,
can I meet your management team?
What is the asset of the business?
And you say, well actually it's a profitable job really
so you're going to be buying my job
and these are all my subcontractors
so there's no security in them
they're not actually TUPEd over.
They're just subcontractors.
It's also worth bearing in mind
if these people are doing regular work patterns with you
they start getting all the benefits of employees anyway.
There is no protection.
The biggest thing in your staffing,
start employing people.
Now you can be sitting there thinking oh no,
but I've got the pressure of making sure I meet payroll.
I can't just quickly set them.
Once they start being working for you for two years
and they've got regular hours,
even if they're a subcontractor,
they still have all the rights of employees.
So the reason people take subcontractors on,
and believe me I know entrepreneurs in business,
I sat with plenty of them,
it's because they feel
like they're not fully committed
and if anything goes wrong they can just cut them off.
But if you behave like that
then it will always be like that.
So you've got to create some stability
with them to you to them.
In terms of getting great people,
how often do you train them?
If you want to motivate people
you've got to educate people.
Well, how often should you be training people?
Every single day.
You should be investing 20 minutes
bare minimum training every single day.
Now you could block up, you know
two hours training at the end of
the week to get people trained
but it's got to be regular.
So I look at some of our businesses.
We own a chain of day nurseries.
That's what regulates a business.
Marsh Farm is unregulated.
There's no governing body looking over Marsh Farm.
We get to decide what happens.
Why are regulated businesses always worth more money?
So things like dentists, doctors,
health care, child care.
They are regulated businesses.
The governing body's all set in that situation
so we follow their set of systems and processes.
And they insist by law that we have regular training.
That's why you always keep people more motivated.
So great businesses should be investing in training so much.
This is your training.
This is your CPD.
Your continual professional development.
But you don't have to do it because you're a business owner.
When you're a business owner you get to decide
whether you're getting training or not.
You've just decided that you should have it.
And I guarantee if a business owner reads a book every week,
listens to a podcast every week,
goes to a seminar at least ten times a year,
they're gonna be improving themselves, all right?
Look, if you're not training, you're not gaining.
So if you want to get your people on board
you've got to train them.
You've got to train them.
And you watch and of my Building the Business
or Backstage Business
you'll see in that room next door
we get all our managers in every single month
and spend a whole day on training them on the numbers.
We get them crucially again out of the environment.
The reason you guys are going to have a good day
of powerful learning today
is cause you're out of environment.
You're not in the office.
You're out of environment.
This is a strange environment to you.
It's not your regular environment.
So therefore your thinking is gonna be ten times better.
I think so much better
and more clarity for my business on holiday
cause I'm out of the regular environment.
It forces me to think different.
So these people are never going to be motivated
as subcontractors.
They never are.
In every organization I've helped.
Is there a question there?
Or are you just waving?
Find another revenue stream
so that you can fill their diaries up.
So I had this with the entertainment business.
They only worked weekend.
So we started doing things during the week.
We went to play schools and nurseries to fill up our hours.
If the model doesn't work, change it.
How can you get multiple revenue streams
that folds into the existing business?
I had this.
My business made 80% of its revenue Saturday and Sunday.
You read Marsh Farm.
It makes 80% of its business on 80 days a year.
Oh.
What do we do about that?
We build a day nursery on the site.
We are talking about building this as an event space
so we've got more revenue streams on our off peak times.
If you don't innovate, you're going to evaporate.
So you've got to think of innovative ways
of how you can change the business model
so that you've got an asset.
Most businesses, this is what I talk about.
Anyone seen my content,
we talk about profitable jobs and profitable businesses.
So we want to build a profitable business.
At the moment you sit in the 80% of businesses
what I call the profitable job camp.
It's a profitable job because the model isn't correct.
So you've got to get the model correct.
With this situation here.
What you're giving me here is battle plans.
Now if you see my content you're just throwing me battles.
But you haven't got a war plan.
I know you haven't.
Because you've just said all those things.
What does the thing look like when it's finished?
We'll do this later in the seminar.
You know, what profit do you want to make?
What revenue do you want to make?
What does your team look like?
I don't want to give it all away
cause we're gonna be doing it in a bit.
There's plenty of other people in the room
and there's my problem.
I could spend an hour just on you.
It's all about model.
And I've been fixing models in businesses my whole career.
My children's entertainment business,
we then set up an events business
where we did bouncy castles.
The model was wrong.
I couldn't make any money out of it.
Now what got you here might not get you there.
So you've got here.
But where you want to get to there,
you might be in the wrong model.
Now my play center business,
2009 the bloody sun came out and just destroyed my business.
I couldn't get anyone to come inside.
That business relies on rain and cold weather
and stuff like that.
And they just weren't coming in
so that's why I changed the model
to adding day nurseries.
Business is a constant process of innovation.
So when it comes to interviewing people,
if you're an entrepreneur, not a big corporate company,
and you haven't got a big HR team to help you out,
you're doing any decent profiling,
if I'm losing you already
that means you're not doing it right.
At least four, but probably more.
Now I'll tell you this again.
At least four, but probably more.
That's how many interviews you want to do.
And you want to get someone outside the business
in one of those interviews to come and censor check you.
What you've just told me
is the story of many business owners.
I would just get one indeed,
we have a little chat and if they seem similar to me,
and they like the same football team,
in you go, Son.
You've got the job.
You've gotta have a robust recruitment process.
It is the failing of so many SME businesses
on their recruitment process.
I don't trust myself to do any first or second interviews.
Any of our day nursery managers.
I do the last interview.
The third interview.
The fourth interview is a presentation
to what they're going to do for the business.
So they have to do a presentation like this
to what they're going to do for the business.
That holds them accountable
on how good they're going to be for our business.
So any, especially the management position,
maybe you're not going to do that for a manufacturing
on the floor type person.
But you've got to have model interviews.
You've got to do a personality test.
Make sure they're culturalized to the business.
And if you want them to be better,
if you're not training from them
you're not gaining from them.
Training is not shadowing someone
that's been here for ten years
that's got all these bad habits
and they're toxic to the business
and shadowing them new staff for two weeks.
That's what most businesses do.
They go, here's June, she's been here for 15 years,
she knows everything, but she bloody hates the place.
Now she'll tell you all the tricks
on how you get out early
and if you do this
they won't ever find out.
She's going to be training you.
You're going to be shadowing her for two weeks
so all of her toxic habits are now going to pass on to you.
Off you go.
And that's what so many SME business owners are doing.
But if you want to be good at marketing online
what doesn't happen is
you don't wake up in the morning and go
oh my god, an angel came into my room
and made me a marketing genius.
Look at me go.
You've got to invest into your learning about that.
You've got to listen to podcasts on it.
You've got to go to seminars on marking online.
Cause I do think it's that important.
I think business owners should become family doctors,
general practitioners.
Never surgeons and consultants.
So that means you know a little bit about everything
to ask the right questions.
Marking online.
The words.
Making sure we're using the right copy.
And all I want to tell you,
marketing always starts with the headline.
80% headline, 20% content.
The rest of the world is 80% content, 20% headline.
It's all about the fricken headline.
And that headline needs to be pain-solving.
Even our YouTube videos.
Chuck and I will sit there
and have full on blown conversation,
get the whole team involved
on what we're gonna title this video.
Because it is the headlines, the titles,
that get people to engage in a business.
No one cares that your dad started the business.
No one cares that you've been going for 50 years.
They don't give a flying F about any of that stuff.
What they care about is the pain-solving
that you can do for the business.
I don't know if you remember the Yellow Pages
and I've got a copy in my office.
It reminds me when you go to the 24 hour plumbing.
Someone's got a leak coming through their
their roof, something like that,
they open the Yellow Pages
it says 24 hour plumber, rapid response,
here's the telephone number.
It doesn't even say the company name
because in that situation you don't care.
When you're in pain and you go to the doctor
you don't go whoa,
how long have you been doing this, Sunshine?
Let us see your certificate of university graduation.
Where do you live?
How long have you been here?
Who taught you?
No one cares about that stuff.
They care about pain-solving
and then they'll look into that stuff
if they've got to make a decision.
It's your ego as business owners
that get in the way of really poor marketing.
We've been around since this long,
I've got these little letters under my name.
The crooks that always rip people off
are the ones that are great marketers.
The best builder, sorry.
The builder comes around does your house up
and then lets you, you know, rips you off
cause they haven't done a very good job,
it's only afterwards that you find out they're dodgy
and not really an expert
but they marketed you so good.
So marketing online, read some more books on it.
Go to seminars on it.
Come to our marketing master class seminar.
Another fly, see James B.
Do your dil.
So what you're doing there is content.
Not headline again.
So you're doing this is what this vehicle.
Yeah, the people,
If you want to get more sales
you need a really good generic video
that solves peoples' pain.
Then when people go, yeah, I'd like this for my car
then they want the intricate detail.
But online you need to have the pain-solving problem
it's 30, 40, 50 seconds long.
You know, you've got to wow people,
not how people.
And that's what everyone wants to do.
We'll how you.
How to, how to.
No, they want to be wowed.
They don't want to find out
how they're going to lose weight.
They want to be wowed
on how they're going to lose weight quickly
eating all the foods they want
and all the impossible stuff.
One of the best headlines that I've ever seen
on the internet is one of these
lose three stone with no exercise
eating all the foods you love.
Yeah, I'm in.
Tell me how I'm gonna do that.
And you know it's bull, but you know
you still wonder is it possible?
Is there some
and that's what newspapers when they say
the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express
are the worst at it but even I know what they're doing.
They grab me in.
They go yeah, yeah six inches of snow due this weekend,
roads are gonna be chaos.
Whoa, whoa whoa whoa.
Storm coming in.
Yeah, the main office says it might happen,
but you know they got you in, haven't they?
Then they can cookie you and
they know that you fall for these stupid headlines.
So number one, the big rule is you need to be,
it sounds like you're the managing director
or operator of your business.
The mindset that you need to be is
how can I be the marketer of being an osteopath
and not the operator of being an osteopath.
I mean that's the absolute rule of building,
growing a business.
I'm going to say, I can't remember what an osteopath does.
That's your problem.
It's a bit like this and bit like that
so when people see it.
So what should the headline for your business,
why do people go to you?
So you need to market have you got back pain?
We can solve it.
100% guarantee.
Money back if we can't.
Something like that.
Create Facebook ads around that.
And do have a look at audiences around Facebook.
Other people that have clicked on that stuff,
but keep it within the areas you operate out of.
Don't say osteopath because I think
I don't think osteopath.
Now if I have regular back person and pain problems
and I know that's what I need
but on the first pain
I might need to just go see someone once.
So think about that headline.
Have you got back pain?
We will solve it.
If we don't, then we won't charge you.
Because I suppose you're a genuine business
then you genuinely want to solve the problem.
You know you're out of the business today learning,
getting a different feel for stuff
but literally I've invested tens of thousands of pounds
in my own training.
I've flown to America to go to seminars.
More than three times.
You don't wake up knowing this stuff.
I just want to, I'm reading this book all about
so I do think there is,
my belief is if you've,
you know some people have some base talent, base DNA
and you should put practice on that to become outstanding.
You look at someone like Tiger Woods or Usain Bolt
and so I would say that guy has got a base,
or those guys have got base DNA talent for greatness.
Then they've put a huge amount of practice on
to become world-class.
So David Beckham must have had base talent,
meets Alex Ferguson.
Alex Ferguson makes him world-class.
You understand that theory that I'm talking about here?
There's got to be some base talent.
That is my gut instinct and feeling and belief.
So I'm reading this book about called Bounce.
Has anyone read Bounce or listened to Bounce?
It's about this Olympian table top player
and he is challenging my thinking.
He thinks that everyone could be world-class
with just enough practice and with enough circumstances.
He says that if people get invested
ten thousand hours of practice
into anything they'll become world-class.
Most people are just not training
and having enough practice on stuff.
It's a really good audio book.
The guy who reads it is fantastic
so maybe on your way back get yourself an Audible
and listen to it.
It has a great message for business owners.
I just don't think like,
you know one of those 26 people
could be an amazing manager.
Probably a better manager than you.
Because if you're serious about growing this business
you've got to be, in effect think of yourself not as MD
but as chief marketing officer.
Because the business owner
should be looking for opportunities,
going after them.
They should be getting customers pros.
Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson,
they spend more time or they have spent more time
on marketing than any other part of the business.
If you want to grow your business
you've got to see yourself as a marketer
of your thing rather than an operator of your thing.
You want to be 80% growing the business,
marking the business, 20% operating.
What I try to do, all the people that I've coached
people ask me, like how we've grown our business
and we've had some real tough times
and how we've worked things out
it's the process of E plus M equals S.
So entrepreneurship plus management equals success.
There has to be an entrepreneur
and there has to be a manager.
The ying and the yang in an organization
for it to be successful.