in today's video and by popular vote during my live streams which i hold on most sundays by the
way i'm talking about how to start a business with no money many of you will be saying well you're
a barrister why would you be talking to us about starting a business without money well in addition
to being a barrister i've run several businesses for many years actually my first entrepreneurial
flair sort of showed up when i was still at school age six or seven over the years my businesses have
turned over many millions of pounds and we've spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on adwords
we still run several businesses today which includes a national retailer and wholesaler a
barristers chambers and a law firm and of course i practice as an independent barrister both employed
by the firm and as a self-employed practitioner so for this video there's going to be a few stories
along the way lots of guidance a few warnings and hopefully lots of inspiration but first of all if
you're new to me as i just said i'm a barrister who helps you understand lore on this channel
so make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you receive notifications and you don't miss
anything i answer your questions over on my other channel black belt secrets and as i said i do live
streams on sunday where you can join me live so before we get into the stories and the guidance
i want to share with you my philosophy of how a business works and becomes successful so the
first and most fundamental principle is that every single business in one sense or another is solving
some kind of problem it might solve that problem by providing a product the product does something
it might be providing a service and the service fulfills a solution to that problem either way
every business somehow or another is solving a problem for somebody so it's all very well when
someone is studying business formally and you learn the four ps product price place promotion
and how to market your products and things like this but the one most important aspect
is usually missing from that teaching which is that you have to solve some kind of problem
so every product that is sold and every service that is provided must be solving
some kind of problem otherwise it is doomed to fail the second absolutely fundamental principle
is that the person driving the business must absolutely have a passion for what it is that
they are doing not necessarily in the product or in the service but even if that business
is in the business of providing the product or the service the person must have the passion of
driving that forward and providing those products and services to prospective customers much like
me on this channel here you can all probably tell that i have a passion for law and i have a passion
for helping people hence i put the two together on this channel although it's not a business you
could measure success by the number of views the number of subscribers which i am humble to say has
grown dramatically over the last few months when i've committed to doing videos every single day
you'll find a library of my videos if you go to my channel and click videos there's over 160 or
i think 170 videos at the time of recording so as i said you can see that there is a passion
behind what someone is doing which will make that successful if the person finds the thing boring
then clearly there won't be enough passion in it and everybody will be able to tell and ultimately
just won't be a success and the third essential ingredient to this formula is that you must put
your client your customer your consumer or even your viewer at the forefront of your mind when
you're developing your business and your strategy that is the way that this works and that is how
amazon grew and every other successful business has grown in the past so as i go through some
stories i'm going to mention these things number one being solving a problem or offering a solution
number two having passion for what it is that you are doing and number three putting your consumer
first we'll call them the consumer although that can take the form of a client a viewer and so on
so my very first story comes to you from when i was still at school just about six or seven years
old and at break time we had a snack in which was full of different types of chocolates you might
remember penguin bars and of course kitkats and various others but they weren't always the options
available that other children wanted i saw this as an opportunity because i was solving the problem
i was obviously passionate about chocolate at that point and i was putting the choices
of other people in mind because that's what they wanted so i took it upon myself to bring in snacks
which i could resell to the other children i then realized that we could buy a whole pack
of 12 maybe chocolate bars and sell them at a marked up price now as a segue into the law here
most of those kind of packets will have not for individual resale written on the packet
this is mainly aimed at shopkeepers to say that they shouldn't be splitting them down and selling
them individually however me as an individual there was no particular contract to enforce that
term i was simply splitting them down and selling them off my own accord back in those days we had
the old-fashioned lift up desk where you could store things there so very quickly this became a
stockpile of different snacks and instead of children buying snacks from the snack tin at break
time there were two cues one for the snack tin and one for my desk because before long i had a bigger
selection of snacks to choose from that children were queuing up at least that was until the
teacher realized what i was doing and shut down my little venture but the teacher's intervention did
not yet put an end to my entrepreneurial days at junior school before long i was into origami again
i was passionate about creating things out of paper i've always been passionate about creating
things as you can see from this channel and the businesses that i've created over the years
so i started creating paper boats paper hats paper kermits you name it i was making these things out
of origami looking up how they were made which was very much more difficult in those days
there was no youtube and no google and again you guessed it before long one of the other children
asked me whether they could have one of these creations of mine to which i set the price
fairly competitively to what it was with the snacks first of all i was just swapping snacks
and then exchanging things and again before long i had a queue of children at the desk
hoping to pay me to buy one of these things so how does this relate to my core principles
well solving a problem and providing a solution if other children didn't have the snack that they
wanted i was providing the solution if other children wanted one of these origami creations
but they couldn't make them or were unwilling to put the timing to learn how to make them
again i was providing the solution because i would make it for them passion well i was obviously
passionate about chocolate bars and indeed i was passionate about helping other people get
what they wanted but i was also passionate about learning things and learning how to create things
so i was passionate with the origami my passion came through in what i was doing and other people
could see that and putting the consumer first well obviously the other children's choice in chocolate
i would go out and source the chocolate that they wanted putting their decisions at the forefront of
my little enterprise likewise with the origami if another child wanted a particular creation i
would learn how to make it and then i would sell it to them so that was my second little enterprise
which again before long was shut down and i was faced with an eviction notice from my teacher
to empty my desk of my origami and chocolate bars and just coming back to the title of the
video for a moment you might be thinking well this was supposed to be about how to start a business
with no money and you're talking about chocolate bars and origami well the principles are exactly
the same if you can create something and then sell it then it's not necessarily going to require an
awful lot of money to do so particularly if you're buying raw materials and then you are enhancing
those raw materials this brings me on to the enhancement of business and adding of value and
there are a number of different ways of doing this you can customize something you can make something
more convenient or you can make something rare you will always notice that limited edition means
there are only a hundred or a thousand or five thousand of a particular item being produced
naturally the price is usually going to be higher for those because there are not many of them made
bit like limited edition cars how do you do this with no money well you could offer to make these
customizations on something that you don't yet own or you could offer your services for something
that you are passionate about that solves a problem for something that you haven't yet
had to spend any money on and as i make this video there are lots of tiny stories that will creep in
for example i was out in an antique shop and i saw a chair very nice victorian looking chair
very good quality but it was in this tucked away little shop in the middle of nowhere and it was
very unlikely that anyone that was willing to buy that was going to come to this shop
and find it for sale so i created an advert online for this particular chair without having bought it
yet or spent any money on it offering it up for a reasonable but enhanced price i tailored the
service to offer a delivery obviously charging for that delivery and sure enough before long somebody
was willing to buy it from me i called the shop up purchased the chair and arranged for it to be
delivered this was one of the catalysts many many years ago for me partnering up with a company in
china to design and manufacture a range of high quality furniture to import to the uk and sell
it in a shop here of course this was before the days that the internet exploded and everything
was readily available online which sort of made it a lot more competitive part of that furniture
business include a custom designed and built service which would take several months but people
could have exactly what they wanted so again this was solving the problem and providing a solution
it was clearly something i was passionate about because it was design and creation which is
something that i love and putting the customer first well the customer got exactly what they
wanted because it was a custom designed service but how could you do any of this with no money
well if you are created and a skilled person or you have access to someone who is creative
and a skilled person you could set up a service whereby you customize certain products think about
etsy.com which is custom made or custom designed products which you can then advertise online
essentially for free until somebody buys one but you obviously can charge for your services of
customizing these products and get them out there and you get your business started just be careful
not to trip over any intellectual property rights which i've come across in my practice because
people often think of a design and then try to copy imitate that design that will invariably land
you in difficulties with law because companies tend to protect their intellectual property
and you may get your shop banned but skipping back in time once again when i was 15 or 16 and some
of you watching will recognize this story i was obviously passionate about music having played the
piano and keyboard since the age of about seven so come to the age of 15 and 16 when i started to
need and want a little bit more money to go out and buy what i wanted i set about finding ways
that i could solve a problem and find a solution for something that i was passionate about whilst
putting the consumer first all of which was going to be a successful recipe for a business
being passionate about music and helping people i thought to myself that i could put on
music workshops to help children and special needs children so i hand wrote 150 letters
handwritten because who doesn't read a handwritten letter so i wanted to make sure they would read it
i sent these letters to 150 or so schools day care centers and institutions across the midlands
in the uk many of those wrote back to me said what a wonderful idea to have someone come along
put on music workshops so they can teach and enjoy music at the same time it was particularly well
received by the special needs schools that didn't usually have this kind of a service
in fact to this very day the sessions i put on at those schools are my most treasured memories
because some of those children were captured on camera smiling and laughing for the very first
time even though they were 15 and 16 years old all of the staff jumped around with cameras
taking these photographs and the whole session was one of the most rewarding things i've ever done
so i went along and i did these sessions for many schools and daycare centers throughout the summer
charging two to three hundred pounds a session one in the morning one in the afternoon
turning up with my electronic keyboard various other musical equipment reinvesting some of the
money to buy more equipment doing games with the children and so on it was a barrel of laughs for
everybody concerned everybody learned something everybody enjoyed it and those places were calling
me for around 10 years after that initial summer but of course i'd moved on to different businesses
by then so i handed off the contacts to some other students that i knew that were still at school
so again coming back to my principles this was providing the solution to a problem i.e what
do these schools do to keep children enthusiastic about music or in daycare centers what do they do
to keep the children entertained obviously i had a passion for the music because i've been playing
for many years and obviously i was putting the end consumer first because i was tailoring those
sessions to what they wanted some of them just wanted musical games some of them wanted it to be
a little bit more educational and i could combine the two where necessary but all the while this was
a business that i set up and ran without putting any money into it i just put the time into writing
the letters sending them out to the institutions and then organizing and turning up at the sessions
other ways of setting up a business with no money might include sourcing products and reselling them
for a markup i'm not just talking about drop shipping which was quite the phenomenon when it
first came in but now there are so many different websites offering drop shipping services i think
you have to be a little bit different and offer that little bit more value to really make it work
for example you could advertise often for free online your services to source and find ideal
products to solve a problem or interior design that is customized and tailored to your clients
desires you may charge for your services and not put any markup on the products or you might do
it the other way around and not charge for your services and insist that they purchase
the products from you and you can set this up by way of contract because so long as there is an
intention to create legal relations between you and the terms are sufficiently clear and certain
then these contracts can be upheld and there are many creators online that are selling products in
this way or selling their services in this way all of which you are solving a problem you're
doing it with passion and you are tailoring it and putting your consumer first and using that
exact philosophy and model in a very modern sense for my barristers chambers that i set up which
is now very successful i set about helping other barristers to market their practice
and finding new clients which lots of barristers found difficult to do because they are not
trained or experienced in marketing although it is becoming much more essential these days
particularly with those barristers that want to do public access work which obviously does not come
via a solicitor many of you may not know that before 2004 you had to go to a solicitor in
order to instruct a barrister so when this changed after many many years in 2004 and barristers could
become authorized to accept what is called public access instructions i.e instructions
without a solicitor the barrister was then left with the choice of well do their chambers do the
marketing for them and still provide them with the work or does the barrister go out and do
their own advertising and marketing to find work for themselves and of course many barristers just
don't have the knowledge or experience in doing that or simply they don't want to do that so when
i set up my barristers chambers i already had a database of around 20 000 businesses this was
pre gdpr and the concerns that that throws up but we emailed all of the businesses on our database
offering them a free consultation with a barrister of up to 20 minutes and we had barristers who
agreed to this concept of providing the initial 20 minutes with a view to perhaps quoting for further
work sure enough before long we had streams of inquiries coming in work being generated and
the business of our barristers chambers was born all of which without spending a penny but if you
don't already have a database of contacts that you can tap into to start a business in this way
i'm reminded of the days that are trained to be a stock broker with a major firm and believe me you
need to know how to solve a problem be passionate and put the client first because as a stock broker
you have to generate all of your clients yourself and the key ingredient to making this work is
starting with your current network even if you can only initially reach out to 50 to 100 people
you make those solid contacts and you ask for referrals you don't necessarily try to sell
anything to the person that you contact but you can say i'm starting a business and i would really
appreciate it if you can put me in touch with two or three other people to chat about this business
with and what i might be able to offer almost everyone you know will have a contact that will
be interested in whatever service and business that you are setting up so asking them whether
they can introduce you to someone that you can help is an excellent first way of getting a list
of contacts that you can access secondly there are still traditional network meetings held
although most of these can now be found online with business groups on facebook and so on lots
of these networks work because each member will recommend your services to anyone they come across
that needs your services so you pull together effectively as a team to help each other out all
of which is either usually free or very minimal investment so when it comes to understanding how
you can start a business with no money think of it as what you are passionate about and what problem
that solves and then when you put your prospective clients at the forefront of everything you do then
whatever you do will become successful so let me know if you found these stories interesting and
if you'd like to hear more about how i made all of these things work and if you become a channel
member i will help you along the way because i've made lots of mistakes that i can help you to avoid
so in the meantime don't forget to like this video and remember stay humble and subscribe