Business Principles 101

Chris Williamson 0:00 Today, we are starting a new series, Business Principles 101.

Jonny 0:04 If you just want to replace your income by doing something you enjoy doing, you could absolutely sell some kind of expertise, or even sell what you're currently doing, but package it in a business.

Chris Williamson 0:13 If you want to become good at business, a formal education is in no way mandatory. People love the idea of being an entrepreneur or a business owner more than they like the idea of doing business.

Yusef 0:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:25 Because they want the title without the graft. If the title could be attained (snaps fingers) overnight, in that case it's not worth anything, so you shouldn't want it.

Yusef 0:33 I've seen people set up a- a blog or a- a YouTube channel, and really plow money into it and try to get the production quality working, and just get nothing out of it, because you can't rely on organic traffic being a- a thing.

Chris Williamson 0:46 Not anymore, man.

Jonny 0:46 If you just do for a living what you find intensely interesting, then immediately you have a massive advantage over everybody else.

Chris Williamson 0:54 We're not actually that good at business, but we've made 13 years of mistakes that we only made once. I'm joined by none other than Jonny and Yousaf from propanefitness.com.

Yusef 1:07 Oh.

Chris Williamson 1:09 (laughs)

Yusef 1:10 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:10 Welcome back, man.

Yusef 1:11 Welcome back.

Jonny 1:11 Welcome back.

Chris Williamson 1:12 Welcome back indeed. Um, today we are starting a new series, Business Principles 101. Uh, we have all had a lot of experience. I've done 13 years of business operating. You've had maybe a decade now?

Yusef 1:27 11, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:27 11. Jonny, something similar?

Jonny 1:29 Same here.

Chris Williamson 1:30 It's like 30 years of combined running and failing at business between us.

Yusef 1:35 Lots of failing.

Chris Williamson 1:35 Mostly failing.

Yusef 1:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:37 Um, we are getting quite a lot of requests for advice for entrepreneurship and stuff like that, and I figured the, uh, wealth of experience that we have, both good and bad, could be pretty valuable to people, and there should be some golden stories that come out of this. Also, all of us did business degrees of one sort or another.

Jonny 1:55 Sort of, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:56 Accounting. What was your actual degree?

Jonny 1:58 Economics.

Chris Williamson 1:59 Was it?

Yusef 2:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:00 Okay. And then you did ...

Yusef 2:01 Mine was maths and business. Both totally useless as far as application, but we can-

Jonny 2:05 (laughs)

Yusef 2:05 ... certainly get into that.

Jonny 2:06 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:06 (laughs)

Yusef 2:07 I think something that's really useful as well, of hearing our failings that are to come, is that if you ever want to learn something from someone, I think if you've got a choice between learning from someone who's a natural and just struck lucky first time, compared to someone who was terrible or ma- failed multiple times and grew into a stage that- that you've seen this progression, there's so much more to be learned from that person. Like- like we were saying in Relationships 103, where the guy who's been divorced 15 times knows a lot more about marriage-

Chris Williamson 2:40 (laughs)

Yusef 2:41 ... than the guy who-

Chris Williamson 2:41 The guy that just happened to look into a harmonious one. You always say this about mobility, right? You wanna learn from the guy who couldn't get into good squat position.

Jonny 2:48 Benchpress.

Chris Williamson 2:49 Benchpress.

Jonny 2:49 But like, I, yeah, you don't wanna learn from the guy with little arms. You wanna l- learn from the guy who's world record level, but has got really long arms.

Yusef 2:55 Grinded it out and-

Chris Williamson 2:56 Yeah.

Yusef 2:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:57 Cool. So, um, where do we start with Business Principles? I guess, come on, um, I don't wanna hot potato you, Jonny.

Jonny 3:03 You are going-

Yusef 3:03 (laughs)

Jonny 3:04 I knew this was going to happen.

Chris Williamson 3:04 I'm going to hot potato you.

Yusef 3:04 No, no.

Chris Williamson 3:05 I'm sorry, I apologize.

Jonny 3:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 3:07 Uh, also, before we get, before we get cracking, in the comments below, or message me on Instagram, if there's any particular areas of business that you want us to cover, any stories you want us to elaborate on, any advice you'd like us to go for with entrepreneurship or our experiences, or if you need an accountant, I've got a mint accountant as well, so just, you know, magic man Chris Ayers. Um, so Jonny, what was your first foray into entrepreneurship or business operating?

Jonny 3:34 Um, so I- I was sat watching TV one summer, I think still at school perhaps, and used to read T Nation, bodybuilding.com a lot.

Chris Williamson 3:48 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 3:49 And clearly remember the thought of, th- that can't be that difficult to do. Like, it's just a website with articles on.

Chris Williamson 3:56 Blog. Fitness blog.

Jonny 3:57 Yeah. Let's do that. Texted Yousaf, well, I actually started one myself on like blogspot.com, like one of these like really old now, um, websites that allow you to set up a really bad website.

Chris Williamson 4:10 (laughs)

Jonny 4:11 Texted Yousaf and said, um, "Shall we set up a website? We'll call it optimumfitessystems.com." And you, I remember you were like, you were super keen.

Chris Williamson 4:21 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 4:22 But you googled how many results optimum fitness systems came up, and it was like hundreds of thousands.

Chris Williamson 4:28 (laughs) And this is probably, what, like 2008? 2006?

Jonny 4:31 Probably before that.

Yusef 4:31 Yeah, 2006, 2007.

Jonny 4:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:33 Geez.

Yusef 4:34 So we were like ...

Chris Williamson 4:34 So now, Optimum, if you are thinking-

Yusef 4:36 We should change the name.

Chris Williamson 4:36 There's our first piece of advice.

Jonny 4:38 (clears throat) For God's sake.

Chris Williamson 4:38 If you are thinking, do not call it Optimum-

Jonny 4:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:41 ... Optimum Fitness Systems.

Jonny 4:42 Yeah. Yeah, so that was it. That was it, and it didn't become a business until 2011.

Yusef 4:50 Yeah, so ca-

Chris Williamson 4:50 Yeah, 'cause for you guys, you just started the blog as like a, "Oh, we do fitness. People ask us..." When are you getting hassled loads about fitness?

Jonny 4:56 Yeah, get... Well, I think when you're like the- the fit one in your friends.

Chris Williamson 5:01 Yeah, yeah.

Jonny 5:01 In your friendship group. People ask you like, you know-

Yusef 5:04 "How do I get big arms?"

Jonny 5:06 Uh, way in the morning, two scoops, strawberry.

Chris Williamson 5:09 Strawberry?

Yusef 5:09 Oh.

Jonny 5:10 (laughs)

Yusef 5:10 I get cornered in the gym with people being like, "Oh, excuse me, uh, just, uh, 'cause, uh, just so you know, I have, uh, me- me breakfast, 7:00 AM. Strawberry, two scoops."

Jonny 5:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:22 (laughs)

Yusef 5:22 "With, uh, just-"

Jonny 5:23 I love the, "Just so you know."

Chris Williamson 5:24 (laughs)

Jonny 5:24 Like no- no context, just-

Yusef 5:26 You know-

Chris Williamson 5:26 You know?

Jonny 5:27 ... he's just telling you, you know-

Yusef 5:27 And he'll start then, he's like, "Well, it's too rude to interject at this point."

Jonny 5:30 (laughs)

Yusef 5:30 "So I'm gonna have to wait until he makes his point."

Chris Williamson 5:32 What's the-

Yusef 5:32 And then he just takes, he's just going through his entire day.

Chris Williamson 5:34 (laughs)

Yusef 5:35 Being like, "Oh, I'll have me oats, 30 grams. Uh, d- Sc- Scottish rolled oats."

Chris Williamson 5:41 (laughs)

Yusef 5:41 "And then I'll have two egg whites."

Jonny 5:45 Not the pot? Not the instant pot?

Yusef 5:45 Oh, no-

Chris Williamson 5:46 Oh, sure. Yeah.

Jonny 5:46 ... the rolled ones in there. They're organic i-g-i."

Chris Williamson 5:49 Low GI.

Yusef 5:50 And you're like, "Oh, mate." (laughs) I'm in between sets here.

Jonny 5:53 (laughs) Fuck's sake.

Chris Williamson 5:53 Some girl outside of Voodoo on Saturday opened every sentence that she said to me, said about maybe five different things. Every sentence was opened with, "Not being funny."Oh, God.

Yusef 6:04 How was I rude? Did- did- did-

Chris Williamson 6:05 (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 6:06 Did he? Was it- I just assumed 'cause you went-

Chris Williamson 6:07 Dean. Make- make it- replay it and then zoom in on his mouth, and you'll hear him go- "I'm not being funny." Every sentence was opened with, "Not being funny." Oh.

Yusef 6:17 See, that- that was just a- a private joke because, uh, we were at a thing where there was a guy constantly putting his hand up and asking-

Chris Williamson 6:23 Who brought it up?

Yusef 6:24 So I'm not being funny, right? But like, what about what you just said-

Chris Williamson 6:29 (laughs)

Yusef 6:29 ... was in any way funny?

Chris Williamson 6:30 Why are you warning us?

Yusef 6:31 You couldn't have construed it-

Chris Williamson 6:32 Why are you ... Like no one, no one laughed, so there was no danger of anyone thinking it was funny anyway.

Yusef 6:36 Like, this is hilarious, but I promise you it's not intended to be humorous at all.

Chris Williamson 6:39 (laughs)

Yusef 6:40 Just a preface.

Chris Williamson 6:41 Early warning system has been activated.

Yusef 6:44 Yeah. It's really weird.

Chris Williamson 6:45 Um, so yeah, that was... What about you, Yusuf? Did you do anything before that?

Yusef 6:49 Yes. Uh, I- I used to drop ship batteries on Ebay.

Chris Williamson 6:51 What the fuck? (laughs) Here we go. Excuse me. We need to ring the Yusuf alarm.

Yusef 6:56 Stop the podcast. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:58 (laughs)

Yusef 6:58 What was the last ... This was when you ... It was on Life Fails when you told us that you'd been going to, like, Blyth for 12 weeks to do-

Chris Williamson 7:04 Oh, for a cult?

Yusef 7:06 Right. So it was last summer.

Chris Williamson 7:06 And so you've been drop sh- drop shipping. I bet he's still doing this, you know?

Yusef 7:11 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:11 (laughs)

Yusef 7:11 You'd have gone to a drop shipping battery conference last weekend.

Chris Williamson 7:13 (laughs)

Yusef 7:15 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:15 That's where you were. You went with your girlfriend-

Yusef 7:16 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:17 ... in the cottage somewhere.

Yusef 7:18 The game that was just a cover story. I was- I was in the warehouse in Slough-

Chris Williamson 7:21 (laughs)

Yusef 7:22 ... trying to arrange a deal for Taiwan.

Chris Williamson 7:24 First principles, man, yeah.

Yusef 7:25 Yeah. Drop shipped batteries. Actually I misused the word drop ship. It- I arbitraged them.

Chris Williamson 7:32 (laughs) That's even worse. So you never actually owned them?

Yusef 7:34 Well, I- I owned them for- for a short time. So I used to buy batteries in bulk, the littleum, C137 or whatever they're called.

Chris Williamson 7:40 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yusef 7:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:41 For scales?

Yusef 7:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:42 Yep.

Yusef 7:43 Um- I had to buy one recently for my car key. Oh, I should have bought one off me. I get you good-

Chris Williamson 7:46 (laughs)

Yusef 7:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:47 Don't you worry, habibi.

Yusef 7:49 Drive to your fucking Go Petrol station.

Chris Williamson 7:50 Ah, tell your fat bastard.

Yusef 7:54 No packaging, okay? Just-

Chris Williamson 7:55 (laughs)

Yusef 7:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:57 No, don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry.

Yusef 7:58 It comes back with a little piece of cling film.

Chris Williamson 8:00 Yeah, that's it. (laughs)

Yusef 8:01 With just a pen written on. "No, it's good stuff. It's good John Deere."

Chris Williamson 8:03 (laughs)

Yusef 8:04 So yeah, I used to buy them in bulk and then resell them on e- ... It was such a ballache actually. That ... So that was lesson number one. Time is money. And just because you can make a markup on something doesn't mean that that profit is worth your time. Because if you translate that into ... If I were ... If you were to just get a job in a pub or in Costa or something, you'd probably make more per hour with less stress and so- What was your markup on the batteries? It was, it ... (sighs) I can't remember now. It wasn't worth my time, to be honest. Not enough to continue doing? No, just 'cause of the amount of ballachery that Ballachery. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:39 So talking about, um, the issue of time, I think this paralysis by analysis issue that we came up against or what me and, uh, one of the guys, part of the Modern Wisdom project, Jordan, dubbed the planner's dilemma, similar to the prisoner's dilemma, is a lot of people are averse to starting a business because they would rather plan and think-

Yusef 9:05 Have the perfect business.

Chris Williamson 9:06 Yeah, the perfect business, whereas definitely I'm ... We- we will all agree that a lot of the skills that you learn in business just occur from operating something.

Yusef 9:16 Yep.

Chris Williamson 9:16 Like, just having to deal with the situations which arise as a byproduct of having a business, and they become so robust and transferrable.

Yusef 9:24 So great principle for this is idea is the constant and execution is the multiplier, whereas a lot of people who haven't done something like this before thinks that- think that the idea is like, "Oh, mate, I've got this really sick idea, but you've got to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you're gonna talk about it with me 'cause I'd have to kill you if it..." And it's like no one cares about your stupid little idea because unless you actually execute it well, it d- ... Like Amazon selling stuff, selling items online. It's not a- it's not a groundbreaking idea, but it's executed so well that it becomes ...

Chris Williamson 9:55 Yeah.

Yusef 9:55 So, um, I think that's something that ... And- and it comes into the planner's dilemma because people think that like if they craft this perfect idea, it's like ... But actually if they just got moving and doing things and then failed forward into stuff and then you figure out what works and what doesn't. But I think the best description I've heard of business operation is just professional problem solving. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:15 Yeah.

Yusef 10:15 And like you- all that happens is you are trying to make something continue happening and happen more or faster, more often or at bigger- bigger scale, and loads of problems happen.

Chris Williamson 10:28 It feels-

Yusef 10:28 And you have to solve them. Each time something happens, each time you- "Oh, no, there's a problem. Oh, I got to find a solution. Oh, that's created another problem."

Chris Williamson 10:33 Yeah. It feels like to me controlled falling business. Like, someone's pushed you at the top of an infinite set of stairs and all you're doing is going ... (footsteps pattering)

Yusef 10:43 That- that's what Ben is so good at. So we- we have a friend who ran a- a bike company and he was consulted ... He got a phone call the other day of someone being like, "Oh, you all right, mate? Something's gone wrong in the labs. Like the- the inducer isn't working through the thing and it's letting off this blue steam." And Ben was like, "Okay, so maybe just try this and then I'll- we'll get Christian to write a bit of code so that it only functions intermittently." I'm like, "Ben, what- how do you know about lab equipment?" He goes like, "I don't really. It's just kind of problem solving." Just systems, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 11:12 Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 11:13 You know.

Chris Williamson 11:13 At some point in his history he's come up with something that links to this. But yeah, controlled falling, man. Like again, a lot of people that think they're ... Or that perceive professionals, high performing professionals, as being good at business would be so amazed to realize how little of a clue they have about what they're doing. So I was listening to ... And this is a really fucking good podcast, and I haven't lost my mind. Logan Paul.

Yusef 11:38 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:38 Logan Paul's podcast really fuck- ... He's got some ... He's got some shite guests on. Like he'll- he'll probably have like Nicki Minaj or something.

Yusef 11:46 But even still, fair fucking play.

Chris Williamson 11:47 Matty had-

Yusef 11:47 That's a big guy to play.

Chris Williamson 11:48 ... he had The Real Wolf of Wall Street on.

Yusef 11:50 Really?

Chris Williamson 11:51 Like giving sales advice. Motherfucker.

Yusef 11:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:56 So anyway, um, and he was talking about ... All of the guys in the room were talking about the fact that all of them have pitched themselves into meetings with people that are super successful-... and said that they are the best at social media in all of LA when they've never done social media or digital marketing before.

Jonny 12:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:11 And then they've just had to learn on their feet. Now, I think that you can overshoot, and this goes back to what you were saying about just getting started with something. If you're going to start a business, I think starting small, i.e., do not, I repeat, do not ring me-

Jonny 12:28 (laughs)

Guest 12:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:28 ... and tell me that you've remortgaged your entire house to start a business when you have no business experience.

Jonny 12:34 Mm-hmm.

Guest 12:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:34 I.e., start with a low amount of financial liability.

Guest 12:37 Oh, I've seen that before. It's terrifying.

Chris Williamson 12:39 You've never run a business before and you've put 50% of your net worth into this business.

Jonny 12:43 You see it on Dragons' Den a lot, if you ever watch that.

Guest 12:45 Oh, people just go-

Jonny 12:47 People that are like-

Guest 12:47 ... "All chips on the table."

Jonny 12:48 Yeah, when they're like, they're asking for investment, they haven't made many sales, it's like, "How much have you invested?" Like, "Oh, 100,000 of my own money. I've remortgaged my house twice." You know, like, hmm.

Guest 12:56 You're like, I-

Jonny 12:56 You know, you get (laughs) -

Guest 12:57 There's, there's great optimism.

Chris Williamson 12:58 Well, I've got to pay, like, once I take off the child support and my divorce settlement, like, yeah, painful.

Jonny 13:03 It's why-

Chris Williamson 13:03 Everyone just thinks they're going to be Levi Roots, don't they?

Jonny 13:05 Well, yeah, like the one diamond in the rough success story.

Chris Williamson 13:09 Yeah.

Jonny 13:09 But it, it's, it's kind of why the, the Gary Vaynerchuk advice of, of, like, you know, the people asking him a question like, "I'm, I'm 29 and I've got this idea, but I think it's too late to start." And he's like, "Fuck you." You know what I mean? He's like, "Of course it's not too late to start." And it's like, well, Gary, that's fine, uh, un- until it's negligent. Until, like, the person actually doesn't have a really good idea and they ruin their life-

Chris Williamson 13:31 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 13:32 ... pursuing this like, well, I just need to keep trying and keep investing and keep going.

Chris Williamson 13:35 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 13:36 So-

Chris Williamson 13:36 I was-

Jonny 13:37 But you only know that if you just... Well, it's the Facebook thing of move, move fast, break it-

Chris Williamson 13:41 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 13:41 ... and then go back to what you were doing.

Chris Williamson 13:42 So in- interesting point here. David Epstein, guy that wrote Range, he said that he'd done an analysis of when the, uh, av- the average age of the CEOs of industry-changing businesses. So he asked, "What's the average age of in- of, uh, CEOs in industry-changing businesses when they founded the company?" So not when it went public, none of that shit, what's the average age? And they asked this at this, like, super starty-uppy, Silicon Valley, quantified self, vegan bullshit conference somewhere.

Jonny 14:17 Like, astroturf on the walls-

Chris Williamson 14:19 Yeah.

Jonny 14:19 ... basketball hoops everywhere.

Chris Williamson 14:21 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, and-

Guest 14:23 Foosball. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:24 Foosball, fucking loads-

Jonny 14:25 (laughs)

Guest 14:25 Ugh.

Chris Williamson 14:25 ... of foosball, yeah, exactly. Ask this question and the room was like, "Uh, 23, 24, 25." Because everyone knows the Mark Zuckerberg story, about he was, I think, 23-

Jonny 14:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:34 ... when he started Facebook. Average age, 44.

Jonny 14:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:38 So-

Jonny 14:38 I think that's what I said before.

Chris Williamson 14:39 Bill Gates and, um, that era of CEOs seem to play around in a number of different industries before they get to something.

Jonny 14:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:51 But what have they got? Wealths of experience.

Jonny 14:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:54 And masses of failures as well.

Jonny 14:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:57 Probably.

Jonny 14:57 Well, even, even like on a really PG, like BBC level, Dragons' Den again.

Chris Williamson 15:02 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 15:02 If you watch that lineup, like none of them are such and such founded a business when he was 18 and it was the first business he did and he went on to be a multimillionaire. Like, all of them had like eight businesses that at- like spectacularly failed, and then the ninth one just went all right.

Guest 15:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:18 So as a, uh, to try and give some of my genesis story, I guess, with this, which is a little bit contrary to what we've said so far, the first ever business that I started was when I sat down at my first seminar for uni in Freshers' Week, sat next to my business partner, my f- my would-be business partner, said, "I'm skint. I've spent all of my money in Freshers' Week drinking." This is when like maintenance loan was like three, two and a half grand or something in pennies, but then also accommodation was also pennies. Uh, sat next to him and he said, "Oh, well, there's this company that I used to work for in Leeds called Voodoo. Now, you can come and get a flyering job with me later on. Like, do you want to come to the meeting this week?" And then from then, we started working together and that, that was my first ever business, first day of university, sat next to my business partner. 13 years later, still together.

Jonny 16:07 Still doing it.

Guest 16:07 There's a key difference there, though, isn't there, as to why that was successful, and the people who quit their job and remortgaged their house before they've f- fathomed an idea, why, why that was successful and what you-

Chris Williamson 16:21 We very delicately treaded in and moved up through the business.

Jonny 16:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:25 So definitely one of the principles I think that people need to keep a hold of is that if you've never run a business before or if you're wanting to start a business, you have to, as far as I'm concerned, especially small businesses, if you are a specialist in logistics or something like that, there's no reason that you couldn't, after a lot of time doing logistics, then jump from perhaps management to ownership. That's a, a fairly easy one. But for a lot of SMEs, my best bit of advice in terms of starting is to learn every phase of your business from the ground floor up.

Guest 16:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:00 So the lineage of a typical club promoter would be start as a flyer boy, be good at flyering, then maybe become like a senior flyer boy where you manage the other PR staff. Then junior event manager, event manager, senior event manager, city manager, maybe business development manager or something like that, then director. And once you've done through all of those different stages, you understand, you've got a bird's eye view of recruitment, of marketing, of HR, of accounting, of B2B, of B2C, all that sort of shit, and then when one of your employees comes to you with an issue, you can deal with it-

Jonny 17:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:38 ... because you have seen-

Guest 17:39 'Cause he brings every cog in each wheel.

Chris Williamson 17:40 ... every single thing and you've got a process. So there we go, another principle is, as you move through the business, as you encounter particular issues, write down your solution that you gave to those issues. Because now, for me and Darren, again, one of the things that we talk about with our business is that we're not actually that good at business, but we've made 13 years of mistakes that we only made once.

Jonny 18:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:06 And now, we have a process for ... there's very rarely, very, very rarely that I come up against, and this will be the sa- I know it's the same for you guys because I've seen your auto-responder email.

Jonny 18:16 (laughs)

Yusef 18:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:18 Um-

Jonny 18:18 (laughs)

Yusef 18:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:18 ... that very rarely do you encounter a situation after running a business for maybe more than five years which you haven't encountered before. There's something quite symbolic about that as well, that the vast majority of problems that people believe is this unique curse bestowed upon them alone-

Jonny 18:35 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 18:35 ... are actually just really representative of what everyone's suffers with.

Yusef 18:38 We, we get that with, 'cause we, we offer business coaching as well. And sometimes you'll get an inquiry from someone that's like, "Hey, guys, I was gonna sign up for your program, but my situation is like really unique and different and special. So, I need customized, I need something that's more bespoke." And then they describe their situation and you're like-

Chris Williamson 18:58 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 18:58 ... "That is the most standard of standard businesses."

Jonny 19:00 (laughs)

Yusef 19:00 Like you and the other 10 people who emailed this week with exactly the same unique specific-

Chris Williamson 19:05 Did you listen to the Tiago Forte podcast? He said that his first ever business was, um, fixing people's Windows XP computers.

Yusef 19:12 Oh, yeah.

Jonny 19:13 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:13 Everyone had this very unique problem-

Yusef 19:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:16 ... that they came to him with.

Yusef 19:16 He just Googled it.

Jonny 19:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:17 He, no, no, no. He just did, uninstalled the operating system-

Jonny 19:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:21 ... and put it back in, restarted it, gave it to them.

Jonny 19:24 (laughs)

Yusef 19:24 'Cause like-

Chris Williamson 19:24 He apparently sat there like, "Really?" "Yes, yes."

Jonny 19:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:27 They were like-

Yusef 19:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:28 ... "Oh, like, yes. So, what, what's the problem that you've got? Oh, yes, yeah. Oh, it's difficult when I does."

Yusef 19:32 Can I fix this?

Chris Williamson 19:33 It's difficult." Yeah, exactly. One solution fits all.

Yusef 19:36 Well, like, there, there's something to be said for that. Like, in offering any service, obviously, my like background is in delivering healthcare service, but it's the same thing that there is a, there is an evidence basis behind, and this is seeing behind the, the wall now, behind when a doctor asks you-

Chris Williamson 19:55 Oh, God. This is how medicine works.

Yusef 19:57 Yeah. The, the doctor will ask you, "What, what do you think it is? Okay. Do you have any particular big worries about-"

Chris Williamson 20:02 Is that the same, is that the same as when a policeman pulls you over and goes, "Do you know why I've pulled you over?"

Yusef 20:06 (laughs)

Jonny 20:06 (laughs)

Yusef 20:06 Yeah. It's-

Chris Williamson 20:07 Hang on, mate, I'm not, ain't a fucking hamstring myself.

Jonny 20:09 (moans)

Chris Williamson 20:10 Fuck off, man, yeah? You tell me what I was doing.

Jonny 20:13 (laughs)

Yusef 20:13 Like the, those are the, the three evidence-based questions that improve-

Chris Williamson 20:15 I ain't no grass, yeah.

Yusef 20:17 I'm not a grass. (laughs)

Jonny 20:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:17 I'm not a fucking grass, man.

Yusef 20:19 ... that will improve, uh, s- like patient satisfaction is you just ask them, "What do you think it is? Any big concerns? What's your expectation for today?" Ice. Now, doctor doesn't care about your answers. (laughs)

Jonny 20:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:33 (laughs)

Yusef 20:33 But it's just because it, it ... on, the data shows that that makes people happier. So, with service, like, what Tiago was doing there rather than being like, "Right, don't care. What I'm gonna do is un- uninstall the operating system." Instead it's like, "Hmm. Okay."

Chris Williamson 20:47 "So tell me, how is the Nutella, Jim?"

Yusef 20:48 (laughs) And like taking notes on it. And then doing what you want, 'cause it doesn't matter to, to them. It's the black box. Tiago's come in, fixed my computer, I'm happy. It's worked.

Jonny 20:56 I'd far rather that they didn't even ask me and just fixed it.

Yusef 21:00 Really? You just don't need-

Jonny 21:01 'Cause I, I would rather just feel like-

Chris Williamson 21:02 I think the-

Jonny 21:03 ... thing, I knew something was going on.

Yusef 21:04 I see.

Chris Williamson 21:04 I think you're very unemotional when it comes to this stuff. Which again, like being unemotional-

Yusef 21:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:08 ... in business, like-

Yusef 21:10 Do you know, I think I am quite emotional.

Chris Williamson 21:12 You're quite transactional with stuff, though. You just want in- input, process, outcome.

Jonny 21:16 Oh, the outcome?

Chris Williamson 21:17 Yeah.

Jonny 21:17 Yeah, but it's, it's idiocy to want anything else.

Yusef 21:20 Because you know that when you're paying someone-

Jonny 21:21 (laughs)

Yusef 21:21 ... to fix a computer-

Jonny 21:22 I, I want it fixed because-

Yusef 21:23 ... that's precisely what you're paying it for.

Chris Williamson 21:24 Yeah.

Yusef 21:25 You don't, like-

Chris Williamson 21:25 I want this, like, fucking-

Yusef 21:27 I can imagine you giving the key to the house and just being like, "Do what you're doing."

Jonny 21:29 Yeah. I don't wanna like have a story about it. Just fix the fucking computer.

Yusef 21:32 (laughs)

Jonny 21:32 So, yeah. So, we've got E-Myth revisited.

Chris Williamson 21:35 Mm-hmm. Just-

Jonny 21:35 Book.

Yusef 21:36 Just thinking.

Jonny 21:36 Basically describes exactly what you've just said. E-Myth. E-Myth.

Yusef 21:38 What, what are the three stages?

Jonny 21:40 E-Myth.

Yusef 21:40 You become ... You're the technician when you start.

Jonny 21:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:43 So, okay, so who writes it? It'll be in the show notes below.

Jonny 21:45 Uh ...

Yusef 21:46 Uh ... I can't remember.

Jonny 21:47 Can't-

Yusef 21:47 We'll find out.

Chris Williamson 21:47 It'll be in the show notes below. Don't worry.

Jonny 21:48 So, it's the, the entrepreneurial myth. So, he describes a situation of this woman who works for, works in a baker's, loves baking cakes. She's like, "Right, I'm gonna set up my own bakery." Sets up her own bakery because she loves making cakes.

Chris Williamson 22:00 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 22:01 And then realizes like, "Oh, fuck. Like, I need to like clean the surfaces, do the books. Oh, God, I need to set up all these systems and, and do, and manage my advertising, and I need an employee." So, then she brings someone in to help and the manager then does everything, hires all the systems. And 10 years later, it's this massive bakery. And she goes in and tries to speak to one of the employees and the employee goes, "Who are you?" And she, and th- she's like, "Oh, um-"

Yusef 22:24 She hasn't baked a cake in five years.

Jonny 22:25 "... I'll help with this." They're like, "Oh, no, no, this is how we do it." And she's lost complete control of the business because she didn't do every step.

Chris Williamson 22:32 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 22:32 So, it ... that is 101, like if you wanna, if you're look ... 'Cause I think the, the most common movement into business for most people is they are doing something or they see the way something is done and think, "I can do that or I can do that better." Or whatever.

Chris Williamson 22:48 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 22:48 But they often miss like the, the rest of the picture.

Chris Williamson 22:52 It's the same as what we talk about a lot here, which is a lot of people want quick fixes. They want the fat loss pill, not to consistently do calorie deficit with some cardiovascular exercise.

Jonny 23:02 Not, not the euros dieting.

Chris Williamson 23:02 Yeah.

Jonny 23:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:03 And it's the same for this. People love the idea of being an entrepreneur or a business owner more than they like the idea of doing business-

Jonny 23:12 Because-

Chris Williamson 23:12 ... because they want the title without the graft. And unfortunately, the titles only worth if the title could be attained (snaps fingers) overnight.

Jonny 23:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:22 In that case, it's not worth anything, so you shouldn't want it.

Jonny 23:26 Ronnie Coleman was right all along, wasn't he?

Chris Williamson 23:27 Everybody wants to be a powerlifter.

Jonny 23:28 But ... powerlifter, bodybuilder, but nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weights.

Chris Williamson 23:31 They don't. Everybody wanna be a business-

Yusef 23:33 Woo.

Jonny 23:33 Honestly, you realize slowly that he is just, everything he said, you look at him and think, "What a, what a weirdo." But all of it is profound-

Yusef 23:41 In his banana, banana leggings.

Chris Williamson 23:41 What about nothing but a, nothing but a peanut? What about that?

Jonny 23:43 Well, precisely.

Chris Williamson 23:44 Like, "Wasn't anything but a peanut?"

Jonny 23:46 That's just, that's just this unbreakable attitude of like, "It doesn't matter."

Yusef 23:48 It just, he sees the impermanence of life, and it just ain't nothing but a peanut.

Chris Williamson 23:51 (laughs)

Jonny 23:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:51 Ain't nothing but a peanut.

Yusef 23:53 It's re- everything's all complexity and difficulty in life reduced down to a peanut.

Chris Williamson 23:57 Yeah.

Yusef 23:57 And he's like woo.

Chris Williamson 23:59 Woo.

Jonny 23:59 Yeah. There's a man about to squat 800 solid-ass pounds.

Chris Williamson 24:03 Solid-ass pounds.

Jonny 24:03 And he's still going like, "Dude."

Chris Williamson 24:06 (laughs)

Jonny 24:06 "I'm doing two." Like-

Chris Williamson 24:08 No, no, Ronnie, don't do like-

Jonny 24:09 Ronnie, that's really heavy. He's like ...

Chris Williamson 24:13 (laughs)

Jonny 24:14 What a great attitude.

Chris Williamson 24:15 It's incredible.

Jonny 24:15 We should do business mentoring.

Chris Williamson 24:17 (laughs) Have you seen him? No. Ronald Coleman, business mentor.

Jonny 24:23 Oh, God.

Chris Williamson 24:24 Yeah, he's fucked now, isn't he?

Jonny 24:25 But he, but even still, like, I've seen him, have you seen his vi- his YouTube channel? He like sneaks up behind people when they're-

Yusef 24:31 Whoo.

Jonny 24:31 Yeah.

Yusef 24:32 (laughs)

Jonny 24:32 Like someone's sat at their desk.

Yusef 24:34 (laughs)

Jonny 24:34 He's going like, "Dae!"

Chris Williamson 24:35 What, at like ronniecoleman supplements.com or whatever it is?

Jonny 24:37 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:38 Amazing.

Jonny 24:38 Got his supplement, like-

Chris Williamson 24:39 Can you imagine-

Jonny 24:39 ... hero.

Chris Williamson 24:40 ... being one of the staff that works at ronniecoleman supplements.com?

Jonny 24:42 Yes.

Chris Williamson 24:43 Can you? Do you think about him a lot?

Yusef 24:44 Well, I'd be on edge all the time, wouldn't you?

Chris Williamson 24:45 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Jonny 24:46 "Fuck, is Ronald in the building? Ah, shit."

Yusef 24:47 There'd be a, there'd be a bit of a worry that like he- No one knows he's in the building.

Jonny 24:49 ... would just th- y- run out of cash and not realize. I think that, that's how that business would, would ultimately run.

Chris Williamson 24:55 I mean, I know having seen the Ronnie Coleman documentary that he is spending a lot of money on pain pills.

Jonny 25:00 Yeah, it's sad.

Yusef 25:01 It's sad.

Chris Williamson 25:01 Like a lot of money. Like, he is bouncing off the limiter of how much he can take in terms of pain pills. He's-

Yusef 25:06 He needs to order them in from the UK, doesn't he?

Chris Williamson 25:09 (laughs)

Yusef 25:09 Rather than pay 1,000 pounds a pop in the States, but-

Jonny 25:11 Why don't you arbitrage it?

Chris Williamson 25:12 Arbitrage it, yeah.

Jonny 25:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:13 You've got access now.

Yusef 25:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:16 Can ... Oh, actually also-

Yusef 25:17 Ronald, please get in touch if you're there.

Chris Williamson 25:18 Hang on.

Jonny 25:18 Ronald-

Chris Williamson 25:19 Congratulations.

Jonny 25:20 Oh, yeah sure.

Chris Williamson 25:20 Yousuf's a doctor.

Yusef 25:22 Finally.

Jonny 25:23 Double high five. Three, two, one. (fingers snapping)

Yusef 25:26 Oh. (laughs)

Jonny 25:28 (laughs)

Yusef 25:29 Yes.

Chris Williamson 25:30 Congrats, man.

Yusef 25:31 Thank you.

Jonny 25:31 We should've done that in Catch Up.

Chris Williamson 25:32 Goodness me.

Jonny 25:32 We should've had a special memorial Catch Up-

Yusef 25:34 Ah.

Chris Williamson 25:34 ... for Yousuf's education career.

Jonny 25:36 (laughs)

Yusef 25:37 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:37 How many years you been in uni?

Yusef 25:39 11.

Jonny 25:40 Motherfuckers.

Chris Williamson 25:41 So how many years you been in-

Yusef 25:42 A pain.

Chris Williamson 25:42 ... full-time education?

Jonny 25:45 The vast majority of my life.

Yusef 25:45 For t- sorry, 10. Uh, yeah, and then full-time ed- I don't know. Like that, plus-

Jonny 25:49 Since you were like ...

Yusef 25:50 M- plus the baseline that you have to do.

Jonny 25:52 What is it, five, four?

Chris Williamson 25:53 11. No. Plus college, so-

Jonny 25:56 No, what time do you like school?

Chris Williamson 25:57 Five. Five until 18 you did, so that's another 13.

Yusef 26:01 Okay. Yeah. So, l- let's say-

Jonny 26:04 Lots.

Yusef 26:05 Lots. No.

Jonny 26:06 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 26:07 I can't believe we broke down all of the elements of the equation to come up with the, the answer of lots.

Jonny 26:10 Because it is lots, isn't it?

Yusef 26:12 And none of it had any relevance for the stuff, the, for any success or failure in business.

Chris Williamson 26:17 Okay. So there we go. There's another one. All three of us did business or business-related degrees.

Yusef 26:22 Conventional education, s- like-

Chris Williamson 26:24 Suck steak.

Yusef 26:24 Listen to Anton. Seek alternative education.

Jonny 26:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 26:27 Do you know, do you know who I will put in the show notes? I will put-

Jonny 26:30 Anton Kreil.

Chris Williamson 26:30 I'll put Anton Kreil and I'll put Sam Ovens. I will put a Sam Ovens.

Jonny 26:33 Oh.

Yusef 26:33 You'll put Sam Ovens in?

Chris Williamson 26:34 I've put him in already.

Yusef 26:34 Wow.

Jonny 26:35 We have made some ground today. There is judgment.

Chris Williamson 26:37 I'm not gonna watch him, but I'll put him in the show notes, just 'cause it was on-

Jonny 26:40 'Cause, 'cause he's a virgin.

Yusef 26:41 Or, or a sex offender.

Jonny 26:42 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 26:42 Sam Ovens. Sam, if you're listening, you just need to get laid, man. Like, bah.

Jonny 26:47 His, so his latest video, he's got like long hair and he's a mess, and he's clearly just been in the hole.

Yusef 26:52 In the hole.

Chris Williamson 26:52 No women in it, is there?

Jonny 26:54 There is no women in it.

Yusef 26:54 He, he can't be a virgin and a sex offender, like-

Chris Williamson 26:56 Yeah, he's-

Jonny 26:57 He could be a wannabe sex offender.

Yusef 26:59 Oh, I see. Or like, uh, uh, one of the people with the clothes.

Chris Williamson 27:00 Flasher.

Jonny 27:01 Yeah, yeah.

Yusef 27:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:02 Anyway, back to business.

Jonny 27:03 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:03 So, I think definitely one of the things that we've touched on there which is super important is if you want to become good at business, a formal education is in no way mandatory.

Yusef 27:13 I think it's unhelpful because it's a waste of time that you could be spending doing other things. Like, the ability to learn and assimilate information is the useful part, but the content that you s- you have to learn in a business degree is useless.

Chris Williamson 27:25 But you-

Yusef 27:25 I did a, a module in entrepreneurship 'cause I thought like-

Chris Williamson 27:28 I did, I did one as well.

Yusef 27:28 Did you? It was like, I turned up and it was totally misadvertised basically. It was like the history of entrepreneurship in the 1930s America, and like, there was nothing applicable. You're just like ...

Jonny 27:38 You did a marketing one.

Chris Williamson 27:39 Master's.

Yusef 27:40 Yeah.

Jonny 27:41 Is his act- Do you use that?

Yusef 27:42 Master's.

Chris Williamson 27:42 Never once.

Jonny 27:43 Really?

Chris Williamson 27:44 Never once. So the reason that I did a, uh, extra degree, a postgrad was because I knew that the first half was covering things that I'd done in my degree. It was the same, some of the modules were given the same names that I'd just finished in my third year. Some of them were given-

Yusef 28:01 Rethinking.

Chris Williamson 28:01 Yeah. So I was like, oh okay, I'll just repurpose my existing coursework that I did either one of the last three years. And then sure enough, did that. The only thing I needed to do was a, um, uh, what's even-

Jonny 28:14 Dissertation.

Chris Williamson 28:15 Dissertation at the e- at the end of it. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's obviously how much I concentrated on it.

Jonny 28:18 I can remember you doing the dissertation. I can remember being in the flat while you were doing the dissertation. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:23 Was it that 36-hour period with the window?

Jonny 28:27 Yeah.

Yusef 28:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:27 Yeah. That was a very-

Yusef 28:27 There's two types of people in this world, the ones who do the dissertation in 36 hours-

Jonny 28:31 (laughs)

Yusef 28:31 ... and the ones who do it in a year.

Jonny 28:32 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:33 I did mine in 36 hours. So yeah-

Yusef 28:36 With like 10 Red Bulls and-

Chris Williamson 28:37 Yeah, and all the rest of it.

Jonny 28:37 Got it done though, didn't you?

Chris Williamson 28:38 Got it done, gone, finished it. Yeah.

Jonny 28:40 Got done it. Got them done.

Chris Williamson 28:41 Got done it. Yeah. So yeah, I don't think formal education at all needed. Like, it's not a prerequisite. If I was to design someone that was going to be good at business, they'd be good at selling-

Jonny 28:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:51 ... copywriting.

Jonny 28:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:53 Um, have a good eye for, for marketing.

Jonny 28:55 It is all just marketing, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 28:58 Yeah.

Jonny 28:58 We've learned-

Chris Williamson 28:58 People. People, you gotta be good with people. You gotta have good communication skills.

Jonny 29:01 But that ... So all marketing really is, is communication, isn't it? It's the ability to communicate a concept, idea, message.

Chris Williamson 29:08 But there's different ... So advertising and marketing are quite distinct.

Jonny 29:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:12 And advertising is a, a, a important part of your business.

Jonny 29:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:15 But yeah, so formal education, I, again, I was doing a business degree and very quickly became, uh, disenfranchised, disenchanted with academia.

Jonny 29:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:26 Because at the age of 18 as a fresher in uni, I was being shown one particular world of business in academics, and experiencing another, and there was no overlap.

Yusef 29:39 You slowly realize the people teaching you about business have never had any success in business.

Chris Williamson 29:43 Well, what the fuck would they be teaching you for if they were-

Yusef 29:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:45 ... successful in business?

Jonny 29:46 It's Ant- Anton again.

Yusef 29:47 Oh.

Jonny 29:47 We need that clip.

Yusef 29:48 We leave our children-

Jonny 29:49 (laughs)

Yusef 29:49 ... in the hands of these fucking failures-

Jonny 29:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 29:51 (laughs)

Yusef 29:51 ... for eight hours a day and we expect-

Jonny 29:53 How many of them have had a successful relationship?

Yusef 29:55 None.

Jonny 29:55 Or run a b- or, or, or wealthy? None of them.

Chris Williamson 29:58 (laughs)

Yusef 29:58 How many of your teachers are millionaires?

Jonny 29:59 No.

Chris Williamson 29:59 So this is one of the things-

Jonny 30:00 We shouldn't be harsh on teachers.

Chris Williamson 30:01 No.

Yusef 30:02 (laughs) But teachers too-

Jonny 30:02 'Cause there are some fantastic teachers.

Yusef 30:04 This, this is just quoting Anton. I, I-

Jonny 30:05 Yeah.

Yusef 30:05 ... I think teachers do a very noble-

Chris Williamson 30:06 This is not, these views do not represent mine, Jo- Yousuf's or Johnny's, or that of Modern Wisdom's. They're just repurposing Anton's.

Jonny 30:13 You can try and complain to Anton, but he won't get your email and he doesn't care.

Yusef 30:15 'Cause he's got a phone with 50 numbers in it.

Jonny 30:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:16 His little S- his little Singaporean right- wife might pass it on to him.

Jonny 30:20 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:21 I'm sure he's on Twitter though. Anyway-

Jonny 30:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:22 So yeah, you are right though.One of the things that's a little bit weirder is when I look at America, and I see you could go learn psychology from Dr. Jordan Peterson.

Yusef 30:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:32 Or you could go and learn, like, evolutionary biology from Nicholas Christakis, or astronomy from Professor Alan Frank.

Yusef 30:38 (coughs) So we're in an incredible age, isn't it? Like, you can now just have full access to the best teaching anywhere, all the time.

Jonny 30:43 You mean in the American university system?

Chris Williamson 30:46 Education. Education.

Jonny 30:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:46 'Cause they, all those guys ... Up until not long ago, University of Waterloo still had Dr. Stuart McGill.

Yusef 30:53 Hmm, okay.

Chris Williamson 30:53 You know what I mean? Up until five years ago, you could go learn biomechanics from Dr. Stuart McGill.

Yusef 30:57 But you can do it all online now. That's, that's what I mean, like-

Chris Williamson 30:59 Well, again, so if you want to find out about that, stay tuned for the week of the 3rd of August, Scott H. Young on-

Jonny 31:07 Whoa.

Chris Williamson 31:07 ... his new book, Ultralearning, uh, will be coming out.

Jonny 31:10 Ultra.

Chris Williamson 31:10 I've recorded it, but I can't release it. He said I can't release it. But that's self-directed learning, being able to learn the four-year MIT computer science programme in six months. Pass the exams.

Jonny 31:22 That's an intense amount of time.

Chris Williamson 31:22 No, sorry, in one year, pass the exams. He was doing one module per week and a half.

Yusef 31:27 Whoa, great.

Jonny 31:27 So I-

Chris Williamson 31:28 Few months.

Jonny 31:28 I remember I had a lecturer at uni who was basically, like, best mates with the two guys ... there was something called the Arrow-Debreu model in economics, and that you, like, he was teaching this thing, and then you'd look at the w-

Yusef 31:41 Is this the man with the small face?

Jonny 31:43 No, that's not.

Yusef 31:43 Oh.

Jonny 31:43 That's a different man.

Yusef 31:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:45 (laughs)

Jonny 31:45 You look ... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:45 Let's learn about him next.

Jonny 31:46 He was, he was brilliant.

Chris Williamson 31:47 (laughs)

Yusef 31:47 (laughs)

Jonny 31:47 Um, but you look up on Wikipedia, Arrow-Debreu model, and there's a photo of Arrow, Debreu, and then the bloke teaching it in the middle, sat round a table in France having a coffee. But, so like, he's a big dick, but, like, a big dick in what? Theoretical economics. Like, I'm sure to him, and I'm sure in some way, that does feed through into progression, but like, has that helped me in my life? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:10 Yeah.

Jonny 32:10 No, not really.

Yusef 32:11 Well, i- if your goal is not to be an academic, then-

Jonny 32:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:14 Yeah.

Yusef 32:14 ... it, it instantly becomes-

Jonny 32:16 An ACA accountancy qualification I do think is worth it.

Chris Williamson 32:19 Why? (clears throat)

Jonny 32:20 But you have to view it ... So, so basically, in doing an ACA, you are put into ... so you're learning, you're training to be an auditor, essentially, of, of businesses, but in that process you ... well, if you do audit at an accountancy firm and do your ACA at the same time, then you're doing ... you're spending a lot of time in, in businesses, usually pretty big businesses.

Chris Williamson 32:41 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 32:41 And as long as you try and learn how they're r- running and see what they do, like everything down from, like, how is a new employee added to the system-

Chris Williamson 32:50 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 32:50 ... to, like, how do they process a payment, all, and a- all the way up to the top of how the financial statements are prepared. Um, you have to want to learn about that stuff. It isn't get put upon you, but I think that is ... of, of everything I've done, those three years were the most valuable. But even then, I'd be clutching at str- like, the most valuable thing is everything I've learned about-

Chris Williamson 33:12 I was gonna say-

Jonny 33:12 ... mark- marketing and selling.

Chris Williamson 33:13 Compare that with-

Yusef 33:14 From self-directed stuff.

Jonny 33:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:15 ... what you've had to stumble through with

Guest 33:18 Yeah.

Jonny 33:18 ... ProPay. Well, so like, we started and we had no clue. Like, not a clue, 'cause he-

Chris Williamson 33:23 How did you begin to monetize? So, people'll be listening, they'll think, "Oh, I could do a this, a draw."

Jonny 33:29 I could do a blog.

Chris Williamson 33:29 Or, "I sing." Or, "I am good at writing."

Jonny 33:32 Mm.

Yusef 33:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:33 Or, uh, arbitraging batteries, like ...

Yusef 33:34 So, so the ... yeah. That's, that's an interesting point, 'cause we, when we started Internet was much younger. Like, a year in Internet land is obviously 10 years in normal.

Jonny 33:43 Decade, yeah.

Yusef 33:44 Yeah. And so we started in 2008, 2009, where (clears throat) by ver- by dint of just creating a blog and posting content, it would start to reach the top page on Google.

Chris Williamson 33:54 Like YouTube six years ago.

Yusef 33:55 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 33:55 Or like podcasts now.

Yusef 33:57 And so, like, yeah, if you look at old school YouTube, things like Power Thirst and those kind of old school viral videos that just went ...

Chris Williamson 34:03 Crazy.

Yusef 34:04 It's because they were the only content on there.

Jonny 34:05 Shit quality, but-

Yusef 34:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:06 First mover advantage.

Jonny 34:07 Yeah.

Yusef 34:08 So, so instantly, like, by, just by having a website, you suddenly are seen as an authority, and it was very demand driven for us. So we started to get inquiries just off the back of that. So we didn't... we then were almost spoiled by not having to learn marketing and not having to do anything apart from create content and

Guest 34:22 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 34:22 You were just getting organic traffic through the blog posts.

Yusef 34:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:25 Didn't you write something ... isn't, isn't your best performing article on caffeine?

Yusef 34:28 Ramadan.

Chris Williamson 34:29 Rama- rama- Ramadan.

Yusef 34:30 Say it again. Say it again?

Jonny 34:32 Rock, Ro- Ro- Bless you.

Yusef 34:33 (laughs) Um-

Jonny 34:34 I rock.

Chris Williamson 34:34 Or rock.

Yusef 34:35 I rock.

Chris Williamson 34:37 (laughs)

Yusef 34:37 (laughs)

Jonny 34:38 (sings) (laughs)

Yusef 34:38 Where- whereas now, that strategy would just absolutely not work, and I've seen people set up a, a blog or a YouTube channel (clears throat) and really plough money into it and try and get the production quality working and just get nothing out of it, because you can't rely reliably (laughs) on organic traffic being a, a thing.

Chris Williamson 34:59 Not anymore, man.

Yusef 35:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:00 I mean, this is your area, and I'm sure we will get onto this. Again, I'm gonna keep on rinsing this, 'cause this series is new for us.

Yusef 35:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:07 But we could do ... I mean I could leave you guys to do five episodes on your own about Facebook Ads, paid marketing, how it ties in with organic.

Yusef 35:15 Well, the-

Chris Williamson 35:16 All that sort of stuff.

Yusef 35:16 ... this is it, and unfortunately you have to be a polymath of all of those things. You have to know SEO, web design, marketing, content creation, communication, mark- uh, Facebook Ads, Google Ads. You know, you, you have to re-

Chris Williamson 35:27 (laughs)

Yusef 35:28 All of these different moving parts of a business. A- a- accounts, um, operations, you have to really know all of that stuff.

Chris Williamson 35:35 Ask-

Yusef 35:35 Like, just a basic level.

Jonny 35:36 Ask Yusuf anything about WordPress, just ask him a question.

Yusef 35:40 (laughs)

Jonny 35:40 Or like say something, like, "Oh, I think this about WordPress."

Yusef 35:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 35:43 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 35:43 He'll either get angry, black.

Yusef 35:45 Blow my lid.

Jonny 35:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:47 Or do this.

Yusef 35:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:51 For the listeners, that is a short intake of breath with the lips pursing and then pulling apart. It's like a ...

Jonny 35:58 You might see him do it.

Chris Williamson 35:59 Yeah.

Jonny 35:59 If things get heated, you'll see him do it.

Chris Williamson 36:01 (laughs)

Jonny 36:01 But I think ... so that, that got us to the point where we were making, like, probably like a couple of ... so I remember, I remember this conversation with someone at uni.

Yusef 36:10 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 36:11 Where we'd like ... we did this blog on the side, and we had four grand in the bank account. Really clearly remember the amount. And someone went, like, "Do you guys even, like, what do you even do?" And I'm like, "Oh, w- we've just made, like, our first, like, £4,000." They're like, "What? What the fuck?"

Yusef 36:26 (laughs)

Jonny 36:26 Like, "How, how have you done that?" Like ... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:29 How did you do that?

Jonny 36:30 So that was-

Chris Williamson 36:30 What were you selling?

Jonny 36:31 We, we got up to that point which was-

Yusef 36:32 £12 consultation packages for-

Jonny 36:33 Yeah, we started right at the bottom. It was, it was n- just 11.99? 9.99?

Yusef 36:37 I think so, yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:37 So how long were you ... what was this, a Skype call?

Jonny 36:39 That was a week of ... you got-... a, a training plan, diet plan, and coaching for a week.

Yusef 36:44 When someone bought it, we were like, "Right, open up a document in Microsoft Word."

Jonny 36:48 Oh, God, yeah.

Yusef 36:49 And write their name, Monday. (laughs) That, that was it.

Jonny 36:52 And we three of us coached this person at once.

Yusef 36:54 Or a Facebook ... yeah.

Jonny 36:55 And then we had a gold plan that was a hundred quid, and a platinum that was 250 quid. That was like-

Chris Williamson 37:01 What did you get for the platinum?

Jonny 37:02 That was our YOLOs. We, well-

Yusef 37:03 We didn't know. (laughs)

Jonny 37:04 So this is, this is probably the iconic story of Propain. So driving to the gym one morning, still at uni, on the way to train, PayPal notification, £250. Fuck. (laughing) Johnny, Youssef, I was like, "Youssef, someone's just bought platinum." And obviously erupts into laughter 'cause platinum didn't exist.

Chris Williamson 37:26 What the fuck's platinum? Yeah.

Jonny 37:27 So I then didn't train, and had to sit and make this guy, which was basically just, like, my, like, wank log of everything I was interested in at the time with, with fitness.

Yusef 37:36 It was amazing 'cause you, you drew a graph of, like, the cortisol and the chemical response-

Jonny 37:39 I did have a graph.

Yusef 37:39 ... and the growth hormones.

Jonny 37:40 And I was really, but it really, it was just like every, I was like, "Fucking hell, I need to give this guy £250."

Chris Williamson 37:43 What was your turnaround time?

Jonny 37:45 I did it that day.

Chris Williamson 37:47 One day?

Jonny 37:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:48 250 quid?

Jonny 37:48 Yeah. He paid 250 quid.

Chris Williamson 37:50 That's still-

Yusef 37:50 He wrote, he wrote his magnum opus just on that. (laughs)

Jonny 37:53 Because I was bursting. Like, it was, it was, like, coming out my pores, this stuff.

Chris Williamson 37:57 (laughs)

Jonny 37:57 Like, I read so much about it. Um, but yeah, and then th- But I think we never really got above ... We would never have been able to do it full-time if we... And it, and the income never really got to any point where it was meaningful until we learned marketing. And the first-

Chris Williamson 38:10 Marketing.

Jonny 38:11 ... we spent 1,000 quid on a course from Paul Mort on how to do em- email, email marketing. (laughs)

Yusef 38:19 And then, um, s- so you know you were saying it's a series of problems that you solve.

Jonny 38:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:24 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 38:24 So the bottleneck was revenue and sales not coming in. So we fixed that.

Chris Williamson 38:29 So what was that, due to traffic? Due to volume?

Yusef 38:31 Well, yeah, like a traffic and conversions.

Chris Williamson 38:33 Conversions?

Yusef 38:33 Both. So, so, so we improved both from the, from the traffic. So you improve ... From the, um, course, from the marketing course.

Jonny 38:41 Marketing.

Yusef 38:41 So then you improve traffic and conversions. Then suddenly you've got revenue coming in, more client demand, but we can't actually cater to them all.

Jonny 38:48 (laughs)

Yusef 38:49 And so we end up just getting less and less sleep, and taking more sales calls at, like, 2:00 in the morning to someone in America. And, like, just ... And you can see on the videos, there's a period on our YouTube channel where both me and Johnny just start looking more like that.

Chris Williamson 39:00 Sullen.

Jonny 39:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:01 Have you ever seen Brian Cox go into a centrifuge?

Jonny 39:05 (laughs)

Yusef 39:06 No, but ...

Chris Williamson 39:07 Have you seen it? Have you seen it?

Jonny 39:10 I think I might have seen the video where he's just like-

Chris Williamson 39:12 Dean, can you make, can you make Brian Cox ap- in the centrifuge appear just here please? Thank you.

Jonny 39:17 He's like ...

Chris Williamson 39:17 Look at his face. (laughs)

Jonny 39:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:18 Hang on. Bing.

Jonny 39:20 Bing.

Yusef 39:20 He won't. (laughs)

Jonny 39:22 (laughs)

Yusef 39:23 Brian Cox is not gonna come on this.

Chris Williamson 39:24 Actually, someone, someone called us out on one of the videos and said, "I swear that you say Video Guy Dean's gonna do loads of things that he doesn't do."

Jonny 39:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:33 Fucking Video Guy Dean.

Jonny 39:34 And we are indeed.

Yusef 39:34 I guess we'll, we'll find out what actually ...

Chris Williamson 39:35 So yeah, um, you were saying?

Yusef 39:38 So yeah, so there's a series of problems that we solved, and we've solved one bottleneck, it opened up then the capacity problem, the b- the ability to deliver that service to the clients, and we just didn't know what to do, didn't have a scalable operational system to deal with it.

Chris Williamson 39:51 And also were terrified of putting the price up to bring demand down.

Yusef 39:54 And ter- Yeah, exactly. Terri- Yeah, whi- which was ... We'll get onto Chris's advice for us.

Chris Williamson 39:58 Got great stories on that.

Yusef 39:58 And so ...

Jonny 39:59 It felt like, you know that e- exercise, which is like a rope and a weighted ball, and you see people go like this with the wall?

Yusef 40:04 (laughs)

Jonny 40:05 It felt like that.

Yusef 40:06 I think that's what you do at CrossFit.

Jonny 40:07 You think that's what wall, you think that's what a war ball is, don't you?

Chris Williamson 40:10 War balls.

Yusef 40:11 You hit the ball with the wall.

Jonny 40:12 A war ball's much more gentle.

Yusef 40:13 D-

Jonny 40:13 But yeah, so you finally ... It's like you've been, you've been, like, like, underneath the tap for ages with a screwdriver, like, trying to unplug it, and then you unplug it, it's like boom.

Chris Williamson 40:23 (laughs)

Jonny 40:23 You're like, "Fuck!"

Yusef 40:25 It's exactly that.

Jonny 40:25 So then you've got a very different problem of, like, the house is gonna flood.

Chris Williamson 40:28 (laughs)

Jonny 40:29 Youssef, the house is flooding.

Yusef 40:30 You're right, though-

Chris Williamson 40:30 I've run out of buckets, we've used all of the buckets.

Jonny 40:32 (laughs)

Yusef 40:32 That, that's the best analogy, 'cause it's suddenly a problem that y- you've only got a screwdriver to try and fix the water in your face, and you're like, "Well, I don't know if it's-"

Jonny 40:41 So you're like, do you have a screwdriver?

Chris Williamson 40:41 (laughs)

Yusef 40:42 So you do it really fast to try and, like ... And so we ended up sleep-deprived and just feeling horrendous.

Chris Williamson 40:48 What year was this?

Yusef 40:49 20-, 2014.

Jonny 40:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:51 Oh, okay.

Jonny 40:52 Yeah.

Yusef 40:53 So, um, and it was only really having Chris's advice and a series of mentors, uh, that, and business coaches that we hired over the following few years that finally got us to develop a scaled leverage approach to delivering service to clients without them suffering. Like, they actually got a better service as a result. Rather than them getting, like, a sleep-deprived coach that writes them out a program that they-

Chris Williamson 41:18 Halfway through Ramadan, yeah.

Yusef 41:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:20 Ramadan.

Jonny 41:21 Pro- Ramadan.

Chris Williamson 41:21 Ramadan.

Jonny 41:22 Or Ramadan. So I think that that, the lesson, the business lesson from that is, and I think this is what it took us a long time to realize, is that you don't really ... People, like, people set up a company and do something really manually themselves and think, "I have a business." But if they went on holiday, all of the aspects of the business, from, like, selling, delivery, everything stop, that's just a job with loads of risk.

Chris Williamson 41:48 (laughs)

Jonny 41:48 Like, with no, with no holiday pay, no pension, no maternity or paternity leave.

Yusef 41:53 It probably pays less as well.

Jonny 41:55 They're like, "Oh, mate, like, I work in Caffe Nero, man, so, like, I'm my own boss." Like, you have got nothing in the way of, uh, uh, systems or an actual business. So for it to be a business, you have to be able to not do the selling and it still, sales still happen. Not bring in the, the traffic or the attention and that still happens. Not actually deliver the product and that still happens. And only when you, like, slowly step away and it all settles, like-

Chris Williamson 42:21 Yeah.

Jonny 42:21 ... (pops fingers) yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 42:22 That's it. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 42:22 But you do, it's kind of a little bit ... I imagine, or it is for me, like putting a baby to sleep-

Jonny 42:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:28 ... and very slowly stepping out of the room.

Jonny 42:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:32 Like, the handle, closing it, allowing it to just (clicks tongue) and the latch-

Jonny 42:35 But inevitably, shut the ... (baby crying sound)

Chris Williamson 42:37 Yeah.

Jonny 42:38 Oh, fucking hell.

Chris Williamson 42:39 Got to get back off holiday.

Yusef 42:40 But there's, sometimes you just hear a thud from inside the room, and you're like, "Oh, no!"

Chris Williamson 42:43 The baby's fallen out. (laughs)

Jonny 42:45 Or, like, a loud bang.

Chris Williamson 42:47 Yeah. What's happening there? Don't know what's happened to the baby.

Yusef 42:49 Like the-

Chris Williamson 42:50 Frog grenade. (laughs)

Yusef 42:51 Frog ... frag ... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 42:53 (laughs) Tom Clancy, Rainbow Six. Flash bang. Yeah. Rainbow Six, straight through the door. Or, like, it's like bang, bang, bang, "Oh, police!" And you're like, "Oh, my God."

Yusef 43:01 See you have to like- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:01 The baby's turned into fucking NYPD. So, um, good ... a couple of good stories to start framing this. I guess the principle we should probably try and either before or after a principle try and summarize it, and I guess what we're talking about here is the art of delegating or the art of scaling. 'Cause the art of delegating is a massive topic that we need to get onto, which is bringing in people who fill in the gaps in your particular skill set, and that's probably a full episode on its own. Um, but a fairly charming story to do with this is I worked 204 Saturdays in a row without stopping. Um, didn't miss a single Saturday. So when we-

Yusef 43:44 Four years of ...

Chris Williamson 43:45 Yeah, four years.

Yusef 43:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:46 So w- when we first launched our first ever weekly event, that was the f- ... what is g- ... to the listeners at home, Yusuf has lifted his leg in the air like a cat.

Yusef 43:56 Had a repair. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:57 You've patched your pants the ... right. I mean- (laughs)

Yusef 44:01 Carry on. I, I, I didn't mean to distract you from your story. I was just thinking-

Chris Williamson 44:04 Jesus Christ. (laughs) That's gonna have to be cut out, isn't it? (laughs) Just leave it. Leave it. And video man Dean will have cut all this out by now. As long as he's put something over your crotch. So- Dee-jay Dean. I worked, I worked, um, over 200 Saturdays in a row without taking a break. That included ... that wasn't just me working on the nighttime and being kind of the slightly more swan around boss that I am now. That was getting up at 10:00 in the morning, going to the club for 11:00 AM, putting up the inflatable-

Yusef 44:32 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:32 (laughs) ... that, that goes up in the main room. Like, plugging up- (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 44:36 The, the, the big goose that you have to-

Chris Williamson 44:37 (laughs) Plug- plugging in all of the DJ decks upstairs. Like, a job which with a written process could have taken anyone three hours to do would've cost us 18 quid a week. But oh no, because I was terrified, I was so, um, neurotic about the business, and I think this is something which is-

Yusef 44:58 You're like, "I can do this well, and if I s- if I give it to someone else, they would."

Chris Williamson 45:01 Yeah. The problem is, uh, if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself- Absolutely. ... is true. Yeah. And the conversation that I had, pardon me, with Steven Wolfram the other week was he ... a lot of the time, because he understands coding, right, from the ground floor, he goes into Wolfram Language or Wolfram Mathematica and just checks out the code. So he'll go onto, like, wolframalpha.com and just look at the code and just code check shit and debug shit. And you're like, "Hang on, you're the CEO, 800 people work on this. Do you know who wrote that bit of code?" (laughs) Like, some spotty teenager in San Francisco who works off his, like, out of his mom's basement or something like that. 'Cause everyone's remote pretty much in Wolfram. And you got the CEO going in and just being like, "Oh," drop him an email and be like, "Oh, just checked out the code. There's a little bit of debugging to be done in here. 10 minutes," and he'll do it.

Yusef 45:52 But the, the problem there is that he has set up his life so that he can do that because that's what he loves.

Chris Williamson 45:56 Yeah.

Yusef 45:57 But that's not the way that most people would want to run a business. They, you know, like, he's a, he's an odd character because he-

Chris Williamson 46:04 Very much so.

Yusef 46:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:05 Very unique.

Yusef 46:05 He set his life so that he can code more, whereas-

Chris Williamson 46:08 (laughs) Most people want to do it so they can do less. Mm-hmm.

Yusef 46:10 Well, yeah, like what we're saying about the, the e-myth concept is that you graduate from technician to franchise owner where actually you're not breaking the bread at all. You don't even see the flour anymore.

Chris Williamson 46:20 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 46:20 You wrote the process and then someone else is carrying it out, and you've got people telling people-

Chris Williamson 46:25 I remember what ... so the day I quit, or maybe like the week before I quit, sat there- Sat, sat down there. Um ... December time. KPMG. Sat in w- where nobody can see, but behind the camera in this mystical land of- This is a set. ... CrossFit.

Yusef 46:42 We're in.

Chris Williamson 46:42 Let's not forget that this isn't actually my living room. This is a podcast studio built to look exactly like my living room. Ah, of course. But that's actually just all open walls there and this is- It's just black space. Infinite black space.

Yusef 46:53 We're, we're made of cardboard, so, like, it's just ...

Chris Williamson 46:55 Yeah. This is gonna become, like, as famous as, like, the casting couch, isn't it? So, like, when someone, you know, in ... I want to come, I want to come up and see the- Pornography. (laughs) See ... I want to come up and see the, the couch. You know when- I want to sit where Johnny sits. There was ... (laughs)

Yusef 47:08 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:08 You don't want to sit where Johnny sits. (laughs) Yeah, that would just be a big dick. Huge dick. There was a thing on Facebook for ages where people uploaded, like, the famous casting couch set- Casting couch thing. ... on Facebook and, and the caption was like, "Every guy in the UK knows exactly what this." Yeah. You're blanking. (laughs) Yeah. You don't know, Yusuf doesn't know what it is. (laughs) I've seen another one, I've seen another one with the real Fake Taxi that's for sale.

Yusef 47:28 I, I can guess, but-

Chris Williamson 47:28 Oh, right. (laughs)

Yusef 47:30 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:30 Lauren was in Fake Taxi.

Yusef 47:32 Oh.

Chris Williamson 47:32 Female Fake Taxi.

Yusef 47:34 What, what's her stage name?

Chris Williamson 47:36 Sienna Day.

Yusef 47:37 Sienna Day.

Chris Williamson 47:37 Sienna Day. Anybody wants to have a watch of some adult entertainment- (laughs) Just, uh, Porn- With Chris's, with Chris's mate in it. (laughs) Yep. Pornhub-

Yusef 47:45 She made it big time then.

Chris Williamson 47:46 Sienna Day, she's done good, man.

Yusef 47:47 She's done good.

Chris Williamson 47:48 It's weird that there's a hierarchy. Well done, Laura. Th- th- there's ... That's totally rainbow ... What was I, what was I saying?

Yusef 47:53 Well, it's a huge business.

Chris Williamson 47:53 Couch behind there. Oh yeah. Sat there, and you said to me, um, "I used to tell people to go to clubs. Now I tell people who tell people who tell people-" To go to clubs. "... to go to clubs." And I was like, "Oh, okay." Mm-hmm. "I think I understand it now." Mm-hmm. Yeah. But that is actually the, the goal, isn't it?

Yusef 48:13 The only reason why if you wanted to be Wolfram about it was if you really liked giving people flyers.

Chris Williamson 48:18 Yeah.

Yusef 48:18 Then you'd be like, "You know what? One day a week I'm gonna go down Northumberland Street and give out-"

Chris Williamson 48:23 Give out flyers. But what you would've done then is you would've brought in everybody else that did everything that wasn't giving out flyers. So the business still acts on your behalf. It just-

Yusef 48:33 You have to give out so many flyers though, if you were the only flyer giver.

Chris Williamson 48:35 You don't give that many out, man. Print, print media's dead.

Yusef 48:38 Oh, okay.

Chris Williamson 48:38 There we go business principle, print media, fuck off.

Yusef 48:41 Create your own.

Chris Williamson 48:41 No one looks at a flyer anymore, man.

Yusef 48:42 One of the rotating elastic bands that just fires flyers at people.

Chris Williamson 48:44 Actually, I'm gonna do ... we, well, we can do a little quick fire round. I think we're about ... I started and we've got loads of outtakes at the beginning, so, (laughs) uh, I think we're about maybe 50 minutes in. Couple of things, just some quick principles off the bat.... um, mail shots through the door, as far as I'm concerned, if you are launching a business, nah, fuck off. No one wants your, like, if you put junk mail through someone's letter box, you're probably just either wasting money or damaging your brand.

Jonny 49:09 How do you feel about junk mail, Yousaf?

Yusef 49:12 A- absolutely terrible. I mean, we, we've, we've heard ... If you've not heard the li- is it Life Fails? Where we talk about-

Chris Williamson 49:17 It was a catch-up episode.

Yusef 49:19 ... catch-up, yeah.

Jonny 49:20 On his letter box, he has written-

Yusef 49:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:22 "No junk mail."

Jonny 49:22 ... "No junk mail" because never has there been a more effective deterrent-

Yusef 49:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:26 (laughs)

Jonny 49:26 ... to someone whose job is to give you junk mail-

Yusef 49:28 It works pretty well.

Jonny 49:29 ... than the words.

Yusef 49:29 The only people that get through are Oatine and Farm Foods now.

Jonny 49:33 Oatine?

Yusef 49:33 I u- I used to have, like-

Jonny 49:34 That one road? (laughs)

Yusef 49:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:35 You've got, like, the sack on the other side of your door, huh?

Yusef 49:37 I have a sack and I, I chase people down the road, if they-

Jonny 49:40 And then you have a, a musket, don't you, on it? Like, like (laughs) -

Yusef 49:44 A musket. Yes. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:44 But his, his goes across the top of the yeti, your yeti that's in there. Actually, you've just got the line of sight is directly across the top.

Yusef 49:51 Just the musket. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:51 Yeah.

Yusef 49:52 Don't take potshots at people.

Jonny 49:52 Single shot. So don't do mail shots, don't do print media.

Chris Williamson 49:55 Don't do, don't do print. Print media's fucking dead, man. Like, unless you are a club promoter who has ... Uh, one advantage that we have at between the hours of 10:00 PM and 1:00 in the morning, the only people that exist on the street are our crowd.

Yusef 50:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:11 So our market's been filtered by a temporarily-

Jonny 50:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:15 ... and spatially.

Yusef 50:16 Great open range.

Chris Williamson 50:17 Like, if you're walking, if you're walking through Newcastle's Bigg Market or Manchester's Deansgate-

Yusef 50:22 Custom audience. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:23 ... at one (laughs) -

Jonny 50:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:25 ... at 12:00, at 12:00 midday, at 12:00 mid-

Jonny 50:27 Sorry to be your translator.

Chris Williamson 50:28 ... 12:00, 12:00 midnight, like, you're there because you're, you're ready to go on a night out. And if you're not ready to go on a night out-

Yusef 50:34 Retargeting. (laughs)

Jonny 50:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:36 (laughs) This is an upsell. This is technically an upsell or a cross-sell.

Yusef 50:39 Ah, okay. I see.

Chris Williamson 50:40 Um-

Jonny 50:40 We need to map this out in Lucidcharts really high up. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:44 (laughs) But yeah, so print media, fucking dead. I wouldn't, I would, really would not waste your time with it. That would include big advertising. Like, if you have a look at the price to get a JCDecaux-

Jonny 50:54 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:55 ... and you've got minimum of, like, 10 sites, minimum of this many weeks, this many exposures, and it's like, unless you're selling the new fucking Kia Picanto. (laughs)

Jonny 51:06 (laughs)

Yusef 51:06 (laughs) Kia Picanto.

Chris Williamson 51:07 That's exactly what I was going for.

Jonny 51:10 To a T, to a T.

Chris Williamson 51:12 Um, so yeah, I think traditional media with regards to that, like, you can sell so well just off the back of becoming your own brand. And we can move into personal branding, humanizing the brand, all that sort of stuff.

Jonny 51:23 So I, I have some points on-

Chris Williamson 51:24 Oh, great.

Jonny 51:25 ... the ... Thanks. Um-

Yusef 51:27 You're just, you're just glad he's got points, isn't it?

Jonny 51:28 I'm just surprised that you're per-

Yusef 51:29 (laughs)

Jonny 51:29 ... you know. The, the, the basics of this are like, if you're sat listening to this and you're thinking ... So this isn't for people who have a business who are looking to improve it. This is for people who are, like, working.

Chris Williamson 51:38 That'll be next episode. That'll be one of the future episodes.

Jonny 51:40 Yeah. We could ... So we could do start-

Chris Williamson 51:42 Yep. We're moving through chronologically.

Jonny 51:43 ... build, scale, et cetera.

Chris Williamson 51:45 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 51:46 The, the millionaire one.

Jonny 51:47 Scale's going to be exciting.

Chris Williamson 51:47 Scale will be, will be exciting.

Jonny 51:48 Can't wait for that one.

Yusef 51:50 Ugh.

Jonny 51:50 Love scale. Um, so people ... I, I think you know the whole Gary V thing of like, there's never been a better time to start a business.

Chris Williamson 51:58 The best time to start a business was 10 years ago.

Jonny 52:00 Well, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:00 The second-best time is-

Jonny 52:01 Is today.

Chris Williamson 52:02 Yeah.

Jonny 52:02 But I, I do really think that.

Yusef 52:03 That's, that's the trading quote, isn't it?

Jonny 52:04 Yeah. Second-best time to literally trade.

Yusef 52:06 I suppose it definitely applies for business as well, doesn't it?

Jonny 52:09 Well, but it's so, it's so easy.

Yusef 52:10 Compounding, yeah.

Jonny 52:10 Like, you, if you just want to replace your income by doing something you enjoy doing, you can absolutely sell some kind of expertise or even sell what you're currently doing, but package it in a business. So the point I've written here is that people don't do it because they think jobs are the safe route. I have quite a nihilistic view on this but I think, realistically, most jobs will be automated within 10 years, like the vast majority. Especially shit like finance, accountancy, anything admin. Like, realistically is not the safe-

Yusef 52:42 Accountancy?

Jonny 52:43 Oh, yeah.

Yusef 52:44 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 52:44 Absolutely. It's ... And listen, The Economist thinks it's like one of the most likely industries to be automated.

Yusef 52:48 Oh, God.

Jonny 52:49 Painting and, like, plumbing and shit like that, car- carpentry, those are the most safe industries. But-

Yusef 52:55 Well, but, uh, painting, I wonder if they're going to have this, that drone that comes in a room-

Jonny 53:00 It's just the, it's just that every-

Yusef 53:01 ... maps out the room.

Chris Williamson 53:01 Ooh.

Jonny 53:01 Every room is ... Every room is different dimensions and people have very specific requirements.

Chris Williamson 53:05 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 53:06 So, y- y- you use the Dulux app where you fill in certain walls.

Jonny 53:09 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 53:10 It detects the walls, it maps out, like, the, the lines and stuff and it just flies around and just-

Chris Williamson 53:14 Why not go orthogonal with this and just everyone get VR to the point where it's such high quality that your VR thing changes the things in your room.

Yusef 53:23 Yeah.

Jonny 53:23 Well, if-

Yusef 53:23 If it's that and a cave, then it doesn't matter.

Jonny 53:23 ... if it's that high quality, then you don't ... you live your life.

Chris Williamson 53:26 Just lie on a bed. Wait, exactly.

Jonny 53:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:27 There we go.

Jonny 53:28 I, to be honest, I can't wait for that. That would be-

Yusef 53:29 Everyone will be so fat.

Jonny 53:30 It'd be ni- it'd be nice to have a rest, to be honest.

Yusef 53:32 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:32 Yeah. I'd love a rest.

Jonny 53:33 So sell whatever you're doing. Like, there is an opportunity to do that, and there are a few resources I listen to. So-

Chris Williamson 53:39 (clears throat)

Jonny 53:40 ... there's an Alan Watts video. Is that right?

Yusef 53:43 I did not expect you to suggest that.

Chris Williamson 53:44 Alan Watts Wisdom?

Jonny 53:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:45 Really?

Yusef 53:46 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 53:46 Where he talk, he talks about, like, how to decide what to do. And he uses an example of like, "Well, you know, if you ... If you like what you do and you c- can command a good fee for it and you like what you do and if you do it for the money, that's madness." And so he talks about that, and just basically, logically walks you through, like, why working in a job that you don't like because you think it's a safe route is lunacy. Anton Kreil, the clip from that I assume you're going to share.

Chris Williamson 54:11 It's already been in once, but I'll do it again.

Jonny 54:12 Has it?

Chris Williamson 54:13 Yeah.

Jonny 54:13 So that, that video convinced me to quit my job.

Chris Williamson 54:17 Why?

Jonny 54:18 He talks about viewing, viewing quitting your job to start something in a trading analogy. So he's like, "Look at your downside and your upside." So you earn 20 grand a year and you want to start your own business. You quit your job. People think, "I have a downside or I stand to lose 20 grand a year." Actually, you probably stand to lose, like, two grand a year because you could go back into a job for 18, let's say. Your upside is potentially unlimited. So, like, let's say you quit and you become the next Jeff Bezos. Unlikely but possible. Like, never going to happen in your current situation. Might happen if you quit and try. So y- you're exposing yourself to unlimited upside with a, like, two grand downside.

Yusef 55:01 'Cause then if you-

Jonny 55:02 That is-

Yusef 55:02 It's like, if you fail after, say, a year-

Jonny 55:05 (clears throat) Go back in to find another-

Yusef 55:06 ... and you want to go find another job, yeah, worst case, you can find a job for-

Jonny 55:09 A bit less than what you have now.

Yusef 55:09 ... two grand. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:10 ... the asymmetry in that particular trade, if any trader saw that opportunity-

Jonny 55:15 Take it every day.

Chris Williamson 55:15 ... motherfucking it, margin.

Jonny 55:16 So he just says put yourself in-

Chris Williamson 55:19 Yeah.

Jonny 55:19 ... situations like that for the rest of your life and you'll become very wealthy. Very wealthy indeed. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:24 Uh, what other bits have you got down there? Have you got anything else?

Jonny 55:26 I mean, I go into, like, emotional management.

Chris Williamson 55:28 Okay, so without going into that.

Jonny 55:29 But yeah, so I think don't, don't... I, I was going to stay in, in a job that I, that I was told by everyone around me was the safe route because, you know, quitting and starting your own thing is stupid and risky.

Chris Williamson 55:42 And many of your coworkers are still there.

Jonny 55:44 Still there, yeah. And some of them, some of them like it, some of them don't. Um, but I think, like, let's say, like, our parents' generation. Like, for them to start a business, really difficult to do in England.

Chris Williamson 55:57 A lot of bar- a lot of barriers to entry.

Jonny 55:59 Extremely difficult to do. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:59 Very friction. High friction.

Jonny 56:01 Like, you need to produce a widget in a factory and, you know, get a loan from a bank. Like, very traditional. Now you can essentially sell information digitally for ... and make a, a good, good income doing it. So why, if you have an inkling of thinking about it, at least fucking give it a go.

Chris Williamson 56:18 The other thing as well is that most businesses like this, like you did, you were able to do multiple things at once.

Jonny 56:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:26 Yet, if you are looking to do something that occurs very specifically within office hours, you've seen that in your, um, particular area there is a market for window cleaners, let's say.

Jonny 56:39 (laughs) That's tough, yeah.

Chris Williamson 56:39 And you happen to, you happen to have the expertise or the inclination. You just fucking love getting after windows. And you're like, "Right, but I've got a nine to five in some typical retail store." Okay, you, there's ... You've got a little bit of conflict.

Jonny 56:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:52 Whereas for the most part, what we're gonna be talking about here is some small sort of craft, someone's, um, unique skill or a marketing opportunity or coaching or whatever it might be.

Jonny 57:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:03 Um, there's no reason that you can't begin to dip your toe alongside whatever the job is at the moment.

Jonny 57:09 Absolutely. I, I think, like ... So the Alan Watts thing of if you just do for a living what you find intensely interesting, then immediately you have a massive advantage over everybody else. So, like, the thing I remember thinking was ... I remember s- sitting in the office and I wanted to leave at five o'clock because I wanted to train, I wanted to do propane-

Chris Williamson 57:28 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 57:28 ... see friends or whatever. Other people wanted to stay. So I'm thinking like, "Well, because I don't want to, so immediately, like-"

Yusef 57:35 The odds are already stacked against you.

Jonny 57:36 Yeah. "I'm not gonna get a promotion."

Chris Williamson 57:37 You're at a disadvantage.

Jonny 57:37 "I'm not gonna be a partner or whatever, so, like, I'm gonna go find the thing that I don't mind doing till midnight that actually I would choose to do until midnight."

Yusef 57:44 'Cause then even if you don't end up in the top 1% of-

Jonny 57:47 But it's still great.

Yusef 57:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:48 Did you, did both of you listen to the James Clear podcast?

Jonny 57:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:51 He talks about Steffi Graf. So he talks about, um ... Steffi Graf, one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. Think she's German and, um-

Jonny 57:58 Sounds German.

Yusef 57:58 Oh, I did listen to this, yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:59 So when she was about 12 or 14, they went and did, um, two broad-area tests on the youth, uh, players in the, uh, German tennis team and one of them was on skill and aptitude and the other was on passion and motivation.

Jonny 58:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:16 And she scored the highest on both.

Jonny 58:19 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:19 So you're like, "Right, good, good fucking luck beating her."

Jonny 58:22 Unstoppable, yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:22 "Because even if you're more skilled, she'll outwork you at training and catch up and then overtake you, and to her it'll feel like fun."

Jonny 58:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:29 Another example, Sarah Sigmund's daughter, uh, uh, Katrin David's daughter, one of the fittest women on the planet for the last few years in the CrossFit games, and someone said to her, "How do you find the motivation to do what you do every day?" She said, "If you gave me any life in the world, I would choose what I'm doing right now."

Jonny 58:44 Beautiful.

Chris Williamson 58:44 Like, motherfucker. Like, you try and beat her-

Jonny 58:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:46 ... you try and will yourself to beat someone for whom work feels like fun-

Jonny 58:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:51 And that's what James Clear says, that if you can find a thing which to you feels like play, but to everyone else feels like work, you're laughing.

Jonny 58:58 Hell yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:58 And that, for me, at the moment, is this podcast.

Jonny 59:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:01 10 years ago, for me, it was filling and running clubs.

Jonny 59:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:04 And I- if you're, if you do it sufficiently well, and we can get on to this lineage a little bit more in future episodes, but if you do it sufficiently well, you can do t- to a, a, a much more successful, successful degree than I have, but you can scale businesses which you have conquered, build them to a degree where they're sufficiently self-sufficient, leave them off to one side, and then take the next conquest on.

Jonny 59:28 Yep, do other stuff.

Chris Williamson 59:29 And you're like, "Right, okay. So fuck it, now I'm gonna add a podcast on. Okay, so fuck it, now I'm gonna start to do, for me, modeling."

Jonny 59:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:34 Or, "I'm gonna start to do ... I DJed for a while," or, "I'm gonna start to do this or that or the other." But the foundation needs to be a business which you can scale.

Jonny 59:41 I mean, so you can do this within ... So, like, you don't have to set up a business just in something you enjoy. Like, you could ... So there ... Cal Newport has a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You, which he wrote before all the stuff he's wro- ... It is Cal Newport, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 59:54 Yep.

Yusef 59:54 Yeah.

Jonny 59:55 Yeah. So, uh, he talks about finding, um ... So he ta- like, he uses the Steve Jobs thing of, like, find your passion and how that's actually not correct and that that doesn't correlate with happiness. And actually if people have autonomy and feel good at something, feel valued, they get just as much satisfaction from a career and a job as they would from a business.

Chris Williamson 1:00:13 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:00:13 So you can ... There's loads of examples in that book where you can get the same thing from that. But most people, I think it's fair to say the vast majority, don't consider work as something that they genuinely love doing.

Yusef 1:00:25 Choose to do. 15% of people do, apparently.

Jonny 1:00:28 Love it.

Chris Williamson 1:00:28 15% of people say that they are actively engaged in their job.

Jonny 1:00:31 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:00:32 85% of people are either actively disengaged or agnostic about work.

Yusef 1:00:37 That's so grim, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:00:38 Yeah, man. Especially when you think that's 40 hours of your life-

Jonny 1:00:42 Oh, God.

Chris Williamson 1:00:42 ... minimum, every week, plus travel to and from work, plus all of the mincy stuff that you've got to do around it, the, the, the-

Jonny 1:00:50 Like all the office politics, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:00:51 Social connections, the taking your work home with you.

Yusef 1:00:53 Nescafe coffee.

Jonny 1:00:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:55 Nescafe coffee? Fucking bullshit.

Jonny 1:00:56 If you take out slee-

Chris Williamson 1:00:57 Fuck po- po- Coco Pops, man.

Yusef 1:00:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:59 I- if you take out sleep time, which y- you're unconscious so you can't really count that towards-

Jonny 1:01:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:04 ... time spent in your life-

Yusef 1:01:06 It's such an overwhelming thought.

Chris Williamson 1:01:07 50% of your life.

Jonny 1:01:08 But then this is why, like, people-

Yusef 1:01:10 True.

Jonny 1:01:10 ... like on a Friday night just get, like, battered because the reality of the situation is just too overwhelming-

Chris Williamson 1:01:14 Grit.

Jonny 1:01:14 ... to think about.

Chris Williamson 1:01:15 Yeah.

Jonny 1:01:15 When you actually really sit and think about it, you just want to cry so you get drunk.

Chris Williamson 1:01:18 I want to escape it, yeah.

Jonny 1:01:19 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:01:19 So I'm going to go, I'm going to go out this weekend-

Jonny 1:01:20 And people often cry, uh, drunk and then get cry, and then get cry. Get drunk and then cry.

Chris Williamson 1:01:24 And then get cry.

Jonny 1:01:25 And then get cry after that.

Chris Williamson 1:01:26 Yeah.

Jonny 1:01:27 And then do drunken.

Chris Williamson 1:01:28 (laughs)

Jonny 1:01:29 And the, um (laughs) Tim Urban, Tim Urban's podcast with Tim Ferriss, they talk about happiness and his definition of happiness is, like, crushing a Tuesday, having a mint Tuesday.

Chris Williamson 1:01:38 Yeah.

Jonny 1:01:38 And that-

Chris Williamson 1:01:38 That's what this podcast was going to be called.

Jonny 1:01:40 Crushing a Tuesday.

Chris Williamson 1:01:40 Crushing a Tuesday.

Jonny 1:01:41 Or, or Do I Have To Go and Get Lex?

Chris Williamson 1:01:43 Do I need to jump?

Yusef 1:01:45 Which is what we should ... (laughs) Because Jonah was like, "You must call it that. I'm not coming on the podcast."

Chris Williamson 1:01:47 We're not coming on the podcast unless you call it, "Do I have to go and get Lex?"

Jonny 1:01:50 But I think if you don't thoroughly re- if you don't regularly have Tuesdays where you're like, "That was good."

Chris Williamson 1:01:55 Fucking nailed it.

Jonny 1:01:55 Then do, do something else.

Chris Williamson 1:01:57 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:01:58 For the love of God.

Chris Williamson 1:01:59 I mean, so at the beginning of the next episode, some of the listeners will be familiar with this, but the beginning of the next Business Principles, I'm going to do the experiment you can do at home where you whittle away your wage down. And I'm pretty certain that if we ask enough questions, we will be able to get you to pay us to come to work.

Jonny 1:02:19 (sighs)

Chris Williamson 1:02:19 I'm pretty sure that we'll be able to do that.

Jonny 1:02:21 Okay. Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:02:21 So, um, I think we might as well call it there. That, I, I, uh, really enjoyed this. I think that a lot of people are interested in entrepreneurship and stuff like that. As I've already said, if there's areas you want us to cover, fuck me, from, like, scaling, specific stuff, I know a lot of people have actual questions about how to run club promo, I don't, I'm, don't treat any of our trade secrets as that secret. Online marketing is available everywhere. If you want to know about Facebook ads, if you want to know about staff management, problem-solving, emotional control, how to scale a business, pricing strategy, whatever it is, give-

Yusef 1:02:55 We need the questions.

Jonny 1:02:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:56 Yeah.

Yusef 1:02:56 If you ask something that's-

Jonny 1:02:57 Too big, it's too big to-

Yusef 1:02:57 If you ask something that's boring to answer in a podcast, we're probably not gonna answer it, but if it's something that's like that, you know is-

Chris Williamson 1:03:02 Cool. Well, what do you want to know? What is it that you want to know? What, what questions have you got, either about sort of personal questions for our particular, uh, career history? Um, yeah, give us a message. As always, thank you very much for tuning in. Like, share, subscribe. I would really appreciate it. K. Bye.

Jonny 1:03:21 Bye. Den.

Chris Williamson 1:03:26 Den. (instrumental music plays) Yeah. Oh, eh, yeah. All the things.