Ultimate Business Guide: Start, Grow & Sell in 45 Minutes from 30 Years Experience

I am good at only one thing business for the last 30 years I built 19 companies and invested in 78 startups people ask

me every day to be their mentor and to help them and they've even offered me £10,000 to help them just for one day in

business I don't want to charge people for help I want to give you the knowledge for free and today I'm going

to give you everything you need to start a business to grow a business to maintain a business and to sell a

business but if you can't stay on this video for 5 minutes without clicking on off I've got some news for you you're

probably not going to make it I'm now going to list all the things I'm going to go through in the next 45 minutes to

change your mindset give you the tools you need to be successful and hopefully create new Pathways in your brain that

give you the chance to be successful the very thing that the education system does not want you to be is free working

for yourself controlling your own Des So today we're going to cover how to start a business with no money how to win and

the secret to it all in business how to lose important how to do a mind map which is much better than a business

plan much more liquid how to find purpose very important to motivate you to get up in the morning to motivate

your team to get up in the morning and to motivate customers to want to work with you how to find a co-founder

something that I personally believe is like having a relationship partnership it can change everything if you have the

right co-founder and can give you that accountability that we all need how to sell everybody can sell there's no such

thing as people that are good at selling and people that aren't good at selling they're just people that haven't been

taught the system of selling everyone can sell everyone must learn to sell it is the key to unlocking Freedom how to

Market your business how to PR yourself and your business how to get an investor and I'll go through many different ways

around that subject you can get an investor how to get sponsors often an untapped secret source to making a

business grow without needing an investor so we'll get into that how to build a company brand because I honestly

think value comes from building a brand not a business and we'll go into what a brand is and how to build one how to

build personal brand which in this day and age without doubt is vital you can't really build a company today without

having a personal brand and I'll get into personal brand on a public stage and personal brand within your industry

how to hire how to grow how to build how to go Global which is easier than it sounds and probably very important so

you're not stuck in one market and leaving yourself vulnerable how to get a mentor there is a way to do it and

nearly Nobody Does it and how to avoid big mistakes but accept luck into your life make luck happen in your life and

finally how eity works and how to sell your business at the end of this video you will know everything that's taken me

35 years to know you will be changed if you watch this video and I promise you at the end of it it will cost you

nothing and you'll never regret it how to start now most people tell you to start a business when you have an idea

that's not where a business starts a business starts with a feeling an instinct that perhaps you need to make a

change and then applying yourself to learning what is the best way to build something that you love now everybody

tells me that starting a business is filling a market Gap or finding a niche that is not true one of my most

successful early companies was a company called fluid this company turned into one of the biggest agencies in Asia

which I sold a price waterhous Cooper for more money than I ever need and when I launched that company there was 500

other businesses doing almost exactly the same so how did I manage to win I didn't have an original idea like

everybody tells you you've got to have to start a business you don't start with an original idea you start with

what you like doing now I love helping businesses and

people succeed I love marketing I can spend all day long studying and understanding marketing every time

someone launches a new business I want to understand how they made it successful I'm obsessed I enjoy it it's

my hobby there is no work life balance there is only syncing up your life with your business and so I believe the first

step in starting a business is following your passions now everybody tells you that that's not the way to start a

business because often your passions initially don't necessarily generate Revenue but that's because you haven't

applied a business mindset to what you love so I loved marketing and I started a creative agency called fluid that

helped people come up with marketing ideas to make their business successful now there were many companies doing it

but not many of these people doing it loved it like I did so I evolved my marketing abilities pushed the

boundaries of what was possible used new technologies like at the time Emil marketing and direct marketing that no

one else was doing because I was obsessed what is the latest thing and for you the way you do it is youve got

to write down what you like doing and got to write down what you don't like doing what you love doing you've got to

get really good at and what you don't like doing you've got to Outsource and not do it the school system has taught

you the wrong thing that if you're not good at something you need to spend more time getting better at it that is a lie

you've got to spend more time getting good at the thing you love to do get obsessed by it and that's actually where

a business idea begins because once you have figured out what you like doing the next step is the

idea now again people will tell you that you need to come up with an original idea that's not true the second thing is

when it comes to an idea you can actually combine forces with other people so back to my example when I

launched fluid I loved marketing and I met someone who could take my marketing ideas and turn them into graphic

illustrations and Brilliant presentations and abilities to help that company in a visual way understand my

ideas idea so I teamed up with her and created a 50/50 business partner I'll come on to equity later in the video

that was literally the springboard to one of the most successful companies in Asia in this space so the key is not

coming up with an original idea and trying to do it all on your own the key is coming up with something you love

linked to what you do and perhaps if there's a gap within your ability to execute on what you love find a partner

so for example if you love writing then write a book and maybe you need to find a partner that can that book or find a

company that will publish that book or get someone to help you like an agent find someone that will publish that book

and that's where it really begins in the idea phase it's got to link to your passion and I'll come on to purpose

later but it's key you won't be able to follow through and probably won't be successful if you're not willing to do

the thing that you're doing more often and all the time compared to other people so you figured out what you love

doing and now you have an idea now the idea itself can evolve from my point of view when I started what I'm doing today

which is a platform to help you for free the first thing I did was in fact a podcast so the step after idea is step

one execution and execution involves what is the first thing you can do to make your business idea come to life and

for me in my example it was a podcast but for you it might be a Blog it might be a LinkedIn post it might be

setting up a social media handle and starting to post up your photography whatever the first step execution is do

not make it too hard for yourself in my case sitting down interviewing people I found interesting recording it and

putting it up would serve the purpose of giving people mentorship in a podcast for free which was my first step in my

mission in my recent business so all I really did was get a microphone sit down and record conversations now if you go

back and look at those very early podcasts execution was not brilliant the guests were good the execution was not

great I had a rubbish microphone I had a rubbish camera and I slowly improved and step one is come up with a simple

execution plan step two in starting a business is consider where the revenue is going to come from

now some people say you need this within the idea phase and yes you can put it within the idea phase but sometimes

Revenue doesn't actually make itself clear to you start so an example if you're a photographer and you think

you're going to make your money charging by the hour for your photography skills you're probably limiting yourself right

so you're probably better off initially taking pictures of things you love and putting them up online and seeing if

people would buy them seeing if people would license the pictures experimenting with Revenue models and seeing what

sticks sure maybe people will book you by the hour but why would you start off with a revenue model that limits

yourself so I think when building a business the thing to really think about is not necessarily Revenue but

experimenting with different ways to make money from the thing that you are doing so again when I launched fluid

most companies charge by the hour for their marketing consultancy service we didn't we charged by the outcome of what

we did so if we helped a company be successful sell more product we took a percentage of those sales now that was

not part of most companies business models because most people start with an idea and then they do a revenue model

and then they start famous quote is everyone's got a plan till they get punched in their face and the truth is

when you launch a business you just want to keep yourself nimble like a boxer you want to see what is going to be the best

punch combination for you to make your business work and finally when starting a business step three is you've got to

make sure your purpose is strong now you've made sure that you enjoy what you do and that's great because that's going

to help you get up in the morning but actually I believe new businesses today need to think about what they're going

to do to make a difference in the world how are you going to make sure that people want to work with you how are you

going to make sure that what you're doing isn't just for profit because if it's just for profit everybody that

works for you is going to want more money everybody that's working with you is going to want to pay you less but if

you have a purpose bigger than yourself and identify that purpose and install it in your business I promise you you won't

be managing people anymore one of the biggest stresses of building a company you won't have to manage people because

you only have to manage purpose now I'm going to go into more depth how this all works but a lot of what I've talked

about here already has cost you no money you haven't had to spend any money now even if your idea is to launch an app

that cost a million pounds to develop start off with a service business start off with a revenue based model that can

get you there so an example is Airbnb when they launched they actually sold serial boxes at conventions it was

enough to be similar to Airbnb because some were the first accommodation Airbnb ever sold what at conventions people go

to see Obama speak go and see different politicians speak at these conventions and they would rent out rooms on& later

but initially they sold serial boxes Obama reels at this event at these events to get to know their

customers connect to their customers have a conversation with their customers and make money and that is the money

they use to initially get the business going so I will come on to other steps later now in the video about raising

money and other ways to do this but if you do these first few things your business is up and running it's cost you

no money and I promise you because it will have purpose because you like it and because there's a revenue model

behind it you will do it it will happen so how to win in business let's say you've already got a company you're not

winning and you want to win or you want to know the secret formula to winning and having built nearly 19 companies I'm

on my 19th business now how to win in business is actually very simple now I mentioned earlier having purpose and you

personally being passionate about it that's definitely going to give you an edge because most people are not loving

what they're doing so if you are you're already winning but there is a secret formula to winning and that starts with

a couple of things number one delayed gratification spelled completely wrong

get what I mean though right delay gratification is the number one reason that businesses win you don't rush to

charge customers for example you let them help you succeed so the first customer I ever got in my agency fluid I

actually did the work for free now a lot of people say don't do the work for free I don't agree I built up a relationship

with that customer overd delivered when it was free and that meant once they were happy not only did they use me

forever for the 16 years that I ran that company they also recommended me to everybody they felt like they were part

of my early Journey getting your customers on side is another element of winning but realizing that if you delay

getting gratification you will make more money and there's so many examples of this if you look at big businesses they

spent years making no money and then when they had the system all in place huge databases for example then they can

monetize and people don't wait long enough the other thing you can do is have a very strict moral cod with in

your business a culture culture will eat strategy for breakfast every single time you've got to make sure that your

culture in the company is client Centric a good example of this is Amazon I'm just saying that they do actually focus

on their customers as a culture and I think that a lot of people are too busy for example thinking about how they can

get money out of their customer and not thinking how they can bring value and if you want to win bring value you want

loyalty bring value value you want them to follow you promote you share you on their stories care about you talk about

you when you're not in the room then show them some love it sounds simple but people don't do it because they're too

busy not waiting for the payoff and too busy not installing a culture of patience a culture of caring about your

customer and then the final thing is luck now luck is not a subjective thing luck I have discovered

is hackable and you can hack luck three ways first be persistent and what I mentioned earlier about purpose and

loving what you do will help you be persistent you have to outlast other people when I launched my company fluid

in Hong Kong I had so many competitors but slowly but surely they all shut down went bankrupt they didn't care like I

did and I think that whole luck thing is about persistence that's number one number two in hacking luck is know your

destination what what is success for you what will make you happy what do you want big company small company and by

the way a big company is much easier to run than a small company aim for a big company is my recommendation but that's

my opinion it might not work for you so I suggest you to find success for yourself today success for me is having

the time to take my son to school and be able to pick him up is having time to do the exercise I want to do that's how I

define success so I never sell hours and we'll come to that in a little little bit why you should never sell hours but

luck is hackable you have to be persistent you have to know your destination and finally you have to

learn to take risk be careful with sayings out there trying to trick you into options that are not true so the

worst one is the harder you work the luckier you get that is not true that is a lie a lie designed to make you work

hard if it was true every nurse in this country would be a millionaire it is not true that working hard equals success

what equals success is taking risk you have to learn to take risk lean into fear learn to love fear embrace it and

then you can take more risk and the more risk you take the luckier you get learn to build culture into your businesses

about the long term and learn to hack luck you will win the secret to it all is learning to accept that you could

lose everything and it doesn't matter you've got to be willing to risk it all take a chance and go for it do not rush

do not see this as anything but a marathon it's not a Sprint enjoy the journey don't rush no one can beat you

if you do it so delay gratification is key Brands like Facebook and Instagram although I'm not a fan necessarily of

these platforms they personify this concept they did build massive massive user bases but they didn't monetized

them at the beginning they waited they just kept building value in their platforms for the users and more people

kept signing up and they didn't actually monetize for a very long time I think Facebook was near 10 years before it

started making money and although I'm not suggesting you wait 10 years and those companies have different

investment structures which we'll talk about a bit later it is important to understand how important this is to

building a successful long-term business do not think about making money straight up build a brand not a business and

those businesses like Facebook and Instagram they waited a decade before they started monetizing and as soon as

as they started monetizing Facebook in particular it started to decline as a brand less people liked it too many ads

on the screen too many annoying buttons that didn't have any relevance to them because they were suddenly trying to

make their client happy The Advertiser and no longer focused on the user in the same way so be careful but that is how

you build massive economic modes people like Google similar at the beginning no Revenue YouTube at the beginning no

Revenue focus on building something that has value for people delayed gratification is one of the secet

weapons in building a sustainable large and successful business that you love next up how to lose it might sound like

a strange title but it's the number one thing I've noticed that people don't learn to do that doesn't allow them to

be successful this all stems back probably to school where you were told that success was getting an a it's not

success is actually accepting failure learning to bounce back from failure embracing failure having learnings from

the businesses that I have been in involved in that have failed have allowed me to be successful I guarantee

you if I hadn't lost a million pounds on doming comic book business I wouldn't be rich or successful today I needed to

learn how to fail I needed to accept losing it's key and so how do you build the stamina and the ability to lose the

first thing you realize number one don't let things own

you if you let things own you you are controlled by the very thing that's meant to bring you pleasure you have to

learn to lose those things and not care about those things the second thing to lose you need to

let your short-term ego go now ego is actually a very powerful motivator and there are

different types of ego the ego I'm talking about here is driving around in the right car to give an image to people

that don't care about you that you are successful do not worry about this learn to enjoy looking like you're a loser let

people underestimate you it is so powerful to be underestimated by your competition even by your customers

because if they think you can't deliver and you do then brilliant do not worry about losing learn to be a d student

love to fail that's why 80% of a students end up working for D students because a students are scared to lose

they don't want to lose they always want to get an A they always want to be seen as the smartest person in the room don't

worry about it learn to lose learn to embrace getting a d getting a D in business means take

your time don't let someone else decide whether or not your success or not do

not let anybody else tell you how to do things and ironically power up your ego in a different way an internal ego that

tells you you're not a loser you know where you're going no matter what people judge you based on the car that you're

driving or where you're living or what you do with your day don't let them decide that you're a loser let them

think what whatever they want learn to love losing learn to embrace failure I promise you if you think that the worst

is if you try something and you lose everything it doesn't matter you can go again you will succeed I guarantee it

next up I want to teach you something practical how to do a mind map so many people teach you in business to do a

business plan forget that there is no use for a business plan what you want to do is map out where your business

could go how it could go and understand the different directions in which to take your business and I'm going to go

through how to do a mind map next now I have never seen anyone teach anybody how to do a mind map and the reason I think

that no one teaches this is because there's no template to sell you there's no product to sell you around a business

plan has a million ways to make money out of you and none of it works these business plan things actually kill

companies I've seen people who have massive business plans stick to it and die a my map however will cost you

nothing to do and actually leaves you Nimble and free to explore where the business can go and it's so simple it

starts in the Middle with your hobby whatever that is what you love to do second part of a mind map is the

business I can't spell but don't judge me for that luckily I know I'm doing a business what is the business so what is

your hobby what do you love to do and ideally it now links to the business now with the business and I'm going to use

my company as an example hopefully it translates into what maybe your idea is but in my business which

is what we call free Humanity the name probably gives it away what we want to do we want people to be

free to do what they love So within free Humanity this is what I did when I first started the business four years ago I

looked at different ways that I can make the business work so off here I wrote podcast right actually as I mentioned

earlier this is one of the first things I actually did so from a podcast what comes off it well I build a

network right I'm now doing a mind map of something I actually have already done to illustrate how mind Map works

when you're building out a business of value so one of the benefits of doing a podcast was a network in my case I

managed to interview over 200 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs which are now part of my life and help

me with what I'm doing help you on help bank.com that was one of my I and it was on my my map Network the second thing

was Brands I realized if I did a podcast I could probably make revenue from Brands

now with a my map you can get bigger and bigger and bigger with my maps there's no there's no stopping how big a my map

can get just like your brain is infinite in its ability to think mind map is also infinite and when I wrote the original

mind map out for my business I thought Brands and then I started listing them so in my case

GoDaddy uh tide banking Adobe these were brands that I felt were a fit with what I wanted to do give

people the ability to start their own business be free do what they love so I listed out all the brands that I could

work with I also listed in my original mind map and I didn't do it at the beginning but it ended up becoming part

of what I did was an app and an app that would focus on free help for people

now at the time I didn't have the name that I now have which is help bank.com but I knew that I needed to build a

scalable way of giving people knowledge now what I didn't know back then that I know now quick bit of insight is that

app is overused as a word it's actually not an app that you need to build at the beginning for most platforms you need to

build a web-based platform why well if you build an app you have to go in the app store or in the Google Play Store

you get restricted by one of those two locations so people that have a Samsung phone access the Apple Store to download

your app why would you when you launch something restrict people from getting access to it plus if it's web based

people can just log in straight from a web browser any web browser that aside I realized in my early days I needed to do

an app and from that I would do free help and from that I would be able to connect the network that I built in the

podcast to the free help the people that I had interviewed in the podcast the knowledge that I was capturing in their

case I could connect now that Network being built via the podcast to the help on the platform this is how it's

actually played out the next thing I I spent time thinking about was team and on a my map I thought about who

I actually need now because I knew I was going to do a podcast I knew that I needed an

editor but I also know my weaknesses so I know I need an accountant someone that's going to take care of the admin

these are things that I don't enjoy doing so I I know what to do but I also realized with the network that I build

through the podcast that I could have Partners so it's not just employees but Partners I could link to the team again

working with the people that I'd spoken to on the podcast I could connect them people that were going to work on the

app I could connect them although they're not necessarily on my payroll they are people that perhaps are

connected to my mission want to help people and they can become part of my extended team now within the team

structure I can also start thinking about things like if I have an editor maybe that editor hires editors or I

hire editors but you can start breaking down what you actually need within your team right now as a mind map you start

in my opinion with what your hobbies are what you enjoy doing you're then building a business around it and then

you're thinking about different things that this business is going to need now one of the things that I uh spent a lot

of time thinking about that I haven't yet done but will be coming soon in my platform was what else I could do that

would scale the business give it what it needed resource-wise without necessarily me being involved in it and at that time

back four years ago the word was merchandising so I wrote down merchandising now I think it's actually

evolved now it's beyond merchandising but um from that I wrote down of course what everyone was doing four years ago

t-shirts and caps that sort of stuff right stuff that you know maybe the word free Humanity would look pretty cool on

and I thought about in those days uh things like like sweets and products that perhaps we could

launch and I wrote down basically any way merchandise wise we could make money now what's interesting is I'm about to

launch a sweet brand called bus's it's taken four years to get to this part of the my map but it was on there it was

always on there and ironically when I was building team if anyone said to me when I was interviewing them they had

some experience with sweet business I made a know and kept them as someone maybe could help us in the future same

with merchandising anytime I spoke to anybody that was perhaps looking at starting a t-shirt brand or working on

Building Product I'd see if perhaps they want it to work be in the future because once you know in your mindmap one of the

things that's going to come up in the future you can look out as you're building other things for the very thing

that's going to help make that happen so this is a my map is is literally mapping out all the different things and

different ways that your business can go it's fun it's simple there's no template you can download and pay someone for you

don't need it and the beautiful thing about a mind map is you're not fixed you can start adding Bubbles and adding

things as things evolve as people and the world change you can start adding things and adding connecting the

different dots between parts of your business something a 20page document will never let you do because it's too

linear so that's a mind map I hope it's a useful practical tool for you going forward how to find purpose now this

word purpose might sound woooo they don't teach you it at school in my opinion for a reason because if you

understand purpose you're very unlikely to work for someone else purpose is a very personal thing you can find other

people with purpose you can find your tribe you can be free but finding purpose is not an easy thing and it's

not something you've been given any of the tools in which to make happen so what is the first step in finding

purpose and it's a very obvious step that people do not to you think about it now the problem is if you say you're

thinking about purpose people might laugh at you other people try to throw silly jokes out there like 49 and

they'll throw you off or purpose will get so complicated in your head because you've not really thought about it

before you'll give up and go back to your old ways you need to think about purpose what is your purpose we used to

live in tribes of 5,000 and we used to work on a method called give without take not give and take we used to help

each other because it would make our tribe better not because we'd make money from it you ask me for help I will give

it to you for free the world will be a better place I get better at giving you that help for free I'd become an expert

at giving that help for free eventually when I'm not in the room people will talk about me and what I do because I

become so good at helping people but I think today that doesn't fit The Narrative of working at a call center

and piing up the phone and doing what you're told in a factory that Henry Ford created so when the school system was

developed the word purpose wasn't included in any of it they asked the wrong question of you what are you going

to do when you grow up is what schools say that's not the right question what you should be asked is what problem are

you going to solve so the second step in thinking about and finding hopefully purpose is

what problem matters to

you now at first nothing might spring to mind if something has jumped into your mind then great in a minute I'm going to

explain how you action that but if it hasn't jumped into your mind start thinking about what problems have

actually affected you big or small now it can be really simple like the banks aren't open early enough for you or the

swimming pool you wanted to go to doesn't let you swim the time you want it might sound silly but you start

thinking about problems that bother you and your brain wakes up the entrepreneur muscle in your brain that helps you

figure out how to solve that problem now it might be that the bank's not opening on time isn't a problem you're going to

solve but if your brain starts thinking about that problem and how it can solve it you might begin to understand how to

find purpose the third thing you can do is start breaking down how to make your life and that purpose match now

matching what you do in your day and your actual purpose is often easier than you think I've met hundreds and hundreds

of people who tell me what their dream is and it turns out that their dream is often just 3% % difference from their

existing life you know between chimpanzees and humans only 3% difference in the DNA and often for

example I met someone that wants to do their own catering business they're working in someone else's catering

business they're just missing this video in their life to figure out how to turn what they feel is their purpose to make

cakes for someone and make them smile and own that business into that business they're just missing knowledge they're

also not realizing that actually their purpose is nearly there in fact I would argue that the system sometimes wants

you to feel like you're getting a enough satisfaction that you don't need to make a change so in other words if you are

working for someone else baking cakes even if they're not using the ingredients you would use or they don't

care about the customer the same way that you do at least you are baking but you got to break free from this thinking

you've got to realize that if you're going to do your purpose you have to learn what I said earlier take risk but

most importantly to truly know yourself I once interviewed a billionaire on my podcast and I asked him how did you

build your intuition and he said to me I used to go on asked my mom or my dad a question when I was young and they both

used to say to me you know the answer you know it never gave him the answers so he had to go away and figure out the

answers for himself and that in itself is the point I'm trying to make here you have a purpose yes I can help you get

there but you need to ask yourself what is that purpose how are you going to make it happen how you going to get

there and you do it by thinking about it asking yourself not what you're going to do when you grow up but what problem you

want to solve and then matching your life to that problem the final thing I'll say you don't have to do this thing

on your own let's say you care about climate change and I would just say we don't need to save the planet we need to

save humans when the humans are gone the planet will be fine but let's just say you care about saving the planet you can

go and work with other people doing something in this space the only thing I would say to you is make sure you ask

for Equity wherever you work I'll come to that a bit later how you do that and why you should do that but that can be

still a way for you to have the life you want you can find your purpose and then go work with someone that's actually

doing it so in my organization behind the camera right now there a whole group of people talented people that care

about the same thing as me so they can go off and help help people in their own way like they want to or we can come

together as a team and solve the problem together that people don't have the knowledge they need to do what they love

what I have noticed is that once you find your purpose and this is what you need to be careful of is that you don't

think that it's such a big purpose like solving the world's problems that you don't do it you can team up with other

people to do it and I will tell you 1 + 1 equal 11 remember that once you know your

purpose you can seek out people and communities and old days tribes to help you go and fix this problem with other

people but if you don't know what that purpose is you won't do this and you will get stuck working on someone else's

purpose someone else's Destiny and I promise you it's harder to work for someone else than work for yourself

despite what you have been told how to find a co-founder now if you're someone that likes to work alone you can p skip

this bit but I would say to you before you do make sure you understand the power of a co-founder sometimes we get

caught in our own ignorance bubble we think we know what we know but you don't know what you don't know so be cautious

before you skip this section you're absolutely sure that a co-founder cannot bring you value I will tell you first

out why a co-founder bring you value it's a bit like if you get a gym membership you probably don't go to the

gym but if you have a buddy who goes to the gym every morning you often have accountability and you go for me that's

one of the number one reasons I love having a co-founder now there is a counterargument to having a co-founder

you'll hear from many people which is well why would you give up 50% of your company to have a co-founder I

personally would rather have 50% of a business I enjoy that's successful than 100% of a nightmare and a failure and I

honestly think think with all my heart that if you get a co-founder your life is better how do you get a co-founder

and what should you look out for is something I'm now going to cover but I want to to say you have to think

carefully about the equity structure and later in this video I'm going to talk about equity and it's going to be

important it's going to connect back to this but for now I'm just going to talk in this bit about how to get a

co-founder now the first step is to identify what I said earlier which is what do you love to

do and what do you hate to do be honest be clear hate and love right hate and love now once you've identified what you

hate to do and what you love to do you can identify what is the perfect

co-founder because you want someone that has the opposite skill to you but and this is very important when

looking for a co-founder I'm going to put it as number two has the same moral

code this process of finding a co-founder is pretty much the process of probably finding a partner in life

you're going to spend a lot of time with this person this person is going to become literally your business life

partner and if you do it right it is for life like I have in business done businesses with people and even when

I've sold that company I've done another business with them if you get it right it is a lifelong partnership and so you

want to make sure you're honest and clear about what you hate doing and what you love doing so that the person comes

in and works of you one doesn't question you Crossover with you lets you run your area and gives you respect equally you

have the same with what they do you write down exactly in detail what this person looks

like and I would go as far as to say you write down what how tall they are what they look like how they speak their

background where they're from everything you can possibly think of just as if you're picking a partner in life what

what is it you're looking for write down every detail the reason I say the more detailed you are with it the more likely

you are to manifest it you aren't going to be looking out for something unless you make it very clear what you're

looking for I mean it's the red car Theory right if I suddenly tell you the words red car you're probably going to

see a lot of red cars but if I don't mention red cars you probably haven't seen one at all today you have to list

out what you want so you've identified what you love doing and what you don't love doing you've identified your own

moral code and a moral code I'm can go into it a little bit more it's quite a complicated thing but there is one quick

hack on this I can give you whenever I'm trying to find out whether or not someone's good I don't care about money

I care about reputation so I don't want to accidentally end up working with someone that all they really care about

is money and I have this test to check I will say to them what if from this day until you're 70 so let's say you're 30

now in the next 40 years you'll have the most amazing life three houses one in New York one in Hong Kong one in London

anywhere you go people will love you private jets everything you need for the next 40 years that's your life and in 40

years time however there is a catch you'll get to 70 and then everyone will find out that you're a financial fraud

that you tricked people to get here and that your life generally will be very different people will look at you

differently maybe then you'll die and maybe it doesn't matter but that's your life do you want to take the deal I'm

surprised how many people say yes I would say 50/50 people say yes they take that deal they'll have 40 Years of a

good life for a bad reputation at the end be careful what people like like that is what happens in my brain right

because that is the murof story that is what murof did his son's committed suicide his name is in the dirt no one

ever wants to hear that name again in their life and a lot of people were hurt so I use open questions and philosophy

to figure out whether or not it's someone I want to work with and you should do it too because you don't want

to be in partnership with someone that doesn't care in the same way that you care I'm not here to judge what is right

and what is wrong I'm here to tell you how you can check that what's right for you aligns in your business in your

culture of your business and more importantly in your day-to-day personal life so you've identified what you love

and what you don't love you've checked the mobile code in every way you can or the person you want you've Drawn Lines

in the sand what you're not willing to do and you know what this person looks like the final thing is post

it now post it is very simple you start telling people you're looking for this person you post it on LinkedIn you post

it everywhere you ask people you make it clear this is what you're looking for you look out for it in cafes when you're

out having dinner when you're at the supermarket you look out for this person because they're out there you just have

to have your eyes wide open of course you can go on help bank.com and ask people if they know someone like this

you can use the tools around you to get what you need but ultimately you've now set yourself up with every chance of

finding a co-founder now you're going to have to sort out the equity structure and get that right I'm going to come to

that in a minute but that is how you find a co-founder and in my opinion it's one of the most powerful things you can

do to ensure success in your business next up how to sell now anybody can sell it's a system it's a philosophy and

anyone can do it I don't care your background you can be an introvert you can still sell and understand the

systems of selling and if you are presently selling I promise you you are missing a few tricks I'm going to try

and help you with now first up how to sell it's not what you have been taught it is not here's my product this is how

much it is and this is what it does the first thing in sales that you need to learn and the number one thing I learned

through the hard way of doing it is sell the sizzle not the [Music]

steak so what does that mean well let's pick one of the best products ever sold Apple products Steve Jobs used to always

set up events where he'd invite 3,500 people into a room all the right Tech reporters all the right people and he

would then present to them the sizzle he would not say here's a phone with an Intel processor that has this and has

that he would talk about how this product was for the game changers for those that wanted to do things

differently for the creative types he was very specific about what the sizzle is he didn't sell the steak now in that

process of selling there's a couple of other lessons that Steve Job teaches us of course he doesn't sell to Millions

through social media he picks a community 3,500 people in a room he sells to them he connects to them he

talks to them and they go and talk to the rest of the world getting someone on your side selling for you is one of the

most powerful ways to sell the number one salesperson in my last company was my accountant why cuz I gave her the

tools to sell I told her what we did and how we did it I showed her the sizzle through the numbers we helped clients be

more successful we helped businesses starve off Bank bankruptcy we made sure companies did well and she was proud of

that she would sell the sizzle she'd sit with her other CFO friends at lunch and she'd say we saved a company from going

bankrupt we made one company an extra million pounds a month they didn't expect she would tell people the outcome

she wouldn't say oh I work for fluid and we have marketing ideas that's not exciting she talked about the results

she talked about the philosophy the sizzle the second element of learning to sell is understand the process of

selling so many people don't so many people start on what I call the third step and you need to do two steps first

before you ever start implementing the third step in sales so the first step in any sales is understand your customer

now it sounds so obvious and I'm shocked how many people don't do it I often get emails that say dear John or they say

dear Simon I really love what you're doing X and they haven't actually research what I'm really doing however

when someone sends me something and understands what I'm doing it's clear on how they can bring value to me I sit up

and I listen and that is the number one thing that people don't do in the first step of sales enough research they do

not spend enough time understanding if the person they're talking to actually needs them they spend way too much time

selling to people that don't actually need what they got to sell don't waste your time with people that don't need

what you've got focus on the people that do need what you've got first step is do

they need you get to know them the second step in this three-step process to get

any sales done is understand the person you're working with in the context of do you like

them this element of sales is so powerful if you can have a a real connection with a person you're selling

to a genuine connection not a fake connection it is something that will help you get through all sorts of

difficult times in that relationship you need to like each other you need to genuinely like each other and if you

meet someone who needs what you need but they don't like you and you don't like them one the sale probably won't go

ahead but even worse the sale might go ahead then you'll be working with someone that doesn't like you and you

don't like them if they're rude they're abrupt you go out for dinner they're rude to the waiter if it doesn't appeal

to you drop them do not work with these people it might be hard you might want the revenue but I promise you you will

not build a business that will last if you sell to the wrong people so first step do they need you do you need them

Second Step do they like you do you like them if you do these two things well the final step and let's call it the

deal it will happen because are they like you and they need you they will work with you to make a deal happen I

have done enormous deals every single time in my career I've done the first two steps right it's no problem in fact

I have said how much I would like for say example a contract and that client's come back to me and given me even more

told me the budget giv me insight into how to make sure we get the work so it's so important not just go in there cold

with what you've got to sell but go in there understanding the person and making sure it lasts if you follow these

three steps I promise you you'll get every single sale done now there's one more final thing I want to tell tell you

about sales you've got to think long term there was a study done by Harvard they analyzed the best sales people in

the world and the top 50 salese in the world would on average approach someone to get a deal done five times they would

send them an email for example and then a few weeks later they'd send them a follow-up email and then maybe they'd

send them a brocher or contact them through social media they would basically contact maximum of five times

before they would actually consider that lead dead and that was their mistake and we're talking about the leading sales

people but the top 1% of sales people which it turns out I am one of these people I didn't know it at the time I

now know it looking at the research the top 1% of salespeople do something very different when I started fluid I wrote

down all 50 companies I wanted to work with in the building of this business and there were big names on there and

from day one I built a system to reach out to them by hooker by Crook in some way every single month for example at

Christmas I would wish them a merry Christmas send them a card Chinese New Year I'd send them something when I

learned something about their industry that I thought could be useful to them bit of research I would send it to them

I would always make sure every single month I made contact with them in some way not to sell necessarily but to build

a relationship to get to know what their needs were in some cases I got those clients quite quick but in the majority

of the businesses it took me for example 9 years to get some of those companies on board every single month for n years

I would approach those companies and that's the secret to it it's a long game you have to apply yourself build a

system in sales that lasts it cannot be one email they don't reply or they one email and they say no you've got to keep

staying in contact with them building things like email lists are still very powerful it know it's not as cool these

days as being popular on Tik Tok but I promise you having an email list where you can contact that person regularly

keep an update of what you're doing keep up todate what they're doing will ensure a sale at some point in the future as

long as you're politely persistent I promise you you follow these rules in sales your life will change I will add

in sales people don't bring their personality into the mix enough you've got to be yourself be honest be

authentic in sales it's not about selling someone a car that doesn't work that is that is how people are

projecting what sales looks like sales is about selling someone a car they actually need I have seen in my own life

when I've gone to buy a car the best Sal salespeople tell me you don't want this car you want that car in another

showroom where they don't get the commission I've actually had that happen and when I saw that happen I hired that

person because that person is thinking longterm they're not trying to sell me a car to make the commission they're

building a relationship with me and that is what you need to do to be successful in sales next up how to Market this is a

deep subject but I'm going to try and give you all the knowledge I've gained in decades of building some of the most

complicated marketing structures there is now marketing is one of the most important pieces in making a business

work and I when I think about this subject it's so complicated I honestly think because I know everything about

this subject it's like rocket science I will start off perhaps by teaching you that in marketing 50% of what you spend

will probably be be wasted so if you've got a million views but the wrong views it's wasted so marketing is about really

experimenting now I mentioned earlier when I'm talking about sales sell the sizzle not the steak of course that

applies in marketing too but marketing is actually about connecting with people over time the biggest example is

branding if you get The Branding right people will resonate you're probably a victim of this you would rather buy an

Apple than an of a brand right you've become a victim of good marketing and when for example the iPod launched

product people all thought the product did the selling it was such a good product that's why it did so well no

when they launched the iPod they spent more money marketing that product than any company had ever spent on marketing

a product ever marketing is not one thing marketing is a complex structure combining PR brand messaging

product Market fit if you don't know product Market fit I can cover this later but basically you've got to make

sure that the people you're talking to will resonate to the product that you're selling or the service that you're

selling Marketing in my opinion is actually number one thing it's understanding who your

customer is now often in business build you'll see businesses focus on niches to start

with now it doesn't have to stay in that Niche but it's a great place to start so Facebook for example it started off in

universities and by connecting people in universities of course now it became connected everybody all over the world

but they understood their customer they knew what that customer was looking for and in the early days of Facebook they

put a feature on there called single or or available I can't remember the exact terminology but they they

basically created a feature that let you know if that person was in a relationship or not and that was

designed to help the University students understand the Dynamics between their fellow University students and so they

knew their Market audience and they then marketed that feature people would then go around saying did you see Sarah she's

suddenly single and that would be the marketing for their product they built a tool in the platform that became what

people spoke about that created the marketing for you and in my opinion that's the Holy Grail of marketing and

this brings me on to point two I call this the staircase philosophy so the best way to me the

best way for me to teach you this is to tell you what I have recently done so weirdly a few months ago a staircase

came up for sale in London it's the first time a staircase had ever been for sale in London it's ridiculous and I

heard it on the news that this staircase was for sale and I told my brain in instantly we going to buy it now I

didn't have an exact plan of what I was going to do with the staircase but what I knew was that staircase symbolized

something for my business which was step by step you can get anywhere you want but also I knew I could news Jack that

staircase was a sensation people didn't know why someone was selling a staircase and 2 days after hearing it on the news

I owned it I spent £26,000 buying it at auction and then we did a couple of clever things that hopefully symbolize

how marketing works first up as soon as we bought the staircase the news channels that had reported it was for

sale jumped on us I knew they would and they wanted to know why we had bought a staircase and that gave us an

opportunity to get on the front page of the New York Times on the front page of the BBC in every single newspaper around

the world millions of us worth of coverage for our platform because we bought a staircase it doesn't seem

relevant but doing these Wild Things these crazy things can actually make a huge difference one of the things that I

always loved in marketing was when flash mobs were a thing and what happened was suddenly You' get a whole shopping mall

people would start dancing and everyone would wonder what it was right that is brilliant marketing now it might not

sell your product exactly in that exact moment but over time it allows you to have a reach and expansion and

uniqueness to you that will help you stand out because that's what it's about it's about standing out so by buying the

staircase we then evolved it we got all this PR millions of dollars worth of free PR for a staircase then we put a

doorbell at the bottom of that staircase and we said if you've got a dream press a button we'll then upload your dream to

our 4 million following and get you free exposure well that was what the Press needed to do a follow-up story on it

once you bought the staircase what did you do with it that they wrote All about that but also we built a whole new way

of helping people on the back of staircase that was for sale I knew it symbolized helping people step by step

and then the final step in marketing we all need Partners marketing isn't about promoting something on your own we don't

want to get a partner like ring doorbell or Amazon who own ring doorbell on board to sponsor the doorbell to sponsor the

staircase to help us reach even more people and then suddenly they pay for our marketing and so marketing isn't a

standalone thing marketing isn't a a non-living organ GC product you have to see it as living you have to see it as

evolving and you have to see it as something that you do that pushes the envelope now marketing is connected to

sales if you have a sales team in a way when they ring someone up how they speak to someone how they treat someone that

is also marketing that's brand marketing however that person receives your phone call receives your your in interaction

with them will affect your brand and that is marketing Nike for example how do they do marketing well they endorse

the very best athletes in the world of course in some cases they make shoes with those very successful athletes

they're aligning themselves up with these people that are incredibly successful what does Apple do Apple

links to creative people so therefore everybody wants to have some sort of creativity in their life Beauty in their

life so they buy a product they think is for the creative people right IBM notebook was a better product but people

didn't want that I didn't symbolize something cool and sexy and creativity so I think marketing is about again some

like similar to sales selling the sizzle but it's also about understanding who your customer is how to reach that Niche

and then how to work with that Niche to expand into the wider world if you want to scale it's the staircase method

what's your staircase what's going to make you stand out how can you evolve that thing that makes you stand out and

go even further number three is systems when you're doing marketing it is such an overwhelming thing there's so

many different ways you can do it you can do email marketing you can do social

media you can do PR you can do branding you can do events I mean the list never ends so how

do you decide which one to do well first of all whatever you do you've got to build a system to do it so if it is

email marketing then you have a good data collection system you have a good data management system and then you have

a good way of pushing out the the content to that database and whatever one of these things you do if you do all

of them or you do one of them do them well do not do all of them and Order of them badly I see so many people with on

their website Twitter and Facebook and Instagram links and then you li click through to them and they're dead you're

better off doing one well now I think marketing is something where you should spread your bet you want to do many

different ways what I call entrances into your business you want to do many of them as many of them as you can but

do not over stretch yourself it's better to do one platform on social media really well than try and spread yourself

th but if you set up a system for doing your social media there is a chance you could do all of them well with the same

amount of resources doing one of them well so for example on my social media I have one core video and then we edit it

inapp for each of the channels so we don't have to record separate videos for each of the channels but we do inapp

edit them so they're actually tailored to that particular platform's nuances be it their font or their image so you can

actually set up a system to do all of these marketing things but the key of course is not only just systems but

making sure you pick what works for you now when it comes to marketing one of the big mistakes I see people get taught

is marketing is about having the staircase only it's not about having the staircase only it is about applying what

you like to do as a founder or maybe what your team likes to do into your marketing strategy as an example if you

don't like talking on camera that's not your thing as long as you're not hiding away from learning something new and you

genuinely don't like to do it but for example you love to write then doing an email marketing strategy is probably

right for you posting on LinkedIn is probably the correct platform for you sure you'll hear people talking about

how good Tik Tok is and how Ben much benefit they' got from it but it doesn't work for you it's not sustainable for

you it's not something you're going to enjoy and marketing is something fun this is something I want you to take

away no one talks about it but marketing is meant to be fun I took my son to buy that staircase we had a laugh once we

got the staircase we had a laugh cleaning it up we had a laugh putting a blimp on top of it we had a laugh

putting a doorbell on the front of it we enjoyed the whole bloody thing and if you don't enjoy it what's the point

marketing is about enjoying it that's why I see brands do well I give you an example face uh Starbucks Marketing in

the early days was two things first they would take good Lo locations sometimes quite close to each other so instead of

getting a billboard advertising Starbucks they'd open up another Starbucks and even if it was loss making

as long as it wasn't more expensive in its loss than a billboard they were better off having a store then people

could have the experience they never did any Billboards it's changed now and I would argue it's not as good a brand

anymore but they opened up locations that was one of their marketing strategies the second thing that they

did that was really clever is they looked after their staff which sounds really obvious doesn't it but they did

they talk about their staff as partners the Baristas are Partners in some respects the internal training manual

talked about their Baristas as the customer and and and it worked in the early days of Starbucks to say what you

like about them today but in the early days of Starbucks when I used to walk in there a barista would know my name

they'd know what drink I wanted and they were just working for Starbucks but they cared because they were looked after

they were given medical care for example they were given full-time Medical Care even if they need even if they were

part-time staff they were given insurance and looked after and they were given days off if they didn't feel very

well they were looked after and I and and I think that this is also part of marketing it might not sound it but if

your people don't represent you then good luck making everything else represent you because those people will

create all the things that represent you so do include fun into your business do look at the nuances of your business and

figure out what is going to be your staircase and ultimately apply your marketing love

to something that's sustainable that's going to be enjoyable that's going to be able to actually deliver the very thing

that you want to deliver which I think should always be the promise of a better future for your customers next up how to

PR your business now some of these things are interconnected and sales and marketing all connect to how to get PR

but I'm going to give you some hacks and some insights in how PR works and it is quite a complicated subject but but it's

something if you get right can be a game changer for your business now first up I'll say getting PR has to be very

targeted I know plenty of people that have got PR for the money they've raised in their company and it will go out to

platforms like Tech crunch it will make them feel good but it had no impact on their business other than to make them

feel good which is fine I guess but I do think PR should be more strategic I'd rather spend time reaching the press and

actually getting a tangible result and not just playing to Eco so recently for example I was featured on the BBC news

they talked about what we were doing at the doorbell where people could pitch their dreams and this led to hundreds of

people finding out about it going to our staircase pitching their dream and helping them make their dream happen now

that in my opinion is targeted marketing equally I have done recently an article in a Business Journal that got zero

reaction now I was proud to be in the Business Journal and I don't want to say which one it is so I don't insult them

but ultimately it actually led to no value as far as what I want to do which is help people do what they love and

make sure people know there's a service out there for free to help them do what they love so PR is very important to be

targeted and so I'll write that down first now targeting can also be subjective because a bit like marketing

itself and sales of course sometimes you do need to cast The Net wide and get as much coverage as you can but if you do

start to Target your actual needs it's much easier to get PR I give you example if for example you want to let people

know that you are now selling cherries on the side of the street the best thing to do is get some PR in the local area

that you live now as much as it might be nice to so You' started a Cherry Farm selling cherries on the side of the

street to make that farm work probably could get you in a mainstream News Channel it won't necessarily lead to

sales in the location in which you sell those cherries so targeting and understanding exactly who you're trying

to reach is actually the key and it's more likely that if you are selling cherries in East Sussex the East Sussex

times will cover you it's more relevant more chances of actually getting the pr than say for example the BBC covering it

because it's not necessarily going to be that interesting you could tend spend a lot of time and money reaching those

people and then not cover you the second thing I'll teach you about PR is journalists are lazy so if you

understand this and understand if you provide everything for them then

they don't need to do any work more likely to get the Press coverage so what I always do is I actually write the

press release like it's the actual story you want written with a good headline that makes them happy that they're not

selling you that's journalists don't want to write and sell you they want to write something that's interesting for

the reader so making a good subject line that's good for the reader making the story good for the reader I do all the

work for the journalist and then things like photos I take high resolution photos and I send them with a press clip

to make sure they've got everything they need all they have to do is say yes to the story and then put their own touch

on it job done they're human beings they want to go out for lunch if they can so if you can make it possible for them to

go out for lunch and do their job then you will win in PR too many people are lazy they send press releases that are

generic and they don't tailor it to the journalist they're writing to so the other thing you need to do is research

that journalist back to the targeting you need to understand what that journalist writes about what that

journalist is interested in and almost write in their style if you want that particular journalist right about you

the third thing on PR I'll tell you is there is a lot of companies out there that will tell you they can get you PR

please be careful now as much as it might be nice to just pay someone to do this I have discovered doing the pr

yourself especially if you're a small business can pay huge dividends why because you can make a relationship

direct with a journalist and how do you find these journalistic contacts that's what the pr companies tell you they've

got you can go for a newspaper and find them you can Google them you'll find them quite quick one big hack I'll give

you is Twitter in particular is really good to get hold of journalists if you start following the journalists that you

want to write about you and you start engaging on their posts I would say that's one of the best ways to start

building up a relationship with a journalist most people will reply to comment or read a comment that you've

made on one of their posts and weirdly enough often journalists don't have big followings and they don't actually have

a lot of comments so you can start making a relationship start commenting on something if they post something

about global warming and you you've got a product that's helping reduce global warming then you will get noticed if you

start commenting on a story they've done about it start being part of their thinking when it comes to I need someone

to help me write this story I need someone to give me a quote to make the story better start becoming part of that

journalist life and it starts with just following them on Twitter or replying to one of their comments engaging on one of

the stories they've already written even online things like Daily Mail the journalist will read the comment on

their own story so engage engage is the number one thing I can tell you when it comes to getting PR from journalists and

finally I have been involved in many conversations where I know brands have not worked with someone because they saw

on someone's social media that they posted something obscene or rude or stupid remember that you as a business

owner will always be the number one PR engine whatever you post up be conscious be careful think about your brand think

about the image that you're projecting and I I can't tell you enough how important this is because if you do the

first few things I've just mentioned you connect with the Press you know who you're targeting and you're not lazy you

help them do it if a journalist sees that you are out of control or inappropriate they will not risk their

job to write about you so learn to be disciplined learn to be the brand PR starts with one person having respect

for you so make sure you're dis disciplined don't be lazy yourself next up one of my favorite subjects one of

the questions I get asked the most how to get an investor learning how to get an investor can dramatically change the

trajectory of your business equally though just before I go into how to get an investor I want you to think

carefully about whether or not you need an investor now I have invested in 78 companies you can go on my website

simon.com and look at some of the companies I've invested in I have seen it all and sometimes if you get the

wrong investor or get an investor for the wrong reasons you you will have a new boss and your life will become a

nightmare it will be easy at the beginning when you get the money and will get harder over time if you do it

wrong I will try to teach you how to not get it wrong but equally please ask yourself is there another way to make

the business work and I'm going to touch on other ways that you could make it work even if you don't get an investor

within this how to get an investor chat now there are quite a few different ways to get an investor depending on the

stage of your business and how much you're trying to raise if you're trying to raise money in the early days of a

business I would say to you the more traction you have in your business the easier it is to get an investor now that

does not mean to say if you just have an idea you can't get an investor you definitely can there's just less people

that will fund it so just like the sales stuff I taught you earlier it's probably better to make sure that you actually

know who you're targeting when you're getting an investor what is the profile of the person you want so if you're

going after someone that perhaps will fund a business that has no traction it's just an idea then remember those

people's profile they they probably want quite a lot of equity they probably want some involvement in the business to make

sure it works they probably want some sector relevance industry relevance to your business so they can add value

because no investor I don't care who they are just want to feel like money everybody wants to feel like they're

bringing some sort of value in fact I would argue you shouldn't invest in a business unless you can bring value

you've got to make the value the thing that gives you the edge to make that investment work otherwise you might just

invest in the stock market if you can't bring value you might as well invest in the stock market and I don't think you

make money from the stock market Market middle class people make moneyy from the stock market you make money like waren

Buffett makes money you own a piece of a company you can influence you can help make sure it's successful so do your

research but these are the types of profiles that are often the best family and friends now I know family and

friends can be difficult for a lot of people a lot of people don't have family and friends with money and I totally

understand that and I'll come to other methods but I just want to touch on this first because family and friends the

reason it's such a good thing to do is because they know you you don't have to convince someone of your personality

your profile your dedication they will know all of that they'll know the true you most of the time that could be

really powerful and speeding up the process of getting the money you need now of course we all know it can get

messy if you take money off family and friends and you don't pay them back so tell them the truth they could lose all

their money that's all you need to do you tell them they could lose all their money in the wish to get investment we

sometimes go down the road of overselling it it and that's totally normal but please be careful with this

especially with family and friends if you tell them you invest in my business it could all go wrong you can lose

everything then after that it's up to them but you make it clear don't oversell it that it's a guaranteed win

it cannot be a guarantee where nothing ever is unless you've watched all of this video of course there's a high

chance but you know what I mean please please be careful but I have seen it work and often family and friends can

also help you which in the early days of any business if that's the stage you're at then getting help is probably more

valuable than money but I've seen it work so do give it serious consideration and of course friend of a friend can

also be the way to raise money if you don't have someone in your family that's rich maybe you've got a friend who has a

family that's rich learn to leverage the network because your friend recommending you to someone who's rich will be

powerful and doesn't mean it'll also save you time in the VC World which I'll talk about in a minute getting a

recommendation is the only way to get investment they don't take applications online despite what their websites say

I've seen it they don't they take it from recommendation so start really networking the second thing I'll say and

I've never seen anyone else talk about this when it comes to getting an investor and that is consider the people

you want to work with you in your company as potential investors so sometimes when you're profiling the

people you want in your business you will look at it and say right well I can't afford the best so I'll get this

person right which is fine I understand that but the smart people think differently

the smart people think who are the best and let's say I'm building right now a competitor to LinkedIn help bank.com so

I think who's number two at LinkedIn I want them to come and join me they're never going to be number one at LinkedIn

not for a long time but maybe they want the chance to build their own LinkedIn and come and join me now the great thing

about the number two at LinkedIn definitely got some money in the bank right some money to invest in the

business so I can and I've done this many times so this isn't just a theory but look at your

team look at your team members as potential investors in the platform I'm running today help.com the people that

are involved in this business have invested in this business Callum who's buying the camera right now has put his

own money into this business and he's got Equity because of it and he's taken a lower salary initially so there's all

sorts of benefits to actually doing it this way you can get your cost down you can get the best inclass involved in the

business and you can bring money in to help make the company work and it's much better to have money from people that

are actually working in the business Than People externally who are asking you for a report of when they're going

to get their money back the third thing you can do and of course this is more traditional but it is very complex so I

try to explain how to go about getting this type of person in your business but it's an angel investor now you might

have heard the term many times you probably watched rubbish shows like Dragon's Den and thought that getting an

investor is the dragon or the angel sits there with all the money and you are desperately trying to get that money off

them by making them see your vision that is the wrong way to get an angel investor the best way to get an angel

investor on board once you've identified them and done the research to find out who they are you've been very clear

about what you're going to give them if they invest all of that is common sense right I don't need to teach you that

right now of course you need to know how much you're going to give them and why and I'll get into equity in a little bit

later in the video so you could try to work that bit out but once you've established who you want as an investor

and what you're willing to give them the way to get an investor is completely the opposite to what you think you think

getting an investor is hi I've got a business this is this business would you like to invest no the best way to get an

angel investor is not ask for money the best way to get an angel investor is ask for help because you've identified the

right investor they want to feel value if they can't bring value they don't want to invest and often if you do it

right it's not like Dragon's Den I've invested in 78 businesses I always feel honored and unlucky when I get to invest

in a successful business they do not treat me like a dragon they do not treat me with awe they treat me with respect

but they also identify why they've approached me how I can bring value and make me feel special and ultimately I

then feel lucky to be involved in that business if they do that right if you ask me for advice you're more likely to

get money out of me than you straight up ask him ask me for money now I'm not saying don't build ask into the process

of course when you do a picture angel investor you should definitely put in there you're looking for money but the

best way to put it is we're looking for money from the right people make it a little harder for people to get involved

in your business that's how you get an angel investor you create fomo right fomo you probably heard it but in case

you haven't it's probably one of the most powerful things fear of missing out you make people understand and you do it

sincerely that if they don't invest they're missing out that is the key to getting an angel investor now of course

treat an angel investor with respect if you can prepare a correct and appropriate amount of equity they're

going to get make it clear why explain your long-term investment plans how they're going to dilute because Angel

Investors often get diluted so if you're offering them 5% it might sound like a lot but if you get another investor and

another investor as the things go as things go down the line that person could end up with 1% of the company or

half a percent of the company and remember most Angel Investors will be involved in the business so make sure

you actually need them to help you don't just pretend that they need you you need them because once you get them on board

as an investor you also it will go pair shaped so it's not just about convincing the person to get on board it's also

convincing yourself that the right person to have with you on this journey in the long term make sure you do that

now the fourth way of getting an investor more traditional VC's Venture capitalists now

these types of profiles often a little bit further down the line in your business model than just a startup or an

idea most of the time nearly all VCS although things have changed a little bit when there was a lot of money in the

market but most VCS will genuinely want a business that's proven that needs Capital to scale so the way to get a VC

on board a couple of ways first you identify have they got money now what happens with a lot of VCS

is they're raising funds and they're deploying funds and then they're raising funds again and they won't necessarily

tell you they'll take a meeting with you they might meet you and understand your business but they won't necessarily have

the funds and they'll tell you what we joke in the VC world is you're too too tall for radio so you go for a job

interview radio station they reject you in that job and the interview rejection reason is you were too short for radio

in other words it's they don't tell you why but you can find out if they're raising you can Google them to

find this out don't waste time approaching VCS are raising money they won't deploy the capital they will waste

your time the other thing you can do and I think it's very important is see who they've invested in before

and there's a good chance if they've invested in a similar business to yours it's one of two things that it's either

bad news or good news for you if it's good uh then they will invest in many different companies so for example there

was an investment company that invested in all the uh Uber type businesses as a they invested in Uber they invested in

lift they invested in all of them they hedged their bet that one of them was going to win they want to be a part of

all of them to make sure that they didn't lose other VCS will only invest in one company in that categ category so

just make sure you understand that but if it's bad news and they only invest in one company in that category then you

can go to the competitor of that VC and create a rivalry between the VC firms I've seen it play out many times you

make them feel like well they've invested in Uber but I'm Lyft and I think we're going to beat Uber would you

like to invest in us and it's Primal but it works so think about again have they got money don't waste time selling to

people that don't have that see the investor come companies they've invested in before understand that and then three

try to get connected to a previous company that that VC has invested in it's much more powerful for you to get

introduced by one of the other portfolio companies of that VC then you personally approaching that VC so try to make

connections and it's also good due diligence by the way if you speak to the company that got investment from that VC

you can find out whether that VC was decent or not because some of these VCS are awful so you can do your due

diligence at the same time hopefully make a relationship with a Founder that can introduce you to the VC when the

time is right now the fifth way again I've never seen this way explained to people before and it's not traditional

but I have done it many many times and that is work with your brand partner or client to fund your growth so I had an

office in Hong Kong and a client wanted us to open up in the Middle East and I was a bit reluctant which is why I think

I found out about this hack cuz I originally said we don't want to open up there I think they just wanted us open

up there and then service them and they didn't want to spend any money doing it but because we said no and they really

wanted to work with us there they offered to pay us to open up there so this is a hack I learn and I will use it

many many many more times after this that sometimes your client who wants your service or the brand that's

sponsoring you will pay for your expansion sometimes it's easier for them to do that than go out and build it

sales for example or work with a new partner that doesn't understand their philosophy so your existing clients can

be your investor and it can be really powerful if you do it right too because that client then feels invested in your

success they're not going to make you go for a tender every year they're not going to chop and change you as a client

or partner or or supplier because they want you to succeed because they own equity in you now of course you have to

do this carefully so for example if one of your clients is a bank and they invest in you it can get very messy

suddenly on the legal side equally if you are working with a particular provider let's say in my case I work

with lots of different online service providers but I partner with GoDaddy but if GoDaddy invested in my business it

means all the other online suppliers probably wouldn't work with me which would not help the people I'm trying to

help which is people starting businesses so I think it's quite important to make sure you get the right client or the

right brand to invest in you but it can be huge money and brands do have investment divisions Google Ventures

Google it ironic they invest in businesses they invested in a coffee shop called Blue Bottle a coffee shop so

it's possible to get Google to invest in your business but you have to understand again the motives go back to my sales

point I made in the video earlier in the video if you want to understand how to sell to these brands use that sales

system again but ultimately it's a way to raise money now there's one final way I want to quickly flush out with you to

raise money to make your business work now it kind of touched on what I said at the beginning of this part of the video

and that is make sure you need an investor sometimes when people are asking me for money I will ask them what

they're using the money for and most of the time not always but quite often it's to get more sales to grow the product to

make sure more people can buy the product and so on but when I dig in it's not money from me that they need they

just need a better sales system so often when it comes to raising money you'll find that if you can actually go look at

your business and you might say to yourself well I need the money to buy the product well you can do crowdfunding

for example you can find me methods of selling your product ahead of time through platforms like Indiegogo and and

platforms that will pre-sell your product to get you the revenue you need in advance and you're not giving away

any Equity when you do that you can pre-sell your product on certain crowdfunding sites before it's made and

then you can go and use the money you got from that pre-order to go and make it and that is often a much better way

than raising money from an investor of course crowdfunding is quite big across the board now you can can raise money

crowdfunding you can do equity crowdfunding and there's plenty of sites that do that I'll put some links Down

Below in the video if you want to check out who they are but ultimately you want to figure out whether or not you really

need the money from a customer pre- buying it or from an investor who's going to help bring value or from a

community that's going to support you in the future you can do crowdfunding where you sell your product you can do

crowdfunding where you sell Equity you can do crowdfunding where ultimately it's just a loan you can do crowdfunding

where people will just support you like Gund me crowdfunding is definitely one of the ways I think today you should

leverage before going to the more traditional routs of say a VC or an angel of course family and friends so

crowdfunding is powerful and don't overlook it I'm going to put the links to all the different types of

crowdfunding sites down below go check them out and let me know if you have any questions in this subject because it is

a complicated one I will do a video in the future about how to launch a proper crowdfunding site but that's not now how

to get a sponsor this is something I get asked all the time I'm going to give you the code I'm going to give you the cheat

code I guess on how to do it and I want to first of all say if any sponsors are listening to this um I have applied this