From Apprentice Finalist to running a trades and marketing business with Richard Woods

In this episode, Greg Wilkes is joined by Richard Woods, former finalist on The Apprentice, marketing agency founder, and someone who’s seen both sides of the fence — from scaling a marketing business to running a trades company under real pressure.

Richard shares the unfiltered reality of growth, visibility, and leadership. From life inside the Apprentice boardroom to Christmas Day boiler breakdowns, this conversation exposes what business owners don’t see until they’re in it — and what actually matters if you want a business that works without owning you.

🔹 Key topics:

✅ Building profile and leverage — how Richard used visibility, positioning, and a clear message to create opportunity long after TV fame faded.

✅ The harsh reality of trades businesses — why small, high-volume work is brutally hard to scale, and how recalls, clients, and cash flow quietly drain energy and profit.

✅ Growth without control is dangerous — what happens when you can generate leads but don’t have systems, structure, or margins to support them.

✅ Marketing that actually converts — why LinkedIn is still one of the most underused platforms for builders, especially when targeting architects, developers, and commercial work.

✅ AI and the future of construction businesses — what will get disrupted, what won’t, and why builders who understand marketing and systems will pull further ahead.

✅ Practical LinkedIn plays — daily actions builders can take to build relationships, authority, and inbound opportunities without spending on ads.

This is a straight-talking episode for builders who want better work, fewer headaches, and a business that doesn’t collapse the moment they step away.

If you care about control, visibility, and building something that lasts, this one’s worth your time.

www.linkedinForBreakfast.com
www.sprintva.co

Biography

https://developcoaching.co.uk

For more episode please visit:
https://developcoaching.co.uk/construction-podcast/

If you'd like to discuss fast-tracking your results, book in a free call - https://www.developcoaching.co.uk/schedule/

If you'd like help growing your business join my private Facebook group - https://m.facebook.com/groups/constructiontradesaccelerator

Transcript

Greg: [00:00:00] I think you're really gonna enjoy this podcast 'cause I certainly found the conversation fascinating. Today we've got on Richard Woods. Now you might remember that name or recognize that name because Richard was a finalist on The Apprentice with Lord Sugar. He was a awesome candidate. I remember it really well, and we are gonna dive into everything.

Greg: In this episode. We're gonna be talking about what his time was like on The Apprentice, how he managed to get on there, how that relates to building out your profile and becoming a key person of influence in your industry. We're then gonna talk about what that led to and how he became. Somehow involved in a trades business and how we found that.

Greg: So I think you've gonna find it fascinating to talk to someone who's gone from being a celebrity to running a trades business, to running a hugely successful marketing company. Then we're gonna dive into LinkedIn and how LinkedIn can be extremely powerful for your construction company. So lots to learn in this one.

Greg: Get a pen and paper ready? Let's go.

[00:01:00] 

Greg: Richard Woods, great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Richard: Cheers, Greg, looking forward to it.

Greg: Yeah. It's gonna be awesome. So Richard, we met a long time back and you wouldn't have remembered me, but I remembered you 'cause you were like a mini celebrity back then. We used the last celebrity has been yeah we must have met, I would say.

Greg: Eight years ago, maybe. 7, 7, 8 years ago. And it was at one of Daniel Priestley's events in London dent. And you were on stage talking about the value of building a profile. So I think Daniel Priestley was talks about. The five pillars, doesn't he? And one of those is pitch, one of them's profile.

Greg: And I think you, you were up there talking about one of those things that you'd, you know, really excelled at. So it was a great talk and we got to have a little chat in the afterwards, but you were talking to a lot of people, so you probably don't remember. So, let's go back a little bit.

Greg: So tell us, you know, why you got invited to that and how you first got to know Daniel Priestley. 'cause he's a good friend of mine and he's. He's absolutely crushing it at the moment, Daniel, on all sorts of podcasts.

[00:02:00]  

Richard: He is, he's doing incredibly well and and we, I mean, oh God, I did the KPI course in 2013, I think I did. And and in there as you say that you kind of go through and understand a little bit more about yourself. And I realized that I had a bit of a message that I wanted to share. I mean, I was just in marketing. I wasn't kind of, doing anything that was particularly kind of world changing.

Richard: But I like to articulate how that was working and I was just young, you know, didn't know any kind of limitations. And ultimately I use that. Momentum from perfecting my pitch and understanding what my product was all about, to be able to perfect my business plan. And ultimately when I heard the on TV and the apprentice music comes on and I'm like, oh, these guys are a bunch of arrogant, watch me call.

Richard: Its, and my wife goes, well, if you think you're so clever, go on then. And because I was armed with all my dent kind of pitch product, you know, all the rest of it I applied. And and I literally went through the auditions and just kind of used that sort of capstone type pitch that you and I would've learned on those sessions with Dan.

[00:03:00] 

Richard: And and before I know it, you know, I get the call and say, you know, we want you as part of the show. And I said, oh my God. Wow. And they were like, well, that's in the car. In two weeks time we're gonna send you a car and you are gonna be whisked off to the boardroom with Lord Sugar. It's like, how did that happen?

Greg: Unbelievable. 

Greg: That that's unbelievable, isn't it? And don't we all do that? Like I, I know I was a big fan of the show. You know, it's just awesome. It was an awesome show back then, but I was exactly the same. I was like I know I could go on there and absolutely crush that show. Yeah. But I think every entrepreneur thinks to say, don't they?

Greg: So, yeah. It was amazing that you actually put yourself out there to do it. So how old were you at the time when you put yourself forward for that?

Richard: 20 28, 29? I think. 

Richard: In fact, actually it would've been 29 because I had my 30th birthday on the show and and when I put myself forward 29 and two days before the car picked me up, my wife came in with a pregnancy test saying, I'm pregnant with Poppy our second.

Richard: And I'm like, oh, sorry, I'm off. And what they don't tell you is you're there for three months. 

[00:04:00] 

You get one 10 minute phone call home a week, and they listened to the phone call in case you give away any secrets. And so my phone, my 10 minute phone call was nine and a half minutes of my wife saying.

Richard: Thanks a lot, mate. You know, I've got morning sickness, I've got a toddler. I'm still, you know, running around the place. And I'm like, yeah, well this apprentice stuff's going well darling. It's okay.

Greg: Well that's interesting. So that's an interesting, so that really ramps up the pressure, I suppose, internally for you.

Greg: 'cause you're battling one way to try. Win the show and you must have in the back of your mind all the stuff that is or isn't going on at home that you can't help actually help with. So that's a bit of an internal pressure there. 

Richard: It is. But actually when I say to any fellow Entrepr, everybody else thinks you're mad.

Richard: But when I talk to fellow entrepreneurs, someone like yourself, I say, look, it's three weeks, sorry, three months. It's like a business holiday. You are given tasks, you are given amazing resources and facilities. You're going meeting a billionaire every single week. You're going to these amazing things I had and if you win, which I only lost one.

Richard: So I won eight out of nine tasks. 

[00:05:00] 

The the prizes were great. So. We went I raced Mo Farrah round a running track as one of the prizes. Wow. I went snowboarding with Jenny Jones, who was the first Brit to ever win a Olympic medal on the Winter Olympics. And there was there was a load of things like speed boing through the tens, doing a sushi creation course with Nobu.

Richard: So look, there was a, there were some definite highs and lows but if you're arguing with someone. They'll put you next to that person in the taxi. So you argue more if you are running late, they'll suddenly need to do a battery change. So you are kind of even more delayed. So the pressure's up.

Richard: And so it's never scripted. Like everybody says, oh, is it scripted? It put on? None of that is literally you are thrown in there like a game show and you've got to go win each task. But what you don't realize is that they are tweaking positioning of where you are just to kind of make. Make the fury happen, which it did boil over a few.

Greg: Manipulating it all. 

Greg: Yeah. They're like puppets with strings, aren't they? I guess they know exactly how to pull everyone's strings.

Richard: They certainly do. Yeah.

[00:06:00] 

Greg: Get the best of the worst out of you for sure. And you did really well in that show, didn't you? So you were a finalist. Is that right?

Richard: Yeah, exactly. So, so I still hold equally with someone else now. The amount of task wins record on the show. And also we've, we broke the record for the most amount of sales in one day and 24 hours. We did 4.2 million pounds in 24 hours of sales, which was a good record of break. I was the project manager then as well, so I kind of like dust it off my shoulder and say yes.

Richard: But unfortunately I just narrowly missed out in the final. And really it, you know, me just flippantly going and pitching myself to go in, I'd never thought I'd get on, but if I was more strategic, I would've waited a year because. The year before me, a guy called Mark Wright had won Australian, actually had won the show.

Richard: And he had a marketing agency exactly like mine. In fact, we knew each other beforehand just from being on the circuit. And and then I'm basically pitching the same business plan with a couple of diff inch, you know, I tried to tweak it a little bit, but I just didn't think I'd get on. So I just, it didn't clock that I'd be there in the final three, you know, final five.

[00:07:00]

Richard: Pitching my business plan in the interview stages, you know, which is basically similar to his. So that was my stupidity really. And so yeah, unfortunately that doesn't quite work well for tv and although I felt like I was the strongest candidate I was beaten, but I was beaten by someone.

Richard: Your audience might know actually Joseph Valenti, who has the trade Mastermind.

Greg: Yeah. 

Richard: Yes, Joe who is a, an interesting character. I'm still, I still know him. And I'm still on WhatsApp.

Greg: I didn't 

Greg: realize you were on the same show. Actually, I didn't realize was same. 

Richard: We were on the same.

Richard: We, 

Richard: he basically beat me. So fair play to him. I obviously, I can't ever kind of not give him his dues on that front. But yeah. He's he's not, I would say in Brit, and he's not everyone's cup of tea. But but he's outside of his persona online. Actually he's a good lad. He's underneath it all.

Richard: A good 

Richard: lad. 

Greg: Yeah he's, I must say well, he's obviously like a little bit of a rival business to ours, although he focuses more on plumbers. And that, that side of things where we are more builders. But he's done amazing for this coaching industry. You know, put, putting himself out there and getting coaching more accepted in the UK for construction.

[00:08:00] 

Greg: He's just done an incredible job. And to be fair, the business he's built now. He's crushing it. Well, he looks like that from the outside anyway. It looks like he's crushing it. He's certainly built something pretty impressive. So, you know, as you all have, you know, you wouldn't be on there if you weren't good at what you do.

Greg: So, yeah, there's although he is a bit of a rival, I can't take that away from him. He certainly doing well. But we do get a,

Richard: I would question the whole, 

Richard: if you're on there, you wouldn't be good at what you do because there's definitely some people that go on the Apprentice that aren't good at what they do.

Richard: I'll tell you that before, there's definitely, it's not a hundred percent of the case. 

Greg: They won't get to the final, they won't get to the finals.

Richard: Yeah. No. To be fair, yeah.

Greg: So, so how was it, so the, in the finals, that was the, that's the interview. Is it with like Claude and. 

Richard: Yeah, exactly. So I had a few and I was ripped apart by someone called Linda Plant who was, it's her first year ever since she's been kind of the pit bull of those interviews, almost kind of more so than Claude.

Richard: I, we were all worried about Claude 'cause we never heard of this Linda Plant one before. 

[00:09:00] 

And she ripped me apart and kind of kicked me out after a couple of seconds in my in my interview. But it makes good tv, you know. And and when I look back at it, I'm like, that's. What she was picking on was ridiculous, which was, you know, the fact that I'd only made like 20 K net profit in my business.

Richard: I was like, I'm in my twenties, you know, I've just, I've given you three years of accounts and they've shown growth in revenue and the profit's been the same. And I was like, oh yeah, fair enough. It's only 20 k. But what I had in my young youth didn't say to her. It's like, yeah, but I also paid myself 70 grand.

Richard: And then we had the 20, you know, and I'm, and the, yeah, and I'm only young, like, and I'm pitching and I'm pitching against these other people who are still in business jobs who are just trying to go and pitch a brand new idea. But of course, for me, I was like, no, fair enough. She's making a good point.

Richard: Like I, you know, I'm making a small profit, but. Like you just you know what? You lie, I still do this. I lie awake at night. Go, if I only just said this. Yeah, I'm sure. And I've gotta torment me and every now and again, I'll go on a podcast and someone will bring it up so 

[00:10:00] 

Richard: that, that'd probably cut it out.

Greg: Anyway. Let's be honest, it makes better TV if they could make you look a bit silly, doesn't it? So,

Richard: oh, a hundred percent. 

Richard: And they make, they film enough to make you the hero, the villain, the idiot. And it just depends on how far you go and what narrative they want to give. And, you know, there's some shows that I just look like the idiot.

Richard: I'm like, I did that was like this much. And the rest of the time I was actually leading the charge. But they really doubled down on that stupid part. And they go, that's tv. 

Greg: That's right. Well, it was, I remember it all well and it was it was good. Good TV for me for sure.

Greg: So, where did that lead for you then? So once you'd finished the show and sometimes not win the show, it's actually a blessing in disguise, isn't it? 'cause I don't know that many that have actually partnered with Lord Sugar and come out sort of, really happy with it, to be honest.

Greg: So

Richard: a lot of them, a lot, a lot of them don't. Jo Joseph it took one year for Lord Sugar and Joseph to break up. And and then it took only a few more years after that for Joseph's plumbing business to go bust. 

[00:11:00] 

And so it. He did amazing growth, but you know, it was growth without kind of sustainability.

Richard: So, and I always thought that, I thought they were just so big characters, Joseph and Sugar, that, you know, I felt, that's why I felt like I would've made a better partner. 'cause I would've actually partnered and we would've scaled it. Whereas I think it was more like a pr kind of clash at the Titans.

Richard: But anyway but the, but what I did. Is because of Dent, I had my book already written, which is part of the business plan. I had the product productized. I was already running that business, which is hence why I was, you know, showing those revenues. And so I was ready to go, you know, I was rocking.

Richard: So I did my book launch for my book at the Hippodrome casino in Leicester Square the day before the final. So the day before. I'm getting announced that actually I don't win. I go do my book launch. So we invite all the press, the metro, everything, like we go and do a massive launch. I get all the other apprentice contentions except for Joseph.

Richard: Because obviously I didn't want, you know, and we bring 'em all along.

[00:12:00]

And and I do, and I on stage, lots of pictures in the newspapers, lots of people saying on social media that Richard's won. Like it's the real way. My book goes to Bester. On loads of categories on Amazon. And then of course the next day I'll get fired and I lose the show.

Richard: But the books there, that's clever products there. And the phone rings, right? Yeah, the phone just rings, which is obviously, you know, it's marketing arbitrage. So they had their pound of fresh outta me, so I took mine back. And and we scaled it, right? And so. Quickly grew that agency up to way over a million in revenue, 28 staff and ultimately sold it to a business that went on to float on the nasdaq.

Richard: So, it was a really nice exit pump and go type business. And it was good. It was great. I mean, look it had a rocky road. I was in it with my brother and we had some some kind of, you know, fallings out as sometimes siblings do and then back together and it's all good now.

Richard: But yeah, it was a fun. Business, but that's my love is getting the phone ringing and inbox pinging with inquiries. That's my big thing. Yeah. I love leads. I love being able to produce inquiries for clients. I love to be able to talk to how you get more leads for clients. 

[00:13:00] 

Business services, you know, service sector, ultimately any type of service sector.

Richard: And here's the irony, right? So, as I was selling that business, one of my clients came in, and he was in tears and I was like, oh mate, what's going on? We built this website, he was a gas engineer. And and I was like, mate, your website is one of our best performing websites. You're getting loads of leads, you're getting loads of phone calls.

Richard: Like, like, what's wrong buddy? And he said, oh, I think I'm gonna lose the business. He showed me the accounts and robbing Peter to pay Paul with suppliers. He's buying stupid stuff like Cartier watches for girls through the company credit card. I was like, mate, you can't do that. Like, you just can't do my whatcha thinking.

Richard: And so I was like, look this business, I don't want to touch it 'cause that's what I can see. God knows what I can't see. But I tell you what I do your deal 'cause you've obviously got these creditors and he's done personal guarantees against stuff and you know, he was gonna personally go bankrupt.

Richard: I'll buy the website, back off you, the phone line, and I'll buy the three vans that you've got. And and then you can use that cash. 

[00:14:00] 

It was only about 20 k to go repay some of these massive creditors that you've got. Right. Anyway, because he is an idiot. He went off and spent the 20 K and, you know, he ultimately had to go bankrupt.

Richard: But but that's, you know, sometimes people have gotta learn. But. The next day the phone rings and I'm like, crap, what have I done? What have I done? Because at that stage, nothing so quickly employed. One of the girls that he had in the office and the three engineers. Brought them back into the company and we're up and running and working and and so as I was selling my marketing agency, but was, well, I kind of put them in my marketing agency office.

Richard: We then also had this board, so I'm now competing with Joseph, which I was just like, oh, back here again. Yeah. What am I doing? And that was fun. Well, I say it was fun. It's a hard industry. As you know, your clients will know. My God, try like we, we scaled that to seven vans, so trying to keep seven guys busy, making sure that their capacity was about 80%.

Richard: Trying to make lead generation, I can do right, so we can get loads of leads, we can get sales. 

[00:15:00] 

Jesus Dealing with people, dealing with the general public, oh my God, Mrs. Baggins, who's just had a boiler installed and then it's not working like she is a dragon. You know, I don't wanna go anywhere near the shy.

Richard: We, if we've done something wrong with her boiler, you know, and yeah. The straw that broke the camel's back, the reason why I sold it, we did that turnaround over two years. And I exited back into a a local plumber, which was a good exit again. But it was Christmas day and Christmas day, and we had installed this boiler for this client.

Richard: And and it had gone wrong. And my phone number, my mobile number's, the overflow emergency number, because obviously it's, you know, holiday period, just kind of, you know, take the overflow. And I was just like, this woman's got a 90-year-old mother who's, you know, in the freezing house on Christmas Day.

Richard: All the family's come round and it's our, it is genuinely our fault. We've done something wrong with her. I mean, mate, I can't put up a shelf, let alone. You know, qualified to take the front cover off a boiler, right? So, so I was just like, what? I dunno, I can't like, literally cannot get you any, like, my guys are not available.

[00:16:00] 

Richard: I can't get you anyone until tomorrow. And so I'm there on the phone on Christmas. Her Christmas is ruined. My Christmas is ruined because I'm worried about this thing. And I was like, this is, you know, I'm not built for this. It's, I can, no, it's, I can get the phone ringing, but it's hard. Right. 

Greg: That's a very, very hard industry.

Greg: Yeah. It's interesting 'cause we come across a number of different, and I'm so glad that you've. Experience this. 'cause I got you on initially 'cause I wanted to, I know you are, you know, highly skilled in marketing in LinkedIn, but for you to have experience in running a construction business is just absolute gold because you know the pain that they're going through.

Greg: So it, that's awesome. But we have a number that come into our group and most of builders generally, most like, you know, 80% will be builders. But then we do get the plumbers. Electricians and things as well that they're scaling. And I must say, I think it's much harder for the plumbers and the electricians when they're doing those small projects and the volume of projects that they've gotta do.

Greg: Like I say, it might be necessarily, you know, reasonably easy to get leads in, but dealing with that amount of customers is the headache. 

[00:17:00] 

Like, that's the headache is having that many clients. So, so we are always, you know, I think they're quite jealous really. They'll look at. Maybe a builder that's maybe doing three or 4 million a year turnover.

Greg: He may only be doing six projects. Like he has six clients for the whole year and he is doing like, you know, big projects and they're looking at that and thinking, what am I doing? Like for me to get to that level, you're talking thousands of small jobs. It's a headache. It's hard work. I. If you were starting from scratch and choosing a model, that probably wouldn't be the model I'd pick 

Greg: it.

Richard: It, I mean it was tough. It was just trying, 'cause we sort of do three jobs in the morning, three jobs in the afternoon. And so once they got up to 80% capacity, we then brought another van. Another engineer, and then that dropped down to about 60% across the five of them, and then build it back up to, you know, 80%.

Richard: So we, we had it, we actually had quite a nice model because we could work the flow. We understood ads, we understood organic, we understand reviews. But it was just the recalls. Oh, the re recalls, mate. 

[00:18:00] 

I honestly just, yeah. And it's like, oh, my boiler's not working. You go on a recall and they just, someone had switched it off at the bloody mains and you're like, well, like am I gonna charge you for this?

Richard: Like, it's here, switch is on. Like, you know, is that all this me coming back round to that? Is this customer service, is this a PR job for me? Or am I just gonna charge you a hundred quid for being an idiot? You know, it's like, what, where do I go from there? Because, 'cause unfortunately, you know, the general public, and I am one of them, I, as I say, I, I have no idea.

Richard: But we, you know, talking on behalf of my, my, my. General public of complete Luddites. We are stupid and we get stuff wrong and we need help from my wife always goes, you need to go get a real man in to deal with this. And I'm like, yeah, right. Phone a real man. 

Greg: That's, yeah. It's no, I agree.

Greg: It's a, it is a very hard thing to do, and I think what was really interesting is, all right, one of the, when I first started this podcast, one of the first guests I managed to get on was a bit of. Win for me a coup was oh, his name's just gone completely outta my head. Charlie Mullins from Pimlico Plumbers?

[00:19:00] 

Richard: Yes. Wow. 

Greg: Yeah, it's always like, so I think people always look at that story because, you know, he exited that business for over 140 million. He was doing like 50 million turnover a year. Margins are, as you know, are brilliant on like boiler installs and things. The margins are great, but yeah all the other stuff that goes on with it.

Greg: So sometimes you look at that model and you think, well, look he's just sold it for 140 million. The crazy thing is, I don't even know, but he's actually gone back into it again. He's just started, like he's non-compete is over with. Pimlico, I dunno how long it lasted for. And now he's just started a new business called We Fix London or something, whatever it is.

Greg: Wow. And he's doing it again. And I'm like, wow, you must be like, what are you doing? Do you not, like, do you not wanna go retire and set it up in Mabe? But he's obviously just hungry for it and 

Greg: loves it, but, 

Richard: well I think that's the thing. Once you know an industry like that, knowledge is so valuable.

Richard: You know, he's seen stuff that we wouldn't even know about. But there's companies like box and stuff that's killed the install market. I know we're gonna quite niche here, but. These online, they do online surveys. 

 [00:20:00]

They just quote and the installs. Now what we were seeing this, at the end of the time that I was there, the installs they actually isn't the same money anymore.

Richard: So I think, you know where Charlie did really well? He's the, he sort of dominated an area. Everybody wanted their local plumber and he was able to charge premium. Where now the online market is just like, have your phone up. Show the box. Yeah, no worries. It's that. They just put a 20% margin on like 20%. You should be doing like 300% margin on that.

Richard: But, you know, they just, yeah, just go volume though. 

Greg: Yeah. It's interesting the way it's gonna go. And I mean, really the crazy thing is in the uk I, I'm obviously out here in Sydney now, and trades people over here are paid really well, like, super well. It's and what a lot of people do is they encourage their children to actually get into trades here because they're so sought after.

Greg: Whereas I, I always think in the UK it's. Almost look down upon a little bit. And if you don't do well at school, you are going to a trade potentially. It's not normally people's first choice unless they, you know, they love working with their hands. But it really surprises me in the UK that because there's such a shortage of tradesmen, the money doesn't always reflect it.

[00:21:00] 

Greg: You know, you think like, really that, I mean, money is going up for trades people. It's hard to get traced now, but it should be so much more than what it is, you know? What people are charging. And I do wonder, and it'd be interesting to get your take on it, where you think this is gonna go with AI at the moment.

Greg: 'cause obviously we're seeing AI take over, make businesses really efficient. And it's gonna put a lot of people out of business. But it's not gonna do that for trades for a long time. Is it, you know, you know, you're not gonna get a robot building in your house anytime soon. Or a robot plumbing your sink.

Greg: So where do you think it's gonna go?

Greg: Hey, can I just ask a quick favor? We are constantly trying to bring on the best guests on this podcast so we can deliver as much value as possible, but the only way we can do that is if we get more subscribers, more likes, more comments, and more reviews. So subscribe to this channel and click notifications so you know, every time we've got a new video coming up, give us a review if you're getting any value from it, and give us a thumbs up.

Greg: We'd really appreciate that.

[00:22:00] 

Richard: Yeah, I think it'll be very interesting in terms of the quoting, like we saw with Boxed and the winning the jobs. The issue you got with the UK I think is because of, you know, being part of the EU originally you had a lot of, you know, the kind of cheap labor coming over from Europe.

Richard: You know, lot of the sort of polish trades influx and then that kept the pricing down when I was in it. And now you still have a lot more kind of people coming in and and there's this constant kind of flow of labor that's coming in to undercut everybody to be able to then. Work. And obviously they, you know, for them it'll be more than what they were owning.

Richard: But obviously that's what sur I think that's what suppresses the market. Just this constant flow of people who come in and try and do it cheaper and and that that's the problem. Why, which is probably not such a problem, obviously in Oz. Yeah. So in terms of ai, I think it, I think they will see, and I think you'll start to see a real.

Richard: Uplift in that traits. You know, I genuinely see it as one of the few places that won't be disrupted, and that's the big thing that they're saying about this disruption. 

[00:23:00] 

So, so when, previous disruptions have come about and how you've got the online internet has kind of, you know, as we said, disrupted the local guy.

Richard: There's these big international, you know, national companies that can buy ads and dominate a market and win all the work, et cetera. So the corporate, you know, the tie wearing people could come and disrupt the tradies. Now what you've got is actually. All those tie wearing suits are getting disrupted by ai.

Richard: So it's the lawyers that get disrupted, it's the accountants are getting disrupted. It's the kind of, you know, white collar workers. And so that's why they're all moaning so much about this and saying, oh, we need to legislate against this 'cause, 'cause the people that are the legislate or the legislators are the ones that are going, oh, my job's.

Richard: No longer, you know, why do you need a lawyer anymore? I mean, chat, GBT is the best lawyer I've ever had. I can have a chat with it and not cost me anything. So that's where the real kind of disruption's coming. So I think trades is actually a. A career that should be more optimized for.

[00:24:00] 

Richard: And also I think the government, and especially in the UK is noticing that and there's a lot more talk about apprenticeships really starting to come back within engineering within trade, obviously within ai. But certainly not within the business services. There's no sort of marketing and accounting and all that sort of stuff.

Richard: That's not so much because I think they're, the industries that are the ones that are gonna struggle the most. 

Greg: Yeah, and I guess you've probably we wanted to obviously get into the marketing very soon, but just staying on this theme, you are probably constantly looking at your own business, aren't you?

Greg: And you know, I think everyone is, aren't there and thinking more how, where are the opportunities of ai? But actually where are the risks for me with AI at the moment? Have you thought about, you know, what the future of marketing potentially looks like with what's coming? 

Richard: So, so we're in a really interesting place at the moment.

Richard: So, in terms of my business, we do marketing for clients. We've got 171 staff, so it's a big old kind of, you know, marketing house that we run. And we tend to give our clients essentially a va, you know, we're a marketing exec. 

[00:25:00]

We call 'em marketing execs. Ultimately, you probably think of 'em as a virtual assistant.

Richard: And they will work, say four hours a day, five days a week for a client. Doing the stuff like running ads, doing the social media, you know, running LinkedIn outreach. So, so that is Prime for disruption. Unbelievably prime for disruption. Big, you know, big kind of a staff model. So, so it's massive for us.

Richard: But what I'm doing now is I'm surrounding all of our VAs with custom built ai which I'm now personally building. I think there's all these things that I could pay for somebody who's clever to come and do it, but ultimately the best person to do it is me. I've gotta understand it. I've gotta know how to build these customis.

Richard: I've gotta know about AI agents and all that sort of stuff. And so I'm just. Dedicating my life to that. So I'm actually building out a team to stop me from doing anything other than get my head into ai. And it's great. So we've got 62 custom ais that we've built now. So each of our team has that equipment all loaded with all our IP and able to be able to basically.

[00:26:00]

Richard: Do three persons jobs for the price of one. So, so that's it. Yeah. So I think it's, I think maybe if anybody's in a similar shoes or sees someone in their industry doing well because of ai, don't bury your head actually kind of. Spare yourself into that as quickly as possible. 'cause it's coming and even on the trades it will get disrupted.

Richard: It may not be the actual person that's coming to lift the panel off a boiler or coming to actually lay some bricks. That's not gonna be disruptive for a long time until robotics gets far better. But there's driverless cars already, right? Like you go to la you go to Austin, Texas, you go get a taxi, the car's coming without a driver.

Richard: So if you're a taxi driver, it's done right. You are, you know, if you are a lorry driver, it's. Done. You just, it's just time. It's just time. Yeah. My VAs really it's the writing's on the wall there as well. It's just actually how can you then move them more into that person to person conversation? Yeah.

[00:27:00] 

Richard: So from your chaps and chaps the whole point is. They need to look at that and go, it is probably more the quoting, the invoicing, the marketing, the online branding, pr. It's all of the stuff that you would pay someone like me to do. That is the stuff that is going to be disrupted. And so that's the bit you want to put your head into or you want to work with someone who's already got their head well into it who can help you with it, essentially.

Greg: That's I think it's really good that obviously, and I'd expect nothing less really, that you've jumped into this sort of feet first, but what you're saying there, really, I mean, those VAs now that are doing, you know, three, four hours work for someone by the tools that you've given them and the training that you're gonna be giving them they're now, you know, gonna be worth 10 times the output for every, everyone you're putting 'em in with every day.

Greg: So it just, you know, you wonder sometimes, is it. Is it gonna mean? Yeah, actually we lay off people or is it, does it mean actually we can just expand a lot faster because now we can do even more output and we can serve more people and do a better job for everyone. So, yeah, there's it's gonna be interesting to see where it goes.

[00:28:00] 

Greg: I'd love to know just with, particularly with your current marketing business, is the specialty LinkedIn or is it all marketing? Because I know you talk about LinkedIn quite a lot. Is LinkedIn the actual niche or do you do a bit of everything? 

Richard: We do a bit of everything ultimately. I've got something called LinkedIn for breakfast, which is a an event I do every single week.

Richard: And that's kind of our big marketing push. So, so what we've worked out is that LinkedIn's a very important platform for a lot of people who are trying to sell to businesses or, you know, from your perspective, you know, working with, say. If your guys are trying to get into architects or get into other large investors or big building companies LinkedIn's the place for that kind of business contact.

Richard: So, so the, many of our clients are very interested in LinkedIn. So, so we just, our output of marketing, we niche there and we've gone there now. Now I'm a big believer of niche, your marketing, not your business. So. Get, become expert, Richard, the LinkedIn guru can help you kind of change your world on LinkedIn.

[00:29:00] 

Richard: But ultimately we still run a full agency and our clients help with everything from Instagram, Facebook ads, all that sort of stuff for clients. But LinkedIn I see LinkedIn as being a really good hunting ground at the moment. I love LinkedIn because. You can scrape LinkedIn, get a load of email addresses and phone numbers really nicely.

Richard: You can run campaigns where you're connecting with people, messaging people getting directly into it. If you try and go and connect and message, yeah, over 50 people in a day or on Instagram your account's getting banned, right? So it's just. You don't have the same levers to pull on these social networks.

Richard: You have to go pay for ads. Whereas LinkedIn's not like that. Although it does have an ads platform, you could actually be prospecting on that platform, which is why I love it, and it gives you far more bang for your buck in terms of time in versus appointments and leads out. So that's why I like it.

Richard: Now in terms of kind of tactics feel for people who might be listening to this definitely use your hundred person connection requests a limit per day. 

[00:30:00] 

So per week. So every week about a hundred people you can connect with safely. Now, there isn't a hard and fast rule. You might be able to do a hundred and ten one week.

Richard: But LinkedIn will basically say your account has used up its connection limits. If you try and do say 150 and it will stop you, right? So. You wanna be doing? We always talk about having a rhythm, like 20 connection requests a day. Basically do a search. Say you wanna find architects, you wanna be in there.

Richard: So trying connection with day, connect with those architects. Once you get onto there, I think you obviously promote this concept as well. Start to like and comment on what they're posting so you become abundant in their world. Send them a little direct message saying, Hey, love to connect. Would you like to have a virtual coffee?

Richard: Lots to chat about whatever you're working on. And then when they come and look at your profile, you want to optimize your profile, right? So don't write your profile like some sort of glorified CV because you are not looking for a job, you're looking for clients. So, write it in a way that.

[00:31:00] 

Richard: Actually says we help architects to be able to do X, Y, and Z. This is the type of projects we work on. And then have some example projects on them. And there's also a featured section you can use on LinkedIn. And you can pin, say a calendar booking link in your featured section. And the thing that I love that people don't utilize enough on LinkedIn is the LinkedIn newsletter because it's the only thing that has a one click.

Richard: Button on your profile. So you can click that and become a subscriber, which is basically gives you a lead that you can then message and follow up. But the LinkedIn newsletter's great because it's, you publish articles on LinkedIn. It could just be like a simple sort of 300 word article or even just a case study of, hey, we just built this thing, or we just did this project.

Richard: But it gets distributed to the subscribers of that newsletter. Via LinkedIn. So it's LinkedIn actually emailing them as opposed to you emailing them. So the deliverability is better. More people are likely to look at it, plus is gonna generate leads from your LinkedIn profile by just passively sitting there and collecting leads.

[00:32:00] 

Richard: So I love that not enough people to use the LinkedIn newsletter there. And then I guess the final thing I'd say is just try and blend your media when you're posting on LinkedIn. So do things like run polls, ask people questions through using the poll feature. Do maybe a little LinkedIn live, which you can do through LinkedIn.

Richard: Obviously run the newsletter. Do posts think about maybe doing events, potentially. There's loads of different formats that you can actually use in terms of posting. Try and blend those 'cause LinkedIn likes the variety. 

Greg: That's a ton of value just right there. So I think if anyone's listened to this they've probably gotta pause that and go back a little bit and put that on halftime speed just to catch up with that.

Greg: That was a lot there, Richard, so I appreciate you running through that. One thing I'd love to know on LinkedIn is obviously we. We think of LinkedIn as the professional social media network, and that changes how a lot of people post on LinkedIn and how they think about posting. What do you think about organic posting on LinkedIn and the strategies behind that is, you know, is there personality that wants to come out?

[00:33:00] 

Greg: Do you wanna be telling personal stories or is it more about you know, just putting case studies out there all the time and showcasing your work and what you do? What's what do you think the right. Approaches to that? Do we have to treat this platform different to the others? 

Richard: No, I like, although people say it's a professional network I genuinely think that you've gotta bring your personality into that.

Richard: Now. Nobody wants to see photos of you, you know, blowing out the birthday cake for your three year old's birthday party, because that's a Facebook thing. That's nice. That's family that unless there's some sort of business story around, you know, the reason why that's insignificant. But.

Richard: People do want to hear about your origin story. So tell people about why you got into this business. People do want to hear about the people that work for you and what they're what they're all about. People do also like to see what your level of kind of interest outside of work is. So, so if you went to, you know, if you played in a band and you suddenly got a gig at a local kind of, you know, fair or whatever it is and there's you on stage.

[00:34:00] 

Richard: That's a great story to show because it shows that you've got a hobby, but also that you've been able to then be, you know, you've done something interesting in your hobby. People love to see that. It's a success story and it's also a personal story that's per perfect for LinkedIn. So you just want to kind of still tailor and make sure that it's not just the kind of, you know, first day of school current photos.

Richard: Nobody really wants to see or, well, yeah, no, nobody who's bus, who's doing a professional stuff cares about that sort of stuff, but they do still want see personality and opinion. Some of the best posts that I've done. So we got over I think in the last year I was looking at, we've got 1.2 million.

Richard: Views on our content. And some of the stuff that does really has done really well is where I was just giving a very opinionated piece about, you know, maybe politics stuff within the UK or there's this thing in the UK where they're flying flags on bridges the British flag on bridges.

Richard: And it's is this a good thing? This is a bad thing. And I was having this debate. 

[00:35:00] 

Online around this. And some of those get 150,000 kind of views. Because I'm doing opinion now. It's not necessarily work related, but it is me kind of dealing with the big kind of problems and being a voice for the business community within that, the way I frame that.

Richard: So, I think it's important, and we mentioned Daniel at the start of this program and the. The one thing that he does really well is he doesn't skimp the big questions. So when the budget came up in the UK recently, he did a thing on that and gave his opinion. Yeah. When he talked about true, you know, the reason why the UK's coming down in terms of its, you know, economic fall.

Richard: He's hitting that and giving some really structured, clever ways of doing it. He obviously had that big thing with Gary's economics on the star of CEO recently, and he stood up for the. You know, the wealthy entrepreneurs view, which is obviously the view in the UK that, you know, it's not like the US where they champion that person.

 [00:36:00] 

Richard: You are the devil. If you're successful in the uk, you are, you know, you are the enemy. And he was kind of, trying to shi shine that mirror in their face to say Hey, look, you. This economy goes nowhere without us. Right. So if you want us to go, like, it's a lot better weather in Dubai. So we can go.

Richard: Yeah. But anyway, 

Greg: I think that's really valuable. Yeah. You know, don't be afraid to have an opinion, you know, you're not gonna please everyone. You might have to be a little bit polarizing sometimes but I guess, you know, you think those, whatever, 150,000 views you got. The next important thing, which you said earlier, is, well, they're gonna click on your profile.

Greg: What does your profile look like now? You know? Yeah. Because, you know, it's not necessarily about what you're saying in that post. It's what are they doing afterwards? And having a little look around thinking, oh, actually I do need someone to help me on marketing, or whatever it is. So now that's that's super valuable.

Greg: If there was maybe just three practical things that someone could take away from this for LinkedIn you know, a builder who may be. Isn't using it too much or, you know, dabbling around a little bit with it. What do you think if they wanted to get three quick wins, what are the three sort of high impact wins that are gonna help them?

[00:37:00]

Richard: Yeah. And these wins could easily be something you just give to someone to do for you, be it someone in the office. I mean, these things could literally take 10 minutes a day. The first thing is make sure you connect with 20 people a day, just. Build that connection. 'cause every day that goes past, you've missed that opportunity.

Richard: You can't get it back. It's not like next week you can do 200 'cause you did no one this week. So, so every day you're missing the opportunity to grow your network. Your net, your network is your net worth. And LinkedIn will allow that. So the more people you'll connected with, the more people can see your content and the likelihood of opportunity is gonna be higher.

Richard: So definitely do that. The second thing is post every day. Or at least every other day. Consistency really helps. So if you've got a showstopper you know, rant that you've gone and put out, it's gonna be like a murmur if you haven't posted for a week or two weeks. Whereas if you have posted, even just sharing someone else's post or seeing something in the news and just giving your thoughts about it or even just doing a little poll, whatever it is.

Richard: Try and post at least, you know, every other day, ideally every day. 

[00:38:00] 

So consistency is king with it. And then the next thing is comment on other people's stuff because you, you don't want to just post and go, actually, LinkedIn's got this kind of algorithm that you want to work within, say, a half an hour block.

Richard: So you go on to LinkedIn, you might comment like, do those 20 connection requests for say 15 minutes. Then you put your post in and then you want to do sort of 15, 20 minutes afterwards of where you're responding to people who comment on your stuff. And also you are continuing to kind of network, et cetera.

Richard: So you're not just posting and going. Obviously LinkedIn share price rises with the amounts of user time is spent on their platform. So if you are spending a consistent amount of time on their platform, their share price goes up. And so therefore they actually reward you with better reach on your content.

Richard: And, they, you know, you, they will see you as a more trusted profile which will help. And there's some other clever things around that. 'cause your SSI score goes up and there's a few other nuances, which I'm happy to take some of your membership clients if you like, on a session through some of these ideas in a bit more detail.

[00:39:00] 

Richard: But ultimately, consistency is king. Make sure you send your 20 connection requests a day, a hundred a week, and make sure that you are engaging on other people's stuff. When you're also not just posting, but also engaging on other people's stuff. 

Greg: That's really valuable. Yeah. Thanks for that, Richard.

Greg: And yeah, lots to take away there. And yeah, certainly we are gonna get you to have a chat with our members and do a real deep dive on some of this stuff, but just what you've given us there for the podcast I think is awesome. There's gonna be a lot to listen that can take some stuff away from that.

Greg: So yeah, really appreciate your time. If someone wanted to learn a bit more about what you do Richard, and maybe wanted to connect with you or maybe get some help with their LinkedIn or marketing, where would they go for that? 

Richard: Cool. So the best website is sprintva.co. Not not .com, but just.co. So Sprint as in the running race, VA as in virtual assistant.co sprint va.co.

[00:40:00]

Greg: Awesome. Alright, and we'll put some stuff in the show notes as  well. Thanks a lot for your time, Richard. I know you're super busy you've got a lot going on, but yeah, really appreciate the sort of free value that you've given to everyone today. Thanks a lot. 

Richard: No worries. My pleasure, Greg.