The AI Rule Every Business Owner Must Know Before Spending Another Penny

What does it really take to build a business that doesn’t rely on you?

In Episode 67, Emma Mills sits down with Steven Pettigrew, a business growth and exit specialist who went from the warehouse floor of a £35 million family business to acquiring stakes in over 20 companies worldwide.

Steven cuts through the noise around AI (spoiler: if it’s not generating cash, leads, or sales, stop), breaks down why founder dependency is the silent killer of most businesses, and explains why making your business “sellable” is the smartest move you can make whether you ever plan to sell or not.

This episode is packed with straight-talking insight, real-world experience, and practical strategies for business owners who want more freedom, more scale, and less landing on their desk.

🔑 Topics covered:
-Building a founder-independent business
-The only 3 questions to ask before using any AI tool
-Diversifying across 20+ companies
-The rise of fractional roles (and how to use them)
-Why Steven moved to Dubai and what UK business owners can learn from it

🎧 Hit play to hear the mindset shifts, decisions, and no-nonsense strategies that help business owners step out of the day-to-day and build something that runs without them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Today's guest built, scaled, and headed up a family business to 35 million turnover with 400 people on the team. Stephen Pettigrew has navigated the very metic reality of running a business at scale, and he now helps other founders to buy, exit, and build something that works without you in the middle of it, which we all would love. So if you're trying to grow a business that gives you your life back rather than taking it away, this one is definitely for you. Stephen Pettigrew, welcome to Focus on the Fun Stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Pleasure, Emma. Thanks very much for the invitation.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

You are a very honoured guest today because this is actually the first time we've ever recorded remotely. As soon as we've been introduced recently, as soon as I heard you were in Dubai, I knew there wasn't any immediate opportunity of me going out to Dubai. I really wanted to do the podcast. I thought we're just gonna we're gonna go for it, we're gonna do it remotely. So and this is my first time today. So welcome to the Focus on the Fun Stuff virtual studio.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Hopefully the Wi-Fi strong enough and any more missiles coming in that affects the Wi-Fi here in Dubai.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

God, well, we're gonna get into a little bit later on about Dubai as well, because I haven't had anyone on yet that where we've talked about making the decision to move you and your family to Dubai. It's obviously we've been a very hot topic over the past 12 months of Dubai and you being the new entrepreneur or Disneyland and the UK is going down the drain and all of that stuff that we see online. Um, but Stephen, so you help businesses and you help business owners fundamentally scale and exit, grow, scale, and exit their business, but ultimately so that it's not founder dependent, which is definitely what the focus on the fun stuff is all about. I don't think you can really get to that place of loving your business if you're totally founder dependent all the time. But you're so you're helping businesses, um your previous, like when when you were kind of in the world of um running your own business, which started when you were 13, was it that you were first exposed to entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, I've I've been in entrepreneurship indirectly since I was a kid. So when I was three or four, my mum and dad started a business in the UK, and I kind of always got exposed to that. So yeah, but when you mentioned when I got to the age of 13, that's when I started working in the business during school holidays, Easter holidays, and at the time I really resented that because as a 13-year-old kid you want to go and just play with you know, play football. Um, but at the time uh it was good because you know you're you're learning a lot of things, you're learning discipline. The the reason I was put into that business from an early age was to to get a work ethic, you know, understand what running a business was like. Um so I would be in the warehouse, wasn't anything glamorous. I've been in the warehouse doing all the labouring work, and then eventually, as I left school um at 17 or 18, I was then in the office and then gradually worked my way up in the business.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And so you became so this business was doing 35 million, you were the operations director. So you've been I've got a similar guy in my business that's kind of done every single role. I guess you did every single role in that business, like you knew it inside out, worked your way up to operations director. And then was it around you were around 23 when you left that business?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah, so coming through the business, I I was I was put into different scenarios to start learning basic skills, people skills, how to how to manage people, how to interact with people. Because a lot of uh I suppose a lot of kids these days don't really have that in a a real business, you know, it's very much online, a lot of it. So that was good from from understanding communication and work ethic. So yeah, by the time when you say 35 million, that is the headline figure, and it was doing 35 million for five or six years at the end, but clearly it didn't start that way. You know, there was a lot of I remember my mum and dad working all sorts of crazy hours when I was a kid, and um it was 365 days a year, it was intense, and it was a lot of sacrifice to get to that point, and I suppose it gave me that insight into what it takes to build a business, um and it and it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

No, it's not where was it at when you joined the business? Was there like a growth period, like quite a growth period towards the end of the business?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah, so the business was running for I don't know 23 years, and the first few years, like any business, it's tough. You're trying to like like like there's not a manual for running a business, is there? So you uh you have to learn how to cash flow, you learn, you have to learn how to hire, you have to learn everything about running a business that no one teaches you. So my mum and dad definitely made a lot of mistakes. Uh I joined the business as I say full-time when I was 18. By that time, we were pretty big already. I think probably had 200 staff, maybe, um, and a couple of depots across the UK. During that time, that final few years that I was involved is six or seven years, maybe longer. Uh, we started acquiring some businesses, we started taking bigger contracts.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Just getting just getting into different things, and it was a great experience to be involved in.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So it's obviously given you like the most amazing um it's similar with my business. I started when I was 26, and I always say that that's given me like the degree in business that you would never have got at university, like I dropped out of uni. So you've you've kind of like been exposed to everything, acquiring businesses, scaling, people management, um strategy, everything goes with it. And so from like your experience in that business, tell us a little bit more about now how you help business owners.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

So when I left that business, I started some businesses on my own, had some failures, had a couple that actually worked, and uh, and then started educating myself in different ways, one of them being how to buy businesses and how to help them to grow and scale. So it's certainly something I got education on, but also from running my own businesses and being in the family business. So when when I started mentoring other business owners, whether it was on a partnership basis or just as a one-to-one client basis, it was something I enjoyed because despite being the operations director of that big family business, 400 staff, I was responsible for all those people. The one thing that I realized was that I don't like managing people. Um I I very much preferred the one-to-one thing with the founder. Uh, so I don't really have the patience for managing the staff as bad as that might sound.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

That's not my doesn't sound bad as well. I think I think most people will be nodding and listening to I don't know many business owners that actually really love that part of it. It's kind of just you need to do it, don't you? But I don't think many people.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I'm guessing you see quite quite a few people that come into your world that have got maybe the same problem.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

No, definitely, and even myself, like my team know, and and for sure Matt, who is my operations manager and manages RPA department, he knows that just isn't where my energy flourishes the most in managing the team. And he takes as much of that as possible because as the business owner, you I think you've almost got a responsibility to live in your energy, haven't you? Your good energy because it flows through to everything else. So yeah, I don't I don't think you're on your own with that.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I s I say on other podcasts I've been on that being a manager's the worst job in the company because you just get everyone else's shit that comes to your desk all the time, and you've got to soak it in and and give it back, you know. So it's it's not it's not enjoyable.

unknown 7:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Um so at the so at the moment then, um I guess your business your expertise has had to go in a few different areas. So obviously, every founder wants to get out of the weeds, they want to sell scale, not everybody wants to exit, but I think that founder dependency is a really key thing. And now obviously we've got this additional curveball that's been thrown to everyone, which is AI, and making sense of that and whether it's replacing or supporting. And so, how how is that with the clients that you have now and the people that you're helping to like how are you approaching that AI conversation with them? Is it kind of a support or replace, or I guess I guess he's not one size fits all with it as well?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, I've I've pivoted quite a bit even in the last few months with AI because I use it a lot, but we were talking off air, there's a lot of overwhelm with AI, and people focus on AI tools that don't actually help them or their business, it's just nice to have.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

And you know, I again I know someone we both really respect, Daniel Priestley, talks about a few different you know, thoughts with with AI before before maybe going into AI. The business side of it, he talks about a lifestyle business or a you know a performance business.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

And when I help businesses, it's it's it's to help them build a performance-style business. And I see AI as a tool more than anything else, it's just a tool, it's like anything else, it's it's there to facilitate growing your profits, getting you more leads into the business, improving your cash flow, decreasing the amount of admin time maybe they're spending.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

But I see so many people that are trying to build apps, they're trying to yeah, just just random things that like everyone's everyone's doing it now, and it's like it's it's not actually a value add to the company.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I'm in a group, uh, a KPI-related group from the ski trip that we went on, and that is the new thing that everybody's obsessed with building apps. And I get it, if it's solving a particular problem in your business, like a friend of mine, he had this massive spreadsheet and it was so unwieldy and it would go wrong, and they've turned that into an app and now it's like speeding up a process. But I know people that are building apps that they they might like put out to the public or they might try and sell. Like there's a guy in our group, Lee Russell, who's like saying like it's it's all well and good like having it internally, but you can't just build something and put it out to the outside world because nobody's thinking about like security or the frameworks you need around it, or I don't know, it's just uh yeah, I don't know. I do think a lot. I was just saying before we started, I am afraid that AI is the new like shiny magpie thing for business owners that could be an absolute time drain and actually um negatively impact someone's business, not because they're implemented, but because they're just spending so much time now on it, they've forgotten all the other things that still need to happen and be improved and tweaked.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

And well, the the things that I say to people, if you're going to use AI, it needs to help you in one of three ways, right? So, does it help you get more cash in the bank? Does it help you get more leads into the business? Does it help you close more sales? Because without those three things, you've not got a business, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

It's business is rubbish without that, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

So I I think if you're doing these, if you're using these tools with that in mind, then it it should absolutely be something you do.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

But do you think that is then that like that three steps is that literally the first place you should look for AI to go? Just going to try and improve or increase these three things in the business?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, because everything's downstream from there. Yeah, that's a great everything. If if you can get more cash in the bank, more sales coming in, more leads come, better quality leads coming in, then the staffing issues you've got aren't as bad. The the admin stuff you've got isn't as bad because you've got cash, you've got sales coming in, you've got leads coming in, just everything feels less heavy.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

So true.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

And you know, I I say that to people all the time that come to me. Um, and also the other risk with AI at the moment is I don't know about you, but everyone is like outsourcing their thinking totally 100% of the time. It's like some someone will send me uh a business plan or some kind of marketing strategy, and it it's clearly churned out by chat GPT with no thought process behind it at all, it just doesn't make any sense, and and that's that's concerning because people that shouldn't really be in business are thinking they're an expert now because they've got chat GPT at their and their show.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Oh my god, I so agree. It is not it's not an immediate impact, but I do think it is gonna meet make people a bit like dumber, or they're just gonna stop. I saw Alex Hormosy talking about it, and like that, and this now is the first time I've heard people talking about it, but I I totally agree. My again to mention my ops manager is a bit obsessed with that, and he's found this tool which runs the whatever you've been sent. I can't remember what it's called now, but it runs whatever you've been sent through it to tell you how much of it is AI or not, um, and it can tell like which systems it's come from, and the amount of things that now are just like people aren't even thinking through to like so people like in our business, like somebody resigned and the whole thing was just like a chat GPT, you know, email that had been sent. Some of our clients are not sending anything now that's not been run through a message of like I it I don't know, I think like Dummer and also confidence. I feel like some people have lost a bit of confidence to not do it without running it through that first just to sense check all of the angles.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, yeah, and and and the other thing is if you don't like set these things up like Claude or Chat GPT properly, there's they're they're set up and designed to agree with everything you say, really.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Because they want you to spend more time on the platform. So unless you configure these things properly to make sure that it's actually, you know, telling you if it's a bad idea or you know, kind of conflicting with you a little bit, then you're actually getting poor information from it because it's simply agreeing with everything you say. Oh, that's a great idea, that's a great idea as well. Suddenly you've got all these great ideas, and then the overwhelm begins like which one do I go with? And how do I actually start this thing? So yeah, pr practical stuff is is where people should be at. Uh and I always tell that to people three things does it get you more cash, more sales, or more leads? That's the three things to focus on.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

And do you think, um, because one of the things that's made I think it such a time drain for a lot of people is that it's it's easy to access in a way, you know, like everybody can get Chat GPT and everybody can get Claude, but it doesn't mean the stuff that they're outputting is any good, as you said. So do is there a like do you think those three that like those three things that you kind of look at first, do you think that needs an AI expert to make the changes, make the implementations? Do you think it is possible for a business owner to go, well, okay, like I saw that you were chatting um on another podcast recently about some AI agents that can qualify inbound leads? And it's they're not actually having the sales call, but they're getting them booked into a discovery call, which is everyone's dream to have like a diary of just discovery calls lined up, isn't it? So, like, but is that technical stuff that you've been talking about, or is it quite easy for a business owner to implement?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Uh hard one to say. So I'm not technical at all. I'm not very good at many things, to be honest, Emma. But um I I can usually pull resources together, which is player strength.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

You've got a lot of agency, you can make things happen, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Free spirit. So it depends. I I've I've I've got a few clients who are really good with this stuff, they know how to prompt it, they know how to set things up. I've got other people who are nowhere near it. I I think with AI start with one thing that is going to make a material difference and and give you an R ROI as quickly as possible. If you're going to bring in someone to the business as a consultant, as an advisor, yeah, I think it needs to be someone who understands how to actually use AI in the real world. So somebody that's been through a business growth journey, somebody that's sold a business, somebody that's had failures in business, not someone who's just updated a LinkedIn profile, telling the world they're a business coach, yeah, churning out LinkedIn slop using Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Those those people don't know how to practically implement AI into your business. So whether it's me, whether it's you, whether it's anyone, if you need someone in your if you're bringing someone as an as an advisor, it needs to be someone who can actually practically look at these things. That is this going to help you, is this going to move the needle? Is it going to make the boat go faster? And that's again what I would optimise for if you're bringing people in. But to answer your question, business owners, if you have the time to do it, great. But people that we speak to Emma don't quite often. Um, and you're probably just giving yourself more things to do.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Totally. Totally I like I think it really needs saying. I think there's gonna be so many people out there that feel like they're behind, and then because of that, they'll they'll just go, I must start. I don't know what I'm starting with or what I'm doing, and then they're yeah, they're just gonna waste a load of time. I've sat in so many rooms recently where people have been talking about AI, and then they've said who's using AI, and everybody put their hand up, and then they'll go, like, who's using AI more than ChatGPT or Claude? Hardly anybody puts their hand up, and I just mean when I say Claude, I just mean like a conversational back and forth, I don't mean co-work and stuff. So, do you know? I feel like everybody thinks everybody's way ahead, but they're not, everybody's at the same stage, though the course is a few outliers, and there's like the 1%, but I yeah, I think it does need saying that like implement small, tiny, incremental, but don't don't just waste so much time on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Well, you know, I'm I'm I'm maybe doing you guys a pitch here, right? But if if you're bringing like an assistant in an appointment set or whatever, if they can use these tools effectively rather than you as the founder, then that's great. Oh my gosh. That that's that's a game changer. But again, they need to know which tools to use rather than getting lost down the the rabbit hole as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Totally agree, totally. So when you start working with a client, obviously like AI is a is an improver, but how do you what what like is there like a framework or a journey? Like how what do you look at first to understand even if you would work with a client but like to look at where the business is at, what what like lens do you look at that through?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

So the first thing we start with is is an audit, actually. So um it's we've we've got this seven-day intensive audit where we we can't really improve or or optimise the business until we understand where it's at today.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

So that audit process is where we take the business through a valuation process. We understand what the business is worth today, and that allows us to then also work out what the difference is between where you are today and what where you want to get to. So if you want to sell, we understand let's say the business is worth a million pounds today, you want to sell for five million pounds in two years' time, three years' time. But we know then that there's a gap of four million, and we need to come in and implement an acquisition strategy. We need to increase the the margins you've got, margin expansion. We need to do a bunch of different things to get it to that point, but it starts with the audit. We we don't really do anything with anyone until they've done an audit process because it allows us to assess where the business is, gives the business owner clarity as well, even if you're not actually looking to sell. Because the key thing, and again, that I know Daniel Priestley talks about this to name drop him again, but it's that optionality, right? It's it's having a business that you can sell if you choose to, or you can retain and just enjoy it as a lifestyle business. Yeah, it's having that optionality. Most people won't sell their business, and that's not unusual. Um, most businesses, yeah. Like I come back to my mum and dad's business, they had the opportunity to sell that many times, never did. And the reason I got into this world in the first place was I wanted to avoid that happening to me and happening to as many clients as as I possibly could.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Um because a business is an asset at the end of the day. If you can pass it to your kids or something, great, but um you should look to build it towards a sale, even if you don't choose to do that, because there's actually no downside benefit, there's no downside to that.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Totally, like yeah, whether you sell it or not, the process of moving it towards being saleable is probably one of the best kind of exercises you can go through in your business, I'm sure. Um, this might be a stupid question, but tell me what you like if you consider this. So, one of the things um with AI, so I definitely spent too much time worrying about my business in AI last year because wherever it's going, and I've kind of I've reconciled all that now. I know that the human connection of really high agency is where it's going to, and that's what we're about in the EAD. Um, I know a lot of admins like should be automated, but when you you've got someone that's really like got a lot of agency and can understand where a business owner wants to go, I get all that. Um but I just I guess none of us know where it's really going to end up in the next. I feel like people talk about 2030 a lot as quite a changing point of the world, the economy, the workflow. Force and what that looks like, and then obviously beyond that. And just from a business saleable perspective, does that ever enter into like people's kind of future planning now, like yours or Nick's? Because part so I where I'm going with this is that so with 2026 now, you know, in three years' time, or like at the end of 2029, going into 2030. Do not to like to make it a depressing question, but do you ever think that there's kind of a not a time limit, but there's like a future point where we're like this would be the point really where you'd want to be able to sell the business because nobody knows what 2030 to 2035 looks like? Do you know what I mean? Does that enter your mindset or anybody else's in terms of planning for some future businesses? And some will have be affected more than others, some that are people heavy, affected more than if you're selling, I don't know, you know, a product or a widget or a something. But I don't know, does that come into planning now? Because the world's so unusual.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

So I told you off here, I'm I'm a conspiracy theorist, so you're asking me a lot of interesting questions here.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Um I am also a conspiracy theorist, so we're in good company with each other.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

I'll try and keep my tinfoil hat off as much as possible. Um yeah, if if we're not taken over by robots by that point, um I I think I think with the AI thing and and there's a lot of moving parts here. In my opinion, professional services type companies that are all online, for example, are can be automated, things like marketing companies, things like accountancy firms, yes, you need you still need these people. There's still a demand for the really high-performing ones, but the ones that are kind of middle of the road that are not unique, that are not providing a good enough or high quality enough service to their clients, they can be wiped out. I I don't have any doubt about that. Even even standard consultants, advisors, you need to bring different things into your your wheelhouse. I think what what's interesting is um businesses that have been more blue-collar, um, they there's a there's an argument to say that they might become more valuable. So as the as the that part of the the white-collar job market starts getting squeezed, where do those people go? Well, they'd probably go into the labour market. So plumbers, electricians, um, roofers, all that sort of stuff. There's an argument to say those businesses become more valuable because they can't be taken over fully by AI, right? There's yeah, you need that, you need foots, you need boots on the ground. Yeah, um, at the same time, there's also an argument to say if there's a you know an influx of people into that world, then there's a lot more competing on price. Totally, it's a race to the bottom. Yeah, so going back to your earlier question, it's so difficult to predict. No anyone that really says with any confidence what's going to happen in the next few years doesn't really know. Um, nobody knows it's impossible to see what's round this corner. What I would say to people is that's so this is one thing I've done is is try and diversify. Um, so when I say diversify, I I've acquired stakes in 15 to 20 companies in the last few years, small stakes, and the reason for that is it's diversification. So rather than having all my eggs in one basket, yeah, I've taken equity stakes in multiple companies so that one I can add a lot of value, but if there is problems in a certain industry, I'm not getting completely destroyed by one thing in one industry. So I've diversified income, diversified across different industries, different locations. I think that's key, and that's something that actually is very possible for most business owners to achieve or most consultants, most like high-level people. And and the reason I say that is if you're if you're really really good at AI, if you're really good at tech, you can position yourself to founders as the solution to their AI problem. So, or if you're great at finance, if if you're a CFO, if you're a finance director, um, and a business you you approach is struggling with cash flow or they're not pricing jobs properly. If you position yourself as the solution to that problem, then you can get retainers, get equity, profit share, revenue share, a variety of different ways to monetize. And you can do that multiple times, you know, you don't need to do that on one business. So I think that's a an interesting way that people should start thinking about like you're actually seeing a lot of people becoming fractional at the moment.

unknown 27:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I don't know if you've seen this.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

You're seeing a lot of people who are leaving corporate jobs or or whatever, and they're becoming a bit more fractional, and that's not a bad idea, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

No, I totally agree. We were talking about this today because we I my PA has a fractional COO, a fractional CFO. We are ultimately fractional EAs, or people would call it virtual assistants, but fractional EAs. Yeah, no, I totally agree that is the way the world is going because of the value added, but also like the the I everybody's talking about it, but like the human relationship part of it is going to be so become so key. Because in theory, I can use Claude to ask CFO questions, can't you? I can ask for it to analyse and plan, and it can in theory do a lot of the things that even like with coaches and but but people in the main don't want that, do they? They're context, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah, it doesn't have the context of what your business is and all the rest of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, no, of course. Um, so the world is changing a lot, we know that, and as you said, no one can see around the corner, and even in the past 12 months in the UK, a lot has changed, and you have moved to Dubai. Is it been in the last 12 months, or was that were you at the beginning of the curve?

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, I've no, I was definitely not at the beginning of the curve. Um, I've I've been out here for just over 12 months now. Um, and a lot's happened in that time for sure.

unknown 28:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

And I haven't spoken to anyone on the podcast about like the Dubai move. What what triggered that? Was it a particular like financial thing? Was it way of life?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Combination of everything. Um, I I think anyone that tells you it's not tax related is not telling the whole truth. Um of course there's that. Um, but more importantly, and this might sound ironic considering what's going on, and it potentially is, but safety was a big thing. Yeah. Um is it's as safe now, it's debatable. Um you've got um you've got the childcare thing, so um uh and education. So our our kids, one of one of our kids was was in school back in the UK, standard was really, really poor, and we thought there's there's better than this, there's got to be better than this, and um so a combination of that, you know, the the sunny weather, the lifestyle, all of that. That's not to say there's not downsides, and there's downsides with everything, there's upsides with everything, but on the whole, it's been a great move from a business perspective. You know, Dubai, most people know this, it's it's in a great great place. Most people pass through here. Um it's good with that, but it's intense. So one thing I'm guilty of, which um hopefully you guys can help me with in the future, is um I am a workaholic, right? So I right when I get in when I'm surrounded by things to do, I just want to do it, and I sometimes forget to peel myself away from a laptop and go and enjoy life a little bit. So because there's this entrepreneurial spirit here and energy, you sometimes can't help but get swept up by it, and you've got to kind of check yourself and say enough's enough.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

So really there's always more deals to be done, there's always more you know, things to do, which um and does that just come from like there's lots of events on all the time, or like the ex expat, I don't know if that's the right word, but the kind of entrepreneurial ex cat expat community is all quite close, or when you say like you can get like is there always something you can go to or meet or because I have heard it's very, very um like there's a lot of energy around, everybody wants to help each other. Yeah, you've obviously got like a lot of high-level people out there who like that kind of not switching off. Is that because there's just a lot of stuff happening? Like, you know, if if I was to move there tomorrow, is it easy to get into the groove of the entrepreneurial community that's there?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, I I think with here there's always somebody that's got the next big thing, right? So I I mean I don't know the ins and outs of this. I was I was chatting to a guy the other day, and he was telling me that he's part of a business that makes money betting on shipping containers. What? Yeah, so I I don't know what's in these shipping containers, I don't really want to know, but basically they they they bet on these shipping containers and they all make like the broker on these shipping containers and they make money from it. And he was asking me if I wanted to get involved, and I'm like, absolutely no chance. But there's people like that, and every conceivable business idea I've ever thought of. There's people making money on different things, allegedly. Um allegedly, and and if you're not careful when you first get here, you can get swept up in all that shiny object syndrome, right? Yeah, um, so I I think it's important to stay in your own lane where possible. Um, it's quite it can be quite transactional here in terms of relationships.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Um I've got some really good friends here that we've made, but naturally, because of the place it is, people just want to do business. And um really it's yeah, so so surface level relationships, which is which is okay, but if you're looking for more kind of deep meaningful, it's maybe not not like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And so if someone was listening to this and's like, I've been thinking about it, I am gonna make the move. How just how does that work? So say they don't know anyone, is there stuff you can easily like jump onto, join? Like, how does somebody get into this kind of community that's going on?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

In terms of uh Dubai or or in in Dubai, sorry, yeah. Um probably Claude. I'm talking about not using AI. Claude's probably a good place to start. Um that there is a bunch of communities, and um it's very it is very referral-based here.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

So if you're gonna do business or if you're gonna set up here, there's lots of people that will refer you, and you're always better going with somebody that is referred because again, there's a lot of people who are here who will just take your your money without giving you the the right service, yeah. And that listen, that happened that happens everywhere. But if you're looking to move here, maybe not right now, but if you're looking to move here is is speak to people that are on the ground that have actually been here for yeah 12 months at least because they can tell you who the best broker is, tell you who who the best community is, depending on your your scenario, your school situation, stuff like that. Um Dubai's not cheap though. I think that's um obvious to say.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

If if you have a good level of income, you can live here, no problem. But if your income's quite choppy and or unpredictable, or just not at a certain level, then it's probably not a good idea because everything you pay for, you're right, you pay for the house, school, yeah, healthcare, insurance, all that sort of stuff. So if you've got the means to do that, then think, but otherwise, maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Got it. And again, tell me if this is a stupid question, but am I right in thinking if somebody is thinking about setting up their business in Dubai, that I totally understand the cost of living is generally higher? That also kind of correlates with the fact that most people that move out there then end up earning more because of like less tax, but but also just from a pricing level, is it that the price so say say, well, say I've got a virtual assistant business, which I do, and you're gonna move to Dubai, or say you've got like an accountancy business. Is it is it right that say that the the packet the pricing in the UK it would be at a higher level in Dubai? Does that normally follow through?

SPEAKER_01 35:21

In some respects, yeah. So like my my accountant is in Dubai is probably the same price as what I'd pay back in the UK. Uh yeah, as an example, but then but then there's other things that are just much more expensive. Like, for example, you have to renew your company, your company trade license every year.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Um, so obviously back in the UK, company's house, one's one time setup fee, what is it now, 20 20 quid or something?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Something crazy. Um, whereas here it's much, much more expensive than that, and you have to pay it every year. So there's there's certain things that um are less and other things that are more. So it kind of depends. Even things like you know, food and and stuff is is generally speaking more expensive. Yeah. Um, rental prices are probably on par with London, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

But um it depends. Clearly, there's the no tax thing, which is yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Yeah, because I mean the last time I went to Dubai I was on a hen do last April, but I do know that going out for dinner is considerably more expensive, isn't it? Especially when like a bottle of wine here and a dinner is completely different in Dubai.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

When when they saw you guys probably turning up for hen party, they probably probably thought, like, I think it's surprising some of these guys coming here.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Totally. Um, okay, just wanted to flip back a little bit to the the the your what you do now, which is ultimately scale, scaling, selling, exiting, but you also support businesses in turning them around. Is that right? Like turning around situations. And I just wanted to ask you, because I was even this morning, I saw an Instagram post from Layla Holmosy, and it basically said that your business revenue, wherever it is now, is a reflection of your skill set as the business owner, um, which I think is completely true. Um, I like from my own experience, each time we've levelled up, I know that I've been a better business owner, I've like kind of let something go or I've improved on something. And I just wondered like in the turnaround situations that you support businesses with, are there either like very key similarities on the business owner themselves in terms of like are they on the wrong things, stuck in the weeds, not working strategically? I don't like is there some commonalities that you see over and over again? Because it's uh it's very hard for most like as a business owner, like you said at the beginning of this, there is no manual, and so you just you just learn bit by bit, don't you? I just wondered if there's like any commonalities that you can kind of list that might be helpful as someone needs to go, oh gosh, yeah, that that is me right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Yeah, I I think that the the reality of the situation is despite what peop a lot of people see on Instagram with a lot of these people showing off Lamborghinis and Ferraris and stuff, which are you which are usually rented, by the way. Um the reality is for everybody, most people, the first few years in business are really, really tough.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

For for most people, most industries, that's the reality. Um, and if you've got a different perception of that, it's probably not true. The the skills that you need to get from zero to one million, one to five, five to ten, they're just so different. Like that kind of hustle, um you know, culture is is what you need at the beginning, yeah, and and that energy and stuff, but eventually that works against you as you scale. Yeah, because you need you need to create less founder dependency, you need to trust other people, you need to be able to delegate, and these are all things that we do struggle with. You tend to find that business owners start a business because they're really good at the thing they do. So if you're an electrician, you're a great electrician, yeah, but you're shit at business, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

If you're a painting decorator, same thing, you're great at painting decorating, but you're crap at doing cash flows, pricing jobs, etc. So when it comes to turner ins, a lot of people get themselves into trouble because they don't have those skills, and yeah, why why would they? Because they've not been shown. And um, again, the school system doesn't get people ready for a business they don't uh in actual fact, maybe less so in the future, but people are encouraged to go into university, and I'm not bashing if you get a good degree, but if you're going to university getting yourself into debt potentially, you're not learning any real-world skills in a business, you know. Yeah, and then you leave that, you don't get the job you're looking for, you might start a business, you're in debt, you don't know how to manage cash flow. There's a bunch of reasons why that happens. I do less turnarounds nowadays, and the reason for that is they are quite energy draining.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Uh really energy draining. Um and it's great to get people through the other side of that, but going through that every day is is is again so you'll see this with clients that you've taken on in the past, I'm sure Emma, you'll have you'll have clients you've got right now you think these are the best clients ever. Yeah, you might have one or two that God, he's he's he's a real nightmare to work with, yeah, and he's just not your right fit. It's important to make sure that you're not like for me, it's important to not take on so many of them anymore. I d I still do turnarounds when it makes sense to do so, when I'm aligned with the owner. Because some people do get themselves into trouble, and it's not through lack of knowledge, it's through not being the best business owner or not being the best leader.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Sometimes intentionally. So and they don't they might not have the right morals, but generally speaking, yeah, people get themselves into trouble because they just don't have the skill set, they don't have someone they can lean on, they've never been through it before, and that's normal. So I think when you get to a certain level, and you mentioned that it's important to find other people that you can bring in. It doesn't need to be somebody taking equity, it doesn't even need to be somebody you pay. You might have a friend or a mentor that can help you just from an advice perspective. Yeah, that's the things that Chat GPT and Claude can't give you.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Oh my god, I so agree. Totally, and that's exactly the journey that we've been through a little bit in the past 12 months. Like we're adding, we started working with Mike, our fractional COO, like last summer. Our CFO Paul joined in January, and it's one of those things that I wish I'd done sooner because you like you try and figure things out and you learn, and but with all the best will in the world, a business owner can't hold every role, can they? And so many of them. It is why what is I don't know what the figure the figure in the UK is like maybe four percent of businesses get out above a million, and I think it's it is like one of the key reasons for that, isn't it? The business owner is kind of like spread over the top of everything, trying to keep it all moving. Um and for yeah, for us, definitely this year, like we we've had our best quarter, this Q1, for a really long time. Well, maybe when I say a long time, maybe like the last 18 months, we've been quite stagnant, I guess is the word, but leveraging my time in key places has been the biggest uplift in the business, and I'm guessing that's where you get the most enjoyment from, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Again, to use this name this podcast the most fun from.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. So then I'm and and it all it's all kind of like this just flywheel of the more energy I've got, the better conversations and have and connections and ideas. Um, I was on a podcast the other day, and I was just talking about how I think having time to think as a business owner is one of the most underrated things as well. Like, you know, a lot of business owners will have chocolate calendars. If it's not kind of back to back, if there's not loads of calls, then it doesn't feel like it's a normal week, but especially because there are so many different options and avenues you can go down now, and there's so many things to try and consider implement. I think just having being in a good energy and having some thinking time is some of the best stuff you can make happen in your business. You're like you know, making that possible, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

And there's nobody else in the business that can do that role, like yeah, you as you as the visionary, you are the only person that can really bring that creativity and the vision together, and you need that space to do it. And again, there's there's a difference between being busy and being productive. Yeah, and a lot of people are just too they're too busy rather than being productive. Uh the the the thing about um filling calendars, I mean that's by the way, uh everything I'm telling telling you here, I've done myself um many, many times and still do to an extent. Um but my my calendar's been full of absolute rubbish in the past, you know, it just shouldn't be in there.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

So so yeah, I think I think um people need to optimise for creativity, as you said.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah, so so and 'cause there is just so much possibility for creativity now, isn't there? Like literally the world is your oyster. Um so just maybe just flipping back to AI a little. Bit um in your own businesses, in businesses that you're working with, I know we've talked about money in the bank, leads. Um can you can we just maybe go into a little bit more detail just to kind of set people off on the right path? How you're looking at that, whether it's you know, agents taking leads from websites, or is there kind of some real common things that are having a big impact in businesses? And even if like somebody's like can just get the idea and then go away, and how how could that work for me?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Some of the tools that I'm using just now for different things. The the best one um I can recommend is is gamma.air gamma.app, I think it's called. So basically, the the days of spending time on a PowerPoint presentation are gone, right? Um, this thing's phenomenal. So I do a lot of discovery calls, sales presentations, that sort of stuff. So I can take a transcript, I can take information from a call that I've had, I can upload it into gamma, and it'll create a presentation within seconds that aligns exactly yeah, aligns exactly with what I want to show them. It looks professional. So that's I think£20 a month. It's if if you're in sales, or if you do a lot of presentations or anything like that, that's a phenomenal tool, really easy to use as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Gosh, I've never heard of that one.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Yeah, um it's pretty good. And Claude is my go-to. So if you know how to use Claude and you know how to prompt it, Claude can do things like research potential uh leads. It can also take lead the lists that you've generated and it can connect to these different apps like Apollo and Hunter.io.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

It can that's the the apps that kind of like scrape emails and things, is it? Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Yeah, and you've got clay and you've got LinkedIn and all the rest of it. So it can get that information for your target audience, it can then start building things within Claude. So Claude's one of these Claude Cowork can now actually do tasks. So um it can build lists, it can create emails, it can do things for you, which is good. Again, it takes a while to really understand how to use these things, so that that's the caveat. Um other things that we use are I've you mentioned that a couple of times, Emma. So the the the we call it a deal sourcing machine. We've got a number of bespoke AI workers or agents, if you want to call it that, and basically what they do is they email prospects about your product or service, they reply to the prospect when they come back, and the ultimate aim of the AI agents is to book a discovery call into your diary. So we find that works pretty well, particularly with so we have a lot of clients who want to buy businesses. Okay, so they want to find acquisition opportunities, so that works really well for them, and again that takes away all the manual code calling, the you know, uh LinkedIn DMs, researching takes all of that away. That's quite um specialist and it took a while to build that.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

I'm sure. And that agent, is that like um messaging conversation back and forth that we're talking about here?

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Yeah, it it can it can go back multiple times uh and is undetectable really to to someone. Really good. Um but again it uses things like chat and Claude to get the language right, so it comes across really humanized, not um not like AI slop. Um so practical tools like that, even things like LinkedIn, right? Like if you're if you're gonna be able to post five to seven times a week, which is what most people are now saying is is the optimal amount of times to post, that's difficult to do on your own. You need to use certain tools out there to help you. Claude can do it, you've got uh Stanley, which is good, you've got a few other ones that are pretty good. Use the tools wisely if they're going to help you. Uh, don't don't just randomly start using tools that don't actually help. Those are the ones that we've been using typic typically day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Yeah, and just so for example, on the LinkedIn one, and do you because still you can see a mile off, can't you, when somebody has put an idea into whatever Chat GPT or Claude and they've created a post because it's like three bullet points and it always says, here's the shocking truth, or here's the you know, it like has the same phrasing all the time, doesn't it? Here's what I discovered. Um do you have you do you feel like you've got your flow now of creating LinkedIn posts like to actually sound and feel like Steven just talking as Steven?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, so what you can do with like Subclaude or or chat is you can upload if you if you have these things, you can upload podcast episodes that you've had, you can upload WhatsApp conversations, your LinkedIn bio, your LinkedIn post that you've done, and some of these tools can connect directly to your LinkedIn profile and it will actually read to the post you've written before. You can most important thing for people when you're using things like Claude is you can upload documents that becomes like a truth uh you know knowledge base that it always refers to, and you can have a I've I've got a five-page document that basically is my truth document, and it will always write things based on how I speak, how how I want to come across rather than just making up stuff, and it's referencing like my backstory, it knows my backstory. So anyone can do that. Uh again, that's a great idea. A lot of these ideas.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Uh, again, we know Daniel keep mentioning them, but um don't worry, I've I've mentioned him perhaps every other episode or so we're just keeping the tradition going, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

He he quite often tells people, you know, get everything written down, all your stories, all that sort of stuff. That's your IP. Everyone's got that. So tell to avoid writing crap AI posts on LinkedIn or anywhere for that matter, make sure you've optimised your language model properly to begin with, and then it means everything that's coming out at the back end is actually it's you, it's your voice, still your your stories, but they're doing the heavy lifting for you.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

Yeah, what a brilliant idea. Um, yeah, just it seems so obvious now you said it because when as I'm using Claude, I'll say, Oh, like base it off this story, or but I've never actually just given it a central place or like the one document with everything in it, and also for anybody that kind of struggles with um typing it through, I have just started using Wisper for Yeah, yeah. Which how is that so good? Like, isn't it like it even if I like talk quietly or try and test it, it just picks up exactly what I've said in good language, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Unless you're Scottish. Yeah, people struggle with Scottish accent for sure.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Um, sorry, was I were you gonna say something then about the document bit? Were you did I cut it off then?

SPEAKER_01 52:12

No, no. Uh so when when people are using Claude, if you if you look on the left-hand side, you'll have projects. So for each individual project, it could be a client project, it could be MMO's content strategy, it could be anything. You can name the project whatever you want, and you can upload a bunch of different documents to that project, and then it's got a reference point, it'll have memory, and it means that because that that's the other thing, right? Some of these chats don't remember what's been said in other chat and forget.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

If you have things contained within a project within Claude, it's easier to keep it all in one place.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Got you. So you put the document of truth in the one project, and then everything spins off that inside that.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

How brilliant. That's really good. Um, that's actually really helpful for me. Even like the the scraping bit. So we we do data scrape, but uh, it's been a lot of heavy lifting of us doing it ourselves and creating searches on LinkedIn Navigator and all of that jazz. But I didn't realise Claude could get involved in that as well. Yeah, yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

I hope I hope that doesn't mean you're gonna be cutting 5% of your staff next week.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

No, no, not at all. Do you know it's a really interesting question because uh maybe it doesn't align with a profit mindset, but one of the things I do love about my business is the team. Like it's part of it was gonna be one of my questions to you because I again I live in these WhatsApp groups where to be fair, the people in these WhatsApp groups are not 99% of the business world. They're kind of really in all of the they're doing the stuff that the 1% are doing. Um, and some people in there are like, oh, you know, in so many years nobody'll have any staff, you'll just have AI agents. And I find it ironic that because what do they think is gonna happen? Like, who you who's gonna buy your thing when nobody's got any jobs, so the whole thing doesn't work through. But how do you feel about that? Like, would you be happy to have a business that is all AI agents and no, like just Stephen and no team? Like, for me, I don't know, I get a lot of energy from you know, we've just hit sales target, we're celebrating the wins, and yeah, I don't know whether that sounds ridiculous or it's just a human need to want connection and community and yeah, I I think I think it depends what side of the fence you're on.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

So I started earlier on by saying I don't like working too closely as a manager um because I don't like people too much in in some ways, but but at the same time, um when you do work on a project with your team and and you succeed, there's nothing better than that, you know. Yeah, it's it's such a great feeling. Um there's certain things that have you have to think about optimising because I think it's uh the businesses that don't start optimising now will potentially be left behind because there are people who can start a business with AI as the foundation, and and that tends to the the general consensus is that like the first billion dollar one-man company will be out at some point, so yeah, and I get the idea behind that, but it's also a lonely business, you know. Uh we are social creatures at the end of the day, aren't we? So I think a small team is probably best. That's that's probably what I would say.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Yeah, no, I think that's uh I'm I'm aligned with you there. Uh yeah, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to manage the team, but I do enjoy celebrating with them and being around them, and oh, can you believe this has happened? Um, yeah, no, I think you're totally right. I think the high-performing people with agency, as Daniel would say, they are the people that you're gonna want to keep on the team, the people that are using AI, yeah, people are bringing value to the company.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

I I would say, in contrast, like if you look at something like the HMRC or one of these big government organisations, they've got far too much wastage, you know, people just in jobs for no reason, they don't bring any value, and that's something that's obviously happened over the last 20 years across big corporate companies as well. Yeah, um, so there is people that are just not pulling their weight. So if you're gonna peep people that survive, whether it's employees or founders, you're you're adding value. I think that's like I'm I'm guessing when you bring people in into your business, they can't you can't be a passenger, you've got to bring something to the table.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

A hundred percent that that is literally the the saying, like we're all on the same journey to make everything happen. Is it yeah? We're not a big enough entity, you can just be a number and sit around, we're all having to do the thing. Totally get that. Um, god, I can't believe the past hour has absolutely flown by. Um, I don't want to keep you too much longer over your time. I guess I just want to ask Stephen for you, like you're in Dubai, you're clearly in charge of your time freedom, you're working with lots of cool businesses. For you, what is focusing on the fun stuff in your business? Like, what does that mean to you and how do you make sure that it happens?

SPEAKER_01 57:03

The thing that I really enjoy most, what I do is is helping founders to achieve what they want to do. So, whether it's building a better business, which means for them more time with the family, or having more money in the bank, or being able to go that extra holiday every year, some people it is to build towards an exit. And you know, those types of conversations really um help me, and and one thing that I really enjoy is when we go and try and buy businesses, so that that process of finding a business, negotiating if we can try and do the deal, closing the deal, that's exciting. And so that's that's what I enjoy. I help I like helping founders to achieve achieve their goals.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Amazing, I love that. Steven today's been absolutely fantastic. There's so much good stuff in there and practical stuff as well, which is what I always love. Um, so yeah, thank you so much for being a guest, the first one ever remotely on Focus on the Fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Thanks very much for inviting me. Appreciate it.