I Built a 7 Figure Business - Here's Every Mistake I Made Along the Way

From a one-woman operation to a 7 Figure business 18 years of building, breaking, and rebuilding Mi-PA. What does it actually take to scale a business past £1 million and stay sane on the other side?

In this episode, Emma sits down with her business coach Mike Jones for one of the most candid conversations she's ever had on camera. No filters. No polished narrative. Just the real story. Emma walks through the full 18 year journey of Mi-PA from dropping out of university, becoming an EA, and launching a virtual assistant business in 2007 with nothing but drive and a phone, to navigating a recession, losing a third of her clients overnight during COVID, surviving a coordinated hate campaign on Glassdoor, and ultimately breaking through the £1 million ceiling that fewer than 4% of UK businesses ever reach. 

This is the episode about the slog the years between £270k and £400k where everything felt like wading through concrete. The years where the right systems, the right coach, and the right team made the difference between a business that drained Emma completely and one that finally ran without her. If you're in that middle phase right now, this one's for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Focus on the Fun Stuff. I'm your host, as you know, Emma Mills, and today's episode is a really special one. To mark 18 years of my PA, I had a conversation on Mike Jones' podcast, Better Happy. Mike is our fractional CFO. And when I listened back to it, I just knew I had to bring it here as well because it is the most candid I've ever been about my story. I unpacked the whole thing over the 18 years, so buckle up, get a drink, and make myself comfortable. And I go through I go through everything from dropping out of university to launching a business in a recession with nothing more than drive, naivety, and a very old flip phone to losing most of our clients in COVID, having an offer to sell the business and then carrying on anyway, through to breaking through that seven-figure ceiling, which I know so many business owners have in their site. And I'm not glossing over the hard bits either. I'm talking about the slog, those years stuck between 270k and 400k, that just everything felt like wading through concrete. So if you're in the messy middle phase right now, or if you just need some inspiration on how whenever you feel like giving up, success is always around the corner. This one is for you.

SPEAKER_06 1:15

Welcome back to the Beth Happy Business Owner podcast, where instead of just asking the question, how do you grow your business, we ask the question, how do you enjoy running your business? Because business is a game. And if you enjoy the game, you're much more likely to win. Today I've got a special episode, uh, a guest episode with Emma Mills. So Emma Mills is the founder of MyPA. It's a business that she started in 2007 as a self-funded one-woman virtual assistant service. I'm looking at her eyes to see if she's nodding. And since grow and she's since grown that to a seven-figure revenue company supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs across the UK. And here's why that matters. Fewer than 4% of UK business owners ever reach 1 million in annual revenue, and nearly 60% of businesses fail within their first five years. That means Emma sits in a tiny percentage of business owners who do not only survive but scale. So in today's conversation, we're going to explore two things. First, Emma's story, how she built my PA from scratch without outside funding, navigating growth, team building, leadership challenges, and the very real pressures that come with scaling a service business past the one million mark. And then secondly, and in the spirit of transparency, Emma is also a client of mine at the Fractional Integrators. So we're going to unpack what changed as she moved from being a successful but stretched founder to installing clearer strategy, stronger systems, and a more aligned team. But this isn't about promoting anything, it's about giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what it actually takes to move from busy operator to structured leader and what shifts when a business becomes system-led instead of owner-dependent. So if you're stuck in the weeds, if growth has created more stress instead of more freedom, or if you're hovering below that next revenue milestone and wondering what needs to change, this episode will show you what's possible and what it really takes to get there. Hi, Emma.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Hi, Mike. What an amazing intro. I'm gonna listen to that every morning. Are you some motivational music, things?

SPEAKER_06 3:04

Well you're very hum you're very it's a common theme, you're very humble, aren't you? And you I think you play down your uh your achievements. So um Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:12

Uh I really want to say all the thrills of Emma Mills. I've got to say it.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, and it's all the frills or all the thrills.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

Will you tell me?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah. It's a bit sad that before we started this episode I just assumed it was all the frills, not the thrills.

SPEAKER_06 3:24

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying all the are you saying all the thrills or all the frills?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

All the frills with FR.

SPEAKER_06 3:30

Right. That's what you wanted.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Well, no, that's what I assumed it would be. But you're right, all the thrills is much, much better.

SPEAKER_06 3:35

Are you hot on it?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Um, I mean, considering the build-up that's been to getting this room ready, I guess.

SPEAKER_06 3:42

Should should we start this? Should we should we let the audience know how long it's taken us to uh it's now what time are we recording at?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

It's half past four, and you book this from three. Yeah, and we've just started basically being like, um, what what's all those roles that you have when you're like best boy, runner, production assistant, tech.

SPEAKER_06 3:57

Tech. Or the audio tech.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, we've had some tech failures.

SPEAKER_06 4:00

And it all resorted to what fixed it in the end was a system reset on the um.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Google googled a factory reset.

SPEAKER_06 4:07

Yeah, that's it. We googled it. Anyway, that's not what you're here to listen to. You're here to uh find out about Emma, Emma's story, Emma's business, and uh how she's got to where she's got to. So what I'm gonna do today is go through um three phases.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 4:25

So in my book, I've got the business-only journey, and I go from startup to uh what I call stability, which is where you kind of got a bit of a name for yourself, you've got maybe built a small team, and then how that slowly moves into the slog phase where it's frustrating that everything's reliant on you and difficult to scale. Uh, and then you move into what I call the systems and structure phase. So I know that you've been through that journey in your business. So I thought maybe if we do the second half of the podcast, we'll look at structure and how we started working together and what structure we added in. But before that, all that incredible work that you did before that. So the startup and the stability phase.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:00

Cool. Sound good?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Sounds very good. I have to get my uh little memory bank out. It's our 18th birthday in March. I know of the business, so that's a long time now.

SPEAKER_06 5:11

I mean, that's uh that's an achievement in itself, isn't it? How many people have how many people have owned a business for 18 years? And then how I mean, how old were you when you started my PA?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

26.

SPEAKER_06 5:22

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, 26.

SPEAKER_06 5:23

So you have I mean, I I I'd love to know the stats on that. How many people started a business in their 20s and still have it 18 years later? I bet that's very, very few people.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:34

And it's signs to your combination, I guess, of tenacity and stubbornness.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Thanks, yeah. Not even just from a financial view, but like from a sanity view, having it 18 years later, like some people don't want to keep doing it.

SPEAKER_06 5:46

No, well, yeah, I mean, like consistency. I mean, I had my first business for five years and I was burnt out and I was like fed up of this. And I I tapped out five years in, but you've you've kept growing and slogging and making it work for 18 years. And as we'll do as we'll discuss today, maybe cried a few times along the way.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I mean, based on the number of times I cried in your presence, I think you know that that's probably quite a high number. And not because of Mike, just to clarify. That's good.

SPEAKER_06 6:10

I'm glad that I'm really I'm really happy that you did cry.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Not because of Mike.

SPEAKER_06 6:14

Um when I work with businesses, I get really clear with okay, subjected to key results. So just being specific on your on your goals. And one of the things I said to Emma is perhaps we should have a a key result around reducing the amount of times that you cry in a in a month or in a two, three-month period. Not that there's anything wrong with being emotional. Right then. Um let's start with the startup phase. So um I want to know, in like the early days when it was just Emma, well, how did you get started? Like what what was the what was the foundation of the business?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Um that I loved being an executive assistant ultimately. Um yes, no, of course. Um yeah, I loved the job that I had. So I dropped out of uni after a year, um, got a couple of office admin roles, became an EA in one business, stayed with them for three years, and then went to another business. And in both businesses that I worked in as an EA, I was very lucky in that I was the support to like like my clients now, business owners, founders, making shit happen, um, ambitiously trying to grow a business. So I was very exposed, if you like, to entrepreneurial decisions, like both of them. So one was very fast growth. My the first business I worked with um was Cranehire, but they only dealt in telecoms, and it was when they were building the 5G network, and they absolutely skyrocketed in size.

SPEAKER_05 7:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Um, and the second business I worked with, he he is like your stereotypical entrepreneur, making shit happen, um, getting through problems whichever way you felt best. Not always legally, I don't think, but it was very successful. Very successful um and a real character and taught me loads. I like I really owe him a lot. So um I how I got started is that I loved being an executive assistant. I really love that. I definitely think like my love language is to serve, like I like helping. I like that feeling of the impact that you've made on somebody.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Uh not sure if that is love language, but it's definitely a way that I'm driven. Yeah. Like I get a kick out.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

One of your values. Yeah, I get a kick out of that. One of your drivers. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Somebody going, oh my god, that's amazing, you saved my life, or you've made this happen. I like I really get a kick out of that and have done ever since.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Um, so I really understood um that impact that you can make on a business owner's life, getting them out of the weeds, which I know we'll talk about. Um, and at the time, so this is 2008, it was actually 2007 originally when I resigned, but 2007 to 3208, recession happening. And the word virtual assistant was just coming about. In fact, um the summer that I resigned, Tim Ferris had released Four Hour Work Week four months earlier. Now, at the time, I had no idea who Tim Ferris was or read the book. I was definitely not reading business books and learning all the things like I do now. Yeah. But it was like the beginning of this curve. And I was, I've actually started writing a book and I was researching the other day that that the like the search for the word virtual assistant between like 2008-2012 absolutely skyrocketed on Google. Like business owners started to know there was a different way to do things, you don't have to employ. So loved what doing what I did, helping the guys that I worked for, and then also really, really wanted to start my own business. There's no other uh reasoning behind it.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

So just so so I suppose quite a typical business owner story, really. Like you you loved your job, yeah, but you wanted to help more people through that job and you didn't want to be employed, so you're like, okay, well, how can I do this? And it's and the way to do this is to start a business and it's all gonna be amazing and everything's gonna be a walk in the park.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, and it's all gonna be fun and exciting.

SPEAKER_06 9:42

And also a little bit of being in the right place at the right time, I guess, like with your skill set um and your passion around helping people and being a really good EA, and then that Tim Ferriss writing that book. So it's kind of like all the stars aligned really for you to go and how did you have the confidence to um because I think about myself at 26, I mean I was in the military, but I certainly if somebody said to me like go and start a business, I'd have been like, Who am I to start a business? And what do you think led to you having the confidence and the and if it's the right turn the balls to do it?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, I think it's a couple of things. I think naivety was definitely one of them. Like I didn't it because I know lots of people said to me, Oh my god, you started a business in 2008, the world was imploding at that point. But that never ever registered on my radar, whether that's stupid or not, it wasn't part of my decision making, it was just I want to really go and do this thing. So I definitely think naivety and enthusiasm played a small part of it, yeah, for sure. My dad had always had his business, his own business throughout my whole upbringing. So that like I've watched him, I would say my dad's business is very much, he was very much in the weeds, it was all revolving around him. I saw somebody graft really hard, you know, come home for dinner, go back at night. Like so I I had I definitely um like the work ethic, get making things started. I don't know, I don't know whether watching my dad do it.

SPEAKER_06 10:58

Yeah, I thought that. So you said to my dad, I think if you're like seeing that throughout your childhood, that you can start a business and you can because my family are uh uh very career, what's the word, non-entrepreneurial people. So my dad worked at mortgages, my mum is now a police officer, but was uh I think she worked at do you remember Miller Brothers? No, it used to sell like kitchen appliances. No. So she used to work there, I think they're all like DFSs now.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

Right.

SPEAKER_06 11:23

Um in their final sale of the year. Uh so so my family just didn't have entrepreneurial um acumen in them. So so the thought of going into business to me, just just the thought of it seemed like this massive, scary thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Really?

SPEAKER_06 11:36

Um so maybe like seeing your dad.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

I think it is now. Now I think about it, definitely as a child, I thought it was very cool what my dad had was doing, creating. I mean, my dad had a garage and he was doing the work as well. So it was like he's properly in the thick of it. Do you know what I mean? But I I do recall feeling like it was very cool what my dad had done, that he had his own business.

SPEAKER_06 11:55

And were your parents, uh what were your parents what was your parents take when you when you expressed interest to were you close to them at that age? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Uh yeah, no, very close to them. Still I'm uh definitely dad's mantra has just always been just go and try it. Like even if it doesn't work out, you need to have known that you've gone and tried it. So it they've never it's never been anything but go and give it a go.

SPEAKER_06 12:16

Do you know it's so interesting for me because I get to talk to lots of I I am a business owner, I get to talk to lots of different business owners, and one of the common themes is and one of the common themes behind people that get into business is having that mindset you just talked about, like the the confidence to just try thing. It doesn't it doesn't really matter if you fail. Like it's it's if you want to do it, go and try it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

It seemed like I definitely wasn't going into this like with any business plan, or it was just I knew that I wanted to be a PA to help business owners. I was gonna charge an hourly rate, had no idea what that was at that point. It was like between 10 and 15 pounds an hour.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I was gonna go and find out clients, and at the time I had a boyfriend who was in B and I, so that was like the first opening up to me of this is what you should go and do, this is how you find clients. He wasn't a business owner. No. He was a Why was he in BNI? Because he was a solicitor in uh law practice. So it was like part of his uh mandate to go to one of these and get clients. Yeah. But that I think that was my um that was my first foray into this is how you get clients.

SPEAKER_06 13:20

You go and meet people, say hello to them, and that's really interesting as well, because I know um obviously I know the business well and know you well. And uh really I've when we can talk about this, like you've built the size of business that you've built predominantly through partnerships and and getting yourself out there. So you you took that to the nth degree and and did an absolute masterclass in how to uh I feel like already in this conversation I'm having loads of like realizations. It's a bit like they call me the epiphany finder. They don't, I just made that up. Um one of the things that I think that I wrote down as well that I think would be interesting is um that I think we need to talk about as we get towards the slog phase, is how your is when a strength can become a bit of a weakness at a certain stage of business and how you need to like put some control measures around it. And I know for you, like this desire to go above and beyond and just like make your clients' lives amazing. Yeah, I know that that's part of what makes my PA so um well known and respected and so such a good business, but I also know that it's got its challenges because it can get in the way of certain things. So I think it'd be interesting to talk about that as we get into the slog phase. How did you then transition um from being Emma the I'm doing my own business, I'm just gonna go out and find some clients to um starting to hire people? Like what was the what was the time frame around that?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Um it was 2008 to 2012. On the 21st of February 2012, I employed my first ever team member.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Nice, okay. So you did uh roughly four years.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Four years as a what I what I would call like fully self-employed, working from my back bedroom, yeah, going to BNI.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Um in fact, my the client who was the guy who taught, sorry, my ex-boss who taught me a lot about getting through any kind of problem, he actually became my very first client. Yeah. Um when I when I resigned, he was very furious about it because he didn't want me to go, but then when we were came to an accrue. Very furious. He was very furious.

SPEAKER_06 15:08

He said to me as opposed to not very furious.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Well, furious can happen.

SPEAKER_06 15:13

He was very furious.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Furious has levels, he was very furious. He said to me, Do you know what karma is? And um, yeah, my ex-boss he'd gaslit you for leaving him. Maybe is yeah, is that gaslighting? Probably.

SPEAKER_06 15:25

Manipulation, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Manipulation, probably, yeah. Yeah, HR companies would have a field day with him now. But um he was like, Do you know what karma is?

SPEAKER_06 15:33

Thankfully, he's not listening to this podcast at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I don't think it's how can you how can you do this to me? But he was always very that's how we made things happen. He was always very like um blew up over the top, but then anyway, we had a great relationship. But I did get it, like he just didn't want to have to find somebody new.

SPEAKER_06 15:48

But we we agreed right on.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah, we agreed that uh he would actually become my first client. Um he then bit went on an hourly rate for the first three or four months, which I was then getting basically paid the same that I'd got paid monthly, but for three days a week, and I found him another EA. So it works out really well, and like uh yeah, I thank him massively for that because it helped me start to make the break.

SPEAKER_06 16:08

Yeah. Um get out of employee mindset, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, totally that. So literally that four years was going and meeting people.

SPEAKER_06 16:16

And what so what what drove you at that four-year point in 2020, 2012, 2020?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

2008 to 2012, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:23

Uh what happened in 2012 uh for you to go, right, I'm gonna hire someone. Where were you at? What happened?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I wish I'd kept journals, honestly, back then. Because it again, I don't know whether there's an element of I just didn't think it could fail. I didn't see any downside to it.

SPEAKER_06 16:38

Maybe you oversubscribed, or you like I've maxed out what I can do on my own.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I was oversubscribed, so I'd met a client who was in a serviced office. And do you remember when Regis was like the only serviced office to go to?

SPEAKER_06 16:47

They're still around, aren't they? Regis, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

But they were like, there was only them. And um, so I had a client who was in a Regis, and I would go in at that point because it was nearby, but I ended up meeting other people in the Regis and got more clients out of it. So um, to answer your question, that's so that was like B and I in this Regis was one of my challenges.

SPEAKER_06 17:08

B and I, you got Regis, you and the because you're very good at you, I think you've got a bit of an infectious personality, and when you're around people when you're not crying. Well, it's still infectious, isn't it? But predominantly positive sometimes, but that's you know part of the part of the parcel, isn't it? It's uh being uh being expressive is part of your personality, and people buy into it and it and it attracts people. So so you're kind of like going around, you've got B and I, you've got Regis, and and that is unsurprisingly bringing in a network of well, a a base of customers that that want the Emma show.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:38

Um why do you think um outside of what I've just said why do you think people were attracted to wanting to work with you?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Um definitely number one is that I was and am very passionate about getting people from one place to another. So out of overwhelm, out of doing the wrong things, out of not doing the work they should be doing, to um to getting them to where they need to be. So I'd met this company in there and he um long story short, but this guy had um he was bringing a tire company to like a brand of tires, GT tires, they were called. They're now huge. He started it from the city.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Because it's because of you.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

No. Um but I I met him just at the time where the China arm had like brought him across and he'd basically got a serviced office, so I started helping him. But I why why would people want it? I guess one, it was still quite new.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um, and two, yeah, I just the mm, yeah. And also I fully kind of when I when I've delivered the role, like just you're all in. Like it's it's not about, you know, if something needs to happen at nine o'clock at night, if something needs to happen at seven in the morning, I was just making stuff happen. Yeah, I which isn't scalable, I know.

SPEAKER_06 19:23

But well, well, potentially, but but I think the thing is with you is is that you because because if you think about the typical if you said to somebody, picture uh if I said to you picture an executive assistant in your head. I think I think, and maybe people will disagree, I think most people would picture an older woman who's got a secretary. Yeah, like uh I think that's what they would assume, wearing glasses, pinstripe suit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, that or donor of suits people picture.

SPEAKER_06 19:48

Well, it'd be interesting to see how many people I think people that watch suits maybe, but I think I imagine the most people would uh uh imagine an older woman who's um very organized, very prim and proper, you know, and everything's like that. So so to then think about Emma Mills when she's like in her 20s and like these high-level yeah, but I think it's cool. And then you've got to think, well, why is that? Like why why were so many people wanting that? And I think it's because you didn't just focus on doing, you focused on I want to get you from here to here. And I'll do you focus on an outcome. Yeah. And you're very passionate about that as well. So when you combine those two things, I want to get you from here to here, and I'm so passionate about it, I'm gonna make it happen. Like, people are gonna want that.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, and I think I feel like I've had another epiphany just now. The um happen you with your marketing here, Emma.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

She's like, Well, I'm not talking about this.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

There is um one phrase that I talk about with my EA team a lot, and it's like, for me, every business owner just wants to hear that. Don't worry, I've got it, I'll figure it out. Like, for me, that is the dream. Even in my business now, when somebody goes, when I'm like trying to overexplain or I'm giving something a task over.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Why do you think that is? Why do you think owners are so um or entrepreneurial-minded people are so entrepreneurially minded people are so um invested into getting that, to get in this, like, don't worry, it's done.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Um, I think for various reasons. One, because it's no doubt lonely, you know, without a doubt, it's lonely, it's you're on your own. Mainly it's just the business owner that's shouldering all of the things and all of the stuff. And to know that you have somebody that's competent, capable, that can also go, oh, we're we're doing this project, don't worry, I've got that. We're starting this podcast, don't worry, I've got that. Like, I'll figure out like I think it's just a real weight lifter like in in in your brain, you know, to clear, clear the open loops and open tabs that every business owner has got.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yeah, agree.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Um, and I think I think it's hard. I think it's hard for a business owner to get someone like that in their life.

SPEAKER_06 21:43

Why? Why is it hard for business owners to find those people that can basically do the simple thing of well, I don't want to say simple actually, but but the simple outcome of Well, it's simple to you and I, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Being able to go, I can make that happen for you.

SPEAKER_06 21:58

Why do you think business owners find that so hard to find?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Um I think well, I think sometimes it's down to the the strategy or the kind the kind of team members they've decided to add first. So I talk a lot about doers because doers are great and have their place, but doers don't necessarily alleviate unless you, as the business owner, have decided to write all the processes, all the steps, all the way to do it. Which, to be fair, most business owners friggin' hate to do. They'll add a doer in and go, I want you to do this, but want to miss out the part of showing them exactly how to do it and it just fails. And you've got these people around you now that are waiting for the next thing. What should what can I do next?

SPEAKER_06 22:36

But they're still reliant on you to tell them exactly what to do. So actually, instead of making your life easier, you just create more management time for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Totally. And I've been through that myself, where as a team grew, I just end up with a lot of doers hanging off, kind of waiting for mum to say what to do next. Um, so I think some of it's down to like the hiring strategy because also maybe it's like a slightly cheaper salary, maybe it's an easier first ad.

SPEAKER_06 22:59

Yeah, but it doesn't just adding a team member doesn't just doesn't guarantee that you're going to feel lighter or you're gonna get the stuff off your you could or yeah, and I guess ultimately people don't don't actually want more team members, they want an outcome, and and and often what business owners want is the outcome of I want half of this stuff that I don't want to do to just be off my plate and for me to be rest assured that it's gonna get taken care of. And I can imagine Emma in a well, you still do it now, but Emma in her 20s talking about that and giving business owners and these people absolute confidence that you are the person that are gonna make that happen. And then you would go and make that happen, so you get referrals as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah. And I think also just on that, why don't business owners do it? Sometimes you don't know what's possible until you've seen it happen. Like to to I think sometimes business owners will think, well, no one will be able to do it as good as me. Like I may as well do it myself, it's quicker. Like that phrase comes up a lot. Um so until you've actually experienced somebody that goes, Oh my god, like that just came back to me. I didn't even ask for it, or they just did X, Y, and Z Y, and I only asked them to do X. Do you know, like sometimes you actually don't know it's possible for that kind of person to exist?

SPEAKER_06 24:08

So, what do you think is the difference, Emma, between like Emma Mill's really high quality EA and just standard VA? What do you think the difference is and and how does a business owner experience those two things differently?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah. Um, well, and I just want to caveat that with because I I've said this a lot actually on calls recently, that the word VA is so wide nowadays, there's so many different iterations of what that can be.

SPEAKER_04 24:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Not one term fits all. I think it's dead important that people understand that. And so um the gap can be that a VA who is waiting for the process, the steps, the how-to-do things is constantly asking you every day, what can I do for you now? What else would you like me to do? And literally, so we were on a ski trip together recently, a networking ski trip. Um business, yeah, business development. Um and I was having a conversation with a guy on there who said that he had he'd had a let's call it a VA, uh it's actually an offshore VA, and that that particular VA was every single day messaging, going, What do you want me to do now? Yeah, what what and it was like got to the point where it was giving me so much anxiety because I'm like, I don't bloody know what I needed to do now. Like I'm also stressed, I can't even think for myself. Yeah, this isn't helping the situation. Yeah, they had some stuff to do, which was kind of ticking over, but the the um energy and anxiety of like constantly having to think, God, I need to find something else now to give them. It was like I just had to stop it because it wasn't helping me at all.

SPEAKER_06 25:38

Yeah, so that so you got this like somebody that can just do what's the difference then between that person and somebody that's like in your business or somebody that's your stat your calibre of assistant.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, so we sit at the other end of the market to that, which is we talk about giving our clients an extension of them, a second brain, uh, another pair of shoulders to carry stuff. And our energy is to understand what you're trying to achieve over the next 30, 60, 90 days, the year goal, but more short term to go. Oh, okay, so you said that you're going to start the podcast in Q1. Where are we carving out the time to make this happen? What are the things that need to happen? What can I take? I'll take that. Don't worry. Like starting to understand what outcomes need to happen, yeah, as opposed to, right, well, every Friday I need you to fill in my expense report, and then on top of that, we'll add, or can you check my emails three times a day? Like starting to understand what where Mike's trying to get to, what's important to him. You know, and in some instances, it will be that Mike wants to make sure he goes home at five o'clock every day because he's been we've onboarded a client today. And I literally saw in the discovery call notes, he works till 10 most nights, and it's unsustainable for him. He doesn't mind it, he doesn't really want to do it anymore, but he knows something needs to change because he's also kind of late reached his own upper limits of what's possible.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

So um he works till 10 every night. So one of his key or our key, what does good look like in 30, 60, 90 days, is is this guy now? What does his what are his weeks looking like? Is his time protected?

SPEAKER_06 27:11

Yeah, yeah. Um I think I think so. What stands out to me is like on the lower level of that assistant scale in regards to calibre, that person's just gonna like be able to do tasks, which means for the for the person that's using them, that's actually gonna create a lot of management. It's not necessarily gonna free up your time because the time that you're saving from the tasks, you're having to then put into telling the people what the tasks are.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:32

Whereas on that higher level of calibre for assistant, whether you want to say executive assistant or whatever, um, that person actually becomes a partner, an extension of you, and they take responsibility for outcomes as opposed to tasks. And uh, and and I think what you do really well and your team do really well is not only do you get clear on the outcomes, it's like what are we actually trying to achieve here as opposed to tell me what to do. But it's like not only do you get clear on the outcomes, you also make it easy for them to pass stuff off by doing that. Anything, yeah, whatever it's easy. Give it to us. Yeah, it's done.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Totally. And I guess the management has flipped. So, like at one end, we're like, you need to manage the person. This is what you're doing next, what you need to do by then. We're taking ownership of the management. So we talk a lot about like when a client comes on board, we're managing you, like we're here to make this as easy as possible to suggest, to, you know, when we're in the inbox, pick out all the things that we got. Well, I could forward this, I could do that, I've already done that rather than waiting the for the yeah. I again just just as like I've done it, don't worry, I've got it, is amazing. The worst question in the world is what can I help you with today?

SPEAKER_06 28:37

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a bit like um, I mean, my first business was a gym. So I think people get clear on a thing they want. And the thing I want as a business owner is I don't want to be so busy all the time. I need to spend more time on the stuff I'm good at, less time on the admin, essentially. So then they go, right, I need an assistant. And it's like somebody says they want to get fit, and they're like, right, I need a gym. And if you don't get clear on what you actually want from it, you can very easily end up with the wrong thing. So, like, for example, I used to own a CrossFit gym, so it's basically small group personal training. Um, work with a lot of business owners actually. And a lot of them had come from David Lloyd's. David Lloyd's is one of my key referral partners, although they didn't actively refer. But um, what happened was people go to like David Lloyd's and I want to get fit, and then they they go to a gym and then they're standing in a gym and then I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to train myself, I don't know what movements to do, I don't know how often to train. Um, and and yeah, they can pay for personal training, but often that's not very good. So a lot of them ended up coming to us because like if you want to get fit, well you'll have a coach every day, we'll take you through a program that's gonna help you lose weight, build muscle, get rid of your mobility issues. So if they didn't understand that there was different levels of approach to uh gyms, then they're just gonna go to the standard gym, not get a result, and then get fed up. And I think what happens with a lot of business owners is they have really poor experiences with low, lower caliber assistants because they want to free up their time. They think of the word assistant but don't understand there's a there's a there's a spectrum. They go to the lower level one because it's cheap and quick and easy, and then they end up just being more busy and more stressed because they've got a person to manage now. Yeah. And this person isn't proactive and can't take stuff off them unless they're given very specific instructions. So then they end up busier and then they're like, oh, this assistant stuff doesn't work. But what they need to see in their head is no, you need a high-calibre assistant that's actually going to be an extension of you and take ownership for outcomes, not just do stuff. I mean that's the key insight, isn't it? Um, so you so you're nailing this, you're doing it properly, you're getting a result for people. Oh, yeah. Um yeah, but but where we were there. Yeah, my job is to keep Milse on Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

We're back in 2012 now, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:39

And and and you're like, right, I've got more business than I know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Yeah, so you're right, I was oversubscribed, and I particularly remember I had work for about one and so me and another half um a person. So I was like working a lot of hours because I was charging time for money, and I didn't see any other way to do this. So actually, what I did do before I employed my first team member, Caroline, February 2012, um, I also got a virtual assistant. So um there was a girl in the Regis who said her friend was a single mum, was looking for some work, and she was my kind of bridge.

SPEAKER_06 31:10

Right. So you okay, that's a bit meta. So you so you were the EA to all these business owners, but then you've got so much to do that you're using a VA to help you manage your time, to help them manage their time. Which makes sense if we look at my PNL. Yeah, exactly. Yes of the business.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Because it gave me exactly what my PA does now, which was no, it was like, yeah, I agreed a number of hours with it, but it wasn't full-time. It gave me that bridge to to go to a full-time person.

SPEAKER_06 31:37

Okay, sweet. So first time I was Caroline, and it's typical business owner journey, right? You're like, I'm gonna go and do, especially in the service-based business. I I work with a lot of electricians now, and they same thing. It's like, right, I'm gonna go and be my own boss. And you get enough work where you're like, I can't do all this, then you're like, I'll hire somebody, a subbye, or somebody to help me or an employee. So you hire Caroline, 2012, you two start nailing it together, then what happens? What's the kind of um growth stage over the next few years? What's the journey?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Um, it was it was it's always been organic, so it was very similar in that me and Caroline would get absolutely stretched at the seams and I'd add a third person. So this kind of ladder was my way out. And I was also very blessed, lucky, grateful that I employed that Caroline was the person that came along because I basically got a mini me.

SPEAKER_06 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

And she also got it.

SPEAKER_06 32:25

So all of my maturity not to do mini me in the Austin Powers voice on.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:29

Yeah. So she got it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

But it yeah, I I didn't have a nine to five.

SPEAKER_06 32:33

But this is another thing, isn't it, with business owners in service-based businesses that when you make those first hires, it all seems to be really fun because they're so close to you, they naturally well, number one, because they're so close to you, if they're not a good values fit, you're gonna get rid of them quickly. You're only yeah, and because they're so close to you, they pick up your way of doing things.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 32:51

So, like early stage hires, you're like, this is great, this is easy, this is fun. But then as you get a bit bigger and you can't be around everybody every day, it starts to get less fun and there starts to be some cracks.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_06 33:00

Okay, so you've got Caroline Minime. Sorry, I interrupted you then. Um you got Caroline Minnie Me. Uh and then, yeah, just talk us through. Um I mean, we started working together in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Early 2025, early 2025.

SPEAKER_06 33:14

You made this first hire in 2020. So between 2025 and uh twenty twenty twelve and twenty five, you you've grown quite a lot. And I know you had a bit of a I know you had a bit of a maybe a year or two, maybe more, where you're a bit floating around the same number. So just give everybody like an overarching picture of the growth between 2012 and 25.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

The TLDR on that. TLDR. Um 2012 to 2014, I must have been doing about 100k between me and Caroline.

SPEAKER_06 33:44

Okay, so to two of you doing 100k, not bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Uh and it was 2014.

SPEAKER_06 33:49

So Well, yeah, adjusting for inflation. That's very good.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:52

Yeah. And that's on a pretty much paying for hours as well. Yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Um, and most of it wasn't committed as well. It was just like constantly churning billing time.

SPEAKER_06 34:03

Um did you enjoy those two two years?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah, I mean, 2012 to 2017, I would say, was like height of fun, crazy. Oh my god, this has just happened.

unknown 34:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:15

Yeah. Sweet. Okay, so so you and you and another power player, you're doing 100k between you for a couple of years?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah. Yeah. 2014. Um on the like cusp of that, I added another person in.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

And from then till I don't know, 20. So up to from then to 2017, yeah. I got up to like 270k.

SPEAKER_06 34:38

Uh, how many people?

SPEAKER_00 34:39

So it was probably four at the max towards the end of 2017, five of us.

SPEAKER_06 34:44

Uh so about got up to five of you. And then how much revenue was you doing?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

About 270.

SPEAKER_06 34:50

Nice, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Um and it was um so I will say that like from in 2014, I discovered, we won't go off on this tangent, but I joined a mastermind, and that really started to help me. It shaped the next four or five years quite drastically.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

What key things changed in the business and and in Emma Mills's uh program in her head after Caroline had left?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Um I had relied a lot on the two of us just making pushing things along by sheer momentum. Um we were very close. Um, we were both like pure grafters, and but and to get to the next stage, the you know, you're not best mates with everybody that works for you. I was with Caroline. I'm with Caroline. Um so then I had to start to put structure and systems in there to make the things happen that we were just making happen by sheer force beforehand.

SPEAKER_06 36:13

Yeah, such a hard stage of business for so many business owners. It's like you you you've got to where you are by working incredibly hard.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:20

And then you kind of get to this point where you're like, oh, working really, really hard isn't actually getting us anywhere anymore. It might be working against us, but it feels so unnatural, doesn't it, to take time out of the day-to-day and take time out of the doing to actually look at building process and structure.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Totally. And it's not it's not my natural place. Like I get it and I know it and I know how to do it, but it's not my natural place that I'm going to shine. Yeah. And she was such a character, like a force of you know, a big character within the business. Like she was the dream EA in my business, you know. She made all the team members like chat and the the kind of energy that was in the office place with the clients. She could create the relationship, she could do the work really well. So she was kind of like my ideal EA walking around living.

SPEAKER_06 37:02

I really want a strengths profile, Caroline.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:05

To see what they what the strengths were that were complementary to yours.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Well, I'd say she's more of an implementer, more of a doer than I am. Yeah. Um so when she left, yeah, we had to put these systems and structure in place. And I remember, because she was such a big part of the office, when she left, it was quite a with the existing team, it was quite like a dark cloud over like, oh my god, how what are we going to do without Caroline?

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Um, I remember being sat across the desk from Matt. I know we'll talk about Matt later. Matt's been with him for 10 years. He's fantastic, amazing. We've grown together, we get on really well, we're very aligned. And I remember being sat opposite him, and I was like, right, somebody needs to do the rotor. And he's like, I don't have time to do the rotor. I remember going, he tells his story now, and I remember going, well, I have to fucking do it myself then. If that's like and that was the first time we'd kind of clash, and he did go. I realized at that point, wow, I'm just being a stupid idiot. Like I need to get on and do the rotor. Yeah. Because it was all like this energy of how are we going to move forward without Caroline? She she did so much, she made so much happen.

SPEAKER_06 38:04

Right. Um, so so Carol, so so when did Caroline leave, 2017?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:09

Okay, so what what what's the kind of milestone 17 to 19? So where are you at by the end of this period? So more systemised, you've left mastermind uh to get out of this mindset of I'm learning but not doing.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:20

And you go and you go and rogue for two, seventeen, eight, two years, key person leaves. Um so what happens over that two years?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Yeah, so me, Matt, uh, another girl, Amber, we between us agree responsibilities. Um I'm still doing a lot, I'm still delivering client work at that point.

SPEAKER_06 38:37

Where where do you get to it by the end of 2019?

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Um, just below like 400k mark. It was three 370, 380.

SPEAKER_06 38:45

Okay, so we'll just just we'll just say 400. So so but but at the start you were around 205 of you in 2017, and then you get to the end of 2019, yeah, taking a lot of the things that you've learned from Nigel, being a business owner, being a more entrepreneurial, losing a key member, realizing that you can't have too much key person and dependency.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:02

You double the business almost.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah, there was a there was a lot of staff as well. Well, when I say a lot, there was 10 of us. Oh, okay. Um, so and we definitely now looking back, we had no real clue on the metrics of what was profitable and what wasn't. Yeah, yeah. It was just we have more work, so we must have to employ somebody. We like that kind of chain that kept happening.

SPEAKER_06 39:21

And then you get stuck in this loop. I mean, a lot of business owners have been nodding their head listening to this. We've all done it where you're like, you all you think matters is growth, and then you're hiring more people and making more revenue, but actually, for you as an owner, you're like, There was no difference. Am I making any more money here? And I seem to be busier than I ever have been before, and I seem to be doing stuff I'm not enjoying. Yeah. So yeah, so you you're going through this phase of kind of um growth for the sake of growth, uh where it looks good on paper, but actually when you draw down into it, maybe it's not that fun. Okay, and then 2019, what's the kind of milestones that's how long ago now?

SPEAKER_00 39:54

200 six years ago? Yeah, so like the end of 2019, it felt very draining for me. Um You're in the slog phase. Yeah, there's 10 people, uh staff like revenue's okay, but again, there's no out there's no upside to it for me. Um I so yeah, like I'm doing all the things. Like we even we extended our opening hours, um, evenings and weekends, and I was picking up a lot of those shifts. So I was also doing it in the day, doing it in the evening to answer calls, do stuff.

SPEAKER_06 40:25

So you're becoming a slave.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, I definitely remember ending in 2019 going, wow, it's like something different has to change here. And it did, um, because COVID happened, obviously three, four months later. I will also say um that what happened at the end of 2019 was that I got a text from a guy that works at Money Penny.

SPEAKER_05 40:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Um, and he was like, We see what you're doing, we think it's really great. Do you want to come talk to us? And um basically, long story short, we talked about them buying my business. Uh obviously it's only doing like it's just below 400k, it's very small, but what they were really after was me to implement and run a PA arm in there because they still don't do it now.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

And they told me I don't know this story. Really?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

How do I not know this? I don't know. Uh they turn away a lot of business daily because they've just never really cracked the code of how to deliver it at scale.

SPEAKER_05 41:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

So we had this conversation. Um, I went and saw them, it's an amazing place. Still big f like always big fans. I've I've met them since. And um, yeah, I remember he was like, right, well, let's have a chat, what might it look like? And he sent the NDA, and then literally like a week later, we went into lockdown, and I lost a third of my clients. And they definitely I mean, everybody's head was everywhere. I just thought in the bin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Remember male saying, My head's in the bin.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

That is one of my sayings, my head's in the bin. Um so we lost a third of our clients, furloughed team. It was just me, Matt, Helena, Jake doing the thing.

SPEAKER_06 41:48

Dream team.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah, the other five, six were furloughed.

SPEAKER_06 41:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

But I do recall having a really deep-seating feeling, even though the conversation in Wrexham with Money Penny was really, really exciting. Um, I remember driving back from there down the whatever it is, the A56, the road that's from Wrexham to Cheshire.

SPEAKER_06 42:06

It doesn't matter, Emma. It's not important to the listeners, they don't care.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

I remember being at the petrol station and it was the A56 guys. Which petrol station? I think it was BP. Um, no, I remember feeling like it's exciting, but I'm not done with what I think I can achieve, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

I I had still stuff to make happen and prove, and the seven-figure like dream, the seven-figure dream was al always on my mind. It was a really big thing for me. I wanted to do seven figures. Yeah. I wanted to do it on my own. Um, I wanted to make it happen with my team. And so, anyway, lockdown happened, lost a third of our clients, and yeah, it gave, I mean, the great thing that happened was it gave me the space to because I I stopped being in the weed so much because we had a skeleton team delivering the word that we had, and it was pretty simple the setup of it. It gave me the space to start to create again. And that was video and my TV, which was a video thing that I used to do. And I did a webinar, and I just showed up a lot, and I'd stopped showing up so much in 2019. Actually, that's definitely a learning from it because I was so stuck in the weeds. So, like working the Friday night shift to answer the phones, it's the last thing you feel like doing, is then also showing up to add value, email your clients, email your list. So I was definitely less visible in 2019. 2020 gave me the pulled the curtain back, gave us.

SPEAKER_06 43:35

COVID did you a favor, really?

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:37

Um, something that stands out to me there is that um you were in the phase of business where you're so sucked into thing, the day-to-day and the things that don't energize you that you were probably getting stress tired and burnt out by your business. Um but then COVID actually forced you to number one reconnect with your vision of the seven figures, but also getting back to what Emma Mills is absolutely amazing at, which is being a KPI, keep key person of influence, Dan Priesty's language. Um so it kind of forced you out of being stuck in what you don't like and back into what you do like, which I can just imagine. I see you when you when you're out with people and we do it, we've done a few trips together. Um see you on the pocket, and it just I know that's what uh brings you to life. Yeah. So I think I think a really important thing for business owners to to understand and to that they can take, especially from listening to your story, is is that as your business grows, it's gonna try and pull you into a lot of different things. And if you get sucked into the trap of spending all of your time on stuff that you don't really enjoy where you're not adding the most value, that can lead to you having a really stagnant, unhappy but a really stagnant business and a very Being a very unhappy person.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

You're totally right. And we'd lost the source of what made us fun and um enjoyable for me. And I was actually reflecting on this on the ski trip. I was talking about it with Will, but actually what happened in COVID is we got back to the place that we used to be as a team because we were almost I I was like we were forced to figure out how to be a team when we were all working from home. We were like showing up every single Thursday night was my PA's party night on Zoom. We did like fancy dress, we did all this stuff. And where I'm going with that is it like it took me back to that, I guess that like five people around a desk of having a good time, like the fun had come back into it because we were all together just trying to figure this thing out and get through it, and we got through it really, really well.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Um, like the business just kind of we couldn't even keep up with it um out of COVID. But yeah, it gave us the space.

SPEAKER_06 45:42

What you're saying is when you were doing more of the stuff that you enjoyed, you got really, really busy.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:45

All right, so uh 2019, uh feeling a bit stuck, feeling a bit drained, COVID comes around, COVID kind of forces you back into the stuff you love. So you've gone through this stage of being stuck in all the crap of a business that stops you doing what you're good at. Then you've got back to what you enjoy, which forever is definitely being like the the leader, being the key person of influence, inspiring people into this service. Yeah. And then and then what what what's the journey from there then? And when did you get to seven figures? Because we haven't I feel like we've like kind of washed over that.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah. No, no, we haven't, because we haven't got there. Oh, okay. Sorry. Um Mike, we haven't got there yet. I hadn't got there by 2019. So we were just like three something like late threes. Um so March 2020, we lose a third of our business and like have to rebuild it back up.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Joy.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

So um I think by the end of 2020 we'd done like 450. Yeah. And then basically 2021 we did 720. Um what happened there? Um by the end of 2022, we did just below a million. No, we didn't. We did like 1.1. Um 2023 we did like 1.2 or 1.3. So that's like was the growth phase over that.

SPEAKER_06 47:00

So what's what's the key things that are happening from 450k in like kind of 2020 to 720 and 1.1 million over the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Um what were the things? So I guess is a couple of things. So definitely going back to I started to show up consistently and that was a real key part of um, I guess clients, you know, seeing us, knowing us, remembering us. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_06 47:27

What do you mean by that? What do you mean like I started showing up consistently?

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Uh I was putting out a video where every single week would be emailing our list two or three times. I was showing up on social media. When I look back, so we've just employed a videographer, content creator, and we were looking at my Instagram and all of my highlights, you know, the little circles that you like save. Yeah, um, I was looking at them because they massively ended up dating, but it's all from 2020. Flipping egg. I was like leading the way, like I'm doing a webinar on Wednesday. I like I don't even recognise the girl because I'm like, why have you stopped doing you know, like when people realize we did all this stuff and it was good, and then you just stopped doing it.

SPEAKER_06 48:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um we've all done that. We all said they're like oh, how did you get that client? I did this. Are you doing that still? No, why not? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Um the tea, like there's a highlight on there for the team. We were showing up with the team loads, I was talking about clients that were on board, and I was very, very visible. Um, I do think there's a little bit of like, I don't know if luck is the right word, but kind of serendipity that just in the way that when I started my business in 2008, Tim Ferriss had wrote four hour work week, virtual assistant was being talked about in 2020, everybody had to work from home. So no longer was it like I couldn't work with something virtually because we all did. We all worked virtually.

SPEAKER_06 48:35

So I think like the barrier was broken down of but also you have to when you work hard and long, you tend to get more lucky.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Yeah, yes, totally.

SPEAKER_06 48:43

Yeah, yeah. Um okay, so so uh the listeners are gonna be banging their heads again. So basically, when Emma is enjoying it and being the key person of influence and being out there, the business makes loads of money, and when she gets sucked into the operations and stressed and unhappy, it stops making money. Yeah or doesn't make as much. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

And there is another key part missing from that that I did. So I started working with a coach, a mentor, Martin Norberry.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

And the one thing that that that this like additional layer that was brought in that I'd never had before was a rhythmic growth plan that we stuck to. Yep. Uh we called it the 60 month plan. So it was like 2020 to 2025. And honestly, like, as I remember we crafted it, I was sat on my balcony, lived in an apartment in the city centre. He was on Zoom and I was like, want to do this by 2025. He's like, right, well, let's just create a rhythmic plan. And I'd never I'd heard Nigel talk about rhythmic sales and marketing load. I'd heard about, you know, the thing you need to crack is a rhythmic acquisition of clients. But also operationally, my PA had never gone, well, this month we want to do 10 or 2 or 5. It was just like, oh God, we've got five, how brilliant. Matt, Matt's my Matt is my ops manager. Matt, can you please like sort it out so we can onboard five? Oh, we've only got one this month. Oh, we've got 10 next month. Can you sort that out too?

SPEAKER_04 49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

So this rhythmic plan of what we actually wanted to achieve. And when we did put that in place, we just started to hit it month in, month out.

SPEAKER_06 50:07

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:08

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

So um and just the final bit, yeah. Everybody in the business knew about the 60 month plan. Yeah. It was like the term was alignment. We know what the 60-month plan is and we're hitting it.

SPEAKER_06 50:19

Yeah. What's the the marginal gains book where they talk about the the rowing team and it's all like we're all focused on hitting this speed? Uh it's the it's the GB cycling squad. We're all focused on hitting this speed. Yeah, the 1% because we're all focused on it. We're gonna do whatever we can to keep getting better. Um, okay, so I mean you've been in it's really hard to do a short overall summary of your business because it's been through you've had it for so long and you've been through so many stages. What I do think though is that there's so many different parts of your journey and and chapters, and I think business owners are gonna listen to this and be like, I've been there, I've been there, yeah, I got that, yeah, okay, I understand that. I think and I and I also think or know that people will listen to this and they're gonna listen to certain stages and go, I'm there right now. Yeah. And then need to take a lesson from from what Emma shared to get myself fixed.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

And I would also say, like, I know it's been 18 months, and I hope the fact that it's been so long is helpful to some people because like we're not the overnight success.

SPEAKER_06 51:18

18 years, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Yeah, sorry, 18 years.

SPEAKER_06 51:20

When you said 18 months, and I was like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 51:21

Oh sorry, 18 years.

SPEAKER_06 51:23

This is a that's a lot that happened in 18 months.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

No, I hope it is helpful because there's no like I don't see any part of that journey that I could have speeded up. I could have speeded it up, but I realised that I had to go through those different parts now to learn what I knew to get to the next stage.

SPEAKER_06 51:38

Yeah, yeah. I I think that's so important to I think it's a mistake to think that you can skip these stages, isn't it? You can like listen to a podcast or read a book and go, like, well okay, I don't need to go through that. By the way, I thought this because I I love reading, I'm a geek, and I read all the business books in my uh first business. I was like, I've got this, I've got the I've got the code in my head, like I'm probably arrogant, really, like thinking like, okay, I've been in the army, I've read the books, like I'm I don't need to make on the mistakes now. Uh and actually that made me miserable when I did start making the mistakes because I was telling myself this story that I was just gonna get through all perfectly, and I and I just realised now, because I still make loads of mistakes now, that it's just it's the right passage. Like if you want to go into business, get comfortable with going through get comfortable with going through all of the challenges and accept that they're gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:26

Because you can't learn them in a book, you have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

Yeah, and I am gr I'm grateful for it now because then if I think about my skill set and the kind of ch challenges that we have in the business now, I know not none of that would have happened if I hadn't been through what I've been through for sure.

SPEAKER_06 52:44

Okay, cool. Right. Take us up to kind of more of them more present-day then. So so you so you've I mean the smallest part of that story is we kind of went from 450 to a million just by being a bit more specific and focused.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:56

What's like present-day scenario then? So what's the next kind of milestone? Yeah, so what the next chapter of your business journey?

SPEAKER_00 53:03

So um Daniel Pruce has a phrase called crossing the desert, and definitely 2023 onwards probably from 2022, but 2022 onwards, we have found ourselves in that. And I just I think like some of the key learnings, we've crossed that million pound mark and maintained it consistently, but we haven't had continual, like quick growth.

SPEAKER_06 53:29

You can't have stagnant again.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Stagnant is a good word.

SPEAKER_06 53:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Um stagnant in a good way, like we maintain 100k months. Um but what we've I guess we've been through this phase of, you know, you go from five to ten people, you know everyone, everyone's having a good time. And then we went to what we're now at 30, 35 people in total. But as we went from like 15 to 20, 25 to 30, my gosh, that was the biggest rude awakening to me and Matt ever. Yeah. Um, of culture, of being able to track culture of putting systems into me that happen, of realizing that you don't just understand now that everybody's happy. Yeah beforehand, we were all sat around a desk and we knew who was in a bad mood or not. Now all these other things happen. And that that phrase that um Daniel has where he says, you know, when you get to kind of 15, 20 people plus, people start arguing, they fall out, they sleep with each other. They and I remember the first time I heard him say that, I was like, Oh no way, it's like, oh my god, it's so true. Like, and all this stuff happens, it's hard enough running a business, but then when you've got 15, 20, 25, 30 people, my gosh, it's like next level. So I think what we've been through is this journey of growing, but also trying to keep my PA with the secret source that it had of energy and culture.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Um, and we struggled with that massively, I would say in 2024, maybe 2023, 2024.

SPEAKER_04 54:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Um, and that's definitely very much where a big part of what you've helped us with as well. Because I I just kind of forgot what it how it can be and what it was like. And I think um I've as you've said many times, kind of our nicety that uh being nice that works well when there's 10 of you doesn't work anymore when you are what I would call a grown-up proper business.

SPEAKER_06 55:13

Yeah. And I what it's interesting for me, like hearing you explain it like this, because obviously we talked loads about uh about the business. So uh good, I think I've worked with you guys a year, over a year.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah, yeah, over a year.

SPEAKER_06 55:24

Um but like being able to have this big picture view, it kind of sounds like it's actually like a very similar phase that you went through when was it? Around 2019. It's kind of like the same thing again. It's like okay, you got out of that and you doubled the business. Like you got out of this kind of funk of like, I'm stuck in it, I'm not showing up, I'm I'm so I'm either tired and unhappy or doing stuff I don't enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:47

You're like, give yourself a kick up the ass, go and get out there again, and the business goes through this massive growth phase. And then now you kind of like you now you're a uh you know a consistently over a million pound business, big team, which you again, I do think we just kind of like washed over. Yes, you're very blasé with your achievements. Um and it maybe it's the same thing again. It's like, okay, and now I'm back there again, I'm a bit stuck in this funk and um feeling a bit drained by it. I feel I think it's it's a normal thing for business owners to go through, but it's interesting with you how many times you've been well, no, no, not because of the fault of Emma, because you've taken this business from and you like you you you were a 26-year-old when you started this business. Yeah. How old are you now? You look at it. Looking very good for your age, by the way. She doesn't look 40. She makes she looks younger than me, and I'm not 40 yet. Um so yeah, I think it's it's a it's a mammoth, uh it's a mammoth journey. Um so go on then. So now we that now let's go into the the second phase where we talk about how amazing Mike is and everything that he's done. Only jokes. So but but let's go to that stage now. So obviously this is me this is great for me now because we get to talk about the phase, the next stage where you got stuck, which is where you've got quite a big team now. What do you think were the key what do you think were the key factors uh or numbers or milestones, whatever it might be, that put you into this stage where you were kind of feeling stuck and stressed again? Was it the size of the team? Was it amount of revenue? Was it uh what was going on?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Well, it was the size of the team coupled with the wrong people in the wrong seats who were managing, and we made this mistake, which I'll never make again. And now I realize how ridiculous, not ridiculous is the wrong word, because we were doing what we were just doing what we knew how to do, but we did a lot of repromoting internally because somebody was good at their job, and then I remember saying to one girl, oh, such a body's going on maternity. Will you take over as team leader? Because she's like a shit hot EA. Yeah, and it just seemed so natural to me, and I it was completely the wrong move. And I confused people being good at one role as being good at then managing a team of people, yeah. Um, so we did a lot of promoting from within, it was the size, um, and also we did far too much of Nigel has this phrase, you get what you tolerate. Yeah, and we confused being nice with tolerating shit, and it compounded and compounded and compounded.

SPEAKER_06 58:17

Okay, so so so you've you've got really good at focusing on growth, you've worked with Martin Norberry, you've built a growth plan, um, and that's led to you taking that business to over a million um quid of revenue, which is absolutely fantastic. And then you've got the team up to what w what's what roughly size is it in 2022 and now sort of floating around the circle? It it's kind of like stayed around 30-ish, it's gone up a bit, it's gone down a bit, but so we're around a million up and down a bit, and then we're around 30 people up and down a bit, and and we're and that's the key distinguishing factor from about 2022, and then everything just starts to feel a bit stuck again.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Massively so.

SPEAKER_06 58:51

And the key thing that you're highlighting as uh being one of the reasons for that is is is people and it's a hundred percent people.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

We didn't have any slowdown in leads, we didn't have any slowdown in clients wanting to join us, or goodwill, or good reputation and stuff happening. It was a hundred percent the people internally.

SPEAKER_06 59:11

Okay, and did you recognise that? Like what what what happened? What did you do to start making progress on this and realise okay, this is what's going wrong? Like what's the what happened now?

SPEAKER_00 59:21

Um I'll be honest, I think that um I so I'm very strong on my gut, and I think the whole time I had a gut feel that this wasn't right, but I don't know what to say like I lacked I'd lack some maybe I did lack some confidence. I um I but we basically had this influx, like we grew very quickly, so we recruited a lot of people quite quickly, and we had an influx. My team also um has historically been of a younger age demographic.

SPEAKER_05 59:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

So let's say like just after COVID, I've got early 20s to late 20s people coming into the business. And I can only say it as like we had this massive shift in definitely one thing a lot of people talking about mental health and anxiety, and this was a new thing that we had to manage. Um, and it kind of overtook the business at one point. It went so far from, and I'm I'm not saying like the other extreme is fine, but it went so far from like we want to, you know, we're getting stuff done for clients. If I have to stay till six, it's fine. We went so far the other way, too. Everything had to have a system, a rule, um, a way to make sure people did it correctly. Um, a you don't mess with my work life balance. It went so far to the other extreme. Yeah, it wasn't sustainable either.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:43

That you couldn't deliver for clients.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

And and I definitely and I definitely um throughout this period of time, like I was doubting myself to go, do I just not get it? That is this now how you run a bigger business, everything has to be so they clock in at nine, they go at five, there's nothing that's like ever outside of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

Um, they'll only do this, they won't do that. They're telling me now what they'll do and what they won't.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:08

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Sounds a bit stupid. I don't know if it just sounds stupid, but it it it and yeah, I don't know. It we kind of like snowboard a little bit to like so many of these kind of weird scenarios popping up of mental health and and how did that how how did that leave you feeling as a as a business owner then?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:26

So feeling like I can't wasn't enjoying it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

The the source had gone of like we're all moving together on this mission.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Um yeah, that was it in a nutshell. It kind of escalated, it kind of culminated in I don't know if I had told you this, but earlier last year I had a like a hate campaign against me on Glassdoor.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

So there was a group of girls that created a WhatsApp group, and they were every single Saturday all leaving a review. Every Saturday, it would come up every Saturday, and my my ops manager Matt was losing his mind because like we were on a one-star review.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:00

Just whilst they were still working for you? No, no, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

They'd kind of left across the previous six months for various reasons.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:06

Yeah. Um and you were the worst person in the world. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

And I was a narcissist, and I'd said that I didn't want to be in the business anymore, and who does she think she is? And she needs to stop doing a podcast and she needs to concentrate on running a business and all of this chisel that and that's what happens when you let people become too entitled.

unknown 1:02:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

Um, and this is not like about, oh my god, woe is me, but it's just about I kind of like lost my what what's the right phrase? I just kind of like lost my own confidence of like, no, no, this this is what I'm doing is like doubting yourself. Yeah, and I started, yeah, I started doubting myself.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:39

Well, my intentions have only ever been like, I just want a really happy team, want to do good things, and it kind of like flipping the car went off the road and was very I think this is like why growing a team to that size is so and get growing your business to that size is so hard for a lot of business owners because you realize you have to go through realizing that you're gonna have people that dislike you. Like you're gonna have to piss some people off to keep this business growing and to to make it what it is, you're gonna have to have some staff that hate you, you're gonna have to have some customers that leave you a bad review. And a lot of people um do well in business without ever getting to that size, without ever having to go through that. Uh, and it can be really tough. It can be really tough. I think it's um I think it's a very unique experience. I mean, I'm ex-military, I've worked on deep sea fishing boats, I've been to Afghanistan. But the most trust I've ever been in my life was when I owned my first business, which was a CrossFit gym. Doing about 200 grand a year in revenue with four staff. And I'm like, well, what's all this about? And people what people don't understand is the unique psychological burden of being a business owner. I say burden, if you learn how to handle it, it's not a burden, but it, you know, it does affect an Emma Mills or a Mike Jones or whoever when somebody goes on Glassdoor and says this person is a narcissist. Yeah. Even if they are talking complete CODSWAT-which they are, because I know you're not a narcissist. Um, you know, there it still affects you. And I know the celebrities know this because they get hate online, but it's the same with marketing, right? You you put yourself out there, which you need to to grow your business. And some people are gonna go, who are you? I had a guy once on um on um, I think it was Instagram, uh tell me, tell me that I was an imposter, like an American guy. I was like, all right, why's that? And he's like, Well, you don't have any background to talk about this stuff. And he's like, Who do you think you are? I was like, Well, I'm I'm ex-army intelligence, so I told him this little bit of a story. Uh, and then he started ripping, and then I said, I was attached to special forces because I worked with them for two years. And then he was like, So you were in the special forces. I was like, No, I didn't say that I was attached to it anyway. Then he started ripping into me for that, saying that I was yeah, and then he started commenting on all my posts, and I'm like, Whoa, what is wrong with this guy? I just blocked him in the end. Like, that's the beauty of social. You can block people, but yeah, yeah, it's uh it's it's definitely um a unique challenge.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

And if you let it get into your head too much and you start doubting yourself, then you're Yeah, and it was yeah, it was just like the kind of dripping tap um that just didn't stop. And um yeah, I just I think we we then flipped from constantly saying, like, oh what can I do? How can I support you? Which we still do now, but there was never a sorry, this is the job, this isn't good enough, this is what we need as well, this is what the business needs. It's not just all about like it obviously you've taught me a lot about it. Needs to be all four things the owner, the bank, the clients, the team.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:20

I wanted to talk about that. Well, you can say just drawing it, the core four. Go on, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

The core four the core four had completely flipped on its side and was so and I I think this is important because what I've seen from working with you guys, and I see it with lots of other businesses as well, is you'd been stuck in that stage.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:41

And I don't think the be living in the UK, by the way, does not help with this because our our government and and politics makes drives makes this issue ten times worse. But you guys have definitely gone through a few years of just being how do I word this, too nice, too nice to the employees at the expense of the business. Yeah. Right? So at the expense of the business. So you were letting the business and you as an owner um not get what you want from it uh or not prospering the way it should to try and keep everybody else happy.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:08

Now, obviously, there's an element of we want to have happy staff, but if we start to do things for the staff that come to the detriment of the business, that that's a major red flag. Anyway, I think you'd spent so long doing that that you'd got stuck in that rut. And it's taken you I really think it's taken, I think we're only seeing it now. I think we're only seeing like it's taken twelve months. Your head of ops, Matt, really come into like fruition now with being focused on what's good for the business and for the team and sticking to his guns with it. And that has taken that's taken a six to twelve months for.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

For both of us, yeah. We both had like a cathartic experience. I think via you, we've like unburdened everything that's been holding us back the last couple of years. And sometimes because when you're in it and you like see the same Like four walls of the office, and you know, you're dealing with the same kind of things that happen. You it's easy to forget like what's possible that oh, we used to it used to be like this, and you kind of think that's not possible anymore. And and I think one of the key things is that you've showed us that we weren't completely um narcissistic.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:08

Yeah, you weren't being arsenal to want your business to work. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:11

You've you've cut you d definitely have like reminded us massively, and it's taken a long time, I think, for this penny to drop now, that everything we want is possible to and still enjoy the business, have a team that takes the piss out of each other, has a has a laugh, but also we get really good work done. We they all care about the clients. Like we for I think me and Matt had both forgotten that was possible.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:32

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's let's let's go through um let's just go through some of the things that we've done together to help you get out of this place where you've got um a good business, but a business that is not really um growing anymore and has become stressful for you and and for and for your head of ops, right? So for your leadership team. So uh the first thing really I think I remember was the core four, which is right, before we do anything, let's zoom out and look at the business and go, is it a win-win? And the core four are the business owner, Emma Mills, right? The the customers, your team, and the bank account. And it's gotta be in the middle. It's gotta work for all four of those. Where do you think from from memory, where do you think you were at with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Um it was heavily weighted to the team.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

Heavily, heavily weighted. And then probably like there was a slight weighting to the clients.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:29

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

And then um bank and me, there was nothing.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:34

Yeah, so I I'm drawing Emma's head was in the bin. And and to me it was obvious. Um, but you've been stuck in the and and I and I it's really interesting actually, because I reckon that glass door experience is probably what put the blinkers on you for that because you've got this thing around you, these people saying this. Uh uh, you've had a hate campaign against you. So that's gonna have had a massive emotional impact on you, which has then cut.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:55

And it did on it on that as well. Because we then literally he started having um job interviews. We were like recruiting generally, and people will go, I've seen these reviews online. What does it mean? What is it about? Like it concerns me. Like he was then starting to get it in the recruitment process. So I think and then put us both together and we were like, We're doomed.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:13

We're doomed, yeah, yeah. But it's there's two heads in the bin. But but you know, you've had it's not it's not for no reason, is it? Like, that's a that's a pretty hardcore smear campaign that those those guys were doing. So, so to me, it was obvious. It was like, well, you haven't put your prices up in years, or or not enough for it to be profitable. You're not prioritising profit in the business because you feel guilty thinking about the business, and you're doing stuff you don't enjoy and getting sucked into things every day that that you shouldn't be doing. And essentially it's because we're not being clear on what we want from the team and what clear what we want for the business.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

Very much so. That that I think that's really like emphasis on not being clear with what we want from the team. We'd forgotten to keep doing that because we were so fearful of being called a narcissist if you do that. Yeah, totally fearful. That is like the word we were totally fearful of going, is this too much? Are we asking too much? Are we yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:09

Um okay, so so we got clear on the call for. What changed after that then? So, what what what started to change after we started work together, go for that exercise, get really clear and be really honest about what needs to happen in this business to make it a win-win. Can you remember what what happened after that?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Um, so the things that stand out after that was that we got really clear. So, my leadership team, which um head of PA, head of call, my EA and me, um, we started to get really clear there was work that needed to be done on the numbers that we were looking at, reporting on, delving into every single week. Yep. Like some of them were not correct. Um and also um I was still being too nice and not delivering directly to my leadership team when things were good or when things were bad, and holding them to account on that.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:03

Yeah. Yeah. One of the common themes I see with all of the businesses I work with is this fear of conflict. And I I really don't think modern politics has helped them with, especially in the UK. Yeah. I think we've been made to believe consistently by social media that to disagree with somebody or have a difficult conversation with somebody makes you a bad person. You've got people on the internet saying, oh, you're a bigot because you don't agree with what I'm saying. What? Or you're a fascist because you believe in that person. And that that has an impact. And that what that's leading to is people being fearful and feeling uncomfortable about having debate. Yeah. But you can't have a healthy team or a healthy business. If you and your leadership team aren't willing to have debate, if you're if you, Emma Mills aren't willing to hold your team to account, have difficult conversations with them when they're not performing, yeah, or hitting numbers, like it can't happen. So so we have to we have to do that, and I'm glad that you started to do that, get those systems in place and hold people accountable.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Yeah, and we we I think that's happened over, so I think we properly started spending a lot of time together, like from last April. So we've had like three quarters together.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

And that over that period of time, it's only refined and gotten better. Like I think it's taken the three quarters to properly like peel back all of the excuses, the reasons why it's not happening, like pulling back all of the bullshit, getting so clear on the numbers, it's there's just no room for anything but black and white and ones and zeros. Like that's probably like happened over the nine months. And now, I mean, I'm sure we'll come on to it, but I mean that we just had like our best January ever. Like, we're we're we're definitely coming out of the other side of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:31

I think the numbers have to be there because if you don't have your numbers and you don't have accountability systems, emotion will take over and get in the way. And that's not just me saying that for Emma, because we've joked about you being emotional, but but for any, we're all emotional. Yeah. We're express it in different ways. But none of us wake up in the morning and think, I can't wait to go to work today and see if um Steve's hitting his targets. Yeah. Like none of us think like that. So we we don't want to have that conflict. So we need the numbers clear, black and white, and we need to remove the emotion by having those numbers so that we can just have those conversations very, very black and white. And the key thing is, is if we are all on the same page, it doesn't matter if the numbers aren't when they need to be, because we can fix it. But the worst thing we can do is not talk about them.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:10

So so you said it took three quarters. Um, what things did we do over that three quarters, just big picture over that three quarters to embed these behaviours and to get you guys out of this funk of not holding each other accountable, not having the hard conversations.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

Well, I mean, the the biggest thing is that I had never ever had my leadership team in a room for a whole day off site to plan the business for the next quarter. Yeah. It just never happened until we did it.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:37

So quarterly planning, in person, off-site, whole day, get out of the uh get out of the madness of the business. Yeah. Yep, get clear on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

Because that gave us the day to bit by bit peel through, peel back any of the conversations, any of the bullshits, the excuses from me as well, of of like why things might might or might not be happening. It was very different to every every Monday we have a 90-minute meeting.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

Um, but in that 90 minutes, it's not the same as having like this day away to properly go what's worked well, what hasn't, why, and understanding people's different perspectives on that.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:10

Yeah, amazing. So you did the quarterly planning, um, full person in day. Anything else to kind of make sure that we do what we said we're gonna do in that quarterly planning. And by the way, we're judging how we're we're we're tracking how successful we've been with this structure, not just by the numbers, but by how big the meeting room is, have you noticed? We've got to make it a little bit bigger each time, haven't we? Oh, sorry, the meetings we've gone from this tiny little box, and I was like, Emma, this room's too small, and the last one was pretty big.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

Yeah, we've got to go ahead over Oxford Street and Oxford Road in Manchester, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:38

Where are we gonna end up? What's the biggest most important thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's the aim. That's the aim for the end of 2026. All right, so Courtney Planning, so that gets you all clear and on the same page. What anything else that's helped you like keep focused and hold each other accountable?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Um we've got we've got more laser focused on the numbers. Yeah. Like we've I don't know if you remember, but when you first joined us, we had a scoreboard that was extremely large with many, many numbers on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

And that got refined down into 10 or 12 across the business. And then we had two like mini scoreboards for the different departments, but the the data was more simple, you could easily see.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:15

Yeah, I remember you showing me your what you the numbers you were going through. I was like, how are you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:19

I mean, it was taking the whole meeting to go through them.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:21

Yeah, and again, I think it's an overcreate, isn't it? I think like but you you know, like you you a lot of business owners aren't number-minded at the start, like they just get on with it and make stuff happen, and then you're like, oh, okay, you need to track the numbers, and you end up with this massive database, and then you try and analyze it, it's too much, and then you go, okay, well, what what numbers do we need to know? And how do we drill that down and focus on this? So you're like really clear on the numbers, built a scorecard, which you guys look at every week. And by the way, and I say this to Laura and my partner, I'm like, what I love about Emma is um like your implementation, like you'll do a thing. You'll yeah, if you say if I show you a thing or you do a thing and you're like, that's gonna help the business, we've done the thing, you I you don't have to check up, like you'll go back and she's done it. And the first thing one of the first things I shared with you guys was was the PDP process, like a structured way of checking in with your employees that that everyone can benefit from. And I remember showing it to you and the team, and I was going to the snow domes, I popped in and said hello, yeah, yeah. And then, like, I think I spoke to you about four months later. I know we'd started doing work, but I'd forgot about the showing you guys a PDP, and you're like, Oh, I'm doing everyone's like third round of PDPs, and this has come up, and I'm like, bloody hell. Like, you guys just implement, you just do stuff. Your weekly meetings, you do them super consistently. Um, your quarterly planning, it's already booked in for the year this year, right? Yeah. Yep. Um, so weekly meetings, really good quality scorecard. Um, yeah. Anything else?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:35

Um, so just to clarify, prior to us meeting you, we did already have a Monday meeting with the scorecard, but we just said it was too big. But one thing that we did not do well at all, and now since I saw you run our meetings, we never got to the really meaty issue. We would talk about, you know, don't know, Sandra in call. Coffee's run out. The thing that she's just said yesterday that's really pissed off Bob and now they're having an alright. We don't end up putting anybody called Sandra and Bob.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:03

But um That was very quick, Sandra. I was I was thinking that's who Sandra and Bob and I was like, she's made those names, that was very good. Alias.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

But we would be talking about, you know, when you like you can get into that rut of giving the B players all the energy in the chat in the room when you're not actually. Yeah, so we what we do so differently now is we go through all of the scorecards, all of the data, there are any big headlines, and it's like, right, so from the data, what are the key issues? Not like the little argument that happened yesterday, not that somebody's called in sick and now we're going through this pro. It's like, what is what is the issue from the data?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:38

Yeah, and we weren't doing that, we were having chats of whatever was the most annoying thing that came up around the room to somebody or recency bias or yeah, it make it it springs the quote to mind that I like to say a lot, which is the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing, and that's that is a discipline. And that filters down from good quarterly planning, like okay, what are we actually focusing on? And then good quality weekly meetings, which force you to and good quality scorecard, which takes time and energy, right? To figure that thing out.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

Yeah, and I think the other thing that's done is it gets more and more painful when every week you go, okay, so what are the actual issues? Right, so uh week one, we don't have enough leads coming into this department. Right, okay. Week two, what's the main thing? What's the what's the issue you've got? We don't have enough leads coming into this department. You know, you're at week seven, you're like, what's the main thing? We don't have enough like because we're only using the data now to it's like, is somebody gonna do something about this? Or what are we actually doing? Or we're not really doing anything, are we?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:35

And it forces you to focus on that stuff though, doesn't it? Hearing it again and again and again when you're hearing the numbers week on week, and it's like it's the same issue. It's like, okay, well, we need to fix this. Whereas otherwise, it's easy to avoid it. It's easy to just let it slip for three to six months.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:49

Yeah. And the other thing I think that's come out of it, unless you're gonna go for it. Um wrap it into like the quarterly, you may the process that we went through, especially on the quarterly planning, which is where we decided what like like the key OKRs are, the key projects that we want to happen, it became very apparent. And I definitely didn't believe it the first quarter we worked together. I thought I was just like, yeah, we can do it, it's fine, don't worry, Mike. We had a really bad um problem of giving ourselves too much to do.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:21

Yeah, I'm glad you said that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

Our list of things was big, and I think that I can do everything as most business owners do. I can figure it out, I can sort it out. And then it was very, very apparent in the first quarter we worked together when nothing was turning green, and it's like, if you worked on this, worked on that. And I remember kind of in the third quarter we worked together, I was starting to feel very stressed about it because I was like, Well, and almost in my head, I'm like, well, of course I I haven't done it because I've got all of these things to do, like it's way too much. But it was only by kind of like properly holding a mirror up to it, it was like this was impossible.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

And we would have been much better just to each pick three things, get them done, move on. Three things that I and we were just trying to do it all.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:01

Yeah, and and if it if it gives you sanity, it's pretty much the same story with any business I go into. Oh, really? Like, yeah, you set the OKRs um and everybody thinks they can achieve way more than what they can. They don't really and we all get in that goal setting frame of mind, don't we? We're like, well, this is exciting. And if I do that and do that and do that, the business is gonna be amazing. And Pete, and we forget that I've also got all this stuff that I do on the day-to-day. Maybe I can get rid of some of that, maybe I can hire hire an EA. But actually, that's gonna take a bit of time. So we forget we've got a day job, we forget how long stuff takes. Typically, entrepreneurially minded people are very um overly optimistic about how quickly things uh take to get done. So that's very normal, but it's a key learning for you to go through again, isn't it? It's like okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

Yeah. And it was super helpful for me and the team to go, oh, actually, the reason why we're not getting all these things done is there's literally we're planning too many things, there isn't enough time. And it and it it cleared a bit of the fog of do you know? I don't know, sometimes you you your tech team members will say, I haven't got time to do that. But you your initial thing will be everybody on your team has said that.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know, yeah. And they do and they and they do on all the other teams as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:05

But your initial thought can be, right? Well, I'm sure you I'm sure you are just saying that you can get it done. But actually, when you force it, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:13

And we had a really good um experience with Matt, didn't we? In uh I think it was Q3. No, it might have been halfway through last year, actually. And um basically your org chart, which is really normal, like I think there was too much going to Matt. He's trying to run two departments, and instead of actually getting clear on that, he's just carrying it on his shoulders, which means he's pissed off, which then means he's not getting the results, which means you're pissed off. And then it kind of like when you look at it through a lens, it's like, well, it's coming back to you, Matt. And then when we sat and talked about it, he's like, Well, I've got way too much to do. We're like, well, now's the time to talk about that, and actually from that and identifying that and getting clear on that. And I do think this is why trust is so important in a leadership team, because if you if if you're comfortable being honest with each other, you can have these conversations and fix things, whereas if you're not, people hide stuff. They're like, they they could they haven't got the time to do all that stuff, but they don't want to admit it because they think it's gonna look bad or Emma's gonna jump on them. So that's one of the great things about you the way you guys do your courtly plan as well. Like so open and honest. Yeah, um, and out of that came a decision that you that Matt was gonna spend less time on call and we were gonna hire somebody for that, to which Matt hired Tyler, who absolutely like transformed that department. And with and now Matt has got so much time to focus on PA, he's making that 10 times better. So that wouldn't have come about if we weren't having these good conversations, definitely, and bringing just the shit to the surface. It's like you've just got too much to do, mate. Yeah, and but you didn't know that until you planned it and written it down and got specific on it. And I think what happens in most teams is people are not really writing this down and visualising it, so they're trying to do all this stuff and they're just stressed because they're like, I'm oh, I'm not doing a good job. And when actually you spit it out, you're either genuinely not doing a good job or you're trying to do too much, or maybe a bit of both. And normally it's you're trying to do too much.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:51

Yeah, that was definitely our problem.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:53

And it won't come out if we don't write it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:55

Okay, cool. Um, so uh quarterly planning, really getting focused on what our capacity is, going through three quarters of just like trying to do too much and seeing loads of red and getting upset and being like, what the fuck's going on? But that's forced you to realise what um what needed to be done and what the actual bottlenecks were. And then anything else that you can think of, like big picture that's really helped and where are you at now?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

Yeah, I mean, massively. We I mean we've skipped over the fact that we made a huge operational change with you. Yeah. Um, which was I was very aware for a long time that time for money was a massive, well, it's a bottleneck to anybody's business. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:34

Um So charging per hour of your having an hourly rate, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:38

Um it also caused a lot of um grief with you know things taking longer than expected and who's paying for that, and clients getting don't want they don't want shock bills, and then we don't want to absorb all this time we've spent on stuff. Um I also knew uh one of the things that I did last year was spend way too much time worrying about AI and its impact, which you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:58

Yeah, you've only mentioned it a few times. Right, MM and they want to, yeah. What about AI?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:07

Um spent way too much time worrying about that, but I did know that with AI it was going to be easy to well, it's not easy to do things because it's as good as whatever your knowledge of creating the AI. But I knew that performance and outcomes and goals and impact are what people really want. People don't really want 30 hours of time.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:27

And when we were talking about you in 2008 to 2012, like that's what you were known for. You get people a result, they don't care about how much time you're spending on them. Um, literally the start of your journey was I went on my own and then started working with the guy that I worked with before on a consultancy basis or on a fractional. And then you were working less time and building more, and you were both happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:49

So it's like literally getting back to your roots, isn't it? Yeah. What do you say? What do you say? It the more, the more we change, the more we change, the more stays the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:55

Oh, it's Matt's frame that's saying that the more we oh my god, what is it? It's the more things change, the more they stay the same. There we go. Yeah, yeah. Because literally so many times in the past year, you've gone, well, what about X, Y, and Z? And Matt will go, Oh my god, we used to do this and we stopped doing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:08

Well, I was sat in your um, I I've I've you know done a lot of stuff with my piano. I was sat in um sat in your boardroom uh looking at systemizing or building a process for like the staff onboarding. And then I can't remember if you showed it me or I saw it like this thing sticking out the desk. I was like, what's that over there? Oh, it's a staff onboarded handbook that I did three years ago, like buried underneath.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:31

And I was like, Oh, these videos in Kajabi.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:33

Why am I why am I writing stuff when you've already done this? And you kind of like, oh yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

Well, it's because um in the 2023, 2024 period, people were like, Oh, it's not good that anymore. We we shouldn't use it. Then you watched it and you were like, It's mint. It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:46

Yeah, you it's amazing, isn't it, how burned you were by that smear campaign and how that then had a detriment. But it's hard, right? And I think the key lesson for anybody listening there is like stick to your guns.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:56

Stick to your guns, stay focused on your phone. Stick to your guns, stay focused on your vision. If people tell you you're a scumbag, then then ignore them.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

Yeah, well, I just realized like, you know, I guess you stick your head above the parapet, you're gonna get some shit, aren't you? Like, um you it's it would be unusual, I think, if there's any business owner that has not got any kind of story where either a customer or a team member or somebody hasn't been not uh, you know, like has has been against them. Yeah, totally. Um that that is definitely my key learning. Stick with your vision, your guns, it's possible.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:30

Yeah, I mean we have we have a small um one of my clients, Malcolm, well, ex-client really, but I still work with his team. Um, him and I run a mastermind kind of little group community thing for electricians. It's£99 a month, it's not it's not a big investment. They get loads of support from it. We get we go on events, they get and do courtly planning. It's like it's it's ridiculous what they get for the money. Um, we had a guy in there who decided to leave. Um, well, I told him he was leaving actually because he was being a dick. And he basically told, like, I don't even know this guy really. And he basically like sent me like these WhatsApp messages. I think I sent them to you. Yeah. Um, telling me that I was the biggest scumbag on the earth, that I was uh not delivered on what you said you were going to do. That I was and then he said things like, It doesn't surprise me the way that you're reacting to this, and I'm I'm literally giving you money back and said to you later. So he just and and if I'd have taken that to heart, and when I had the first business, I did, but I think, yeah, it's just part of the journey, innit? It's like if you're not willing to if you're not ready to have people uh rub your name in the mud, then you probably shouldn't go into business.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:29

Totally.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:29

And if you let it affect you too much, totally put it on the back foot.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:32

And I do think, without blowing smoke at my own ass, um I actually think one of the most powerful things that I've done with my PA is just help you and Matt get your confidence back into sticking to your vision.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:45

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:45

I actually think out outside of all the structure, I think it's just been repeated conversations around you're really good at what you do, your vision's amazing, hold people accountable to it and it'll work. That's it. I think that's the main thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:58

I do agree. I do agree. We um obviously we were talking we you did help us with this massive operational change, which is we start charging time for money, and that it was huge internally because we had to get the team aligned, um, and we would not have done that as quickly as we did without you, for sure. We'd still be talking about it now.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:19

It's interesting because that making that operational change is a result of believing in your vision and making the business a win-win. You obsessing over AI, and and uh obviously you need to think about AI, and it's your job as an entrepreneur to be aware of it and to be thinking about it and to be planning for it. But I think your energy being consumed by that was again you lacking confidence in your vision. So you're like, what thing do I need to react to? So both of those things come about. Through not being aligned to your vision or getting more aligned to your vision. Yeah. And having belief in yourself. Cool. Um, what have I got on my notes? So I wanted to read a message from Matt. Um I've got and I've asked his permission. So uh this is Emma's head of ops, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:08

And um This is like what Stephen Barlow did with Tony Robbins the other week. Is it? He's like, I want to read you a message from this guy that works with you. Oh it was about how he changed his life. Is this the message like that?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:19

No. You've set this up, you've not set this up for success. So this really made me proud um when Matt sent this through. Like genuinely proud, proud for Matt, proud for you, but but proud for the business as well. And I think I think I'm realising why now. Um, number one, I just love the fact that he's like the the impact that he's having now. But not saying that he wasn't having an impact before, but like I'm taking the business forward again instead of being floating around.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:46

And he's also enjoying it, I think, is the just makes me happy. He's made an impact for the past 10 years, he's worked for me, but now it's like an impact and he's enjoying it, and we can see the fruits of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:55

Yeah, I think obviously that's what makes me happy, like seeing you two because you you two are uh are the longest standing people, obviously you are, but but Matt's been there for years as well, and it was very apparent to me when I came. It wasn't actually until I started working with you, but um it was very apparent very quickly that you guys were basically burnt out and you were just going through the you well, you were you go you were burnt out, you were going through the motions. Yes, you were looking after your clients and doing the day-to-day, but you weren't enjoying it, and everything everything felt like an uphill battle, and you cried a lot. Uh yeah, Matt Matt did it at home. Uh that's what that's when it's blokes cry. So uh anyway, I I sent uh I had a chat with Emma the other day, and she was like, Matt is absolutely smashing it. Um he's doing this, he's doing this, he's sticking to all the systems, he's holding people accountable. The the the department's just going from strength to strength. And I sent Matt a voice note. He's very dry, Matt, so he doesn't like need um Yeah, but he doesn't need the adulation. He's always said that adulation, good word. But I sent him a voice note and I uh to say Emma's just said you're doing amazing. I just thought I'd let you know, and I won't waffle on, but that's what he said. And then he messaged me back and said, I'm just gonna read the message because it's made me proud. He said, Cheers, Mike, exclamation mark. Uh so much of it has simply come down to what must be true. That and getting clarity on the department, not just for me, but for everyone equally, having the transparency of performance public means that higher performers want to crack on, and people that don't want that are being held to account. That and dismantling just how the how much the team loves to uh or has been conditioned to maybe overcomplicate things. 90% of our problems would disappear if everyone just did what they said they would do when they said they would do it. They're beginning to learn that, it's a phrase we're repeating a lot, and having that as a key focus strips away a lot of the BS and nonsense. And that made me really happy to my core because it's it is what we've talked about on this episode, which is just having a vision, believing in it, and holding everyone to account for it. That's what creates a good business. And that will potentially I don't think it will in your business, but that will often mean that some people in your team will leave. Yeah, they're not there for the vision, they're there for comfort. But the ones that are there for the vision, the ones that are gonna make a great culture, will will love it. They'll they'll uh they'll suck it up. And those people that did the smear campaign against you, they didn't care about the vision of my bit. They wanted a comfortable job and they added massive egos and they didn't like the fact that you conflicted with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:13

And we've just got to stick to our guns and yeah, yeah, and your your simplification, if that's a word, of we definitely had a habit of kind of, well, before we do this, we need to do A to Z, whereas you go, well, let's just do A and B and keep it like really simple, really high level. That simplification has helped massively. Um Matt cracked me up, cracked me up the other day because he said that they were talking about a way that they used to do things like an old manager had put a system in and they were all doing it, but all thought it was stupid. Um and Matt said, Well, why are we doing this? And they were like, Well, it's so that like anybody could do it, like even an idiot could do it. And Matt was like, Well, how about we just stop hiring idiots?

SPEAKER_06 1:32:50

Yeah, how about we don't have idiots? How about we don't hire idiots?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:52

And how about we just have the high level so that everybody's kind of guided to the right way and you can do a good job? And I think like that was the element of 2023. We got so down in the weeds of everybody needed everything spoon feeding.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:05

And your simplicity has really, really helped us both.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:09

And you guys get in the confidence back to say that, like, we don't need to have idiots in this business, like we can fire them. Yeah, we can fire them and manage them out if they're you know, and uh we could we we need to do what's right for the business. It's the and that ultimately all comes back to that core forward, doesn't it? What works for Emma, what works for the team, the right team, what works for the bottom line, what works for the customers, and and it need it needs to be that sweet spot in the middle.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:29

Right? I think that brings us to a nice uh conclusion of of the episode. Um what I what I love about you is your openness and honesty. Like you don't hold anything, you don't hold anything back, do you? Like you're very you're very um raw, open and honest. And I think I I mean I'm really excited to put this episode out because it's it's it's an 18-year business journey from somebody in their 20s to in their 50s, in their 40s, um, and all of these different milestones. And I I want to try and make, I don't want to promise that I'm gonna do this, but I want to try and make a little vision of your journey as a business owner and those key stages. I think that'd be really cool to map out and and share with the world. And I know for a fact a lot of business owners are gonna listen to this and be uh find it cathartic, like you said. I hope so, yeah. Because you you're open, you're honest, you talk about the challenges and you you don't hold anything back, and people will resonate with those different stages of your journey. Yeah. And they'll be like, oh fuck, there's a way out of this. Emma's done it. Why can't I?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:23

Yeah, no, totally. I hope so. It is hard, and it's also the most amazing thing that you can ever do, I think, have a business. But I just wanted to say as well, like I kind of touched on it before, but yeah, last year was tough, but we made all of these changes. I feel like it, you know, this year of the snake and year of the fire horse that everybody keeps talking about. I know you're not going to be into this at all. Why? When I was reading about it, I was like, it did feel like Year of the Snake at my PA. We were shedding all of this stuff, we were letting all letting go of everything that didn't serve us. Uh I know you're not woo-woo at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:53

It's making me laugh because Laura sent me this year of the fire horse thing of yesterday. And I just texted back and said, What loads shit? She's like, it's really motivating.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

Um but we are, but it does feel like this is what it's been like for my P8. Because I, since we came back from Christmas, the wherever we're now in the six, seven weeks that we've had, we've hit the sales target each week. Like the team are flying, it's improving every single week. Like we're actually enjoying it. We have a system internally, it's a bit of software called Friday Pulse that helps us manage team happiness.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:24

It's doing nothing but increase week on week, consistently. Like, yeah, I've got the goosebumps in there, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:30

You gave me goosebumps. I love it. Um where do people's new year, not you? Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next year, well, next year is the frozen donkey. So that'll be who knows what that means. Um I made that up. It's not. Don't Google it. Uh where do people go if they want to find out about getting support through my PA?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:50

So uh we are M-I-H-P-A. We're not my PA with a Y.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:55

It's a painting service.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:56

Yeah, it is a painting. No, it's not. There's an M I P A painting in Spain.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:01

Uh so we're M I P A. The um people think is it because it's related to Mills, but it's not just the domain wasn't available at the time. Narcissist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:09

Maybe all business areans have got a little bit of narcissism in them.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:12

Um so to find us, we're miphenpa.co.uk and to find me online, um Emma Mills or MMI P A on every platform.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:20

Yeah, mainly uh you do loads on LinkedIn and Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:23

LinkedIn isn't it.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:23

Yeah, and you're starting through a lot of behind the scenes now. So I think uh if you've enjoyed this episode. If you've enjoyed this episode, go and follow Emma on Instagram and watch her stories because you're you're doing a lot more stuff this year, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:36

Yeah, well it's part of part of the leverage of Emma. We've just employed a video video social content lead. Never had that.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:41

Oh, you mean that thing that when you do it you're really happy and you make loads of money?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:44

I go do that again.

unknown 1:36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:46

Cool. Brilliant. Thanks, Emma.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:48

Thanks, Mike.