#ALB82 – John Warrillow This month’s episode is slightly different, as you know we normally chat with a client, but today we are taking to bestselling author John Warrillow, who is the author of best-selling book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You was recognized by both Fortune and Inc. as one of the best business books of 2011 and just so happens to be John Lamerton’s favourite book. John is also the host of Built to Sell Radio, ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s 10 best podcasts for business owners.  In 2015, John wrote another best-selling book, The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry.  John completes the trilogy with his latest book, The Art of Selling Your Business: Winning Strategies & Secret Hacks for Exiting on Top. Let’s get the house valued Just because you book a valuation, doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to sell your house that month, the same applies for your retirement pot, you check it as you want it to be ready when you are ready to move house or retire. Well, the same applies for your business.   Scaling back The pandemic has been a struggle for most business owners, but what many have realised is that actually they are able to operate a much leaner business model, that perhaps you do not need offices and multiple overheads. And this in turn has seen a trend in more lifestyle businesses being created. Subscription models are the way forward John and Jason are HUGE fans of a subscription model, in fact most of their businesses run on this model. But why do they like them so much? Yes or No How much time would you free up by being able to answer employees’ questions with a simple Yes or No answer? Learn the art of a “Yesable question” So, do you want to sell your business? You probably don’t, but how many of you would like to know you “COULD” sell your business if you wanted too? For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast.

#ALB82 - John Warrillow

#ALB81 – Alun missed the memo regards 1% weekly gains Alun is a registered psychotherapist who works on a 1-2-1 basis with his clients but also teaches and shares his expertise with other psychotherapists through his website fresh therapists. He uses this platform to educate therapists and counsellors on how to achieve transformational change with their clients.  Alun translates the breakthroughs of neuroscience to the therapy room so that other psychotherapists are able to apply it to their own client work.  March seems like only yesterday Alun began his journey with the One Percent Club in March, and it would be fair to say he has fully utilised everything that it had to offer, and the benefits are really speaking for themselves but he’s nowhere near done yet. In his words “all that has happened so far is that it has lifted the bar of what is possible to me”.   Alun used to be fragile As a lot of us already know being self-employed can sometimes leave you in a very fragile state economically, but Alun has rectified this by adding more revenue streams to his business that will continue to make money if he is unable to in the short term Hunting Instinct After reading John’s book Big Ideas for Small Businesses,  Alun decided to hunt John down. He liked the ethos, and although he found some of the questions uncomfortable, he could relate to a lot of what was said. Alun like John and Jason enjoys life and knows that it is very important. All by himself Alun was surrounded by lots of friends and family, but he found himself looking for like-minded business people to ask advice, share ideas, vent and so on. Virtual board members so to speak. He knew he liked what he had read in Johns books and had also asked John to appear on his own podcast. He had pondered joining the One Percent Club, in his mind it was a relatively easy gamble to make. Miss Whiplash If you had asked Alun 6 months ago whether he was looking for accountability he would have proudly told you no, but Alun soon realised that the 1-2-1 weekly calls with Jason who will now be known as Miss Whiplash offered far more than just accountability. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB81 – Alun missed the memo regards 1% weekly gains

For the 5th year running, we have the ALB Summer Special edition with John and Jason. So, what have they been up to this year? Well, there is another book for John on its way “Evergreen Assets” which is currently at the editing stage. 106,000 words was then down to 94,000 then back up to 104,000 he was then totally ruthless and was sitting at 102,000 words and at the time of recording lost another 3000 words and all of that was with just the 1 edit. This book will be available November 2021 and is your one stop ecosystem of doing the work once and then be able to reap the rewards over and over again. BUT you have to do the work. Lockdown It has been a year like no other, and all plans were thrown up into the air but that said it certainly didn’t stop John or Jason with moving the businesses forward.   It has given them time to look at everything within their businesses and fix any holes that may have appeared in those buckets. Concentrating on the assets, the businesses in turn run better. Investment strategies and assets Find out John’s advice on what he classes as assets, is word of mouth an asset? Not according to John, it isn’t. How do you turn 1 customer into 1:1 and so on. Leaky Buckets Do you have any of these? Have you taken the time to identify them? That’s not my burger? Ordering what you want should be the simplest thing shouldn’t it? But it must look like the burger in the picture. How to turn Dave into Oliver? Identifying your customers is crucial, listen to find out ways to turn them from a confused newbie to a seasoned pro. Making sure that handovers happen smoothly. If things start well, they end well. Knock Knock On the 1st September the doors to The One Percent Club will be open again. Find out what some of our last intake have been up to and what you can expect when you join. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB80 - Summer Special

#ALB79 – Why Sarah Lamerton closed the doors after just 18 months 18 months ago Sarah quit her job and started her new business. In that time using the techniques she shares in this podcast she has gained a decade of experience, is currently completely full and has closed her books in order to embrace the lifestyle business she wanted to achieve. School Days Sarah had worked as a teacher for almost 20 years working her way up the ladder to a senior lead in education within the primary years setting. Sarah has always liked to challenge herself but found that the more and more changes schools were expected to go through she was losing her “why”. Square pegs are good Sarah knows how to teach and is a master in not only accepting but also implementing that children are all different and therefore will all learn in different ways. She wanted to take the time to be able to celebrate children’s individuality. Nurture their love for maths and celebrate their results but that is not so easy to deliver within the classroom setting. Words of advice from her spouse Being married to John, Sarah is not a stranger to the Ambitious Lifestyle Business he has strived to achieve, and she was very aware that the pressure she was under from her employed job was far from fitting in that box. But it is not in Sarah’s nature to give up on anything, so she persevered for the time being. Sarah did offload onto John about the pressure the job was bringing, how she felt the longing for an ambitious lifestyle business but still be able to do what she loves and teach. John offered sound words of advice “leave then” The nagging “Who am I doing this for?” and not necessarily agreeing with certain ways of doing things continued to play on Sarah’s mind however. This was then emphasised by her own two children’s experience of school and she realised that school isn’t right for all children and there are most certainly different ways of doing things. 18 months of planning her business  It was definitely not a kneejerk decision, Sarah thought long and hard about this decision to start her own business but she knew it was something she had to do. The original plan was to start the business and continue to teach part time, but soon realised that this was just not going to work. Even part time hours equated to full time when she considered lesson planning, marking and everything else involved. No, all Sarah’s focus would be on her new business.  Who leaves a paid role to start brand new business just before a pandemic? Nobody knew what was around the corner for us back in early 2020 but a global pandemic probably wasn’t high on our lists of things that could go wrong. But Sarah had made her decision she was starting her lifestyle business and as mentioned earlier it is simply not in Sarah’s nature to give up on anything. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB79 – Why Sarah Lamerton closed the doors after just 18 months

#ALB78 – A ticket to Italy please School Days Today’s guest is Andy Keveren, Andy attended 11 different schools and left with no GCSE’S due to his family’s service upbringing. He then went back to college to obtain his GCSE English and Maths, he also studied Business Studies but by his own admission doesn’t remember a thing about that but it is clear that this didn’t stop him creating a successful business. Time to travel He then fell into a job in reinsurance for 5 years but always had a desire to run his own business, but this job kept him for another 2 years before Andy made the decision to pack his bag and do some travelling. The family business In his absence, Andy’s parents bought a hotel in Scotland so when he returned from his travels, he started managing the hotel bar where he was initially offered an hourly rate, in his first week he put in 105 hours, the following week he was put on a salary! Caravan Life Andy still had the itch to run his own business, he had always played football and had thought how cool it would be to sell football kits, his uncle had dabbled in printing a few years ago so Andy knew a little about it. In 2007 Andy’s grandparents were affected by the Gloucester floods and were temporarily housed in a static caravan, they decided to purchase this off the insurance company and Andy decided that he would sell his car, and this would become his first office alongside a garage he converted to be his first stock room. A ticket to Italy please Soon after Andy was introduced to Macron and was given the opportunity to fly to Italy to learn more about them as a company. It was on this trip that Macron offered a business opportunity to own a Macron store with only one condition, he could only sell Macron. Andy put his hand up and from here his journey began. The business started with a bang (literally) Andy had secured a unit which was rent free for the first year and Macron had helped set up the shop, all was good to go however on Andy’s first day he went to get some milk and was hit at a junction by another car traveling at 50mph and ended up in hospital. That did not stop Andy though and the business continued to grow, in 2010 Andy met his wife who had retrained as a photographer and had pulled in some help from his cousin to do some printing, in 3-4 years Andy had around 4 staff and all was well. Macron had a big budget for advertising, but Andy had the flexibility to run the business his way, so it really was a win win situation. Time to scale up or is it? Andy wanted to grow and grow his business or at least he thought he did. Andy purchased Johns first book and really invested into it, so much so he decided to join the Ambitious Lifestyle Business page, shortly followed by the One Percent Club. Andy is not afraid to say that his personality does not lend itself well to network groups, but the One Percent Club is different it is a smaller group full of likeminded people. Through his journey with the One Percent Club he has established some great connections from an accountant who does things differently and his graphic designer. Life is all about balance Andy has a family and wanted to ensure he doesn’t miss them growing up, he has worked hard on his growth through robust processes which has enabled him to get the perfect balance. To find out more about what Andy’s business can offer, check out his website. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB78 - A ticket to Italy please

This month’s guest is Dan Harrison who is the Director and lead developer at WPdoctors Dans whirlwind romance with WordPress  Dan accidentally slipped into the world of WordPress back in 2005, when it was only a couple of years old. It has since become a very significant platform for websites. Over time his aspirations started to grow, and he wanted more and more, but this resulted in him working himself to the bone and becoming quite low. He found himself surrounded by people, sucking up their environment and invaluably seduced by it, which he says is easy to do when you don’t know what you want, the less focused you are the more attractive it seems. The more focused you are is when you realise it is an alien environment and actually you don’t want it at all. Dan loves a problem Dan wanted to focus on one thing, and do that one thing really, really well, he had realised that there was a significant demand for WordPress-specific help, and he realised this was something  and from there he created the brand WP Doctors (or WordPress Doctors) to specifically look after businesses that need technical help, creating themes, plugins or solving problems with their WordPress websites. Look out Christopher Dean Dan loves a good shopping list and has created one for the things he wants to achieve which includes a trip to Machu Picchu and learning how to ice skate! Find out how Dan spent £350 and saved himself £75k He realised that you don’t have to own something to experience it, and actually sometimes just trying it is enough to realise it isn’t important to you at all. When children talk, listen Dan has a son and asked him what he thinks is fun and if he had £1 million pond what would he spend it on? Focus on what you ACTUALLY want and stick to a plan especially if it involves luxury marshmallows For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB77 - Dan Harrison

Lee Penton spent years building a small graphic design agency, only to find that his business was running him, not the other way around. He was burning out, and needed to find another way. One "lightbulb moment" later, Lee now pays as much attention to designing his business and lifestyle, as he does to designing websites and logos - and he's now teaching others how to build a freelance business that serves them.

ALB76 - "I thought if I worked harder, everything would be alright..."

The One Percent Club March intake closes at 9pm on Wednesday March 31st. Click here to join, or find out more. In this episode, John answers some of the questions you asked in a recent "Ask Me ANYTHING..."

Ask Me ANYTHING: The Answers...

Emma Walton was a teacher, with two (very!) young children at home when she started her Tuition business - and through a process of constant, never-ending improvement, Emma’s business has grown alongside her kids. She now employs 45 tutors, and helps 350 children a week, as she’s designed her business as an ambitious, lifestyle business - to deliver the lifestyle that she TRULY wants. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

ALB75 - Mummy by Day, Business Owner By Night

Whether you call them 1% gains, Winner Stays On, Marginal Gains, optimisation, or Constant And Never-ending Improvement - doesn't matter. What matters is that you strive to be better tomorrow than you were today. The One Percent Club is NOT about growing your business. A bigger business often means more stress, more problems and more responsibilities.  More isn’t better. Better is better. The One Percent Club won’t help you GROW your business. It’ll help you IMPROVE your business, so that it delivers the lifestyle you TRULY want The One Percent Club doors are open until March 31st at 9pm - https://bigidea.co.uk/opcc

More isn't better. BETTER is better.

Nine years ago, James Marks sat, head in hands at his kitchen table, wondering how he was going to pay the bills. Today, James owns a number of businesses, employs 34 people, and has systemised his entire operation - leaving him free to write romance novels. Yes, really.  In this episode, James tells us exactly how he became an “overnight success” in those nine years. In this episode, you’ll discover: How James started his very first business by searching Google for “how to run a window cleaning round” after his interest-free credit cards ran out. James’s constant devotion to personal development and self improvement. How a One Percent Club coaching call helped James realise that he needed to systemise his business. How, as a result of that systemisation work, James removed himself from the day-to-day work. The rule of 3 and 10 - that predicts exactly when your business systems will break. The time that James devotes to creating evergreen assets - including ghostwriting romance novels under a pen name! How wrong we all were about 2020 - hoping for “a year of plain sailing”, and declaring it would be “the year of travel” - oops! 

ALB 74 - THE NINE-YEAR OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

#ALB73 – The man who keeps people connected….. Tony Smith This month’s guest is Tony Smith, Tony served 30 years with Lincolnshire police before enjoying some well-deserved rest in retirement. But it wasn’t long before he started getting restless, and when his son took redundancy and started up his own business a discussion took place. Tony joined his son and together they grew the business that is Genius Technology Solutions which is now over 10 years old. Working with family members can be tricky, as some of you may know! But after a realisation that texting or calling at 9pm would not be acceptable in any other job. Tony and his son put in place some ground rules, to ensure thy both got the downtime they both needed. The business has consistently grown and where his son finds himself looking after the enterprise side of things Tony looks after the SME’s. Genius Technology Solutions provides all types of phones, from VOIP, mobiles and landlines plus broadband connectivity and Wi-Fi. Last year we relied heavily on keeping connected virtually, and truly appreciated how important it is whether that has been for business or to speak to friends and family. This is something Tony has known for years. Thank you to Tony for being our first guest of 2021. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB73 – The man who keeps people connected….. Tony Smith

So, the end of 2020 is in sight and I am sure that it will be a welcomed goodbye for a lot of us. But firstly we have the upbeat and uplifting #ALB Christmas Special podcast with John and Jason, which has become a bit of a Christmas tradition, so grab yourself a festive beverage to sip on, sit back and enjoy an hour of John and Jason as they reflect upon 2020, the ups and downs, and their plans for 2021. They discuss their book of the year, word of the year, what they have learnt and how they have helped others overcome what has been a particularly tricky year for all business owners. For all of the John’s book fans out there, you will be pleased to hear some news he has for you all too. And finally, we would like to wish all of you a very happy and healthy Christmas. Stay safe and here’s to 2021. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB72 - Christmas Special 2020

In this months episode, we have our One Percent Club resident Facebook ads expert Danny Harris. If Facebook ads are what you need advice on Danny is the man to go to, when he started working in this industry, he was purely managing Facebook pages for people. There was no advertising involved, times have moved on and now he works much more on the advertising side of things because Facebook pages have changed and Facebook as we all know has evolved.  The next stage for Danny, will be to teach other people how to do run their own pages effectively. When an advert comes on the TV, that's when you pick your phone up and watch your phone rather than watching the advert on the TV. So previously what was the audience on the TV is now much more on Facebook, on social media, online generally, and with Facebook being by far the most used website on the planet and people spend more time on it and any other, they basically, can't not work. Danny also has a whole concept of starting a charity at some point. And the point of the charity will be to help underprivileged kids. It will be focusing on teaching them about things like online marketing, so that they can learn a different route to perhaps the unpleasant routes that a lot of disadvantaged kids end up going down sadly. Danny’s business is called DH2026 Ltd, now the first part of that company name is probably quite self-explanatory, but what does the 2026 mean? Well Danny has a plan and that will be revealed in the podcast. For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB71- Danny Harris the man with the 6-year plan

This months guest is Steve West owner of The Pudding Compartment, (John’s perfect client). Steve makes delicious handcrafted cakes, biscuits, flapjacks, Brownies, sticky, toffee, puddings cookies, scones, you name it, all white labelled for businesses such as Virgin trains and 2016 apprentice winner Alana Spencer. Steve joined the One Percent Club 6 months ago with 3 clear goals, there have been many obstacles that many business owners have faced over the last few months, Steve included but despite this, those goals are still in place and Steve is well on track to achieving them all!! For links to everything we talk about, including the video recording of the episode and transcription of everything we talked about, head over to the show notes at bigidea.co.uk/podcast. And to watch the LIVE recording of each episode of the Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast, join our Facebook Group for FREE - you can then watch our ugly mugs in glorious technicolour every month, as well as get BONUS in-between-isodes, and direct access to both of us to ask any questions about this, or any other episode.

#ALB70 - The man who proves "You can have your cake and eat it"

Are you a small business owner who likes to think BIG? Then the Big Idea Podcast is for YOU. Every week, Marketing and Business experts John and Jason will provide you with a no BS, ads'free, zero upsell podcast that actually works. John and Jason have built 5 separate six-figure-plus businesses together, and know what it takes to take a small business and make it B-I-G.

hubhopper

Ambitious. Lifestyle. Business. Podcast.

hubhopper