In this episode of WealthTalk, Christian Rodwell and Kevin Whelan sit down with James Vincent, ActionCoach Performance Director, to uncover the power of coaching in business and wealth-building.
Discover how mastering recurring income, leveraging systems, and overcoming entrepreneurial challenges can lead to long-term financial security.
James dives into why coaching is a game-changer for entrepreneurs, sharing how learning from mistakes and building a business with scalable systems creates value for both you and potential buyers.
Plus, James shares more about the exciting Young Entrepreneur Smart Start programme and ActionCoach’s million-pound giveaway, designed to supercharge your business journey.
Tune in to learn how smart decisions today can set you up for a successful future!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
>> Enter ActionCoach’s £1M business giveaway
>> YESS (Young Entrepreneur Smart Start) Program
>> WT145: 'Brad Sugars, Founder of ActionCoach, talks wealth & business'
>> WT257: 'The Young Entrepreneur Smart Start Program w/ Denise Pitot'
Next Steps On Your Wealth Building Journey:
>> Join the WealthBuilders Facebook Community
>> Schedule a 1:1 call with one of our team
>> Become a member of WealthBuilders
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Christian Rodwell (00:02.018)
purpose of Wealth Talk is to educate, inform and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth Builders recommends you should always take independent financial, tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances. Today's episode is brought to you by Wealth Builders Membership, a proven step-by-step process that helps you achieve financial security within two to three years. find out more, head to wealthbuilders.co.uk forward slash membership.
Welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for Wealth Builders, joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whelan. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Chris. Good to be with you again. Focusing on business today. And if you remember, a couple of weeks ago, you might have heard us interviewing Denise Pito, who's from Action Coach. She heads up the Action Coach Foundation. And we were talking in that episode about the Young Entrepreneur Smart Start program. And today we've got another member of Action Coach.
which is the action coach performance director, James Vincent. And we know James well, Kevin. In fact, you were a guest on his podcast earlier this year, weren't you? Yeah, I was indeed. And he asks great questions, a very enthusiastic guy. You'll hear that loud and clear and make some great distinctions for all of us in business, one or two that I have to say I found very fascinating for myself. So yeah, always good and never too late to learn something and get a distinction from.
somebody else, which my podcasts are so great because you can hear so many great distinctions and just take the ones that you like. And I noticed you try to stick a bit of gym ron in there for good measure. Always try and get a bit of gym in there when I can. Yeah. So of course, Action Coach are the global franchise, the most successful business coaching franchise in the world and headed up by Brad Sugar. And James is really at the top of the tree as well. He looks after all of action coaches in the UK as he's
will tell us, you know, making sure that they're razor sharp, they're ahead of the game, because there's hundreds of business, in fact, thousands of business owners in the UK being coached through the Action Coach Network. We'll talk about how important coaching is today. But of course, we'll dive into business as an asset class, Kevin. Of course, coaching is important for us at Wealth Builders as well. We have our team of wealth coaches and our promise to our members is that we will help them to achieve financial security within three years. And we know that
Christian Rodwell (02:26.05)
having a coach is absolutely vital to achieving that. Unquestionably. I know there are cheaper ways to do it. And the DIY solution is not a great solution. You'll hear James talk about the importance of coaching. So I'll let him be elegant on that one and even eloquent if I get my words right. But the point about wealth building coaching, which is distinctive from business coaching, is we're focused on holistically.
helping anybody, whether they're in business or in a job, to build recurring income streams to become financially secure, then financially independent. And here's a question, Chris. If you add the VAT, it costs about 10,000 pounds to work with us for three years to become financially set for life. And we give a guarantee that if you're not, we'll work with you until you do.
Do you think there were some people out there who would spend 10,000 to have three to 5,000 a month for the rest of their life and then have the time back to be able to build that up to five and six and seven and eight and so on? Do think there's some people who might want to do that? I know there's some people can't afford it and that's fine. But if you're serious about being wealthy, there's a roadmap, there are coaches, there's intellect, there's distinctions to follow.
Maybe we've never really talked loudly, Chris, about prices and stuff. Maybe we should. You know, I don't think it's too high a price to pay. And frankly, if somebody said it's too high a price to pay, go figure the alternative. You know, you're to have to work in a job or work in your business for 30 years to achieve the same result. I don't know. I'd rather do it in five than 30. But then again, I haven't got 30 years left, have I really?
No, it's a fair point. And yeah, I'm sure one that will resonate with the right people. know, at the heart of the wealth builders model is the seven pillars of wealth and the seven different assets that you can use to generate recurring income. And pillar five, asset number five is business, which is what we're going to talk about with James today. So should we head on over to James and mine conversation? Let's have a listen to the golden nuggets from from our friend.
Christian Rodwell (04:47.008)
All right, let's head on over to today's conversation with James Vincent.
Okay, pleased to be joined today by Action Coach Performance Director James Vincent. How are you James? Very good to be seeing you again, sir. I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, me too. And where in the world are you today, James? Nottingham, sunny Nottingham, still beautifully and summer up here. Wonderful place indeed. All right, cool. So today we're to be talking about business growth, wealth creation, personal development. Got a lot of questions for you, James. I know that you're going to be able to answer.
these without any problem at all. But let's start off. Tell us a little bit about what being action coach performance director involves. it's joy. It's a bundle of joy. I wake up with a smile on my face every morning with a skip in my stride. Why? Because I get to help the people that help everybody else. So we've got just shy of 200 coaches here in the UK and a business coach is there to help a business grow. But where action coach come in, they're pretty much the best when it comes to
business growth in terms of strategic transactional systems that they're putting into a business. But then you've got the mindset growth as well of the individual. And that's what's so special about Action Coach is founded by Brad Sugar's 1993 Australia. He's like the best of a mindset coach and the best of business all merged into one. And the secret ingredient that he's got is your ingredient, which is wealth creation as well. So blends all three elements in. And my job is to
Help all of our coaches deliver excellent in standards of coaching. We believe in business excellence. We believe in coaching excellence. And my job is to lift the standard of coaching across the UK here. So that's what I do each day. I think that's why we love working with you guys at Action Coach, because there's a lot of similarities, of course, at Wealth Builders. We talk about seven pillars of wealth and business is one of those pillars, one of those asset classes. So what do you like business so much as an asset class for wealth creation, James?
Christian Rodwell (06:50.39)
Well, it's a bit sexier, isn't it, than the other ones, know, investing in stocks and shares and property. Or you can have fun, get under the bonnet of business and build your own baby type thing. So yeah, business is entertaining. It's the highs and lows. It's the excitement of life. It's something that you own that you can see growing. But the biggest reason I like business so much.
I used to work in sport. So I went to couple of Olympic games, Beijing and London. And in sport, there's only one winner. In business, no. There's enough for everyone. Everyone can win. That's why I like business. Because everyone's got a shot. Everyone's got the same opportunity. Everyone can become a millionaire. Everyone can become a multimillionaire. Some people want to become billionaires. You can in business. And I suppose the biggest thing, though, is
When you go on this journey of self discovery, a journey of developing yourself into someone who's totally capable in all areas, which is the journey that we take people on, you become something incredible. That's the biggest gift that I get about watching the people just become amazing and competent at business and life become better people and better parents and better managers and better friends. There you go. That's why I love business so much.
no hiding places. why then do so many people find business challenging particularly in those first few years James? Well it's not supposed to be easy is it? Unfortunately the world doesn't serve us with silver platters each day. There you go sir, you go Christian, how would you like your steak today? Unfortunately the world deals like this, it deals the cards out and it deals in problems.
It's not smooth. It's everything but smooth. And it's supposed to be that way. The world is imperfect and you just got to deal with them. Now, some people at first, when you, when you've been dealt the problem, it can hurt you. As you start growing and learning how to deal with problems and accepting you'll deal with problems, you stop seeing them as problems. Now your, mindset's getting stronger and you're dealing with them quickly. And usually the transition it goes problem, challenges.
Christian Rodwell (09:16.268)
And then people get to a certain level, there's like, that's an opportunity. Bam, I'm going at it. And at that point, you're a performer because you're enjoying the challenge. You're enjoying the pains. you'll get this, Christian, because success doesn't really teach you. You can hear a lot about, you hear a lot of this one, success leaves clues. It does. You can get clues from success. So it is well.
Documented is that if you like or stated success leaves clues. Kind of does. Success, the biggest thing about success is it gives you a hit of confidence. It makes you feel good. Yes, I'm on the right track. Mistakes though, they don't leave clues. They teach you. You learn more from your mistakes than you do from success. And your biggest mistakes are your biggest teachers.
People listening to this right now, answer these questions in your head. I'm gonna ask probably three or four questions in a row. Very quickly, you'll get yourself to a place where you're like, my God, what's the biggest financial mistake you've ever made? You even think about it, don't say out loud, Christian. Everyone listening now, think about it. Second question, why did you make it? Now this is learning. Why did you make those mistakes? Because this, this and this. is an awful question.
How much more money would you have right now if you didn't make that mistake?
Christian Rodwell (10:49.422)
Take the learnings. When things go wrong, what should we do? Learn. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. The reality is that most people stress. Most of the world, they know they should learn, yet they choose to stress. Stress is part of life, isn't it? Performance management is stress management. So James, you've been involved in coaching for over 10 years, am I right? In action coach over 10 years, I've been a...
Performance Director, Action Coach, 10 and half years now. Yeah. And how many business owners do you think you've worked with in that time? Hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands influenced, either coached directly or indirectly through our coaches. So hundreds of thousands. Each week, currently in the UK, we're coaching 3,500 businesses. We're on the cold face of it. We're seeing what's happening.
We're innovating behind the scenes. Part of my job is to innovate and keep the people that we're working with ahead of everyone else. Keep them ahead. Keep them winning. Keep them sharp. Keep them focused. And look, your situation that you're in impacts how you feel more than anything else. You know, if you're a little bit of a stressful situation at home and one of the kids has gone really, really sick.
All of a sudden the situation has changed and it has a dramatic impact on your emotions, doesn't it? So people's situations change. The economy is in a situation right now. The economy, we're all in this situation. We're on our knees, seriously on our knees. For the last 18 months, people have been talking recession this, recession that, inflation over here, debt.
We're a nation of debt. The debt has accumulated more than we ever know. And if we compare the UK to Europe, we are number 11 on productivity. That is a major issue. In how much we produce, we're number 11. And the answer to everyone listening right now, the answer to their own success is in there. We've got to produce more. Make more profit.
Christian Rodwell (13:12.142)
and work less. Make more profit and work less. And the answer is be more productive because we can do it. I'd say we can do it because we're proving it all day every day. This is bread and butter for me. So for all those thousands, hundreds of thousands of business owners that you've had some interaction with over the last few years then, James, do you see any common trades? Do you see a reason?
why people decide to start a business. Is it for the freedom? Is it because they've identified a problem they believe they can solve? Are there a few that you can share that you see coming up? This is the first commentary I see. They are amazing people. Apps, business owners, entrepreneurs, these are incredible people. They've got a bit of a spark and a fire inside. They want more. They've got that.
really important asset, is called desire. And that desire is fire burning in your belly, if you like. I want to achieve, I'm starting my business, I want more in life. So they're already getting themselves into personal development. They're already thinking ahead. I learned this statistic yesterday, was freaky. 40 % of the world's self-made millionaires are dyslexic and 35 % of entrepreneurs.
printers are dyslexic. People come into business from all sorts of areas for all sorts of reasons. And I do see some traits that are ambitious, number one. And the ones that see that win is the really open and receptive to new ideas and new information, not just open-minded to new ideas, willing to take action.
That's a different thing to be an open-minded actually being willing to act on new information. So I do see the, the ones that we work with, the ready to take action. but yeah, the, biggest thing I see in, in. Entrepreneurs starting a business. Number one, the good people, number two, they've got ambitions. It's really good starting place. Desire to win though is one thing and refusing to lose is a completely different thing. The discipline that's required.
Christian Rodwell (15:36.022)
is very different to the ambition that's needed. It sounds like the same thing, refuse to lose, desire to win. It's not. It's polar opposite. It's where the magic happens, refusing to lose. It's the hardest and toughest bit of business. It's where the persistence gene is created. Those who persist eventually win. A couple of points you made there, James, I want to pick up on. You mentioned personal development. Well, I think my life turned around when I first
kind of got hooked on personal development. for me- made you get into it? What was the catalyst? What made you get into personal development? It was very specific. I'd been traveling when I was younger, in my early twenties, been away for 16 months. And I came back and my best friend picked me up in his car and he said, have a listen to this CD. And he popped in a Jim Rohn CD, The Art of Exceptional Living. And Jim's got a funny voice, if you've never heard him before, it's a bit of a twang, American twang. And
I just got hooked from that very second and led me down the path of everything else Robert Kiyosaki, think and grow rich. But Jim Rohn's one of his quotes and there's many great quotes from Jim, but he said, profits are better than wages. And you also mentioned the word entrepreneur. So I want to kind of combine these two things. Are all business owners entrepreneurs? And do you think they're driven by this thought that they don't want to trade time for money?
You know, they want to generate profit. They want to be more in control of their wealth. I roll business entrepreneurs. So I mean, depends on your definition. So if I'm, if I'm going to answer this, I'll go with one of my mentors. So one of the perks of my job is I get coached by Brad Sugar's will number one in business coaching. And he would unequivocally say, absolutely not. They're not entrepreneurs. the entrepreneur is one of the last things that you actually become an entrepreneur.
has got a portfolio of businesses where he's got CEOs or managing directors managing each of the businesses that he or she owns. an entrepreneur has got a real portfolio of businesses at top and they're investors. An entrepreneur is a big investor, like huge investor in all different types of businesses. And the reality is when you start a business, you're not at that investment
Christian Rodwell (17:59.34)
stage yet. You've got each business under management. by definition, you're not an entrepreneur yet. He calls this the entrepreneur ladder and you go through stages of growth. You go through learning, from being self-employed to learning how to be a manager. When you start your business, really people are starting a job, exchanging time for money. Certainly a top level entrepreneur doesn't exchange time for money. What they're thinking of is, I'm not making more money when I sleep.
That's what they're thinking of at the moment. When you start your business, you think, am going to survive? So this is the stage and then you got to start managing the business and systems run the business. Your team run the systems and only once you go to the team running the systems, can you get into leadership in a big way. So everything before that is management and management is about productivity and competence. You've got to be productive and you have got to be competent and then everybody else that you bring into the business, you've got to develop the competence levels at delivering what you're delivering.
Management comes first. Leadership comes second. Once we've got everything under management and leadership is about passion, communication and focus. Focus on what? The main thing. See for an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur, keeping the main thing, the main thing is their main thing. So what is the main thing? That's strategy, isn't it? It's where we're going.
It's his leadership in its purest form. You know, once you've got a team developed and they're all then running the systems, now we can start thinking of scaling up and replicating and building the management team and getting the business under management. And everything I'm sharing here is classically learned from Brad Shugart's. And then it's freedom is the top bit. And when we're at that freedom level, now we're becoming an entrepreneur. Where can I diversify? Where can I invest?
And that's the journey. Typically it takes us between three and five years to get someone from like infancy stage to that point where someone's an entrepreneur. So on that, the last point I'll make here is coaching is a long-term sport.
Christian Rodwell (20:14.978)
Who's your football team? Who's your team? It's Fulham. Fulham. So you imagine that they bring the manager into Fulham, the coach, and they get Fulham to the top of the tables after 10 games. That'd be nice, wouldn't it, Christian? Be a rare sight. Yeah, but imagine then, you know, once we've got to the top of the tables, imagine if the board said, all right, we know what we're doing now. Thanks, coach. We'll just let the team self-manage from here.
wouldn't work would it? You see sport gets it. Sport gets it. In fact the better you get, the more coaches you have.
You Jessica Ennis, the lady of the London Olympics, she had like seven or eight coaches. think Fulham, how many coaches have they actually got Fulham? would imagine similar number six or seven, probably. Yeah, they will. They've got someone for this part of the game. They've got someone for that part of the game. Coaching's for champions and it's a long term sport.
And the better you get, the better people you need around you, more of them. So would I be right to suggest then James, based on some of the things you've just said there, that really business is ultimately just a series of different systems, like a marketing system, a sales system, a financial system, and you've got to understand and then ultimately extract yourself and put people into those seats. So they're operating and running those different systems.
And probably a key word that links a lot of that together is the word leverage, right? You said leveraging people, leveraging systems. Ultimately, they're the two forms of leverage. Yeah. mean, look, leverage is really important for the listeners right now because most people are not natural leverage thinkers. And leverage means, how can I make my life easier? You know, when you wake up in the morning, it's a very common thought. It's like, whoa, what have I got to do today?
Christian Rodwell (22:19.298)
So this is a trap in life and business. What have I got to do today? I've got to do this. I've got to do this. I've got to do this. That's anti leverage. You know, imagine waking up thinking, right, how can I make my life easier today? What could I do today that literally makes everything easier? And that's what a leverage thinker is. Systems, systems is a leverage. You build systems in your business so that you don't have to do it.
I mean, look at technology and AI right now. That's leverage. What AI can I use today that's going to my life easy? What AI can this business use to make us more productive? If you're not asking these questions right now, by the way, from technology and AI, and this is not a technology AI conversation, I've just, I've learned from the world's best, I'm fourth from the business here. So if we're not asking these questions, you're going to be left behind. mean, because this change is coming, good change.
The opportunity for business right now is higher than it's ever been. As long as we're producing, as long as we're producing. And in a world of AI, if you look at the exponential growth that you can see coming in a world of exponential growth, you definitely don't want to be left behind.
Powered by AI, powered by technology is the new mindset in business. When you wake up, it's your mindset. know, take positively, I know I'm speaking directly here, you know, minus any arrogance or if you don't know me, any of this kind of thing, there's none of that. It's all encouragement. It's all encouragement.
Talking about that leverage of people, people around you with knowledge, with skill, with experience, how important is it for business owners to have a coach, do you think, to guide them through the growth and the scaling process? Have the right coach, really important. You can't do it without one. You just can't. See, it's one of them things like discipline. You can be disciplined. Some people are quite disciplined. They're just not a lot disciplined. You're the easiest person for anyone to let down in this world as yourself.
Christian Rodwell (24:28.622)
do it tomorrow. Go to the gym tomorrow. yeah, I'll do those pushups later on. It's easy to let yourself down. When you've got the right people around you, it's hard to let them down. And especially, I mean, you people go to a coach for lots of different reasons. The goal because some people is like, I want someone to answer my tough questions that I just don't know about. Some people want to confident. Some people want the accountability that I've alluded to there because we all need a bit of accountability.
Some people need a lot of accountability, by the way. Some really successful people on the planet, I'm not gonna mention any names, but some of the most successful people in the world I've worked with and coached, they will say to me, I need stupid levels of accountability. Do not let me off. So accountability is part of it, being able to, the knowledge sharing.
Helping with direction being a confidant Keeping people focused being a friend. These are all reasons why people want a What's your reason? Ideally, what would you want from a coach? Over the next 12 months just think about that right now and whatever you're answering that's going to give you some Direction for who you should be looking for the type of person you should be looking for. So is you've got to find the right coach
You want them to have a system. That's where action coach is just incredible. They've, mean, I came in 10 and a half years ago and I was like, I've been in the coaching game for 12 years before that. And I studied coaching and what makes people better and all this kind of stuff. And I was blown away. It was like, Whoa, look at this system. We just implement that implement that every area of business. And that system has been evolving now for
31, 32 years. It is the biggest and deepest business growth system on the planet. leads us on quite nicely, James, because you've recently put an incredible offer actually into the marketplace. Can you tell us a bit more about this, please? yeah, it's fun as well. And I like this because everyone can win. This is the truest win-win-win.
Christian Rodwell (26:54.752)
You can even imagine. there's a million pound up for grab. It's a million pound up for grab. So we've put an offer to the marketplace where if you know anyone that's a business owner, you can refer them and what they will get. They will get a discovery call where we start getting under the bonnet of a business to get some new ideas for how to start growing the business. A deep dive strategy call for exactly.
how to achieve what they wanna do and a full day 90 day planning session all on us. So that's just a gift. So the person that you refer would get that. Not only that, if they sign up for one of our pain coaching programs, we've a guarantee by the way, we've guaranteed return on results. And if they sign up for a program at four, nine, five or above, you as the referrer,
will receive a thousand pounds check. Maybe not a check. That's the old, that's old school, isn't it? Maybe it should be a check actually, come through in the post. But you'll receive a thousand pound and both you and the person you referred will be put into a pot. A pot that's gonna grow a thousand pound will be put in.
both your names, you'll get a ticket each. And once a thousand people have been referred, that's a thousand times a thousand, there'll be a million pounds over here. And that will be randomly drawn. So if a thousand different people referred, you'd have literally, because you'd each get a ticket, you'd have a one in 2,000 chance of winning a million pound. mean, that is exponentially better than winning the lottery, But if you refer 10 people.
You'll not only get 10,000 pound, you'll also have a one in 200 chance of winning a million pound. It's pretty cool. Everyone wins. Get referring anyone that you know, they'll get all of that. We're backing ourselves with guarantees for everyone. The pressure's on us, not you. We're not to grow your business. We want to grow your business. We want to work with you. That's a no brainer. So
Christian Rodwell (29:20.044)
I'll link to that in the show notes. So if you're listening now, just hit the link right now. Don't delay. That's fantastic. Thanks for that, James. again, just shows the wonderful breadth of what Action Coach does and a global business, right? So obviously your focus is on the UK, but Action Coach is all around the world impacting lives and now rippling as well to the next generation. So a couple of weeks ago, we had Denise.
Pito who's heading up the Action Coach Foundation. Perhaps, you know, for anyone who didn't catch that episode, just give us a little bit around the smarts program that you're running as well there. Yeah, it's called the YES program. Y-E-S-S. The young entrepreneur smart start. So all of the education and systems and knowledge and all of this experience that we've got, it just seems a shame to wait until when you need it because
What we're doing now is we're putting this into young people that want to grow a business when the time's right for them. So I do believe it's anyone from age 12 upwards, the young entrepreneurs, that smart start, we will teach you, educate you how to grow a business, but grow it properly. Not how to grow a business, how to grow one properly so that you can eventually achieve serious wealth.
And when I say wealth, I also mean health, because you can't be wealthy if you're not healthy. They go hand in hand. So if you learn to build a business properly, you can learn how to exit that business with serious wealth.
and change your life and change all of the lives of the people that you employ. business owners listening now, James, shall we give them some nuts and bolts, like actionable things that they can take away right down, right now? And a phrase that I've heard Brad say in the past, the most important formula you'll ever learn in business, something that an action coach, you call the five ways. Would you mind just explaining why this is so critical? It is the most important formula. It's profit, isn't it? So look,
Christian Rodwell (31:33.474)
Before we get into the five ways, let me just just layer on some of the important stuff What's what's better a business that's turning over a million with a 200k profit or a business that's turning 10 million with a 200k profit Just answer in your head The business is turning over 1 million. It's 10 times better than the business is turning over 10 million Because the margin is better 10 million with 200k profit. You're not sleeping at night if you own that business Okay, so
It's all about the margins. Profitability masteries, margin mastery. You got to manage that. Now there's loads of ways of developing profit, but the first one is you got to become profit focused. Like we've just said on that little analogy or example, you got to become profit focused. And when, soon as you become profit focused, then, then you want to look at the money making machine. This, the cup that says love on the front, you will love this.
This is the money making machine. All right, Christine, go with me on this. Everybody's learning from you here, Christine. We're all here, Christine. And you're to put 100 pound in this money making machine.
And then you're gonna walk around here and on this side, it's gonna spit out about 30 seconds later, 200 pound. What are you gonna do? I'm sprinting back around to the other side. Sprinting back around. All right. That's the first lesson. That's the first lesson in making money. Invest. Develop the investment mindset. If you cannot get used to spending less than you earn, there's plenty of people that waste money. There's plenty of people listening in here that spend money, new toys, new handbags, new shoes, whatever it is.
And there's some people that invest. The first lesson and most important, if you want a money making machine, is you develop the investment mindset. All right, you got 200 quid. Now you put it in 400 out. What are you going to do? Probably going to keep doing that for a couple of more times. All right. So, but let's, let's just, speed this process up. You call it 500 pound, not 400. 500 comes a thousand, thousand comes 2000, 2000 comes 4,000, 4,000 comes 8,000. What are you going to do?
Christian Rodwell (33:45.162)
I might siphon a little bit off to enjoy myself. There you go. And there's the next one. You're allowed to enjoy yourself. Give yourself permission. Be savvy. Get used to spending less than you earn and treat the family. Go home and celebrate and say, look, we've done something. Take them out for a swanky meal. Book a nice holiday. But what you're doing is you're building the money making machine and what's inside the money making machine. Everyone wants a money making machine.
What is producing is it's producing customers is producing turnover revenue sales whatever you want to call it and profit that's where it's producing. What's producing it. This is the secret this is the bit that people need to know lead generation. We don't focus on profit we don't focus on turnover we don't focus on customers we focus on the lead generation.
So we implement a system, part of this money making machine, that gets you more and more leads. Right. Second part is conversion rates. So lead generation is marketing, conversion rates is sales. We implement a system in your business where conversion rates increase. There's a marketing system, there's a sales system, then we implement a system.
that starts getting you recurring revenue. It starts your customers coming back more and more and more and more. So we increase, we put this system in that increases recurring revenue streams. Wow, cool. This is part of the money making machine, by the way. There's three critical ingredients so far. I'm giving you all of these. So the next one is average sale. If only a customer spent more money with you, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Well, we implement a system where your average sale will increase. By the way, those two.
recurring revenue and average sale. Even though they are marketing, they're your operations of a business. better value you deliver, customer experience, the more people will pay you. So we're putting these systems in. And the last system we're putting is the margin system. Profit mastery is margin mastery. We absolutely manage and build a margin system.
Christian Rodwell (36:11.512)
that just changes everything to profit. I've seen that bill in a business as quick as three months and as slow as six.
So within three to six months, you could have this money-making machine in your business. And then everything else becomes easier. So just go through them again, lead generations, marketing, conversion rate sales, recurring revenue is delivery. Average sale is delivery. Margins is finance. You've got a holistic system that's implemented inside your business.
increase all of those numbers. I said five things and Christine, you said there were five things at the start. Those are the five things. That's it. That's it. Well, I hope you were taking notes there if you're listening, let's look at the link between business wealth and freedom, should business owners start with the end in mind? And another guest on Wealth Talk we've had is John Morillo, someone you know well. He wrote one of his books, Built to Sell. So
Let's talk about the idea of building a business from day one with a view to selling it. Well, I've had this a little bit of a cost correction recently by some very astute, intelligent person. One of them was a dragon off Dragon's Den. Another one was someone who built and sold a business for 200 million. And I'm a firm believer in lightning doesn't strike twice. So I met these two people on two different occasions, very closely to each other.
And the both said verbatim exactly the same words. And lightning doesn't strike twice. So I paying attention here. If you're to build a business, don't build a business to sell, build a business that someone else wants to buy. It's a sort of shifting mindset. It's an important shift in mindset. Don't build a business to sell. That's about you build a business that someone else wants to buy. What's key in that decreasing reliance on you, increasing recurring revenue streams.
Christian Rodwell (38:14.584)
Decreasing customer risk, increasing differentiation, winning awards. The more awards you win, the more awards you win. The more awards you win, the more valuable your business becomes. Planning the future of your business, not just the future of your business, the future of your industry. If your industry has got a future, the value of your business increases. Then we've got profitability, we've got cashflow, we've got financial results. It sounds like they're three of the same things, they're not. They're different.
things and then you've got your growth trajectory, which are the five areas I just mentioned before. So very quickly now we've got a list of all things and this is an incredible list. You look after those, the things on that list and you are building a business that someone else wants to buy. That is called creating serious wealth exit. There's lots of things. And again, to get all of that implemented properly will take somewhere between three and five years, as long as you've got the right people around you.
helping you implement that kind of system. Another word you mentioned there, going to pick up on it, something we talk about all the time at Wealth Builders, recurring income. So can you share your thoughts on why recurring income within a business is so important? Write down these three words, repeat business equals profit. It costs far less to get your existing customers to buy from you more than it does to go in and out and get new customers, new customers, new customers, new customers all the time.
So the margin is much, much higher. The time required is much, much less. The effort required is much, much less. Just think about that for a second. Money investment, time investment, effort and energy investment, all three are lower. So everybody says, would you want more available time? They would say yes. Would you want more available money? They would say yes. Would you want more available energy so you're coming home with still some energy?
and not feeling exhausted, they would say yes. Then focus on repeat business.
Christian Rodwell (40:20.726)
Repeat Business helps all three of those.
develop your repeat business plan. One hour of that day when we make your strategic plan, one hour of that day is that. And that one hour will literally give you more money, give you more available time, and give you back energy that you've been feeling exhausted by. The repeat business plan. Am I also right to say that the business will be valued at a higher?
price if there's a high degree of recurring income as well? Yes, of course. It's one of the variables. Everything that we've talked about is a variable of value for the business. And typically it's not the only factor, but typically it's based on a multiple of EBITS, earnings before interest in tax or EBITDA, if you're going to include depreciation and amortization. So it's going to be a multiple of that. So what that means, if you're EBITS,
For sake of it, it's a similar number to net profit. It's not the same number, but just think of that, whatever you're thinking of. But if your net profit or your EBIT is, let's say 200K, and it's not so dependent on you, you're not a key person of dependence, so we've decreased the reliance on you. And there's some of the other factors that we've worked on. You might get a multiple of your business, might be two.
Might be three times, four times. What that means, if it's a two times multiple that someone's prepared to pay, they would buy it for two times that number. So if it was 200k, 400k. If it was a three times multiple that someone's played or 2.5, you know, it would be a 500k or 600k. It can really go up. The highest that I've been personally involved with is 47 times. Incredibly rare. Usually to get upwards of 10.
Christian Rodwell (42:18.414)
And there are some industry variations on here. So this is a generalized point to getting upwards of 10 multiple. You need to be doing an EBIT of 5 million plus. Generally speaking, there's no real hard and set rules when it comes to this, because your business is worth as much as someone's prepared to pay for it. If you can demonstrate all of these areas that we've been talking about and alluding to you, you're in with a good chance of getting more. That's for sure. Even to get to a four multiple, four multiple on 200k.
is 800, a five million plus a million pound. I that's a lot of money to exit your business with. I would strongly encourage people to build it to a point where you got your EBIT to maybe four, five, 600 as a starting point because then now you're into the multi-millions in valuation. It's probably few million now is life changing. You go back
You when I was young, the millionaire and all this kind of thing, back in the eighties, nineties, know, a million pound will change your life. It's probably a couple of million now, but definitely is 10 million. You set up forever. You can literally have all of that money, making more money for you whilst you sleep. You have total freedom at that choice as long, at that point, as long as you make good choices. there anything else for a business owner listening right now, James, you know, the next five years, anything that you'd leave them with?
a of guidance and advice? Yeah, make good choices. You know, the next five years is do something today that yourself in five years will thank you for and do that every day. The challenge is to make good choices and the good choices is not the easy choices. There's something called delayed gratification. human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain every single given opportunity.
Instead and start today literally this this one thing will change everything when you go in the kitchen after listening to this don't get biscuit.
Christian Rodwell (44:26.53)
Get a banana.
When you go for your next coffee, don't get a coffee. Go for a glass of water or a bit of lemon and hot water. Look after yourself. Make good choices. Make more of those good choices than the bad ones. And then you'll set the balance in your favor. James, thanks for being a great guest on Wealth Talk today. Thank you so much. See you next time.
Christian Rodwell (44:56.066)
All right, James, always great value, very knowledgeable and Olympian, right? Well, perhaps behind the scenes with the coaching team of the London Olympians. He's been in the coaching game for a long time and we know such a big part is mindset, the foundations, Kevin, because you've got to have that winning mindset. And as a business owner, you've got to have resilience, right? James talked about the transformation that you see when someone transitions from perhaps being an employee.
to a business owner and the challenges that come with that and the problem solving that you have to learn. In fact, so many things you have to learn. And in many respects, know, the business owners, once they enter into it with a firm decision to extract value from it, whether it's to take value from the profit and build your wealth or whether your focus is to build wealth inside the business, you become a bit of a circus act, you know.
You have to know everything. You've got to juggle all the balls, spin all the plates, balance everything. And it's a tough kick. And you've heard that from many successful business owners. We've interviewed Chris about the importance of resilience because you're faced with problems every single day and you're living your life solving these problems, which is really the art of entrepreneurship is solving other people's problems. And
creating solutions that are worthwhile and then that worthwhileness is reflected in hopefully a continued and recurring profit. But I think James frames entrepreneurs in a slightly different way to us but always worthwhile hearing what somebody else wants to say about different language and then you choose the definition that best works for you because this is just semantics, right? So his definition was very different to us.
Well, it was. Well, let's look at that in a moment. What I forgot to do, Kevin, was actually head to Trustpilot because we always love to read out a review from one of our members or listeners and we've had a few coming in. In fact, this week I was in London on Monday night hosting our monthly Cashflow 101 event. So for any of you listening who have read Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, you may.
Christian Rodwell (47:14.114)
have heard of Cash Flow and this is the board game. You know how many years ago it was, Kevin? I was looking at this. He created the game in 1994. That's a long time ago. the game being updated since then? It has. Yeah, we've got various versions of the game. We've got lots of boards which we bring along and we had a great night as we always do in the heart of London and we had lots of new people coming to play. So if you've never played...
and you fancy playing. We're actually going to be doing a game in Bournemouth in October. So head to wealthbuilders.co.uk for details of both of those events. But I want to read out a review from Sabrina and it was her first time coming along. And Sabrina said, I had an absolutely fantastic time at Cashflow. It was my first time playing the game. Christian and his team were incredibly helpful and supportive, making the experience even better. The atmosphere was very friendly and I also enjoyed learning from the other participants.
I highly recommend the experience for anyone looking to learn and grow in a supportive setting. And I can't wait to attend another event in the future. Well, if you, you know, if you dissect that and thank you to Sabrina, if you dissect that, you know, there was just there was coaching in there, wasn't there really? You've got a supportive environment. You've got somebody who knows what they're doing, which was you and your team. And I suppose that circles us back to the really great points that James makes.
which is almost anything worthwhile, certainly in sport and things, there's always a coach or multiple coaches. So if you're serious about building a great business or building great wealth, then you need a coach, you know, because somebody sees things differently to you. Somebody makes shortcuts that you can follow. I think I've made an admission, didn't I? James asked a question, a good question, right, which was what lessons have you learned? Right.
I would say my biggest lesson was trial and error. That it took me 15 years to do something I could do now in five. And that speed would come from someone's ability to make those distinctions and make it quicker. And therefore cost less, less stress, more control, more predictability. And I think I didn't do that then, partly because
Christian Rodwell (49:37.122)
I didn't really find a guide or a mentor or a coach. I didn't find that. I think partly many people are slightly resilient to it or not resilient, resistant to it as the correct word. They sort of don't like to admit they don't know everything. And I think that's a key component of a good business owner who's willing to be coached and a good wealth builder who's willing to be coached. And if you're not coachable,
you are going to be doomed to trial and error and that's not a journey I would recommend for anybody because you're always going to go around in eddies and circles and cul-de-sacs and find yourself lost and actually you can become too cynical about people instead of just being healthily skeptical which is great for us isn't it we love skeptics but we cannot deal with cynics and unfortunately you know that's I'm sure that's true
of the action coaches, know, the comm coach, all of those businesses, wow, three and a half thousand businesses are, you know, all the time being coached is huge, right? So that's brilliant testimony to the reach that action coach have. And that's why we're so proud to be part of their strategic partners to try and bring some of our wealth distinctions to their business owner clients. And only this morning, as you were preparing for this, Chris, I was doing a webinar.
for one coach or a few coaches and their clients on the distinctions that I know for wealth. And they invited me in to do that. And we're very grateful to Action Coach for making that available to us. So definitely great synergy between the two organizations. Absolutely. I'll just remind you now, if you're listening, click that link in the show notes to take advantage of the million pound offer, but more importantly, to get a taste of that coaching, right? To get on the phone, speak to Action Coach.
you'll see the power of that yourself. And of course, you entered into that draw as well. Amazing offer, isn't it really to get a free call, you know, to help you make if you open minded to it, take, take yourself up on it. And what's the worst that can happen? You'll make a distinction or two that you can apply for yourself. You might find that coaching will help you get to a you want to get to quicker and maybe, you know, a reasonable chance of winning a a million quid, because that's what 2000 to one chance.
Christian Rodwell (52:00.652)
you go figure the lottery numbers on that. Wow. You know, will they give me a free coaching course? I allowed in? I'm probably excluded. So I often ask our guests, Kevin, you know, what's your definition of an entrepreneur? And it's always interesting to hear what people come back with. But I asked James, you know, is every business known an entrepreneur? And he had a view on that. And what was your take on his response, Well, look, it's an understandable one. And I get it.
I'm not sure the language is the term I would use. To me, an entrepreneur is someone who elevates the performance of an asset from one level to another. They're a problem solver for profit. And I think his definition, which was multiple business owner, almost the conductor of the orchestra of different, and I like the distinction, and I think it's entirely relevant. I would probably call them an enterprise owner.
You know, so they're owning enterprises that work and they're not working enough. You know, they're conducting the enterprise. That's how I would make the distinction. you know, that's pick, pick out of that what you will in terms of language. So my definition of an asset is very different from an accountant's definition of an asset. So let's not worry about it. Let's just give our distinctions and see what people pick up in one run with. So probably my favorite.
sound bite, if I can call it that, from what James told us. it was don't build a business to sell, build a business that someone wants to buy. I like that different slant on what we've heard before. I really liked it too, actually. And I think there's added leverage. Here's the reason why it's very powerful. Not just that distinction, but just focusing on a business as a method of generating wealth as well.
is that whether you buy it or sell it, whether you keep it or pass it on, you own it. So you won't turn it into an asset. And if you're building an asset and you're doing it every day, you're in the business while you're building it, you're spending time in it, then it's much better and easier, isn't it, to use that time to help you expand the value of the asset than it is to spend your time in your business and go and try and
Christian Rodwell (54:26.232)
build your wealth through learning about the stock market or learning about property or learning about other things. Not that it isn't important to diversify, but focus your way in your business to try and generate that recurring income, you know, the value of the business so that it's valuable to you. You could transfer it to your family. You could put it into an employee ownership trust or EOT. You could sell it to a third party.
Or you could conduct it, you know, and just have lots of businesses that you own generating recurring revenue for you as the person who founded it, created it, systemized it moved on. So to that extent, what a great distinction. The one I got actually was the dyslexia. You know, and we know Action Coach are very powerfully in favor of helping to support young entrepreneurs. And we know that young people
If they're dyslexic, they get kind of caught out in the normal educational system, don't they? They don't perform as well academically for obvious reasons. And sometimes that can cause them to go backwards in that traditional Robert Kiyosaki approach, get a good job, get good grades, all that, working backwards from there. But dyslexic people can find a pathway in business, and why not? And we know that when we meet business owners,
Often they like to watch videos or listen to podcasts, supposed to read books. And we get that. And, and I think it's a very interesting thing that wherever the stat came from, give or take a third of business owners are dyslexic. And I think that's something they've got to overcome and challenge. Right. And then I think it's a very powerful thing to, to mention that. And isn't something I've really thought about deeply, but
Good point from James to say, well, yeah, it's more prevalent in business owners, perhaps than anywhere else. Well, we hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you think somebody else might do, then hit the share button right now. Send it to them on whichever podcasting app is your preferred option. Kevin, we'll be back same time, same place next week. We will. And until then, my friend, see you.
Christian Rodwell (56:45.134)
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the WealthBuilders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership right now for free access. That's wealthbuilders.co.uk slash membership.