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The Business Toolkit In One Card

Episode Summary

Michelle Shevill, Co-Founder of OneCard, discusses how the innovative tool ‘One Card’ is changing the game in business networking. Michelle shares her journey from running a merchandising business to developing OneCard amidst the challenges of Covid, showcasing the shift from traditional methods to a digital, environmentally friendly approach. OneCard streamlines networking by allowing users to book meetings, share documents, and integrate with CRMs directly through a digital card, complete with a feature to support charities. Michelle, along with her team including her husband Mark and technical lead Sean, has navigated the business from its roots in personal passion to a tech-driven solution for modern professionals. Highlighting OneCard’s growth to 800 users and overcoming challenges like brand loyalty and tech skepticism, Michelle emphasizes its role in increasing leads, sales, and productivity efficiently. Join us to learn how OneCard is paving the way for the future of business interactions, blending sustainability with practicality for professionals everywhere.

Episode Notes

Michelle Shevill, Co-Founder of OneCard, discusses how the innovative tool ‘One Card’ is changing the game in business networking. Michelle shares her journey from running a merchandising business to developing OneCard amidst the challenges of Covid, showcasing the shift from traditional methods to a digital, environmentally friendly approach.

OneCard streamlines networking by allowing users to book meetings, share documents, and integrate with CRMs directly through a digital card, complete with a feature to support charities. Michelle, along with her team including her husband Mark and technical lead Sean, has navigated the business from its roots in personal passion to a tech-driven solution for modern professionals.

Highlighting OneCard’s growth to 800 users and overcoming challenges like brand loyalty and tech skepticism, Michelle emphasizes its role in increasing leads, sales, and productivity efficiently.

Join us to learn how OneCard is paving the way for the future of business interactions, blending sustainability with practicality for professionals everywhere.

 

Resources In This Episode:

>> Buy Your One Card Now [WealthBuilders Discount: WB24OC]

>> [Webinar] Unlock A New Source Of Funding For Your Property Or Business: 21st Feb 2024

>> WT074 – How To Become Investable

>> WT011 – Creating Your Leverage Using F.I.R.S.T

 

Next Steps On Your Wealth Building Journey:

>> Join the WealthBuilders Facebook Community

>> Become a member of WealthBuilders

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Episode Transcription

Speaker 1  0:01  

The 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.

 

Christian Rodwell  0:19  

Welcome to Episode 231 of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director of wealth builders joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whalen. Hi, Kevin.

 

Speaker 2  0:27  

Hello, Chris. Good to be with you. And we've got a busy day to day, haven't we? Yes,

 

Christian Rodwell  0:32  

we shall have we are hosting a webinar this evening. So if you're listening to this episode, then we've got two sessions, we've got one at lunchtime, starting at 1230. And if you can't make that, then we'll be repeating it again in the evening at 8pm. And the title of today's webinar is unlocking a source of funds for your property or business and focusing in on the pension side of what we do. Kevin,

 

Speaker 2  0:57  

by the way, we're doing two live sessions. No one's not just a recording, right? So people can answer those questions, and we can answer them. So that's good to know. Yeah, for the most part, and I've said this hundreds of times. I think, Chris, that for most, and we got a review on this today, haven't we, that for most people their pensions is the most disconnected source of their wealth, you know, often underperforming, certainly under, overlooked, and we can help and we have helped 1000s of people turn their pensions into something more interesting. Whether it's pensions for property, pensions for trading, pensions for using their money for something they can be fascinated, interested, and being able to add value. Whereas for the most part, you got a pension, you read the statement, you wish you were better than his and you put it back in a drawer and you go around the clock again, and you haven't built any knowledge, you've not built any wisdom, nothing to share, nothing to gain, and nothing you can do tomorrow to add any value. So turning pensions into a suspension which many times about just disability, to turbocharge the value by connecting with others connecting with your family, connecting with your children when they reach 80. Just a fascinating and inspiring way to make pensions more interesting. And I've never tired of talking about that. And two opportunities to do that today with several 100 People who are they're open minded, and wanting to learn. So if you are to come and join us,

 

Christian Rodwell  2:36  

well, wealth builders is based on the Seven Pillars of Wealth. So at the heart of everything we do, and pensions is pillar number two. So come and find out more about that assets that's often overlooked. And we'll uncover some exciting things you can do with your pension, you'd never thought that the word exciting and pensions would go together. But come and join us tonight, head to wealth builders.co.uk or the lunchtime session, if that suits you better, and you can register for free. And whilst you're on the wealth builders website, we've made lots of changes recently, we've launched our new membership levels this year, Kevin, so we've got blog articles, we've got videos, we've got information, we've got all the podcast episodes. So do go and check out wealth builders.co.uk If you haven't been there for a little while. I'm

 

Speaker 2  3:19  

excited about that, because we've made it more accessible, more affordable than ever before. Because we just want people to get started, don't we? We've we've seen that most people overthink what they need to do, trying to get perfect instead of just getting going. So we've made our sales and what we do just much more accessible. And we're definitely seeing that now while we were seeing an uptick in people giving us a go who perhaps might have sat on the fence. Now they're not sitting on the fence getting splinters up their rear end, they're actually doing something about it. And we're pleased about that. But of course our role is to not just have new members, but to keep those members making progress, because they'll only stay for as long as we're adding value so keeps us on our toes who's which I like? Definitely

 

Christian Rodwell  4:08  

yes. And we've always been about education, about support and about connections and connections and community. And that's really the topic of today is talking about the business toolkit in one card and our guest today is Michelle cheval, but on the topic of networking, we also had a cashflow 101 game this week, Kevin, we've been really busy. It's our first live event of 2024 we had 50 People in London playing the Robert Kiyosaki cashflow game. And it was a great night as always is

 

Speaker 2  4:38  

well you do a great job Chris. I know I wasn't able to attend that one but I've attended previous ones. But rip roaring success as it always is. And I think the proximity of you and I are living in London is good, but we need to get this out. So what we'd love to do is if you're in another part of the UK and you want to help us get the cash flow game played, we're willing to buy the games, right? So when they're not cheap, are they about 80 quid or something to buy the game. So we're willing to do that if you're willing to help us with hosting. So whether you're a host already, you're already acting in some way, you've got a networking group, you know, a great venue, you've got a good location, and you're willing to put yourself front and centre, and be a little bit of a guide, learn the game, learn how to give instructions on the game, but want to give back. And if you want to do that, we'll be happy to support that. And we asked that question in we in our wealth builder Facebook group, and we've got people in Exeter, people in Bristol, people in Manchester people in Norwich, lots of people north, south, east and west. In the UK, we're not taking it outside the UK right now, we're a bit too tired to do that. But we have had some requests from Dubai. So I'll probably hop on a plane sometime soon, Chris and do that. But, but I'll do that one. But nonetheless, the idea of getting more and more events because yeah, just gets people together gets them playing. And the whole idea of that is it's both educational, informative. And you can also then play the game with your children with the cash flow version for children. So very, very helpful to get into this. And I think ideally, we'd like to be the biggest cash flow game host in the in the whole of the UK, don't we? Because everybody loves him when they play just so we get some great feedback. And we always getting feedback on the night. Because he usually in the evening, but also we get feedback online as well, don't we? So? Because you've done some online games, too.

 

Christian Rodwell  6:45  

Yes, we did for our members, we had online game as well, last week. So yeah, absolutely. If you'd love to be a host, we can come up, we can help you play those first games, if you think you can get a small group of people together, maybe 1020 people, then that'd be a nice size, we can get a couple of games arranged. And yeah, come to a place near you soon. One thing that I love when we do the cash flow games, Kevin is we have lots of new people as well as our existing members, and they come as strangers. And then when we're packing up the boards, you can't tear them apart. They're exchanging numbers, they're talking about business opportunities, and I actually left because I had to drive back to to Bournemouth, but most people were still there. And they were networking, and they were exchanging details. And that leads us on really to our conversation today with our guest, Michelle, because Michelle and her husband Mark are the co founders of one card, which is a digital business networking card. Yeah,

 

Speaker 2  7:43  

and it's just a brilliant, brilliant idea. I mean, obviously, as a speaker a lot, I'm carrying business cards, and people say can have your card, and you're used to giving our cards right. But, you know, they were getting dog eared, I believe them somewhere or just to seem more logical to explore a more digital version. And I came across one card and Michelle and her husband, and I think they're just not just lovely people, but they've got a great idea. And their story is quite interesting. You know, I've tried it myself. And I'm super passionate. So you can store up to 10 documents that you might want to give to people in addition to LinkedIn, Facebook, website, podcasts, all of those things. So just a fantastic and easy place. And a modern place as well, because so much of the work is done nowadays with digital. And tapping, right, we talked about tapping all the time. So to tap on somebody's phone and exchange details, and let them download something perfect. Really, I would encourage anybody who is looking to build connections in any way you want to do that, to have a listen to the interview with Michelle. And if you're interested, follow that up with them. It's really no problem because I just think it's a great idea to be more up to date and more professional in how you networking because networking is so powerful and appropriate. In today's world,

 

Christian Rodwell  9:14  

yes, and I refer to the seven pillars, seven different asset classes that you can use to generate recurring income and pillar number five is business. So it's a really good story today of a young business, only a couple of years old. And you can see the growth and you can understand some of the lessons that Michelle shares today about early stage starting up new business. So I think it's time for us to head on to our conversation today with the co founder of one card. Michelle cheval. Michelle, welcome to wealth talk today. How are you?

 

Unknown Speaker  9:46  

I'm very well thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

Christian Rodwell  9:49  

Yes, we be looking forward to having you on the podcast. Kevin has been talking nonstop about his one cards and actually I got to see it yesterday as well. So lovely branded cards. It's got the world to build his logo, so we're looking forward to finding out all about one card and your business, Michelle, so why don't I let you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what one card does?

 

Speaker 3  10:09  

Yeah. So I'm Michele Chevelle co founder of one card, which is a digital business platform with I would like to say that it's a business card, but it's a card that you do business with. So it's about sharing details more effectively than handing someone a piece of paper. So you basically have one card, so you only need one, you tap it to your new contacts, phone, and all of your business information is transferred directly into your phone. So there's no room for error. No one can actually take your business card and start putting in numbers wrong. Everything is transferred from your address from your email, website, all of your socials. And then there's lots of other functionality that comes along with that, that help you in your day to day business, such as you can book meetings, you can share documents, so we can actually help businesses go paperless, which of course, we all want to be doing our thing for sustainability right now. Yeah, so which is why we call it a tool to do business with. So

 

Christian Rodwell  11:14  

it's it's great concept, and who would be the kind of people that are using things we know a lot of our members are property investors, and there's lots of property meetings that go on, and everyone's swapping business cards in the traditional sense. So networking, I'm sure is a major place where where the one card can come into its own, and what would be some other uses of it as well, Michelle?

 

Speaker 3  11:36  

Yeah, so of course, he does come into its own in a networking environment. So it's perfect for anybody that you wanting to share your contact details, but it collect details as well, because it's an exchange of details from someone, it's for businesses that want to just streamline that process too. So particularly if you've got sales teams, out in the field, connecting a lot, and in an exhibition environment. So again, you know, if you're exhibiting and wanting to share details about your business, and connecting with people quickly and easily. One great thing about the card as well as it helps you with automation. So it really helps you with business efficiencies. Once you've collected lots of people's new in contact information, like you're saying it networking events, you meet new people, you come away with a stack of business cards, what do you do with all that information? Well, one card actually basically integrates straight into a system where you can collect all of those contacts in a nice, neat list. So all you need to do from there on in is get on and do your job and work with those people and keep that connectivity going. So it helps with all the automation. And we all want things nice, simple, easy and efficient. And that's where it comes into its own.

 

Christian Rodwell  12:46  

Absolutely, because I know from my own experience of, you know, networking, you'll give out, let's say 20 cards, you might give out how many people will you actually hit back from maybe one or two. But if you've got a system, whereby as you say, it's automatically syncing with your CRM, and then you can have an email sequence, so by the time they get home, or they're on the train on the way home, they've already had an email from you, you know, it's looks so professional, and obviously, you're gonna stand out from the crowd.

 

Speaker 3  13:12  

Absolutely. And that is the one that even just using it, you know, you use the card, you're standing out from the crowd straightaway, people are just quite impressed with the fact and it helps you connect in a way that people want to connect to, because it's got all that functionality. So you can tap the card and save the details. But it can go straight to your LinkedIn or straight to your WhatsApp. Or you can go straight to your diary to book a meeting. So in the moment, rather than waiting till you get back to your desk, and then you try and find someone to say, Look, do you still want to have that meeting? And they don't answer, it stops all of that messiness, really, you're just you're in the moment, you can control how you connect, and how that person wants to connect. So I think it puts people at ease to

 

Christian Rodwell  13:57  

Yeah, and in terms of the revenue model for you as a business. So talk us through, you know, how it works, how do you generate an income from the One Card yourself.

 

Speaker 3  14:06  

So the the one card model is a subscription based model, so it's either a monthly fee, or a yearly fee, which works with that. And then, alongside of that, I mean that the whole reason why we do the subscription is that we want to give our clients as much value as we possibly can. So as we're growing and things are developing with the cards, then you're included in that added value. We want to build in partnerships to which actually adds on to our extra income if you like so where we might have a partner with a CRM system gives another option for our clients to be able to give them a one stop shop for all the connectivity, but as a business we then got an added income stream from those partners to

 

Christian Rodwell  14:50  

and when did you found the business when How long has it been running for Michelle? Well,

 

Speaker 3  14:55  

it was a lockdown project which is where we we kind of founded and started we lost was pretty quickly out of lockdown. But it's a very different tool today. So I think as we come out of lockdown, it was all about a contactless way of connecting with people. So you're going to be more efficient. But of course, no one wanted to touch anything back then, even when we came out and remember one of our first exhibitions that we did, where we were still wearing masks, everybody was still very standoffish. We weren't quite embracing that one to one contact, because we're still very cautious. Whereas the last 12 months, I guess, is where, you know, we'll listen to the people that started working with us from the beginning, we've listened to what customers want, there's functionality that is really going to benefit them and their business, and it's got all those extra functions out. And people are embracing it more, because you know, the last 12 months, we have all wanted to get out there. I think people have craved that one to one contact getting back to you know, in person networking, because at the end of the day, I think there's you know, it's great that what lockdown did for us in terms of this, you know, we can have this meeting from different environments. But I think there's not really any replacement for that one to one and building those relationships.

 

Christian Rodwell  16:13  

I agree. And you're not new to business. So you previously had a business in a different sector. So talk us through, you know, your business history, Michelle, and what were some of the learnings from your previous business that perhaps you've been able to use when setting up one card,

 

Speaker 3  16:29  

gosh, so quite quite a journey. It's been quite a journey. So we started off as a cricket specialist. So my background was in retail. So I worked for retailers across the country, from Scotland down to South coasts. And my husband and business partner is a Senior Project Manager for major blue chip companies globally. And he was a cricketer, just, you know, village cricketer, if you like, but we bet decided to take his love of cricket and my love of retail. And we created a cricket specialist. But this was retail store on the high street. But we wanted to develop something different. It became a destination store, it was a store where you didn't just come to pick up your equipment, you could actually try out the equipment. It was an experience store where we had a bowling machine in there. And it was all about the building that full on customer experience, where they got the full service from beginning to end. That kind of ended and evolved into being a brand in business, which again, sounds like a strange transition. But while we were running the cricket business, we decided to we were doing teamwork because our customers wanted their team where. And we did all that in house as we were doing branded clothing, people asking us more and more for business clothing at the same time. And it suddenly became apparent that actually the most profitable side of the business was the branding side. The Cricut was amazing. It was one of the learnings you just said one of the learnings was I think if I look back now that our heart was really in it, and we really needed to make some better business decisions. So letting go of that was difficult. But it was absolutely the right thing to do. And I think that's that's one of the things when you are looking at business, you can just be too in it and too heartfelt to actually look at what is making you the right amount of money that you need, rather than being a silly busy fool. Yeah, so that was probably one of the biggest learnings from there. And out of the branding business, that's my one card was born. So we were dealing with business to business, we will offer new business cards, leaflets, all the things for connecting with people. And when lockdown came and my husband lost his project management contract, it just made us look at what we offered to people in terms of connecting and how effective it was, you know, you give somebody a business card, it's a piece of paper, they disappear, that you've got no control over that contact from here on in. Not only that, that the waste that's involved. I mean, it's incredible. When you start looking at the figures, there's 80% of their business cards go in the bin because people lose them or whether they want to keep you or not. And the amount of waste in terms of paper that businesses use. So we were started looking at where we can make a difference in terms of offering a more effective Connection Tool, which is what one card is. So that's where it was started really brilliant.

 

Christian Rodwell  19:29  

And one of your largest clients. I know you told me as over 160 staff. So I'm interested in the first year of one card because the first year in business they say is the hardest, you know, and to make it through that first year is a milestone in itself. How did you go from having the initial concept, the idea to actually validating that and then onboarding new clients and customers and just talk us through, you know how you went about those first 12 months? So yeah, I

 

Speaker 3  19:58  

think it's in part wasn't that you know, we didn't come out straight out with a product and just think, Oh, this is great, because we'd already got a customer base from the brand in business, we kind of got a room to test. So we could introduce it to an existing customer base and the right customer base, the kind of people that were wanting to connect, etc. So we very quickly got a lot of really good feedback from people so we could understand what they what they needed. So I guess that was the first point of call is right. Well, that's, that's we've got a customer base already, how can we sell to them, looking at what we've done before, we're already used to finding that reach out to find new clients as well, being creative in how we do that as well, to get that outreach. Then when we started getting those clients on board, I think like I was just saying it was kind of listening to them and understanding what their pains are in their everyday, and how this tool could actually help them to be more efficient. The reason why we then started working with teams was one of our very first clients, they had a quite a small team of like about 10 salespeople. But it very quickly became apparent that you know, as a business, you don't want to be given people this amazing tool and controlling the information on there, you need to be compliant, you need to understand that your staff are sharing the right information for the business. So we built a team's platform, which is perfect for enterprises that centrally managed, so you can control what information is sent out to amongst your staff, and where you've got businesses where you've got a higher turnover of staff as well. So there's a lot of waste involved in that. So when someone moves, or even gets promoted, you don't have to throw away anything, you just centrally manage the system. So they keep hold of the card. And so it helps the whole business become more efficient. And, you know, quite a big cost saving really, but those things were all born out of listening to what our clients really needed. And then moving it from there, which meant that we could deal with a customer that had got 160 staff and provide them with the right platform that they needed.

 

Christian Rodwell  22:05  

Yeah, love that. I think that's a really great concept. And I imagine when someone experiences this, so you're at an event and someone pulls out the one card and taps it and they go, all the information is suddenly in the phone, that it's very much a word of mouth. And people ask, Well, where did you get that from? Or how can I get one? So are referrals and like affiliates? Is that part of your marketing strategy as well? Yeah, absolutely.

 

Speaker 3  22:30  

Exactly. Like you said, so we're very, our very first group of customers, if you like, we're a lot of them were from the engineering industry. And that was because one of our first major clients was in engineering, they exhibited with lots of other engineering businesses who recommended us. So yeah, so built in as an individual, when you come to us purchase a one card, you have the option to become an affiliate, because it is quite natural that when you're using it, people are what I would buy the situation where where can I get one of those, and we like to just give a reward to people for passing that information on. So they can use their affiliate link to promote one card and get a little bit of earn in themselves from it.

 

Christian Rodwell  23:11  

Yeah, great. And and what's your user base that at the moment, Michelle,

 

Speaker 3  23:15  

user base is probably about 800 at the moment. And of course, we've got quite ambitious targets for this to come in 12 months. So we're busy working very hard on that we've got, you know, our roadmap, if you like on what we want to we don't, we've developed a lot. So we're trying to rein in the development, there's things that we do want to do. And this is what some really exciting things we're launching in the next couple of months, which I think will be even bigger game changer for for businesses. Yeah. And hopefully that will assist in was reaching those higher targets as well.

 

Christian Rodwell  23:51  

And it's still a small team at the moment. You mentioned your your husband, business partner, co founder, Mark, who else is in the team, you're obviously a tech company, you have, you know, app and development and software that's involved here.

 

Speaker 3  24:05  

Yeah, so it is very small. There's just myself and my husband does is the technical drive, if you like and then we have our technical lead, Shawn. And then other parts of the business, we do outsource as, as we need it, really so that we can be more fluid with things. What we find there is as well that because because everything is in house, then we can react very quickly to what customers need, we can build what they require to. So like we're just looking at doing an exhibitors platform, what we have done, we're not looking at it, we've done it and launched it and it's in our first exhibition organisers, events running throughout the year, that that was an adaptation of the team's version that we do, but we're able to, again, just make those slight changes very quickly. It means that we can bespoke items as well. So things can be fully branded to businesses, and just work with them very quickly. So Michelle,

 

Christian Rodwell  25:02  

we know business can be difficult. And especially if you're coming out of a corporate environment, you have the security of a team around you a structure, an organisation, but then suddenly you're on your own. So what would be some of the learnings, over the years of being in business for yourself that you might be able to share with some of our listeners,

 

Speaker 3  25:19  

being in business and setting them up on your own can be a very lonely place, like you say, it's when you've got a team, when you can get onto marketing and say, right, I want this to win kept me this summer, the graphics, you know, you're responsible for absolutely everything, and making the decisions that you, you know, you hope you're making the right decisions as well. Sometimes it can be difficult ones, whether that's staffing or sales or, you know, targets strategy. And I think, in the beginning, was probably quite protective and didn't want to share. But actually, if you build a team around you with like minded businesses, too, you can quickly be in a very supportive environment where you can find all of that support. Also, finding the right mentor of following someone getting advice from someone who's done it all before, means that you can do things more quickly. But but being willing to learn at every level, and that if you do drop down, make a mistake and fail. It's not you've just got to learn and like move on and find out, you know, find the right answer the next time, you've always got a chance to improve and move on. But yeah, I think, particularly right now, the power of networking, and finding those connections, being you know, not afraid to get out there, talk to lots of different people and work out where your places can really help you move forward. And you just don't know who they know, that can help you along your business journey as well. So I think it's the power of connections is just invaluable.

 

Christian Rodwell  26:49  

So Michelle, if someone's interested in finding out a bit more about one card, obviously, we're collaborating with you now, as well. But where could somebody go if they wanted to check out the one card for themselves.

 

Speaker 3  27:00  

So yeah, so you can head over to our website where most of the information is on there, whether you're an individual or the corporates that we were just discussing, you can have a free demonstration. So the website is one cards with an s.co.uk. And you'll see on the front page that you can go straight to all the information you need book in for a demonstration, which is just 30 minutes so you can understand exactly how it works for you. No matter what size of team you

 

Christian Rodwell  27:29  

are. Thanks for being a great guest of wealth talk today.

 

Unknown Speaker  27:32  

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

Christian Rodwell  27:35  

Great stuff from Michelle there, congratulations on everything that she's doing along with her husband, Mark, and Shawn as well. So a small team there. And we'll dive into some of the lessons that Michelle shared with us, Kevin, before we do that, as we like to head on over to Trustpilot. And give a shout out to those that have taken time to leave us a lovely review. I'm going to pull one out from Adam, that's come in this week. And Adam says joining wealth builders was the best decision I ever made. I was looking for structure and guidance on how to get my house and business in order. As I felt like I was all over the place. Wealth builders helped massively by working through the roadmap and pulling all the pieces of the life puzzle together, I would highly recommend to anyone looking to secure their future. That's

 

Speaker 2  28:21  

one. And I like the couple of points that he makes, it's always interesting to see the lens that's coming from somebody else's perspective. So all over the place, and we see people always all over the place, Chris, they're looking for the best thing, the the ideal solution, the magic bullet, or some are getting themselves into overwhelm, and overthinking things. So having a structure that's easy to follow. Having a process that's easy to follow, means you don't get into that position of being so overwhelmed. And when you've got a busy life, a busy business, a busy family, busy job, it's difficult to separate these things out. And therefore, most people just don't start and 95% of the population don't make start Criss. They just accidentally get what they get when they reach their late 60s and so on. It's just just an incredible waste. So getting people to move towards that income security and then on to independence is just a great thing for us to do. So we love doing it. And we glad that other people are getting the result that they want, which vindicates what we do. Really,

 

Christian Rodwell  29:31  

our goal with our members is to help them first to achieve financial security and then to move on to financial independence. We know that in order to do that, Kevin, you need to stop trading time for money you need to own or control assets that generate recurring income. And Michelle has created a recurring income business here but interesting to hear the backstory because, as with many business owners, it's not their first business, right? They've they've evolved, they've changed and that's the story here with Michelle and it can Mount have actually a passion initially with the cricket, where they both started that business and they loved cricket. But then obviously a business grows into its different shapes and forms and, and they learned many lessons along the way. I

 

Speaker 2  30:13  

think it's true of anybody who's building wealth is a journey of transformation. And that transformation means you reinvent yourself several times. The three things that I always say, are critical when you're looking at a business, if you're going to buy one or create one is, are you outstanding in a niche, or a niche, lovely niche, right? I mean, if you're into property, for example, and we meet a lot of people, 70% of our wealth building members choose property is probably their primary way of building wealth. And we've talked about why in previous podcasts. So everybody in property is meeting other people in property, because there are so many networking meetings and property will, what will be better than turning up with your One Card, you know, mine's branded, but you you don't have to have a branded one. That just makes it so easy for you to do that. And people won't. That's interesting. You know, so I think there's a fascination with that there. But this whole evolution of number one is, are you outstanding in your niche? Definitely, they are. Number two, is there a recurring income business model, and if people keep getting value from the use of the card in networking, they'll continue to pay, which will serve the business as a recurring income model, and cannot work without you. Now, not every business can work without the owners at the start. But in the end, the more you develop systems, practices, processes, teams and leverage, then the more that you're able to divorce yourself from the need to be the doer of the work. Because you understand the work. You've got your minimum viable product. And of course, they have I mean, how many members have they say, 800, you're gonna, if you've got a 200 of anything, you've cracked it, we often talk in property with you done three, you've cracked it. So they've got a minimum viable product, and I love it. And definitely would want anybody who's networking wants to build connections to give it a try, and go and visit the website. And or maybe there's a link we can put in the show notes, Chris, because then it's just easy, isn't it? And and the people that want called can see that their good work and putting themselves out on the podcast? actually did some good for them. Yeah,

 

Christian Rodwell  32:22  

absolutely. The links to today's show notes, just mirroring. And really the journey that we know everyone has to follow if they want to achieve security and independence. With our nine step roadmap that we teach, not only do you have to choose the right asset class for you, and obviously we're talking business today, then you have to find the points of leverage within your life. And there's different types of leverage. We did an episode way back Episode 11, where we first talked about leverage and the the acronym FYI RST, so we won't spoil that too much of a point people back to listen to that episode. But we know, leverage of software and systems. So that's one area that of course, Michelle and her team are leveraging, but leveraging relationships, of course here as well. And she talked about just the power of connection, not just in what they're doing with one card, but also the support that you need as a business owner and having the right mentors and guides, which she said was really important to her, while

 

Speaker 2  33:19  

the other leverages leverage of time, of course. So you're not having to scrub around finding cards saving money, you're not printing cards, but thing for me is the fact that I can store documents on this. So if you imagine not to do with wealth builders, but I'm a property owner, I think this has huge value for people doing property. And I've created and spent some time we previously done a podcast, Chris, number 74, how to be investable. We talked about the five different ROIs in there, and how to create documents which were compliant and compelling. Now everybody who is looking to succeed with raising the leverage of capital needs to develop the art of crafting something which tells the story of their business. So potential investors understand it, or what better thing could you do if you're networking is to have the documents stored on your card. So if you do that you don't have to remember tomorrow to send the proposition to Christian Rodwell. It's done automatically. So I think there's some real good leverage here. That anybody who is making connections could apply if if if you don't make connections is not for you. That's fine. But But I think there's some value in it for anybody who's out there. And we love to network. We love to connect, and lots and lots of fun and enjoyment is done in those meetings. So just get better at doing anything. And

 

Christian Rodwell  34:52  

we'd love to give a little sneak peeks now and again, Kevin and perhaps we could give a sneak peek, although not visually but the up humming wealth hub that's near completion now, which should be accessible for our members initially. And that's the one stop shop for all the connections that you might want. When you're building your wealth, you're

 

Speaker 2  35:10  

on the journey to wealth, there's so many different routes you can take as a myriad of opportunities. And that's why people get confused and overwhelmed. But nonetheless, everybody is going to go on a slightly different journey. So what we've done is really created a harbour Centre of Excellence, in other words, where the best people we know, who are outstanding in their field, provide some benefit enhancement discount to our members, in order for them to be connected to someone that we put some time into the relationship, it doesn't mean we're guaranteeing a success, we can't do that. That's life. So whether it's a tax position or legal thing, whether it's a skill set that you don't have, whether it's a guide to help you achieve one thing you don't know how to do and the principal. Remember, we've spoken about before, Kristen, it seems like a lot of things we repeat, but you know, repetition is the is the real at the heart of all of this. So it keeps reminding you oh yeah, do that do that, that the who not how principle that whenever you come across a problem when you're stuck with a how issue, there's always a who. And what we're trying to do in the hub is build a a big black book of who's that you can tap into that we've curated that who we believe all the best in class in their field. Now on the I did say I mentioned something we touched on earlier on Chris, which is an additional thing that we're doing to the podcast, which is we're creating a new, an additional bonus, right? We talked about transitions, and we were chatting to one of our colleagues earlier on one of our members earlier on who's now moved from doing sort of buy to let to HMOs are now doing care homes. And you can see there's a continuum of knowledge and skill and application and connections in order to do that. So what I thought I'd do is try and meet the people who are really at the almost like the elite of their field, the CEOs of businesses that you go, wow. Right, and who are they who are the CEOs, and create a version of the podcast or just occasionally because you can't just jump on these people and get them quickly, but to find what we're calling head to head. So me as the CEO of wealth builders meeting another CEO of a business that our members want to hear from. And we've chosen, certainly for one of our one of our early ones, the CEO of go, Henry, her name is Louise Hill. And you know, the fascinating story they've been through, which is, you know, from an idea in a few parents in a curry house in Leamington a dozen years ago, into a multinational business serving 6 million people in five different countries, from one idea, which was how to help children do a better job, and give them the ability to learn a little bit about money. And at the same time, how parents to have more control with a prepaid card. And that's the story of go Henry. And we're interviewing her, I'm interviewing her. I know you're helping me, Chris, just to make sure we do all the tech. Right. But I'd love to know, if you had the Reese Hill, in a dinner table with you? What do you want to know? You know, I've got a bunch of questions. And she's going to feel definitely that, you know, we've done our best to get as much juice from her experiences as we can. But what would you want to know, if you can let us know, you can tell people how to do that, Chris, but also if other than that, if there's a CEO of a company, you write and you appreciate, and you think, wow, I'd love to know more about their story, let us know. And with enough interest, we'll try and pick those up too and, and start to build a series of those. So looking forward to Louise, and looking forward to any questions you've got. And any other suggestions for other CEOs that you'd love to have in the chair? Talking with me So, Chris, how would people do that and make their suggestions or pose their questions?

 

Christian Rodwell  39:28  

If you use email, then send us an email to Hello at wealth builders.co.uk And if you're a fan of the socials, head to the wealth builders accounts via Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, send us DMS to any of the official wealth builders accounts, or maybe even scan Kevin's one card that's on screen at the moment. If you're watching the video recording of this interview,

 

Speaker 2  39:51  

you can send me a you can send me the question on LinkedIn or Facebook or email or through the website. So you'll have all my connections there. and looking forward to seeing if people pick that up, Chris. Yeah, it'd

 

Christian Rodwell  40:03  

be interesting to see what suggestions we get. And yeah, you know, great for us to go out and get some, you know, really high quality, fascinating business owners on the podcast in the head to head.

 

Speaker 2  40:14  

They're looking forward to that. Yeah. So that was a good session, Chris. Yeah,

 

Christian Rodwell  40:18  

that wraps up today's podcast. So thanks. As always, for listening, we, whether this is your first wealth talk episode, or your 250 F, if you're keeping up with us, then it's always great to have your ears and please do help us spread the message and all the help, we can get to get this into the the ears and hands of people who would really benefit from a little bit of extra knowledge around finance, be it for themselves or for their families, their children, then hit the share button for today's episode, and send it to a friend. You

 

Speaker 2  40:51  

know, we'd appreciate that. And even if you don't do that, if you take a moment, like we had a moment ago, when you read out a review, Chris, just take 30 seconds one minute and just say hey, I'm loving the podcast guys. Or a you could do a better job. If you did this, you know, we we'd love to know what you would like us to do. So we don't do the podcast for money. We don't get paid by anybody to do. We do them because we just love to share information that if one of those episodes, so one of these episodes, serves as an inspiration for you to get off that fence and do something, even if it's with somebody else could be one of our wealth club members. For example. We'd love to know that we'd love to help you do that. So So Thanks for

 

Christian Rodwell  41:31  

listening today, Kevin, you and I will catch up Same time, same place next week.

 

Unknown Speaker  41:35  

We will indeed until then my friend. So yeah.

 

Speaker 1  41:41  

We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside a wealth builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealth builders.co.uk/membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk/membership