October 3, 2022 • 36 mins
Running the Bases today with Simon White, Co-Founder at Local Blitz Marketing in San Diego, California. Simon is an international marketing expert, national speaker, author, real estate investor, and Founder/CEO of Local Blitz Marketing. He has spoken nationally at real estate conferences. His articles can be found regularly in a national real estate magazine.
What do you call a British Engineer who crosses the pond to find his way in the tech industry, but realizes his fortune and entrepreneurial spirit really lie in the WIld, Wild West of the California Real Estate Market….. ? Well we call that Today’s Guest.
When he is not investing in homes in Southern California he might also be found at Local Blitz Marketing - a digital marketing company he co-founded, or you might find him out hiking with his wife and their furry children.
It’s a great show as we learn about Simon and his trek to the US and a fabulous story on how he met his wife!
To learn more about Simon and Local Blitz visit: https://localblitz.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Randy (00:02):
I'm Randy roady and I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs
and small business owners.
Plus I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner and we discuss there
running the bases of entrepreneurship.
We throw the ball around on strategymanagement, execution and innovation.
(00:24):
Plus a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settle in, grab your cracker jacksand you know what they say, play ball.
And it's a great day for a ball game.
This is Randy Roddy.
Got a question for you folks.
What do you call a British engineer?
Who crosses the pond to find his wayin the tech industry, but realizes
(00:48):
his fortune and entrepreneurial spiritreally lie in the wild, wild west of
the California real estate market.
While we call that today's guest,when he is not investing in homes
in Southern California might alsobe found at local blitz marketing,
a digital marketing company.
He co-founded in, uh, 2009 or.
(01:09):
You might find him out hiking withhis wife and their furry children.
I probably, I didn't write this intro.
Uh, we are pleased to welcome, uh,to running the bases with small
businesses podcast, Simon white Simon.
Good to have you on the show.
Simon (01:27):
Hi there, Randy.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on . I'm
Randy (01:30):
you got it right there.
I I'm assuming the, uh,furry children are yeah.
Are not offspring, butmore like pets of some sort
Si (01:39):
yeah, we, we, we adopt dogs.
All our dogs are from the rescue, so yeah,we have, uh, we've had a blind dog, a deaf
dog in the past the dog at the moment thatwe're fostering, that only has two legs.
Oh, my, she does exceptionally well.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She she's from Mexico.
She got hit by a car we thinkdown there and they, uh, actually
(02:00):
amputated the back two legs soshe can get around really well.
On, on two, two front legs.
No kidding.
Have wheels for her.
Yeah, but she can, she can do really.
She can actually run faster on twolegs than she came with the wheels.
Cuz she.
She's got really strong front legs.
Randy (02:15):
So that is amazing.
Wow.
uh, I will tell a quick story around that.
We had a neighbor who had a three-leggedcat and was missing a rear leg and
that cat was the best would comeover and just pounce on ground hogs
or ground squirrels or what are.
Things critters and she'dleave them out there.
(02:36):
It was, this cat was amazing.
I was always amazed at it,but anyway, so let's jump in.
I've got a fun story that, you know, myresearch team, I was telling you before
we hit the record button here, that sheis so great finds all kinds of fun stuff.
She dug up.
A fun story about how you met your wife.
Simon (02:58):
Wow.
Okay.
I was wonder wondering if you wouldfind that that's buried in the internet.
Most people dunno
about it, but it's interesting.
You found it . So I'm wondering ifyou would care to, to share with the
audience a little bit, a little bit ofa story of Simon white and your wife.
Well, when I, yeah,
Simo (03:14):
I came, I came here in 97.
I think it was anyway,whatever year it was.
I, I went.
You know, I was single for the firstfew months, but then, um, me and.
English friends.
We were all from England.
We all came over pretty much the sametime we went to a concert Alanis Mo set.
Yeah.
. And, uh, before the concert, I satnext to a few, few girls, local
(03:38):
girls, and we just got chattingand staff, you know, nothing major.
And then the, the, she startedAlanis Mo set, the concert started
and never really saw her again.
And then, uh, a few days later I got aphone call and it was a radio station.
And, uh, they introduced Amanda on thephone, me and Amanda over the phone.
(03:59):
And she asked me out to go fora date on that Saturday and,
uh, the rest is history.
A couple of years later, we got married.
No kidding.
Then there is a big, longelaborate version of that.
My wife tells, but I just give youthe the shorten and quit version.
But yeah, I met my wife at Alanis.
Morrisette.
(04:19):
And at the Del off, uh, a couple ofyears later we got married and we
actually had the DJ from the radiostation, be our DJ at our wedding.
Randy (04:29):
ah, that's nice.
Yes.
So I think your wife is the great romanticthen must be because yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That's that's very good.
Well, congrat, how longhave you been married?
Simon (04:41):
24 year?
Uh, no.
23 years.
Yeah.
99.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was just, it was justa few days ago, actually.
Randy (04:48):
Ah, very good.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Well, there you go.
So growing up in England, youattended the university of Bradford,
have your engineering degree.
Here in the states, as you know, sowe just passed May 1st, uh, which is
the typical us college commitment day,which is the crazy college acceptance,
(05:10):
all of the applicants, they okay.
Essentially commit to universityand all of that stuff.
Curious, what are some of the differencesbetween college life in England versus.
Here in this states.
Do you have any thoughts about that?
Well, you know, in the collegeI went to was specific to the type of
(05:31):
engineering I went to, that I wantedto do, which was radio engineering.
I, I don't, we did a lot ofdrinking and it, the drinking
age in England is 18 here.
It's 21.
Yeah, but I guess so it's legal tostart drinking at 18 in England here.
It's 21 back then allmy college was paid for.
I didn't didn't really leave collegewith any big debts or anything.
(05:53):
A few thousand pounds top, you know?
Nice.
So, but now.
I think it's changed.
I think England is a lotmore like the us now.
Oh, you know, the, the, the,you have to, um, tuition is a
lot more expensive and stuff.
It's such a long time agothat college now and college a
few years ago when I was there.
, it's a bit different.
So, Randy (06:14):
yes.
The world is different as wellin so many different ways.
So you got your engineering degree,you came here to the states.
Did you.
Come to the states directly toSouthern California from England?
Or did you go well, uh, Iworked, I worked in England in,
in, at NOK in Erickson for a few years.
(06:35):
Okay.
About four or five years.
And then I came for a vacation.
For three weeks and a big tour aroundCalifornia and Nevada, you know, San
Francisco came down the coast, LA SanDiego, Las Vegas Yosem did a big loop.
And then I said, oh, Ireally like San Diego.
So I applied for a few jobsand within a couple of weeks, I
(06:56):
flew over here for an interview.
Up in orange county.
And I had an interview for acompany in San Diego, actually in
London, got offered those two jobsand decided to come to San Diego.
Nice.
Yeah.
And so six months after I'd been here fora three week holiday, I was living here.
cause I had to wait for a visa and
Randy (07:15):
all the rest.
Oh, sure, sure.
Yeah, well, San Diego, youcould have picked some place
a lot worse than San Diego.
Yeah.
Simon (07:22):
I, well, you know, I did the big loop thing.
Yeah.
I like San Diego the best yeah.
Randy (07:26):
Yeah.
So you came over working as an engineer.
Yeah.
Simon (07:30):
Yeah.
And then it, well, for three weeks wasa vacation, but then six months later
I came over as an electrical engineer.
There's okay.
It was during, uh, thebig boom in mobile phones.
Right.
I designed mobile phones in England andI came over to work for Hughes network
systems was the first company I workedfor where we designed big Mo big.
I started out when mobilephones were the size of a brick.
Randy (07:52):
I had one of those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, well, at some point then yougot the entrepreneurial bug and
you started pursuing Californiareal estate, I think back in what
oh seven is what my notes said.
Simon (08:07):
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, um, I bought, we flippedsome homes in California, but I
bought some homes out of state.
which I still have some of those.
So we, we, we kind of got into buyingand selling homes in San Diego and
it was hot back in 2000 6, 7, 8.
Yeah.
As it is now.
And then I bought some rentalsin a few different parts of the
(08:29):
country in South Carolina andMississippi and Phoenix and stuff.
I sold some of those, butI've still got quite a few.
Randy (08:36):
You started in that industry when it was pretty hot.
And
Simon (08:41):
then yeah, I kind of started right at the top.
Yeah.
Two.
And it was like, but you know, I I'vemanaged to keep hold of some of those.
They actually still, yeah.
Some of 'em I had to sell cuzit was in the big downturn
things were got real Nesty.
So I just got rid of them.
Well, that's what I was wondering.
I was able to hold ontoquite a few of them.
So yeah,
Randy (09:01):
during the, uh, the oh eight through oh 10 or so.
Yeah, that was pretty difficult
Simon (09:06):
time.
So that's when we were doing short saleswere basically in San Diego where you
were buying houses in pre foreclosure,and then selling them again quickly.
And
Randy (09:15):
you're able to make for a couple of years, you could
make money at that fairly well.
Simon (09:19):
Yeah, our best one, we did 110,000 in a flip, so
it was not too bad back then.
God.
Randy (09:26):
No kidding.
Wow.
That's amazing.
So are you still active
in no, not so much in real estate.
I've still got rentals, right?
And I do a little bit of workin real estate notes, which is I
generate some leads and I brokerthem, or I also have some notes.
Notes are the, you know, the,the deaths, the mortgage.
(09:46):
Okay.
You can sell a house without a bank.
If I, if I wanted to buy a house fromyou, Randy, and we didn't wanna go to
the bank, you could just, uh, Agree tocarry the paper mm-hmm so if I bought
you had a hundred thousand dollars houseto sell, I might give you $10,000 down
and you would finance that 90,000 to me.
Right?
So, but then if later on yousaid, I want to sell that, that
(10:08):
$90,000 note to someone else.
Right.
And invest, it might come inthere and buy it from you.
He might discount it a little bit.
So he gets a better interest rate.
Sure.
Better yield.
But there's a whole industry aroundbuying private notes like that.
Okay.
So I have some of those notes and I alsodo lead generation online to generate
(10:30):
some of those types of leads to giveto other people I, to broker them
to, or sell a leads to other people,
ah, had no idea that that even was.
Is that, is that a, that seemslike such a small sliver, is it?
It is, it is a very small sliver,but, but on that same ilk, you can
do the same thing with people do itwith structured settlements, you know,
JG with mm-hmm all over the place.
(10:51):
That's how it works.
Lottery winnings.
Right.
Can be.
Can be created into notes like that.
There's lots of things, uh, evenroyalty fees and all sorts of
things can be create a cashflow canbe created from things like that.
There's a whole sub-industryof financial instruments that
most people have never heard of.
Yeah.
(11:11):
Curious through your.
Kind of investments and, uh,purchases made any, any bad
purchases in any of them.
Oh yeah, yeah,
Simon (11:21):
yeah.
real estate or otherwise,otherwise, whatever, I've had some
bad real estate deals for sure.
But I loaned money that nevergot paid back and, uh, Yeah.
Yeah.
That's nice.
Yeah.
I've learned you learn a lotfrom that lost a good chunk
of money in various bad deals.
Yes . Yeah.
Randy (11:40):
Well, yeah.
So your 110,000 flip, uh,you know, could evaporate.
I've lost more than that.
Yeah, well that's so you were kind ofinvolved and heavy into that stuff.
Um, kind of before that houseand garden TV craze, you know,
where they're, uh, flipping housesand were you doing stuff for,
Simon (12:01):
yeah, I think it kind of came out of the, the big.
2010, 11.
Did it start off?
I don't know.
There's always been something,but now there's a lot of them.
Yeah.
Even ice.
Is it vanilla ice and variouspeople do flipping on TV and stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot of them now.
Yeah.
Randy (12:17):
So would you do this, uh, the house flip and I think I'm more
familiar with where you, uh, go andyou grab the house by it and then
renovate, uh, completely got it.
That's a lot of
Simon (12:28):
work.
All I did was I.
Bought the house and sold it onto someone
Randy (12:33):
else.
So you were almost just a owner onpaper quick and then, well, yeah,
that that's called wholesaling.
When you buy a, a house oryou get it under contract and
you sell a contract right.
To someone else who wantsto renovate it and sell it.
So I've done a little bit of that.
And, uh, the other thing was we did shortsales, so we helped owners sell our house.
Right.
That we're in good Condit.
(12:54):
So we kind of bought it on paperand then sold it immediately.
There's special technique fordoing it with double ended clothes.
Got it.
Got it.
Crazy market today inthe housing industry.
What do you think about that?
Would you, yeah,
I'm not an expert in it anymore,cause I don't follow it quite as
much, but yeah, certainly San Diego'sgonna like 22% in the last year.
(13:17):
I think.
I think, I think we're starting tosee some cooling in many areas cuz
the interest rates have gone up anduh, our, our house has doubled in
price in the last six or seven years.
I think it's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy.
So you, you came here asan electrical engineer.
What was it that kind of tripped yourinterest and, and, uh, really got
(13:42):
you into the real estate pursuit.
How did you even, well, I was
just, you know, I was, I workedin a corporate wealth a, well probably.
Total of 15 years, but I firstgot interested in real estate.
When someone at one of the companies Iwas working with talked, talked to me
about rentals, real real estate rentals.
And I kind of got interested andsays, oh, that's kind of interesting.
(14:04):
So that's how I got into that.
I, so I went to a few seminars andstuff and started buying a few rentals.
And it just kind of grew outta that.
I started to do, and I startedto think about how I can
generate extra income from that.
I thought it was gonna do it with rentals.
Right.
But, uh, rentals is not big enoughan income for me to live off it yet.
(14:25):
yeah.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
So, and then at some point,Kind of brought you into
the world that you do today.
And this is the, I think the venuethat you and I, we belong to a couple
of, uh, different professional groups.
And I don't know, I think wemet online a couple years ago
or so we've gone to a couple ofdifferent, uh, conferences together.
(14:46):
And, uh, you are now co-leading, Idon't know what to call you, I guess,
but you've got a co-founder whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've got a digital agency,uh, there in San Diego.
Tell us a little
Simon (14:58):
bit about that.
I kind of got into that because of thereal estate thing, cuz I was building
my own websites, you know, mm-hmm Iwas just, it, it, you know, I built
my first website out of HTML and,and then I think I built a couple of
WordPress sites to try and generateleads for my real estate business.
Right.
And then I.
Did a little bit ofstuff for other people.
(15:19):
Then I did a bit of marketingonline for websites and stuff, and
it just kind of grew out of that.
You know, I kind of, I kind of likethis more than the real estate yeah.
Cause it's a little bit closerto what I was in college for, you
know, computer, stuff like that,where real estate was, you have to
talk to people and stuff, you know,
Randy (15:40):
well, you still have to talk to people occasionally.
Simon (15:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But luckily my businesspartner does more of that.
I just talk to, uh, I just talk to acomputer and people that talk the same
language as me, like yourself, people.
Yeah.
I do talk to some of our clients,but my business partner does.
Probably he's more on the sales side.
I'm a bit more on themarketing and technical side.
All right.
All right.
(16:03):
Kinda works out well for us,
Randy (16:04):
cause yeah, well, you've been doing it for a while, so
Simon (16:07):
yeah.
Yeah.
I think 2008, 2009,somewhere around there.
I can't really pin down exactlywhen I started it, cuz it kind of,
I transitioned into it from doingit for myself to a few other people.
So it's like it's a bit hazy to mewhere it was 2008, 2009, I think.
Yeah.
I started doing it for other clients and.
I was on my own for many years.
(16:29):
And then, then in 2016, I found a businesspartner that I tried working with a few
people in the past as a business partner,but it didn't work out two or three times
just, you gotta find the right personto be a business partner with right.
2016, I found a guy that, youknow, similar ideas to me, but
he was good at one thing andI was better at another thing.
(16:50):
So it really worked out.
So we've been together now for six yearsand finding a business partner was a.
Big help for me as a business ownerto, to, uh, to grow the business
since then we've grown quite a lot.
Cause he had his strengths.
I had my strengths, you know, and I wasn'tparticularly good at some of the things.
He, he was good at more.
He was better at he'dactually been in sales.
(17:11):
So he was better at that anyway.
Randy (17:13):
Yeah.
Is he as interested?
I'll I'll say in the
Simon (17:18):
technic side, he, yeah, he likes, he, he was doing social
media and reputation management.
Okay.
So he, he had that side of it, buthe was, and I was doing more of the
SEO and PPC, you know, setting andoptimization and that type of stuff.
So it was a good marriage of the two.
R (17:33):
So that's pretty interesting.
I'm gonna ask you here now.
We're we're gonna move into what welike to call the seventh inning stretch.
Simon.
I know baseball is not.
Widely popular, we'll say inEngland, but do you like baseball?
You got the Padres down there.
(17:53):
I've been to games
Simon (17:54):
in San Diego.
I've been to the Padres a couple of times.
Yeah.
It's it's fun, you know?
Yeah.
There you go.
It's not too bad.
It's not my thing, butyou know, it's okay.
Yeah.
Randy (18:04):
Well, alright.
Well we are, and it's time forthe seventh inning stretch.
It is time for the seventh inning stretch.
So I know that baseball is not horriblypopular there in England, but it does
have some history really in, in England.
Yeah.
You're like really?
I had no idea yes.
(18:27):
And, and actually it goes, there'ssome, I'm not gonna go into the
deep, deep history, but, uh,back in the, uh, about 120 years
ago, It started with a gentleman.
Uh, sir, Francis Le uh, starteda team there in around 1889,
(18:47):
1890s, something like that.
And then we'll kindamove forward into that.
But probably Britain's greatest momentof in baseball was back in 1938, when
the us had a national baseball team, theywere preparing for the 1940 Olympics.
England had an all star team.
(19:07):
And so they played the America'sall star team and actually England
won that series four games to one.
So, which is, what is that?
The last
Simon (19:17):
game they ever won?
Randy (19:19):
yes.
So pretty, pretty exciting.
It seemed to be the.
Maybe British baseball washeading in the right direction.
And then world Wari breaks outand the popularity of the sport
never returned, uh, to England.
It's just, obviously now it's justnot that popular, but here's your
question coming and being from England.
(19:40):
Do you have any idea how many major leaguebaseball players were born in England?
Simon (19:50):
have zero idea.
I'll take a complete guessseven, no idea whatsoever.
uh, well, while I'll you're close.
At at, in a certain,certain regard 32 in total.
Okay.
That were born in England.
Okay.
But only six of them haveplayed since world Wari, so.
(20:14):
Oh, really?
Wow.
Yes.
So, so your seven was closekind of post world war II.
So not too.
I think there's
probably more NFL players from England.
Cause I think rugby people cansometimes transition into NFL.
Randy (20:29):
Yeah, well that could be.
Yeah.
I don't know those guys playingcricket, you know, they'd swing as
Simon (20:34):
cricket.
Yeah.
But cricket, they swingthe back differently.
It's not sort of up here.
It's
Randy (20:39):
from the floor.
It's different shade, shade down.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Uh, well, not too bad Simon.
You did.
All right.
my, my knowledge of, of baseball is
practically zero All right, well, let's get back into it.
Play ball.
All right.
So I, I find it interesting.
Uh, it with you is that you do have thisentrepreneurial spirit where instead
(21:03):
of this highly technical, where Iwould think that you're an electrical
engineer and I, you know, at firstglance you would think you might not
be like, Hey, I wanna take a risk.
I wanna go, you know, make someinvestments, go pursue, start
my own business kind of thing.
But you really kind ofmoved in that direction is.
Anything was your family,did you have, oh, well, my,
Simon (21:25):
my brother and father had a, I have a, um, a small business.
They have a car garage in England.
Mm.
Yeah.
And I actually, when I wasyounger, I actually did dabble
in, in, um, entrepreneurship.
When I was 16.
I wrote a computer programthat I sold . Oh, wow.
Look at you.
So I was involved incomputers in the early days.
(21:46):
I, you know, it was on a cassette tape.
Yeah.
And I sold it througha magazine and yeah.
So that was one of the things I did.
And I think where that I wasprobably 15, 16, when I did that.
Then when I was 17, one summer, westarted a car wash business that we
drove around and washed people's cars.
So , I dabbled with it before I was inelectrical engineering, being a sort.
(22:11):
Small, small business
Randy (22:12):
owner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
you know, that's so funny.
The, the mobile carwash or cardetailing is what you call it here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That still people still makevery business doing that still.
Yeah.
You were on the cuttingedge probably back then.
So now at some point you cameto the states, you're doing
the electrical engineering.
You were doing real estate investment, andthen you're like, you're not satisfied.
(22:36):
You're still doing some business pursuits.
You opened a hair salon franchise.
Simon (22:41):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That was cause I wanted to get out,uh, out of engineering just cuz
you know, I liked engineering, butI was in it for long enough that I
wanted to do something different.
Be my own boss, you know?
So we, we went to a businessbro and we went to a franchise.
Broker and they, you know, theydo an interview with you and they
(23:02):
figure out what, what you interestedin and your goals and stuff.
And they came up witha few different things.
One of them was a her salon, great clips.
Another one was a mobile pets.
Grooming it was Aussie pet mobile.
Okay.
And they're the two we kindof looked at pretty closely.
I'm not sure why we chose greatclips in the end, but that's the
(23:26):
one we chose because we believedit could be scalable Uhhuh.
And, you know, the, the successfulfranchisees had like five or 10 salons.
So we chose that one.
So.
Yeah, I, we did thatfor about three years.
I, I, I kind of figured out pretty quickthat I didn't really like that business.
you know, I was dealing with, we had14 employees, most of them females.
(23:50):
So for the first year or so,I was at the salon every day.
And then I realized I can't handle this.
So I just said, um, my wifecan, can handle it now.
I'm I'm going home and staying home.
then I went back into the hightech space for, for a few years.
Her salon was not me.
R (24:10):
well, I saw this in the notes now, you know, uh, for what I know
of you and hanging out with you,that would've been probably the
last thing that I would've ever havecoupled with you is like a, her salon
.
Simon (24:24):
Oh, it was, it was fun for yeah.
Listening to.
18 19 20 year olds withall their problems.
We came, come across.
Every thing you can think of, youknow, problems, drug addiction,
unfortunately, and pregnancies, andjust a lot of young female problems,
(24:45):
you know?
Oh yeah, I'm outta this.
Sim (24:48):
I don't think I'm the right
Randy (24:48):
person for this.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Well, and, uh, you know, and hairis, for me is just, you know, just
something I can't relate with.
Yeah.
Doesn't it doesn't cost you too much.
Does it?
doesn't so that is, uh, crazy.
So at, at some point yousaid, okay, this isn't for me.
How did you go about kinda undoing.
(25:11):
So, so it was a franchise, therewas a support, there was like 20 different
salons in San Diego county and okay.
I knew all the other franchise owners.
So.
I approached one or two of themto see if they wanted to buy it.
So I sold it for pennies onthe dollar mm-hmm yeah.
So the numbers work out is I put about300 K into it and sold it for 30 K.
(25:34):
That was a.
Ouch.
Ouch.
Yeah.
You needed to start flippingsome houses or something.
Yeah.
In order to, to come back from that one.
It is interesting though.
And I'm sure that you're sitting back now.
I mean, the I'm sure that was yearsago, but looking back at it now,
What, uh, maybe a life lesson that youprobably have picked up out of that?
(25:56):
Well,franchises are good because
they do have a, an establishedsystem and that's what we wanted.
You know, they have you do it thisway and this way and this way, right.
You know, everything is set out.
You buy your, these.
You know, you buy your equipment fromhere, you buy your, your supplies here.
Here's the ATM system, you know,and there's a training system.
(26:19):
Everything was set up for you.
You're paying it.
So you pay a fee for that.
So everything's set up, you justshould be just plug and play and.
For a lot of people.
It is, but for us it just didn't work out.
We just weren't the rightpeople for that type
of business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's gotta be, uh, there
Simon (26:35):
are lots of people.
I mean, I wouldn't sayit's a bad business.
It's just, um, you know, some peoplehave done really well from it.
Some people have 10, 20, 30salons and then you're making
pretty decent money from each one.
Randy (26:47):
Sure, sure.
Well, I would think it is anindustry that probably will just
continue to go on, regardless of I
Simon (26:55):
think so.
Yeah, because I don't.
Robots are gonna replacehair dresses anytime soon.
I, I doubt it.
And, and, and her seems to grow.
Yeah.
Except during the pandemic, when everyonehad YouTube haircuts and stuff for a while
Randy (27:10):
or just let it grow and, you know, yeah.
I, I tried that run and it didn't reallychange anything for me, but, uh, So in
thinking, you know, over the course ofthe years that you've been in business
and had different business pursuits and,and experiences, when you came across
(27:33):
something maybe like, uh, the hair salon,or maybe in one of your real estate
ventures, when you came across or werefaced with obstacles, um, some challenges,
what was your approach to overcome?
Simon (27:50):
Challenges sometimes, you know, being an engineer,
try and solve it myself first.
Sometimes sometimes thatisn't the best approach.
So certainly in some of my current,in the past, maybe I just try and
solve it myself and just mut through.
That's generally not the best approach.
What I do now is that I have a problem.
I'll I, I have a lot of, you know, I'm.
(28:12):
Digital marketing space.
If I have a problem,I know lots of people.
I know lots of people that are, have moreexperience in certain things than me.
So I will seek out someone that canhelp me with a specific problem.
So having a big network ofpeople that understand the same
industry as you is very useful.
When you're a business owner and Ithink I'm in a networking group and
(28:32):
a lot of people, you know, I, I haveindustries totally unrelated to mine.
And so now there's a CPA and thingslike that, that networking group is
good for me, cuz I can go to peoplewithin that group and ask them specific
questions that are totally outside.
Scope of my work.
Randy (28:48):
Right, right.
That actually is some great advice.
I have been, uh, active in, in anumber of different networking groups.
I've met some great people.
Um, there's a great group,uh, organization called BNI.
I don't know if you, yeah.
Yeah.
Simon (29:04):
I, I was in that for, I was in B and I for five years.
That's very good.
Yeah.
When you, certainly,when you getting started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I kind of, now I'm in.
It's called the executivesassociation of San Diego.
It's slightly bigger businesses.
Mm-hmm and, uh, that's been very goodfor my business actually, cuz I got
quite a few clients from there as well.
Oh good, good, good.
It's a good way to grow your business nomatter what type of business you're in.
(29:26):
Yeah.
So there's roofing guys in,you know, networking group.
There's window guys, allsorts of different industries.
Well, I
Ra (29:33):
think it's a great approach.
And I, I was gonna say, and nowI'm heavily involved in our,
um, local chamber of commerce.
And I, I think it's good as abusiness owner, as we both are now to.
Engage outside.
And is what you mentioned to engagewith owners, um, outside of your
(29:55):
specific niche, because, you know,as you rattled off, whether it's CPAs
or lawyers or roofers or whateverthat business is, Or those businesses
are that are part of that group.
You really can learn still from anybody.
Yeah.
In any business, because theymay not have your very specific
(30:16):
niche specific challenge thatyou're trying to figure out.
But they're business owners.
They're still trying to figureout how do we get new customers?
How do we, yeah.
How do we get more efficientin delivering our services?
How do we scale?
How do we save money and operations?
And so kind of having that networkand sounding boards, and as you're
(30:37):
exploring topics like that, amongsta group of people, you get a
completely different perspective.
I
Simon (30:43):
think it's very useful for any business owner to,
to be in a group like that.
Yeah, because.
Some of our members havebeen in business 50 years.
Yeah.
And some of them are multi-generational.
Some of them have been in the company, inthe organization for over 70 years, their
grandfather, the father and the father.
So they have lots of business experience.
They, you know, so you can go tothem with questions or they can even
(31:06):
connect you with people that theyknow, you know, they, they, they
don't know someone, they know someonewho does know someone, you know?
Yeah.
So it's, it's, it's verypowerful, I think for a small
Randy (31:16):
business, So Simon what's around the corner.
What's the next big stepor big, uh, pursuit.
Well, I just continue to grow.
We don't grow our agency fast,where everyone wants to grow
scale, scale, scale, scale, scale.
We're more of a grow slowlyand high retention is our
model for our current clients.
(31:38):
And also we're trying to do thingsslightly outside of client work, you
know, building our own websites andstuff to generate income and stuff.
So I'm just slowly doing that and I'llprobably buy another couple of real.
Houses and stuff and just, you know, just,I, I don't have these big dreams of being
a hundred million dollar company anymore.
(31:59):
It's just, I just want a comfortable,easy life where , I can do what
I do wherever I want to do it.
So, you know, cuz I'm a, I digital,I, most of my stuff is digital.
I can do my job anywhere in the world.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, December we tookoff, well, we went somewhere up, you
know, we went up the coast of Californiaand I ran my business from a Airbnb
(32:21):
for a month, so.
Oh, nice.
Do you have any of those, uh,fancy thoughts of, I don't know,
um, at some point in your life.
Just going off, uh, to some other country.
There's a lot of guys that do whatwe do that go off to, I could.
Yeah.
Or, or maybe Taiwan or it's more difficult
Simon (32:43):
cause we have animals.
So yeah.
You know, it's difficult cuzwe like to have dogs around.
So that makes it a bit more challenging.
I might be able to do it for acouple of weeks, but I couldn't
do it for six months or a year.
Like some people do likebeing a digital nomad.
Yeah.
I'll probably not do.
But, you know, I mightdo it for a few weeks.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe a month, but notany longer than that.
(33:03):
Yeah.
Maybe in the future, maybe in 10years in the future, I might change
Randy (33:06):
my mind maybe at a point when you don't, when you don't
have a, a furry animal that you're.
Yeah.
Unfortunately they do come andgo.
Simon (33:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I keep replacing them.
So.
Randy (33:18):
All right.
So Simon, here we are.
We're at the bottom of the ninth and thisis where we typically ask our guests.
What advice do you havefor rookies in the game?
So those folks starting out in business,or maybe who already have a business,
and they're looking for some guidance,uh, from an old Sage, uh, veterans,
(33:39):
like you been around on the bus for a.
Well, I think we just, we, we,we talked about it just a minute ago.
I think if you're starting out, it it'dbe good to get into some sort of BNI
LA tip or some other organization whereother small businesses gather, because
one, they can help you with, you know,often it'll be a CPA and a lawyer and
all those types of people, professionalservices that you need for your business.
(34:02):
But also the, the goal of thosetypes of organizations is.
Refer business to you.
So, you know, if you refer businessto them, they, the idea is that
they refer business to you.
So that's actually one way you canreally build your business quickly.
And I know quite a few one, man bandshave turned into bigger companies
by just going to the right typeof networking group B and I LA tip
(34:25):
chamber of commerce, whatever it is.
There's, there's, there's,there's a lot in San Diego.
There's lots of them, right.
Um, I think that would bevery beneficial starting out.
Right.
Also read lots of Amazon books, but
there you go.
I, I tell my kids this all the time.
I think, Hey, you can go on YouTubeand learn about anything in 30 minutes.
(34:47):
Yeah.
And be proficient at least.
So, yeah.
Uh, I'm like, don'task me, go ask YouTube.
You can find it there.
Yeah.
You can get the,
Simon (34:55):
you can get the theory and some of the ideas from there.
Sure.
But go into these networkinggroups, you get to interact.
Real businesses.
And how did it really work?
You know, what did you do and stuff.
So I think that's, if you'rereally just starting out, that's
probably one of the top thingsto do is go and join summit like
Randy (35:10):
that.
Yeah.
I think that's some great advice.
Well, listen, Simon, thanks forhanging out with us a bit here today.
We can get in touchwith you@localblitz.com.
Is that right?
Correct.
Yeah.
Local click.com.
I'll have that link, uh, andother social networks and things.
If people could reach out to youvia, uh, the internet, um, we'll
(35:34):
have those in our show notes.
And, uh, I appreciate you hangingout with us on a, um, beautiful,
uh, Friday, hopefully in San Diego.
It's gorgeous there.
It's gorgeous here in, in Cleveland today.
Great.
Thanks for having me, Randy.
All right.
I appreciate it.
And that's the ballgame folks.
Thanks for joining us today.
And if you like our show, please tellyour friends, subscribe and review,
(35:58):
and we'll see around the ballpark.
Running the bases with smallbusinesses is brought to you by 38
digital market, a digital marketingagency, committed to client growth.
With lead generation higher conversionsand increased sales connect with
(36:18):
us today at 38 digital market.com.
I'm Randy roady and I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs
and small business owners.
Plus I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner and we discuss there
running the bases of entrepreneurship.
We throw the ball around on strategymanagement, execution and innovation.
(00:24):
Plus a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settle in, grab your cracker jacksand you know what they say, play ball.
And it's a great day for a ball game.
This is Randy Roddy.
Got a question for you folks.
What do you call a British engineer?
Who crosses the pond to find his wayin the tech industry, but realizes
(00:48):
his fortune and entrepreneurial spiritreally lie in the wild, wild west of
the California real estate market.
While we call that today's guest,when he is not investing in homes
in Southern California might alsobe found at local blitz marketing,
a digital marketing company.
He co-founded in, uh, 2009 or.
(01:09):
You might find him out hiking withhis wife and their furry children.
I probably, I didn't write this intro.
Uh, we are pleased to welcome, uh,to running the bases with small
businesses podcast, Simon white Simon.
Good to have you on the show.
Simon (01:27):
Hi there, Randy.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on . I'm
Randy (01:30):
you got it right there.
I I'm assuming the, uh,furry children are yeah.
Are not offspring, butmore like pets of some sort
Si (01:39):
yeah, we, we, we adopt dogs.
All our dogs are from the rescue, so yeah,we have, uh, we've had a blind dog, a deaf
dog in the past the dog at the moment thatwe're fostering, that only has two legs.
Oh, my, she does exceptionally well.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She she's from Mexico.
She got hit by a car we thinkdown there and they, uh, actually
(02:00):
amputated the back two legs soshe can get around really well.
On, on two, two front legs.
No kidding.
Have wheels for her.
Yeah, but she can, she can do really.
She can actually run faster on twolegs than she came with the wheels.
Cuz she.
She's got really strong front legs.
Randy (02:15):
So that is amazing.
Wow.
uh, I will tell a quick story around that.
We had a neighbor who had a three-leggedcat and was missing a rear leg and
that cat was the best would comeover and just pounce on ground hogs
or ground squirrels or what are.
Things critters and she'dleave them out there.
(02:36):
It was, this cat was amazing.
I was always amazed at it,but anyway, so let's jump in.
I've got a fun story that, you know, myresearch team, I was telling you before
we hit the record button here, that sheis so great finds all kinds of fun stuff.
She dug up.
A fun story about how you met your wife.
Simon (02:58):
Wow.
Okay.
I was wonder wondering if you wouldfind that that's buried in the internet.
Most people dunno
about it, but it's interesting.
You found it . So I'm wondering ifyou would care to, to share with the
audience a little bit, a little bit ofa story of Simon white and your wife.
Well, when I, yeah,
Simo (03:14):
I came, I came here in 97.
I think it was anyway,whatever year it was.
I, I went.
You know, I was single for the firstfew months, but then, um, me and.
English friends.
We were all from England.
We all came over pretty much the sametime we went to a concert Alanis Mo set.
Yeah.
. And, uh, before the concert, I satnext to a few, few girls, local
(03:38):
girls, and we just got chattingand staff, you know, nothing major.
And then the, the, she startedAlanis Mo set, the concert started
and never really saw her again.
And then, uh, a few days later I got aphone call and it was a radio station.
And, uh, they introduced Amanda on thephone, me and Amanda over the phone.
(03:59):
And she asked me out to go fora date on that Saturday and,
uh, the rest is history.
A couple of years later, we got married.
No kidding.
Then there is a big, longelaborate version of that.
My wife tells, but I just give youthe the shorten and quit version.
But yeah, I met my wife at Alanis.
Morrisette.
(04:19):
And at the Del off, uh, a couple ofyears later we got married and we
actually had the DJ from the radiostation, be our DJ at our wedding.
Randy (04:29):
ah, that's nice.
Yes.
So I think your wife is the great romanticthen must be because yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That's that's very good.
Well, congrat, how longhave you been married?
Simon (04:41):
24 year?
Uh, no.
23 years.
Yeah.
99.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was just, it was justa few days ago, actually.
Randy (04:48):
Ah, very good.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Well, there you go.
So growing up in England, youattended the university of Bradford,
have your engineering degree.
Here in the states, as you know, sowe just passed May 1st, uh, which is
the typical us college commitment day,which is the crazy college acceptance,
(05:10):
all of the applicants, they okay.
Essentially commit to universityand all of that stuff.
Curious, what are some of the differencesbetween college life in England versus.
Here in this states.
Do you have any thoughts about that?
Well, you know, in the collegeI went to was specific to the type of
(05:31):
engineering I went to, that I wantedto do, which was radio engineering.
I, I don't, we did a lot ofdrinking and it, the drinking
age in England is 18 here.
It's 21.
Yeah, but I guess so it's legal tostart drinking at 18 in England here.
It's 21 back then allmy college was paid for.
I didn't didn't really leave collegewith any big debts or anything.
(05:53):
A few thousand pounds top, you know?
Nice.
So, but now.
I think it's changed.
I think England is a lotmore like the us now.
Oh, you know, the, the, the,you have to, um, tuition is a
lot more expensive and stuff.
It's such a long time agothat college now and college a
few years ago when I was there.
, it's a bit different.
So, Randy (06:14):
yes.
The world is different as wellin so many different ways.
So you got your engineering degree,you came here to the states.
Did you.
Come to the states directly toSouthern California from England?
Or did you go well, uh, Iworked, I worked in England in,
in, at NOK in Erickson for a few years.
(06:35):
Okay.
About four or five years.
And then I came for a vacation.
For three weeks and a big tour aroundCalifornia and Nevada, you know, San
Francisco came down the coast, LA SanDiego, Las Vegas Yosem did a big loop.
And then I said, oh, Ireally like San Diego.
So I applied for a few jobsand within a couple of weeks, I
(06:56):
flew over here for an interview.
Up in orange county.
And I had an interview for acompany in San Diego, actually in
London, got offered those two jobsand decided to come to San Diego.
Nice.
Yeah.
And so six months after I'd been here fora three week holiday, I was living here.
cause I had to wait for a visa and
Randy (07:15):
all the rest.
Oh, sure, sure.
Yeah, well, San Diego, youcould have picked some place
a lot worse than San Diego.
Yeah.
Simon (07:22):
I, well, you know, I did the big loop thing.
Yeah.
I like San Diego the best yeah.
Randy (07:26):
Yeah.
So you came over working as an engineer.
Yeah.
Simon (07:30):
Yeah.
And then it, well, for three weeks wasa vacation, but then six months later
I came over as an electrical engineer.
There's okay.
It was during, uh, thebig boom in mobile phones.
Right.
I designed mobile phones in England andI came over to work for Hughes network
systems was the first company I workedfor where we designed big Mo big.
I started out when mobilephones were the size of a brick.
Randy (07:52):
I had one of those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, well, at some point then yougot the entrepreneurial bug and
you started pursuing Californiareal estate, I think back in what
oh seven is what my notes said.
Simon (08:07):
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, um, I bought, we flippedsome homes in California, but I
bought some homes out of state.
which I still have some of those.
So we, we, we kind of got into buyingand selling homes in San Diego and
it was hot back in 2000 6, 7, 8.
Yeah.
As it is now.
And then I bought some rentalsin a few different parts of the
(08:29):
country in South Carolina andMississippi and Phoenix and stuff.
I sold some of those, butI've still got quite a few.
Randy (08:36):
You started in that industry when it was pretty hot.
And
Simon (08:41):
then yeah, I kind of started right at the top.
Yeah.
Two.
And it was like, but you know, I I'vemanaged to keep hold of some of those.
They actually still, yeah.
Some of 'em I had to sell cuzit was in the big downturn
things were got real Nesty.
So I just got rid of them.
Well, that's what I was wondering.
I was able to hold ontoquite a few of them.
So yeah,
Randy (09:01):
during the, uh, the oh eight through oh 10 or so.
Yeah, that was pretty difficult
Simon (09:06):
time.
So that's when we were doing short saleswere basically in San Diego where you
were buying houses in pre foreclosure,and then selling them again quickly.
And
Randy (09:15):
you're able to make for a couple of years, you could
make money at that fairly well.
Simon (09:19):
Yeah, our best one, we did 110,000 in a flip, so
it was not too bad back then.
God.
Randy (09:26):
No kidding.
Wow.
That's amazing.
So are you still active
in no, not so much in real estate.
I've still got rentals, right?
And I do a little bit of workin real estate notes, which is I
generate some leads and I brokerthem, or I also have some notes.
Notes are the, you know, the,the deaths, the mortgage.
(09:46):
Okay.
You can sell a house without a bank.
If I, if I wanted to buy a house fromyou, Randy, and we didn't wanna go to
the bank, you could just, uh, Agree tocarry the paper mm-hmm so if I bought
you had a hundred thousand dollars houseto sell, I might give you $10,000 down
and you would finance that 90,000 to me.
Right?
So, but then if later on yousaid, I want to sell that, that
(10:08):
$90,000 note to someone else.
Right.
And invest, it might come inthere and buy it from you.
He might discount it a little bit.
So he gets a better interest rate.
Sure.
Better yield.
But there's a whole industry aroundbuying private notes like that.
Okay.
So I have some of those notes and I alsodo lead generation online to generate
(10:30):
some of those types of leads to giveto other people I, to broker them
to, or sell a leads to other people,
ah, had no idea that that even was.
Is that, is that a, that seemslike such a small sliver, is it?
It is, it is a very small sliver,but, but on that same ilk, you can
do the same thing with people do itwith structured settlements, you know,
JG with mm-hmm all over the place.
(10:51):
That's how it works.
Lottery winnings.
Right.
Can be.
Can be created into notes like that.
There's lots of things, uh, evenroyalty fees and all sorts of
things can be create a cashflow canbe created from things like that.
There's a whole sub-industryof financial instruments that
most people have never heard of.
Yeah.
(11:11):
Curious through your.
Kind of investments and, uh,purchases made any, any bad
purchases in any of them.
Oh yeah, yeah,
Simon (11:21):
yeah.
real estate or otherwise,otherwise, whatever, I've had some
bad real estate deals for sure.
But I loaned money that nevergot paid back and, uh, Yeah.
Yeah.
That's nice.
Yeah.
I've learned you learn a lotfrom that lost a good chunk
of money in various bad deals.
Yes . Yeah.
Randy (11:40):
Well, yeah.
So your 110,000 flip, uh,you know, could evaporate.
I've lost more than that.
Yeah, well that's so you were kind ofinvolved and heavy into that stuff.
Um, kind of before that houseand garden TV craze, you know,
where they're, uh, flipping housesand were you doing stuff for,
Simon (12:01):
yeah, I think it kind of came out of the, the big.
2010, 11.
Did it start off?
I don't know.
There's always been something,but now there's a lot of them.
Yeah.
Even ice.
Is it vanilla ice and variouspeople do flipping on TV and stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot of them now.
Yeah.
Randy (12:17):
So would you do this, uh, the house flip and I think I'm more
familiar with where you, uh, go andyou grab the house by it and then
renovate, uh, completely got it.
That's a lot of
Simon (12:28):
work.
All I did was I.
Bought the house and sold it onto someone
Randy (12:33):
else.
So you were almost just a owner onpaper quick and then, well, yeah,
that that's called wholesaling.
When you buy a, a house oryou get it under contract and
you sell a contract right.
To someone else who wantsto renovate it and sell it.
So I've done a little bit of that.
And, uh, the other thing was we did shortsales, so we helped owners sell our house.
Right.
That we're in good Condit.
(12:54):
So we kind of bought it on paperand then sold it immediately.
There's special technique fordoing it with double ended clothes.
Got it.
Got it.
Crazy market today inthe housing industry.
What do you think about that?
Would you, yeah,
I'm not an expert in it anymore,cause I don't follow it quite as
much, but yeah, certainly San Diego'sgonna like 22% in the last year.
(13:17):
I think.
I think, I think we're starting tosee some cooling in many areas cuz
the interest rates have gone up anduh, our, our house has doubled in
price in the last six or seven years.
I think it's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy.
So you, you came here asan electrical engineer.
What was it that kind of tripped yourinterest and, and, uh, really got
(13:42):
you into the real estate pursuit.
How did you even, well, I was
just, you know, I was, I workedin a corporate wealth a, well probably.
Total of 15 years, but I firstgot interested in real estate.
When someone at one of the companies Iwas working with talked, talked to me
about rentals, real real estate rentals.
And I kind of got interested andsays, oh, that's kind of interesting.
(14:04):
So that's how I got into that.
I, so I went to a few seminars andstuff and started buying a few rentals.
And it just kind of grew outta that.
I started to do, and I startedto think about how I can
generate extra income from that.
I thought it was gonna do it with rentals.
Right.
But, uh, rentals is not big enoughan income for me to live off it yet.
(14:25):
yeah.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
So, and then at some point,Kind of brought you into
the world that you do today.
And this is the, I think the venuethat you and I, we belong to a couple
of, uh, different professional groups.
And I don't know, I think wemet online a couple years ago
or so we've gone to a couple ofdifferent, uh, conferences together.
(14:46):
And, uh, you are now co-leading, Idon't know what to call you, I guess,
but you've got a co-founder whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've got a digital agency,uh, there in San Diego.
Tell us a little
Simon (14:58):
bit about that.
I kind of got into that because of thereal estate thing, cuz I was building
my own websites, you know, mm-hmm Iwas just, it, it, you know, I built
my first website out of HTML and,and then I think I built a couple of
WordPress sites to try and generateleads for my real estate business.
Right.
And then I.
Did a little bit ofstuff for other people.
(15:19):
Then I did a bit of marketingonline for websites and stuff, and
it just kind of grew out of that.
You know, I kind of, I kind of likethis more than the real estate yeah.
Cause it's a little bit closerto what I was in college for, you
know, computer, stuff like that,where real estate was, you have to
talk to people and stuff, you know,
Randy (15:40):
well, you still have to talk to people occasionally.
Simon (15:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But luckily my businesspartner does more of that.
I just talk to, uh, I just talk to acomputer and people that talk the same
language as me, like yourself, people.
Yeah.
I do talk to some of our clients,but my business partner does.
Probably he's more on the sales side.
I'm a bit more on themarketing and technical side.
All right.
All right.
(16:03):
Kinda works out well for us,
Randy (16:04):
cause yeah, well, you've been doing it for a while, so
Simon (16:07):
yeah.
Yeah.
I think 2008, 2009,somewhere around there.
I can't really pin down exactlywhen I started it, cuz it kind of,
I transitioned into it from doingit for myself to a few other people.
So it's like it's a bit hazy to mewhere it was 2008, 2009, I think.
Yeah.
I started doing it for other clients and.
I was on my own for many years.
(16:29):
And then, then in 2016, I found a businesspartner that I tried working with a few
people in the past as a business partner,but it didn't work out two or three times
just, you gotta find the right personto be a business partner with right.
2016, I found a guy that, youknow, similar ideas to me, but
he was good at one thing andI was better at another thing.
(16:50):
So it really worked out.
So we've been together now for six yearsand finding a business partner was a.
Big help for me as a business ownerto, to, uh, to grow the business
since then we've grown quite a lot.
Cause he had his strengths.
I had my strengths, you know, and I wasn'tparticularly good at some of the things.
He, he was good at more.
He was better at he'dactually been in sales.
(17:11):
So he was better at that anyway.
Randy (17:13):
Yeah.
Is he as interested?
I'll I'll say in the
Simon (17:18):
technic side, he, yeah, he likes, he, he was doing social
media and reputation management.
Okay.
So he, he had that side of it, buthe was, and I was doing more of the
SEO and PPC, you know, setting andoptimization and that type of stuff.
So it was a good marriage of the two.
R (17:33):
So that's pretty interesting.
I'm gonna ask you here now.
We're we're gonna move into what welike to call the seventh inning stretch.
Simon.
I know baseball is not.
Widely popular, we'll say inEngland, but do you like baseball?
You got the Padres down there.
(17:53):
I've been to games
Simon (17:54):
in San Diego.
I've been to the Padres a couple of times.
Yeah.
It's it's fun, you know?
Yeah.
There you go.
It's not too bad.
It's not my thing, butyou know, it's okay.
Yeah.
Randy (18:04):
Well, alright.
Well we are, and it's time forthe seventh inning stretch.
It is time for the seventh inning stretch.
So I know that baseball is not horriblypopular there in England, but it does
have some history really in, in England.
Yeah.
You're like really?
I had no idea yes.
(18:27):
And, and actually it goes, there'ssome, I'm not gonna go into the
deep, deep history, but, uh,back in the, uh, about 120 years
ago, It started with a gentleman.
Uh, sir, Francis Le uh, starteda team there in around 1889,
(18:47):
1890s, something like that.
And then we'll kindamove forward into that.
But probably Britain's greatest momentof in baseball was back in 1938, when
the us had a national baseball team, theywere preparing for the 1940 Olympics.
England had an all star team.
(19:07):
And so they played the America'sall star team and actually England
won that series four games to one.
So, which is, what is that?
The last
Simon (19:17):
game they ever won?
Randy (19:19):
yes.
So pretty, pretty exciting.
It seemed to be the.
Maybe British baseball washeading in the right direction.
And then world Wari breaks outand the popularity of the sport
never returned, uh, to England.
It's just, obviously now it's justnot that popular, but here's your
question coming and being from England.
(19:40):
Do you have any idea how many major leaguebaseball players were born in England?
Simon (19:50):
have zero idea.
I'll take a complete guessseven, no idea whatsoever.
uh, well, while I'll you're close.
At at, in a certain,certain regard 32 in total.
Okay.
That were born in England.
Okay.
But only six of them haveplayed since world Wari, so.
(20:14):
Oh, really?
Wow.
Yes.
So, so your seven was closekind of post world war II.
So not too.
I think there's
probably more NFL players from England.
Cause I think rugby people cansometimes transition into NFL.
Randy (20:29):
Yeah, well that could be.
Yeah.
I don't know those guys playingcricket, you know, they'd swing as
Simon (20:34):
cricket.
Yeah.
But cricket, they swingthe back differently.
It's not sort of up here.
It's
Randy (20:39):
from the floor.
It's different shade, shade down.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Uh, well, not too bad Simon.
You did.
All right.
my, my knowledge of, of baseball is
practically zero All right, well, let's get back into it.
Play ball.
All right.
So I, I find it interesting.
Uh, it with you is that you do have thisentrepreneurial spirit where instead
(21:03):
of this highly technical, where Iwould think that you're an electrical
engineer and I, you know, at firstglance you would think you might not
be like, Hey, I wanna take a risk.
I wanna go, you know, make someinvestments, go pursue, start
my own business kind of thing.
But you really kind ofmoved in that direction is.
Anything was your family,did you have, oh, well, my,
Simon (21:25):
my brother and father had a, I have a, um, a small business.
They have a car garage in England.
Mm.
Yeah.
And I actually, when I wasyounger, I actually did dabble
in, in, um, entrepreneurship.
When I was 16.
I wrote a computer programthat I sold . Oh, wow.
Look at you.
So I was involved incomputers in the early days.
(21:46):
I, you know, it was on a cassette tape.
Yeah.
And I sold it througha magazine and yeah.
So that was one of the things I did.
And I think where that I wasprobably 15, 16, when I did that.
Then when I was 17, one summer, westarted a car wash business that we
drove around and washed people's cars.
So , I dabbled with it before I was inelectrical engineering, being a sort.
(22:11):
Small, small business
Randy (22:12):
owner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
you know, that's so funny.
The, the mobile carwash or cardetailing is what you call it here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That still people still makevery business doing that still.
Yeah.
You were on the cuttingedge probably back then.
So now at some point you cameto the states, you're doing
the electrical engineering.
You were doing real estate investment, andthen you're like, you're not satisfied.
(22:36):
You're still doing some business pursuits.
You opened a hair salon franchise.
Simon (22:41):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That was cause I wanted to get out,uh, out of engineering just cuz
you know, I liked engineering, butI was in it for long enough that I
wanted to do something different.
Be my own boss, you know?
So we, we went to a businessbro and we went to a franchise.
Broker and they, you know, theydo an interview with you and they
(23:02):
figure out what, what you interestedin and your goals and stuff.
And they came up witha few different things.
One of them was a her salon, great clips.
Another one was a mobile pets.
Grooming it was Aussie pet mobile.
Okay.
And they're the two we kindof looked at pretty closely.
I'm not sure why we chose greatclips in the end, but that's the
(23:26):
one we chose because we believedit could be scalable Uhhuh.
And, you know, the, the successfulfranchisees had like five or 10 salons.
So we chose that one.
So.
Yeah, I, we did thatfor about three years.
I, I, I kind of figured out pretty quickthat I didn't really like that business.
you know, I was dealing with, we had14 employees, most of them females.
(23:50):
So for the first year or so,I was at the salon every day.
And then I realized I can't handle this.
So I just said, um, my wifecan, can handle it now.
I'm I'm going home and staying home.
then I went back into the hightech space for, for a few years.
Her salon was not me.
R (24:10):
well, I saw this in the notes now, you know, uh, for what I know
of you and hanging out with you,that would've been probably the
last thing that I would've ever havecoupled with you is like a, her salon
.
Simon (24:24):
Oh, it was, it was fun for yeah.
Listening to.
18 19 20 year olds withall their problems.
We came, come across.
Every thing you can think of, youknow, problems, drug addiction,
unfortunately, and pregnancies, andjust a lot of young female problems,
(24:45):
you know?
Oh yeah, I'm outta this.
Sim (24:48):
I don't think I'm the right
Randy (24:48):
person for this.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Well, and, uh, you know, and hairis, for me is just, you know, just
something I can't relate with.
Yeah.
Doesn't it doesn't cost you too much.
Does it?
doesn't so that is, uh, crazy.
So at, at some point yousaid, okay, this isn't for me.
How did you go about kinda undoing.
(25:11):
So, so it was a franchise, therewas a support, there was like 20 different
salons in San Diego county and okay.
I knew all the other franchise owners.
So.
I approached one or two of themto see if they wanted to buy it.
So I sold it for pennies onthe dollar mm-hmm yeah.
So the numbers work out is I put about300 K into it and sold it for 30 K.
(25:34):
That was a.
Ouch.
Ouch.
Yeah.
You needed to start flippingsome houses or something.
Yeah.
In order to, to come back from that one.
It is interesting though.
And I'm sure that you're sitting back now.
I mean, the I'm sure that was yearsago, but looking back at it now,
What, uh, maybe a life lesson that youprobably have picked up out of that?
(25:56):
Well,franchises are good because
they do have a, an establishedsystem and that's what we wanted.
You know, they have you do it thisway and this way and this way, right.
You know, everything is set out.
You buy your, these.
You know, you buy your equipment fromhere, you buy your, your supplies here.
Here's the ATM system, you know,and there's a training system.
(26:19):
Everything was set up for you.
You're paying it.
So you pay a fee for that.
So everything's set up, you justshould be just plug and play and.
For a lot of people.
It is, but for us it just didn't work out.
We just weren't the rightpeople for that type
of business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's gotta be, uh, there
Simon (26:35):
are lots of people.
I mean, I wouldn't sayit's a bad business.
It's just, um, you know, some peoplehave done really well from it.
Some people have 10, 20, 30salons and then you're making
pretty decent money from each one.
Randy (26:47):
Sure, sure.
Well, I would think it is anindustry that probably will just
continue to go on, regardless of I
Simon (26:55):
think so.
Yeah, because I don't.
Robots are gonna replacehair dresses anytime soon.
I, I doubt it.
And, and, and her seems to grow.
Yeah.
Except during the pandemic, when everyonehad YouTube haircuts and stuff for a while
Randy (27:10):
or just let it grow and, you know, yeah.
I, I tried that run and it didn't reallychange anything for me, but, uh, So in
thinking, you know, over the course ofthe years that you've been in business
and had different business pursuits and,and experiences, when you came across
(27:33):
something maybe like, uh, the hair salon,or maybe in one of your real estate
ventures, when you came across or werefaced with obstacles, um, some challenges,
what was your approach to overcome?
Simon (27:50):
Challenges sometimes, you know, being an engineer,
try and solve it myself first.
Sometimes sometimes thatisn't the best approach.
So certainly in some of my current,in the past, maybe I just try and
solve it myself and just mut through.
That's generally not the best approach.
What I do now is that I have a problem.
I'll I, I have a lot of, you know, I'm.
(28:12):
Digital marketing space.
If I have a problem,I know lots of people.
I know lots of people that are, have moreexperience in certain things than me.
So I will seek out someone that canhelp me with a specific problem.
So having a big network ofpeople that understand the same
industry as you is very useful.
When you're a business owner and Ithink I'm in a networking group and
(28:32):
a lot of people, you know, I, I haveindustries totally unrelated to mine.
And so now there's a CPA and thingslike that, that networking group is
good for me, cuz I can go to peoplewithin that group and ask them specific
questions that are totally outside.
Scope of my work.
Randy (28:48):
Right, right.
That actually is some great advice.
I have been, uh, active in, in anumber of different networking groups.
I've met some great people.
Um, there's a great group,uh, organization called BNI.
I don't know if you, yeah.
Yeah.
Simon (29:04):
I, I was in that for, I was in B and I for five years.
That's very good.
Yeah.
When you, certainly,when you getting started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I kind of, now I'm in.
It's called the executivesassociation of San Diego.
It's slightly bigger businesses.
Mm-hmm and, uh, that's been very goodfor my business actually, cuz I got
quite a few clients from there as well.
Oh good, good, good.
It's a good way to grow your business nomatter what type of business you're in.
(29:26):
Yeah.
So there's roofing guys in,you know, networking group.
There's window guys, allsorts of different industries.
Well, I
Ra (29:33):
think it's a great approach.
And I, I was gonna say, and nowI'm heavily involved in our,
um, local chamber of commerce.
And I, I think it's good as abusiness owner, as we both are now to.
Engage outside.
And is what you mentioned to engagewith owners, um, outside of your
(29:55):
specific niche, because, you know,as you rattled off, whether it's CPAs
or lawyers or roofers or whateverthat business is, Or those businesses
are that are part of that group.
You really can learn still from anybody.
Yeah.
In any business, because theymay not have your very specific
(30:16):
niche specific challenge thatyou're trying to figure out.
But they're business owners.
They're still trying to figureout how do we get new customers?
How do we, yeah.
How do we get more efficientin delivering our services?
How do we scale?
How do we save money and operations?
And so kind of having that networkand sounding boards, and as you're
(30:37):
exploring topics like that, amongsta group of people, you get a
completely different perspective.
I
Simon (30:43):
think it's very useful for any business owner to,
to be in a group like that.
Yeah, because.
Some of our members havebeen in business 50 years.
Yeah.
And some of them are multi-generational.
Some of them have been in the company, inthe organization for over 70 years, their
grandfather, the father and the father.
So they have lots of business experience.
They, you know, so you can go tothem with questions or they can even
(31:06):
connect you with people that theyknow, you know, they, they, they
don't know someone, they know someonewho does know someone, you know?
Yeah.
So it's, it's, it's verypowerful, I think for a small
Randy (31:16):
business, So Simon what's around the corner.
What's the next big stepor big, uh, pursuit.
Well, I just continue to grow.
We don't grow our agency fast,where everyone wants to grow
scale, scale, scale, scale, scale.
We're more of a grow slowlyand high retention is our
model for our current clients.
(31:38):
And also we're trying to do thingsslightly outside of client work, you
know, building our own websites andstuff to generate income and stuff.
So I'm just slowly doing that and I'llprobably buy another couple of real.
Houses and stuff and just, you know, just,I, I don't have these big dreams of being
a hundred million dollar company anymore.
(31:59):
It's just, I just want a comfortable,easy life where , I can do what
I do wherever I want to do it.
So, you know, cuz I'm a, I digital,I, most of my stuff is digital.
I can do my job anywhere in the world.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, December we tookoff, well, we went somewhere up, you
know, we went up the coast of Californiaand I ran my business from a Airbnb
(32:21):
for a month, so.
Oh, nice.
Do you have any of those, uh,fancy thoughts of, I don't know,
um, at some point in your life.
Just going off, uh, to some other country.
There's a lot of guys that do whatwe do that go off to, I could.
Yeah.
Or, or maybe Taiwan or it's more difficult
Simon (32:43):
cause we have animals.
So yeah.
You know, it's difficult cuzwe like to have dogs around.
So that makes it a bit more challenging.
I might be able to do it for acouple of weeks, but I couldn't
do it for six months or a year.
Like some people do likebeing a digital nomad.
Yeah.
I'll probably not do.
But, you know, I mightdo it for a few weeks.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe a month, but notany longer than that.
(33:03):
Yeah.
Maybe in the future, maybe in 10years in the future, I might change
Randy (33:06):
my mind maybe at a point when you don't, when you don't
have a, a furry animal that you're.
Yeah.
Unfortunately they do come andgo.
Simon (33:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I keep replacing them.
So.
Randy (33:18):
All right.
So Simon, here we are.
We're at the bottom of the ninth and thisis where we typically ask our guests.
What advice do you havefor rookies in the game?
So those folks starting out in business,or maybe who already have a business,
and they're looking for some guidance,uh, from an old Sage, uh, veterans,
(33:39):
like you been around on the bus for a.
Well, I think we just, we, we,we talked about it just a minute ago.
I think if you're starting out, it it'dbe good to get into some sort of BNI
LA tip or some other organization whereother small businesses gather, because
one, they can help you with, you know,often it'll be a CPA and a lawyer and
all those types of people, professionalservices that you need for your business.
(34:02):
But also the, the goal of thosetypes of organizations is.
Refer business to you.
So, you know, if you refer businessto them, they, the idea is that
they refer business to you.
So that's actually one way you canreally build your business quickly.
And I know quite a few one, man bandshave turned into bigger companies
by just going to the right typeof networking group B and I LA tip
(34:25):
chamber of commerce, whatever it is.
There's, there's, there's,there's a lot in San Diego.
There's lots of them, right.
Um, I think that would bevery beneficial starting out.
Right.
Also read lots of Amazon books, but
there you go.
I, I tell my kids this all the time.
I think, Hey, you can go on YouTubeand learn about anything in 30 minutes.
(34:47):
Yeah.
And be proficient at least.
So, yeah.
Uh, I'm like, don'task me, go ask YouTube.
You can find it there.
Yeah.
You can get the,
Simon (34:55):
you can get the theory and some of the ideas from there.
Sure.
But go into these networkinggroups, you get to interact.
Real businesses.
And how did it really work?
You know, what did you do and stuff.
So I think that's, if you'rereally just starting out, that's
probably one of the top thingsto do is go and join summit like
Randy (35:10):
that.
Yeah.
I think that's some great advice.
Well, listen, Simon, thanks forhanging out with us a bit here today.
We can get in touchwith you@localblitz.com.
Is that right?
Correct.
Yeah.
Local click.com.
I'll have that link, uh, andother social networks and things.
If people could reach out to youvia, uh, the internet, um, we'll
(35:34):
have those in our show notes.
And, uh, I appreciate you hangingout with us on a, um, beautiful,
uh, Friday, hopefully in San Diego.
It's gorgeous there.
It's gorgeous here in, in Cleveland today.
Great.
Thanks for having me, Randy.
All right.
I appreciate it.
And that's the ballgame folks.
Thanks for joining us today.
And if you like our show, please tellyour friends, subscribe and review,
(35:58):
and we'll see around the ballpark.
Running the bases with smallbusinesses is brought to you by 38
digital market, a digital marketingagency, committed to client growth.
With lead generation higher conversionsand increased sales connect with
(36:18):
us today at 38 digital market.com.
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