September 9, 2025 • 25 mins
The Mullet is our small rural business and marketing advice mini-series, brought to you by Richard P and Callum of CountrySlide.
Whilst feeding us with Pheasant burgers hot off the grill at the Game Fair, Hugo asked how to tell when it's time to grow some balls and quit the day job to focus entirely on the side hustle/passion project/own business.
Whether your thing is smoking meat or laying hedges (or both) there are a few things to think about before throwing everything that you've got into it.
Hugo can be found on Instagram @thegameglutton
If you have a question for the podcast, please DM us or send an email on contact@countryslide.co.uk
Whilst feeding us with Pheasant burgers hot off the grill at the Game Fair, Hugo asked how to tell when it's time to grow some balls and quit the day job to focus entirely on the side hustle/passion project/own business.
Whether your thing is smoking meat or laying hedges (or both) there are a few things to think about before throwing everything that you've got into it.
Hugo can be found on Instagram @thegameglutton
If you have a question for the podcast, please DM us or send an email on contact@countryslide.co.uk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we're back with another episode of the Mullet. Another
episode of the Marletowes arrived.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There's you and me and Richard too.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Was only Richard one. I'm Richard one. He's Richard two.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Richard the second. I think that name's taken. Actually, you'd
have to be like Richard the third.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So we're going to answer another question from a listener.
But we know this listener because he's fed us. He
fed me, he's fed me massively. You were You weren't
there for the main feeding there on the Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
But I got sent a care package from this man,
you did. I got smoked pheasant, or a variety of
smoke pheasant harrissa one. I even got something that famously
I said was ship, which was the coroner chicken. I said,
(01:01):
I didn't like raisins in things, and I have to
say I ate the whole lot of the one he
sent me because it was filled with almonds and it
was bloody delicious, and the raisins were not that offensive,
but generally yeah, so I ate a coronation pheasant and
it was delicious.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So, Richard the.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Eighth, would you like to hear would you like to.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Read out the question, when do I take the leap
of faith? How do you know when to grow some
balls and quit your job to go full time on
your own venture. From Hugo the game Glutton So Hugo
you can find him on Instagram going hi guys at
the beginning of every video.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
What's going on guys today, We're going to cook an
entire cat.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Have you ever smoked an entire muntjack over a candle? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I have now, And here's here's four things I got wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
He is good at the social media game you go.
He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And his food is amazing. His recipes are great, and
his food is Rarely do I talk to someone about
food and their ideas are way further advanced. And like
I tried the smoke pheasant. I was like, this is
this is delicious and I could tell straight away it
(02:26):
was Brian. So when I spoke to him, He's like, yeah, Brian,
it in this and then I get it in one
of those Bradley smokers and smoke it and I was like, yeah,
You've done it so well from start to finish like that,
nobody's given more love to a pheasant than this or
a partridge.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He's not messing around. So when do you grow balls
and quit your job to go full time on your
own venture? Have you ever had all the last time
you had a proper job? Have you ever had a
proper one?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh? Yeah, I've had a few proper jobs. Gross tax, yeah,
ye gross, I remember earning. I I did lots of
overtime and then and then I was like, is this
how much tax you have to pay when you do
that much over tize? Barely worth working? I'll probably pay
(03:21):
more than that now, but you know whatever, Yes, So
I wrote quite a lot of a long answer.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Do you do?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You what I have to say? This advice is a
lot better than this advice is a lot better than
the last Millet episode.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Because you've got you. You feel more confident in this answer.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Because I've been through this journey. I did have a
I was a journalist for three years as a paid
employee writing about cameras, and I got paid barely anything.
But I had a great time because I got to
go on lots of press trips.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
If you search Callum's name Calm Mcinernie Riley, you do
find his old articles and stuff online. There's like hints
of him having a proper job, and he looks like
just a little cheeky chappy but in some sort of
professional publication, it's very weird.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I shaved everything. I look like I actually cared
about my life. That was an old me. But yeah,
So what I will say is that there's a few things.
I don't think it is a case of having the
balls to quit your job because there's so many things
(04:33):
to unpack, because it's so easy, as as sort of
creative types that are essentially our own boss, it's quite
easy to just say, yeah, jack it all in, you'll
be fine. But we know nothing about finances, the situation
at hand, what work life is like, you know. So
(04:56):
there is a hell of a lot of nuance to it.
So I I think you have to take a strategic
approach at working some of that out. So the short
answer is you don't just have the balls and blindly
throw yourself into it. You take calculated risk and work
it out step to step. And I did write some
(05:16):
stuff down, but I'll give you a second.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Two rest. I agree with all of that. There used
to be this, this rule of entrepreneurship. This is more
like late two thousands, particularly around the big financial crash
where a lot of people were taking out of their
redundancy or their or just you know, whatever payout they'd
had from the place it worked for going belly up,
(05:41):
and they were moving on to setting up their own brand,
their own business. And there are a lot of people
doing that around me at the time, whereas I was
working as a freelancer, so I was sort of trying
to pay attention to how to do this, And there
used to be this formula so you'd work out what
you needed to live, not you know, what you needed
to do to save more and to do that kind
of thing, but exist not necessarily comfortably, but without eating
(06:07):
out all the time, without unnecessary expenses, bills paid, food
on the table, clothes, car repairs, mortgage payments, all those
sort of things covered your times that figure by three.
That should be the minimum you have in your bank
account before you move on into your business and before
(06:29):
you make the leap, and if you have kids, that
should be times by six. You should have six months
worth of bills in the account before you go onto
your business, because then that's it's referred to as the runway,
so it's this, the more runway you have, the easier
it is to take off in an overloaded or poorly
functioning aircraft because it takes a while to get up
(06:51):
to speed. The longer the runway, the more time you
have to focus just on the business not worry too
much about money. The problem is that that is such
a variable figure for every person that you can't say
any ten grand in the bank, any fifteen grand in
the bank. It might be five grand for one person,
(07:11):
it might be fifty grand for another.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I when I started doing stuff for myself, I mean
I needed barely anything like a bag of pork scratchings
a day and a bit of rent to me mum,
and that was and that would have been me sorted
like I didn't need any money. But these days, if
it was a sake of having a having a job,
(07:37):
if I had to quit a job now and support
my family to get to get up to that point
of income would be terribly difficult, and it would be
it would be really hard.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But what, yeah, what are the what's your notes there?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That right? So my notes are one of the things
that is really useful. So, yeah, we've covered off the
finance of things. One of the things that are really
useful is the Tim Ferrist fear setting thing where this
is going back to the growing the balls. If you
think you are financially a you know able to quit
(08:17):
go through and ask the questions that it's not like,
it's not about goals, it's not about how I want
to do this and what I want to do and
trying to put a business plan together and blindly going
in squash the anxiety straight away with working out what
(08:38):
the worst case scenario is and how you would remedy it.
Also like what's the cost of not doing this of
in a year's time, two years time, three years? I mean,
this is an opportunity that needs to be done right now.
If it all went wrong, how could you rebuild it?
How could you pivot? What's your what's your plan of action?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Really?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So working out what scares the life out of you
and then how it can easily be remedied is one
of the things that breaks down those emotional barriers for
you to stop and just go for it. I will
say some months I have been self employed my own
(09:28):
boss company, run companies, etc. For ten years now, and
there are months that I know that there's at like
the photography stuff, the video stuff, there's absolutely nothing in
the calendar. I think I went into January with nothing
in the calendar, and like you get there, you come
(09:51):
out of Christmas all fat and sassy, and you're like, ooh, okay,
it's January. There's nothing in the calendar. Suddenly it's like
a couple of shooting times. Commissions come in. Someone's like, oh,
what you doing Tuesday? And then next thing you know,
you've got four days a week for the next six weeks,
and you're like, oh shit, I'm probably going to get
(10:11):
need to get someone else to edit this for me,
or in ten years. It's scary as hell, but it
has never not come good, even if it is twenty
four hours before and you're it's squeaky one time. How
(10:32):
do you think I'm never going to financially recover from
my poor decisions? But you know, keep some money in
the bank, don't do stupid stuff. But it usually all
worked well. It always has worked out for me. Doesn't
mean to say it will for you.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Is always coming at Millhouse.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Everything's coming up Milhouse.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I would say, be wary of taking the lessons from
one industry and applying him to another. Yeah, as well, because.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That's why I prefaced it all worked out for me,
but it might not for you.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
What's that thing when they say like how would you know? Oh,
can you tell me how you got to where you are? So, yeah,
I could tell you, but I'll have no bearing on
you because that situation has been and gone. If you
were starting now, it'd be a different situation.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It's like the question of like, oh, what would you do?
What would you do if you, you know, a twenty
something going to try and make a million? Again, It's like, well,
that's not the question you're asking. What the question you're
asking is what do you think I should do right
now to try and make some money? So that you're
always filtering the questions for your own personal experience and
(11:41):
the answers are also you filtering that for your own
personal experience. But it might be different because luck plays
a lot into it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, so you're not taking your example of not having
anything in the calendar or anything like that. The reverse
can be true. You can if you particularly if you're
invoicing for services or you're invoicing for stuff at the
point of delivery or after delivery. How many people not
paying you or not paying their invoices does it take
(12:11):
to completely upset your workflow and your balance because you
might have loads of work coming in and you've flat
out and you've done all that work and you've invoiced
for it, and then a third of them don't pay.
Does that knacker everything?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Or we've had this discussion recently.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
We have had this discussion recently. I had to lift
the show a little bit of how the sausage is made.
I had a phone call with somebody two days ago.
We actually two phone calls. The first phone call, it
was clear that they were trying to find out ways
to reduce the cost of the thing they had agreed
to purchase from me, and the service and the ongoing
(12:48):
service agreed to purchase from me.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Ugh.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And the second call, the tone had changed, and it
was the voice of a man who'd gone away and
read a contract that signed and discovered actually what he
has just he locked himself in for four months ago,
and the tone of that changed very much. But that's why,
and this is always a thing when you're going into
(13:12):
work a service agreement with somebody or to deliver us
or deliver a service or a product or whatever. The
contracts I have with people look quite almost aggressive from
the outset because you go like, you know, if this
goes wrong, this, you owe me this much. If I
don't do this, I owe you this. If this happens,
I'm not liable, but you are liable for this. But
(13:33):
I'll do this bit. But it you know, it looks
like you're looking at all the worst case scenarios. But
every single bit in every contract I have has a
story behind it that says, yeah, I wish i'd had
that in the contract. When I had this person and
I chaired to chase them for ten grand over eighteen months,
there's somebody who owes me about spread over three invoices
(13:53):
about fifteen pounds. At the moment when people are booking
you in for the service, thinking it very excited to me,
Oh yeah, we want this, and you'll deliver exactly what
they want because you want to run your business well
and be the good service provider. But at the other
end of that conversation, it's oh, yeah, we did this,
and there's the invoice, and twenty eight days goes by
and there's nothing in the account, and then then it's
(14:13):
forty days, and then it's fifty days, and then.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Especially if you've got upfront costs, as well. Yeah, it's
even worse.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, because for you with photography, your upfront costs are
spread across the jobs. You haven't got many per job
costs apart from time and fuel.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty loose. So if I get
I mean, yeah, if I get knocked, it's pretty rough
because I've the opportunity. Cost of not earning somewhere else
is actually really the cost because there's always other jobs
that could have been done that would have paid. So
when you take one and then don't get paid, it
gets generally I don't because I work through I work
(14:52):
through referral. Part of the reason my social media presence
and you know, most of that is not uh not
designed to cast a net wide because I don't want
people that have been on one website gone how much
are you? How much are you? How much are you?
(15:14):
And trying to find the person that will do it
the cheapest or something. I'd rather. You came for a
referral and you're a known quantity and someone has vetted
you for me, and that tends to be why I
don't get that many clients that don't want to pay,
which is good.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Now, So was this conversation we had about six months ago.
I remember I was walking around the woodland, but I
said something to you along the lines of you don't
want to be working for somebody who googles cheap websites
in my area?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, it's a race to the bottom once
you start casting the net that way.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So to answer Hugo's question in more depth, look at
the costs of running that business, not the vibe, not
your husiasm for it. Actually physically the cost. Put it
down on a spreadsheet, put it down on a fag packet,
put it down on the back of a pheasant, whatever
you want to do. If you go write down the
costs of doing that thing and then work out how
(16:14):
many days work, how many units of that service do
you need to provide to cover those costs plus twenty percent,
say or thirty percent? How precarious is that business? If
the business only just covers itself, if you're working flat out,
then it's not a standalone business on its own. And
(16:35):
can you scale it as well? Because if the whole
thing relies on you being there to deliver that service
every weekend, you are capped by how much you can
charge for you being there every weekend. Because you can't
make more weekends than a year. You can't make more
of you if you're the thing that you're selling. So
you have a cap. You have a cap on your
(16:57):
growth if you can't make that into a turnkey business
or if you can't scale.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So I would like to leave you with some resources.
There are a few.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Here's a pile of old rope, some nails.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
There's a book called Built to Sell. Built to Sell
is a great example. It gives examples of franchise businesses
that are set up so they work without the owner.
So the idea is is a McDonald's can be propped
(17:37):
up in a different location and as long as you've
got a man to flip the burgers, a man to
work the tears, or a woman and all those component parts,
they don't require Ronald McDonald.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
To be there.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I know that isn't the founder. That's just justin the
e Mith Revisited is another really good book, and these
are also available on audible. And another book that I
really like is a guy called Noah Kagan, which is
a book called The Million Dollar Weekend, which is essentially
(18:14):
the format is you've got like forty eight hours to
set up a business, and you sell first and then
build later. I think, particularly with Hugo, you've only got
to taste a bit of this and say would you
like this for elevenies at one of your driven days?
(18:34):
And I'd shake this out and say yes, I absolutely would.
How much is it going to cost?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
You?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Write the email down, you get it done. You don't
need a website, you don't need a funnel to go in.
You just need literally a piece of smoked pheasant breast
and maybe a picture on a phone, and you can
go here it is, this is what it looks like.
This is how much it costs? Can I sign you
up for one? We could have done that again. Fair.
(19:01):
I think that book teaches you the concept of working
to demand. I see where I see businesses stumble. Is
they design a product or a service, build it, don't
release it for ages, don't tell anyone about it, and
then eventually they launch it and then and then nobody comes,
(19:24):
or the growth is slow. Prove the demand. You can
get the sales. You don't need everything to be perfect,
especially that it's for I mean the food does are
talking It's brilliant food. And I know he was doing
Elevens's packs I don't know what the rest of this
business idea is.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, I think that's the thing, because he's doing the
eleven's packs and doing elevens is for shoot lunches. Whether
that grows out into something else year round, because that's
already capped by a season. But then are you doing
are you doing cartridge day, clay days? Are you doing
sim days?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
If you've got this concept, this is the thing. If
you've got this ability to stay agile, you can test
new concepts like partridge and pheasant has got more protein
in than other meats. Why could you not sell this
as a pre packed thing in a gym Like I
was in a gym today and they sell it's seven
(20:18):
pound fifty for a microwave meal. It's a prepped meal,
but it's seven pound fifty. I'm sure that bodybuilders would
absolutely love a protein hit of a smoked partridge pheasant
something like that. So I think you could definitely pivot
into other markets and scale this up, and I think
(20:40):
with his passion, I think it would go far.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He said, no website in there? Would you say? There's
a point to actually, because it's sort of you know,
going back to a question we answered a few weeks
ago at some point having a what you need to
have somewhere to direct people to when you're not there
or when there's word of mouth from a third party.
You can't just say go and track Hugo down. I
think you're somewhere in this corner of the pub.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, of course you need you need this thing.
But I mean you could have got a napkin and
gone around the game fair and probably got ten orders
for for one shoot lunch. Can I just look all
I'm asking you for is it's forty quid. I'll send
it to you. It's enough to feed forty people. I'll
(21:29):
send it to you on your person.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
These are made up pricing. The necessarily, yeah, the necessarily
Hugo's pricing.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
But if you had presented that offer verbally to a person,
they probably would have taken you up on it. So
I think just the concept of that you don't need
everything to be perfect to sell a service. And also
this is the thing as well, people start businesses and
everybody says it's a good idea because you're around around
(22:00):
you know your mum and your uncle.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And yeah, your mum always says you're call, doesn't she.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Your Mum always says your call. But when you've got
a person that you don't know who's on the Holland
and Holland stand and you say is this any good
and would you pay for it for your next shoot?
If they say yes, it's a bloody good idea.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, it's work out your plan and work out demanded,
prove demand, prove the market. Yeah, because after that it's
the work, is just getting your service or your product
to market. But you have I've seen this with so
many other people that they think there's a market because
they like something.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yep, happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, because they are interested in something, they think there
must be a market for it, whereas actually they don't
realize that they're There's the entirety of the bubble.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I'm telling you from lots of failed experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, well we have it just with this podcast. So
take the country slide as a whole.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Oh yeah. Commercially, this is absolutely horrendous. I don't think
I've ever worked so hard on anything for zero returned.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, but it's not too surprising when you look at
it and go, okay, so this is only people who
are interested in rural stuff, Only people who interested in
rural stuff, who might listen to a podcast, who do
actually listen to a podcast, who can be asked to
listen to our podcast And every time you cut down
through one of those things, you take off a big
slice of the potential audience to people who will actually
(23:35):
commit to doing your think. And like, right to the
bottom of that slice, slice, slice, slice thing you have
to come down to and don't just get really wound
up by any one of us, because I know people
whould listen to our podcasts, but one of us annoys them,
so they don't. They don't listen. So there's that realization
that you have to see what the market size is
(23:57):
and what you can actually potentially serve that to be
there as part of your business plan. So I think
we're coming to the end of that one. Do you
have one little bit of wisdom to finish with?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think we gave all of the value all of value.
I think we gave quite a lot of value there.
Get on audible and get the email if we've revisited,
get built to sell, and then listen listen to a
million dollar weekend because that get you pumped and you
(24:28):
just want to do stuff quickly.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, and if you have actually made money on any
of these things that Callum's talking about, and you've listened
to or read one of these things and it's actually
turned your life around, please get in touch. You can
find all the contact details in the show notes below
the episode in your app player thing. And if you
have any questions for your business, then please get in
(24:51):
touch and or try and do our best to answer them.
So that's what I'm going to leave it with. Well,
come back next week with another question answer, And in
the meantime, I'd like Callum to do an interpretive noise
of his favorite animal.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It's actually a cat.
And we're back with another episode of the Mullet. Another
episode of the Marletowes arrived.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There's you and me and Richard too.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Was only Richard one. I'm Richard one. He's Richard two.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Richard the second. I think that name's taken. Actually, you'd
have to be like Richard the third.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So we're going to answer another question from a listener.
But we know this listener because he's fed us. He
fed me, he's fed me massively. You were You weren't
there for the main feeding there on the Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
But I got sent a care package from this man,
you did. I got smoked pheasant, or a variety of
smoke pheasant harrissa one. I even got something that famously
I said was ship, which was the coroner chicken. I said,
(01:01):
I didn't like raisins in things, and I have to
say I ate the whole lot of the one he
sent me because it was filled with almonds and it
was bloody delicious, and the raisins were not that offensive,
but generally yeah, so I ate a coronation pheasant and
it was delicious.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So, Richard the.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Eighth, would you like to hear would you like to.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Read out the question, when do I take the leap
of faith? How do you know when to grow some
balls and quit your job to go full time on
your own venture. From Hugo the game Glutton So Hugo
you can find him on Instagram going hi guys at
the beginning of every video.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
What's going on guys today, We're going to cook an
entire cat.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Have you ever smoked an entire muntjack over a candle? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I have now, And here's here's four things I got wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
He is good at the social media game you go.
He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And his food is amazing. His recipes are great, and
his food is Rarely do I talk to someone about
food and their ideas are way further advanced. And like
I tried the smoke pheasant. I was like, this is
this is delicious and I could tell straight away it
(02:26):
was Brian. So when I spoke to him, He's like, yeah, Brian,
it in this and then I get it in one
of those Bradley smokers and smoke it and I was like, yeah,
You've done it so well from start to finish like that,
nobody's given more love to a pheasant than this or
a partridge.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He's not messing around. So when do you grow balls
and quit your job to go full time on your
own venture? Have you ever had all the last time
you had a proper job? Have you ever had a
proper one?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh? Yeah, I've had a few proper jobs. Gross tax, yeah,
ye gross, I remember earning. I I did lots of
overtime and then and then I was like, is this
how much tax you have to pay when you do
that much over tize? Barely worth working? I'll probably pay
(03:21):
more than that now, but you know whatever, Yes, So
I wrote quite a lot of a long answer.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Do you do?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You what I have to say? This advice is a
lot better than this advice is a lot better than
the last Millet episode.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Because you've got you. You feel more confident in this answer.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Because I've been through this journey. I did have a
I was a journalist for three years as a paid
employee writing about cameras, and I got paid barely anything.
But I had a great time because I got to
go on lots of press trips.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
If you search Callum's name Calm Mcinernie Riley, you do
find his old articles and stuff online. There's like hints
of him having a proper job, and he looks like
just a little cheeky chappy but in some sort of
professional publication, it's very weird.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I shaved everything. I look like I actually cared
about my life. That was an old me. But yeah,
So what I will say is that there's a few things.
I don't think it is a case of having the
balls to quit your job because there's so many things
(04:33):
to unpack, because it's so easy, as as sort of
creative types that are essentially our own boss, it's quite
easy to just say, yeah, jack it all in, you'll
be fine. But we know nothing about finances, the situation
at hand, what work life is like, you know. So
(04:56):
there is a hell of a lot of nuance to it.
So I I think you have to take a strategic
approach at working some of that out. So the short
answer is you don't just have the balls and blindly
throw yourself into it. You take calculated risk and work
it out step to step. And I did write some
(05:16):
stuff down, but I'll give you a second.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Two rest. I agree with all of that. There used
to be this, this rule of entrepreneurship. This is more
like late two thousands, particularly around the big financial crash
where a lot of people were taking out of their
redundancy or their or just you know, whatever payout they'd
had from the place it worked for going belly up,
(05:41):
and they were moving on to setting up their own brand,
their own business. And there are a lot of people
doing that around me at the time, whereas I was
working as a freelancer, so I was sort of trying
to pay attention to how to do this, And there
used to be this formula so you'd work out what
you needed to live, not you know, what you needed
to do to save more and to do that kind
of thing, but exist not necessarily comfortably, but without eating
(06:07):
out all the time, without unnecessary expenses, bills paid, food
on the table, clothes, car repairs, mortgage payments, all those
sort of things covered your times that figure by three.
That should be the minimum you have in your bank
account before you move on into your business and before
(06:29):
you make the leap, and if you have kids, that
should be times by six. You should have six months
worth of bills in the account before you go onto
your business, because then that's it's referred to as the runway,
so it's this, the more runway you have, the easier
it is to take off in an overloaded or poorly
functioning aircraft because it takes a while to get up
(06:51):
to speed. The longer the runway, the more time you
have to focus just on the business not worry too
much about money. The problem is that that is such
a variable figure for every person that you can't say
any ten grand in the bank, any fifteen grand in
the bank. It might be five grand for one person,
(07:11):
it might be fifty grand for another.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I when I started doing stuff for myself, I mean
I needed barely anything like a bag of pork scratchings
a day and a bit of rent to me mum,
and that was and that would have been me sorted
like I didn't need any money. But these days, if
it was a sake of having a having a job,
(07:37):
if I had to quit a job now and support
my family to get to get up to that point
of income would be terribly difficult, and it would be
it would be really hard.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
But what, yeah, what are the what's your notes there?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That right? So my notes are one of the things
that is really useful. So, yeah, we've covered off the
finance of things. One of the things that are really
useful is the Tim Ferrist fear setting thing where this
is going back to the growing the balls. If you
think you are financially a you know able to quit
(08:17):
go through and ask the questions that it's not like,
it's not about goals, it's not about how I want
to do this and what I want to do and
trying to put a business plan together and blindly going
in squash the anxiety straight away with working out what
(08:38):
the worst case scenario is and how you would remedy it.
Also like what's the cost of not doing this of
in a year's time, two years time, three years? I mean,
this is an opportunity that needs to be done right now.
If it all went wrong, how could you rebuild it?
How could you pivot? What's your what's your plan of action?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Really?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So working out what scares the life out of you
and then how it can easily be remedied is one
of the things that breaks down those emotional barriers for
you to stop and just go for it. I will
say some months I have been self employed my own
(09:28):
boss company, run companies, etc. For ten years now, and
there are months that I know that there's at like
the photography stuff, the video stuff, there's absolutely nothing in
the calendar. I think I went into January with nothing
in the calendar, and like you get there, you come
(09:51):
out of Christmas all fat and sassy, and you're like, ooh, okay,
it's January. There's nothing in the calendar. Suddenly it's like
a couple of shooting times. Commissions come in. Someone's like, oh,
what you doing Tuesday? And then next thing you know,
you've got four days a week for the next six weeks,
and you're like, oh shit, I'm probably going to get
(10:11):
need to get someone else to edit this for me,
or in ten years. It's scary as hell, but it
has never not come good, even if it is twenty
four hours before and you're it's squeaky one time. How
(10:32):
do you think I'm never going to financially recover from
my poor decisions? But you know, keep some money in
the bank, don't do stupid stuff. But it usually all
worked well. It always has worked out for me. Doesn't
mean to say it will for you.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Is always coming at Millhouse.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Everything's coming up Milhouse.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I would say, be wary of taking the lessons from
one industry and applying him to another. Yeah, as well, because.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That's why I prefaced it all worked out for me,
but it might not for you.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
What's that thing when they say like how would you know? Oh,
can you tell me how you got to where you are? So, yeah,
I could tell you, but I'll have no bearing on
you because that situation has been and gone. If you
were starting now, it'd be a different situation.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
It's like the question of like, oh, what would you do?
What would you do if you, you know, a twenty
something going to try and make a million? Again, It's like, well,
that's not the question you're asking. What the question you're
asking is what do you think I should do right
now to try and make some money? So that you're
always filtering the questions for your own personal experience and
(11:41):
the answers are also you filtering that for your own
personal experience. But it might be different because luck plays
a lot into it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, so you're not taking your example of not having
anything in the calendar or anything like that. The reverse
can be true. You can if you particularly if you're
invoicing for services or you're invoicing for stuff at the
point of delivery or after delivery. How many people not
paying you or not paying their invoices does it take
(12:11):
to completely upset your workflow and your balance because you
might have loads of work coming in and you've flat
out and you've done all that work and you've invoiced
for it, and then a third of them don't pay.
Does that knacker everything?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Or we've had this discussion recently.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
We have had this discussion recently. I had to lift
the show a little bit of how the sausage is made.
I had a phone call with somebody two days ago.
We actually two phone calls. The first phone call, it
was clear that they were trying to find out ways
to reduce the cost of the thing they had agreed
to purchase from me, and the service and the ongoing
(12:48):
service agreed to purchase from me.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Ugh.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And the second call, the tone had changed, and it
was the voice of a man who'd gone away and
read a contract that signed and discovered actually what he
has just he locked himself in for four months ago,
and the tone of that changed very much. But that's why,
and this is always a thing when you're going into
(13:12):
work a service agreement with somebody or to deliver us
or deliver a service or a product or whatever. The
contracts I have with people look quite almost aggressive from
the outset because you go like, you know, if this
goes wrong, this, you owe me this much. If I
don't do this, I owe you this. If this happens,
I'm not liable, but you are liable for this. But
(13:33):
I'll do this bit. But it you know, it looks
like you're looking at all the worst case scenarios. But
every single bit in every contract I have has a
story behind it that says, yeah, I wish i'd had
that in the contract. When I had this person and
I chaired to chase them for ten grand over eighteen months,
there's somebody who owes me about spread over three invoices
(13:53):
about fifteen pounds. At the moment when people are booking
you in for the service, thinking it very excited to me,
Oh yeah, we want this, and you'll deliver exactly what
they want because you want to run your business well
and be the good service provider. But at the other
end of that conversation, it's oh, yeah, we did this,
and there's the invoice, and twenty eight days goes by
and there's nothing in the account, and then then it's
(14:13):
forty days, and then it's fifty days, and then.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Especially if you've got upfront costs, as well. Yeah, it's
even worse.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, because for you with photography, your upfront costs are
spread across the jobs. You haven't got many per job
costs apart from time and fuel.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty loose. So if I get
I mean, yeah, if I get knocked, it's pretty rough
because I've the opportunity. Cost of not earning somewhere else
is actually really the cost because there's always other jobs
that could have been done that would have paid. So
when you take one and then don't get paid, it
gets generally I don't because I work through I work
(14:52):
through referral. Part of the reason my social media presence
and you know, most of that is not uh not
designed to cast a net wide because I don't want
people that have been on one website gone how much
are you? How much are you? How much are you?
(15:14):
And trying to find the person that will do it
the cheapest or something. I'd rather. You came for a
referral and you're a known quantity and someone has vetted
you for me, and that tends to be why I
don't get that many clients that don't want to pay,
which is good.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Now, So was this conversation we had about six months ago.
I remember I was walking around the woodland, but I
said something to you along the lines of you don't
want to be working for somebody who googles cheap websites
in my area?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, it's a race to the bottom once
you start casting the net that way.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So to answer Hugo's question in more depth, look at
the costs of running that business, not the vibe, not
your husiasm for it. Actually physically the cost. Put it
down on a spreadsheet, put it down on a fag packet,
put it down on the back of a pheasant, whatever
you want to do. If you go write down the
costs of doing that thing and then work out how
(16:14):
many days work, how many units of that service do
you need to provide to cover those costs plus twenty percent,
say or thirty percent? How precarious is that business? If
the business only just covers itself, if you're working flat out,
then it's not a standalone business on its own. And
(16:35):
can you scale it as well? Because if the whole
thing relies on you being there to deliver that service
every weekend, you are capped by how much you can
charge for you being there every weekend. Because you can't
make more weekends than a year. You can't make more
of you if you're the thing that you're selling. So
you have a cap. You have a cap on your
(16:57):
growth if you can't make that into a turnkey business
or if you can't scale.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So I would like to leave you with some resources.
There are a few.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Here's a pile of old rope, some nails.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
There's a book called Built to Sell. Built to Sell
is a great example. It gives examples of franchise businesses
that are set up so they work without the owner.
So the idea is is a McDonald's can be propped
(17:37):
up in a different location and as long as you've
got a man to flip the burgers, a man to
work the tears, or a woman and all those component parts,
they don't require Ronald McDonald.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
To be there.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I know that isn't the founder. That's just justin the
e Mith Revisited is another really good book, and these
are also available on audible. And another book that I
really like is a guy called Noah Kagan, which is
a book called The Million Dollar Weekend, which is essentially
(18:14):
the format is you've got like forty eight hours to
set up a business, and you sell first and then
build later. I think, particularly with Hugo, you've only got
to taste a bit of this and say would you
like this for elevenies at one of your driven days?
(18:34):
And I'd shake this out and say yes, I absolutely would.
How much is it going to cost?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
You?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Write the email down, you get it done. You don't
need a website, you don't need a funnel to go in.
You just need literally a piece of smoked pheasant breast
and maybe a picture on a phone, and you can
go here it is, this is what it looks like.
This is how much it costs? Can I sign you
up for one? We could have done that again. Fair.
(19:01):
I think that book teaches you the concept of working
to demand. I see where I see businesses stumble. Is
they design a product or a service, build it, don't
release it for ages, don't tell anyone about it, and
then eventually they launch it and then and then nobody comes,
(19:24):
or the growth is slow. Prove the demand. You can
get the sales. You don't need everything to be perfect,
especially that it's for I mean the food does are
talking It's brilliant food. And I know he was doing
Elevens's packs I don't know what the rest of this
business idea is.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, I think that's the thing, because he's doing the
eleven's packs and doing elevens is for shoot lunches. Whether
that grows out into something else year round, because that's
already capped by a season. But then are you doing
are you doing cartridge day, clay days? Are you doing
sim days?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
If you've got this concept, this is the thing. If
you've got this ability to stay agile, you can test
new concepts like partridge and pheasant has got more protein
in than other meats. Why could you not sell this
as a pre packed thing in a gym Like I
was in a gym today and they sell it's seven
(20:18):
pound fifty for a microwave meal. It's a prepped meal,
but it's seven pound fifty. I'm sure that bodybuilders would
absolutely love a protein hit of a smoked partridge pheasant
something like that. So I think you could definitely pivot
into other markets and scale this up, and I think
(20:40):
with his passion, I think it would go far.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He said, no website in there? Would you say? There's
a point to actually, because it's sort of you know,
going back to a question we answered a few weeks
ago at some point having a what you need to
have somewhere to direct people to when you're not there
or when there's word of mouth from a third party.
You can't just say go and track Hugo down. I
think you're somewhere in this corner of the pub.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, of course you need you need this thing.
But I mean you could have got a napkin and
gone around the game fair and probably got ten orders
for for one shoot lunch. Can I just look all
I'm asking you for is it's forty quid. I'll send
it to you. It's enough to feed forty people. I'll
(21:29):
send it to you on your person.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
These are made up pricing. The necessarily, yeah, the necessarily
Hugo's pricing.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
But if you had presented that offer verbally to a person,
they probably would have taken you up on it. So
I think just the concept of that you don't need
everything to be perfect to sell a service. And also
this is the thing as well, people start businesses and
everybody says it's a good idea because you're around around
(22:00):
you know your mum and your uncle.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And yeah, your mum always says you're call, doesn't she.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Your Mum always says your call. But when you've got
a person that you don't know who's on the Holland
and Holland stand and you say is this any good
and would you pay for it for your next shoot?
If they say yes, it's a bloody good idea.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, it's work out your plan and work out demanded,
prove demand, prove the market. Yeah, because after that it's
the work, is just getting your service or your product
to market. But you have I've seen this with so
many other people that they think there's a market because
they like something.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yep, happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, because they are interested in something, they think there
must be a market for it, whereas actually they don't
realize that they're There's the entirety of the bubble.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I'm telling you from lots of failed experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, well we have it just with this podcast. So
take the country slide as a whole.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Oh yeah. Commercially, this is absolutely horrendous. I don't think
I've ever worked so hard on anything for zero returned.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, but it's not too surprising when you look at
it and go, okay, so this is only people who
are interested in rural stuff, Only people who interested in
rural stuff, who might listen to a podcast, who do
actually listen to a podcast, who can be asked to
listen to our podcast And every time you cut down
through one of those things, you take off a big
slice of the potential audience to people who will actually
(23:35):
commit to doing your think. And like, right to the
bottom of that slice, slice, slice, slice thing you have
to come down to and don't just get really wound
up by any one of us, because I know people
whould listen to our podcasts, but one of us annoys them,
so they don't. They don't listen. So there's that realization
that you have to see what the market size is
(23:57):
and what you can actually potentially serve that to be
there as part of your business plan. So I think
we're coming to the end of that one. Do you
have one little bit of wisdom to finish with?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think we gave all of the value all of value.
I think we gave quite a lot of value there.
Get on audible and get the email if we've revisited,
get built to sell, and then listen listen to a
million dollar weekend because that get you pumped and you
(24:28):
just want to do stuff quickly.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, and if you have actually made money on any
of these things that Callum's talking about, and you've listened
to or read one of these things and it's actually
turned your life around, please get in touch. You can
find all the contact details in the show notes below
the episode in your app player thing. And if you
have any questions for your business, then please get in
(24:51):
touch and or try and do our best to answer them.
So that's what I'm going to leave it with. Well,
come back next week with another question answer, And in
the meantime, I'd like Callum to do an interpretive noise
of his favorite animal.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It's actually a cat.
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