August 11, 2025 • 28 mins
Ever wondered if chasing that first million is really worth it? On today’s GSR episode, B.D. sat down with Lucy Cohen, founder, author, and champion of doing business differently. We talked about why focusing on what truly matters—like time, freedom, and personal fulfillment—often beats fixating on big revenue targets. Lucy shared her journey from disrupting traditional accountancy with subscription models to building systems that scale. Her biggest tip? Pay yourself first and build for the business you want tomorrow, not just today. If you’re ready to rethink growth and put yourself back at the center of your business, this episode is for you!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucycohen/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucycohen/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Grow, Sell and Retire is the podcast for the lazy overachiever.
Bad Dalton, author of the Assisted Purchase, True Gravity and Grow,
Sell and Retire, is here to give his twenty five
years of secrets, tips and assistants to take your business
to the next level. This podcast is for anyone who
wants to sell more, work less and make better business.
(00:24):
Now here's your host BD with today's GSR podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey everybody, Bad Dalton here from the Gross Selling Retire
Podcast and I'm here with Lucy Cohen today and we're
going to talk about why accountants aren't boring if you've
got the right one. But we're also going to talk
about business. We're going to talk about speaking, We're going
to talk about all sorts of things that you will
be able to apply to your business. Is not just
about accountancy. So Lucy, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hi, thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Perfect tell us, so you want your book forget the
first million? So I know I know there's lots more
to you than that, But tell us about why the
title and why did you write a book?
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah? So, I mean I write for fun, for my
own amusement usually, but really I wanted to write a
book which I suppose was a little bit different to
a lot of the business books you see out about,
and a lot of the advice that I see that
goes towards small businesses is really focused on this, you know,
hyper growth, money, money, money, profit, growth at all costs.
(01:27):
And those costs are not any financial costs, but costs
to you as an individual. You know you're going to
grow business. Everyone knows that being an entrepreneur and running
a business is hard and it's stressful. And if you're
setting yourself up for huge growth targets and the roller
coaster ride that goes with that, and not taking into
account all the other reasons you might have started a business,
(01:48):
you are setting yourself up to fail. So I wrote
the book. It's called Forget the First Million. I wrote
it a couple of years ago now, two or three
years ago now, But it's called the Forget the First Million, because,
first of all, the term a million, it's still a
really emotive number, isn't it. You know, talk about being millionaire,
(02:10):
even though that amount of money is significantly less, worth
a lot less today than it was ten twenty years ago,
even five years ago, but a million is still it's
still a really emotive figure. We talk about six figure,
seven figure, eight figure businesses, so a million story emotive.
Lots of people aspire to have a million of assets
in their bank, in their portfolio whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
They want to be millionaires.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But I wrote a boat book which was about forgetting
the first million. So there's a lot of kind of
chat around when did you make your first million? I
get asked this lot, when did you make your first million?
And I don't think it's I don't think it matters.
What does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Is it turnover? Is it money in the bank? What
is that? And I just started thinking, wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
It be nice if we had a world where small businesses, yes,
money will happen. And money is one metric you can
use to measure the success of your busines. That's obviously,
I'm an accountant. The profit e bit dark obviously super important.
But let's forget about that for a second and let's
really focus on why do you start this business. It's
(03:14):
it's for time, it's for freedom, it's for autonomy, it's
for maybe legacy or successional or something. Let's focus on
those things and then let's really think about whether we
really do we even need to care about a million.
And that's and that's why I write the book.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's fabulous. Yeah, we call ourselves lazy overachievers. Everybody that
listens to the program, so it's you know you, it's
just it's just a number, and it's always about the
income and the experiences you can have with the money afterwards.
And also, don't don't kill yourself in the process, which
you know you're you're a big fan of.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Absolutely, you can't take it with you and there's no
point earning it all in you're not here to enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I very much am a die with nothing person.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I hope when I die I am deep in my
overdraft because that's the way to go.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I think that's that's perfect. Was the last penny? So
you did something two thousand and six that a lot
of people wouldn't have done in a traditional sense, is
and is you went to subscription based accountancy. That's in
a world of charging by the hour, charging by this,
doing this, and I mean, so that was fabulous. How
(04:22):
did you make that transition for people that don't charge
by the hour, that or don't charge subscription typically charged
by the hour, How did you make that reason that shift.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, So it wasn't It wasn't really a shift for us,
because that was how we set the business up.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You know, I saw this gap in the.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Market, remembering that we predate the cloud software. So this
kind of concept of having something on a regular basis
from an accountant was really quitt alien back in.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Two thousand and six.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
It feels like the Jurassic period of accountcy when I
think about it now. That idea of having something kind
of regularly that you could see that wasn't once a
year didn't. It wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So we had to create a format that allowed that
to happen.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
We had to create a product, something kind of modularized it,
productize it so people had something for their money every month.
We had to create a reason for them to pay
us every month, and then we had to kind of
create a system that meant that we didn't have these Traditionally,
accountcy had these peaks and troughs of workload, which are
directly correlated with peaks and trusts in money right in income.
(05:23):
We wanted to kind of really flatten that curve out
and have all of our money and all of our
persons and our workloads really really flat and that was
the whole methodology behind it. Really, it came from a
desire for me. I don't come from a family with
a lot of money. I think I've spoken before perfectly,
and my family are creative, you know, actors, dancers, musicians.
It's a gig economy, right, famine feast. And I hated that.
(05:47):
I hated that anxiety about not knowing could I pay
my rent or not, what was going to happen next month,
and so created the structure so that I, as the
business owner, didn't have to worry about that. I knew
that if I say it's the Excember of client, the
X number of pounds per month, that will give me
how much income? And if I did that, however many
times over, I could pay my bills.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And that was it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Really, it was kind of by accident that it became
what it is and it grew from there and it
really caught on, and I think it made it really
easy for small business owners, not only to budget. You know,
no one likes unexpected bills, and historically lawyers fees and
accountancy fees are the ones that people kind of don't
have control or site over. Usually this alleviated some of
(06:30):
that anxiety for small business owners as well. So it
kind of worked in a really nice symbiotic way when
we set it up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So when you got to that state, if you went
back to something when you were putting that in place,
and two thousand and six, so you're now twenty years
past that, and you went back to that and said,
here's one thing that you should have done, and here's
one thing that you definitely shouldn't have done, you know,
if you were looking at that implementing a new charging process,
(06:57):
a new way, especially in a new economy, because we
didn't have software as a service feed pricing like you
said then as much as we do now.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Definitely, my biggest advice on that is staying laying, you know,
do I'm a huge believer in do one thing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
It's why we don't have a hugely diverse range of services,
because we at this point in time saying the market's
big enough for us to continue to sell into it,
We're nowhere near any percentage of time that we want.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So actually there's enough here to keep us going.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Let's be really good at the one thing we do
and keep doing it and keep refining and improving that.
If you're changing your pricing structure. You need to change
it and stick with it, even when it's painful, and
even when it feels like you shouldn't have done it.
You need to keep going and go through those pain
points to get out the other side of it. Try
to run two things simultaneously, especially they're very different models
(07:50):
is almost impossible. You won't benefit from any of the
economies of scale that you might get, and it just
becomes really cumbersome. That's one thing I would say, definitely
do do absolutely do that. And one thing that not
to do I suppose. I suppose it's the flip side
of the same coin is don't doubt yourself. You know,
the first business advisor I ever saw told me that
(08:12):
this was a terrible idea and it would never take
off and it would never work. And I've joked before
I'm quite driven by spider.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The person. His name was Ian.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I think about Ian every day, you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Know, But stick to your guns.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
If you running a business, or making any big change
in the business, you do, run has to It will
always involve an element of risk. Things might not go well,
they might go completely wrong, but you have to back
yourself at some point. You can't hedge your bats. You
have to back yourself with a level of risk that
you're comfort with and stick to it. So, yeah, don't
don't doubt yourself. You know you made a decision. You
(08:48):
think it's a good idea, you know in your gut, right,
your gut will tell you before your head does you
know if it's a good idea. Give yourself the grace
to find out for certain. I'm very much a regret
what you do, not what you do kind of individual.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
That makes a lot of sense. So how do what
questions do you ask yourself for when you're working with
clients coaching and accountancy, how do you help them choose
their lane? Or how do you let them or uncover
or unveil or discover the lane instead of trying to
make one up?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think the first thing, well, for me, there's there's
there's two big things. Yeah, there's a phrase I do
quite like to stay, which is, you know, you call
it niching or niche, and but the way I like
to call it is there's a bump for every seat.
You know, there's a market for everything, no matter how
niche it is. Obviously, the more niche that market is,
the more you have to really focus on it and
probably charge premium for it. The why do your net
(09:41):
can be cast the more general you can be with
these things. So that is kind of for me. You
need to know there's a market there and how to
get to it. But further than that, it's the passionate.
It's the why.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You know. You're never going to stick through the rough dage.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You're never going to stick at the difficult thing if
you don't have that purpose, some passion behind it and
you're really living your why, and if you've got a
team taking them on that journey with you, it becomes
very hard to stick out the rough stuff if you
don't fully believe in in the course, and I think
that's a big thing. Be passionate about the thing that
(10:17):
you do. And interestingly, it doesn't have to be the
kind of the full end product, so believe it or not,
I'm not super passionate about pieces of compliance work like
that does not get me going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
But what does get me going is.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Systems, efficiency, scaling, all that stuff. I'm super passionate about that,
and then my end product is a result of that
and that's what we sell. So your passion doesn't have
to even necessarily be the one thing, the widget that
you make. It can be the method of getting there
on the methodology that can be enough to keep you going.
But you've got to have some sort of love for it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So one question, and I will go to the accuntancy
side now, is what questions should we be asking our
accountant because everybody and about things like you're talking about,
because everybody should be able to save this much tax
or do this type of thing or put money in
their pension or whatever it is. What's something that you
you say when somebody's asked you that that you should
be able to answer this exactly and wrote and in
(11:17):
your heart as a as an accountant.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Why do you get up in the morning? Why are
you getting up? Why are you here? What brings you here?
It sounds like such a simple question, and lots of
people will, like you said, we'll give a right. Oh
it helps serve with small businesses or to provide financials.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, no, no, no, Why are you in this seat?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
For me, it was living without money as a kid
and seeing how poor sives is worth for creative industries
and people who send it in some finance. That's why
I'm sat in the seat and that's what keeps me going,
why are you here? What's what's driving you to do this?
And from that everything else should kind of layer out
from it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's that's really cool. So in I think I think
we've we've gotten Ian in this thing. But besides, Ian,
don't do this. It's it's crazy because I've got the
same I've got the same spie thing as I had
somebody that sat me down in a cafe and I
thought he was gonna invest with me, and as a
financial advisor, I was like, this is cool. He was
like the head of the town and he sat down
(12:13):
at the coffee and the first thing he asked me
is why are you here? As in like why are
you staying in the UK? And so from that point forward,
and from that point forward, I was like, mister Cunningham,
I am coming for you. And so spiteful thing it's
his ex wife became my client.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So hey, look, sometimes you need that little inner fire
just to keep you going.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
You go to the winds where.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They are and my business is still going and here's
a shutdown. So I'm just just saying. But but in general,
so what's besides Ian, what was something else that somebody
told you don't do this, and you did it anyways
because you are either driven and you didn't believe in them,
or just said I'm gonna do this anyways.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Come on, it's a building.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Technology was a biggie I've as you know well, as
we discussed right at the top of the hour, and.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I'm a writer as well.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I wrote a fairly sassy article about cloud software at
the time and about how for most small businesses or
salt traders it it wasn't good enough and didn't serve
their purposes.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
One of the large software houses got very upset with me.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I didn't name the minute, I'm not going to name here,
but they got very upset with me and sent the
big boss down and kind of a chat and say, well,
you should be using us, and it's going to cost.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You five pound per client the month.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
And I did the sums in my head and I
scaled it up and I was like, that doesn't work
for me, because not because your software isn't any good,
but because actually, because the market we work in, what
we need is so bespoke and so specific that actually
we would be better off raising money building this ourselves.
And again taking the punt on ourselves back. This is
(13:55):
a gamble, right, I'm gambling here, gambling that my version
of this will work out scale better than buying off
the shelf and kind of making a Frank and signs
month through.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
A tech stack.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm gambling this is going to work better for what
we want to achieve and doing that results CBC. I
suppose we're still on that journey. So maybe we'll come
back in five years and it will either be a
raw and success or an opolicte disaster.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Who knows. That's the exciting part.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But it's great. If you've got the big the big
boys in the industry coming out and knocking on your
door because you pissed them off, that means you've done
something either very wrong or very right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I jess.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
You know, over the years when we very first started,
you know, we got called all sorts of things, saying
that we were kind of besmirching the good names of
accountants that were cheapening the industry, that we were, you know,
kind of kind of giving a poor account. We got
we said we didn't care. We've got cccues and not
caring because it was all online and not face to face,
and the business model was junk and now obviously this
(14:54):
is a business model that lots of people sort of use.
Over the years, There's been a lot of hate sent
my w and it never really bothers me because I
just think, Wow, if I am living rent free in
your head and it's bothering you this much to send
me an email or DM me on LinkedIn, I've got
nothing to worry about because I know where your energy
is going, and I know where mine's going, and it's
(15:15):
definitely not back towards you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah. And so if you were going to write a
second book, what would the second book be, or if
it's not already in process, what would your second book be?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I keep threatening to write another book. I have lots
of ideas. Ideas aren't the problem though? Are they exactly
execute I have fifty ideas for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I probably all rubbish. It's executing on it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I don't know. And I'm a bit of a kind
of I suppose, impulsive writer. I'm not particularly measured when
I do it. Like my last book I wrote, I
wrote that in about six weeks flat, just boom, like
it kind of sort of poured out of me. I
tend to find that I'll have an idea noodling around
my head for months, maybe years, and then one day
(15:59):
a sort of vomit itself out onto a Google doc somewhere.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
I'm waiting for that.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
There are a couple of little ones bouncing around, but
I don't know what they look like yet, So I'm
going to have to wait until I either have some
kind of mini breakdown and that will come pouring out
of me, or I've had a few weeks off and
it's and I feel rested enough to kind of let
that creative energy flow. But yeah, there's definitely another book
or few in me. I just don't know what they're
going to be about yet.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And you like growing things, building things and systems. So
you just said something that I think a lot of
really good, driven focused business owners do is have lots
and lots of ideas. How do you figure out which
ones are rubbish? How do you evaluate your forty before breakfast?
If you're actually going to waste headspace, time and team
(16:45):
and resource to deliver on one, two, any of the forty?
How do you evaluate that?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I just keep asking myself the question with them, It's
a so what question, Oh, we could do this thing,
this widget this thing, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So what what?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Who's that going to benefit? Who's it for? Is it
for my ego? And again, I'm a founder, I'm a CEO.
There's an ego that goes there. I'm fairly self aware.
Is it for my ego? Is it a vanity project?
Who does it benefit? Is the juice worth? The squeeze
is one that I say a lot as well, like,
we could do this big, wonderful change and I've only
(17:21):
zero point five percent of our base ever user and
it doesn't deliver any results.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, we're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So in my head, I've constantly got kind of I
suppose the questions I've learned to ask myself, so what
is a lot of So what, Lucy, So what?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's a great idea, But so what? Who cares?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
I asked myself the question They kind of I suppose
a first phase feeds ability study. And I've got a
team around me and my exec team who are very happy.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
To push back on a lot of the stuff that
I come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I've got a team of people who are very happy
to go Lucy, that sounds like absolute rubbish. So that's
great that we have that kind of layer of trust
amongst us, and then when we do get the stage,
you're going, okay, is this feasible or not. There's two
things I really look at. It's business case or safe
for free business case. Feasibility study and then investment appraisal
(18:09):
are kind of the metrics ideas, if we do this thing,
what's the impact, how long do we expect it to
return over and what does it mean going forward?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Based on a set of rules that we have for
ourselves in the business that means we either do or
don't do it.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Occasionally we do things that fall outside those rules, but
we need to have a really good justification for it.
And everybody uses those sets of rules to decision make.
And then that's looking at all kinds of stuff like
what's the upside, what's to downside, what's the risk, what's
the opportunity costs?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
We kind of factor all that stuff in and.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Then if it goes past that, we'll do a test
and a pilot and we'll see and if the results
don't give us what we want, will ditch it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I'm not a believer in sunt cost fallacy.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
It's something I constantly question with my teams, is this
are you in love with this idea? Do you want
to keep going with this just because you've already put
a lot of effort into it? And I think something
I hear myself thinking about a lot is just because
you've spent a long time making a mistake doesn't mean
you should keep making it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So apply that thinking into.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Business logic as well, and you'll find Actually, what you
shake out usually is a couple of decent ideas a year,
and from my forty before breakfast, probably two or three
a year are really good, and they'll take our product
and our business forward. But that's the job where I'm
sat is cutting through that noise and knowing what's going
(19:30):
to work, and then, like I said, the execution, forming
a strategy, bringing the team on board, getting the right
resources in, and actually executing, testing and measuring. That's the
and the sexy boring bits between the idea and the
results phase is all this bit in the middle, which
is just the critical bit, which is the bit that
I'm rubbish at and I need to get other people
(19:50):
to do.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
How did you choose or how did you design the
people that you brought in around your non superpowers? Do
you know that you're good at this? Who did you
hire first that said, Okay, I need to give this
to you because I'm screwing it up or this has
taken too much of my brain space or my calendar.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
So I think this happened in phases. I suppose the
first was when we first took our round of investment.
Having a proper board in place, you know, having actual
external people who've got skin in the game to be
accountable to nothing sharpens you. Like having to explain what's
on earth you've done with their money, Like that's a
really good thing to have. So having that kind of
starts sharpening a little bit, and having people from different
(20:34):
industries questioning you and looking at things with a different
perspective is really really valuable. So that was the first
stage one. Then it was building out my internal team.
For a very long time, pretty much everyone who worked
here was very I use a phrase account and team,
but they all had the same type of personality profile.
So for a very long time I was butting heads
with literally everybody, but they formed their own kind of gang.
(20:57):
It was, Oh, there's Lucy with her crazy ideas. We
can all kind of ignore her. As the As the
company grew and we started needing people in kind of
different divisions with different hats on. We found the blend
and the mix of people naturally shifted. So somebody who
works in a sales environment is probably someone very different
who works in some very different someone who works in a
(21:19):
payroll environment all day. You start finding those mixes of personalities.
You start kind of seeing another people where their strengths
and weaknesses lie. We do use some of the personality
profiling tools. They all just tell me I'm an absolute nightmare.
I love to think I'm this like big enigma, but
actually when I read these things back, I read it
and Margano, that is actually spot on.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
That is me.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I'm very basic, very easily read. Look, we use those
tools well, but really a lot of this goes on.
You know, when you meet somebody, you should have good
conflict with them. You know, it would be I say
to all of my team, it would be weird and
it would be a concern for me if we weren't
disagreeing regularly, because if we're constantly there's no point in
(22:03):
me hiring a bunch of people who just do everything
I say. It's useless. I don't That's not what I
need them for. I need them to go, Lucy, that's
the terrible idea, or actually, I could do better than that,
and I'm better at you than this. I'm going to
go and do that. And that's the phase that I'm
in now, is doing that. The other thing I've did
is I've got an executive assistant for the first time,
(22:23):
and she's been working with me for about a year.
I generally when I look to hiring her, didn't think
that I needed anybody, and then and now I actually
don't know how I would run anything in my life
about her. And she's in charge of me and wrangling
me as a person, and means that I get a
load of extra stuff done that I never got done before,
(22:43):
and I had the headspace to do what I'm meant
to be doing, not worrying about sort of out diary
appointments and reminding people to get their papers to me
for board and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
How are you using AI right now?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Oh, great question, So I use we're obviously baking this
into our plans for our own product, you know, And
it's like everybody is, and everyone's got an a sticker
on it. And the interesting thing we've all been without
knowing it probably using AI for a long time. AI
is such a broad reaching term in terms of you know,
machine learning and all that kind of stuff, so we've
probably all been using it without really knowing. It just
(23:19):
didn't have a shiny gold AI badge and a premium
price dug on it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
We're obviously thinking about how that works for our product.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Part of the algorithm that we've built within it is
based on sets of rules of behavior that we see
in our client base and allowing us to take some
speed up efficiency within the processing of documentation and compliance.
So that's going to be a degree of kind of
you know, learning all that kind of stuff. I personally
(23:46):
use it for pulling information together. If I've got several
large documents or things I need to review, I'll shove
moll in and go can you read through these and
bring pull me out the top points I need to
be worried about, or giving it an agent role, acting
as a whatever, advise it or whatever. Could you tell
me what the biggest problems in this are. And it's
a huge time saver. It doesn't replace deep dives or
(24:10):
anything like that, but it does save a lot of
time on things like pulling data, formatting, you know, basic
stuff which would have taken a lot of time. Now
it takes me less than thirty seconds. And again that's
time better spent on something else awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So if you're looking at and you could talk about
magic wands. So if you could magic wand and numbers
for business owners or people that run businesses, what is
a magic wand that you you see so many times
that people just don't get this thing right or don't
think about this. And you could waive a magic wand
and every business owner that came through there would know
it before they hit the door. What would that number
(24:45):
set be your idea?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It would be the idea that you are going to
outgo your systems quickly. So buy something referred tomorrow, don't
buy it for today. In the same way that you've
got a kid, you're going to buy them clothes. Maybe
they don't fit them on day one a term, but
by maybe month three they're perfect.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Think about that in terms of your business.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
I see so many business owners and it's not so
much wasting money, but it's the time when you're not
putting a value to the time it takes to change
systems or to upgrade systems.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
If you've got any confidence in yourself.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Just get the package up, get the one that gives
you that little bit more growth, because because future you
will thank today you for doing that when you don't
have to change to a different system because you've outgrown
it in three months time because things have gone better
than your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's the number one thing.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
I see it all the time, and I think it's
a you know, it speaks to people maybe not backing
themselves as much and thinking, oh, I'll never need that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I've I got that. I'd be delighted. That'd be a
great problem to have.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Well, let's assume you're going to have that problem, and
let's scale up a little bit and make sure that
actually the next year is really smooth, not just the
next three months. I'd say, is what I see all
the time, Yet I just account for your growth.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Very cool. So rewind moment, so I'll ask you about
where we find you and all that type of stuff.
After that's the rewind moment. Is your your top tip
and your your thing. So I know we just went
through a little bit, but your top tip if they
heard this and it could be part of any of
the things we've talked about. And then say Hey, I
want to rewind and listen to Lucy about this.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Ooh, account for your scale. Pay yourself first, pay yourself first. People,
pay yourself first.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, you get thousand pounds in turnover and I don't
pay myself at all. So you're you're you just go
get a job.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, and you're probably miserable and stress and have no
sick pay. So yeah, pay yourself first.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
That's fabulous. Okay, So where do we find out more
about you?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So I'm over on pretty active over on LinkedIn, so
Lucy Cohen, you can find me under the Sea of Mazuma.
I'm on Instagram at Lucy Mazuma and I've got a
substack which I think is Lucy c Cohen. You can
find me there if you want to see any of
my slightly more informal, funny writing and what I get
to just slightly adjacent to the day jump.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That's that's cool and so and the name of the
book again.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Is Forget the First Million Perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
That was fabulous. Lucy, thanks so much for coming on
the Gross, Sell and Retire podcast. It's been fabulous talking
to you and learning from you and learning with you.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're so welcome. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Thanks for joining us on grow Sell and Retire. For
more information, tools or to book one of our team
members to work with your team business, or to speak
at your event or conference, visit rockfind dot co dot uk.
If you like the podcast, you'll love one of BD's
three books, The Assisted Purchase True Gravity and the book.
The podcast is based on Grow Sell and Retire. If
(27:50):
you want to work for the rest of your life,
that is your business. If you don't, that is ours.
Grow, Sell and Retire is the podcast for the lazy overachiever.
Bad Dalton, author of the Assisted Purchase, True Gravity and Grow,
Sell and Retire, is here to give his twenty five
years of secrets, tips and assistants to take your business
to the next level. This podcast is for anyone who
wants to sell more, work less and make better business.
(00:24):
Now here's your host BD with today's GSR podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey everybody, Bad Dalton here from the Gross Selling Retire
Podcast and I'm here with Lucy Cohen today and we're
going to talk about why accountants aren't boring if you've
got the right one. But we're also going to talk
about business. We're going to talk about speaking, We're going
to talk about all sorts of things that you will
be able to apply to your business. Is not just
about accountancy. So Lucy, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hi, thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Perfect tell us, so you want your book forget the
first million? So I know I know there's lots more
to you than that, But tell us about why the
title and why did you write a book?
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah? So, I mean I write for fun, for my
own amusement usually, but really I wanted to write a
book which I suppose was a little bit different to
a lot of the business books you see out about,
and a lot of the advice that I see that
goes towards small businesses is really focused on this, you know,
hyper growth, money, money, money, profit, growth at all costs.
(01:27):
And those costs are not any financial costs, but costs
to you as an individual. You know you're going to
grow business. Everyone knows that being an entrepreneur and running
a business is hard and it's stressful. And if you're
setting yourself up for huge growth targets and the roller
coaster ride that goes with that, and not taking into
account all the other reasons you might have started a business,
(01:48):
you are setting yourself up to fail. So I wrote
the book. It's called Forget the First Million. I wrote
it a couple of years ago now, two or three
years ago now, But it's called the Forget the First Million, because,
first of all, the term a million, it's still a
really emotive number, isn't it. You know, talk about being millionaire,
(02:10):
even though that amount of money is significantly less, worth
a lot less today than it was ten twenty years ago,
even five years ago, but a million is still it's
still a really emotive figure. We talk about six figure,
seven figure, eight figure businesses, so a million story emotive.
Lots of people aspire to have a million of assets
in their bank, in their portfolio whatever.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
They want to be millionaires.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But I wrote a boat book which was about forgetting
the first million. So there's a lot of kind of
chat around when did you make your first million? I
get asked this lot, when did you make your first million?
And I don't think it's I don't think it matters.
What does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Is it turnover? Is it money in the bank? What
is that? And I just started thinking, wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
It be nice if we had a world where small businesses, yes,
money will happen. And money is one metric you can
use to measure the success of your busines. That's obviously,
I'm an accountant. The profit e bit dark obviously super important.
But let's forget about that for a second and let's
really focus on why do you start this business. It's
(03:14):
it's for time, it's for freedom, it's for autonomy, it's
for maybe legacy or successional or something. Let's focus on
those things and then let's really think about whether we
really do we even need to care about a million.
And that's and that's why I write the book.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's fabulous. Yeah, we call ourselves lazy overachievers. Everybody that
listens to the program, so it's you know you, it's
just it's just a number, and it's always about the
income and the experiences you can have with the money afterwards.
And also, don't don't kill yourself in the process, which
you know you're you're a big fan of.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Absolutely, you can't take it with you and there's no
point earning it all in you're not here to enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I very much am a die with nothing person.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I hope when I die I am deep in my
overdraft because that's the way to go.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I think that's that's perfect. Was the last penny? So
you did something two thousand and six that a lot
of people wouldn't have done in a traditional sense, is
and is you went to subscription based accountancy. That's in
a world of charging by the hour, charging by this,
doing this, and I mean, so that was fabulous. How
(04:22):
did you make that transition for people that don't charge
by the hour, that or don't charge subscription typically charged
by the hour, How did you make that reason that shift.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, So it wasn't It wasn't really a shift for us,
because that was how we set the business up.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You know, I saw this gap in the.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Market, remembering that we predate the cloud software. So this
kind of concept of having something on a regular basis
from an accountant was really quitt alien back in.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Two thousand and six.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
It feels like the Jurassic period of accountcy when I
think about it now. That idea of having something kind
of regularly that you could see that wasn't once a
year didn't. It wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So we had to create a format that allowed that
to happen.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
We had to create a product, something kind of modularized it,
productize it so people had something for their money every month.
We had to create a reason for them to pay
us every month, and then we had to kind of
create a system that meant that we didn't have these Traditionally,
accountcy had these peaks and troughs of workload, which are
directly correlated with peaks and trusts in money right in income.
(05:23):
We wanted to kind of really flatten that curve out
and have all of our money and all of our
persons and our workloads really really flat and that was
the whole methodology behind it. Really, it came from a
desire for me. I don't come from a family with
a lot of money. I think I've spoken before perfectly,
and my family are creative, you know, actors, dancers, musicians.
It's a gig economy, right, famine feast. And I hated that.
(05:47):
I hated that anxiety about not knowing could I pay
my rent or not, what was going to happen next month,
and so created the structure so that I, as the
business owner, didn't have to worry about that. I knew
that if I say it's the Excember of client, the
X number of pounds per month, that will give me
how much income? And if I did that, however many
times over, I could pay my bills.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And that was it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Really, it was kind of by accident that it became
what it is and it grew from there and it
really caught on, and I think it made it really
easy for small business owners, not only to budget. You know,
no one likes unexpected bills, and historically lawyers fees and
accountancy fees are the ones that people kind of don't
have control or site over. Usually this alleviated some of
(06:30):
that anxiety for small business owners as well. So it
kind of worked in a really nice symbiotic way when
we set it up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So when you got to that state, if you went
back to something when you were putting that in place,
and two thousand and six, so you're now twenty years
past that, and you went back to that and said,
here's one thing that you should have done, and here's
one thing that you definitely shouldn't have done, you know,
if you were looking at that implementing a new charging process,
(06:57):
a new way, especially in a new economy, because we
didn't have software as a service feed pricing like you
said then as much as we do now.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Definitely, my biggest advice on that is staying laying, you know,
do I'm a huge believer in do one thing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
It's why we don't have a hugely diverse range of services,
because we at this point in time saying the market's
big enough for us to continue to sell into it,
We're nowhere near any percentage of time that we want.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So actually there's enough here to keep us going.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Let's be really good at the one thing we do
and keep doing it and keep refining and improving that.
If you're changing your pricing structure. You need to change
it and stick with it, even when it's painful, and
even when it feels like you shouldn't have done it.
You need to keep going and go through those pain
points to get out the other side of it. Try
to run two things simultaneously, especially they're very different models
(07:50):
is almost impossible. You won't benefit from any of the
economies of scale that you might get, and it just
becomes really cumbersome. That's one thing I would say, definitely
do do absolutely do that. And one thing that not
to do I suppose. I suppose it's the flip side
of the same coin is don't doubt yourself. You know,
the first business advisor I ever saw told me that
(08:12):
this was a terrible idea and it would never take
off and it would never work. And I've joked before
I'm quite driven by spider.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The person. His name was Ian.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I think about Ian every day, you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Know, But stick to your guns.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
If you running a business, or making any big change
in the business, you do, run has to It will
always involve an element of risk. Things might not go well,
they might go completely wrong, but you have to back
yourself at some point. You can't hedge your bats. You
have to back yourself with a level of risk that
you're comfort with and stick to it. So, yeah, don't
don't doubt yourself. You know you made a decision. You
(08:48):
think it's a good idea, you know in your gut, right,
your gut will tell you before your head does you
know if it's a good idea. Give yourself the grace
to find out for certain. I'm very much a regret
what you do, not what you do kind of individual.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
That makes a lot of sense. So how do what
questions do you ask yourself for when you're working with
clients coaching and accountancy, how do you help them choose
their lane? Or how do you let them or uncover
or unveil or discover the lane instead of trying to
make one up?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I think the first thing, well, for me, there's there's
there's two big things. Yeah, there's a phrase I do
quite like to stay, which is, you know, you call
it niching or niche, and but the way I like
to call it is there's a bump for every seat.
You know, there's a market for everything, no matter how
niche it is. Obviously, the more niche that market is,
the more you have to really focus on it and
probably charge premium for it. The why do your net
(09:41):
can be cast the more general you can be with
these things. So that is kind of for me. You
need to know there's a market there and how to
get to it. But further than that, it's the passionate.
It's the why.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
You know. You're never going to stick through the rough dage.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
You're never going to stick at the difficult thing if
you don't have that purpose, some passion behind it and
you're really living your why, and if you've got a
team taking them on that journey with you, it becomes
very hard to stick out the rough stuff if you
don't fully believe in in the course, and I think
that's a big thing. Be passionate about the thing that
(10:17):
you do. And interestingly, it doesn't have to be the
kind of the full end product, so believe it or not,
I'm not super passionate about pieces of compliance work like
that does not get me going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
But what does get me going is.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Systems, efficiency, scaling, all that stuff. I'm super passionate about that,
and then my end product is a result of that
and that's what we sell. So your passion doesn't have
to even necessarily be the one thing, the widget that
you make. It can be the method of getting there
on the methodology that can be enough to keep you going.
But you've got to have some sort of love for it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So one question, and I will go to the accuntancy
side now, is what questions should we be asking our
accountant because everybody and about things like you're talking about,
because everybody should be able to save this much tax
or do this type of thing or put money in
their pension or whatever it is. What's something that you
you say when somebody's asked you that that you should
be able to answer this exactly and wrote and in
(11:17):
your heart as a as an accountant.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Why do you get up in the morning? Why are
you getting up? Why are you here? What brings you here?
It sounds like such a simple question, and lots of
people will, like you said, we'll give a right. Oh
it helps serve with small businesses or to provide financials.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, no, no, no, Why are you in this seat?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
For me, it was living without money as a kid
and seeing how poor sives is worth for creative industries
and people who send it in some finance. That's why
I'm sat in the seat and that's what keeps me going,
why are you here? What's what's driving you to do this?
And from that everything else should kind of layer out
from it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's that's really cool. So in I think I think
we've we've gotten Ian in this thing. But besides, Ian,
don't do this. It's it's crazy because I've got the
same I've got the same spie thing as I had
somebody that sat me down in a cafe and I
thought he was gonna invest with me, and as a
financial advisor, I was like, this is cool. He was
like the head of the town and he sat down
(12:13):
at the coffee and the first thing he asked me
is why are you here? As in like why are
you staying in the UK? And so from that point forward,
and from that point forward, I was like, mister Cunningham,
I am coming for you. And so spiteful thing it's
his ex wife became my client.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So hey, look, sometimes you need that little inner fire
just to keep you going.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
You go to the winds where.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They are and my business is still going and here's
a shutdown. So I'm just just saying. But but in general,
so what's besides Ian, what was something else that somebody
told you don't do this, and you did it anyways
because you are either driven and you didn't believe in them,
or just said I'm gonna do this anyways.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Come on, it's a building.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Technology was a biggie I've as you know well, as
we discussed right at the top of the hour, and.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I'm a writer as well.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I wrote a fairly sassy article about cloud software at
the time and about how for most small businesses or
salt traders it it wasn't good enough and didn't serve
their purposes.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
One of the large software houses got very upset with me.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I didn't name the minute, I'm not going to name here,
but they got very upset with me and sent the
big boss down and kind of a chat and say, well,
you should be using us, and it's going to cost.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You five pound per client the month.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
And I did the sums in my head and I
scaled it up and I was like, that doesn't work
for me, because not because your software isn't any good,
but because actually, because the market we work in, what
we need is so bespoke and so specific that actually
we would be better off raising money building this ourselves.
And again taking the punt on ourselves back. This is
(13:55):
a gamble, right, I'm gambling here, gambling that my version
of this will work out scale better than buying off
the shelf and kind of making a Frank and signs
month through.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
A tech stack.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm gambling this is going to work better for what
we want to achieve and doing that results CBC. I
suppose we're still on that journey. So maybe we'll come
back in five years and it will either be a
raw and success or an opolicte disaster.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Who knows. That's the exciting part.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But it's great. If you've got the big the big
boys in the industry coming out and knocking on your
door because you pissed them off, that means you've done
something either very wrong or very right.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I jess.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
You know, over the years when we very first started,
you know, we got called all sorts of things, saying
that we were kind of besmirching the good names of
accountants that were cheapening the industry, that we were, you know,
kind of kind of giving a poor account. We got
we said we didn't care. We've got cccues and not
caring because it was all online and not face to face,
and the business model was junk and now obviously this
(14:54):
is a business model that lots of people sort of use.
Over the years, There's been a lot of hate sent
my w and it never really bothers me because I
just think, Wow, if I am living rent free in
your head and it's bothering you this much to send
me an email or DM me on LinkedIn, I've got
nothing to worry about because I know where your energy
is going, and I know where mine's going, and it's
(15:15):
definitely not back towards you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah. And so if you were going to write a
second book, what would the second book be, or if
it's not already in process, what would your second book be?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I keep threatening to write another book. I have lots
of ideas. Ideas aren't the problem though? Are they exactly
execute I have fifty ideas for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I probably all rubbish. It's executing on it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I don't know. And I'm a bit of a kind
of I suppose, impulsive writer. I'm not particularly measured when
I do it. Like my last book I wrote, I
wrote that in about six weeks flat, just boom, like
it kind of sort of poured out of me. I
tend to find that I'll have an idea noodling around
my head for months, maybe years, and then one day
(15:59):
a sort of vomit itself out onto a Google doc somewhere.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
I'm waiting for that.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
There are a couple of little ones bouncing around, but
I don't know what they look like yet, So I'm
going to have to wait until I either have some
kind of mini breakdown and that will come pouring out
of me, or I've had a few weeks off and
it's and I feel rested enough to kind of let
that creative energy flow. But yeah, there's definitely another book
or few in me. I just don't know what they're
going to be about yet.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And you like growing things, building things and systems. So
you just said something that I think a lot of
really good, driven focused business owners do is have lots
and lots of ideas. How do you figure out which
ones are rubbish? How do you evaluate your forty before breakfast?
If you're actually going to waste headspace, time and team
(16:45):
and resource to deliver on one, two, any of the forty?
How do you evaluate that?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I just keep asking myself the question with them, It's
a so what question, Oh, we could do this thing,
this widget this thing, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So what what?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Who's that going to benefit? Who's it for? Is it
for my ego? And again, I'm a founder, I'm a CEO.
There's an ego that goes there. I'm fairly self aware.
Is it for my ego? Is it a vanity project?
Who does it benefit? Is the juice worth? The squeeze
is one that I say a lot as well, like,
we could do this big, wonderful change and I've only
(17:21):
zero point five percent of our base ever user and
it doesn't deliver any results.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, we're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So in my head, I've constantly got kind of I
suppose the questions I've learned to ask myself, so what
is a lot of So what, Lucy, So what?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
That's a great idea, But so what? Who cares?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
I asked myself the question They kind of I suppose
a first phase feeds ability study. And I've got a
team around me and my exec team who are very happy.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
To push back on a lot of the stuff that
I come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I've got a team of people who are very happy
to go Lucy, that sounds like absolute rubbish. So that's
great that we have that kind of layer of trust
amongst us, and then when we do get the stage,
you're going, okay, is this feasible or not. There's two
things I really look at. It's business case or safe
for free business case. Feasibility study and then investment appraisal
(18:09):
are kind of the metrics ideas, if we do this thing,
what's the impact, how long do we expect it to
return over and what does it mean going forward?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Based on a set of rules that we have for
ourselves in the business that means we either do or
don't do it.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Occasionally we do things that fall outside those rules, but
we need to have a really good justification for it.
And everybody uses those sets of rules to decision make.
And then that's looking at all kinds of stuff like
what's the upside, what's to downside, what's the risk, what's
the opportunity costs?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
We kind of factor all that stuff in and.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Then if it goes past that, we'll do a test
and a pilot and we'll see and if the results
don't give us what we want, will ditch it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I'm not a believer in sunt cost fallacy.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
It's something I constantly question with my teams, is this
are you in love with this idea? Do you want
to keep going with this just because you've already put
a lot of effort into it? And I think something
I hear myself thinking about a lot is just because
you've spent a long time making a mistake doesn't mean
you should keep making it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So apply that thinking into.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Business logic as well, and you'll find Actually, what you
shake out usually is a couple of decent ideas a year,
and from my forty before breakfast, probably two or three
a year are really good, and they'll take our product
and our business forward. But that's the job where I'm
sat is cutting through that noise and knowing what's going
(19:30):
to work, and then, like I said, the execution, forming
a strategy, bringing the team on board, getting the right
resources in, and actually executing, testing and measuring. That's the
and the sexy boring bits between the idea and the
results phase is all this bit in the middle, which
is just the critical bit, which is the bit that
I'm rubbish at and I need to get other people
(19:50):
to do.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
How did you choose or how did you design the
people that you brought in around your non superpowers? Do
you know that you're good at this? Who did you
hire first that said, Okay, I need to give this
to you because I'm screwing it up or this has
taken too much of my brain space or my calendar.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
So I think this happened in phases. I suppose the
first was when we first took our round of investment.
Having a proper board in place, you know, having actual
external people who've got skin in the game to be
accountable to nothing sharpens you. Like having to explain what's
on earth you've done with their money, Like that's a
really good thing to have. So having that kind of
starts sharpening a little bit, and having people from different
(20:34):
industries questioning you and looking at things with a different
perspective is really really valuable. So that was the first
stage one. Then it was building out my internal team.
For a very long time, pretty much everyone who worked
here was very I use a phrase account and team,
but they all had the same type of personality profile.
So for a very long time I was butting heads
with literally everybody, but they formed their own kind of gang.
(20:57):
It was, Oh, there's Lucy with her crazy ideas. We
can all kind of ignore her. As the As the
company grew and we started needing people in kind of
different divisions with different hats on. We found the blend
and the mix of people naturally shifted. So somebody who
works in a sales environment is probably someone very different
who works in some very different someone who works in a
(21:19):
payroll environment all day. You start finding those mixes of personalities.
You start kind of seeing another people where their strengths
and weaknesses lie. We do use some of the personality
profiling tools. They all just tell me I'm an absolute nightmare.
I love to think I'm this like big enigma, but
actually when I read these things back, I read it
and Margano, that is actually spot on.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
That is me.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I'm very basic, very easily read. Look, we use those
tools well, but really a lot of this goes on.
You know, when you meet somebody, you should have good
conflict with them. You know, it would be I say
to all of my team, it would be weird and
it would be a concern for me if we weren't
disagreeing regularly, because if we're constantly there's no point in
(22:03):
me hiring a bunch of people who just do everything
I say. It's useless. I don't That's not what I
need them for. I need them to go, Lucy, that's
the terrible idea, or actually, I could do better than that,
and I'm better at you than this. I'm going to
go and do that. And that's the phase that I'm
in now, is doing that. The other thing I've did
is I've got an executive assistant for the first time,
(22:23):
and she's been working with me for about a year.
I generally when I look to hiring her, didn't think
that I needed anybody, and then and now I actually
don't know how I would run anything in my life
about her. And she's in charge of me and wrangling
me as a person, and means that I get a
load of extra stuff done that I never got done before,
(22:43):
and I had the headspace to do what I'm meant
to be doing, not worrying about sort of out diary
appointments and reminding people to get their papers to me
for board and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
How are you using AI right now?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Oh, great question, So I use we're obviously baking this
into our plans for our own product, you know, And
it's like everybody is, and everyone's got an a sticker
on it. And the interesting thing we've all been without
knowing it probably using AI for a long time. AI
is such a broad reaching term in terms of you know,
machine learning and all that kind of stuff, so we've
probably all been using it without really knowing. It just
(23:19):
didn't have a shiny gold AI badge and a premium
price dug on it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
We're obviously thinking about how that works for our product.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Part of the algorithm that we've built within it is
based on sets of rules of behavior that we see
in our client base and allowing us to take some
speed up efficiency within the processing of documentation and compliance.
So that's going to be a degree of kind of
you know, learning all that kind of stuff. I personally
(23:46):
use it for pulling information together. If I've got several
large documents or things I need to review, I'll shove
moll in and go can you read through these and
bring pull me out the top points I need to
be worried about, or giving it an agent role, acting
as a whatever, advise it or whatever. Could you tell
me what the biggest problems in this are. And it's
a huge time saver. It doesn't replace deep dives or
(24:10):
anything like that, but it does save a lot of
time on things like pulling data, formatting, you know, basic
stuff which would have taken a lot of time. Now
it takes me less than thirty seconds. And again that's
time better spent on something else awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So if you're looking at and you could talk about
magic wands. So if you could magic wand and numbers
for business owners or people that run businesses, what is
a magic wand that you you see so many times
that people just don't get this thing right or don't
think about this. And you could waive a magic wand
and every business owner that came through there would know
it before they hit the door. What would that number
(24:45):
set be your idea?
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It would be the idea that you are going to
outgo your systems quickly. So buy something referred tomorrow, don't
buy it for today. In the same way that you've
got a kid, you're going to buy them clothes. Maybe
they don't fit them on day one a term, but
by maybe month three they're perfect.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Think about that in terms of your business.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
I see so many business owners and it's not so
much wasting money, but it's the time when you're not
putting a value to the time it takes to change
systems or to upgrade systems.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
If you've got any confidence in yourself.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Just get the package up, get the one that gives
you that little bit more growth, because because future you
will thank today you for doing that when you don't
have to change to a different system because you've outgrown
it in three months time because things have gone better
than your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's the number one thing.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
I see it all the time, and I think it's
a you know, it speaks to people maybe not backing
themselves as much and thinking, oh, I'll never need that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I've I got that. I'd be delighted. That'd be a
great problem to have.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Well, let's assume you're going to have that problem, and
let's scale up a little bit and make sure that
actually the next year is really smooth, not just the
next three months. I'd say, is what I see all
the time, Yet I just account for your growth.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Very cool. So rewind moment, so I'll ask you about
where we find you and all that type of stuff.
After that's the rewind moment. Is your your top tip
and your your thing. So I know we just went
through a little bit, but your top tip if they
heard this and it could be part of any of
the things we've talked about. And then say Hey, I
want to rewind and listen to Lucy about this.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Ooh, account for your scale. Pay yourself first, pay yourself first. People,
pay yourself first.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, you get thousand pounds in turnover and I don't
pay myself at all. So you're you're you just go
get a job.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, and you're probably miserable and stress and have no
sick pay. So yeah, pay yourself first.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
That's fabulous. Okay, So where do we find out more
about you?
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So I'm over on pretty active over on LinkedIn, so
Lucy Cohen, you can find me under the Sea of Mazuma.
I'm on Instagram at Lucy Mazuma and I've got a
substack which I think is Lucy c Cohen. You can
find me there if you want to see any of
my slightly more informal, funny writing and what I get
to just slightly adjacent to the day jump.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That's that's cool and so and the name of the
book again.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Is Forget the First Million Perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
That was fabulous. Lucy, thanks so much for coming on
the Gross, Sell and Retire podcast. It's been fabulous talking
to you and learning from you and learning with you.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're so welcome. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Thanks for joining us on grow Sell and Retire. For
more information, tools or to book one of our team
members to work with your team business, or to speak
at your event or conference, visit rockfind dot co dot uk.
If you like the podcast, you'll love one of BD's
three books, The Assisted Purchase True Gravity and the book.
The podcast is based on Grow Sell and Retire. If
(27:50):
you want to work for the rest of your life,
that is your business. If you don't, that is ours.
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