The Fearless Business Blueprint: Robin Waite on Leverage Over Volume

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Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. My guest today is Robin Waite. Robin, thank you for joining me. From across the pond. We're just commenting. I'm just starting my day. It's really bright and sunny here. You're ending your day in the UK and I love that we can come together on this format. You are the founder of Fearless Business. You have multiple best selling books and before you started all of this, you had a marketing agency, you had a couple of other businesses. What was it that propelled you into starting Fearless Business?

Yeah, great question. Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me onto the podcast, Anika. It's a real pleasure to join you. So yeah, I ran the marketing agency for 12 years promptly, we did sort of web design and brand and the beauty of that was because as a, as a shy introvert, I could hide behind a computer screen for you know, eight hours a day, five days a week, and not speak to a soul. It was wonderful. And then what happened is then family came along. So my daughter's now 11 and 9, so they're grown up. But when my second daughter came along, agency life just didn't really, you know, suit sort of dad life, I suppose. So initially I just went to close the agency down. I didn't really have the plan as such. I just wanted to spend a bit more time with the family. Thankfully, though, somebody stepped in and actually made me an offer for the client list and some of the intellectual property which we'd built within the business. And I was able to enjoy a bit of time, you know, with my young family and then eventually got bored of sort of conversations about nappies and, you know, wanted more grown up conversations again, so started networking. Of course, the first thing people ask you is like, oh, what do you do? And I was like, well, nothing, because I didn't really do anything or have a plan. But of course that intrigued everybody. And so I tell them the story about how I exited the business. And first thing, you know, they would then say is, well, can we bribe you with coffee and cake and pick your brains? So initially it was just informal mentoring, sitting down with people chatting about their business, figuring out what was it that made my business attractive, that also aligned with their. And it was mostly other agency owners and freelancers. And it transpired. One, I really enjoyed those conversations and two, I was actually quite good at sort of giving people, pointing people in the right direction with regards to packaging up their offers, pricing, getting them more confident about sales, and various things like that. So. And then it was probably about a year after the informal mentoring where I was like, right. And my earnout started to run out as well from the, the sale, so the exit. So I was like, right, I need to take this a bit more seriously. And actually the Fearless business brand was a complete accident. So I stood up to deliver a talk to about 60, 70 people and somebody asked me a question in the middle of one of my talks which is like, what do you, how do you define, like, success? What's your definition of success? And I said, the thing which differentiates those who don't make it to the ones that do is the fact that they fear the things in business, in life ever so slightly less that stop them from achieving their goals. And my best mate, good guy called Adam, stood up in the middle of my talk and pointed at me and he's like, Robin Waite, the fearless business coach. And and it stuck. From that point I worked with a really great branding expert, Sapner, who helped me sort of design the logo and give me the, sort of worked on my personal brand as well. What kind of differentiated me to all the other business coaches out there. But I'm very fortunate to have accidentally landed upon a career which I, I love.

That's pretty amazing. I do want to give you big kudos because it's not often that we hear that fathers want to leave the workforce. Usually I think fathers particularly feel like they have to stay in the grind, do the work eventually, hopefully maybe early retire, but not, you know, sacrifice that family time and that you were not willing to give that up. And as a mom, I appreciate that you shared that about your journey. I think that's, it's something that's really important because we are all able to design the lives we want, but so many of us are full of fear to do that. So seeing you jump into that and then fall into being the fearless business coach, that's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy because I was still fighting against the provider trait and wanting to get out there and kind of build something and being that sort of empire creator. I'm always like full of ideas and I've always been wanting to get out there and like build something really great. But just I realized in the moment that certainly agency life wasn't congruent with fatherhood because at the time the way we were running it was just we were pulling lots of all nighters, you know, delivering projects late on a Friday evening. And then of course naturally things would go wrong with the launch. We'd be back, I'd be back in at the weekends and it's just frustrating for my wife. And I was just getting warned, you know, probably that was like the third at that point. It was the third time I'd have been approaching burnout. And I knew that if I continued down that path there was only one way that it was going to end up. So it's a, it was a natural sort of that time it felt quite natural to be able to do it. Now it's slightly different because I've fallen into a career which I absolutely love. Now I'm fighting something different. I'm fight not I'm fighting against the providers trait still. But actually this is like the way I look at my business now and the people I get to work with these days. The only thing I can liken it to is back to when I was like a child Playing with my Lego that, you know, and you just can't step away from like the, the toy that you absolutely love playing with. That's kind of how I feel about my business now. But I have quite a nice balance. I'm still, you know, I work probably about 20 hours a week, coaching wise, only about six to eight hours a week. So I've built the leverage to be able to then, you know, right now my, my eldest daughter started secondary school, senior school, so I'm able to kind of run it to school and pick her up and things like that. And again, those things are quite important and there's still a bit, bit of frustration there because I'd always want to build more and create more and things like that. But I will only get this opportunity once at the end of the day.

Yeah, well, I was going to ask about that because usually when you build a company you think about scaling it quickly. Right. And that means more employees and more business and then it puts you back into that cycle that we have to fight against that you just mentioned. But for this particular business, it's a one person coaching practice with a small team of associate coaches. Is that correct?

Yes, that's it. Yeah, exactly that. Wow.

Yeah. So you've, how hard has it been to stay intentionally on that path rather than say, oh, I can teach a whole bunch of people to do this program and have a big sales team and go down that road?

Yeah. So I've approached, I've been through, you know, trying to scale the practice a couple of times. So naturally I think you get drawn by, attracted to lots of the shiny sort of marketing things that are available out there, you know, whether it be advertising or online summits or lots of these things which people kind of teach these days. And I was fortunate. Around the time, just before I exited the agency, I went on a course and I ended up writing my first book, so Online Business Startup. And what I didn't realize was when I transitioned into coaching and sort of went from that, I suppose, introverted web designer to then being a coach, you're expected to speak on the stage, you're expected to guest on podcasts, you're expected to be out there in public. And so I had to completely shift like my natural sort of, I guess, Persona not to be somebody who I wasn't, but just to kind of actually bring myself out of my shell. So I've always been fortunate. I've had the first book did really well. I think it sold something like 25,000 copies. And then, you know, I Naturally that I had opportunities to be on, say, for example, like the Google Partners podcast way back when, which I still get inquiries from to this day, actually emails coming through several other sort of notable podcasts. So I've been quite fortunate that the speaking, the podcast and the book have always served me really well over the years. And when I have been drawn by those sort of attractive, shiny marketing things, I've actually. And either they've done okay and it has grown the business enough, but then it's led to exactly what you said there and you get more clients and then you've got to do more admin and you need more staff to manage them and you need more. It just creates this flywheel. And actually about sort of three years ago, I just, I was a bit fed up with that. And actually again, it was starting to pull me away from family. It was starting to pull me away from like actually enjoying the business as much as I had hoped I would. So now I. Well, three years ago I decided essentially that I was just gonna quit social media, quit advertising, quit like trying to push, force growth. And instead some really sort of great things happened. I got invited onto as a part of this intentional kind of like slowing things down to speed up. Eventually what it led to is, I guessed it on a podcast by a guy called Ali Abdul, and that one blew my mind. But that one podcast has generated over 3,000 leads for my small coaching practice, you know, and at a similar already, I'd kind of create a bit of leverage. So I'd shifted from just doing one to one coaching into running a group, you know, business accelerator. I've got clients in 30 different countries now, you know, worldwide, covering all of the different time zones that you can imagine. So it's, it's great fun. I get to work with some fantastic people. But then when, when the 3,000 leads came in again, I hit this other, like this point again where the business sort of broke. And I nearly broke, actually, probably the business was fine, but I broke because I was booking all of these sales calls and I was like, just getting burnt out and I couldn't figure out like why I was sort of waking up in the morning just utterly exhausted. And it transpired there was just one tiny little thing in my systems, my processes, which was just the wrong way around the moment I corrected the that and I started to qualify those prospects better and manage the workflow better and actually get back to being more intentional about the way that I wanted to sort of manage my time, things really started to flow. So that Year or the year after we had that, I did that interview. Ended up being the biggest turnover year that I'd had to date in the coaching practice. And we matched it again last year. So we've actually had two really good years. And you know, we're talking. I don't mind being transparent about the numbers. We did 300k on each of the last two years. So dollars. As a one person business coach, I have a small team of associate coaches. So they're just, when I need them, they're there and I can pay them. And then I also have another sort of side business to the side, which is more about content, which I have a couple of guys who run that business for me now. But I keep on having people who are like, can we run your ads? Can we do YouTube videos for you? Can we? We want to help you grow. And I'm like, but I could get to a million and still make 300k. Why would I want to do that?

Well, and just for the US audience, which is the bulk of the audience listening, 300 right? Pounds is over US$400,000.

Yes. Well, it was actually. So I've already done the conversion. It was, it was 250,000 pounds, so about $300,000 revenue.

Oh, okay, okay, fantastic.

And like I said, I'm well leveraged, so there's a good amount of profit built within that. So you know, like I said to scale to get to like a million with a whole team of people and everything else, you'd probably still end up with only like 200, $300,000 worth of, of profit out of that. So I'm like, well, why would I want to do that? I've got a really great life. I get to spend time with my family. I don't have to manage people. So because that takes up extra time and stress and everything else. Right. So, and this is how I intend to kind of run it for, you know, the foreseeable future. That might change in the future once the girls are sort of starting to think about seniors, like what happens after, like senior school and they go and graduate and things like that. But you know, I'll have that choice to make when we get there.

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Yeah, exactly. My daughter is also in what we call high school here and she is going to graduate this year and we're looking at. So it's interesting because I'm taking a different approach where I'm going to keep doing my business, keep teaching at university, but I'm also looking at where is she going to end up because she might end up in the uk, she might end up in Canada, she might go to school in the us. We're looking at all the options and once we know that I'm also, I'm a dual citizen, so I'm looking at, okay, how much time am I going to spend in different places? So you may want to do that. You and your wife might want to start being able to travel more and have that flexibility and freedom because you've intentionally set up your schedule so that you can do that.

Yeah, that's the plan. That's the dream anyway.

That is the dream. Right? So I wanted to go back because you mentioned that you have a side business Also that's content, so. And that other people run that is that organic content, Because I'm really curious about that. But also the tie into the fact that you decided not to do advertising and you're not having somebody go out there and get generate leads. Kudos for having one podcast episode that gave you that many leads. That's amazing. That's what we all wish would happen as podcast hosts and as guests. Right. But so it makes me wonder what you're teaching to your, you know, the, your mentees, the people you're coaching. Because when we think about online businesses starting up or we think about any kind of business, we think, oh, we have to do all this lead gen and we have to go out and spend a lot of money on advertising and all of these things that you've kind of taken the opposite approach.

Well, think about it this way, Anita. So most people, when they think about like growing a business, the first thing they think about is marketing. I've got to go out and find more customers and we've got to grow our business that way. But the challenge with that is if the business model isn't set up for success, if it's not designed for profitability, if it's not particularly well leveraged, then what's going to happen when you add more clients into it is you're just going to scale any problems that you've got within your business. So the approach which I top level overview of how we help our clients is to get to a point where you've got doubly incumbent with half the clients. So actually we want fewer clients. So how I rationalize this is there's a fantastic book actually by an author called Dan Sullivan. So the book's called 10x is better than 2x. I don't know if you've read it or heard of it. So the principle is pretty straightforward. So Anita, if I asked you and all of your listeners can ask themselves the same thing, especially if they've got businesses. If I said, right, starting from tomorrow, you've got to do double the client fulfillment time, you've got to do double the sales calls, you've got to do double the admin, double the finance, you've got to do double the marketing. You know, to achieve all of those sales calls, you got to create double the marketing assets, double the videos, double the podcast interviews, double the content you like. I'm tapped out already. I can't possibly do any more, let alone double. Right. So the 2x model of growth is actually fundamentally flawed. It's Just not sustainable for the mere mortal, average sort of, you know, humble small business owner. So instead, what you need to try and create is ways to build leverage. And it's not just from a marketing perspective. There's lots of different levers which you can pull. So things like, well, how can we, if we create a marketing asset, how can we leverage it so that it brings in 13% more leads into our business without any extra effort? How can we reduce our cost base by 14% without it hurting the quality of service that we're able to offer to our clients? How can we increase our conversion rate on sales calls from 25% to 33% again without. So we're looking for multiple different points of leverage through our business. And occasionally there's a unicorn thing which comes on. Like me with that podcast interview. I don't get one that size every year, but I'm starting to build partnerships and things like that that are going to swing the odds in my favor. So potentially I can create more of those, those 10x opportunities. But the business has to be set up for success in the first place. So we're very much like, right, let's fix the business model first. It's really nicely optimized. Raise your prices, package up your services, get out of charging hourly rates, especially if you're a service client business. And then from there, once we've got the, the, the optimized business, then we turn on the marketing tap and figure out what does a 10x model look like from a marketing perspective. Perspective. One of the greatest challenges is like in heading into 2026 is a simple fact that, like there are, I mean, okay, I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I've been in business like 22 years now. Right? So we'll rewrite the clock to like 2004. When I first started my business, you could build a very simple, like one page website that might get found in Google back then. But bearing in mind there was like 1% of the number of websites that we've got nowadays, right? So if you had a website, you stood out for a start. You could get some business cards printed off, head down to a BNI networking meeting and you could get clients. It was like super simple, right? But then there's three major shifts that have happened over the past. Now this is irrelevant if you're like Y gen or whatever, like Gen Z or millennial whatever, like, because like you will have grown up, you're too young for a lot of this stuff. But the three shifts are really important. So the first one is like the advent of fast Internet. So of course now there's this global marketplace, the world at your fingertips through the early 2000s, where you're not just competing locally against, you know, people in Stroud or your local, you know, district or state or whatever. Now you're competing against everybody in the world. Right. The next shift was then the fact that because of that, far more people started up businesses. It made it super simple just to go into your local government's website and register a business. So the number of businesses skyrocketed over a decade by a factor of 12. So 12 times the number of businesses started up. And then finally you then bring in the likes of Facebook x LinkedIn. Now you've got TikTok, Snapchat, all of the different social media platforms and ways that you can market the tools. So it creates this like, just cacophony of noise and. And everybody, I would say the vast majority of people really struggle to figure out how to stand out in that market, which is great. This actually sounds like a demotivational speech. It's not. Because if you know this, you have an unfair advantage. You know, that you're just going to have to think a little bit creatively, more creatively around how you're going to stand out from all of those millions of people, billions of people shouting into the void about their businesses. So what we try and teach people is unusual ways to kind of market themselves, that if you just put in that extra little bit of effort up front and you build an asset that you can then leverage and get out to multiple people in one go. So podcasts, great. You know, this is a great way to reach more people at Scale, a YouTube channel. So it takes effort to record videos, but once they're out there on the ether, people can search on Google and AI tools and they'll find your videos. Writing books, for example, building partnerships with people who already have very large audiences, like hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers or followers. And the immediate thing people think is, oh, well, why me? Why, why should a Steve Bartlett from diary of a CEO or a Simon Squibb with 17 million followers, or an Ali Abdul, like, why would they choose me? Well, it's like, well, that's part of the fun is figuring that out, trying to get into their world and make it happen. But frankly, it's. It takes far less time to do that than it does to spend 30, 40 hours a week posting on social media for your content. Just to be read by about three people and no comment you know, no engagement or inquiries come back, right?

This is so funny because just this morning I landed another client yesterday for my business and I have two more that I'm likely going to land before the holidays. And so I'm going into next year going, okay, I need to raise my prices because I know what my margins are like and they can be really good. But I also put a lot of my team and different testing things so that I can make sure that my clients are satisfied and have really great success. So I'm going down this very path right now of, you know, what is next year going to look like? And I'm going to double my prices for this thing. And then the other part of my business, I've already been told I have to, you know, I have to increase the pricing from just under a thousand dollars to at least $5,000, probably raising it from there. So I'm going through some of these same challenges that you help your clients go through and that you've been able to successfully go through your for your business.

Well, that's it.

I just love.

Makes me so happy to hear that you're raising your prices, Annika, because it like literally makes my heart sing because so many business owners undervalue and undersell themselves. And I have these conversations literally daily with clients now. And essentially there's like three ways to grow a business. The first one is you can sell more of the same products or, sorry, sell the same product to more people. Right? So that's kind of what we were talking about. And actually like 2xing stuff doesn't really work. You can cut your costs and then reinvest that money back into assets. That's kind of like the accountant's favorite. And it's very short term thinking. But if you can figure out how to sell the same product for more money, then that's where you win because you create really positive cash flow cycles. It means you can build up a rainy day fund faster, which means that you're not going to be quite so desperate to enroll more clients, which means actually as well. So there's this thing which I call the sales cycle of doom, right? So when you're not charging enough is like, sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell, deliver. And then your kids get ill or so holiday comes around or something and you take a short break and then you're like, deep breath, sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell to. And you get back on the cycle, right? But what's interesting, when you raise your prices, what happens is all of a sudden you have More time. So imagine this is our, our sphere at the moment when you're low price. Sell, deliver, sell, deliver, sell. If you set, if you charge more, you've got more time to deliver a better quality product or service to your clients, which means they get better results, which means you're then more referable, they're more likely to stick around to come back and do further work with you. But because you've already amplified and raised your prices, the money you make on the back end is also amplified and higher. They tend to be more committed clients as well. So therefore they get even better results. And so you create this really virtuous cycle by raising your prices. But the challenge is it's like everyone's greatest fear, okay, like if I raise my prices well, all of my existing clients will leave or I won't be able to attract new clients. And it's just not true. I've been through a repricing exercise with literally thousands of clients now and it's a handful of times where somebody's raised their prices and their conversion rate has dropped to a point where it wasn't economical. So it's really, really rare for that. A price increase actually stops people from buying your products or service. And there was a want just some statistics for you. So there's an organization in the UK called the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and they did a study about, across about 1800 service based businesses, people believe that if you raise your price by 5%, you can sell 5% fewer clients to make the same net profit. Well actually it doesn't work like that because the money compounds as it trickles down through the profit not account. Right. So with a 5% increase, actually you can afford to have something like 9% fewer clients, a 10% price increase, you can afford to have 14% fewer clients and still make the same net profit. By the time you get to like a 20, 25% price increase, you can afford to have fewer than half the clients you've currently got and still make the same net profit. And then it kind of just, it's like a hockey stick curve at that point where it just escalates quite quickly. So if you're like 5x in your prices and I bet your conversion rate won't drop that much for new business, you'll still continue to get those clients on board.

Yeah, I think everything you're saying is resonating really deeply with me. It's not only our fear of raising prices, but it's also, we have this perception that there are people we want to help who won't be able to afford us. And we have to get out of that mindset as well, because the right people will say, yes, this is that important to me that I'm going to spend this money because I know how much it'll further my business. And we forget, right? We think it's, it's personal. We have to be nice, especially as a woman entrepreneur. And I've been there, done that, when I had a PR firm and I was reestablishing myself in LA after having lived away for several years and thought, okay, I have to prove myself again in the world of PR here, so I'm just going to charge this much. And then you get a whole bunch of clients and then you do all these things and then you're like, this is not anywhere near the pricing. But now the client base I have expects this price and those clients specifically won't raise. So I should have instead taken more time maybe to go after the clients to do my messaging, right? To do the things that would have attracted the bigger clients, that would give me more peace of mind, more flexibility, less stress. So I'm really appreciating everything that you're offering to us right now.

Well, one thing to bear in mind as well is that it's really hard when you're starting out because you kind of like, you're testing everything. You're testing, like your client base, you're testing your products, you're testing. So you're going through massive amounts of testing and you can create a bit of a trap for yourself. But when I work with clients who are just in that very early startup phase, I'm like, when it comes to making decisions in your business, imagine that you had 50 or 100,000 bucks in a bank account, a rainy day fund there. Would your decision be the same or different to what you're about to make? Would you choose to take on this client if you had a hundred thousand dollars in your bank? And quite often they'll be like, oh, no, probably wouldn't do that, right? So you've got to tune into that, that gut instinct, right? And pick off the red flags. And like, at the end of the day, life is too short to work with clients who are a bit of a pain in the backside. Because, you know, for obvious reasons, all that happens is if you take on a client for too cheap and then they expect too much, you both end up resenting one another and it's not a good, good relationship. That said, though, there is space for what I call Love clients. Okay, so randomly I do. I. So I'm an associate coach on several other programs as well. And one of them is for dog groomers, pet groomers. And one of the most common questions I get asked is, well, I've got little old Doris and she's 90 with a 17 year old Westie. And like, you know, she's on a pension and she can't really afford like my full prices. Like, what do I do there? I'm like, that's cool. Help little old Doris, like give her a cheat cut. Like she'll go and tell all of her friends about it. And some of them might have more money, but set some boundaries around it. Have like, set like space for two love clients and that's all you'll groom this month. You know, it's almost like a scholarship in a business sense. And that's okay because actually that breeds goodwill as well. You can still feel good about yourself then. You don't have that guilt that it's all about the money. But we do have to also remember we need to build a profitable and sustainable business. So we can't have an entire business full of little old Dorises with their Westies because that will just ruin our business ultimately.

Fantastic. One other thing that you said is that you abhor businesses that charge by the hour and you consider this unethical. Explain.

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Okay, so imagine this scenario, right? So Annika and we imagine we were working together and I'm charging like 50 bucks an hour, okay? And it's come. It's coming up for holiday season, right? We've just had Black Friday and my Mrs. Waite's emptied out the bank account, right? And she's like, Robyn, you got to go and earn some more money, right? So I'm like, well, I got this client, Annika. I think she's got enough money. I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and sell her more hours because then that will get. That will make me more money. Now most people are like ethical, moral, upstanding human beings. But the simple fact that you could just bump up the hours and charge so many more money, and I do know businesses that have done this, shows me that it's a flawed business model and borderline unethical. And I know that's a very strong word. Another example is imagine if we had, like, two business owners in the same space, two web designers, okay? Something I know well. So. But they're both charging 50 bucks an hour. But web designer number one says, okay, Annika, I'm going to build you a website. It's 50 bucks an hour, and I think it would take me about 20 hours. And you go, okay, thousand bucks. Sounds like a reasonable deal. So we agree on it. He disappears off, comes back three months later, and you're looking at this website going, well, it looks like a dog's dinner. Where's the shopping cart and the blog that you promised me? And he says, well, oh, I forgot about those, but I've used up the 20 hours. Therefore, you know, I'm going to charge you another 10 hours. Is that okay? Can you like, oh, no, I can see you grimacing there, right? So he reluctantly, because he's an okay guy, so he reluctantly agrees to add it, but now he's pissed off, you're pissed off. So it's like everybody's getting annoyed here. The other business owner, on the other hand, web designer, also charging 50 bucks an hour because he doesn't know what Robin and Anca know about pricing. However, he's been doing it for like 30 years. So he's like, you know, since the dawn of the Internet age, been building websites. So he comes back to you in a week, beautiful website, gets leads on goo found on Google. You know, he's got the shopping cart, and he says, well, you didn't actually really need the blog on there. And you go, okay, well, thanks, you saved me, but how much is it? And he goes, well, it only took me 10 hours, so it's 500 bucks. And you think, great, good for Anika, because you've got a bit of a deal there. But the guy's getting penalized because he's been doing it for so long. He's better and faster than his compatriot who only started doing about six months ago, right? So again, that's another clue that hourly rates is a flawed business model because it doesn't reward the person who is more experienced and does a better and faster job. So what we've got to do instead is we've got to think about, rather than selling our time and materials, selling the features and what we do. What instead we've got to figure out how to do is to how to articulate the value via the results and outcomes of the thing that we do to our clients. So this is where website designer number three comes into the mix. This is Tricia. She's the absolute website ninja. She knows that you don't need a shopping cart or a blog or a fully blown website. She knows that you just need a kick ass like landing page that generates leads for your business and that's it, like guarantee. So her promise to you is that she'll build this website, will be live in 72 hours and she'll run some ads to it and within 30 days you'll be getting 20 qualified leads to your website. And you're like, brilliant, sounds good. I can convert four or five of those out the 20 each month. I'm quids in how much does it cost? And she says it's $10,000. Your eyes widen and you're like, God, that's expensive compared to the other two. But then Tricia says, well actually hear me out because if we don't get those 20 leads a month for you by in the first 30 days, we'll actually refund you all of the money and pay you $1,000 for wasting your time and you can just keep the site. How does that sound? And you're like, oh well, worst case, I get a thousand bucks to go and spend on the other two ideas, right? You know, for my website. So again, it's just about how we present our value proposition, how we understand our clients and what they actually need rather than servicing our own interests. And what I've discovered is that if you serve clients to a really high degree, the money comes as a natural byproduct of that level, that high degree of service.

Yeah, that's fair. All of that. Everything you're saying makes a lot of sense when you take the time to listen. So your online business startup book was your first book and that one did really well. And then we now have Take youe Shot. Can you tell us a little bit about that book? Why did you decide you needed to write another one? Do you have more that are in your head that you're going to be pulling out and putting out for us?

Oh, great questions. Yeah, so. So online business startup I wrote when I was still running the marketing agency. So it was very much about how to like build and start a website. Of course, when I switched into coaching, I kept getting inquiries from people asking me if I could help Them, but with the marketing on it. Well, I'm not the marketing guy anymore. I'm the business guy. So no is the short answer. So I realized that I had to write a book which was more aligned with what Fearless Business was all about and why help clients with so on the product and pricing side of things. And I got a bit of a clue again. It feels like this is why, like, Fearless Business is so aligned with, like, me and my purpose and everything. Because it just seems that these things have happened that just naturally, like, they were happy accidents all the way through. So I, I did. When I decided, right, I'm going to do this coaching thing, and Fearless Business started up, I did a webinar, which originally was designed for web designers and agency owners, freelancers. And I had about 50 people on this webinar. This is back in 2017. And five minutes after I'd finished, my phone goes. I'm like, that's interesting. Don't recognize the number. Pick it up. And there's this very excitable young man on there called guy called Russ. And Russ says, oh, my God, I loved your webinar. It was so good. But I just don't understand, Like, I just need a bit of help, like, how do I apply these principles to my business? I was like, so tell me about your web design business then. And he's like, oh, no, I'm not a web designer. I'm a golf pro. Okay, unusual. But why? How? And it turned out one of my colleagues who was a web designer invited him along, said that he'd heard good things about me. Anyway, so I, I told this. I tell Russ's story. I used to tell Russ's story as part of, like, the talks, which I delivered. So about how he productized his golf packages and priced them and sold more of them, all of that sort of stuff. And then I. People just kept saying, you should put it into a book. So I did. So that became take your shot. And actually now, rather than selling the book, I tend to kind of give away copies of it. It's. It's a great lead magnet. I think it's also a great, like, intro into, like, some of the things which I. I talk about from a productizing and pricing perspective. And I'm also acutely aware, whilst I'm the pricing guy, that like you said earlier on, there are people out there who can't afford, you know, an expensive coach or mentor to help help them kind of work through, especially if they're in the early stages of their startup journey. So My books are kind of like my little Doris love clients thing. I wrote Take your shots. So I could literally just gift it to loads of people who weren't ready for coaching or couldn't afford it just yet. And then in terms of future projects. So I've just finished a draft. This is new news because it's not public knowledge yet, but I've literally just finished the draft and handed over to my publisher. It's been approved. So we're looking to publish the fearless pricing book in June next year. So that's upcoming.

Nice. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. I wish it were coming out sooner because I know a lot of people who could use that right now, but we will wait for that. And yeah, you mentioned you do speaking. So you are an author, you coach, you do speaking engagements, you have a book coming out. What else does life look like for you going into the next couple of years?

Yeah. So I'm looking to sort of recreate the Ali Abdul interview and see if there's other ones similar to that that I can get on. So in 2026, I will be on Diary of a CEO by Steve Bartlett. My words. I'll definitely be there because that I've seen other. I've got friends who've been guests on there and it's just been an absolute springboard for them to then go and guest on. I mean, it's the number two podcast in the world behind, you know, Joe Rogan's podcast. So. So I'd love to be a guest on that. And then really, for me, I'm going to do much more of the same. So I'll give a slight pause and a warning here because this might be a bit of a trigger for some people, but. So in August 2024, so just over a year ago, I got diagnosed with a benign tumor on my brainstem. So very worrying. Just so scared at the time when we got the news. And I've had to do a lot of work to kind of just get through that. The good news is, out of the 160ish brain tumors like mine is, the type I've got is like bottom of the list of the most dangerous. So I'm gonna be around like 4 a good while annoying people. So it's, it's good news. But what happened is it brought life very sharply into focus. And I'm like, I don't want to work harder. I want to be more present for family still. I want to be able to pour into my clients when they join up with the accelerator and make sure they're getting good results and feel loved and, you know, going through the process because just because it's fearless doesn't necessarily make it any easier and focus on my health and, well, being a little bit more. So I, I've actually recently. Sorry, I'll. I'll wrap up here rather than rambling, but I've just taken up archery, which is so frustrating. Very technical, but it's a great way. Just a while away, like three hours of the morning out in the field, in nature, just kind of allowing myself just to kind of be, be with my own thoughts for a bit and just kind of, you know. But it's that like my message, I suppose from this is like life is too short. I know it's very cliched. You don't know what's coming. And for me, it came as a very big surprise when I found out. And I've realized now that also it's okay for me to be a bit selfish and get off to what I want as well. You know, I spent a lot of time focusing on family. It's okay if I want to take a trip to Dubai or go and visit some friends or, you know, take up a new hobby or whatever and eat into a bit of work time and a bit of family time for Robin as well.

Thank you so much for sharing that and for being vulnerable. We just don't know what's going to happen any moment in time. And I really appreciate that you are talking about taking time for yourself because that's something that we sacrifice so much and it can be really hard and frustrating when we know that we're doing this and we're trying to carve out, like, where's time for me, right? What about the person I am outside of being a family person? Right. A business owner, a teacher, a dog owner, whatever the case may be in our lives. So that's a really great attitude. And I wish you the most success with your treatments and finding the time for yourself to be able just to breathe and sit with your thoughts and fit in everything else where you can and where you want to, where you choose to.

Yeah. Thank you. I call it guilt free time off. And it's. Guilt free time off is actually a muscle which you need to get the reps in and exercise regularly. And it's, it's taken me, I mean, it was accelerated when I got the news, but I was already on this journey of like, it's taken me three years to get to a point where I can go and sit in a cafe or go and have a massage at my local spa or go and get my haircut and forget about work. Because really, look, I think people take business, like, way too seriously. And actually, business should be fun, it should be fulfilling. It should give you the freedom to do all of those things that you want to do. You shouldn't have to wait for a shop to come along to like, trigger that. So I challenge people. Like, you might be worried about taking like a full day, a week off, for example. I mean, I don't work Fridays now as a rule generally, and I take Tuesdays off now for my archery and Wednesday mornings off for my, you know, to spend time with Charlotte, my wife, where we can, because she's also busy working too. But it took like three years of like, oh, right, I'm just going to go and get my hair cut and then I'll go straight back to work. So. And then. And I might experiment by just taking like half a day off. And then so gradually you just exercise in and elongate it and forget about everything else because you're the most important person out there.

Wow. So much for us to unpack and think about as we all move into our futures. Whether that's one minute from now, a day from now, a month from now, a year from now. So this has been a really amazing conversation. I really appreciate you bringing yourself here and you're taking some time away from your evening with your family to give us some great advice. And I know we're going to send people to a link on your website that will give them a free signed copy of your book. So that's a really amazing gift as well. The gift that keeps on giving.

That's it. Absolutely. Yeah. No, and I personally sign it and take it down to Pauline at the post office and ship it because again, it's just one of my greatest, like jobs joys is like every little touch when those books go out. I know that it's just a little bit of something going out into the world.

Amazing. Awesome. Well, I don't know if you have any parting thoughts. I usually ask people if they have a favorite quote mantra, but I feel like you've given us so many good tidbits. So I will ask you though, if you do have one defining statement that you want to leave us with today.

So I know that every one of you listening will have a little idea burning inside you. So whether it be an idea for a product or maybe you're pre starting a business, you might want to start a business or a side hustle or something like that or just something that you want to do for you that is important to you. Nike plus it JFDI just do it because life is too short and I think you will have regrets if you have all of these burning ideas that never come to fruition. And I'm one of those people, I kind of have to know whether something works or not. So I just kind of fairly, you know, I get after it. But other people are a bit more reserved and just want to give them a gentle nudge to say no, no, just do it because you regret it. Otherwise.

Fantastic. Well, thank you again, Robin Waite for coming on. You really are a fearless business leader. And thank you to everybody who's watching this episode or listening to it. Check out Robin's book Take advantage of the offer that he's giving. He will literally send you a signed copy and he's in the UK and we all know postage is not cheap these days. So take advantage of this look at his website where he has a lot of amazing resources and think about how you can do less but earn more and have that satisfaction to really live the lives that you want to. I'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story and their journey very shortly. Until then, have a beautiful week. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.