He Runs An £8M Business Without A Desk Or A Login

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Hey John, thank you for making some time. I have loved following along with your journey. We got connected through Michael E. Gerber, the author of The E-Myth, and we're We've kept in touch since, and I know you've got a great podcast yourself, or you used to. So it's interesting having you on the other side of the microphone and in person as well. The main reason I was keen to get you on the phone is to explore more about your business. I mean, you've got a few. You're a serial entrepreneur and you've got the Fire Protection Online, which is your main business. And then you've got some other side businesses as well, the Blue Coffee in the blue tea and coffee box, effectively. And so both of those brands, we can talk a little bit more about those, but maybe just as a way to start, how do you describe what you do if someone asks, like, what do you do, John?

Funnily enough, and by the way, it's great to be here. It's good to see you after a while. So, but I I still say that I sell fire extinguishers, and people who work for me go, uh, and they just shake their heads because, um, in a, in a fire and safety business, fire extinguishers is, I don't know, maybe 20% of it. But I started as a, as a door-to-door fire extinguisher salesman about a million years ago, and so I can't get it out of my head. That's what I do. But, but it's so much more than that, and, and it's actually hard to describe because you'll get, um, so if you're an American, say I'm an entrepreneur, and but for me, um, I say I, you know, I try and say I run an e-commerce business, but most people who I know don't know what that means. Yeah, they, they don't even realize Amazon is an e-commerce business. So, uh, but, um, so I usually say I sell fire extinguishers, and you sell a lot of fire extinguishers. Um, Yes.

Tell us a little bit about the business, like the size of the team you've got and the type of work that you sell and the products and services through Fire Protection Online.

So yeah, so we sell all types of fire and safety equipment. So fire from, you know, extinguishers, smoke alarms, all the signage and everything. Safety would be things like barriers, speed bumps, and, and things like that. But we sell stuff for professional fire brigades, you know, their type of fire hose and pretty much everything you can think of it. And I'm pretty sure most of the products I know what they do. But there are some things these days that we— well, if I saw it, I think, I wonder what people use those for. But we have— we stock and dispatch everything ourselves. And it's all next day in the UK. We only do it in the UK because standards are different in different countries. And to be honest, that's enough. But, and a lot of our stuff is heavy, so it's quite difficult to dispatch. But we have around, I think it's about 30 staff now. And you're probably thinking I should know, but I'm not there all the time. So, which is a good thing. And we have a lot of long-term staff, we actually put quite a lot of effort into keeping staff. There's, we we put a lot of effort into all aspects of our business. And then of course, as you mentioned, got Blue Coffee Box, Blue Tea Box as a, I call it a sideline, which I run with my son. Yeah. But we're both hands off in that one. And you know, you're Australian, you appreciate decent coffee and that's what we sell. Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. And for the fire protection one, that's been going 16 years longer?

18 years. And the funny thing is, my— so my general manager, she really runs the business for me, and she pointed out to me around a cup of coffee, and she said, it'll be my 17th anniversary soon. And I, in my head, I'm thinking, we haven't been going 17 years. And I'm trying to work that out, and suddenly thought, wow, we have. It hadn't occurred to me because I mean, I know it's 2026 now, but you still think that online businesses are kind of new. Yeah. But yeah, we were in there early and full charging. We've grown all the way through.

So did you start as a systemized business or did you evolve into that?

It evolved. So when I started, it's pretty too much for this, but it was almost accidental. I'd run a fire and safety—

I think that's common for a lot of business owners. It's like you just kind of fall into it.

Well, I'd run a fire and safety business in the past, in what I call in real life, you know, real stuff. And I sold that to a very large— to actually Kidder. Kidder is a, I think, a well-known brand of smoke alarms and so on, especially in America, to the UK brand, part of that. And then I took time off and, you know, regarded myself as retired like you do and swore I'd never do that again. But, uh, but after doing a lot of things on the internet, I, I, I fell into— I built an e-commerce example of an e-commerce store. Yeah. With selling that kind of gear. And, and while I was building it, it started selling things and I just stare at the screen. How's it selling stuff? I haven't— yeah, it's not on, is it? You know, no ads, no. And, and anyway, so I got stuck doing that and I'm still doing it. But, uh, but it was not systemized, but because there was no real plan for it to be a proper business, um, it grew very fast and, and I can't help but try and make things better than they are at the moment. So it's going to grow faster and faster and eventually suddenly realize, wow, I don't want loads of staff like I had before. So such a pain. And, and then I thought I needed to know and have it systemized. Yeah, but, but I don't think I knew that was the term. If, you know, I wouldn't have gone out, um, until I read a particular book by our mutual friend Michael.

Yeah, Michael's book, it awakened so many entrepreneurs. It was just the right message at the right time. So it started with The E-Myth for you?

Yeah, and the funny thing is I can remember I was on a holiday in Greece at the time reading it in the 5 minutes that the kids give you between 'come back in the pool, Dad.' And there was, of the whole book, there was one part, it was the layout. There's a drawing in it which has got the chart, the organizational chart. And that I understood in the fact that when you're just you, you are every single position. And you have to just gradually replace yourself at each position. That resonated. And then I thought, aha, that was my kind of aha moment, I guess. And from then on, and even now, I mean, all this time later, I was trying to explain to our purchasing manager the other day that when he talks to me, he's not talking to the boss, he's talking to me as the financial controller and the product's What did I say I was? Product manager, I think. Like, they don't get it because they still look at me as the boss. But I said, that's the way you're supposed to be talking to me in these things. Because until we get one of those, I'm still there.

And I think that's key for the business owner when they're working in the business to take on the role of that particular role. And because the whole idea is then to replace you out of that role and have someone else plug in and everything about the business needs to be working around those roles. So we're talking about, you know, what is the remuneration for that role? And I mean, as a working in the business, as a business owner, depending on the roles that you're doing, you should be getting a wage. But then on top of that, really, you also want to get a profit distribution as the business owner. But that's a separate thing. It's— I think that's one of the big things I learned from Michael is, um, really seeing yourself as separate from the business and seeing you want the business as its own little entity, its own little machine and everything to kind of work. And whether you're in it or out of it, like it's, it's separate from you where that's where most business owners get stuck and trapped in the businesses because they merge with their business. They are the business.

Yeah, uh, very much so. That's, that's a great way of putting it. And, and you, you really do have to separate them out. I, when I build, you know, do this, and I, I read lots of books by other people who've done well in, in business, I mean, doing really well, you know, the Richard Bransons and so on. And I always think, I wonder how they went through this. Yeah. And, um, and lots of it is that I think they never really say, but they're obviously good at hiring the right people. But, um, but you can't just hire the right people and say, go with it. Uh, you know, it's gotta be something behind it. There has to be a system. You gotta be following something. But, um, but one of the things I really liked about Michael's approach was, um, was that the team, the people who do the work, build the system, like it's kind of, And the fact that at any given time that you'd say, well, there isn't, there's no systemization. So how's stuff being done? You know, it is, it's being, it is, you don't realize. All you gotta do is write that down. There's a starting point. So little things like that, again, little aha moments, think, oh yeah, that makes sense. Can go from there.

Once you had that insight, how do you then, or how did you transfer that to the team? Is that something then that you have discussions with them about, like in the early days when you're kind of realizing, well, I am the business, like, are you jumping in there and creating the process or did you straight away think, right, I want to build a culture here where we're all part of building the process?

Yeah. So culture is, lots of people say, oh, we have a culture here and so on, but I think they're kind of guessing at it. We work hard on it. Uh, so it's all well and good that me, the boss, had a vision, a vision, but, but these people come along, they're just, it's just a job. Yeah. So how do you get that across? Now I actually went to a workshop on a weekend in San Francisco. I flew 11 hours, flew in for a weekend thing and flew home. And it's, this is so long ago. It was cold in San Francisco and they said, this is really unusual. Yeah, it is. I brought shorts and t-shirt, I was freezing. But, um, but they explained, uh, I think they gave an example of a, of a garbage business. And, uh, you know, all the trucks came back and all the trucks were really messy and everything. They said, can't you— and they created a system for how to do it, you know, tick sheet and everything, and no one took any notice. But then the, the, the boss of the business explained what he was trying to do, what the theory of the business was, and explained it to everyone. And they started to buy into it. And you realize that if you've actually involved them instead of treating people as staff, as in them, you know, we're the management, you're the staff, involve them, then they actually get a bit more interested. And so that, so I used to have regular talks with them, um, you know, and try and tell them, I probably told them too much, but to explain that I was actually, um, I regard myself as a disruptor in in my business. I've done it the old style, so I know how it works, and I try and do it— all the bad bits to try and remove and, and put it in— put the customer in control. That actually makes quite a difference because normally in a lot of business, it is the business that's in cold. Customer gets what they're given. And turn it around, and funnily enough, they actually like buying off you.

So you see your role in the business to look at the business as a machine find the bits that you think either are broken or not quite working or can be improved, and then you go in and disrupt that bit. So you kind of, yeah, how do we do this better?

Or, well, as well as that, as well as, because if you just carry on doing everything exactly the same, there's only so far you can go. You have to do some, you have to do some things. Some of these things you have no idea. You're only experience your own little box and you can only imagine. So people say about thinking outside the box, it's quite hard. And so you have to open yourself up, look at other stuff, read books, and you get, you can read a whole book, you know, like that thick, and then you just get a one-liner from it. You think, oh yeah, let me try that. Yeah. And, uh, and so you disrupt that, but also disrupt the general industry that I work in to do it differently so that we're not just a clone, a copycat. We're doing it differently. And it works. And I try and evangelize it, I think. Yeah, it's a bit of a grand word, but I think that's what I'm doing. If I can make— because I got people, and I don't want to put them down, but they just work in a warehouse. They just applied for a warehouse job. They don't know what we even do until they get there. But if you can then get them interested, they might think, 'Oh, this is one of the better jobs I've had.' Yeah.

So that's part of the way that you think about this is how you're training and onboarding new people. I remember Michael said to me, and it always stuck with me, that every business is a school and effectively the systems and the processes and onboarding, like, that's all lessons and a lesson plan. And I mean, the idea is how quickly can we get someone from unproductive to productive and adding value to the business in the least amount of time. And that's through the training and the process. And, um, so do you see like the importance of this induction and, and the way you bring someone on as, as the way that they adopt this culture?

Absolutely. Um, it's a very good point actually, uh, when in, in small businesses, in, in businesses, I mean, we've, we've grown a bit, but a lot of people would still say it's a sort of small business. The norm is you hire someone, say in a warehouse, you put them next to someone experienced and let them work alongside a couple of, for a couple of days and then gradually do the stuff. We, I think the first day they spend, I'm not even sure if they're there a whole day, but they have an induction day and they go through things about the company and stuff like that. And we, we actually have, we, we contract it out to one of these HR things, but we have a company manual. And all this stuff that gets updated. But we explain because generally their supervisor will be someone who's worked with us quite a while and they can explain it better because they kind of get it. Yeah. And they can explain that even though you've just started, you can come up with a great little idea of how something— you can look at stuff and because you've never been here before and wonder why they do that and you can say it., we might all say, that's a good point, and be doing it your way, you know, like, by the end, by within a couple of days. But, but people are, they're encouraged. We have to put a lot of effort into encouraging them because a lot of people think it's just a bit of a, is this a trick? You know, no company, because they can only use where they've worked before. And normal companies are not like that. You know, it's your job, just do as you're told, you get your money. But here, no, we have— I always annoy people because of course I'm never happy with everything. I don't say it, but they just know. But I say that we're always— where we are is good enough for now. And then there's better. And there always is better. And that better, when we get there, that becomes the good enough for now. There's always better. It just keeps on going. And it has worked. I think people get annoyed because they think, what's next? But when you show people, no matter who they are, that one of their ideas can be adopted, then they'll come up with more and they don't bombard you with it. It's not like, you know, they've got better things to do.

I love that what you're sharing here, it's counterintuitive to what people think a systemized business is like. The intuitive response is, oh, it's rigid and people follow process and we're just getting robots. But you're talking about creating a fluid culture where we have a way of doing things, but it's also part of the process to improve those things. And your dissatisfaction with the status quo, which as a disruptor, that's your job. I think that you've put that into the DNA of the business. I often see the systems and the process is about the capturing of the business owner's DNA and effectively a system or a process. It's like a documented habit. And we just want the new team members to follow these documented habits until it becomes part of their way of doing things, a normal habit that they don't have to look at the documentation and it's now just how we do things here. So I'm, with all that said, I'm curious if, if you see yourself or even saw yourself as a systems person, or is this evolved? Like, you're obviously learning from lots of different places and it's coming through, and now you're kind of bringing that DNA to the business. But I'm curious if this is innate.

Yeah, it, it's definitely evolved. I'm not, you know, one of these OCD types who has all the pencils straight on the desk, although I would still love for everyone to have them, you know, but if I see, if one of my, if I have a pencil sort of lined up with a book next to it, I think, oh, I'll move it a bit because in case people think I'm weird, but I'd like everything just tickety-boo, but it's, and I've employed people So I've been working sort of 40-odd years, and over the years you get the hang of it. Just get over it. You know, people will not do stuff the way you want them to be your perfect little clones of you. And so you— that's a— it's helpful to understand everyone's different and people are what they are, and you can't force them to be. So you have to, you have to evolve yourself for that. Systems. I mean, I would, if you said, um, if you said, uh, you know, would you want a systemized business? To me, I would have assumed that meant like the military or whatever, that there's whole books. You have to read some book and learn a script on how stuff is done. But once you start to understand that it's not, a system is your system. And, um, and everyone's got a system. It's just not written down. Yeah. And even how you write it down isn't like step one, step two, this. I don't have people when they're packing got a list next to them. Seeing what they do. It's just done the way. And but, but there can be, I don't know, there can be certain types of products. We do this to them to make it better. And that's a system. And but, but again, no one's got time to read all this. They just learn it. And it's just kind of like a record of how it's done in case anyone asked in the future. And then it's continuously changing. Um, I, I'd imagine if I, I used to pack stuff and send it out myself. If I went down and started packing, helping out, they'd probably say, no, no, no, it's not done like that. It's probably completely changed to how I used to do it because they do it all day long and they can see how would, how it would be more efficient. But it certainly is a continuously evolving thing. And I think one of the hardest things to get across about all our businesses fully systemized to, to other people from the outside, they think, ugh, that must be awful working there. But no, it isn't.

It's the complete opposite.

It's, it's, so if you imagine how a systemized business works in your mind, it's not like that.

Yeah. And the outcomes that it delivers, like a systemized business is better for everybody, better for the business owner, better for staff, better for suppliers, better for better for the bottom line. Like, it's— you can't argue the point because all systemization is about, is about capturing the way, the best way, capturing these parts of the business that work, and then let's make it repeatable and transferable. That can never not work because all we're saying is capture the best bits and then let's keep evolving and improving. And it's a bit funny, like, and I asked you whether or not you see yourself as a systemized person. And maybe I'm a little bit like you. I'm not super OCD. I don't write out all the checklists myself, but I love the result of it. I love to walk into—

Well, it just makes sense, doesn't it? Once you know, it just makes sense. And that's funny. So I I doubt that anyone's got the nerve to tell me when I don't do things as it's supposed to be done. Yeah, I'm the boss, but I bet you there's lots of stuff that, you know, they think, I wish he'd— yeah, she'd listen. But, uh, but we find bits in the business, um, because, because other people are used to this approach having been here for so long, uh, we find bits that we've been doing for 15 years that, that we've never really known that we've been doing that, and that's not right. And when we fix it, and no biggie, there's stuff, there's 100 more things to be fixed that we're doing completely wrong, and we have no idea, and it's probably costing us a fortune, but we'll get to it. Um, when at some point it comes out, it just comes out, you go, really? Yeah. And, uh, wow. But, but my staff, if you ask them all in Viji, they, they would just say, oh, I've, I work in a warehouse at a fire safety business, or I, I work in customer service, or I do this, I answer the phones. They just have jobs. Just make it more enjoyable for them.

Yeah. It's funny hearing the result of what happens for systemizing for 16 years. Cause a lot of people when they first start out, the positive impacts are not felt straight away and where you're having to change culture and you have to capture best practice and do documentation and all of that friction happens up front and people abandon it early and they go, oh, I tried that and it didn't work. Oh, I tried to put a process in place and my team didn't follow it. Oh, we're too creative to be systemized. And they come up with all of this baggage. But when you compare a systemized business 16 years down the track versus one that's not, it's night and day difference. Like, I can't imagine you could imagine running a business any other way now?

No, no, absolutely not. But you can't, you can't like write a system over a week and then expect everyone to be doing it straight away. It takes, it just like say evolves. We're in business, we in this year we'll do £8 million, which has got a good exchange rate in your money, like $16 million in US, I know, $1.2 million or something. Um, and, and, and we're going up at about a million and a half a year. We've, we've suddenly, a couple of years ago, suddenly learned how to have a growth spurt and we're still on it. But, um, but, uh, we, for the amount of staff we have compared to comparable business, we have a lot less staff. Yeah. And we, and it's because of our approach. We're, we're not, we don't just do it the way everyone else has done it, which is which is the normal way, is, um, this is how it's done here, you know, a little bit of chaos.

For some reason people think business is normally chaos, but it doesn't have to be that way.

But it, it, it does. It's all nice to start it. Yeah, but, um, so, so I actually, again, I always think I'm really boring when, you know, people want a more like an American's approach to how exciting a business, what a super duper entrepreneur, um, and I say, oh no, well, this Business is just a series of problems and a well-run business is when you learn how to deal with those problems so they don't come up again. Yeah. And that is through systemization is when you understand what doesn't work, you fix it. And to me, that is a system, whether it was a brief chat amongst everyone to remind them that they've forgotten. Yeah. You know, that this is how we're supposed to do it. Refresh it. But that's systemization, and everybody through the culture over time understands that's how, and it just becomes built in.

This is just how we do things here.

Yeah, yeah. It's not like I hand them a manual and say, can you go off and read that again? That's— you've forgotten, you know, page 58, clause 23. Yeah, I don't even know how the things are written down. I'm sure they're on a computer file somewhere, I don't know.

I think that's what's most impressive when you stick at this long enough is that you've built a business where you now don't know the inner workings. You're not there 24/7. I mean, you're here having a trip to Australia and the business will continue to operate. I know you love to play golf in the afternoons.

I actually, I booked this a bit late and I realize. So there's some of my stuff, say for instance, um, uh, I think Yaz, who does the admin on the coffee, doesn't realize I'm in Australia, judging by the couple of emails I've, I've had. And I might send her a note because I probably— I mean, I'm not going to tell everyone, um, because it doesn't matter. But, uh, but she probably doesn't know I'm here and everything will, it will be fine. Um, and Sue, who runs the business, I only told her last week, say, by the way, I won't be here next week and the week after. She knew I was going to go at some point, but, um, but, but I can do that. Uh, and yeah, I, I actually play golf 4 afternoons a week, um, even in the winter, which our winters are obviously horrible. But, um, uh, because I, I do everything I can to not work. I mean, I have to do some. Yeah. And, uh, and I regard my job as big picture thinking. And you can't sit there at a desk where people come in, 'Oh, John, have you got a minute?' And you can't sit there and think about stuff. And I can think about stuff when I'm elsewhere. And that's another good example. I do not have— so the building we moved into now, we actually leased, but I owned the one which is next door. I still own it where we were before. But in my own business, I do not— not only do I not have an office, I don't have a desk or I don't have a login to our order management system. And I would— I bought it, I spec'd it, I had it bought, but I wouldn't even know how to log in. And I have— because I don't want to know, otherwise I'd be tempted to try and find out and tell someone how to do something better, you know, but it— and they don't need me for all that. So it's fine.

That reminds me, I have a good friend who, when he got married, he couldn't drive at the time. And he, and I was asking him, why haven't you gone for your licence? And he was like, well, if I go for my licence, I'm going to have to drive. And he, his wife had driven him around for ages. All of his mates had driven him around for ages. Like he never put himself in a situation where he needed to drive. And I feel like As a business owner, when you get to a certain level, I mean, that's the goal here to have this business work separately from you and work on its own without you having to jump in and tinker. Yes, there's a lot of work that needs to go in beforehand to get it to that point, but that's the type of work that the business owner needs to be working on. Answering the same question that they've answered in email 100 times before in customer service. Is not a great use of the business owner's time. And it's trying to go to work on the right things. I mean, Michael talks about it, work on the business rather than in the business. Were there any big takeaways that you remember, and maybe even from Carlsbad trip that we had in the Dreaming Room, like any real key lessons that you took from Michael that have stayed with you?

One, I can't remember which one of his stuff, it wasn't him. I once asked, as you know, in my position, what should I be? And, you know, should I consider myself as a project manager? You know, what should I actually do? What should I learn to be better? And I think someone said, you're a visionary, which is cool. And I think I—

okay, Gino Wickman uses that name a lot.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it wasn't him. That's Reddiesburg. But, uh, but, um, I put it on a business card from, uh, I think I only had about 10 of them.

Yeah.

John Butt, visionary. But, uh, uh, but, um, and I thought that it's kind of, it sounds a bit absurd, but it's kind of right. Yes. That is my job. And so you need to kind of get rid of all the other things so you can, you can do that. So that, that was one. And so trying to make a real effort of, of, uh, cause you, you get stuck in the weeds every now and again and it might be a big project or a direction you go off and you find you're running it and you think, oh, hang on, I've got myself a job again. And, and this, this came out last year. I know this sounds odd, but, um, somebody said, have you been playing much golf? And I said, no, I know it sounds daft. I said, no, I've been busy. And, uh, and I think a day or two later, I suddenly realized what I'd said. And I thought, uh-huh, what am I doing? Yeah, I've been doing a bit more work. What's all that about? And made an effort to— yeah, and what would I do? I actually booked a lot more golf where I don't get a chance to do the work. But it's funny how things, it slips. So, so making an effort to get rid of those things. And I don't think I had to make a list to do it. It's just, just think, I'm doing a lot of that. Ask someone else at work, say, by the way, I do a lot of this. Can you do it for me? Cause I shouldn't be doing it. And yeah. Um, so that was, that was one of the things. And I think that's the F— that, that was probably quite major because it's so easy having started a business you're used to it and you'll do anything, work 24/7. I mean, you know, when you're sitting there watching TV and the laptop's on and you think that's not work cause I'm watching telly, ask one of your staff to do that.

Yeah.

You know, they'd say, uh, like, yes, what, for free? And, uh, if they were being polite, they would. But so that was one of the things is it's still trying to get rid of things. I mean, I have to admit I've brought a laptop and my son, uh, said, why? I said, well, if something does come up and it's an emergency, I don't mind. And I can do it on a phone. It's a bit hard, but it's not like I'm, I'm not actually working. It's just there. I will bring it. I think it's a safe, a comfort blanket. Oh yeah. Laptop.

Ah, hey, I know you're tuned in right now, so I'll keep this super quick, but you like awesome YouTube videos, don't you? Well, there's not really that many YouTube channels that create great content about how to systemize your small business, so I want to make sure that you catch every video that I publish. So, if you haven't already, firstly, give this video the thumbs up and then go ahead and subscribe to my channel. You can even hit the bell notification to make sure that you're the first to know when I publish anything. So, go ahead, do it right now. I'll wait a sec and then I'll transfer you back to the video. I love that you're teaching these lessons to your son as well.

Like, what a—

great opportunity because most business owners, the vast majority of them, don't learn these lessons. They start out as a technician and they go, oh well, I'll start my own business as the technician. They build the business around them. They are the business. That's their identity. And they don't realize that there's a heck of a lot of other skills required to run a business that delivers the work beyond just doing the technical. Work. Is this— I mean, he doesn't know any other. I'm imagining he's only been brought up being your son and he's seen the way that you run business. Is it something that you like teach him and mentor him towards, or does he learn it in osmosis, or is he learning on his own?

I think kind of by osmosis, because I think it's very difficult I mean, I'm sure you'll get people, you know, kids when they end up being sort of in their 50s or 60s says, oh, my dad used to say, and I don't have any of those memories. There was nobody who ran a business in my extended family. So I don't have any example. But I will give Harvey examples of how I do things, but without telling him too much because it's not really applicable to this. He works at a major supermarket head office, not on the checkout, of course, but, uh, he, he's, uh, a data analyst and they're, they're really old-fashioned in their structures of promotions and things. Um, but, and, and you can see it, but he can see it, the difference between working in real world and working in a big old, uh, company. But he has learned, so, so even just the finances of running a business. Yeah. He has Savings. He's 26. He has more savings than most people. Well, yeah, I asked him yesterday because he wants to buy a flat in London and that would be like buying a flat in Sydney. And, you know, no one could do that. And he's, he's pretty much got the deposit and he does go out and do stuff and wow. But he has the, he understands costs and things. And, uh, and he's learned that through that. His sister, who's not involved, doesn't have that same, uh, thinking. But, um, so I, I have a feeling that he will know a lot more than he, than he realizes. Yeah. So he's not going to go off and start a business anytime soon. I think he has a sort of job where he can do well as he is, but if he ever in the future ended up in some kind of startup or something, he would know more than he thinks he knows.

You've also got, like, I mean, you're working with the Blue Coffee Box with him. And again, you just make me think back to patterns and lessons that I've learned over the years. There's a period there I was an owner in a rock and roll clothing music store. And I was, the way I met my business partner was He was working in a supermarket and we were stacking shelves together. This is back in '99, and he owned the clothing store at the time. And I was like, why don't you go work in the store? And he goes, oh, I want to design it from day one where I'm not working in the business. And I feel like it's the same lesson that your son is learning. Like, he's got a job and you're running these businesses with him off to the side, which means he has to systemize. He has to learn how to make it work without him in it grinding away because he's off doing something else. And I had the same insight with, um, my big insight came with— I was running Melbourne SEO Services and we had a video production part of the business, but I can't hop on a camera. I don't know how to do the technical work. So I had to build that part of the business from day one with me out of it. And I feel like that's really where a lot of business owners get trapped. It's because they can do the technical work. It's too easy to fall in. And it sounds like you have really worked hard to create structures around you to go, well, I'm going to go golfing. I don't want the logins. Like, I don't like— that sounds— whether that's conscious or not, I don't know.

It— yeah, I make an effort because I know that if I knew how to do something when I've got nothing to do, I'll think, I'll have a look at that. And then, then I'll see all the things that are going wrong that I wish I didn't know. Cause yeah, if you think—

You're a problem solver.

Well, that's the thing. It's quite annoying. You can't turn it off. Um, and, and, and I can't in the back of my mind, I can't think, yeah, but it actually works fine, John. If you hadn't have known, it was all fine. So leave it alone. But it's just, it just nag, you know, just, oh, just be so. 'Best you don't know, because it's fine.' And I'm sure there's lots of things like that, and there's bound to be lots of things that I do that people wish they, you know, behind the scenes say, 'Well, you tell him.' Well, no, he's the boss. And, uh, no, well, yeah, but he's all, 'If you don't tell him now, he's always going to do it like that, and it's wrong.' But, um, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a weird thing. But, um, I don't know, after years and years of of doing this, I think it will be better to not know. I mean, I do know how to do everything in the business except work on our order management stuff. I could, if necessary, if someone said we're really short, John could help with the packing. I'm not going to say, but it's not useful, you know. I wish I could say, I don't know how to do it. Yeah, it's even better. And they wouldn't ask me, fortunately. Yeah, I think so. But it Uh, but Harvey's like that, in the coffee thing. I mean, there's lots of it he wouldn't know how to do. Uh, and so, uh, we've been very hands-off with that since the start. I mean, I've had other friends say, oh, don't start another business. And I said, yeah, this has, you know, if your son says we start a business, who's going to say no? Yeah, forget it. Um, so it was like that and it's worked out well for the purpose it was was done for, which was to pay his way through university. Uh, and, and it worked, but I knew what not to do. Yeah, it was quite helpful. And it was all down to— and we couldn't run it this way, um, because this is— this is a daily job, daily fresh coffee. Yeah, sent out every day. So it had to be systemized.

Yeah, it's definitely a challenge for a lot of people when they've got an existing business and they're trying to add systems in, and we're talking because we're changing culture, we're starting from scratch, we've got, um, and that's where a lot of business owners struggle. But then when you have future businesses, everything that you've learned from the fire protection business and all of the systems, and a huge amount of those systems are transferable, and those I think now I'm assuming anytime that you start a business, you just start it with systems in mind from day one.

Yeah, absolutely. There's some things I've learned from starting. One, have some money. You'll think, well, you can run it on the cheap, but get, you know, get a business plan. Yeah. No, have some basic theory of how it could go, what happens if it goes wrong. Have some money so you take that worry away, but But yes, systems from day one to make it easy to bring other people in to replace you, but, uh, but constantly be replacing yourself and, and tell every— involve your staff. Uh, don't be scared about telling them how much money you make. That's the weird thing. People won't tell them how, how well or how badly the business has gone. Do not think they don't know if the business is doing badly. They know, which means lower sales, whatever, they know, and they're all worried about their jobs. So why not involve them? If the business is doing well, if everyone who works for a business thinks the boss is a millionaire instantly, everyone does. Everyone thinks the boss makes a fortune. And quite often the boss is the one not getting paid. Yeah. But they all think the boss is rich. So just explain how it is. It's not going to make any difference, but they will definitely have a new take on it. The fact that you are trusting them. And, and it's hard to— some of this stuff is hard to get across. I'll give one weird story. Many years ago, I was away in the States on some conference or something, and I got an email from our accounts bookkeeper to say our dishwasher in the kitchen had broken. And she got a couple of quotes in, and one to get a new one was, say, like £300, and, or to get that one fixed was £250. Or something. And that was an email. And all I thought, I thought, ugh. And I just replied, I said, imagine this is your dishwasher at home. What would you do? What would you do? Your money, what would you do? That was my email. Um, I, I never, in fact, I completely—

She was great. You didn't give chance.

She did actually replace it, which is what I hoped she was going to do. Yeah. But, uh, but, but I thought, oh, it kind of is the sigh was because you've not been listening. You are allowed to do stuff. I have made all the mistakes that could be made. I've forgotten that when I started, I knew nothing on how to do this, and I've been doing it for years. So everybody, I try and tell everyone, you can make mistakes. It, we will not go out of business. Honestly, if you did something and it cost us £1,000, I bet you'll never do it again. Yeah. I bet you I've done stuff that's cost more than that, and I've got no one to tell me off. But, but we're, you know, it's quite a big company. We will survive. You know, you could get a batch of, from a supplier that's no use and we've got to chuck it away. That could cost more than that. And that's no one's fault.

I love these. I mean, these are the lessons and nuggets needed to build a systemized business because, uh, what every business owner does is they are the chief answer provider. And every team member, every client, every prospect, you get into trouble, you get stuck, you go to the business owner. And effectively what you did there, the staff member came to you and you said, what would you do? Like, and then you backed their judgment, which means you're now training them to work independently, which is where a lot of people get stuck. I believe they just, uh, make themselves so integral to the business. So everybody's so dependent on them. Are there any other key insights? And I know that one came out organically as we're chatting, but I don't know if there's any others that you're aware of. I think obviously open and transparent organization where you're empowering team members and, you know, you've got best practice that you've documented and captured to say, hey, this is how we do things here. And it's part of the induction. Like there's a lot of the lessons that you've already taught. Are there any other things that you think are really key to having a well-systemized business that works without the owner?

The constantly reminding them why the business exists. And generally, I mean, if you'd ask me near the start, and why does your business exist? I'd have said, well, to make me money. Like, it's my job. Like, this is what I do. And it took me a long time to realize I want to disrupt the way that this industry— I don't like the way my industry that I worked in works. It made me sell my business and then I want to disrupt it. So constantly tell them and tell them why you're disrupting it and the results are a benefit to everybody and how they help with that. So, So don't just tell them when they start and then think, that's it. You have to tell them all the time. So that might be even just maybe a team every couple of months to go over this, not all like every week, but to remind them, just assume they'll have forgotten. And but very important to tell them what their little part, give them an example of how their little part in this, you know, their little—

Contributes to that bigger goal.

Yeah. Because they won't be able to see it. And so that is key to keeping them involved in. So if you imagine them as being people helping you get to what you're trying to do and so keep on telling them why you need help. Yeah. So that is important to keep everyone engaged in it. But But that, yeah, again, look at what you do that only you can do. Because there are lots of things that only you can do. And I don't mean, I mean, say for instance, years ago, I gave up signing checks when you strike checks and people thought that's a bit odd. And I think, why?

Like, what value, what magic do you add to a bookkeeper?

It's their job.

Yeah.

They're not going to steal all the money. And you know, you should have like an accountant to check they're not. But, um, but think of the things that only you can do. Yeah. And, and there are some. And then figure out— you might— don't leave it to yourself to figure out how to stop doing them because you haven't been able to do it up to now. Um, ask your trusted lieutenant or your, you know, your top management, the ones that you think really get this. And ask, say, I do this and I— it's not that you don't want to do it. Don't think you're going to sound lazy. They'll get it because it's their job to get it. How can this be taken off? And if they say, well, we need to hire someone to do that, maybe that's the answer. But, but don't— remember all the things that you don't want to do. You can sit there and try and figure out how I can stop doing this, but you've not been able to do it up to now. Involve others. This is the thing. Involve others. Asking for help. They have a different— their job is hopefully they're well enough paid to be doing their job and like doing their job. So they will want to help you. You know, they get it. So involve— it all comes down to involving everyone. Everyone goes on about the team, but it really should be a team effort.

Yeah, I think the same. I preach the same when it comes to systemization. For a lot of the business owners who know that they should systemize, have been thinking about it for years, like it is the only way to build a profitable, scalable enterprise that works without you is through systems. So at some point, if you want to build a business that gives you freedom, you have to crack this nut. Like this is something And the longer you put it off, it doesn't get any easier. It's only easiest in the moment as it's ever going to be right now, let alone adding all of the AI tools and things like that.

Yeah. Well, can I just add to that? Based on a famous saying, don't know who came up with it, probably Confucius or something, but systemization takes a while. And so there's a thing, when's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When's the next best time? Today. Yeah, exactly that. Start today. Don't think 6 months later. Think, if I'd have spent 10 minutes on that a day, I'd have 6 months behind me. Just start today.

And I think one of the key insights I've had is, you know, working closely with Michael and building upon his work, one of my biggest unlocks that I've found is this idea of the systems champion. And effectively, the business owner gets the vision and they see it. Effectively, the systems champion is the first supporter of that. They're the firestarter who then goes, yes, I can see what the business owner's doing. And they help the business owner out and they capture some of the first few processes. They lead an initiative in the team meeting. They talk about it. They celebrate systems wins. They do all of these things that doesn't necessarily come naturally to the business owner because many of them are not systems people. They want a systems-driven business, but having someone who— because there are people who are just naturally organized, who love doing checklists, who have a little bit of OCD. Find one of those. Say, you are my systems champion. And it's just they become the catalyst enough to build enough momentum up. And find out who else is supporting this initiative. Oh, let's get them on board. And that for me, something that's not talked about, and I mean, I wrote my newest book about it, is this idea of the systems champion. And it's, it's an absolute game changer. There are certain business owners like you that figure it out and grind it out. And I mean, you've been doing it for 16 years though. The shortcut for all of this. And I don't know if you've got any insight, like hearing that as a, you know, I don't know if you have any other lessons or insights. If you had your time again and you were building a systems-driven business, is there anything that you would do differently?

Well, there's, there's definitely something I, I know I wouldn't do, that I, when I didn't quite understand it near the start of this journey, I thought I would hire someone to come in maybe 20 hours a week and write down systems.

Like an external consultant?

Well, no, hire them to work in a business on a contract, but just a person to sit there, watch them write down stuff. But then after a while, I realized that no one would have any buy-in to that. That's given a system, even though it's how it's done. That would sound like, well, we're not doing it like that. This is how you do it. Well, no, it's not, you know, but so that, that's one is, um, is some people think to speed this up, that's how I'll do it. Do not. But what you said about the champion, that is so true. Uh, and probably hadn't even looked at it that way. So Sue is my systems champion. She probably does not know, but she gets it because she's seen how it works.

Is she the one that's been with you for a while?

Yes, 17 years.

Yeah.

Okay.

You mentioned earlier. Okay.

So she's the general manager and she has, it's taken a long time for her to even crack on some stuff. So, to realise that she's not just doing my job for me, I'm not just delegating, that she does stuff on her own. So she's now gone off and got herself trained in some finance stuff to better understand, because she'd have no history of this. Her history is not— she doesn't have a degree or anything like that. And, but she will tell people to do this because it will do this. It's— and we don't employ bossy type people. You know, we don't have— no one gets told off or shouted at. It's not one of those businesses. We work hard on our company culture. If people don't fit in, they're gone. But she can explain to people, do that because that will. And that's so, so I don't think she understands. She wouldn't know she's a system champion. I'm not going to tell her because it will probably put her off. She might ask for a pay raise. Well, that's the main reason. Well, I didn't say that because— can we edit that out just in case she watches?

It's, yeah, and the role of the systems champion, really, you're right. It's not to do, it's to support. And like we talk about, you know, capturing process, especially in the early days while everybody's trying to figure out how it's done. There's the person who has the knowledge, they're the knowledge worker. And then you've got this other person, the systems champion, that helps to capture what they're doing and record and just make it easy for them. And so they can get a great result. And I mean, now with AI and stuff like that, the speed at which you can move and do this stuff, like previously when you got started, like this endeavor just to get your core processes down 24 you know, 48 months, who knows, maybe even longer. But now with focused attention, with AI, like, there's really no reason not to do this.

We, I'll never remember what it's called, but apparently we use a tool now that when you do work, it records what you do.

Like a Loom or something like that?

It's not Loom. It's got a name and apparently it's well known. I'd never heard of it. And there is a free version because this is going to kill you. This doesn't help whatsoever because everyone now wants to know what is it. But, but it records and it, it records your keystrokes. And I think it puts a little point when that's clicked in this and it does it all. And it follows through with AI to create that into the video and, and written. And it's, and the basic one's free. And this is one of the new AI things, but apparently it works a lot. I was a bit skeptical and asked Sue because it's one of the staff members suggested it and asked Sue afterwards and she said, oh yeah, we've been using that for the last month. That's really good. And, and, and it did. But yeah, we never had any of this. So, so now you've got almost no excuse. It's so much easier, but you still have to do the core of the stuff you teach. Yeah. The underneath that has to be built on something. Yeah.

Yeah.

And something is the reason for doing this, which you kind of have to figure out as, as the business owner. You're the only one who can really figure out why is this being done. Yeah. And it is, and it's not one of those deep things. Um, I mean, mine, when I, when I went through this, um, in the E-Myth, they have a name for it. Is it key? Oh, I can't remember.

His dream, vision, purpose, mission. And my primary aim.

Yeah, prime. Yeah. And mine was, and I had to ask, I said this, uh, when I was with E-Myth at this workshop, I, I said, this is mine. I said, 'Is this— can I write this?' And, uh, mine was to, to do what I want to do. Um, and, and I didn't know how to even write the 'I.' It's, it's not to do what I want to, to do what I want, it's to do what I want. Yeah, it's because when I run a business, I do everything for everyone, I help everyone and stuff. No, I want to do what I want.

Which, it's funny that most business owners, they get into business for freedom. That's why they start the business. And then they end up getting anything but freedom. And it's funny in that little statement that you put back there, it's kind of like, I want that freedom to be able to choose. It's not even that the business owner, um, uh, like oftentimes they'll still work very hard. Uh, but it's, it's the choice to work how you work, when you work, what you work on, whom you work with. Um, it's most business owners lack the choice. If they're not working, their business is not making money.

Yeah. So, um, funny enough, go back to the golf thing. I, when I had my offline business, my original thing, it, it grew and grew and was quite successful. And when I sold it, it sold for decent money. It was good. But through that entire process of building that over the years, I always assumed the more successful I'd be. I'd be able to take off a day a week and play golf. I never ever played golf, uh, cause I never had time, but I didn't know. I had nothing. I was just guessing cause I only was within my own little box. No one came forward and said, oh, you, you know, you should systemize, you should do this. I just did my thing. Um, it's only once, um, one afterwards I found out there is more to life and I read a book. And there are other books, and you've got some excellent books on it. So, uh, there was no guidance. So, so I, I didn't know. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. And so I spent that entire business life without knowing what could— how it could have been better, because I thought I was running it. And now I like to think that I'm not really running it. It's a lovely thought., and I probably do, but, uh, but, but my job is to think bigger picture, to bring in, uh, how do we get from 8 million to 10 million? How do we get to 20 million? And, and now I understand it can be done. And I understand that if I have time away from the business, I can think these things through and come up, um, with these visions. But not if I'm in the weeds. Yeah, I'll do that after I've done my emails and so on.

Even the way that you describe it, like, I get a sense of fun that you're having in business. And like, it's this creative thing where you think about it and you're solving problems, which business owners, I mean, that's what they love to do. They are problem-solving machines. Like you said, you can't turn it off. I get it. It's It's funny how easy it is to fall in the trap and forget. And I feel really quite sad for a lot of business owners when they get stuck in the rut. Very easy to get stuck in the rut. And what makes it hard is you do the things at the start, your business gets successful, and then that kind of rewards you and you feel like, oh, well, all of that stuff that I've done, like, that's what I did. But then, then you get stuck there. And you start doing the same thing again and again and again. And over time you start to, you know, just think, oh, this is just how business is. For me, my big wake-up call was when I found out we were pregnant and I thought, right, I don't want to be the dad who's always too busy. I saw it with my dad. Was there any moment for you that was the catalyst for the change, or did it just so happen that you read the book at the right time, or what? Like, yeah, what drove you? Otherwise it's easy to be stuck.

When I sold my last business, so I've been doing that for quite a while and it's quite busy and it, to be honest, and it was constant demands from staff that annoyed me. It's usually for pay rises and because we trained our staff well and so they were attractive to other companies and so they were known to be good and people have forever offering them jobs and they're always coming in. So if anyone says, John, have you got a minute? That's like my worst nightmare because I think, even though it's usually, do you know where the so-and-so is nowadays? But, um, so I didn't want to employ staff, so I studied internet marketing thing, but I'd written a list. I actually lost the list. Uh, I'm not one of these ones who keeps like some dream board or something up, but it— I wrote out what I don't want to do and one, it It said, I don't want to have to go to an office. Yeah. Certain hours. I don't want to buy stock and have it with my money tied up. And I don't want to do this and don't, I don't want to employ staff and all these things. I accidentally ended up doing all that. However, the thing is, I didn't want to do that because it wasn't enjoyable. Now this is enjoyable. So it's still work. I mean, we all think we'd rather not work. We got to do something. But I'm still interested after all this time. I'm still interested. And keeping me interested is one of my jobs. Yeah. Because if it's just the same, if it's kind of done, you know, if I can't do anymore. And here's an odd thing. We're an e-commerce business. We run 4 trading brands. Of similar e-commerce site that you wouldn't know are related and, um, and, and, and, and have the other online business. I don't, the whole business doesn't employ a programmer. Uh, we don't, we've got that far without a programmer. Um, and we also have no outgoing sales at all, not even some, not even people in the office ringing existing customers. Uh, and so we've got this to come. Um, and We actually hired, and this is something to develop a whole new system about. We have no idea how it's— well, other people do it that way. That won't work for us. We'll do it our way. We'll develop that. We'll try stuff and stuff that sticks, we're doing that. Stuff that doesn't, we write down, don't do that. So we still got lots to come and that keeps me interested. But all of the things I thought were a business was because I just didn't know how better it could be. And that is all down to picking up the E-Myth, in fact, you know, down to Michael Gerber, reading that book and then running with it from there and ending up, you know, meeting you and your systems and everyone, all those that know have a take. There's all a nugget from everyone you can pick up and it just makes, makes life enjoyable again. As you can see, I'm old, you know, so, uh, but, um, so I have no plans for retirement. People say, well, you've got to be selling at some point. I said, why? I don't go to work and I get paid and I still own it.

Yeah.

Why would I sell it for? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, um, these days you'd probably end up living to 130. You know, so, uh, there's a long way to go. So why can't I just still own my business and have everyone else run it for me? Yeah, that's the theory.

You touched on, yeah, so many things there. I think, I mean, 16 years on and you're still innovating and still thinking, how can we improve and make the system better? And it's interesting that, um, I mean, Michael Gerber talks a lot about McDonald's, and we think about how McDonald's has changed over the years. I don't know if you get a chance to stick your head into an Australian McDonald's. I don't know where they're up to in the UK, but we've got like little cafes now inside the McDonald's and they're doing bloody muffins and coffees. And it's amazing to watch how the system grows and evolves. It's about getting the right culture, getting the right people, getting a good base set of systems, and then making sure, you know, they're is built into the system is innovation. And then that way it can continue to grow and evolve. And that's what's going to keep you interested and working in what you enjoy and what your sweet spot is. Yeah, I'm like you. I hear some people go, oh yes, you know, when I retire, I'm going to do this and that. But I love what I do. I like when I'm working, I'm working and I'm thinking about a problem solve that I need to solve. And when I'm not working, I'm doing my family stuff and I try and sort of segment that to make sure that there's well-balanced. But I, I could imagine sitting and having conversations like this in another 30 years' time.

My girlfriend, it seems I've been this old having girlfriends, but of many years, lives in Vancouver. I, before the pandemic, I spend every other month in Vancouver. And so I'm over there, which is 8 hours out in time zone. So I can't be You know, I'm usually a day apart with stuff. And now sort of a bit busier with other things going on. But I still go there quite a few times a year and I go for a month. And I've, you know, I've been doing this for like 15 years. So, and if that's not a good example of not being there. Yeah. And everything carries on, nothing goes wrong. But, uh, but when I was, before the business was doing really well, um, I used to have all those other ideas of all the other things you can do and you, you know, write a list and you think all these other businesses till eventually you think, um, and used to almost try and stop them. But so, so if it wasn't working, something else would come up and I think, oh, don't do that. But, but now my business is, I don't need all those others cuz I got this one. This experiment is going a long way and, and The stuff works. And as long as you can keep interested, but you can only keep interested if you're not doing the boring bits. Yeah. No one started a business to do the admin. I mean, if I started one again, I would hire a decent, you know, a very qualified person to set up the whole admin side. I wish I'd never been involved in that at all.

Yeah.

So that's one lesson. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. But there's probably a lot of lessons of that. But I don't want to have to do another business. Why would I? This one's fine. It's still going great guns. And in comparison to my fellow businesses, we're one of the biggest in the UK. This, you know, this is not a massive market. It's pretty cool.

I feel like everything that we've talked about here makes me realize how much the skill of developing systems really and building this culture is the mastercraft of business. Like if you're going to learn anything, understanding how you capture your way and bottle it, like, and that might involve having a systems champion and someone helping do it. You're not necessarily doing the documentation, but it's, it's getting the vision for this business that works without you. And going to work on it and capturing best practice and building this. Like, this should be the job of the entrepreneur, the business owner. Like, to reach the level that you've reached, that's, that's the goal, to have a business that gives you freedom. So yeah, I appreciate you coming along today and sharing all of your bits of wisdom. Some of them were very obvious and stuck out, but others I'm sure And as people listen to this multiple times, they'll start to go, oh, there's a little nugget in the way that John said that or how he's doing that. Because it's— I can feel it. It's in you. Like now it's— you can't imagine doing business any other way.

Seriously, I could talk all day about it. And most of my staff would say, yeah, he can. But because it's interesting. To me. It's just not boring. It used to be boring, but it's not boring. And I'm not going to push it to others to say, you should do this. You've got to figure it out for yourself. You've got to want to do it. But yes, in something I said, there will be a little nugget that resonates, that makes sense. And if you think, oh yes, I thought about that. 'Oh, that does make sense. Maybe I should try that now.' And if that helps somebody, then it's time well spent. And I mean, talk to me about this anytime.

Yeah. Well, we'll have a part 2 a little bit further down the line. I really appreciate you making some time and sharing all of that wisdom.

You are most welcome.