If your brand needs you, it’s broken 🔨 Joy Zarine

The most important thing that I have learned about business is business is so much fun when everyone around the table wins. And that's what every conversation with any client, with any customer should be about. We want them to win, but we want us to win and we want them to want us to win. We want everyone around the table to feel like this is a really positive experience for everyone. The moment anyone feels like they are not winning, And they're, I feel a bit begrudged. I feel a bit frustrated. This doesn't feel good. They're getting so much value. I'm not earning enough. When anyone starts to question anything, then things unravel really quickly. There is no business or brand on the planet that is able to get things right 100% of the time. What we need to do is accept that, but empower everyone around us because you will be the most fantastic founder for 25, 30 years if you don't empower anyone around you, and then you'll get sick. And your business will fail. Or then you're trying to retire and the only thing you'll be able to put a price tag on is a few desks and a few computer chairs. Build a business that is valuable, that is scalable, and that can succeed and be successful without you.

This week's Millennial Master is Joy Zareen. She works with founders who already built something solid and now want to scale without losing themselves in the process. Joy helps them turn messy growth into real brand assets that drive sales, align teams, and increase the value of the company itself. She also believes business should feel good to build, not just profitable to run. In this episode, we talk about the 5 brand assets that make a business scalable, why so many founders trap themselves in time-for-money models, and how to build a company that can run and grow without you.

Joy, welcome to Millennial Masters. Where are you joining us from today?

Thank you so much for having me here. I'm speaking to you here from sunny South East London.

Before we get into frameworks and branding, I'm hoping you can share with us where are you personally at with your business right now?

So currently I work with founders on building brand assets with founders and their leadership teams. So typically my clients are over the £1 million mark per year and they're wanting to scale to 10x. That's, that's typically when people bring me into their business and I work with them on understanding their journey so far and understanding where they want to get to. And then I work with them to create brand assets that are going to essentially ratchet them up. Them and their team to get to that dizzy heights of maxing their business.

So I was about to say that that's, that's a challenge. That's a, that's a big challenge.

Yeah, it is. But how we do it is we work with all different aspects of the business. So everything from just getting really clear on the journey that they're going on to making sure that they are the absolute number one choice for their clients, for their customers. So yeah, it's a journey, it's a process. I've been doing it now for Just over 5 years.

Preempted my next question just a tiny bit there, Joy. When people hear brand strategist, they often imagine logos and decks. You said that's a part of it, but what do you actually spend most of your time thinking about day to day?

For me, working with clients or working with on my own business?

Both, I guess.

Okay. Well, working with clients, it's all about them and it's all about what they want from their business. Everyone is different and everyone's journey is completely different. And sometimes I'll have great ideas for where they want to take their business, but it doesn't connect with where their vision is and what they really want. So it's all about unpacking the dream scenario for them and then working backwards to create, make that happen. And for myself, it's the same thing. I'm constantly evolving. I'm constantly adding new ways to work with clients in a, in a, in a new way, in a fresh way. Our world is consistently changing. So I know that my business isn't going to be the same in 10 years' time, and I'm absolutely fine with that. It's an evolution. It's constantly changing. I'm constantly wanting to be better and constantly adding new kind of tools to the toolkit. So yeah, that's how I kind of approach things. I'm very much, the vehicle is moving and I'm absolutely fine with that.

And the 10-year view is rather interesting because you said 10x, 10-year view, so we'll keep it in there. And a lot of people tend to think about the next quarter, the current financial year, maybe next year a little bit. But going back, you've spoken openly about moments where the business was working, but something felt off. What have you reflected that was missing at that point?

I think prior to 2020, when the world obviously changed massively, I was definitely playing a different game. Prior to 2020, I was working in the hospitality industry, so I was still working as a brand strategist, but I was specifically working with hospitality businesses. So bars, restaurants, pubs, hotels. And I was very much in that world. I was very respected in that world. I wrote for a national magazine. I would work with huge clients. And I very much told myself that that was my lane and that was how I was going to stay in. And it was only when the world shifted, we went into lockdown. We had quite a harsh, long, drawn-out lockdown here in the UK that my business had to change. So there was no more option of me staying in my lane or playing small. The world had different plans for me. So it was either wait 18 months for the world to possibly open back up again. None of us—

but we didn't know at that time either how long we were going to wait.

None of us knew. People were calculating 18 months, you know, very smart people who I respect were calculating, you know, a year, 2 years. And none of that made sense to me. So I was in a position where life had to change, business had to evolve. I was no longer permitted to play small, and that's when my business changed. So I very much went from having a mindset of keeping myself in my own lane, thinking that was the right thing to do, thinking I was an expert in that space and that's where I belonged. And I would meet people at events, I would meet people and they would say, oh, you're fantastic, I love your energy, how can we work together? And I would say, oh, I'm really sorry, I don't work with non-hospitality businesses. And I would really tell myself that story. And it was, now looking back at it, I was very much playing small. I was very much—

you were limiting yourself 100%.

And I, and I was telling myself that story, that that was the right thing to do. And it's only in reflection, it's only looking back that I think, oh, actually, I was not in my, you know, I was not in my open mind. I was not looking at every opportunity that was coming towards me. I was very much keeping myself narrow and small. And yeah, the world shifted and forced me into a different direction, and I'm very grateful that it did. It gave me a new business and a new direction.

So was there a specific moment where you realized that success quietly turned into obligation?

Probably when I was meeting fantastic entrepreneurs, and I would be inspired by them, and they would be interested in working with me, and I would relay that story. And it was probably in that moment I would feel a bit frustrated because I knew deep down I could help them, and I knew deep down I had fantastic ideas. There are two clients I have now who I've known for many years, and they would say to me, we should do something at some point. And I would say, oh yeah, I don't work with businesses like yours. And that would almost frustrate me because I knew I could help them. I knew that I was able to do good things with them, but I, but I told myself no. So yeah, it all changed and it all worked out in the end.

Actually, businesses have Ebbs and flows for everybody. So I'm wondering, Joy, how do you tell the difference between a hard season that's worth pushing through and one that's telling you something that something needs to change and you need to go in a slightly different direction? Let's just keep it kind of like post-pandemic.

Yeah, I think I do believe in gut feels and I do believe that when you, when, when you have a kind of niggling feeling that you should probably lean in and listen to it. One thing I will say is is that there are smart ways to do things. I believe in pivoting. I don't believe that you have to, you know, live and die in your corner of the internet forever. I believe that you can explore and you can do different things. But I do think there's smart ways of doing it. And one of those ways is to experiment one day a week or one hour a week in— if there's a different avenue, a different industry, a different opportunity, you know, maybe don't tear up your business. Maybe don't quit your job tomorrow, but maybe explore the idea of saying, Well, how can I carve out 4 hours on a Saturday morning to try this thing? How can I do— maybe Fridays is focused on this new business or this new podcast or this new opportunity. And so I'm definitely a believer in hedging your bets a little bit. Definitely still focus on what you're doing, but there's definitely an opportunity for people to try things. Maybe the world needs you to be doing something else and you can definitely explore that idea and test the waters and see if you know, a few months down the line after trying these things, whether you are destined to be a concert pianist or something else, an international podcaster, whatever it might be, but you don't have to necessarily go all in. You don't necessarily need to burn the boats on day one. You can definitely try things and see what works. So that's kind of a safe way of doing it, I would suggest.

The pivot then can be experimental rather than permanent. It's not change. I've done this mistake in the past where I looked at creating, say, a new editorial series, and I thought about it like it would be a permanent feature rather than a limited series. A few years later down the line, I decided to take a different approach and looked at limited series, and that freed the headspace into being able to experiment rather than set myself on a permanent path. So I Totally agree with you on that one. Now, you mentioned that we need something more in the world, and I think something we need more right now is joy.

Hmm.

Little play on your name there, because a lot of founders, entrepreneurs treat joy like a byproduct rather than a design choice in their business. You get the joy, or you think you'll get the joy later on. Why do you think that is?

I think as, as humans, we, we are always expecting for, for the wonder to happen after we've done the thing. And so I think that for many people, they think when the children are older, then we'll have, you know, happy times. Or when the grandchildren come, then we'll have happy times. Or when, you know, the business reaches 10 million, then we'll have happy times. Or when I sell the business. And it's, it's always put off, put off into some distant future where you're, you're scrambling to try and reach it. There's definitely, I believe, an opportunity opportunity for you to bake, you know, happiness, well-being, fun, positivity in today, in your business today. Um, and if you're not building positivity and happiness and joy ultimately into your business today, it's going to be a long, hard, bumpy road. And we need to find moments in our business that we enjoy, um, that light us up, that enable us to focus on the areas of the business that we love. Yes, everyone has tough days. And as a founder, I understand that there are highs, there are lows, but we want to build a business that we don't begrudge and that doesn't feel heavy 100% of the time. Yes, we all have challenging days, especially if you employ team members, especially if you're dealing with— yeah, everyone will nod along when I say that, you know, working with, working with business partners is challenging, working with, you know, other corporations, other clients, it's all challenging. But we want to find a place where we have in our business moments that are baked in, that we have time carved out that we can say, this is the stuff I love to do. So, one of those things for me is working one-to-one with founders. No, not necessarily in a boardroom with lots of different people taking notes and giving their own ideas, but working one-to-one with a founder. That's the time that I come alive. And I really, because we're the same kind of weird, that's why I love working with founders. We are. You know, we are—

I'm guessing you screen them as well at the, at the client stage and pitching stage.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, definitely. I'm definitely someone who interviews my clients as well as them interviewing me at the beginning, because it has to be a good fit for everyone. There isn't the, you know, there isn't an amount of money in the world that would make me work with someone that I didn't want to work with, and I genuinely mean that. It has to be something that they are going to gain something from working with me. And that really matters to me. I have, you know, limited time on the planet like we all do. So I want the time that I spend with people to really matter. And I want those, those opportunities of us working together to be, let's change, you know, let's change the world. Let's do that together. Let's understand where we are and let's understand where we want to go and let's figure out a way of doing that. And I think typically that's the part where I always want to protect my time. And although I love to do lots of different things in my business, I am a creative person, I love to lean in on the design stage, I like to lean in on the creative campaigns and things like that. All of that does bring, bring me alive and make me happy. But working with founders one-to-one and having those deep conversations and, you know, pulling out of their minds actually what they want and how we can actually bring that to reality, that's the part that I really protect. So when I look at my schedule, I make sure that those things get baked in first and Everything else can get figured out later.

I guess then when you say joy, about finding joy in your business without looking at the next big milestone, you're also talking about enjoying the journey, right?

You have to, you have to, because it's a real challenge and you have to be really clear on, you know, they sound like buzzwords, what I'm about to say, but actually beyond the buzzwords, actually understanding your mission and understanding your vision and understanding the core values that really mean something to you, you know, understanding those things, being really clear on those things, it's the opportunity to then push through and make a difference. And that's certainly what lights me up, that the time I spent with, with the founders that I work with, that time will make a difference and it will end up making a difference, you know, with a knock-on effect of affecting hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of people just with the work that we do. So that's, that's what makes me push through. And I think having those ideas, it's not about having a strategy session once, one time, and then you write those things down or you get them printed and put, you know, beautifully on a wall somewhere that everyone walks past, that everyone ignores, or that ends up sitting, sitting dusty in a drawer somewhere.

Yeah, you, you tackled my question head on. Yeah, my next question, but sure. Yeah, keep going.

Yeah, I mean, it ends up that, you know, it's only until the office move 10 years down the line that they find a folder that has all these vision and this mission and these values, and it's not connected to them. And so that's, that's the point of what I'm saying. It's not about having these ideas written down in a drawer somewhere. It's about these are at the forefront of all of our conversations. And when things get tough, when things get difficult, we bring them back to the center and say, hang on, hang on, hang on. I know we're having a tough time. Let's just bring this back to what we're trying to achieve here. Let's just bring this back to who we are as people. What are our core values? What does this mean to us? And typically, especially when you have a challenge in your business where you're thinking, what's the next right step? What's, what's the best path for us to go on? The answers are right there. The answers are right there in what you've said. Well, this is who we are. These are our values. So, if our values are to be kind and to be honest, then the next best thing is to make sure that the first thing we do to that person is be kind and be honest. Even if that is a difficult conversation. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in having those ideas, but bringing them to the forefront of every conversation, having them on, you know, if necessary, on your email signature. If that's as important as, you know, I need all of my team members to be on board with this is our mission, or, and at the core of every HR meeting or every recruitment day, that, you know, these are our values, this is how we show up in the world, then that's the conversations that we need to be having. And just having them in a dusty old drawer somewhere won't change your world. I can, I can guarantee you that.

You mentioned difficult conversations, and we also both agreed that there are many difficult and tricky days in an entrepreneur's journey. But also, even from my experience, those tricky days can take over your joy in business, where do you usually see the real problem sitting there?

I think typically with, with the problems is sometimes outside perspective. I think sometimes if you're surrounded by the same people who are potentially, if there's a negativity swirl, if there's a toxic cloud that takes over, sometimes that—

You're talking about staff there, Joy?

It could be anything. It could be client relationships. It could be financial struggles. It could be, you know, it's, it's that It's that kind of that feeling.

It could be your accountant.

It could be, absolutely. My accountant's fantastic, so I won't say anything bad about him, but it could be anything. But what I mean is, when that toxic cloud comes into your business, it's really hard to escape. It feels all-consuming, that darkness. It consumes your thoughts. It consumes even when you go home. You might be sat at home watching a film, and actually your eyes are on the screen, but your mind is somewhere else. Your mind is on the problem.

Mm.

And I think so when that toxic cloud comes in, it's really important to have people that are outside of the business. Now, these might be entrepreneurial friends. This might be a coach. This might be a consultant. I'm very fortunate my clients see me as that person. And it's someone who has the perspective, who is not in that toxic cloud, who has the perspective to be able to say, okay, tell me how you're feeling. Let me understand where you're at. Okay, let's, let's work out the next best step. And that, and as I say, that might— it's typically from my experience, not someone who is in a 9 to 5 or in a big corporate or something like that. It tends to be—

has to be somebody. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone who's had the same battle scars as you have, right? So you have hopefully those entrepreneurs around you that can pick you up and dust you off and say, hey, I've been there, I know what you're going through, and this is the next best thing. Here's a podcast to listen to, here's a book that's going to give you the next step.

And this is what Millennial Masters is all about, a learning journey and finding other people who have been through the same struggles and challenges and how they tackle them, but also a bit of inspiration for everybody. So, I think you put it beautifully.

Thank you. But the difference is, is people might have, you know, co-founders, they might have business partners, they might have family members in their business. It's not the right person to dive into and to try and clear the way, someone who's in the toxic cloud as well. It needs to be someone who has a fresh head, fresh eyes, and, you know, a, a better perspective of where you are. Because when you're in the trenches, when you're, when you're struggling, when it feels like you're the only person, you need someone else to pull you out.

Now, Joy, I want to go into branding because you said that's What brings you joy?

Yes.

And you've been very clear in all the research I've done that branding is not just about visuals alone.

Yeah, absolutely.

What are founders usually avoiding when they jump straight to rebrands? Because that, that could be like, oh, I'm going to hire a brand strategist and I'm going to do a rebrand, but that's not the best course of action every single time, is it?

Well, I'll take you a step before that. Before we talk about, before we talk about refreshing the brand, let's talk about typically how the brand has first come to life. So these are sort of just some broad statements and individuals might have a different experience, but typically what's happened is someone has started a business and they've cobbled together an idea and they've figured out a way to make some money and perhaps their friend's little brother, Danny, is really good on Photoshop or really good on a PC.

Or they've done it themselves. Yeah.

Or they've done it themselves. They sat with Microsoft Word and typed out the name of a business and tried lots of different fonts and gone, oh, that one looks good. Let's go with that. And so typically the brand is an afterthought. They've picked maybe a color because they support a particular football team or because they've got blue eyes, they've gone with the color blue, something like that. And so, it's quite detached from actually the end user. It's quite detached from the client. They've gone with their favorite color, or they've said, the office is already blue when we've moved in, we better choose a blue, so that will save us, you know, 50 quid in paint. So, it tends to be a bit of a hodgepodge of ideas and it's thrown together, but it's enough to get the journey moving. It's good enough to get sales and to get, you know, money in the till, and it's good enough to move forward. Then typically they've had a bit of success and then that brand holds them back. So then it becomes this problem where bigger clients—

Can I just ask what sort of things in a brand can hold you back when you're moving from that initial stage to the next one? I'm curious because I think that will be something that many people will find useful.

Yeah, so it could be insofar as when you're a big client or a big potential client looks at your website and has a little— and the blog's from 2012 and they're talking about businesses that are no longer there. And maybe the reviews are really old and maybe part of the website doesn't work properly or whatever it might be. You know, your brand is the touchpoints that people will connect with. So that might be your social media, that might be your website, it might be the person in your team that's answering the phone. They're part of the brand journey and branding's brand experience as well. So what happens is the brand starts to trip you up when the dream client starts to look into your website or pick up the phone to ask a question and something doesn't connect, something feels a bit off sometimes. Oh, I don't think they're even in business anymore. I've had that before where I've looked at someone's website and it's all so outdated and I think, I don't even think they're in business anymore. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not too sure.

Even the copyright notice can be like, yeah.

Yeah. So we, we have these kinds of spidey senses. And our dream clients are out there in the world and trying to find out, you know, I had this because I changed from the industry that I worked with. So I have to do a lot of effort kind of explaining to people that I, I'm very proud of my roots in working with brands in hospitality, but now I do something else. So you have to empower people to kind of come on that journey with you. But what happens is sometimes there's that disconnect where your business has evolved. You've actually got some amazing team members on board now, or maybe you've upskilled yourself and you do all these different wonderful things. But your old website is still telling a different story, or your old logo that Danny from down the pub did, it doesn't really say, oh, we're ready to take on Marks Spencer's as a client, or we're ready to take on Harrods as a client. Maybe it just hasn't kept up with you. So typically that's when you'll bring someone like myself in where they'll say, well, our brand has got us this far, but we've ended up in a bit of a mess. Someone came on board and they changed all of our decks to look like this because they wanted it to look fresh and new, but that doesn't match with our uniforms and the vans that are going out driving down the road, that was actually done by someone who left the company and left with all the files. So we don't have that logo anymore. And it just, it ends up as this big mess. And what we want to do is start from the beginning and say, what do we want?

Yeah, you touched a good point there. There's sometimes people early in the business, if it's not the founder or a mate or a family member who created something, that they can't find the, Yeah. Files, or they can't find, say, for the web hosting to update their website or to give it to somebody new to look at it or to change their email address.

Yeah, it happens. It happens all the time. And, and that's typically what happens is you've got a brand, but it's not doing the legwork for you. And it's definitely not winning the work that you want to win. It's, it's, it's actually kind of holding you back and the mess that you're left with You can ask all the different team members, tell me about the business, tell me about the brand, and you'll get 100 different answers. And, you know, even you can speak to the two co-founders and say separately, tell me a little bit about the business, tell me a little bit about the brand, tell me a little bit about your vision for the future, and they'll come up with different answers completely. And so what you want to do is have some cohesion, to have some clarity and some connection So that everyone understands, okay, this is the game that we're playing, this is who we are, and that's how you score a goal. That's— these are the referees, this is who's going to tell you to stay on the pitch. So we need to understand what game we're playing so that everyone can then play their roles. And it's not about us all being the star striker. There's probably only going to be one or two of them on the team, but we're all going to play the role. And someone's going to be the goalkeeper. Typically in finance, they're the goalkeeper, right? They're the people that keep everything on track and make sure that we're not losing. Losing money, right?

Or direct. Yeah. And they will be like, yeah, that's not the best, uh, resource for—

yeah, exactly. But we'll also have people that are the kit people that will provide the uniforms. We'll have the physios that will, will keep everyone fit and well and healthy and all that sort of thing. So everyone's going to have their own part to play within the team, but we're all going to understand as a brand, this is the game that we're playing and this is who we're playing it for. And Having those conversations and bringing it all together. I've not once mentioned a logo. I've not once mentioned a color palette because, because that's not what it ultimately ends up being. That's just the shirt you put on before you run onto the pitch. Everything else that we're doing makes sure that we're playing the right game and that we're playing a game that we understand how to score. And that's really important as well, because I'll say to people on the team, tell me what a win looks like in this business, and they'll give me a load of different answers. And ultimately what I want to hear from them is, this is our dream client, and when we get them from here to here, we've won. That's the answer I want to hear from every business, that we've got a dream client and we're going to take them from here right the way through on this journey to here. And that might be a personal trainer taking someone from feeling unhappy about how they look, or being unable to, to get up the stairs, to being really happy with how they look and being able to run up the stairs. That might be what a personal trainer would say, but every business wants their, their dream client to go from one place to another. And that's what we want to understand. And as a brand in all the different areas, that's what we want to deliver on. So if you don't mind, I'll just tell you a little bit about those areas of the brand. Mm-hmm. Yes. So I kind of distinguish the brand assets that people need in their business in 5 different areas. So the first one, they need clarity assets. They need to be able to understand the game that we're playing. So a clarity asset is going to be things like your vision, your mission, and yeah, it comes down to your brand identity. So the kind of personality of your brand, are you a fun brand? Are you an educational brand? Are you an elevated or luxury brand? So that kind of brand personalities, that's all part of your clarity assets. That's kind of understanding who you are as a business, and that's, that's kind of day one, that's like understand who we are and let's understand who we're building this business to serve. And then beyond that, we need culture assets. And these are things like our values. So how we show up in the world, how we deal with problems, how we take on those challenging days. So who we are as people and as a brand, what are our values? Because that will answer a lot of the questions as well when we show up in the world. And then beyond those culture assets, we want to think about— within those culture assets, we want to think about the people that we have in our business. So, the assets that maybe recruit them, that train them, that develop them, that turn team from being staff members to turn them to being team members, to feel like they belong. And that is ultimately, those culture assets are what's going to build your tribe. And that ultimately means that it's not all resting on the founder's shoulders to try and gee everyone up once a year at the annual conference. It means that every day our culture is living and breathing and people understand what, what we're about and understand how we show up to serve our clients and serve our customers. And then beyond that, beyond our clarity assets and our culture assets, we have what I call connection assets. And this is all about— these are tangible things that make you fall in love with a brand. So that might be the website, it might be the social media, it might be the brochure that you pick up when you're looking at buying your next Porsche or Ferrari. These are all kind of connection assets. These are all things that are tangible. And how you experience the brand, how we welcome people within a meeting, or how a hotel will welcome people into their foyer, how we connect with them, how we'll find out more about them. So we need some connection assets within our business. And beyond that, we need creativity assets. These are the things that We look at our competitors and we say, ah, when everyone's gonna zig, we're gonna zag. We're gonna do things a little bit differently. And that will be things like, if you imagine maybe an airline does things differently. So if you think Virgin Atlantic, they're very creative in how they show up and they have very creative identity with— they're different. And they say, well, if everyone's gonna be this, we're gonna be that. We're gonna make our pilots like rock stars. Rock stars and our cabin crew like diehard glamor people, like, you know, people that you just dream that they're like rock stars, right? You just want to be them and everyone else is being polite and kind and all that sort of thing. We're going to tear it up. We're going to be different. So having those creative assets means that we're not just going to go out there and try and do our best. We're going to go out there and we're going to be remembered. And that's really important for a brand, not necessarily to be rebellious, but just to be remembered. Because when you're not remembered as a brand, you're going to, it's going to be a really hard game to win, right? So we want to be remembered and being creative is, is the way to do that. And then the final part is what I call confidence assets. These are the things where people go, that's cool. Like I have confidence in them. These are the things that make you recommend them to other people. If I turn around to you and say, oh, my name is Joy. I work with brands like The O2 and Ferrari, then all of a sudden I have given you that confidence to go, well, she must be pretty respectable. She must be pretty good at what she does because I've given you those, that confidence. And so confidence assets are all about the testimonials, about the brand partnerships, about the brand ambassadors that you have working for you, about the key people within your business. They are all going to be confidence assets. They are going to be people that go out there and just make people go, you're the person to work with. Yes, that's, that's who you are. So all of that spectrum, all elements of your brand that show up and do the work, and it's, and it's those things— being clear about who you are, having a culture of people that really care about the business, having connection assets that people don't just know you, don't just like you, they trust you, they belong to you, they're tribal with you, and being creative, standing out. And then lastly, having confidence assets. So that, and that might be also awards. Awards are a great confidence assets, commendations, awards, affiliations, all those sorts of things say this is, this person is the real deal. This brand are legit.

So are there any signs then that tell you a brand is doing real work versus just looking polished or just being in the early stage, you would say? What's, what's a giveaway that says, okay, this is working now?

Phone a company up. Phone a company up and phone them up with a problem. Typically, if you want to do a deep dive into a business, especially into your business, the answers are typically in your reviews. We all want to believe the good ones, and we all think that anyone who writes a bad review about our business is an idiot and is wrong, and they, you know, they're obviously out to get me.

Uh, and you're talking here about the likes of Google Reviews if you're in hospitality, which you've done before, or maybe Trustpilot if it's a service.

Yeah, absolutely.

Amazon if it's a product.

Yeah, absolutely. So the answers are typically in, in the reviews, and if you've got no reviews, then that, that probably tells a message in itself as well. So the answers tend to be somewhere in the middle of your your greatest review and your worst review. The truth is somewhere in the middle. And the best thing to do is to be your own customer. And what I mean by that is order your own product, phone up your own business, try and book an appointment, go through the process of your customer journey because you might have set it up 5 years ago and you actually, the email reminder might be really outdated or it might, you know, there's, there's things that we need to do. Brand is never one and done. It's never a 2-day retreat and we're going to come back and have this brand. Your brand is every touchpoint that exists 65 days a year. So, you know, when your website is down, well, what's the next thing that happens? So if our website is down, let's— we've had this recently, we've had this where globally there's been outages.

Correct. Amazon and Cloudflare.

Yeah, exactly. So we've had these outages. So what I want to be seeing from really strong brands is saying, Okay, when this fails, what happens? What's our messaging? How do we make sure that people know that we're still here? How can people still connect with us? How can we reassure? What's the message? We want to walk through the worst day in our business or pretend so that when it happens for real, we are ready to rock and roll because your brand is only as good as the worst day that the tech lets you down, right? That's it. So we want our brand to stand up. Yeah. So we want our brand to stand up for when other things let us down. It's not good enough for the best brands on the planet to go, hey ho, we've had an outage. I guess we can't sell anything for the next 72 hours. That's not good enough. How can we keep selling? How can we shop? What is in place to make sure that we don't let our clients down? We don't let our customers down. What's the next thing that we need to do? It might be that we have, you know, some emailers set up. It might be that And this is all things that can be done just in case. But let me tell you, founders will sleep so much better when they've run through these opportunities to make things right. And they go, we've got a plan in place. You know, I work with founders to make sure that if they get cancelled, in inverted commas, I don't believe in cancel culture, but it does exist in reality. I don't think it's a good thing, but we walk through the scenario. Okay, so if someone gets on a podcast and says something terrible about you, what do we do? What's the next thing? And it's not about just, um, preventing, but it's about saying, well, actually, we want to make sure that we have done the due diligence on this person, and we want to make sure that we are doing the right things. And it's not just about trying to close the gate after the horse has bolted, but actually, what things have we got in place to make sure that we are a good employer, we are showing up and doing the right thing, we are preventing bad things from happening in our business? And actually, by walking through those scenarios and making sure that we are open to the opportunities of bad things happening, actually we can prevent them from happening to begin with just by understanding what can happen. So that's all about brand protection as well. And it's not just about, you know, inflating and going out into the world and saying, we're awesome. It's about saying, well, we're human and sometimes things can go wrong, but when things go wrong, what do we do about it? And working in my background of hospitality, we talk about that kind of thing all the time because things typically go wrong in, in restaurants, in nightclubs, in pubs, in bars. You're dealing with high volume, high pressure environments where everyone wants to have the most fantastic time of their week in those 3 hours. And they're spending the most amount of money that they're going to spend in those 3 hours. And the pressure is really on to make sure that experience is great. The important thing for people who aren't in hospitality is to look at their business in the same way and say, okay, so when we're redlining, that might be if you're in a certain industry, that might be in the months of August or the month of December or the months of February, whatever it might be. Where do we redline? Where do we, where do we get tired? Where do we get overwhelmed? Where do, where does the pressure set in? And how can we prevent the wheels coming off when that happens? And just walking that through. And people, when I saw—

when a lot of staff are on holiday, for example, as well.

Exactly. So it's preempting those issues. And I have these conversations with founders all the time, and I say, tell me about the worst times in your business, tell me. And a lot of the times they'll say, every July is a nightmare, or every August is a nightmare, or every December is a nightmare. And I'll say, well, what are we doing to make sure that the run-up to that is less of a nightmare? And they said, we, we didn't We did that, but somehow every December rolls around and life is a nightmare. So I want to work on with, with my clients on working. Okay, so what can we do? What assets can we build? How can we prevent the wheels from coming off? And they say, oh, that's not the kind of conversation we expected to have with you. And I say, this is about building a better brand. And if your wheels come off one month of the year and everyone has a terrible experience and everyone tells all their friends, oh, don't order from that company or don't go to that place or don't work with this this person. That's something that everything else is so irrelevant. If you have the most beautiful uniforms, the most amazing building, the most gorgeous glossy brochures, but the wheels fall off for, you know, 10% of the year, that's a problem. Let's fix that as well. So brand is, for me, the brand is not just about just the look and the feel, it's a whole experience of how we're showing up in our clients' lives.

And for smaller businesses, Joy, the founders who are still small, resource constrained, how should they think about their brand? We touched on not an after site at the beginning, but that might still be the case that they've done, but how can they move on up while they're still small?

I work with small businesses all the time. So I'm, I'm, I'm massive, massive fan of small businesses. The key is to understand who their dream client is and to really unpack who that person is, what their expectations are from us, and how can we work with those expectations and if possible exceed them. I don't want to say we should always exceed them because that can get very expensive very quickly, and small businesses need to keep money in the bank, they need to keep cash flow. It's very, very important. But the most important thing is they don't try and go after everyone. There's a famous story, and I need find out who this famous story originally comes from, but I'll relay it to you. And that this, this person owned a hat shop and the business coach said to the person who owned the hat shop, tell me about your dream customer. And they said, anyone who can wear a hat, anyone who's got a head can, can be our customer. So we're here for everyone. And the business coach said to them, you're not, you haven't built a business for people who, who can wear a hat. You're building a business for people who love to wear hats, and that's the difference. So we need to build businesses for people who love what we do. We need to be really clear on who they are, where they hang out, what social media platform they're on. And, you know, lots of times I'll speak to people, founders of small businesses, and I'll say, tell me about your social media strategy. Oh, I don't like all that sort of thing. And then they'll say—

You can't leave that behind nowadays.

Yeah.

I'll ask them, tell me about your dream client. And they'll say, oh, typically 25 to 45. They're heavily into their looks. They love luxury brands. They love going on holiday. They love taking photos. They love fashion. They love makeup. And I'll say, so you're telling me you're not on Instagram? And they'll say, yeah, I don't, I don't like that sort of thing. Not really my thing. So it's, so it's interesting. So as a small business, you just need to be really clear. About that person who loves— or the person who loves whatever it might be. Who is that dream client that is going to not only like us, get to know us, trust us, become part of our tribe, tell all their friends and family, you have to buy this thing from this person, you have to go to this place, you have to work with— you have to visit this gym, you have to do whatever it is you're selling. You have to make sure that you are 100% clear on who that person is, what they want from How we can show up for them so that we can then just go all in on that person. And then we want to make sure that we're meeting their needs, we're exceeding their needs if possible, but we're giving them that, that 5-star experience so that they'll tell all their friends because that's how you'll grow. If you just stand back and say, we're something for everyone, we land in a place that's terribly scary. And that's what I call vanilla land. And Vanilla Land is the most forgettable place. No one goes there. Like, no one's excited to go there. No one's Instagramming from Vanilla Land. No one's sending postcards from Vanilla Land. Vanilla Land is just this place that's fine. Everything's okay. It's forgettable. And if we're not really clear about that person that we're serving, we end up in Vanilla Land. We end up, you know, ordering vanilla ice cream and it's just— no one will remember it in 10 years' time. No one will remember it in 2 weeks' this time. And that's the place to be really, really careful of with small businesses. Know who you serve and go all in on that person.

Lots of interesting pointers there, Joy. Thank you. I want to quickly move on now into the business model and escaping this time for money trap that a lot of founders build themselves or for themselves. And you've talked a lot about businesses that only work when the founder is constantly present. I've been trapped in it myself as well, so I understand it quite well. From your point of view, I'm curious to find out why do so many people build that kind of setup without realizing it? And that's the key there, because you don't realize at the beginning.

Well, it is very simple. I think that we all tell ourselves the story that no one can do it as good as we can. And that might be true to an extent, but the business—

and if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

But, but no one can do it as good as me, right? And, and we've all— we're all human. We've all come up with that explanation. It's quicker to just do it myself. I could tell it to someone else, it's quicker to do it myself. We need to be really empowering for the people around us. Business is a team sport. And like I give the analogy of being on the football pitch, we can't all be the star striker. It's really important that we hold our own position, but we have to empower— as, as the leader of our team, if the manager of our football club or the coach of our football club, we have to tell people what we need from them. We can show them, but we have to let them learn. We have to get them to graze their own knees a little bit. And that's really important. So, we can build out the assets that can train them, that can develop them. We can give them the parameters and the frameworks to be able to say, this is how we do things. When things go wrong, this is what we do. When things are going well, we make sure we do this. So it's about building time into your day, time into your week.

And continuity.

Yeah, consistency. Absolutely. So we want to be consistent in how we show up. We don't want one person in the business to be this A-star player that ends up, you know, doing everything for everyone and like blowing everyone's socks off and then everyone else just in the shadows, not really kind of feeling the spotlight at all. We want to empower everyone to stand up and do their role and do it really well and to meet the needs of the business. But as founders, we need to make sure that we're empowering those people around us, but we have to let the control freak within us— and I, I'm the same— we have to let that, that go. Because otherwise, you know, when you're on holiday and you're taking your laptop and you're sitting by the pool and you're answering emails and you feel really frustrated and you say, this isn't the reason I built a business, that's on us as the founder. It's on no one else. We need people around us. You know, before you go on holiday, you need the people around you to be able to say, I want you to manage my inbox. I want you to be able to answer questions. If something comes up that you don't know how to answer, please bring it to me. We'll have a 10-minute conversation at the end of every day, or dealing with complaints or dealing with issues, whatever it might be. We need to empower those people to graze their knees before and then allow them to, you know, make sure that you give support and to give enough kind of context in order to take on challenges. But you're a terrible, terrible leader if you don't empower those around you to graze their knees. Like, I really mean that. You have to allow them to mess up and that's okay. Like, no business out there is perfect.

Also hard on the founder because that's what I wanted to touch on as part of this. I think there's like an emotional cost for founders as well to letting things slide even just a little bit in order for this, in a way, delegation to happen.

Absolutely. And we want our businesses to be A-star, right? We want them to be 100%, but we have to live in the real world and it's better to have a successful thriving business that's 80%. And I mean, I don't even think, I don't know what they call them these days, but GCSEs aren't scored A-star to, to F anymore, right? They have numbers or something, something different. But back in our day as millennials here in the UK, we used to have things A*, A, B, C, D, right? 80% would still get you an A grade at GCSE, right? So it's really important that we remember that and we say, you know, if our business is 80%, it's still getting an A grade, that's good enough, and we can still move forward with that. We can't get every interaction right. McDonald's, the greatest, um, you know, fast food chain on the planet, can't get every order right. We know that. They do a really, really, really good job, but they can't get everything right. Apple can't get everything right. There is no brand or business on the planet that you can show me— Amazon can't get everything right. There is no business or brand on the planet that is able to get things right 100% of the time. What we need to do is accept that, but empower everyone around us. Because you will be the most fantastic founder for 25, 30 years if you don't empower anyone around you, and then you'll get sick and your business will fail. Or then you're trying to retire and the only thing you'll be able to put a price tag on is a few desks and a few computer chairs. Build a business that is valuable, that is scalable, and that can succeed and be successful without you. If not, you're playing a really long game that's going to have a really disappointing ending. I want founders to build businesses that are scalable, that are sellable at the end. And the only way you do that is by having assets within your business, a culture within your business, fantastic people within your business that understand the direction, understand the game we're playing, and can drive it forward without you. And as I say, If you don't do that, you can be really busy and be really essential, and your ego might feel really proud for the next 25 years. But when you come to retire or you get sick, whichever one comes first, you will have such a disappointing end to that journey. And I don't want that to be the end. I want the end to be you walk off into the sunset with a great check, or you sit on a sun lounger somewhere while your team drive the business forward. Whatever it might be, but don't let it be on your shoulders for long. Drive it forward, have the vision, but empower everyone else to go with it because then your ending can be a really happy and exciting one. And I want that for everyone. I genuinely do.

Joy, how have you tackled these problems in your business, which like many agencies, coaches would run into this time for money trap problem?

Yeah, it's, it's all about, I think, protecting your time. So you don't want to just have this, this figure on, on an hour of your time. Let's just use easy numbers: £100 an hour or £1,000 an hour. You want to stop thinking like that. Thinking like that will only lead you down the path of always putting a price to your, to your hour. What you want to do is add value and price according to that value. It's It's, it's, you know, billing for time and exchanging time for money is such a slow and painful death of business.

So how would you build that? Would you build by project, by deliverable?

You bill based on the value that you bring. If I consult with Pepsi, I will be charging far differently to than if I consult with the pet groomer at the end of my street, because the value is different. The difference I can make to Pepsi versus the difference I can make to the dog groomer at the end of the street. They're night and day. So we need to stop thinking about the time for money. Time for money makes everyone lose except people that are really bad at their jobs. And let me explain. If you have a bathroom fitter that takes forever to do the tiles and to fit a bath and a shower and, and has to look up everything, has to call their friends to ask what they need to do next, and they charge a day rate. It took them 14 days to do it and they charged me £500 a day. At the end of that 2 weeks, they've made £7,000, right? Whereas if I pay someone who's exceptionally good, who knows where everything goes, who's the world's fastest tiler, and they're charging me the same day, right, same day rate, they fitted a bathroom for me for £2,000. They've done it in 4 days versus 14, right? So, being better at your job when you, when you charge time for money actually means that you're faster, you're more efficient, and you earn less. How is there a value in that? When you, when you charge more and you're slow, the house owner has waited 2 weeks to have a shower, they're tearing their hair out, and they're paying a day rate. So, we want our, I want my clients to be able to, get a faster solution, a better solution. They're not paying for my time. They're paying on me giving them answers faster and better and quicker. So I don't, I think anyone who is exchanging time for money, there's only, you'll, if you're getting better and you're upskilling, maybe you're buying a better computer or you're going to a Knights class so you can learn how to design faster or to code better, whatever it might be. If you charge time for money, you're just incentivizing to earn less because you're going to do the job faster.

Being a— that comes from personal development or improving your product or your service.

Yeah, I mean, we want to be in a place where it's not about how long it takes. If I, if I design you the most incredible brand in 3 days versus 3 years, isn't that better? Isn't that more valuable?

It would be, absolutely.

Isn't that more valuable?

Because your own time is valuable as well. If you look at the example you gave with the tradesman who takes 2 weeks instead of 3 days to do a bathroom.

Yeah. Absolutely. So we don't want to be in this time for money trap. And I think if anyone is in it, you know, hourly billing or day rates, anything like that, such a road of hardship for everyone involved. And it leads to frustration really quickly because then if clients misbehave and start changing their mind about things, they start getting frustrated. You then start— you've priced it and jobs can elongate. Then the clients get really frustrated because they said, well, it was going to be done in 7 days and cost me, you know, £2,000. It's now 30 days and you're trying to charge me £10,000. It all gets really messy really quickly. You want to have really vital conversations and say, what does this project mean to you? What does this value change? And then price according to the value that you can change, the, the, the upside of your, your work. And then everyone wins. And the one, the most important thing I can tell you that I have learned about business is business is so much fun when everyone around the table wins. And that's what every conversation with any client, with any customer should be about. We want them to win, but we want us to win and we want them to want us to win. We want everyone around the table to feel like this is a really positive experience for everyone. The moment anyone feels like they are not winning and there's a land of, you know, I feel a bit begrudged, I feel a bit frustrated, this doesn't feel good. They're getting so much value. I'm not earning enough. When anyone starts to question anything, then things unravel really quickly. And we want to be in a position in any type of business, where we win and they win, and we all want each other to win. And that's, that's how business can flourish. That's how brands flourish by focusing on making sure that everyone around the table wins. There are no losers here.

The one example that came to mind from my personal experience regarding the time for money trap and paying the same amount or even slightly more, say, per hour or per day rate versus, but having significantly fewer hours. Has been both web development, and which can be a massive time trap, and there's loads of variables there. From my experience, one of the mistakes that I've done was when you have like weeks and weeks of waiting for something, including for a bathroom, you always think of something else to add.

Yeah.

And you end up delaying it even further. Rather than, okay, it's going to be done in 3 days. I didn't even have time to think about it more, but it's done. So this is what I have now.

Yeah. So that's called scope creep in the agency world where, where the scope of a job suddenly starts to shift and a project starts to grow arms and legs in different directions.

Guilty.

And yeah, it's, and it's very common and it's all about pulling it back to going, what do we want to achieve? And, and, and when scope creep comes in, it might be actually, it might be just just being really direct and honest with your client and saying, actually, I think what we're doing is we're starting to unpack a different project. Let's complete this project and then let's approach that part as a new project. And it's just about having eyes on what are we trying to achieve? We're trying to build a website which has a great homepage, has a, you know, a services page that converts people and a contact page that empowers people to get in touch with us. Maybe it has a scorecard so people can find out more about kind of where they need. And if we've got those things laid out in a really clear, then when people say, oh, we want to add a podcast page, or we want to add a singing and dancing, let's do this page. That sounds like a different project. Let's make sure that we're unveiling what we set out to do. And then we can definitely do that as a separate project. We want to make sure that we're achieving the goals that we set out to do. And anything beyond that is, is just something separate. So that's kind of how I'd frame it. But listen, when it comes to brands, it's never done. And if you think that, you know, we're going to hire a strategist and we're going to spend a month getting this work done and then it's one and done. And, you know, if in 3 years' time the person on the other end of the phone isn't solving problems in the way that you want them to, your brand is rubbish. And it doesn't matter how pretty the logo is. It doesn't matter how gorgeous the brand palette is. Is we need people to be solving problems in our business because that is our brand. It's not what we say it is, it's what other people think of us, and that's the truth. And so that comes into all of those touch points— digital, real world, whatever it might be— how we're showing up for people, how we're righting wrongs that happen in our business. That's our brand, and that's how people will talk about us. And it's never done. It's, it's an ongoing living, breathing entity that we have to keep alive. It's like your brand is a Tamagotchi. Think of it like that. And you need to keep it alive. You need to keep it fed. You need to keep it nurtured. You need to make sure that it's, it's breathing and existing and it's doing the right things. And so that's what we need to think about our brands. Our brands are this entity that is— we're going to keep nurturing and keep making better and encouraging to grow because that's what will serve our business. And at the very end, towards when we're thinking about not owning this business anymore or changing our role within the business, that brand then becomes this valuable being that means something. And it's, we're not then talking about the value of desks and chairs and offices. We're talking about the value of a brand and that ultimately you can add a zero to the value of your business. That's what a brand can do. It's turning a £100,000 business into a £1 million business and a £1 million business into a £10 million business. When you have a brand, you're able to add a zero, and because suddenly the value of what it means to the world is so much greater.

So how do you calculate the value of a brand before you add the zero to the business?

So it will be anything, it's all the assets in the bands within the brand. So it will be physical assets, it might be product, it could be, you know, items on a shelf, it could be retail space, it could be vans on the road, it could be tools, it could be anything that's— that someone walking around a business can write on their clipboard and value. And then the brand ends up being all of the touch points, like your website, your engaged audience, your social media platforms, the people that buy your product or are subscribed to your product, the people that are tribal. If you announce that you're doing an event in, in London, how many people will come together to buy that ticket, to show up and be part of that. You know, your brand ends up— your brand is like your tribal signpost. It's what's going to galvanize people. When you announce that you're going to sell something, that they line up to do business with you. When you announce that you're going to be speaking at a particular event, they're going on the waitlist, they're buying the tickets. Your brand is everything that pulls people together to make that decision. It's, it's your brand is, is what makes people feel like they belong. And if you want to see brand in action, go to a Formula One event, go to a, go to a track where people are diehard Ferrari fans or diehard McLaren fans, and they, they live and breathe it. It's, it's about not just the cars, it's about the merchandise, it's about the music, it's about everything that, that, that brand represents for them. And, you know, those fans will travel globally in order to support their Formula 1 team. And you can literally see brand in motion with how passionate the fans are and how, how, how much they feel like they belong. You know, we are tribal people and we want to feel like we belong and we want brands that connect with us and that we feel that we belong to. And you'll see that with things like gyms, people get really passionate about the gym that they belong to because they spend their time there. They, they spend, you know, that's the thing they look forward to at the end of every day. And they look around—

I wouldn't say they would look forward to, but some people do.

Yeah, sure, some people do. And they look around the room and they think, oh, you're the same kind of weird as me. And if you want to find out about, you know, how tribal we are, ask someone, ask a stranger about their favorite coffee shop, and they will tell you. They will launch into a tirade about why Starbucks is the best, or why Starbucks is the worst, and why you have to go to Caffè Nero, or you have to go to the independent place on Brick Lane where they all have, you know, funny haircuts and interesting names, right? There's— I don't know.

I think the big chains are pretty good with that too.

Well, absolutely. If you want to find, you know, you want to find your tribe, that's what you can tend to find people that— or craft beers is another one that, you know, it really brings out the tribal person in us. If you think about wines or you think about foods, whatever it might be, there is a weird place in the world that we all feel like we belong. And it might be a gym, it might be a coffee shop, wherever it might be. But we all have those things and we all have those things that we belong to. And that's the difference. Starbucks are not selling coffee. They're selling this space of belonging. They're selling your name on the cup. They're selling the app that where you could feel like a gold member, right? Just by buying coffee. They, it's whole experience. And you want to have the coffee cups in your house and you want, you want the barista to know your name. And it's this whole experience of feeling like home. So I can go to a Starbucks in London and order my drink. And I was recently in India and I walked into Starbucks and I ordered my drink and the drink tasted identical. And I was like, wow, that is impressive. You know, you can—

that's the magic of McDonald's as well.

Absolutely. And so that's the power of brand. It's not a logo. It's about experiencing that brand and testing that brand and saying, you know, I'm in India and I'm drinking my cup of coffee and I'm closing my eyes and going, does it taste different? And I close my eyes and drink it. I go, no, Nope, it's the same. Wow, that is impressive. That is, you know, something to a Starbucks, for example, to be proud of. And so all of those things are the real life living brands that we belong to. And so people might say, I'm not really into brands or anything like that. Tell me about your phone. And instantly someone will then tell you, yes, Android versus iPhone.

Yes.

And they will be very—

which camp are you in?

I am an Apple person through and through. Yeah. And I will be till I die. Most probably. I'm, um, yeah, we are, we, we are tribal and it's important to remember that no matter how big your business is, that your clients are tribal as well. Your customers are tribal. There will be things about them that are the same. And it's about identifying those things. Well, what makes those dream clients the same? What makes them the same kind of weird? In the most wonderful— I say weird as a positive, not as a negative, but the same kind of weird. Because then when you can tap into that, you can find more of them. And that's how you build a business, is understanding those dream clients that you're not selling to everyone with a head, but you're selling to people who love to wear hats. And that's the important thing. So it's understanding those people and then really drilling down and saying, right, what do they need from us? What do they want from us? And how can we show up as a brand in the world and give it to them?

Thinking about bringing the joy back in business, if somebody is not necessarily like burnt out, but that, that could be one of the reasons, a variety of reasons as we discussed, maybe somebody feels tired rather than broken. Where would you suggest they start?

It's, that's a very hard question. If they're a solopreneur, then they have to lean on people outside of their business because it's all on their shoulders. If they've got, if they've got a team around them, then I would suggest that they need to lean in and reconnect and reestablish where the business is. Because if they're pulling up everything and everything's resting on their shoulders, there needs to be a recalibration. There needs to be a rebalance of what they're doing and how they're doing it. And so it's a complicated question to say, how do you fix burnout? Because everyone's different and everyone's reasons for burnout is different. But some people, it's the balance of running a business and a family. Right. That, that can be the reason for it. So there's, there's a number of different factors, but certainly if they have a team around them, they need to recalibrate that team and understand, okay, what is the urgent and important things that we're facing right now? And then what are the things that maybe we're doing a dance of a Monday morning meeting at 9:00 AM for 3 hours, but that actually it started off as a good idea a few years ago, and we're doing it because we've always done it. But actually, are we hurting ourselves in the process? And is it actually— could it be a 10-minute catch-up or could it be something else? So I guess questioning our routines would be something I would— I would ask the question, is this serving us? I think for many businesses, I can't speak for all businesses, but I think for many businesses, email is slowly killing the soul of the business.

I think managing the inbox, that is, you mean.

Yeah, well, I just think communications are— people are drowning in emails, you know. They're coming back from holiday and they're facing, you know, 1,000 emails. And there's this horrible, um, thing that people do, you know, where they CC everyone in just to cover all bases. And what it means is that it's this endless tirade of emails. So I would—

I do have AI now though.

Yeah, we do. But even that can sometimes cause problems because sometimes that can respond to things and say, yes, I ram free and book you into things that you didn't intend to be at, or, you know, it's not a perfect science. But what I would say is we have to question everything that we're doing with our time. And if we're not, if, if what we're doing isn't serving us and we're on the road to burnout, then I would definitely suggest that something needs to change. Because if, if nothing changes, you will end up sick. And if everything is on your shoulders, your business will fail. But that it's, so it's self-preservation to say we need the burnout journey to stop and we need the business to survive without me making every decision or without me making every sale. I mean, that's really typical that the founder, the sales process of a business, everything goes through the founder making those sales. And that's one thing I will say about your brand doing some of the sales work for you and you having, you know, empowering those people around you to go out with really well strategic pitch decks and really well-rehearsed pitches to be able to go out and win work. So it's not just on the founder shaking hands and doing the deals. That, that's really— and I see that typically in a lot of kind of of those scale-up, startup scale-up phases where the founder is that energy, that life force. And we need to empower with great assets, with, with the world's greatest brochures and the world's greatest pitches and the world's greatest pitch decks. We need to go about have really good people perform really great sales, but we only do that by empowering them with really great assets. I'm a big believer in that. A really good person with a bad pitch deck will get you through the door and will win the deal, but that's really, really difficult to try and emulate, to have those brilliant people to go out with bad assets and to win the work. What we want to do is be able to empower good employees, good team members, to go out with the world's greatest assets assets and win the work, period, like clockwork, without stopping.

And assets were an important part of the work you do.

Yeah, absolutely.

As we're nearing the end of our chat, Joy, I'm wondering, if you were starting again today, what would you design differently from day one compared to how you started your business originally, which we discussed. It was the narrow niche of hospitality that you were advising.

Yeah, I mean, I started off my business in my early 20s like many people do, without a plan. I just— it was very day by day.

You wouldn't know then.

Yeah, yeah, it was very day by day. You know, I was just having kind of conversations with people, and people would keep saying things, and they'd say things like, oh, we're thinking about, you know, a website. Do you do that? Yeah, I do that. How to design a website. You know, are we thinking about designing an app? Would you know anything about designing apps? Absolutely. We can definitely do that. You go have How to Build an App. You know, it was, it was very much like figuring stuff out. And, and, and back then, I think I was very much like, I kind of had these ideas and I'm a true entrepreneur insofar as I know I don't have all the answers, but I know I will find them. And I don't think that much has changed for me. I still don't have all the answers, but I know I will find them. But if I was starting again today, I think I think the most important thing is to go out and understand who you want to serve. And for me, I've worked with big corporations and I've worked with small startups and all that sort of thing, and it's understanding what energy really brings you alive. And big corporates don't bring me alive. Sitting in stuffy boardrooms where the aircon is like blasting, you're either freezing cold or they turn it off and then everyone's roasting hot, all of that sort doesn't bring me alive. What brings me alive is working one-to-one with founders who are on a journey to change the world, and they want someone in their corner to, to help them along the way. And I always describe the people that I work with, founders, they're like Rocky Balboa. If we're going to put it in millennial terms, they're like Rocky Balboa, right? They're in the ring, they're slinging punches, they're trying to win. And I'm like Mickey. I'm in the corner and I'm telling them how to hit, when to hit, when to breathe, when to take a step back. And that's what I'm telling them to do. So I'm not the star of the show. I'm very much the person in your corner helping you to, to sling the next right punch to win the battle. And so if I was starting again tomorrow, anyone out there who's, who's building their business, really lean into the energy that brings you alive and work out what kind of person you want to work with, what, what kind of person that you understand, and what, what type of work work that really brings you alive. Because otherwise what will happen is your business will always feel in frustration, and nothing— even when you're being successful and you're making all the money, if you're working with people that don't, you know, doesn't bring the best out of you, or you're working in situations that, or, you know, selling products or services that don't light you up, it will always feel like a struggle. And life is too long. People always talk about life is too short, life is way too long to be stuck doing something day after day after day that doesn't light you up. So I'm a big believer—

work life is too long.

Well, I think, I think life is too long to be miserable. People talk about all the time, life is short, life is short. If life was that short, we wouldn't worry about anything. We wouldn't worry about our haircut or the home that we lived in or, or anything. We wouldn't worry about any of it because life would be too short. But life is long enough enough. And we want that life to be fun and fulfilling and to matter and to mean something. I'm very much a believer in life is too long to be miserable and stuck with a business that doesn't serve you. So lean into what lights you up and, and build a business that empowers you to live that life that matters.

Finally, Joy, I'm wondering, what are the sacrifices you had to make to be where you are today?

That is a really, really good question. So I have never been traveling. I have never done the, I'm going to go and walk around Vietnam or Australia or Thailand, or I'm going to go and find myself and do a gap year.

Most founders who started in their 20s say that.

Yeah. So one thing I will say, people are very quick to say, you're so lucky you have this this great business, you have all the kind of— you have a house, you live in London, you travel on holiday, you know, you go to these nice places. And I will sit around and say, everything comes at a cost, you know, and the things that I didn't have would be, I don't have those experiences of wandering around with a rucksack and, you know, no work and nothing to do and just, you know, having a jolly a year or 2 years or 3 years. Some people, you know, literally went on their gap year for years. I never did that. I started work at 18 and I haven't stopped since then. But it's not a poor me story. I'm very passionate about the work that I do. I pinch myself regularly that I get to wake up in the morning and do the work that I do with the amazing people that I do it with. But what was my sacrifice? I never went and and had the fun around the globe like many people our age did.

And I'm going to quickly drop another question here. If you were able to send a, let's do a millennial reference, MSN Messenger message to Joy and her early 20s as she was contemplating starting her own business, what would you tell her?

This is such a great question. I would tell her Don't believe anything, any of the voices in your head that say you can't do it. You definitely can. You will find a way. And I would definitely say get around the right people who believe in you. I think in my early 20s, I was definitely around the wrong people who didn't believe that I could do the things that I'm doing now. And I definitely bought into that narrative that I was the Twitter girl and I was, you know, helpful to be I was going to be, you know, an assistant to the business. I wasn't the life force that was going to drive the business forward. And it was only when I left those kind of negative voices and I left those kind of, that kind of toxic cloud that I'm able to lean in and say, I definitely don't have all the answers, but I definitely have the energy, the intuition, and the inclination to find those answers and to build amazing businesses. I feel very passionate about all the businesses that I work with. Like, not necessarily my babies, but they feel like my godchildren. I like, don't look after them like they're my own babies, but I look after them like they're my godchildren. When they win awards, I feel like I've won awards. When they do life-changing deals, when they do life-changing exits, I feel part of that. And, and that really matters to me. So if I'm talking to young Joy, I will say, keep being curious, keep leaning into asking why, keep finding out more, keep reading books. I'm a big advocate of reading And yet you are completely unstoppable. So keep going.

That's a good thought to put for people tuning in and listening to this, not necessarily if they're, if they're in their early years, but also in their later years, because as you, you shared, many, many things and beliefs can hold you back. So thank you so much, Joy, for sharing your journey and your expertise and ideas. On branding and how to push that forward in a business. It was really interesting.

Thank you so much for your time. I've loved it. Appreciate you.

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