Monetize Spare Capacity — Trade Sale, IPO & Growth w/ John Attridge | RevIntel [Archive]

Guys, welcome back for another episode of the DXB Podcast, and it's a place where I bring big-time founders that I've met along my way to share their journey and a little bit of a deep dive into what they do so more people can realize what opportunities are behind the business industry and what you can really achieve. So John, I'll hand it right over to you. Who are you? What do you do? And why do you do it?

Hi, uh, Shane. Yeah, nice to be part of the program today. We met, I think, at the EOS conference earlier this year. And, um, John Attridge, and I'm the founder of BBX in the UK. We're part of a global group in 30-odd countries, and we help businesses capture and monetize what would have been the spare capacity opportunity in a business. That's the ability to take on more work without increasing fixed cost, using, holding that in the form of a digital trade credit, a little bit like PayPal, and then apply that to offsetting either current cash costs that you have in your business or to apply to budgets that you wouldn't have otherwise had to reduce the cost. I talk about it in my best-selling book, Business Blunders and Bloody Great Ideas, which is the story of why 50% of people in business survive despite their best efforts not to. And the other half fail. And one of the strategies I talk about in there is harnessing, capturing, monetizing, and storing spare capacity to either offset, offset cash cost or to apply it to a budget that you'd like to have.

And that's exactly why I was interested in speaking more with you at that event, because I think we were at lunch and I mentioned what I do and you said, oh, I do this, this, this, this, this. And I was like, this is what— this is the guy out of 8 people who sat at that table this is the guy that I want to speak to. And it says a lot. Like, you can see I'm 37 years old, so I'm not too young, but I'm not too old. But the inspiration of hearing people, and you kind of, you start to kind of zone out or kind of gray out the bullshit, right? The people who you know aren't really doing anything. And then you can really see and identify that's the person of color. That's the person who really has a purpose and a vision. Like beyond them and behind them. So I don't know how old you are, but I know you're older than me. After this many years, why are you still doing this right now in business, business development? Why are you still doing this after this many years?

Yeah, well, I've actually sold the business a couple of times, so I had a, had a decent trade sale, um, and then I had an IPO And I started this sector of the business 10 years ago. So I've also sold it twice and got it back 3 times. So it's what we call a reciprocal trade exchange. So I never thought it might have been that you kept selling it and it kept coming back. And the reason I keep doing it, Shane, is that I love doing it. And around the world, I'm regarded without being, you know, highbrow about it as one of the experts in the world, having been doing it successfully for 34 years. Uh, so why would you stop doing something that you love doing and you're great at? And you know, if you're a great golfer or, or you love doing it and you got to retirement age, what— why would you bother stop playing? What are you going to do, sit at home, watch the telly and get bored by the fake news or whatever else is going on at the time, watching the soaps?

You're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right.

And for me, I found a path of interest with entrepreneurship. Uh, making money was always the biggest driver because I wanted the flexibility to make choices in my life without having to have any restrictions. And furthermore, it was, it was really just finding something that I could continually iterate, build, and it would never end. Business never ends. It is an infinite game. And when you start to understand that and instead of rushing to get to a destination, you sit back and say, let me enjoy the journey. You start to realize a lot of different things. And that's what's happened in my journey in business. And I came to realize very quickly, too, I'm a fucking awful CEO, right? I'm a great visionary. I can build very, very fast. I can think very, very fast. My gut instinct is very strong. It guides me in the right direction. I can understand data. But I'm a terrible CEO. I'm a terrible manager. I hate managing people. I hate putting up with bullshit, right? I hate hearing excuses. I tried to replicate myself and I couldn't. That was the failure part, the failure part of my development. But it also helped me learn that through that, I've gone through a separation. Wife is trying to take my child, let go of all of my team. I've been through heroin addiction. Prison for 3 years, 3 jails, uh, well, sorry, 7 jails, 3 rehabs. And from 2014 to now, I've really shaped my life. And it was only until I started doing the podcast that I realized, speaking to people like yourself and learning through these hour, 2-hour sessions that I have, I don't wake up to an alarm anymore. I don't wake up to a time. I don't dictate my life on somebody else's. I have a schedule that starts at 3 PM and it ends at 3 AM in the morning, and I'm just speaking to people like yourself, having so much fucking fun, and it's not work anymore. So I completely, completely empathize and understand what— and really appreciate what you're saying, because finding it out at this age is important. Now, for you, at what point did you realize that this is your journey?

Well, I fell into it through adversity. So it began back in 1989 when I owned a car rental business on Australia's Gold Coast, serving the, serving the inbound tourist market. So in 1989, every single pilot in Australia went on strike. So I went from 100% occupancy, more than 100% occupancy in 1988 because we had World Expo in Brisbane during that time to zero in the space of, uh, an announcement. So we had all these cars, we still had to pay the lease payments, we still had to pay the, the rents, we had to pay the staff, but we had no revenue. And so we, we had seen this, uh, called reciprocal trade exchange mechanism operating in the States when we were over there in the '80s. And so we began a group. It only had 50 business owners, but all people we knew, the He, you know, wrote restaurant owners and hoteliers and mechanics and media people and all sorts of other lawyers and accountants. And so we, we formed our own PayPal-type currency back then and, uh, started doing business with one another. And I was appointed as the, uh, banker, in, in other— want of a better term— the person who kept the records. And that's how the whole thing kicked off 34 years ago. So it was begun through adversity, and a bit like COVID, you either, you know, find a direction to go to or you die. There's no simple way around it. We never had furlough, we never had government support in any way, shape, or form. We never had a penny from anybody supporting us. So if nobody's supporting you, you've got to go back to caveman days and support yourself.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, and that's what business is about. It is do or die. And unless you're running a business, you don't realize it's do or die. So look, after 30 years still doing it, can you show us what it looks like? What, what is BBX as an underlying business? If, if someone— if somebody for the first time, they don't know anything about exchanging OpEx value and credits for services. They don't know what the potential is. I never even heard of what you do before meeting you at an EOS event, which came from somebody in America, right? It's all— it's very intertwined and connected in a very different way. But show us then what a newbie would see or best understand over 1 minute.

So here we are, there's the front of our website, Shane. So there's a bit of a blurb there of what we do, but anybody that's looking for new customers or interest-free credit lines— and not only interest- not free, but you repay when you have spare capacity, which is a different concept. There's plenty of people talking about how they've applied the system, but in essence, it sits around these 6 things: finance, growth, lifestyle, new business, selling your business, and profits. And these are all things that are pretty important to most businesses at most times. So they're the sort of things in your business, if you have spare capacity, the ability to take on more business without increasing fixed overhead.— so that can be either time or stock, doesn't matter, and we've got over 1,000 verticals. The ability to capture, monetize, and hold that new revenue in the form of an additional account that's held in a PayPal-type credit account. The only difference between ours and PayPal is that you earn the new business from someone in the community and you spend it back into someone in the community. You don't exit it out to fiat currency. So it becomes a second account working beside your existing operation, not in competition to it. So that's pretty much it.

Incredible. And where did the idea spawn from?

So again, it's getting back to where we were back in the car rental days. So, you know, our biggest problem with the car rentals was a sign saying Rent Me and nobody renting. And so it wasn't going to rent itself. So, you know, we offered this community currency out to the people that are in our community. And back in those days, Shane, we didn't even have the internet, we didn't have mobile phones. So imagine a day we wrote checks to one another, we kept the balances. So, you know, Mal the lawyer would come and rent a car for 2 days at $50 a day, write me a trade check for $100. I'd take that to the central banking system and we'd credit the car rental account for 100, we'd debit the lawyer account for 100 so that the system always balances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you had a second person coming along checking the math, making sure that, uh, it was the authentication, uh, of what was going on. And, you know, we had the sheltered workshop at the end of the month, uh, you know, peeling off, uh, 3-part, uh, you know, that paper that came off in 3-part portions, folding it up, licking an envelope, putting a stamp on it, and then putting it down to the post office to deliver. That was how antiquated the system was back in the day. Everything's done on an app over the line and in real time nowadays.

So interesting, interesting, very, very interesting concept. Again, it's a very unique way to leverage how you spend money, how you save money. What was the strategy for growing this business year after year, exit after, after re-entry? What, what worked best for you that you would kind of really highlight for new business owners to kind of understand and maybe try themselves, considering the fundamentals are probably— they come from a foundation that you've built over years of working?

Yeah, so, you know, I'm a disciple of Brian Tracy, for those of you who've been into the sales area. So in my previous career with MLC Life, uh, Brian had spoken at a couple of our conferences, so I really liked his spine and ribs method of selling. And I also like the readings of Peter Drucker, and Peter made a very important observation, and that said that 92% of business owners or entrepreneurs were product-led, only 8% were sales-led, and yet 80% of the product-led businesses failed and only 20% of the sales-led businesses failed. So that resonated with me and it told me that most business owners are fantastic at what they do but hopeless at running every other aspect of the business. So they love, you know, they love making widgets if that's what they're passionate about, but none of the other runnings of the business that's required is followed, and that's why 80% of them fail. And one of the biggest reasons is a lack of sales, because if you have a lack of sales, means you got a lack of funds. If you got a lack of funds, you got a lack— you got bad cash flow. And if you don't have enough sales, you've got a hobby, uh, not, not a business. So right, doesn't matter what it is, you got to have people paying you. So you're solving a problem that people will pay for. And, and so another thing that I talk about in the book is outsourced— outsourcing everything that you don't like and you're not good at to people that are good at it and do like it. Yeah, because they'll do it in a tenth of the time, twice as good, and you can focus on the stuff that you're great at, which will drive the revenue into the business.

Hopefully. Well, you're absolutely right. And I'll tell you what, this year was the year that I clashed with my, uh, ex-business partner. And it was because of sales. So our first year we did £171,000 in a service-based telemarketing appointment setting company. Our ACV in year 2 grew to £160K. We did half a million quid in revenue. This year we couldn't make payroll. We couldn't pay our bills. We went into collections and the Fucking argument that I kept having was we need pipeline. The argument back was, okay, well, this isn't the way we want to be doing it. Okay, well, referrals have run out for 50— referrals have run out now because we have done our survey. The sales cycle or lifetime value of a, of a contract or customer within telemarketing is no longer than 4 months. We managed to keep some clients 7 to 15 months on average, which was quite good, right? But it came to a point where those referrals ran out, people's money ran out, times got worse, especially this year. And then on top of that, meetings weren't being held or booked. Well, conversations weren't being had, meetings weren't being held, qualifications weren't being placed, CRM wasn't moving. And it came to a point where it was, okay, well, I need you to create sales because I'm building the business now. We've established an operation that works and you want to fucking fight back with me about, uh, I want to do it a different way or this way isn't working. But until you figure out what that way is, you need to still be making sales because that, that point came, uh, in April where we couldn't make salaries so we had to fire people.

And, and a good point with that is that, and I talk about it in the book, is feast and famine. And so what that means is that, you know, take a web designer, they're doing bigger projects They win the business and all of a sudden everybody's working on that particular product, but everybody forgets about what's coming in 3 months' time when they finish. And so you get these cycles of so busy you can't handle anything, and then all of a sudden you've got nothing on and no revenue coming in. And that's why if you, if you have multiple sources of revenue, and that's what BBX provides to people that have this sort of secular nature in their sales, when they've got a slack period, our sales team clicks into gear, quickly monetizing opportunity by talking to people that want what you do and connecting you up. And so, you know, that's what we sit there as a, as a year-by-year tool that allows you to turn the tap on when you're slow, and you can turn the tap off when you, when you're fully booked. An example here in Bournemouth, we've got 364 hotels. You know, you try booking a hotel, you know, during the air festival weekend or when there's one of the big political party conferences on, good luck. You know, there's not a room to be had. Or when the tourists are here, June, July, August, September. But out of those sort of months, you know, the hotels have got occupancy that goes down to 10, 20, 30%. So, you know, it's that time when they turn the BBX tap on, trying to get people into their rooms which would have otherwise been empty.

Okay, so walk me through this. If I'm right, there's 3 decades of growth within your business. Decade 1, what was the, what was the foundational strategy, the fundamental strategy of going to market and growing? Then Decade 2, then Decade 3. If you could do that in 3 minutes, 1 minute per segment per decade, that would be dynamite.

So in the, in the first years, you know, we started by having one-to-one sales conversations in the method that I had adopted with MLC Life. So it was a consultant that we trained using Brian Tracy's Spine and Ribs method of selling, going out to a business owner like you, determining if they've got spare capacity, showing the solution that we offered, and fitting them into our program by invitation. So it was a one-to-one. We didn't have the internet. So that was, that was the first 10 years, Shane. Okay. We, we grew that to, I don't know, uh, 3,000 or 4,000 customers over that period on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Brisbane, and the Sunshine Coast. And then, uh, the second phase was, uh, we had 9/11, uh, for those that remember back, uh, sadly on, on that day. And we, we were right in the phase of putting together, uh, 28 groups like ourselves around the world with the backing of American Express.. And I got a fax back in those days saying, John, in light of yesterday's events, all bets are off. I won't go into all the details, but sorry, we can't partner anymore. Deal's done. So we'd spent 18 months traveling to the States, you know, twice a month trying to put this thing through, and that fell flat. Now, as a result of that, we had a very enterprising guy who started another trade exchange using a franchise model. So this is decade 2. And he's still a customer of mine today. We talk all the time. He's gone off into the climate change space nowadays. And he came and said, John, what are you doing? And we said, well, everything fell flat. He said, oh, how about we do a trade sale and merge your business into mine? And so that was stage one. We built that business into multiple countries and then floated that on the second board of the AIM here in 2011. And, uh, the, uh, the sale price of that was 30-odd million quid.

So I was gonna ask that too.

That's the number I'm looking for. And, uh, so that was a successful exit. You know, I owned the doormat, so, um, that enabled us to exit stage 2 with our second lot of growth. And then I was able to begin the BBX concept which is— I'd helped start the actual exchange back in 1993 because the founder was a customer of my original platform, and we got together and I started the UK arm here 10 years ago coming up. And we've signed up about 9,000 clients in that time here, just in the UK operation, but using the wealth of knowledge that I'd gained in working in 30-odd countries around the world where this system works today. So that's, uh, they're the 3 stages I've had in 34 years.

You are a fucking legend, John. Honestly, that is so cool to hear. I love, I absolutely love hearing that stuff. So along the way, I'm sure there were multiple learning experiences that you went through. I'm sure you experienced, endured multiple failures. Um, for me, in my, the past 20 years have been failure. But as a result of those failures, I now know 100 spot-on ways to do things exactly right. And just like you said, hiring or hiring an outsourced firm requires a lot of diligence. That's number one, right? You need to do your diligence on those firms because there's a lot of pump fakers out there. And I ran that business based on my ability alone. I couldn't replicate it, like I said. But now coming into this podcast production experience. My first episode was in March, run off a Zoom camera, okay? I was paying somebody to do it. They were ripping my ass apart in terms of fees, uh, 4 episodes a month with 4 mini videos a month that were between 30 and 60 seconds, okay? This guy was charging me £2,000 a month. At first it was worth it because I needed it done. Then it came to a point where it was a tug of war in getting— can I get 6 videos? Okay, but that's going to cost you now this much, almost double. So this didn't make sense, and I went to another person. That person, again, it would take 3 days to get a response, so I had to cut that one short. And then what I found was how, after watching a bunch of YouTube videos and learning how to do this my way, so what took 5 months to create 12 videos, maybe, maybe 15 at most. From that point, that 15th video to now the 75th— your number 75— the 75th video, 67 videos are now live on YouTube. There's over 150 digital videos going out every month. I've learned how to do this through one YouTube video where me and you do one hour that gets uploaded through a link into another system that chops up 20 to 40 other videos in probably 2 hours. It does all the subtitles, everything. And then I am blasting social media now with 3 different pieces of content a day on 8 different social platforms. And I get that done in 4 hours. So it took 6 months, I do now in 4 hours. And that's leverage of those kind of things. That's my biggest learning to date. And why I say that to you is to kind of set the scene and set the foundation for what you would say. What is the biggest learning, the most profound, impactful learning you've ever experienced in your life that really took you from maybe you went like this and then there was a point where it's just like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And through one choice or one experience, you basically went to a $30 million IPO. Can you, can you—

yeah, so I talk about 3 in the book.

You love this book.

Well, it's, uh, it's, it's gone to bestseller in 4 countries, and so, uh, and I'm about to start promoting on here.

There'll be a link on the, on, on the bottom of this for everybody to see.

So there's 3 things that I've learned over the years, and the first thing, I've never been unlucky as to not like what I— and love what I do. And I've just got better at it, I believe, over the last 34 years, uh, doing every possible, uh, way that it happens. So, you know, you make your own luck. I've, I've never had a sad story. I've never been in jail. I've never dealt with drugs. I've, you know, my life's been pretty boring, uh, in most cases. And, uh, uh, I just, uh, put my nose down and my bum up and, and, uh, focus on what I need to. But 3 things that I've already stuck to, and these were in readings in very early days, And the first one is Stephen R. Covey's second habit of highly successful people, which is start with the end in mind. So had I started with the end in mind, naming the Queensland Trade Exchange as my first exchange, I wouldn't have called it the Queensland Trade Exchange, because the moment I started in New South Wales, it was the worst name because there's great rivalry. So if I'd have started off with World Trade Exchange or something like that, that would have been better off. So I'd advise anybody to dream, dream big. We talk about BHAG goals, big hairy ass goals. Some people call it audacious, but I like a hairy ass goal. I reckon that's a big fat goal. When you get to that point and then 10x that, so to really stretch out your mind, and then that's your starting point. More people put more time into planning their holiday than they do their business. And so you wouldn't go on holiday not knowing where you were going. You wouldn't know that you were going to pick up a limousine to get you from A to B or take a flight to get to the destination. You'd have it all mapped out prior to going. And most people, it staggers me. There's about 480,000 businesses in our group these days globally. And the amount of people that I talk to that don't even know what they're going to be doing in a month's time, let alone in 10 years, is staggering. So that's the first thing. The second one I always live by is the Pareto principle. Yeah, so, uh, the Italian economist Wilfredo Pareto, and it's the 80/20 rule. And, you know, in COVID, you know, bang, we got smacked in the face. And Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan until you get a smack in the face. And, and you'd have a plan if Mike Tyson gave you a smack in the face, or not, or you just be knocked out. You'd want Plan B. COVID got thrust upon us and we had to have an emergency meeting and decide what we're going to do. I fell back to my golden rule number 2, which is how can we 80/20 this? Because there'll be 20% of our customers that will still be able to operate. Let's focus 80% of our time, money, and energy on those customers and park the 80% of customers that won't be able to operate for lockdown reasons. 'cause there's nothing I can do to help them at this time. We did that and with the aid of the government, and there's plenty of people moaning about what the government didn't do and did do and how bad it was and all the other things. I never hear any solutions from the other side of politics, but that's another story. We had a lot of help during that time with furloughs and with a whole range of other things that were going on at that time. But we focused on the 20% of customers that could deliver 80% of our revenue that we're still operating. So that's number 2. Number 3, which is why I exist as a business, why I get up at 5 o'clock every morning and get to work, is to capture and monetize the spare capacity opportunity in the business. It's the elephant in the room for most businesses. We've got a calculator that calculates it to the penny. When I do the calculation, 92% of people are absolutely stunned and shocked. You know, they're great lawyers or they're great dentists or they're whatever, and I do the numbers and, you know, they've got $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, a million, a $10 million, you know, I've seen of spare capacity sitting in their business. They know every other number from their accountant, so they've got their P&L, their balance sheet, their management accounts, everything else is there, but no one has stopped to measure the spare capacity opportunity in that business. And when they do, They are simply shocked. And I say to them after that, do you want to do something about it? And they always say yes. And I say, are you serious? And they say, yeah, of course we are. I say, well, okay, if you've never stopped to measure it before, there's the first step. Now that we know what it's there and how much it is, let's work together to do something about it. And that can be stunningly impressive. Most people get a 10% rise in income that's sitting in there just by squeezing the rag, not by changing it, putting any more staff on, not by changing any other method to market. So they get a 10% rise in revenue that can be applied to offset 10 to 50% of the peripheral costs. And when you do that, it goes straight to your bottom line. And so the multiplier on that is amazing. So one word, they're the three things.

Uh, give, give a definition for peripheral.

So let's take a hotel. A hotel's peripheral costs is a bar of soap, squirt of shampoo, egg and bacon for breakfast, perhaps cleaning of the room.

Okay, so like an overall cost that's combined, is it? Would that be what it is?

No, well, it's compared to leaving the room vacant. Okay, so if you've got a vacant room, that's spare capacity. If you don't sell it tonight, you get no revenue back ever again. So by selling it tonight, there is a cost, and that is the bar of soap, the squirt of shampoo, the egg and bacon for breakfast, and perhaps cleaning of the room, because the receptionist still gets the same, the rate bills is the same, the energy bills is the same. So the fixed costs in running the business remain unaltered by selling spare capacity.

That is absolutely genius, absolutely genius. So if we were to hone in then on the end in mind, Stephen Covey's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective— is it successful or effective? I always had— it was effective, right? Of effective people. When I read that in 2017, it was when I was engaged to a then ex-fiancée. And when I read, there's a portion in there where you— I'm like, I'm like unraveling an iron, an onion, right? Or peeling back the layers of an onion. And if you're in a relationship, it even goes to a small section of the book and you just ask your wife or ask your husband. They go into a question and you have to ask why. The answer still won't come. And why and why. And under 20 different layers, you may get, I wanted to eat, so I'm pissed off at you because you didn't clean the dishes. And it might be after peeling back the layers that they just wanted to have a glass of wine. For dinner. Very, very strange stuff, right?

And a more topical one today is the COVID inquiry. Now we're spending millions and millions of pounds on grilling Boris and everybody else to tell us what? That we already know. Yeah, if I was spending money, I'd peel the onion back right back to its core and find out why it started in the first place. So if we spend all the money finding out the cause, then without blaming— of course, yeah, China, um, then we could perhaps stop a repeat. All we're going to do now is spend money throwing good money after bad to find out what we already know. So that's what I'm talking about.

It's incredible, right? And then one of the major, one of the major learnings I got from that book above that was circle of influence and circle of concern.

How much— well, you are, you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time—

and that is so true. And just that book has changed my life, right? So if you were to paint a vision for people to get an idea of, wow, this guy has done this, this, this, and this to this day, what else is next? So in 10 years, you can obviously paint a picture of what life could be like in a kind of broad, vague picture, but I want a vivid image based on your imagination. And what I'm doing is trying to find the actual date, so it's 4:51 over here— 4:41, sorry, over here. And it is the 13th of December. So at 4:41 for me, it's what, 11 hours? If you're in— are you in Australia now?

No, no, no.

All right, so you're 4:41 for you too. On the 13th of December, 2033, are you still in your office? Or are you doing something else?

Yes. No, still here. Well, maybe not in this physical office, but in an office. Okay. I'm a great believer in— there are certain things that work from home works for, but in our business, an office is the best communication tool, and that's why we follow it.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I try to run a remote business on sales. And to run a remote business where camaraderie, the vibe and the noise of a sales floor is needed to thrive. Another reason why that model wasn't effective. But in terms of what a solopreneur, which is where my underlying interest is right now, being a business connector, remote working for me is a fucking dream. Absolute dream. So paint a more vivid, make it more vivid. Okay, so you're in the office. Tell me what BBX looks like. Tell me what John's doing. Are you in a— have you IPO'd again? Have you bought, acquired any more businesses? Have you done something for climate change? Are you sustainable?

What—

tell me, give me a more broad picture, a more vivid picture on what the actual— it's 4 for 42, what that looks like now.

Yeah, so, uh, the answer to a lot of that is yes, we will have, uh, I don't think IPO'd, what we'll have done, we'll have completed another trade sale. So that, that's where we're heading now. And because as you build a community, it doesn't matter whether you're building a network group or anything where you hold the customer base, that's a value to somebody, not necessarily in the same field as you are. And you'd be surprised as to what aligned businesses out there looking to acquire client bases. So, you know, that, that will be part of our strategy. We'll have developed the balance of our media company because in the last couple of years we've also developed another couple of businesses in akin to the main exchange. One is a media company which buys unsold media from bigger companies and applies the revenue for forces for good. So we've got our BBX Angels campaign which supports over 60 charities here in the UK. So the forces for good will either be for CSR, for charitable causes, or to support the environment. So the second business that we're developing at the moment is a property business where we'll be able to offer BBX customers the opportunity to acquire real property at bank valuation with a 30% deposit using digital trade credits. So that'll mean that the second The second you take occupation, you'll have a third equity in the property. You'll have a third less that you'll have to pay off a mortgage, and you pay that line of credit back interest-free and with your spare capacity when you have it in the future. So that is— we've only started that business this month, so in 10 years' time, that'll be one of the dominant players. We've also got a finance business along the lines of this interest-free credit line, as well as the 4 ways that we can find pound sterling in your business. And that's in our finance department. And then the last one that we've got other than our Angels Program is the carbon offset. So what we're able to do is provide last-mile interest-free cash, cash-free funding from the difference. If you get an offset company come in to measure where you are right now, the difference between where you are and net zero or carbon neutral, we can provide interest-free, cash-free funding. Again, along the same lines as the property, to complete the balance to zero. So you can become carbon neutral every year or net zero every year by buying UN-certified carbon offset credits using your digital trade credits. So other than that, we've got nothing on the go.

Shane, that is unreal. Absolutely unreal. Okay, so I believe that will come true because I think you're an incredible person, number one, and that's not no brown-nosing right now. But in terms of today, just being effective today, now a lot of the, a lot of, a lot of the education behind this show is to really put people like yourself on show, on camera, so the audiences that surround me are people who are thriving starting to thrive or want to thrive, and they need that kind of that icon to look up to and say, okay, through the spectrum of you've got Shane who does this, then you've got this person who does this, then you've got on the other side of spectrum you've got what, what is that, 8-figure revenue, 8 to 9-figure revenue from John Attridge and the things that you've literally highlighted in a very short period on the show. But People need stuff to do today and they need to realize something. And the only thing that convinces you to believe in somebody else's ability to teach, educate, train, coach to a better place is results. So what I always ask any of my guests to do is if you were to share, there's a mini John out there, he's 30 years younger than you, he's tired as fuck of his job, he's working at a pizzeria or as a cook or as a delivery driver, and he wants to change the way he operates. What's something he should be doing today? He'll recognize the first incremental result tomorrow, and obviously a strategic long-term approach, he should be on his way. But what's the first action you would advise that person do?

So, you know, following Peter Drucker, and if you're not good at sales, therefore you're 92% likely to be in that— this group— then find, find a business partner, or find a trusted person, or find a venture person that can begin your business. That is is sales-focused, is great at it, and loves doing it. So that'd be one of the things. If you are a great salesperson, then find yourself someone that's a partner in the business that's a great sweeper. Because great salespeople come in with ideas, create a trail of destruction in the jungle with their machete going off, and there's all this stuff behind them that's just a mess. And if you allow the adventurer to get on that path, he'll be, you know, Brazil into Peru now, and there's nothing behind him, and, and there's no one putting all the sweepings into a, into a format that's, that's monetizable. And so you might be taking the money in at the front end, but you're not providing the service at the back end, and that will just end up with a big block of customers that get peeved off with you because you didn't say and supply what you said you were going to do. And so you need these people, the dot i cross t people behind you to sweep around and provide great customer service at the back end.

If you are listening and you don't know what John is talking about, you need to really repeat this episode 3, 4, 5 times because that is the foundation of business. You don't exist without your customer. The business doesn't grow without your customer. Sales is the lifeblood of your business. You could talk about people and culture all you want, but unless sales are happening, money is coming in to pay the people to do the jobs they need to do. That shit is not happening.

So, John, the other thing, the other thing, Shane, too, is that people don't plan the business. So again, but going back, starting with the end in mind, you know, they just have come up with this idea that they think will work, but they haven't done any surveys, they haven't done any market research, they haven't done any foundation stuff to actually see, as Duncan Bannatyne would say, that you're solving a problem that exists, uh, and not creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. And, you know, and that is, you know, I've seen some weird and wonderful, uh, ideas come forward, and I say to those people, have you market researched this in any way? And to do market research, you don't have to spend a lot of money. You just have to find 100 people that you know, and that's not your mum and dad and your wife or husband or whatever. 100 people that you know reach out and say, I've got this new idea on how to arrange flowers so they're upside down in a bowl. What are your thoughts? And have 3 little questions on it. And then survey the result of that. And if, you know, 30-odd percent of the people come back and say this is a brilliant idea, then you've got probably a business. And if 30% don't come back and say this is a brilliant idea, um, then you probably need to think about something else to do.

So this was not planned, that question wasn't, uh, planned either. And what I think would be very, very interesting for our audiences to see right now would be something exactly that John's mentioned. And you can see here we call it super intelligence, and the reason we've done that is because just like John said, you need 100 participants to understand what the hell is going on. If you want to test it, we also do that. But then we also speak to 10 CEOs who will give you firsthand opinions on the value of your product. Right. And that's one of the highlight features that we've released this year because people want to cold call, they want to cold email. But they have not tested their market.

And that was— and by the way, we— I didn't know about that prior to your question.

Exactly. So again, this is very, very interesting that you've highlighted market research being so important, because that's a lot of the downfall and the mistake a lot of companies make. They say, we want to go to this market or enter this market for this reason, because we are the best, because we have this no-code technology. But they don't know that nobody gives a flying monkey that your no-code technology is the same as the 99 other people that are messaging them with the exact same message, no research, and you're just pissing them off.

So, and some really good people about raising finance today, you know, pre-seed finance, Series A, whatnot. And I've seen many, many projects with which are around the fintech space because that's sexy at the moment. Someone will come up with this great idea on how to build a new mousetrap that's automated through using ChatGPT or something. And, you know, they go off to these angel investors with a good slick slide deck, raise, you know, 1, 2, 3 million quid, and then in 12 months' time run out of runway and just say to, sorry folks, didn't work, and walk away. And I'm thinking, man, if they just put a little bit of pre-planning into this whole thing, it'd give them half a chance of taking off.

You're, you're 100% right. And if people do want to get better pre-planning or learn how to get involved in the BXB network, they may want to speak one-on-one with you. What's the best, best place to find you? There'll be links on this, but what's the best place that you would recommend they find you?

If you own a business and you, and you want to proper consultation, just look me up on LinkedIn. Um, I've got there— there's— if you just put John Attridge into Google, you'll see the interviews that I do, uh, with podcasts and webinars and whatnot. There'll be a link to my book. Did I tell you I've written a book?

Yes, I don't think so, actually. Might want to say again.

So, uh, again, that's Business Blunders and Bloody Great Ideas, and it's the story of why 50% of people in business survive despite their best efforts not to. And why the rest fail. And, and I share in that book a lot of case studies, testimonials, insights, uh, share some stuff with people that I met. You know, I ran the Quantum Leap Business Show during COVID which was the world's first 24-hour non-stop online business event, which had thousands of people on it. And I had 60 people out of my black book. So one of the advantages of becoming part of the BBX community is that all of a sudden you're part of a group of like-minded business owners that are sharing the same problems. And now I had people there like Professor Alan Pease, who wrote, sold 30 million books on body language. I had Devin Harris, who was the brakeman on the Jamaican bobsled team that came fourth from Cool Runnings. You know, I had Major General James Short, who took the British forces into Bosnia. So, you know, people from all walks of life that, you know, um, Penny Power, who started eCademy and was the pre-runner to LinkedIn. And if the cards had just fallen in the right way, I'd be saying this is Penny Power, the founder of LinkedIn. So all these really interesting people that I've met through the community, and that's the unsung hero of the community, is yes, we do transactions Happy days. But we also— the connections and the people you meet along the way are just so vital because they share their information, and good people share good information. You can test, you can track their record, um, because there's a lot of noise going on out there in the internet right now, Shane. And you know, there's plenty of coaches and whatnot, and I look in their background and they've done $30 grand of turnover last year, and I'm thinking, hang on, you're going to teach me how to grow my business into an 8-figure business. And remind me how you're going to do that, you know, with any degree of experience. And then that's the last thing that, that I want to talk about today, which is where the other thing I'm getting involved in is more and more in the education sector. So I'm getting involved in a thing called Let's Localize, which is trying to make, uh, graduate students more fit for purpose when they leave school and enter the business community. The chairman of that is a guy who I know well, and I've been around promoting his book. Somebody might know on the show, Joe Foster. He's just a little guy from Bolton who founded and sold Reebok for just a slight little $4 billion. So not anybody that you'd want to know. So I know Joe well, good guy, and he's the chairman of this group. And we're just trying to get some business people to give back to the students that are coming through to discard some of the stuff that well-meaning tutors and professors and teachers, you know, they're doing the old by-the-book bits and pieces, but it just doesn't prepare the modern student for the business world. So that's what— that's going to be my biggest passion going forward is how can I share some of that information and in a formalized way to help some of these people begin life with a little bit of a better chance than what they have now.

Well, look, that's the exact reason why I do this. I don't claim to be anybody beyond what I am. I was a startup founder, CEO. I found a big, big passion in the ability to interview and converse with— sat with the ex-CEO of Virgin Media. He ran a team of 8,000 salespeople. I don't know if you know him, Peter Wilcox.

You know him?

Yep. Was at dinner. I was at dinner with him last night. Me and him are shooting a conversation conversation back and forth.

And he just— so I give him a plug, he's, uh, involved with the Hungarian Business Association, the HBA.

That's what I was at last night.

Great group. Uh, Paul Smolinski, who is, is a friend of mine, and, and I was on the phone with Paul, we're speaking before this. There you go. So, uh, great organizer.

That's exactly it. And again, ability to interview, the fun behind it, the ability to hold a conversation with important people is where I couldn't have asked for anything better. So, John, look, I sincerely, sincerely appreciate your time. Uh, anybody who wants to learn more about the BBX community, I will be including every single link that John has promoted and shared on this episode. It'll be available in the YouTube descriptions. And then all throughout this month, John will be on 8 different social media platforms. With snippets from this video and everybody who actually comes here, like, subscribe and share this so you can see more of great guests. And I'm sure John will be on in 2024 to share some of the progress that he's gone through. So any lasting notes, John?

It's been my pleasure to be with you today, and we should catch up again just to compare notes in the new year.

See you later, John. Stay on for a bit. I'm just going to stop it.