00:00:12:02 - 00:00:44:20 Speaker 1 Hi, Welcome back to the M&A Sing the weekly podcast for search funders, builders and investors in the space in Europe, UK and beyond. We are very lucky today to be going in a slightly different direction, being joined by a renowned expert in scaling businesses for success and growing a community of entrepreneurs on their path to become millionaires and to ultimately either growth or acquisition or exit their businesses.

00:00:44:22 - 00:00:53:11 Speaker 1 So we've got with us today Paul Evans, who is the CEO of Scale Up Coaching and Team Dynamics Global Hopeful. Good to see you.

00:00:53:14 - 00:00:55:27 Speaker 2 Thanks, Gareth. Thanks for being on the show, man. Great to be here.

00:00:55:30 - 00:01:31:14 Speaker 1 That's my absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us. You've got an insight packed episode, I'm sure. Just before we dive into your insights, probably just a good time to do a round up on a couple of new entrepreneurs entering the acquisition space. We have the much loved Miguel Marquez, Paolo. London Based searching for a business in the Iberian Peninsula, he has just now launched MMP capital, which has gone live in recent weeks and we wish him absolute well.

00:01:31:14 - 00:02:15:17 Speaker 1 He will be an inspiring leader when he finds the right company to acquire in Portugal or Spain, moving further up the continent to the Nordics, to the Benelux region. We have Sebastian de Book, who was formerly investment director at CVC Capital. Now this is another example of somebody moving from big institutional venture or PE into the micro space or the search fund space, he has moved on from his rather illustrious career CVC Capital Partners to himself find, acquire and operate an engineering business, so we wish him well.

00:02:15:20 - 00:02:42:20 Speaker 1 It's great validation that more and more professionals from the lofty heights of this private markets space are coming to search. So, Sebastian, good luck, Right? Paul Let's get into what you do at scale up coaching as one business and maybe touch on also team Dynamics Global in another bit. Team Purple seems to be everywhere in my feed at the moment.

00:02:42:20 - 00:02:59:09 Speaker 1 You are everywhere with everywhere. Everywhere I look, I don't know if it's linked in giving me more Paul on a daily basis or whether you're just hijacking the algorithm. So tell me, tell the listeners a little bit about about what you do that.

00:02:59:12 - 00:03:19:27 Speaker 2 So I think for context, I am an entrepreneur first and foremost, right? So I've been starting building businesses since I was in my early twenties. Okay, So raise count of raise capital. I've done it on credit card debt. I've done five successful exits personally and had two pretty spectacular fails on the journey as well in terms of painful.

00:03:19:28 - 00:03:36:28 Speaker 2 And then 21 years ago ended up really falling across and finding the profession that is now widely recalled sort of business coaching. And that was back before we had Dragons Den, before we had any of the kind of Shark Tank, any any kind of programs that really kind of championed entrepreneurship. And so we.

00:03:36:28 - 00:03:38:15 Speaker 1 Did have blood sugars.

00:03:38:18 - 00:03:57:14 Speaker 2 Well, you sort of. Yes, I mean, I met Brad via video when I was walking around in NBC exhibitions, and then he was on stage talking about something. What actually struck me was that all of the books that were on this stand were all the books that I had in my personal life, as you can see, as a fraction behind me now.

00:03:57:17 - 00:04:17:31 Speaker 2 So they were all things like Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar. I grew up following a lot of these people, and I was like, Well, this is interesting. What is a business where you can kind of teach people personal development, but also business, which was, you know, something I was fascinated in ever since I don't remember. I might date me a little bit, but Sir John Harvey Jones with troubleshooter back in the day.

00:04:17:32 - 00:04:19:15 Speaker 2 Right.

00:04:19:18 - 00:04:21:01 Speaker 1 Well, it takes us both.

00:04:21:04 - 00:04:37:01 Speaker 2 But still a great shot. Right. And I remember I remember seeing that show and thinking, I don't know what he does for a living, but the idea of going in and sorting out businesses and fixing them sounds like a really great kind of profession and at that point didn't know what it was and then got introduced this world of kind of coaching.

00:04:37:01 - 00:04:57:13 Speaker 2 And yeah, my first five years in, in the coaching world and profession were as one of the top performing franchises within action coach. I ended up winning three European awards and two global awards at the time and set numerous very sort of records and things like that for the best results with clients and all that good stuff.

00:04:57:16 - 00:05:00:22 Speaker 1 Because that was a very competitive space, I should imagine, with.

00:05:00:25 - 00:05:26:00 Speaker 2 The thousand business coaches that the 0101 business coach of the year, there were a thousand business coaches in the franchise globally. And I and based on data and metrics of where we'd put in based on client results that year, our clients had more growth, more profitability and better valuations than any other coach in the world in terms of metrics that they submitted.

00:05:26:00 - 00:05:43:05 Speaker 2 So yeah, that was probably one of my proudest moments in terms of my career was picking that award up in Australia and the Australians were not happy with the Brits going over there winning that one. They didn't like that at all. And it's the first time out outside they would had been won by somebody outside the US and Australia.

00:05:43:05 - 00:06:05:23 Speaker 2 So it was a it was a pretty big deal at the time and that that kind of five year journey, you know, massive amounts of gratitude and thanks for being in that five year experience. And then kind of I saw the world a bit differently to the way they saw it. I saw the rise of really the internet and digital and the reduction in these ideas that intellectual property could be controlled by borders and lines on a map.

00:06:05:23 - 00:06:33:31 Speaker 2 I didn't really agree with that. I also had a a kind of a passion to want to write books and create content. And that was back before the kind of content economy. So yeah, for me that that became the part where we just parted ways amicably and I went off on my own. So sort of journey to create my own in search of property based on, you know, the things that I'd learned and studied myself over my career and, and really start to see how to craft philosophy in a framework by which is now, you know, morphed over the years into what we call the grown up business journey.

00:06:34:00 - 00:06:54:00 Speaker 2 So, you know, that that really was my it was a great foundation. I'll be eternally grateful for it. But I also kind of somebody who's really been driven by the idea of investing in yourself and constantly learning and developing yourself and, you know, over the years I've been incredibly lucky to study with people, you know, really interesting mix.

00:06:54:01 - 00:07:13:17 Speaker 2 So if you think of study with people like Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, then in his mastermind, people like Brendan Bouchard, I've also spent time with people Deepak Chopra, Brian Tracy, you know, some of some of the kind of some of the O'Jays. Yeah, some of the kind of the greats. There are a few that I missed hanging out with which I wish I had got the chance to do a Tony Robbins.

00:07:13:17 - 00:07:24:13 Speaker 2 Obviously, I've done all his training as well. So kind of I think people. Roger Hamilton So there were a lot of people who have influenced my kind of perspective on the world, and therefore.

00:07:24:13 - 00:07:48:31 Speaker 1 We would have taken that in in any way. Like, I mean, there's lots of different kind of new nuances and niches to business coaching where you've specifically seem to have built a community of coaches that are on this sort of up into the right journey that this sort of scale ups moment. Why specifically did you feel that that was the the stage of business to scale, to exit type journey that you wanted to be involved in?

00:07:49:00 - 00:08:07:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I mean, the interesting thing is it didn't start that way. I mean, I spent 11 years coaching businesses that were sort of million and that were early stage start ups and things like that. And, you know, the early part of my career was very much how do I help those accelerate their sales and their growth and their marketing, their sales and marketing and customer acquisitions.

00:08:07:04 - 00:08:36:08 Speaker 2 And I think it was only probably in the last ten years that I've really started to shift the focus to going actually, there's lots of people doing that, and that's great. But actually, you know, I'm fortunate. I've had exits in my own life and therefore I was like, Look, actually really where we going to take this now is to show people how to turn this asset into some kind of capital event, because for most entrepreneurs, they spend more time building the single, the single biggest asset they will spend most of their life building is their business.

00:08:36:11 - 00:08:52:29 Speaker 2 And yet when they come to try and exit it, most of them haven't set up for exit. Most of them haven't built it correctly or they haven't put the right things in place and therefore, you know, have you having put 20 years of 20 years of blood, sweat and effort into it only to find out it's not worth anything was a problem.

00:08:52:29 - 00:08:55:10 Speaker 2 I felt I wanted to help people solve.

00:08:55:12 - 00:09:20:32 Speaker 1 Great. So in helping to solve it, you must have seen the full rich tapestry of the entrepreneurial kind of wiring. And, you know, you've got a lot of people that have added multi-millions to their, you know, revenue and bottom line. But you have you developed almost like a formula or at least a radar for what the the critical stages the business must navigate in order to kind of reach that exit velocity?

00:09:21:01 - 00:09:38:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, one of the things I think I'm quite blessed with is I'm you know, I'm dyslexic, and one of those gifts is that I can see patterns. I'm very good at spotting patterns and repeating patterns. And one of the things that I haven't done despite everybody telling me that I should, was that I didn't decide to go into one particular vertical niche, right?

00:09:38:32 - 00:10:04:02 Speaker 2 So I didn't go into just dentistry or just, you know, vet practice. I decided to actually what I love is all the different types of businesses that I get to work with, from manufacturing to retail to air conditioning to transport. Like, I'm fascinated by a question that is like what makes one business work really, really well. We're the same one in the same industry, another one in the same industry struggling.

00:10:04:02 - 00:10:25:18 Speaker 2 And why is that? What's the difference? That makes a difference, right? It was a question that driven me for years. And for me what I started to realize very sort of over the last ten years especially, is that there is a pattern at different levels where people get stuck and they're actually you can break it down and we call at the scale up journey today, we call it this get up journey.

00:10:25:26 - 00:10:44:05 Speaker 2 We use the sort of the visual of mountains. You'll see me use mountains a lot because I think if you going to summit something, then there's this great quote that says, you know, the air in the space at the top of a mountain is thin cinema, a thin amount of oxygen and a small space to stand because you're not supposed to hang out there very long.

00:10:44:05 - 00:10:58:16 Speaker 2 You're supposed to summit it and then have a different perspective and then go climb the next summit. And that, for me, has always kind of resonate. It is like the job of an entrepreneur is to what's the next big thing we're going to chase or climb or, you know, how am I going to what was the next challenge I'm going to set myself?

00:10:58:19 - 00:11:15:17 Speaker 2 And you know, for us, I think if you think about the mountain climbing analogy, there are there are certain fundamentals. You need a base camp, there are certain foundational places. You need a base camp which you, if you don't have, are going to mean that you aren't going to get very far up the mountain, right. Similar to not having enough oxygen.

00:11:15:20 - 00:11:35:15 Speaker 2 And then there are guys you get as you get so far, for example, if you get to 500,000, you know, and then you want to go to a million, there are different things you need to focus on to make that work. And there are very different things you need to focus on to go from 1 to 5. And then when you start looking at going from 5 to 10, that's risky unless you start looking at things like acquisitions.

00:11:35:17 - 00:11:59:01 Speaker 2 So you know, the Chasm as a good, very good friend of mine, Daniel Parisi, calls it, jumping the chasm or jumping that particular chasm. That's risky because you'd normally investing in a lot of infrastructure and people and profits are getting sucked into those kind of investments and costs. And then if you don't scale the cells quick enough to 10 million, you tend not to be profitable enough.

00:11:59:03 - 00:12:17:21 Speaker 2 You get into trouble. So typically now we see a lot of clients who are getting to 5 million and then they need to make that decision about, do I want to go acquisition or am I happy with a £5 million business that's, you know, making me nice money and I'm really good and I'm going to go and build another one or I'm or I'm just going to sell this one and have that capital event.

00:12:17:23 - 00:12:36:22 Speaker 2 But I think for most entrepreneurs that day, the biggest mistake that I've seen and I fell into this 100% growth was the assumption that what got me here will get me to the next level. So if I get to a million, then if I just work twice as hard, I can obviously get to 2 million. Whereas actually that's completely not the case.

00:12:36:22 - 00:13:03:27 Speaker 2 And actually you need to do that completely opposite. Yeah, and that's what's confusing for people is the strategies that get you to 3 million are different to the strategies that get you to 25 and if you've never climbed that mountain and never done that journey, you don't know that. And therefore you tend to pull the same levers that you know, worked before rather than sitting down and saying, Hang on a second, it's the stuff I don't know that I don't know is the problem here.

00:13:03:27 - 00:13:21:13 Speaker 2 So no, maybe I need to talk to somebody who's actually been up the mountain because I would say it's a lot easier climb a mountain if someone's got a map and and the ship has been up and down ten times, then it's a much easier journey if you're the only one climbing without a team, without support, without a map, you the chances of you making it are incredibly slim.

00:13:21:16 - 00:13:43:30 Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I see it all the time. Also in the M&A space with the acquisition of Blue Chip piece is there's lot of people doing it. The blank sheet of paper. I'm on my own. I mean, my vacuum and really the exponential effect of collaborating with somebody else who has been on that journey is transformational. But again, you see people thinking, I'm the only one doing this.

00:13:43:30 - 00:13:50:00 Speaker 1 I'm the only one on this path. You know, this this must be hard for everybody. Well, it is for sure, but that's because.

00:13:50:03 - 00:14:20:10 Speaker 2 That's because we're so the big so. Hey, you get me on a rant if you're not careful, Right? So one of my big events, the big the biggest lie we get sold is that you should do it all yourself. And then you're self-made. It's an absolute lie and it traps most people. Right? And the minute you realize that your level of success will be determined by the people you surround yourself with, the team you can recruit to, to help build your vision, the critical, and then the mentors or what I would call your expert panel that you put around you to give you that advice.

00:14:20:13 - 00:14:37:01 Speaker 2 If you get you know, you get to 10 million, you need a very different level of tax advice than you need. If you're 500,000, you need totally different tax advice. You know, I was one of the ones on a call with a couple of entrepreneurs this morning, and they're incredible guys scaling a business really, really rapidly. And I went, Who's advising you on tax planning at the minute?

00:14:37:01 - 00:15:01:14 Speaker 2 And they went, Nobody. We've just got our accountant. I said, Yeah, but how long have you had your accountant? And they were like, Well, five years. And I said, Well, you're probably bigger than your accountant. You're probably making more money, your accountant now, at the point you're out in the journey. They're not experts in tax planning and looking at how you should be deploying that capital and I think it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs don't do is look at who is in the the network around you.

00:15:01:14 - 00:15:17:30 Speaker 2 I'm a massive believer in leveling up your network. If you want to play a bigger game, go play a game with people who have doing it or have done it because it will save you so much time and money. You you will kick yourself years later if you don't yet.

00:15:18:00 - 00:15:26:15 Speaker 1 Surround yourself with a company that effectively has walks the journey that you want to walk and it will idea or it will is in the time I.

00:15:26:18 - 00:15:42:18 Speaker 2 Was walking it now. I mean, we've just obviously we just finished recording this. We've just finished our Scale Up summit, which is a two day event. We run once a year in London. There were people in that room who were running £25 million businesses who are chatting with people who are running half a million pound, million pound businesses.

00:15:42:21 - 00:15:57:31 Speaker 2 They're not. They're just further on the journey, but they're able to help that person and go, listen, don't do this, because I did energy work. Here's three things I've done that have really worked and not that one conversation. I got a really interesting voice mail last week from a client, from somebody who was in the room who's a client of mine.

00:15:57:31 - 00:16:13:23 Speaker 2 He said, I just wanted to let you know I had one conversation with somebody in that room that is probably going to open up the Chinese market for us because we didn't know how to get into it and they've cracked it. And he said that one conversation alone could probably add millions to our business in the next 2 to 3 years.

00:16:13:26 - 00:16:26:24 Speaker 2 Just want to thank you for putting on the event because I would have met them without it. And that's the power of community and that's why it's why I love what you're doing is why I love I think it's so important to get around a community of people who are on the same journey that you on.

00:16:26:24 - 00:16:32:29 Speaker 1 So I guess my original question was, are there some fundamental ingredients that are the difference behind the difference? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like.

00:16:32:32 - 00:16:47:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, you know, let let's just be clear, right? If you're going to scale anything, you've got to have product market fit. I mean, that's kind of a given. But it's amazing. You know, you've got to have product market fit, then it's going to come down to your ability to hire great talent, put great people around you at different levels.

00:16:47:21 - 00:17:08:16 Speaker 2 Now you need different, different talent at different levels. By the way, there's going to be your ability to leverage. Tech is going to be your ability to build some kind of scalable selling system or sales team, which becomes something that isn't talked about a lot but actually becomes a critical thing. If you want to go higher than 10 million, you're not going to do it without sales team of some description.

00:17:08:18 - 00:17:24:05 Speaker 2 You are going to need to have that ability to build a sales team. You're going to have the need, the ability to raise money and have liquidity and funds to do the things you're going to need to do, because just growing at a cash flow is will become a problem at some point. You can't outgrow that issue.

00:17:24:08 - 00:17:46:21 Speaker 1 When you set a particular sort of cadence or speed, don't you, of execution based on the cash you can generate organically in your business. And if you want to jump that queue, if you want to accelerate that, then it's going to burn more fuel in the, you know, in the engine, isn't it? So that fuel is the capital to to drive you faster and you have to it has to come from somewhere.

00:17:46:24 - 00:18:05:00 Speaker 1 So the financing using your balance sheet or selling some equity at a strategic moment, those are the ways to leapfrog your normal growth rate, if you like. But again, it takes a certain type of entrepreneur to have the risk appetite for that or the willingness to dilute in order to achieve the greater enterprise value.

00:18:05:03 - 00:18:27:01 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think I think that's a really interesting point you raised, because I think there's a difference between the willingness to dilute and the willingness to borrow money. I think most entrepreneurs have a willingness to borrow. They're okay with risk of borrowing money. Somehow. They have a I think we've talked about this when we met over lunch, somebody, you know, a lot of them have a resistance to diluting and selling equity.

00:18:27:01 - 00:18:36:26 Speaker 2 The there is a there is an inner kind of resistance. Most most entrepreneurs feel around that, which I think is I think it's an interesting sort of psychological piece as to.

00:18:36:26 - 00:18:55:18 Speaker 1 Why I think once you've open the box and look behind the veil, you know you're changed in that mindset. I think once you've done it, once you see the benefit of it and often the reluctance, isn't it? I want 1% of the gains. Often the reluctance is 100% of the decision making ability. I don't want to have to answer to somebody else.

00:18:55:18 - 00:19:14:14 Speaker 1 I want this to be my train set and that's sensible. I get that totally understandable. But I you know, I meet a lot of great entrepreneurs that surrounded themselves with great investors and advisors, and actually that's been a real catalyst for their success rather than them feeling that they've had to hold themselves back by answering accounting to somebody.

00:19:14:16 - 00:19:17:18 Speaker 1 So yeah, it's that everybody has their right to speak.

00:19:17:18 - 00:19:38:33 Speaker 2 That's been a grown up, right? I mean, and that's why I started using this phrase growing up in a grown up business, because that's being a grown up. It's like sitting there and going, actually, my you know, one of the things I'm really passionate about mean there are many, but one in particular is getting people to change their job titles on LinkedIn because I, I am absolutely sure and everybody who's done it has had this experience of you're listening.

00:19:38:33 - 00:19:55:33 Speaker 2 Here's one thing you can do right now is go and change your job search on LinkedIn. If you have it as managing director, change it to CEO because when you realize you shift the identity from managing director is a terrible title because first of all assumes that you are managing everything and why would you want to do that?

00:19:56:02 - 00:20:12:23 Speaker 2 And secondly, you're CEO, which means you should be focused on creating why call it creating expansion opportunities, right? That's your job. Your job is to grow the business, not run the business. And when you put yourself in the identity of CEO, you then will look at things differently and you will go, okay, should a CEO really be doing this right now?

00:20:12:23 - 00:20:33:26 Speaker 2 Or should I be paying somebody it probably paying somebody. And when you're managing director, you go, I'll do it myself, you know, because I'm the managing director, I'll get my hands dirty. And I'm like, okay, there's a cost to that. But the minute you shift your identity, if you're going to build a unit, if you're going to do acquisitions and you're going to scale anything, you've got to think like an investor and a CEO, not like an operator.

00:20:33:29 - 00:20:59:16 Speaker 1 It's symbolic, but it is something that drives that mindset shift from I am in the trenches, I am the hub of this wheel to I am the steward of this asset, I am this the strategist that will delegate the execution that I think is the fundamental shift from operator to CEO. As you rightly say, very subtle, but actually hugely transformational.

00:20:59:16 - 00:21:19:11 Speaker 1 So I know a number of your sessions and clients focus on how to adopt for as a transformational catalyst for the next phase of their growth. Can you speak to any kind of great examples of that you've seen recently? Have you seen how people are deploying it in their sort of business development or operational efficiencies, for example? Yes.

00:21:19:14 - 00:21:40:15 Speaker 2 All the time at the moment. And I think there are I mean, there's so many stories of people who are doing I mean, there's obviously a lot of focus and energy and attention has on to using it in the creative space. So whether that's using it to create content, create copy, designed websites, all of those kind of things, you know, we've had all of those done with people using using platforms and technology like that.

00:21:40:18 - 00:22:00:03 Speaker 2 I think the more interesting stuff is, is really when you start to look at it through the lens of automation versus AI. And I think a lot of people still get this confused about, you know, I've gone to a sort of a, you know, five part framework S.E.A.L. In the AI's all about automation and AI and a lot of people still confused I think about the difference between the two give you a really good example.

00:22:00:03 - 00:22:16:02 Speaker 2 One of our clients who wanted to scale £7 million business, the biggest single sticking point was how the sales team was quoting and this was just a real mess. And the owner had a specific way of quoting that he could do, but he couldn't seem to transfer that into the way the sales team would end up quoting and doing the work.

00:22:16:02 - 00:22:40:23 Speaker 2 So that was a massive sticking point to scaling it. So we brought in one of my partners we built we took all of the best quotes that they've done in all the best tenders they've done over the last five years. We built an entire agent that that does now does all the quoting that builds, takes the quotes, takes progress, the client builds, it puts all together, puts together the first and second drafts for them to sign off and just kind of approve and polish.

00:22:40:23 - 00:22:58:07 Speaker 2 But you're taking something that used to take four people two weeks to put together now takes, you know, 3 hours and one person and that allows you to scale, allows you to do more tenders. It also allows the quality of the tender is that much better and the conversion rates up. And, you know, the revenue is jumping. It'll be over 10 million this year.

00:22:58:07 - 00:23:03:32 Speaker 1 So love that even if the conversion rate isn't up, at least you can actually get more quotes out the door.

00:23:04:00 - 00:23:27:15 Speaker 2 And I think some of this is about going what is where's the chokehold on the growth in the business? Where is the issue of it? And then how do we use the technology that's available right now? I mean, I'll tell you one story that's brilliant. So kind of mind and I won't tell you the product, but he's he's been he's able to source a product from China that he can sell and he was like, right, I need to I need to launch a website.

00:23:27:18 - 00:23:50:17 Speaker 2 Well, it took him an hour and a half to build the entire website, which is integrated with Shopify, to sell this products online. And that was all using AI. Then he used a new piece of AI to ask the AI to code and build a app that he could give away for free on the website to people in the trade so that they could use the app to measure the right amount of this product.

00:23:50:17 - 00:24:07:15 Speaker 2 So they need and then order it right there. On the fact that he built that app app on the on his phone, on using AI on the way home on the train. He said, it's ridiculous bullshit me an hour and a half to build it. By the time he got home, he launched it and by the next morning he had people using the app that he had built on the train on the way home.

00:24:07:18 - 00:24:25:31 Speaker 2 And that I think one of the things that's really happening is the speed. You can deploy things like that now without. You don't need to know. He knows nothing about coding but using a specific AI to. He just asked the A02 to write the code for it and uploaded all of his brand guidelines and what he was trying to achieve with that, what the goals were of it.

00:24:25:31 - 00:24:41:17 Speaker 2 And it created the first version for him to feedback on and refine. And I think it's the speed you're able to to execute that. Now if you understand this stuff is like if you're not using this, you're going to lose out to people who are you just I mean.

00:24:41:20 - 00:25:06:23 Speaker 1 You mentioned John Harvey Jones earlier and the troubleshooter era, and obviously that was pre the sort of transformative power of Web 2.0. And now here we are in the era where the value is going to accrue to the early adopters and those that have been these tools to their will and used them as value creators. And I do think fast forward on that and it's going to become table stakes in five years time.

00:25:06:23 - 00:25:20:31 Speaker 1 And like, you know, if you haven't adopted it, you probably won't have a business because the world around us is going to shift at quite a exponential speed by these things becoming a defacto in a business. It can.

00:25:20:33 - 00:25:40:32 Speaker 2 Just yet. Can I share two of the quick things because these are an important story or this, right? So give you an example of how fast this stuff's moving. So the projection of AI at the moment is in the next 2 to 3 years it's going to be 256 times better than it is today. All right. And in five years it will be a million times better because a compounding rinse will be a million times better five years from now than what it is.

00:25:40:32 - 00:26:01:04 Speaker 2 You won't have five years to wait because you will be dead. You'll be out of business in the next two or three years. You've already got an AI driven search being the next big trend. So if you're an SEO company, it's not a problem now. But Google search is search. Searching on Google is already dropping off a cliff as people are going to AI and asking who's the best business coach in the UK or how do I do acquisitions?

00:26:01:04 - 00:26:19:00 Speaker 2 Right? So you're seeing a massive diversion of traffic away from traditional sources, which is why content's such an important thing to get into. But I'll give you one of my favorite stories recently is I've got a client with a business that exports to something ridiculous like 56 countries globally, and he did a product video update. So he did this.

00:26:19:00 - 00:26:47:08 Speaker 2 He shot a video talking about all the new products that were coming out and then put it into a piece of API, which translated it into the top 56 languages of all of his partners. So then he sent the video to all of the partners in their own language, right? Which is like unbelievably cool. So the people in Brazil, you know, and they loved it and they were so blown away by it and you're talking about a piece of A.I. that is going to cost you $100 a month that could take that and turn it into that.

00:26:47:08 - 00:27:03:27 Speaker 2 And I mean, if you look at Google, Google has just released real time translation in video conferencing, like in the last week. They've just come out with that and you and you look at that and you go, that's really interesting because I where are we going to be in two or three years time? All schools even going to bother teaching any body language anymore?

00:27:03:29 - 00:27:18:22 Speaker 2 Like what's the point is like because, well, you know, it's going to challenge so many of the assumptions about how we think the world works. When you're going to get on a conference call with people from six different countries and everyone's going to be able to hear the conference call in their own language.

00:27:18:25 - 00:27:24:33 Speaker 1 Star Trek told me when I was a kid that that's what I should have expected by now, right? I mean, I'm surprised we haven't got the universal translator.

00:27:25:06 - 00:27:37:11 Speaker 2 It's a comment that was definitely coming. I mean, it's definitely I mean, if they can roll that out on on Google meets, then it's coming, right? I mean, it's just really interesting about what that disruption, in fact, is going to do.

00:27:37:13 - 00:28:01:00 Speaker 1 Well, it disrupts the globalization of the workforce, I think is is going to be a super powered by those kind of trends because already we've seen the benefit of fractional talent overseas, like using fantastically skilled Indian workforce, for example, the Filipino workforce at a fraction of the cost of employing and in your locality. But what if actually language is no longer a barrier?

00:28:01:00 - 00:28:22:01 Speaker 1 You know what? If you know the human individual ability isn't a barrier because it's all going to be augmented by A.I.. Nobody's going to be expected to work at twice the speed because, you know, they've got digital tooling. I mean, what an amazing kind of empowering moment, but also what a cultural challenge it's going to be for employers, you know, employing.

00:28:22:07 - 00:28:37:15 Speaker 1 I think you've always advocated for hire good people early and surround yourself with good talent. Well, 100%. You know, how is that going to still be manageable, I guess, from a cultural perspective in the new paradigm.

00:28:37:18 - 00:28:54:14 Speaker 2 So two things are two things. I think they're already talking about the fact that within the next 2 to 3 years, we're going to be paying people for human experiences, right? So like, you know, you're going to pay someone to go for a walk with you and talk with you because you will crave human connection as it starts to dissipate the virus.

00:28:54:17 - 00:29:19:23 Speaker 2 Like we're doubling down on things like retreats and trips and, you know, places where we can create human connection. I think that's a really important thing. So if you're looking at acquiring businesses, you've got to ask yourself two questions. Number one is the business I'm acquiring using A.I. or is that a massive leverage uplift? If I can go in and start optimizing and using A.I. and tech tools to really kind of like scale it from an efficiency point of view, but also from a customer service down point of view?

00:29:19:23 - 00:29:44:19 Speaker 2 That's one second thing. If you're buying a business, you've got to look at it through the lens of how are we going to build in human interaction moments and human connection moments because businesses that don't have that are going to struggle because actually people are going to start craving that, they're going to go they're going to want to have an experience where they get to interact with other human beings and as part of your brand, and it becomes a really powerful part of the of the whole brand architecture and ecosystem.

00:29:44:21 - 00:30:08:10 Speaker 2 So I mean, I think I think those things happening right now in front of us are fascinating. You know, I mean, give you a really good example at the moment. There is now you can build a website in now and then you can run it through a piece of video that will tell you, based on large language models, how how likely that page is to convert where people are likely to go on the page, where they're likely to click.

00:30:08:10 - 00:30:28:06 Speaker 2 It will give you all of that before you put the page live. And then, you know, suddenly you're looking at it going, okay, well, actually that's not a good design. I need to read this. You know, I need to do it differently. And suddenly the competitive edge is everyone who isn't doing that or everyone who's using the old school model of giving it to a web designer and hoping they know what they're doing.

00:30:28:08 - 00:30:54:22 Speaker 2 You're going to out market out, compete them because they're not they're not even playing the same game that you're playing. So I really think it's an interesting question to go, if I'm acquiring a business, number one, is it likely to be disrupted by air? And if so, like how? Before I buy number two, you know, is there a way to really create more human relationship and connection in this in this environment that I'm looking at acquiring?

00:30:54:25 - 00:31:08:20 Speaker 2 Because actually talent's going to want to work for places to get rid of all the boring, monotonous work and allow people to be more creative, which is what this should be anyway, right? We should be tapping into that human creativity and potential.

00:31:08:22 - 00:31:29:16 Speaker 1 Yes, we should. And we should be creating more experiential types of you, you know, services and workplaces, etc.. I think that's what people in that kind of craving, the human interaction, they're going to be craving how they spend that, that human interaction, both, you know, the authenticity of the relationships that they build with their customers or with their colleagues or with the other stakeholders.

00:31:29:16 - 00:31:42:30 Speaker 1 And that's something I think the businesses as they adopt more tech, are going to have to spend more time avoiding the commodification of work and making it an experience again, which.

00:31:42:32 - 00:31:50:02 Speaker 2 I mean, Bill Gates came out the other day and said that basically we are 3 to 5 years away from a three day week for everybody because.

00:31:50:06 - 00:31:52:03 Speaker 1 So did Adam Smith, 200 years ago.

00:31:52:05 - 00:32:12:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. So like my point being, we don't I mean, I think we're at a point in history where nobody really knows where this goes or how it ends at this point. And so it's 2025 is projected to be the last year that really kind of humans operate using tech in a way that we use it rather than it's kind of massively integrated into our lives in the way that we're heading.

00:32:12:09 - 00:32:28:06 Speaker 2 And I think I think the interesting thing now is that you've got to be prepared to just be flexible in how you change your business model. Right? And I think the single biggest people of I was the single biggest you should learn as an entrepreneur. And I just got to actually number one, resilience. You have to be resilient.

00:32:28:14 - 00:32:48:33 Speaker 2 Number two, you've got to be flexible and adaptable. You've got to be able to change what you're doing because this you know, the market is going to change what it wants. The way you deliver, it's going to change. And I always like when my favorite things is Jeff Bezos had a rule of the questions he would ask, which is Stop asking what how the market is going to change and ask what's always going to be consistent.

00:32:49:01 - 00:33:12:07 Speaker 2 And his strategy was always based with Amazon on people are going to want three things. They're going to want massive selection, they're going to want cheap prices and they want fast delivery. And as long as he focused on those three things, he was always going to be okay. And I think I think if you're going to buy business, you've got to go back to what are the three things that are not going to change because how you deliver that service or how you deliver that experience is going to change.

00:33:12:10 - 00:33:16:14 Speaker 2 The question is what is going to stay the same? Because that the things that you really want to focus on.

00:33:16:17 - 00:33:36:11 Speaker 1 The purpose and the need in the market for the business there has to be enduring. But the ability to engineer, create value through change has to be that that is the opportunity, that that's actually where the arbitrage comes from. If you're acquiring a company, you don't want it to stand still and be, you know, preserved in aspic. The condition that you acquired, you want to be able to drive growth.

00:33:36:14 - 00:33:53:31 Speaker 1 And so that's quite an exciting time that we now have this kind of big, you know, new paradigm that we can drive the adoption of in any companies that we do acquire, providing of course the underlying strength of the business and the market is preserved. So yeah, what a what a time to be alive. And to that end, how do you feel like?

00:33:53:33 - 00:34:06:08 Speaker 1 What are you most excited about in regard to the next 1218 months at scale up coaching team dynamics Global or even for the companies that you work with your clients? What are you most excited about?

00:34:06:11 - 00:34:25:24 Speaker 2 I'm I mean, I'm excited about a lot of things, really. I think I'm excited about the challenge of of helping helping entrepreneurs to navigate this world, because I think it's it's something that I'm particularly good at, and I think most people are struggling to have clarity. I think I think we're in a space where there's an overwhelming amount of information and a lack of clarity.

00:34:25:27 - 00:34:40:20 Speaker 2 And I think one of things I'm very good at is distilling down exactly what you need to do. What is the top three, two or three things? So like for me, I'm super excited about some of the events we've got planned. We're going to Dubai next year for the first time. We're going to do a three day MBA in Dubai, which I'm really excited about doing.

00:34:40:23 - 00:34:59:04 Speaker 2 I'm excited about, you know, some of the podcast guests that we've got, you know, on the grown Up business podcast coming on that I'm excited about that. I think for me, I'm just excited about I've always been excited about learning. And for me it's like, like, you know, what can I learn now and how can I, how can I continue to add value back to my community?

00:34:59:04 - 00:35:15:11 Speaker 2 And what does that learning journey look like? So for me, I'm excited about, you know, I haven't written a book for ten years and I feel a really good time for me to write a book based on a lot of the things I've learned, you know, helping clients actually, for what, over 140 odd million like it. I feel like it's time to share that.

00:35:15:14 - 00:35:21:13 Speaker 1 No, no. To shaking you by the lapels and saying, write your book. Write your book, Paul, because.

00:35:21:15 - 00:35:39:24 Speaker 2 I've done it. I mean, I've written three or four books before, but I always feel like I've got to have a story to tell if I'm going to write the book. And and now I feel like, yeah, I've got I've got something that I've got a perspective on a share and a story I kind of want to tell and I think I've got enough client stories to inspire people as well, which is important for me.

00:35:39:27 - 00:35:58:26 Speaker 2 But for me, I'm just I'm excited to see how far, how many people we can help to to achieve, honestly, too, how many awards can we give out? So every year we have an awards dinner, a Christmas we give out awards for people who've hit seven figures. We give out awards for people who've, you know, hit 5 million or 10 million or 25 million.

00:35:58:29 - 00:36:15:16 Speaker 2 We've just upgraded our awards structure this year to 50 million because we've got people who are heading for for that level of growth. wow. I'm so you know, I'm so I'm excited for for that. I think we're very close to a couple of clients of ours who are heading for a 50 million exit. So I'm excited about that.

00:36:15:16 - 00:36:16:00 Speaker 2 And going on.

00:36:16:00 - 00:36:22:18 Speaker 1 In their world, Are they are they acquiring their way to that size or are they building their way to actually being acquired?

00:36:22:21 - 00:36:30:11 Speaker 2 So there are those ones who are on the road with acquisitions to that and.

00:36:30:14 - 00:36:37:16 Speaker 1 We reach that sort of size. Once you get the sort of 50 million in revenue, you know, you're flirting with being a public company at this point.

00:36:37:19 - 00:36:57:29 Speaker 2 You are in the UK for sure. Yeah. So I think this I think is an interesting kind of piece. I think we will have somebody who probably does that in the next couple of years and I can see that being something that would be kind of quite an exciting thing because it will raise everyone's game. The first person to dig that's going to have every you and everyone going, Wow, okay, didn't didn't see that was possible.

00:36:57:29 - 00:36:59:17 Speaker 2 If they can do it, we can do it.

00:36:59:20 - 00:37:01:03 Speaker 1 Mean I knew it would an IPO.

00:37:01:03 - 00:37:21:30 Speaker 2 Yeah yeah. Well yeah I mean we had this this was kind of a really big head shift. We had a gentleman by the name of Simon Leslie come and speak at my CIO boardroom, and he basically laid out how he's scaling a business year from 30 million to 100 million. And it went through the seven or eight things that he's doing this year to do that.

00:37:21:32 - 00:37:39:30 Speaker 2 And what was just really interesting from that conversation was everybody just sat back and went, yeah, this is he's he's absolutely serious about, yeah, I'm a £30 million business, but I'm going to be £100 million business globally in the next four months. And because he was really clear on exactly how everyone just sat back. Well, why aren't I thinking like that one?

00:37:39:30 - 00:37:58:17 Speaker 2 I why am I not even asking the question of why is there a market demand globally? What if I could do that? Is there a global play? So I'm kind of excited more about seeing how we raise the raise the bar on everybody and keep everybody, you know, growing and and raising that level of expectation and belief that it's possible.

00:37:58:17 - 00:38:15:30 Speaker 2 So those kind of things excite me. And yeah, I'm definitely excited by the opportunity to be involved with a fairly significant roll out of a business that I'm invested in, in and around biohacking and the health and wellness space. So that's something I'm super excited about. Yeah.

00:38:16:04 - 00:38:41:23 Speaker 1 Okay. Well, we'll follow the progress there. You have to come back and tell us all about that. That's a whole other podcast episode that is biohacking. For someone that seems to manage to now chemically have a metabolic age well below his own actual age. I'm thoroughly jealous because I'm the inverse of that. So yes, if you're bottling that and selling that as a as a solution, I would definitely be in line for that Great Hall Look, it's been an inspiring chat.

00:38:41:26 - 00:39:01:13 Speaker 1 I really appreciate you sharing, you know, so much about this group coaching and a lot of about the sort of transformational effects that you're having on the lives and the businesses of your clients. If a listener to managing wants to explore further how to work with Paul Evans, what can they go through?

00:39:01:16 - 00:39:18:14 Speaker 2 The great news is that my my surname is very unusual. So it's a you know, if you search for me, I'm fairly easy to find, but I would go to go to two places. Number one, obviously LinkedIn. I'm active on LinkedIn. I'm a top voice on LinkedIn. So go connect with me on LinkedIn. Love connecting with entrepreneurs on the acquisition journey.

00:39:18:17 - 00:39:36:16 Speaker 2 Absolutely. Or go to Paul Evans dot com is another one which is really easy to go for or search for the grown up business podcast where we kind of unpack a lot of the things I've talked about today with clients who have built multi-million pound businesses and, you know, scaled and sold companies. So yeah, check out that podcast as well if you've enjoyed this conversation too.

00:39:36:19 - 00:39:51:32 Speaker 1 We'll put the links to your socials and businesses and retreats in the show notes. Thank you for now, Paul, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Tune in next week. We've got more interviews lined up and keep on crunching Until then. Bye for now.

00:39:52:00 - 00:39:52:16 Speaker 2 But for now.