Sarah Poynton (00:01.486)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Money Mechanics podcast. I'm Sarah Pointen and today we are joined by the very cool Mark Potter. We've been trying to get this episode done for ages, but technology wasn't kind to us, but here we are today, we've made it. So Mark, do you wanna just introduce who you are, what you do, and then we can get into this, because it's gonna be a great conversation.

Mark Potter (00:18.615)
Yeah, happily. Obviously you've said my name, Mark Potter. My company's Ernest Hardy. I can give you the story about where that name come from later on, but it will take too long in the intro. Various property companies. Smallest stuff is light renovations. Biggest stuff is hundreds of unit developments, everything in between. And then now we've also got a care company, off-stead registered care company, but I'm sure you'll dig into that as we get going.

Sarah Poynton (00:47.906)
Yeah, I'm sure. So let's go like right back. What's your very earliest memories of money as a youngling?

Mark Potter (00:57.667)
Right, I suppose, right back to when I was a child and listening to stories from my parents who did not come from money and slogged through, did mobile discos in the 80s for gay people. And gay people these days are a lot more accepted than they were in the 80s. So no one would do these discos for these, like, know,

Sarah Poynton (01:21.238)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (01:26.081)
gay people. So my parents did it, a bit of a niche all around the Midlands, they're quite well known for it. They saved up a lot of money and started their own business, like refitting nightclubs and doing bits and pieces like that. that's my first memory of sort of grafting money. My second memory of anything big happening was when they got a contract for

Sarah Poynton (01:46.766)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (01:54.659)
a big brewery company to look after all of their pubs and do all of their refurbishments. And when I was about sort of maybe six or seven, my mom was talking to me about things like these contracts were three million pound a year and things like that. And to put some context over that, when I was six or seven, it was a while ago, that would have been early nineties, mid nineties. So they'd come out of a...

the bad crash, the worst one in 2008, nearly lost the house and all that stuff. So that was my first childhood. Memories of money linked to me but not in my control.

Sarah Poynton (02:28.11)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (02:32.494)
Do you think you grew up with quite a good relationship with money or do you think your surroundings and your influence made you worry about money or like what was your relationship with money growing up?

Mark Potter (02:45.379)
Yeah, I think unusually, I had a bit of a weird mix because my parents are both from council estates and used to speak about how their parents didn't have much and how they've grafted and we were lucky to have what we had. And by no means was overprivileged. There was no private school or anything like that for me. We just owned our house and not rented it from the council. That's what, you know, that's the level we're talking about.

Sarah Poynton (02:56.994)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (03:11.406)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (03:12.469)
Money was never really spoke about in a worrying sense. My mom used to talk about what she had to do to get where she was, which I suppose might have helped with my risk appetite now, because I used to hear some wild things as a kid that they were up to to get where they needed to go. they, I mean, my parents weirdly were separated, but still worked together.

Sarah Poynton (03:29.132)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (03:38.059)
Yeah, they had a company for years and years and sort of I was surrounded by that. It's probably where I got a bit of experience from for not really having the desire to work for anyone.

Sarah Poynton (03:48.27)
Mm.

So have you always worked for yourself like since you were young or did you have jobs along the way?

Mark Potter (03:59.587)
No, I've never had a job. I dropped out of school when I was 14, didn't really like it. I went to a local school to me, it was all right, know, a mix of kids. Some what you'd call rough, some all right. it just, school wasn't for me. My kids won't see this podcast because they don't know that, because they go to private school and they're not allowed to know that I did that because I don't want to steer them.

Sarah Poynton (04:25.358)
you

Sarah Poynton (04:29.986)
wise.

Mark Potter (04:31.057)
No!

Sarah Poynton (04:33.208)
So you started working for yourself from like effectively 14-ish or like moving forwards. And what was the first thing you did to like make your own money?

Mark Potter (04:37.313)
Yeah

Mark Potter (04:41.761)
So like we were doing the basics of selling cigarettes on the playground, know, which wasn't that big of money. But then it went into car breaking. So back then you could buy like a Peugeot 106 for 60 to 100 quid off an insurance company that was a total write off. And we'd just break it up in a unit we had on a farm and...

just sell bits on eBay. When eBay, eBay is a lot different now. Back then, not many people were using it and it was just getting started and all that kind of stuff. It was a lot easier to do that. I mean, every man and their dog's doing stuff like that now. So that's, that's long gone. Then I bought a recovery truck, started doing a bit of recovery. Because I had, I got my license by then.

Sarah Poynton (05:12.877)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (05:32.803)
So we're talking like 17 odd, 18. Yeah, I'm just trying to think. Recovery company, did bits and pieces like that. Had a bit of a car garage going on. And that kind of thing was where we sort of started with that. Do you want more questions or do want me to just keep going with what I did next?

Sarah Poynton (05:51.628)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (05:57.646)
No, just tell us. guess, well, I think what's really interesting, I think to set the scene around like the businessman that you are now, obviously I've spent time with you, I've hung out with you, I've followed you online for a long time. And I think it's always really interesting for me anyway, and also the people that listen is, I can say this is Mark, Mark's a wealthy man, Mark's done really, really well, but actually often people are on this journey still trying to become wealthy, become successful, become independent. And it's actually helpful to hear

Mark Potter (05:59.318)
Okay, fine.

Sarah Poynton (06:25.012)
how people have done that and the journey it took. And also sometimes just how fucking long and how hard you have to work to get to where you're going. So yeah, tell us all the things, because I think it matters in context to everything else.

Mark Potter (06:30.557)
shit, yeah, it's so long, yeah.

Mark Potter (06:36.533)
I'm like a dog in business years. I'm at retirement age, no matter how long I've been doing it now. I'm ready to not do a lot anymore. I mean, I've got to, but I'd quite like to not do a lot anymore. So yeah, after that, did various things related to it. So I started importing containers of pet products. I mean, no one do any of this now, by the way. This is back.

Sarah Poynton (06:41.001)
Yeah

Sarah Poynton (06:45.687)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (06:58.923)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (07:03.246)
This is years ago, yeah.

Mark Potter (07:03.915)
then. This is not, this is not saying you should go and do this now because I wouldn't it doesn't work anymore. Everyone's doing it. So we were bringing in containers of pet products and selling them on eBay and had an independent site that was no good. So it was all it was all driven through eBay. Amazon wasn't even really a thing. Picked up a bit of a bar and a nightclub along the way in town did that.

Don't do that either. mean, everyone knows not to do that now, don't they? We'll keep it evergreen and not talk about our current government, because hopefully this podcast will last longer than that. So did a bit of that and then bought and sold supercars a bit as well off the back of the car garage. And then really started tucking into a completely different industry when I met the kid's mom, which was

Sarah Poynton (07:33.39)
Yeah, I think so.

Hopefully it'll change.

Mark Potter (08:00.455)
military vehicles over supercars because they're kind of just as expensive, but don't depreciate, they actually go up because you can't get them. So all of the risk had kind of gone from owning and buying and selling supercars to them not being worth as much as they were if you don't get them gone quick enough, warranty issues and all of that, to going into military stuff that you can just leave in a field and it goes up.

Sarah Poynton (08:11.445)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Sarah Poynton (08:28.878)
Great.

Mark Potter (08:28.887)
you just got to buy it in first place. it was ideal. That then led to firearms. So we did not just vehicles, but we did tanks, live tanks, guns, all around the world, we did that. I think there's a film that I always get quoted on something like Warlords or something. I still haven't watched it. Everyone says watch that film. You don't know, couldn't tell you.

Sarah Poynton (08:50.42)
No. Okay.

Mark Potter (08:54.551)
Then the other guy, that Bruce Compton guy that was dealing in military vehicles, I'll get quoted to be him too, dunno, again, probably something similar. But yeah, so that then led onto a civilian gun shop as well as military stuff. So we were just buying and selling normal shotguns and rifles as opposed to the military stuff around the world. That all collapsed with the breakdown of...

communication and relationships with my business partner that I did it with. And then that went straight into property after that. That stage, kids were in private school then, I had big bills and then we had to fire everyone on Christmas Eve, which was awful. Worst Christmas ever. Two kids, no money coming in, jumped straight into property, did a bit of a land option with a pub, split in a pub after, I'm glad that's your dog, not mine.

Sarah Poynton (09:25.037)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (09:29.88)
So in the...

Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (09:37.506)
Yeah, really bad.

Sarah Poynton (09:48.77)
Yeah, it's my dog.

Mark Potter (09:50.123)
Yeah, he wants to be on the pod or she wants to be on the podcast. Re-homing. Anyway, so that, where was we? I digress. Yeah, so civilian, no, we'd gone past the gun shop. The gun shop had gone. We were on the pub. So we did a pub, did a land auction deal on a pub split that I've got planning on.

Sarah Poynton (09:53.336)
Yeah. What do you want? Come in. Rehoming, yeah, she does need rehoming. That's honestly true.

Mark Potter (10:17.697)
two houses sold that. That was my first ever property deal. That made me think it was about 23 grand in about four weeks. Just jumped into it. I mean, property as much as I do now, that was a dream deal. Jesus, like you don't get them like that. You can't get a land option, get a bit of planning and come in and out of it that quick. That gave me a real... I know, yeah, that gave me a real false...

Sarah Poynton (10:34.934)
No.

Sarah Poynton (10:39.502)
Well, you can't now because planning takes so bloody long now.

Yeah

Mark Potter (10:46.339)
false hope about how good property is, you know, with timeframes and things. But it got me out of the shit anyway and got the school fees paid and we carried on with whatever we were doing. Next bit of money came from a remortgage of the family home and then we just went for it with the buy-to-let's bought 14 houses in the first year of normal property, just all buy-to-let's, still got them all, never sold anything.

Sarah Poynton (10:51.416)
Yeah, that.

Sarah Poynton (11:10.831)
And that was, was that back in the days when you could get like 110 % mortgages? What year was that? okay, fine.

Mark Potter (11:14.467)
No, no, it was 2019. I've only been in properties since 2019. People think it's a lot longer.

Sarah Poynton (11:21.857)
I always thought it was longer than like 2017 I thought but 19 is fine. So you bought 14 houses in the first 12 months and funded by your own money or investor money.

Mark Potter (11:35.787)
Partially my own, first two or three, because you're only using deposits, was all my own. Ran out, but by then people saw what I was up to, which was pretty good at building relationships with the agents and got involved. And we just bought them together. But I've bought all my business partners out now, with the buy to let stuff.

Sarah Poynton (11:40.151)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (11:44.184)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (11:53.973)
logic.

Mm.

So you went from by to let into, so you went from land option development into by to let.

Mark Potter (12:03.201)
I just didn't even know what that was, Sarah. I just bumped into someone that did and they just took me under their wing a bit. I could do that deal now myself, but not then.

Sarah Poynton (12:09.92)
Amazing. And then now...

No. So you went from buy to let and then into bigger developments. now, so Ernest Hardy, what does that company do now? Like what's the main work that you do?

Mark Potter (12:24.131)
So, we've got a bit of a sales team selling our developments. Some of those are ours. Some of those are master sale contracts with much bigger developers. So that's one thing. Most of that is to non-English. We've got a great big Nepalese client base through to like friends of mine, but work with me on the company, become friends.

Sarah Poynton (12:34.828)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (12:48.163)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (12:49.251)
over the years because they've been doing it with me so long. So we do a lot of that stuff abroad with the the Gurkha and Nepalese community. That's really nice. They're really nice people. So that's one thing. Then we've got WebuyAnyhouse.uk is my company as well, but we don't brand it because, you know, there's a bit of a stigma around companies like that.

Sarah Poynton (12:54.754)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (13:08.194)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (13:11.95)
because different client base.

Mark Potter (13:15.605)
Yes, like a bit, you know, are you an ambulance chaser? Well, only when we've got five minutes spare. Other than that, we concentrate on the good things. But yeah, so there's that. And then.

Sarah Poynton (13:21.356)
Yeah.

fair.

Mark Potter (13:32.009)
So we've got a development company doing small developments and refurbs and things, because I still think there's strong money in that, in my area at least, anywhere in Lemington, still real strong demand for like turnkey three bed, four bed houses, because they're six, seven hundred grand by me for a semi, you know. So people don't want to do their own stuff around here. So there's still a real good market for just grabbing a bit of a probate.

Sarah Poynton (13:40.237)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (13:45.922)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark Potter (13:59.659)
property that's been inherited that they can't afford the tax bill on or something, not judging everyone but just kind of painting a quite common scenario and then just refurbing it and getting rid.

Sarah Poynton (14:06.882)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (14:12.684)
Yeah, I think for me, right now, flips, there's still good money in flips, actually. And probably one of the, I mean, we stick to kind of the three beds. Like we don't generally do four beds, but because we, in our market, two and three beds tend to move much better than a four bed does. you know, it's, go and get it. It's fine. Yeah, we can edit. It's fine. It's fine.

Mark Potter (14:17.111)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (14:28.828)
Shit, Sarah, I've got a delivery. Can you edit this? I'll tell them.

Mark Potter (14:39.179)
Excuse me, I've

Yeah, I'll come just quickly.

Mark Potter (14:48.535)
Two seconds Sarah, you can go and stick your foot up your dog's arse and I'll get some bean bags for you.

Sarah Poynton (14:50.4)
yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna hold on what do want dog

Mark Potter (15:07.971)
he's dumped him and gone anyway.

Shut up!

Sarah Poynton (15:29.902)
BONE DISTRACTION

Mark Potter (15:45.389)
Sir, I'm ready when you are. No rush.

Sarah Poynton (15:47.34)
Yeah, no worries. I'm just giving the dog a thing to chew.

Sarah Poynton (15:59.931)
yesterday to get basically distractions for her and

Mark Potter (16:12.555)
Hmm

Sarah Poynton (16:13.08)
This

Mark Potter (16:23.649)
Yay for editing, you know?

Sarah Poynton (16:25.944)
Yeah,

Mark Potter (16:28.183)
Just come down the stairs. it's walking around everywhere. It's obvious where I am, you sausage. Anyway. They are, Wallace. I need sign saying the house at the back of the Aston Martin. Edit this out. The house at the back of the Aston Martin and fucking every time they're wandering around, it's like.

Sarah Poynton (16:34.358)
wallies.

Sarah Poynton (16:41.784)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (16:49.134)
Right, 14 minutes to 16 minutes, remove. I'm making a note, so don't forget. Yeah.

Mark Potter (16:49.229)
Anyway.

Mark Potter (16:54.615)
When there's a great big clap, we stop talking shit. There we go. So where were we? Property.

Sarah Poynton (17:01.666)
So we were talking about flip, we were saying about flips and you think actually flips is still a good strategy in this market. This was gonna be, huh? Yeah.

Mark Potter (17:07.745)
I do!

do, I do. Everyone goes, oh, I want to be a developer, blah, blah, blah. Firstly, unpopular opinion. If you're taking pictures of your new kitchen in your three bed semi, you're not a developer, you're a renovator. Sorry to burst your bubble, but come on. Stop talking shit.

Sarah Poynton (17:25.292)
Yep. Yep.

Mark Potter (17:29.591)
I mean, keep doing it, but you and then it was, I want to be a developer. I want to get all this stuff. Want to do all this, that and you're, you probably don't when you, when you start digging into it, it's a right pain in the ass, getting worse.

Sarah Poynton (17:39.479)
Hmm.

So development, and again, this is where I was gonna ask you because I get asked all the time, what should I do in property today? I wanna go with development because I wanna make the big money, but people are not willing to risk big to make the big money. So for the average Joe, is development actually really all it's cracked up to be in your opinion as a very experienced developer?

Mark Potter (18:02.723)
I mean, I wouldn't know not really. I mean, yeah, yeah, because we bought the land a while ago, but I wouldn't want to go out now starting to try and buy land that all of the big developers and everyone else is trying to get rid of because it doesn't work anymore. And they want to get it off the balance sheet. So if you start going into land now, unless you know what you're doing, or you got some good contacts, and when I say now let's put a timestamp on it 15 for Jan 26, you're gonna get you're gonna get sold some absolute crap.

Sarah Poynton (18:14.69)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (18:26.242)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (18:31.522)
And that's the risk, isn't it? Because if you don't know what you're doing and you think you're getting a deal and actually it's someone else trying to offload the shit that they don't want anymore. And I think that's an interesting... So for you right now, if you were like starting again and you were getting into property now, you know you wanna do it, you see the long-term value in property, how would you treat getting started as a property buyer, seller, investor, renovator? Like what would you do now?

Mark Potter (18:38.42)
yeah for sure, we've got shit I could tell to mid-yurt but I won't do it.

Mark Potter (18:59.287)
What, like, with no money or with money? With contacts for money or...?

Sarah Poynton (19:02.318)
I mean, with no money with no money, but yeah, probably a bit of a contact for money or you're working on contacts for money.

Mark Potter (19:08.777)
yeah, I mean this would still work anyway. That's gonna be very unpopular because it means you've actually got to work. I mean, they actually don't. There is no, let me just tell everyone, there is no Ozempic for property, okay? There is nothing that you can spend your money on that's gonna speed things up, other than a gym membership so you get focused. Anyway, there isn't, is there? It's the sick.

Sarah Poynton (19:15.747)
No one wants to do that, right?

Sarah Poynton (19:24.48)
No, fucking isn't, sadly.

Sarah Poynton (19:30.698)
No.

Sarah Poynton (19:36.182)
No? Yeah.

Mark Potter (19:36.899)
There's no cure. It's time. What would I do? I would go and find people that had a big database of investors. And then I'd go door knocking on shitty houses and try and secure them and sell them to them. Get 10 grand, get 15, get 20 grand here and there, five grand.

Sarah Poynton (19:47.874)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (19:57.378)
So you wouldn't do the actual renovation. You would get it agreed at a price, find someone to buy it and just take a cut in the middle.

Mark Potter (20:01.604)
No!

So while you're sort of sat there going, yeah, I want to be able to put some nice renovation pictures on Instagram and they're doing it and they're saying they've bought five houses, those people in two years will disappear faster than you can say, where's my investor money gone? Because you see it, there's this superstar coming through now and she or he is doing all of this, respond. And anyway.

Sarah Poynton (20:23.736)
you

Mark Potter (20:34.101)
If they do manage to get the money and they do manage to do a house and sell it and make a bit, there's probably five grand left in it for them after.

Sarah Poynton (20:41.122)
Hmm. Which is interesting because like we're, we're about to complete this week on a, what you're proposing, which is find someone that's selling, find someone that's buying and broker the deal in between, stay on top of some of the stuff. And we're going to get a fee of 10 grand for that. And I haven't had to hire a builder, pick a tile, none of those things. And actually it's been done on like an option type basis. So actually the guy buying it is going to get a really good deal out of it.

Mark Potter (20:51.436)
Yeah.

Mark Potter (21:04.311)
Yeah.

Yeah,

Sarah Poynton (21:07.84)
we're not going to make as much money as he's going to make, but I've had to do way less work. And for me, I like that structure. think it's a great structure. Relationships, right?

Mark Potter (21:17.635)
The that you learn that that is the way to do property and that is the way all of the big players in property do property and it's not look at my blooming HMO kitchen, la la la, I haven't paid my investor back. The faster you'll actually get on to doing some proper stuff.

Sarah Poynton (21:35.714)
Yeah.

I think that's the thing, simple, like, what's the path of least resistance? So we talk about this a lot with clients, that the path of least resistance, sometimes people just overcomplicate this stuff. And I think this applies for property, I think it applies for investing in general, I think it applies for business in general. People try to do what they think they should do based on what they see other people do, rather than actually what is in fact the path of least resistance, the simple route. So right now then, you'd be brokering deals in the property market. That's where you would sit.

Mark Potter (21:53.036)
and

Mark Potter (22:00.246)
Yeah.

Yeah, but I want to touch on what you've just said with the path of least resistance because this is twofold and quite interesting with this matching up a biome and cellar thing. paths of least resistance or low barriers to entry are just like floodgates of people that can do stuff with no resistance. So let me tell you where the hard bit is. Well, I think the hard bit in this is not

Sarah Poynton (22:20.322)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (22:30.945)
the barrier to entry because you can go and talk to someone with money, you can go and talk to an agent or knock a door or something, that's easy. The barrier to entry is that, it's getting off your ass and doing that. So there's loads of people doing it and there's loads of people selling right-move links and loads of other stuff that I don't agree with. The barrier to entry here is doing it long enough to get a proper deal. Being told no.

Sarah Poynton (22:56.206)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (22:59.211)
The agents rolling their eyes when you go in, sod of stat agents anyway, they don't know anything about property. They jump in and out of recruitment and the status, there's a big myth busted.

Sarah Poynton (23:05.006)
Stay tight.

Sarah Poynton (23:10.54)
Be kind, because I'm an ex-recruiter, but I'm not now.

Mark Potter (23:15.139)
Shit, I'm still upset at everyone, I? Alright, fine. there is, I just don't know anything.

Sarah Poynton (23:16.046)
Ha!

Sarah Poynton (23:20.398)
I've just sold my agency, my Lettons and Estate Agency. I've just sold it. So I'm no longer a recruiter or an agent. So we'll take it.

Mark Potter (23:28.099)
Yeah, well those lot are just a waste of time, aren't they? So they don't know anything about property and everyone goes, oh, I've got to go in and impress the agents. You don't because next week they won't even be in that agency. So they don't bother with it.

Sarah Poynton (23:31.65)
Yeah

Sarah Poynton (23:39.36)
Yeah. And this is, so you literally said earlier, I'll go knock on doors and I would try and secure properties. And this is something I think people want the shortcut. They don't want to do the marketing. They want to go to the agent that's already done the marketing and actually just walking down a street and knocking on doors of ugly rundown houses saying, are you interested in selling? Cause I want to buy and just seeing what they say is so like, what's the word? I can't think of what the word is. I'm sorry. Like it's such a

Mark Potter (24:05.877)
Undersolved! Fuck, you can make some money doing that!

Sarah Poynton (24:09.282)
Good, it's such a good strategy, such a good strategy.

Mark Potter (24:11.587)
Yeah, so it's like, it's like what people come straight into property trying to do is they try and go to a main dealer, car main dealer, which is right before your agent, buy something from them and then sell it on. What makes you think you're so special to get a margin on that? Do you not think they've put it all away, put what it's worth?

Sarah Poynton (24:24.173)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (24:27.596)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (24:34.198)
Yeah. So if you, let's talk a little bit about risk, right? Because I think sometimes what happens is people get drawn into different areas within the property space or even just in the investment space in general, whether it's the markets or crypto or whatever your thing is that you want to invest in.

but they get stuck and they don't do it. And often, in my experience, they've seen the deal, actually it does make money, they're just really frightened to pull the trigger. In all of the years that you've done, what have you learned about the need to take risks?

Mark Potter (25:06.339)
Well, you need to take risks. If you don't want to take risks, go and get a job, which in my opinion is more risky anyway, because you're not in control of it. At least when you take a risk for your own company, you're in control of it, or at least a little bit in control of it to the extent of your knowledge. But you know, you could go in, especially at the minute with national insurance contributions, all of this other crap that's going on, your job is just not secure, you know. It's not.

Sarah Poynton (25:34.062)
Yeah, I think...

Mark Potter (25:35.637)
Anywhere, don't care where you work, don't care whether it's a blue chip company or probably worse than it is, a big chain, whatever it is that you think is gonna be your answer every month to getting one or 2000 quid or whatever wages are these days. Bollocks. You need to take some risk.

Sarah Poynton (25:53.282)
Yeah. So how do people who are not very, not risk takers, get comfortable taking risks? Like what's your advice? Just fucking do it or is there...

Mark Potter (26:03.981)
Well, they're gonna have to do it a bit, aren't they? So, find someone that is a risk taker and ask if you can spend a bit of time with them. Tell them that you're scared or whatever and be honest. think half the time people try and make them, when they're trying to get into property, they try and make themselves out to be something they're not, you know?

Sarah Poynton (26:24.44)
Do know what, this is something that I learned really early on and something that I say often now to people that I'm working with. We don't have to be something that we're not. In the early days, I thought I had to be a version of myself that the people I was working with at the time wanted me to be to make them look good.

Mark Potter (26:44.289)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (26:44.332)
basically if I'm really, really honest, like that's the case. And when I stripped it back to what do I want and what does success look like to me and what are my skills and what am I frightened of and what am I good at? Actually that version of me was a really different version than the one I was showing to people.

Mark Potter (27:00.472)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (27:00.596)
And I'd created this version of me that I ended up just not liking very much, not being very happy in, because it wasn't for me, it was for like the optics. And I think when you can come back to the simplicity of what do you want, what works for you, what makes you happy, what excites you and all those things, actually, taking risk is taking risk, but you can do it in a way that is aligned with who you are, which means the risk is worth taking. So whether it goes right or it goes wrong, you made it on a basis of doing something that was like good for you.

Mark Potter (27:30.528)
My advice is, this is terrible advice, but if you're in a job, it's very difficult to get sacked these days with all the employee rights, so take the piss and take loads of days off and build your business up, see if they can sack you.

Sarah Poynton (27:40.654)
As long you don't work for Mark or me, that's the advice.

Mark Potter (27:45.858)
Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you know what I mean though, like, you've got to do something, you've got to do something. There's so much waffle around. If you really are going to do it, do it.

Sarah Poynton (27:50.092)
Yeah, I do.

Sarah Poynton (27:54.808)
So.

Sarah Poynton (27:59.982)
So for somebody who doesn't wanna do property but wants to start investing, do you think that getting started small makes a difference? there are some people listening to this podcast who've literally got maybe 50, 100 pound a month. They're in that place where they're still getting rid of debt, figuring out their finances. Do you think it's better to wait until you've got the money to do it or to start small now?

Mark Potter (28:24.322)
Well, I mean, just start small now with like another unpopular opinion of mine. I have a few of them. If you've got 50 or 100 pounds a month, don't be like thinking that you're, you know.

Sarah Poynton (28:32.994)
This is why you're on the podcast, Mark, because I like your unpopular opinions.

Mark Potter (28:43.618)
it's not worth investing, put in the S &P 500. That outperforms every, I'm gonna upset wealth managers now, that outperforms every wealth manager on the planet. So fuck their fees.

Sarah Poynton (28:47.394)
Yeah. Anything else? Yeah.

Yeah. I was talking to a friend of mine this week in Ibiza about this and

She was saying that she's hired a finance advisor to basically choose the funds that her money goes into. And I was saying to her, that's only because you don't know about the fact that you can self-invest, that you don't know what, when you really look at what a wealth manager is putting your money into, all they're doing is putting your money into this S &P, but charging you for the pleasure and keeping a chunk of the thing. Like you might as well just put it in. Now, obviously we can't give you investment advice. We can only tell you what we do with our own money, but the S &P 500.

Mark Potter (29:26.946)
I can tell you not to do it though!

Sarah Poynton (29:31.724)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, wealth managers and the fees that they charge, it becomes quite expensive and it chisels into your margins quite highly and ultimately that chisels into how much money you're going to have in the long run. So, okay.

Mark Potter (29:45.556)
I have lot of way of managing friends as well.

Sarah Poynton (29:48.334)
They're gonna hate you. well, nevermind. They already know your opinion anyway, so.

Mark Potter (29:51.042)
That's what I know! That's what I know! That's what I know they're full of shit! They're middle men, they don't do anything!

Sarah Poynton (29:59.766)
So what do you wish that more people knew about money and how it works?

Mark Potter (30:08.374)
God, that's a good question, isn't it?

What do I wish more people knew about money? I would suppose I'd summarise it and say a job is the worst way of getting more money. It's the least economical way of spending your time to get money, is what I would say about money.

Sarah Poynton (30:30.318)
Mm.

So invest on the side of having a job if you're somebody who's got a job at the minute, like even just a little bit.

Mark Potter (30:36.17)
Just work for someone with a ton of knowledge for free for God's sake, because that ain't free.

Sarah Poynton (30:42.892)
So this is a really interesting thing. So I was talking again recently with somebody and they were saying to me, I said, go and work and do this. was like, we were at an event and they were asking me like, what should I do to learn to do what you do? And they're like, young. And I said, well, why don't you just go and work for someone for free for a minute? Like go and be the T-boy in the office of a company like mine and just be around people that are talking about. And he was like,

I'm not working for free. And I was like, okay, I get it that you've got to eat, right? And I understand if you live alone, whatever, like you've got to eat. But could you share a flat instead of living on your own? Could you, could you, is it possible to bring your costs down? Maybe.

And then I started to talk to him about all the times in my career that I've worked for nothing. I've, you know, when there's a, like an event coming to our city or to London or somewhere like that, I'll always message you, organize, be like, what, what value can I add? Cause I want to see this speaker and I want to spend time with you and I'll talk to you about that. But if I asked for a job, you're not going to give me a job. I also don't really want a job, but I want to come and be in that room. So what can I bring to you that will add value to your life? And I think working for free for people is such an underrated

Mark Potter (31:50.647)
Where?

Sarah Poynton (31:53.36)
way of getting in amongst it. Why? I don't understand why more people aren't, don't think about it. Like offering to volunteer.

Mark Potter (31:59.84)
I mean, people, yeah, exactly. they'll go, I'm going to keep this really broad so I don't upset another genre of people, but they'll go to an event one day, two day, three day event, somewhere, anywhere, could be trading, could be property. We won't single any of them out. They're all the same. And they'll go and find five grand to go onto their next course or whatever.

Sarah Poynton (32:09.107)
Hahaha!

Mark Potter (32:25.334)
But they won't go and work for someone who's actually doing it for free because they don't see any vat, they think their time's too valuable. Well, your time is not too valuable because you don't know fuck all. So how are you valuing your time?

Sarah Poynton (32:38.318)
And then they've got to go and work the hours to able to create the five grand that they've spent. So actually the money doesn't come to them, it goes to their. So in fact, if you'd have worked for free, you'd have learned the knowledge and you'd have eventually ended up probably with an opportunity.

Mark Potter (32:51.938)
Do you know what you do learn from going to those places that sell courses? You learn how to sell courses. That's what you do. If you really, really pin your ears back and filter all the shit, you'll learn how to sell courses.

Sarah Poynton (32:58.647)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (33:04.876)
It's interesting. I love this. So do you think that we... I already know the answer, but let's ask it. What do you think is the biggest lie that people are told about money and investing?

Mark Potter (33:22.54)
that it's too risky. Like, don't do it.

Sarah Poynton (33:24.77)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (33:29.056)
That's the biggest lie. It's too risky. Don't do it. Leave it in the bank. For what?

Sarah Poynton (33:29.069)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (33:38.274)
because the bank will keep it safe, right?

Mark Potter (33:41.908)
Only up to 80 grand?

Sarah Poynton (33:43.982)
Only up to 80 grand, but also with inflation, they don't know that. Yeah. Is it 84 now, potentially? It's 80 something. But also with inflation, if you're getting interest rates that are appitants, whatever they are, the money might be safe in the pot, i.e. the pot doesn't disappear, but inflation reduces the value of that money over time. Yeah.

Mark Potter (33:45.61)
Most people don't know that either. Most people don't know that.

Mark Potter (34:04.418)
It does disappear via inflation.

Sarah Poynton (34:08.93)
Whereas you could invest with a potential that it will go up, it might also go down, but you've got one side you're guaranteed to lose value and the other side you might not lose value. And yet we've been convinced that this is the better option. I'm fascinated by that because this is too risky and this is a scam. It's mad.

Mark Potter (34:24.33)
Yes, it is. You need to learn two things, you? Inflation erodes debt and compound interest is the power of that. Become an expert in those two things.

Sarah Poynton (34:35.416)
Hmm, compound interest. compound interest is like one of my favorite things to talk about. And not just compound interest in terms of like actual cash, but compound interest in terms of everything you do. Like every visit to the gym compounds over time and gets you a result in the end. Every relationship, every time you check in with somebody that you can help or support eventually will create an opportunity for something.

compounding over time of being patient enough to wait for the end result is something that not a lot of people seem to be patient enough to entertain. Do you think that's a... because we live in a world of instant gratification and actually everybody just wants fucking everything now or is it just a misunderstanding?

Mark Potter (35:18.572)
But that's why, yeah, that's why I referred to Ozempic earlier. All these body positive fat people turns out that they didn't want to be fat, they just wanted a shortcut.

Sarah Poynton (35:33.582)
That's interesting. think that, I don't understand the ozempic thing because if it's a medical thing I do, anyone that I know that is paying for ozempic is paying 300 pound a month for the injections. They're the same people that have told me they've got no money to invest in themselves. And again, there's no judgment, but what you said earlier, people will find money for the things that priority is to them.

And actually, if your health and losing weight is an important thing, then fine, that's what you want to spend your money on. But do you think everybody should want to be financially stable and secure? Or do you think actually it's only a small group of people in the world that really should aspire for that?

Mark Potter (36:19.03)
Well, there's an argument here to be all like, money doesn't buy happiness. You don't need money for this. You just need a home full of love and all the rest of it. But you said it right there, you need a fucking home. How are you gonna get one of those without money? So I think everyone should have at least some kind of grasp about how the world works to the extent where they can use the system a little bit to their advantage or else you don't have to get.

Sarah Poynton (36:30.51)
Hmm.

Sarah Poynton (36:43.586)
Yeah. And money does, like there's lots of very wealthy, unhappy people, right? There's no, we absolutely get feedback on the podcast, say, yeah, but money doesn't buy happiness. You're right, it doesn't buy happiness. There's lots of very, very wealthy, unhappy people.

Mark Potter (36:55.202)
I've never seen a sad person in a private jet, by the way. Everyone looks pretty fucking happy when they don't have to share their plane with someone else.

Sarah Poynton (36:58.636)
Hahahaha

Sarah Poynton (37:03.278)
with someone else. Well Mark, next time you're on your private jet, feel free to invite me and I can see the same.

Mark Potter (37:08.194)
So I would say.

No, I'm not on my private jet just yet. I'm on my journey to a private jet because I don't want to share a plane with anyone.

Sarah Poynton (37:17.44)
Yeah.

That's fair. That's fair. So has there been a time in your life where you really haven't had money? about where you've maybe taken a risk that really hasn't paid off and it's been really fucking hard?

Mark Potter (37:33.834)
Yeah, loads of times. Jesus Christ, loads of times. Even now, my bills are insane. I mean, no one's going to feel sorry for me with this, but like with VAT and things on school fees, that's like 70 grand a year for my two kids now. No one feels sorry for me, I could, what I could do is I could just not send them to private school and take two state spaces that cost seven and a half grand a year to the taxpayer each, but that's a whole other argument. I could just do that.

Sarah Poynton (37:47.822)
And you're no one will feel sorry for you, but it's the reality, right? It's actually, you still got to make the extra money.

Sarah Poynton (38:02.424)
Probably another whole podcast for that, Mark, actually.

Mark Potter (38:06.058)
But so I've got outrageous bills because life does creep, you know, when you have when you have nothing, you end up building stuff. I've got nice things around me because I enjoy them, but they cost money. They cost bloody money. So it feels like I'm skinned every month, if I'm honest. And I don't mind it.

Sarah Poynton (38:18.038)
Hmm.

Sarah Poynton (38:23.969)
Has there ever been like a really dark time though, like where you've been like, fuck, I'm not sure I'm going to survive this or like, hmm.

Mark Potter (38:27.136)
Yeah, when we had to fire everyone, when we had to fire everyone on bloody Christmas Eve, good people as well. I still speak to them because they're good people. But yeah, I to fire everyone.

Sarah Poynton (38:36.237)
So in that moment of feeling like, fuck, how are we gonna get back from this? What is it in you specifically that you think gave you the fire to go again? Like, it just failure weren't an option? Or do you you think differently? Like, what is it about you?

Mark Potter (38:56.482)
I suppose it's that, you know, I do have, I do think I have the fear of being poor, you know, it is, it is an actual thing as well. It is a diagnosed thing. I can't remember the word.

Sarah Poynton (39:07.158)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah Poynton (39:11.757)
It's my, since clearing all my debt and being in a position where I've got money, I can honestly say the thought of being back there makes me physically like, I'm like, shit, I will do everything in my power to make sure that that's never a thing ever again, because I remember how it felt. It weren't that long ago, really, like 10 years ago. It scares the shit out of me that that is even on the table. Yeah, it was fucking awful.

Mark Potter (39:21.708)
Jesus. Yeah.

Mark Potter (39:37.686)
Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Yeah, so I mean, and the thing is, you do have to find something, can you, to keep going a bit. Entrepreneurs are a bit sick in the head. I would say I'm a bit sick in the head.

Sarah Poynton (39:50.933)
Yeah.

Mark Potter (39:53.066)
I don't really mind failing and I'm not really scared of failing because I know I'll pick it back up. I've done it a million times. So my fear of failure isn't completely removed because my God, I'd do some stupid things, but I will, I'm a big risk taker for sure.

Sarah Poynton (40:00.78)
Hmm.

Sarah Poynton (40:12.729)
So what do you invest in right now? So obviously property, but do you also invest in things like crypto and the stock market and stuff like that as well?

Mark Potter (40:19.746)
Well, I've got I've got the best part of a hundred grand stuck in crypto right now I'm not really a fan of crypto if I'm honest But we do we do have other things tech startups and medical things and bits and pieces are only little but lots of little You know 20 grand there 30 grand there 5 grand in some cases in in some risky ones

Sarah Poynton (40:31.341)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (40:41.922)
So a friend of mine is really good at that kind of stuff and he makes mega money off it. And I don't want to take any credit because I'll just piggyback. He's like, oh, Mark, I'm going 10 in this and I'll go, all right, fine. I'll go five. So I do have a stock market like interest, but I don't know anything about it. I ride off the back of him and his insane due diligence.

Sarah Poynton (41:01.069)
You don't really need to know anything about it, like, to be in it.

Mark Potter (41:09.706)
And the fact that he's putting his money in it, I'll just send it to him blindly.

Sarah Poynton (41:15.543)
Fair enough, that's fair enough. Would you say that you trust yourself with money?

Mark Potter (41:22.122)
In what aspects? In impulse buying or in investing? That's two things.

Sarah Poynton (41:25.899)
Well, I know, I mean, I can see by the amount of Cartier on your wrist that you are, you enjoy money as well, right? But the cool thing with this, I think the question...

Mark Potter (41:33.886)
Wrist, wrist, we're touched on that. These are as well.

Sarah Poynton (41:38.537)
I've also got my minds in my room. I've not got it on, but I've got the same bracelet. I can't. Says fuck off. I didn't know they dumped.

Mark Potter (41:41.484)
Hang on. Can you see that? What does it say?

It says fuck 9 to 5. It's the Cartier Santos Fuck 9 to 5 edition.

Mark Potter (41:56.726)
Back in the 70s, they do a Santos and a Tank.

Sarah Poynton (41:58.189)
Amazing. I've got a tank. I love my tank. It's amazing.

Mark Potter (42:02.466)
I've got a few tanks, that's why I got the 95 Santa. But Cartier goes up, laptop bag, everything, I'm a bit of a Cartier fan.

Sarah Poynton (42:05.973)
I love that. you obviously trust your carter does go up. You're right. My car, my watch is worth more money than I paid for it, which is in my mind, an investment. So it's fine. So the question was, do you trust yourself with money? You? And again, I think I know this about you anyway, but for people listening, you have lovely things, you spend money on lovely things, you enjoy the money that you make. But

Do you, when I said you trust yourself with money, if you didn't have it and couldn't afford it, do you still spend it or do you spend what you can afford?

Mark Potter (42:42.378)
A mix, a mix. So I'll explain the mix. So through some of my early businesses, they were quite enjoyable, but I never spent any money. It was always like, it's gotta go back in, it's gotta go back in, it's gotta go back in. Some of them fucking failed anyway and I didn't have them. So now I'm like, pay myself first, get some nice things. Maybe, yeah.

So a bit of both. So I do trust myself with money, but now I don't go out spending absolutely every penny that comes in because that's stupid, but I don't hold back anymore. My business could be bigger if I spent less is probably the best way to answer that.

Sarah Poynton (43:21.378)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (43:26.477)
But at the same time, tomorrow's not guaranteed. you have a part of all the money that you're making you actively enjoy along the way.

Mark Potter (43:29.698)
Yeah

Mark Potter (43:36.544)
And when I say my business, I'm talking about Capital, not developments, construction, care, anything. The one that cash flows could be bigger, arguably, but life could be more boring, you know, but that could also go pop tomorrow, and then what? I've pumped it all in to not bother paying any tax through reinvestment vehicles, and then what?

Sarah Poynton (43:41.441)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (43:48.204)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (43:52.075)
Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Poynton (44:04.109)
So you might as well enjoy it along the way as well.

Mark Potter (44:06.178)
A bit, yeah, yeah. So I do trust myself a bit, I suppose, because I do stop. Sometimes I'm like, don't, don't, just don't. Just don't. Tomorrow, you get on the phone, hi guys, any sales in? Oh, fuck it, I'll have it.

Sarah Poynton (44:12.141)
That's not for today. It's not for today. Maybe.

Mark Potter (44:25.312)
haha

Sarah Poynton (44:25.783)
Bear in mind, when the tech didn't work, for anyone listening to this, when the tech didn't work yesterday, Mark basically said to me, I'll just get on a flight tonight and I'll come to Ibiza and we'll just do it in person. That's basically the conversation that we had, which was quite fun.

Mark Potter (44:36.086)
Yeah, for sure, I love a little flight to go and meet people, it's much better. The UK is a bit rubbish at the moment, and I'm born and bred, ready, full English before everyone starts, but it is a bit rubbish at the minute.

Sarah Poynton (44:41.931)
Yeah, it sure is.

Sarah Poynton (44:46.861)
It's cold, it's snowing, it's not what you want.

Mark Potter (44:49.224)
It's cold, it's miserable out there. It's freezing cold and raining and my neighbour has got his gardener pressure washing his path.

Sarah Poynton (45:01.687)
Hilarious. So here's a question for you. Why are you there if you could afford to be anywhere?

Mark Potter (45:08.784)
do you go anywhere I'm going to St Marit's in a couple of days? Everyone goes, Mark, you're so tanned, where have you been? It's like, well, last year I was consistently abroad two to three times a month. Just short hearts.

Sarah Poynton (45:10.925)
You are going to summer it in a couple of days, that's true.

Sarah Poynton (45:18.797)
Well when I'm back in Ibiza later in the year you can fly over and we'll hang out here because all the season will be open later in the year and we can go out, it'll be great. Okay so...

Mark Potter (45:28.266)
I'll come out. I love a mainland Europe pop. It's so easy. I don't live far from Birmingham Airport and you can just go.

Sarah Poynton (45:32.561)
Mmm.

straight over. So I could chat to you for ages, I love talking to you anyway, but we have to wrap up at some point. So at the end of every episode, what we do is we ask you a question that's come from your from our previous guest, and then we ask you a question to give us a question for our next guest. So the question that

Mark Potter (45:51.458)
Well, I've sidetracked for this and forgot to think about that question and the answer, by the way.

Sarah Poynton (45:56.469)
That's okay. I'll ask you again. the question is, what is the number one thing?

Mark Potter (46:00.876)
Can I stop you there? And I just want to say something actually before. So I just want to touch on the fact that part of our giving back from all the money that we've done in developments and things, we've started a care company housing vulnerable children. Ofsted registered. I to mention the care company because I didn't on that whole journey thing. So we've got...

Sarah Poynton (46:04.343)
Go on.

Sarah Poynton (46:20.769)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (46:25.831)
tell us a bit more about that.

Mark Potter (46:29.642)
Children from pretty colourful backgrounds in houses now being looked after properly because we're doing it properly under full regulation and not cash cowing it. That we are pumping straight back in for the kids.

Sarah Poynton (46:37.825)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (46:44.523)
And actually, I think that's probably come to your mind because of this question, because the question was, what is the number one thing you can do to help somebody else along their financial journey? And I mean, I know there's a lot of stuff that you do contribute to community and things like that. But what would you say is the number one thing you're doing right now with your money, with your success, with your wealth to help other people?

Mark Potter (46:59.714)
Yeah, I know.

Mark Potter (47:07.488)
Yeah, fine. is that. is the care thing. we're, you know, we are a couple of million quid upside down in that. And it's only just become stable in the last couple of months and we're years and years in researching that. But now we've got Ofsted. It's called residential children's care. If anyone's going to Google exactly what we do. Some people go, so you do social housing? No. so you do orphanages? No.

Sarah Poynton (47:27.137)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (47:31.702)
No.

Mark Potter (47:34.178)
We do residential children's care, one house, two kids max, one kid normally, Ofsted regulated, very specialist, very hard to do stuff. That's what we do with our money to help. There's loads of bastards cash cowing it and you're all bastards and you know who you are, stop doing it because they're kids.

Sarah Poynton (47:48.941)
Amazing. And is there anything...

Sarah Poynton (47:58.399)
Yeah, that's again for another causation. But do you think there's anything that you'll do in the future that you've not doing yet, but you'd like to do to help people to understand money, investing, wealth creation better?

Mark Potter (48:12.212)
Yeah, do you know what I want to do? I really want to do and if anyone out there listens to this and you want to do it as well, come and get in touch with me. I want to open a Dragon's Den for kids.

Sarah Poynton (48:27.099)
I'm in! That sounds so fun.

Mark Potter (48:28.128)
And I don't even care if anyone steals this idea. It just needs to happen. I've got enough stuff on. I don't care if someone does it. I like to do a Dragon's Den for kids.

Sarah Poynton (48:38.485)
I love that idea. And how would you, what would you do? Get people that have got money to effectively act as the dragons and then the kids would come and pitch their ideas and...

Mark Potter (48:39.826)
Get people.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Nearly, nearly. I'd get local people and I'd say, right, you stick a grand in, I know you're good for it. You stick a grand in, I know you're good for it. And go around the local businesses and then hold a little event somewhere in my local town and get kids from a normal school.

Sarah Poynton (48:52.352)
You

Sarah Poynton (49:04.844)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Potter (49:05.792)
to come and talk to us about some of their ideas and just maybe give them 20 quid, 30 quid, 50 quid to go and do it out of this pot of money. Be good, isn't it?

Sarah Poynton (49:14.315)
I love that as an idea. We should talk about this, Mark, because it'd be really fun. Because one of my missions with Money Mechanics is to bring investing literacy, financial literacy into the hands of kids. So like young adults to so that...

What happened to me with debt happened because I didn't understand what credit cards meant, how to budget, all the things. And I ended up financially screwed. And I feel very lucky that I was able to fix that. It's not really luck because I worked my ass off, but I'm in a position now where I don't have that problem anymore. But there's so many young people that I speak to and they're like, I don't know what an interest rate is. I don't know what a mortgage is. I don't know how to do this. So actually this, your idea and my idea of money mechanics could in fact work quite nicely together. We could maybe do something.

Mark Potter (49:32.983)
Yeah.

Mark Potter (49:57.588)
I wow on it. I wow on it. People, know, little 500 quid, thousand quid from your business, chuck it in, be part of it, go on the branding. We're not going to give you anything for it other than a bit of exposure because it all wants to go to the kids or come along and talk to the kids and let's stop them from like thinking they just need to go and work in a shop or something.

Sarah Poynton (49:58.102)
on this. This sounds so...

Sarah Poynton (50:11.938)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (50:19.051)
have a job. So if there's any investors listening to this that want to chuck a grand into a pot where we can invest in startups but for teenagers, that would be incredible. Get in touch. Yeah.

Mark Potter (50:25.034)
I'll do it as a bloody one-off. I'll it as a one-off and if it works, do it again. If it doesn't, doesn't work.

Sarah Poynton (50:32.961)
Get in touch with us because we will definitely explore this conversation. Mark, thank you so much for hanging out with me. It's been a pleasure. If people want to get hold of you, how can they get hold of you? Where are you hanging out? How do they contact you? Just fuck off.

Mark Potter (50:36.903)
It was good, it?

Mark Potter (50:44.546)
Don't, please leave me alone. No. Don't call me, I'll call you. It's been fun. Instagram is where I'm most live on social media, Mark Potter Official. It's an open profile, it's there.

Sarah Poynton (50:59.489)
Fair.

Sarah Poynton (51:06.603)
Okay, cool. I will make sure the link is in with the show notes. Thank you for hanging out with me. It's been fun and I will speak to you soon.

Mark Potter (51:13.323)
Okay.

Mark Potter (51:17.142)
Don't you need a question for your next guest?

Sarah Poynton (51:19.761)
yeah, shit, I do, quick, give me that. I got too excited about Dragon's Den and I just forgot what I was supposed to be doing. Brilliant.

Mark Potter (51:25.462)
You know, like I've framed myself under the bus because I don't actually have one. I'm just trying to think of one now.

Mark Potter (51:34.976)
What would my question?

Mark Potter (51:41.12)
Jesus, you know when you get mind-boggling, you're gonna have to edit this to make it look a lot smoother. Question. Yes, yes. Good.

Sarah Poynton (51:44.353)
That's fine. To make you look less incompetent, Mark. Nah, I'm not gonna do it.

Mark Potter (51:56.492)
Could.

Mark Potter (52:03.03)
Let me think, because it needs to be a good one, doesn't it? You're going to edit this, aren't you? What kind of questions have you had? Give me some...

Sarah Poynton (52:05.569)
Yeah.

Yeah, I will edit it, promise.

So we had, if someone followed you around for a week, would they believe that you're serious about your goals was set yesterday? We've had, how would you like to be remembered was a question. What is the, is, if someone was in crisis, what's the first thing you'd recommend to fix their financials? What do you think needs to change in the education system about money? Like anything, anything you want to ask.

Mark Potter (52:40.342)
These are like topics, not many though, aren't they?

Sarah Poynton (52:43.915)
Well, yeah, it doesn't have to be about money specifically, but we can link it back. Most things can be linked back to money investing.

Mark Potter (52:49.706)
All right, fine, I've got something, it's more advisory than question, but it'd be along the lines of when you're sending something, like a pitch or an idea or an email or something like that, you know, if you're go and try and work for someone for free or something like that, if you wouldn't send it to someone like Alan Sugar, don't send it.

Sarah Poynton (53:06.647)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Poynton (53:10.7)
Yeah.

Sarah Poynton (53:17.175)
So in your opinion, what is the best way to do it? So if someone were approach you and pitch you for something, then how should they do that?

Mark Potter (53:27.98)
Well, they want to say, eloquently, I know nothing. I'd quite like to know some of the things that you know. Can I come and chill with you for a few hours?

Sarah Poynton (53:37.911)
Great. So when we asked the...

Mark Potter (53:38.752)
Now I've this and done that, I've done the other but me, me, me, me, me, me, me, I've like, sod off.

Sarah Poynton (53:45.645)
So what we'll ask the question as is if someone was to approach you to wanna come and work with you or volunteer for you or whatever, how would they get your attention?

Mark Potter (53:55.351)
Yeah, that's kind of not my question, my question was, I know it's like, you, you know, when you're sending an email or trying to get an offer or something accepted, if you wouldn't send it to someone like Alan Sugar, don't send it. Why would you do it?

Sarah Poynton (53:59.124)
You didn't ask a question.

Sarah Poynton (54:14.475)
Why do people send out mediocre stuff? Why are we cutting corners when you could be better?

Mark Potter (54:15.712)
Then I don't cut corners? Yeah.

Yeah, if you wouldn't send it to someone important, why are you sending it to someone that you don't view as, yeah, to someone that's not important but is important to you? don't get it.

Sarah Poynton (54:28.746)
is also important.

Sarah Poynton (54:36.137)
I will work out how we ask that question, but I'll figure it out.

Mark Potter (54:40.298)
Yeah. And if I think of...

Sarah Poynton (54:42.037)
Mark, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. I will speak to you soon. Bye.

Mark Potter (54:45.57)
Right.

Yeah cool, cheers, bye Sarah. Bye bye mate.