Discussing Business Fuck-ups

Speaker 1 0:00

You said that you've learned from your mistakes . This show is all about I can swear now fuck-ups . This show is all about fuck-ups . So come on then , give us your fuck-ups . What fuck-ups have you made that you've learned ? And you pull into your mentorship and your agency advisory role

Leadership Mistakes and Emotional Management

Speaker 1 0:15

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Speaker 1 0:15

So , from a leadership and management perspective , I let the emotional aspect of the business impact the way I worked with the team . So , client left , I took an emotional personal feeling behind that rather than how can we make this not happen again , which then made me a pretty bad manager , slash leader , and I think that you know , as a big mistake was probably anyone listening to this that worked with me when I ran . One of the agencies will probably be nodding right now and going , yeah , that guy's a dick and they'll never not think that I'm a dick because at some point they won't listen . If they think you're a dick , will they ? Well , I probably just . Yeah , maybe they'll just be burning those effigies somewhere still . But you know , sometimes you realise that it's your business , it's your baby , all the wins are someone else's . But you know , sometimes you realize that it's your business , it's your baby , all the wins are someone else's , all the losses are yours and sometimes you get a punch in the face and , metaphorically , a client leaves or something happens , something goes wrong , and you shouldn't , but you do take it out on someone else . And that I learned the hard way because I realized introspectively later I shouldn't have done that and you can't apologize for that later . It doesn't work just by saying sorry and

Financial Struggles and Cash Flow Issues

Speaker 1 1:31

the .

Speaker 1 1:31

The other stuff was genuinely I did not have a proper handle on the numbers . I thought I did , I had management accounts , had all that sort of stuff , but cash flow was what was coming in and I thought we were doing great . And then , when one or two clients left in in the same period of time , just as you've hired one or two members of staff in the same period of time you suddenly realize , ah , crap , where's the vat bill coming from ? Um , and you haven't really provisioned for it properly . That that's I mean the .

Speaker 1 1:58

There are a lot of agencies that are probably thinking right now , as they're listening to this , that yeah , I'm doing that right now . Crap , okay , and that's what happens a lot , because they just you , I , I , I . I thought I got it , I thought I had a handle on it . I didn't . And when I did eventually get a handle on

Learning and Business Expansion

Speaker 1 2:17

it . I kind of realized that I've learned , like I've learned , something significant here and this isn't worth kind of just sitting in in one , hence starting the second agency . Yeah , I own a few other businesses outside of the digital industry and all of that's come from learning these things that I've just kind of , I say , happened upon but been open to learning as I go .