#31 - (Solo) Business & Life Update
Yo, what's up? Doing a business update, business life update to document a little bit of where things are at if you're kind of interested. I know I like it when I follow someone or I'm consuming some of their tactical info content that I'm kind of like, yeah, how are things actually going for you though? So in the spirit of being transparent and speaking with my content to things that I would enjoy, I'm going to do the same. And doing so from my I don't know what you'd call this little penthouse gym area, at the top of my villa in Bali, which is kinda cool.
Speaker 1:This villa has been a breeding ground for locking in, which is kinda something I've been missing for the past while. Between moving and when I arrived to Bali I was going to Airbnbs and bounced into this place, bounced into that place, then met a friend for a bit and I kind of didn't actually get my roots into anywhere for longer than a few days. And I put the word out to a few of my friends who I've met since being here to ask, okay, do you know anyone who has a roommate requirement or someone who wants to move in somewhere? And this just came up and everyone in the house is also on the quest to build an online business. So it's been great.
Speaker 1:We're all learning from one another. Well, I've learned certainly from the guys, even just in, off the cuff conversations, it just turns into an unlock sometimes, which is great. Super good. So that's how life's been going situationally, geographically in Bali. And from a business perspective, let's talk business.
Speaker 1:That's a good that's a good place to start. Let me just have a sip of my coffee. The business side of things is I'm just making sure this is still recording. Okay. So the business side of things is going good.
Speaker 1:May for the month of May, in my Airbnb business back in The UK, we did Ā£11,000 just over. So I think it was like, I think that's like 14,000 US. Now, the Vatman will be having a slice of that and then also who will be having a slice of that is the HMRC. I think they're the same person. And then I've got some expenses to pay.
Speaker 1:So it's not all money that's gone into my pocket, but I'm happy with the results. And in my coaching side of things, I've also taken on a couple of clients one to one, that was two ks on top of that as well. So that was pounds, so in US, maybe about 17 k total across the couple of businesses in terms of revenue. Revenue doth not equal profit though. But that's how it's gone.
Speaker 1:I I guess to look at the two businesses. Airbnb business, Parea Living is the name. Parea is a Greek word. The Greek word that means a group of individuals who gather together to share their ideas, philosophies, and ethoses. And that was the idea behind Parea Living, the homes that we tried to create, the spaces that we tried to create, to give space to that.
Speaker 1:And so that was the meaning behind the name. So Parea Living, 15 or maybe 16 clients that we have now on the go, which is plenty, know, I talk about this a lot, man. The difference between being stuck in a nine to five, which is where I was miserable, wondering what the fuck I'm doing with my life, questioning if I'd ever get out of there, wondering if if it was even possible for me, doubting myself, not having belief. The difference between that and having complete geographical independence, not worrying about money and day to day choices, autonomy over my choices and things like that. It's only a few clients.
Speaker 1:It's nothing crazy. And so I say that very candidly as a guy who with 15 clients, right, is is is very flexible, and I've just very candidly told you my numbers there. So that should give you an idea of like it's it's not that far away. Now, I fucking went around in hoops jumping through hoops on my first year, hoops to get those clients. And I took bad, bad deals on and made bad, bad, bad hires and terrible hires.
Speaker 1:It cost me stress, it cost me time, it cost me energy. Those things are precious by the way. Energy is precious. Mental real estate is precious. But really, if you anything, if you took anything from what I'm saying right now, it's don't chase quick wins and don't be impatient.
Speaker 1:Those two things cost me a lot of time, energy and resources. And I could just see Finn filming outside. But those things cost me so much time, energy and resources by being impatient, by wanting a quick win. When in reality, like, could have just done what I'd done in year two, which is like bundle up my expertise into a very simple, scalable online offer that I could provide to these property owners who I now work with and do so that way. But it took me a while.
Speaker 1:It took me a while to figure that out. And so that's what I'm helping my clients with is very quickly just working on the offer that they have. Okay? So I'm just setting aside Airbnb business now, putting on the one to one clients that I'm working with. And with with those guys, what I'm trying to help them with is just bundling up their expertise, which in this instance is sales.
Speaker 1:They have an extensive background in B2B sales. Super valuable skill. And also my expertise. That's where I sat in my nine to five for a long time. Now, what are we doing with them is packaging up those expertise into offers, running the offers to the right type of ideal client, and making content to demonstrate our authority and also to tell our story.
Speaker 1:Those are the things that I did very well, if I do say so, when I was building my Airbnb business. This is what got me clients very, honestly, effortlessly, I would say. I think that's one of my strong points is is being able to handle the delivery of the message that I'm providing on a sales call. So for example, blending the authority. So blending, hey, I have these expertise with, hey, I'm Dean, this is my story.
Speaker 1:This is why I'm showing up here right now. This is why I have these expertise at all, and this is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to change my life. I'm trying to get out my nine to five. I don't have all the experience in the world, but I've invested money in my mentoring, and I'm determined to make it work.
Speaker 1:That lands a lot more than just kind of bashing features, you know, and people can connect with that a lot more. And they did connect with it a lot more. And my conversations just went through went through the roof once I started doing that. And so that's what I'm working on with the guys, like helping them build an offer. So what what is an offer actually?
Speaker 1:I think that that word gets thrown around a lot. What time is it? Okay. A bit more time. That that word gets thrown a lot and people don't generally always know what it means, which is understandable.
Speaker 1:But an offer is just literally what will you do for someone? Just think of it that way. What are gonna do for someone? And when you communicate what it is, there's so many ways you can communicate it. You can communicate the process.
Speaker 1:So in eight weeks, I will take you through this process. On week one, do this. On week two, we do this. We'll follow this flywheel. For example, the flywheel that I'm running with the guys is offer, content sales, offer content sales, offer content sales, offer content sales.
Speaker 1:That's the flywheel. That over time equals clients and clients over time equals freedom. I think I got a bit lost there. Where was I? Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's why I'm running with the guys and that's what I ran myself. And the content side is often just build in public and story led and peppered with authority. We're still trying to find the exact balance. I don't know. I don't have, like, a prescriptive balance to give you there, But my goodness, people will not buy from you unless they actually give a shit about you.
Speaker 1:So with that said, what I would say to you is just tell your story more. When you're making a piece of content and a piece of content and a piece of content can just be a Loom video that you make for a client that you're potentially speaking to, a helpful Loom video to help them with a problem that you know they were facing, that you are positioned to help them with. And you just help them, right? Now in that Loom video, you can just spend the first eighteen seconds saying, Hey, by the way, I'm Dean, bit of backstory on me just before I explain X, Y, and Z problem to you is that. And then they just get a little bit of a flavor for who you are, and therefore, on some level, emotionally, will connect with you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'm giving prescriptive advice here. It doesn't have to be a business update. So that's the crack with the guys. Property business is doing super well. I'm not trying to grow that massively.
Speaker 1:I like the size it's at. It's kind of annoying when I've I pay a lot of VAT, which is which is kind of bullshit, because I'm just kind of over the threshold of VAT. So meaning I'm not even getting the benefits benefits of scaling past the 90 mark, I think it is in The UK. I'm kind of like just over that. I think I maybe probably will do about 120 this year.
Speaker 1:But if I did, yeah, the ironic thing is if I if I scaled back, I'd almost wouldn't even be that much of a difference in bottom line revenue, but would have obviously less operations. So it's just interesting to, think that. But so it's like, I'm in the middle ground of whether do I go ballistic and scale it even more so I can actually take, offset some of the VAT that I pay. It's a bit of a good problem to have. What's up?
Speaker 1:It's all good. There's Julia. So that is that's where the business is at. I have a couple of clients that come in organically through referrals. Sometimes people find me through my website.
Speaker 1:I've ran a couple of ads recently that I've gotten some leads, but the leads haven't been great. They haven't converted. So unclear as to what what is the gap there and why are the leads maybe poor. I'm going to test. So I tested a static ad for my property business, Perea Living, just saying that as a reminder, Perea Living.
Speaker 1:You can find me on Instagram, perea.living, check it out. But I ran an ad for Perea Living, a static image saying that we'd manage Airbnb for you now. However, I was chatting to a friend of mine, Dan, and he was saying he has a big Airbnb business. And he was saying that he does videos where he actually just labels the avatar, calls out their pain and does so with his face. It's like literally the person.
Speaker 1:So my static image is about the company, whereas his is about the person. And I think that's interesting. So I might just choke up an ad like that to a potentially get some leads and revenue, you know, which I'm not forced either way. If I get more clients for the business, I don't actually mind. It's a very luxurious position to be in.
Speaker 1:But in also doing so, improving my, proficiency with meta ads. That's the plan with that. I also hired a new virtual assistant, Milan, after Daniel, my very first hire, unfortunately had to move on from the business after two years of service. Hiring somebody new is also very challenging at times. You know, there's there's a lot of teething processes or teething, I guess, issues that come with that just ironing kinks out, realizing where there's gaps in the processes that aren't clearly communicated.
Speaker 1:The thing about hiring is, you know, you always will. You always think you have it right. You always think you have everything locked in and then. Mistakes will appear and it will show you where you have been gaps, which is something I've learned time and time again. Think I've hired like 12 or 13 people for this business now and made a lot of shitty hires, a lot of shitty hires.
Speaker 1:But this one's good. Milan's good. I like him. I don't even know if he's going to listen to this, but I like the relationship we've developed for me. A lot of it is about ability to communicate.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't I don't I mean, obviously, I care if someone messes up, but I care if somebody can communicate why they messed up and why they're not going to do it again. You know, if you can just I say this to the guys. I'm like, hey, look, if you can explain to me why you made a decision, that's all I care about. However, if if the decision was made due to negligence, laziness, whatever the fuck, that's when it becomes a problem. However, if you can just tell me I made it because of this, this and this reason, based on those reasons, I decided to do that.
Speaker 1:That is fine to me. Even if it was the wrong decision, as long as you thought about it and made it a concerted effort to make the right one, that's okay. And I'm willing to eat shit if you make the wrong decision because ultimately, it's me who pays the price. If somebody makes the wrong decision in my business, that's my problem. It's not their problem.
Speaker 1:It's my problem. So that's a crack with that. We have new hire there. He's gonna be main operations manager. And meanwhile, I'm focusing on making more content like this, maybe more off the cuff content, low key, less produced.
Speaker 1:I'll also do the studio stuff as well to try and also share more about my story in the same way I'm helping the guys to do that with their businesses is the same thing that got me to where I was with my original business, Pareya, is how I wanna approach this is like just tell people what I'm doing, how it's difficult, what's working, and try and provide value while telling my story as well. That's the idea, I guess. So that's the crack. Bali's great, ridiculous lifestyle here. Honestly, fucking insane.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm just I did, you know, ice baths. You've got gyms coming out your arse. There's fucking every every every possible meal you can think of can be dropped to your door in minutes, like chicken, rice, veg, like just easy to it's easy to do life, be healthy, do business and socialize. Actually, that's the key thing I really like about Bali is that very off the cuff social interactions will happen here versus London, where I lived before. Mean, I still do fucking live in London technically, but the propensity to have a very easy, quick social interaction is a lot higher here.
Speaker 1:People are open to to talking, right? Because the average person here is like digital nomad entrepreneur, you know, maybe left behind their old world and therefore is obviously looking for connection and friendship over here as well. And so with that in mind, people are just generally tend to be more open to a chat. And I've made fucking loads of cool mates since being here who I've already connected with quite deeply, I would say. So it's cool.
Speaker 1:Great lifestyle. I was in the ice bath as well today. Oh, here, Laura, I'll finish with this. Right? This is some real shit.
Speaker 1:This is some real shit. I've been in the ice bath the past three days in a row now. Now, if you've ever done an ice bath, you'll know that it's, you'll know that it's it's depending on the severity or rather the the extreme temperature of it. You'll know that it's very uncomfortable. Right?
Speaker 1:And so a friend of mine who I met over here at a mastermind, Joe Cross, shout out Joe if you're listening, absolute legend, he says he goes in there for fucking thirty minutes. Thirty minutes. And I'm like, bro, that is insane. And we talked a lot about the mental clarity that one gets from going in there for that period of time. And so that's what's prompted me to go in and do ten minutes.
Speaker 1:I was also feeling a bit sad on Monday, so I was like, Do know what? I want to get in there and punish myself. And so I did. And the hoops that you have to jump through in order to stay in there for that long. I did ten minutes.
Speaker 1:Obviously, he did thirty, which is just another level. The ten minutes is a long, long, long time in there. And it's very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. And that is the entire point, because it's a it's a of repeatedly telling your mind that you're good. You shouldn't get out because your brain is just like talking saying you're in pain, you should get out.
Speaker 1:Let's get out. This is shit. Fuck this. Why don't we just go out and sit in the warmth? And you just over and over again say no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:And that's the exercise. That's the whole thing. And it doesn't sound great, the might not sound great, but the aftermath is what is the reward. Because throughout the rest of that day, what I've been feeling is of untouchable. A shitty email comes in, there's no little reaction inside me anymore.
Speaker 1:There's no Oh, that thing. Oh, this thing. Like, you know, someone cut you off and whatever. Like, none of that is provoking a reaction inside me anymore, which is just yeah, I guess that's what we're doing this stuff for. So, anyway, moral of the story is Bali good, ice bath good, business good, perspective on life good.
Speaker 1:That's it. I hope this was enjoyable slash somewhat useful. What time are we at now? Alright. But nineteen minutes.
Speaker 1:I better wrap this up. I've gotta go meet somebody for lunch, but I hope you enjoyed if you made it this far, and peace.
