Kallum  0:00 

Hi, Kallum here. The thought of being a business owner is often glamorized on social media. CEOs driving fast sports cars to their big mansions with a Louis Vuitton duffle bag full of money just sat next to them. But, the reality can be rather unsexy. Today the boys show you some personal insights on this topic, Dan reveals how much they made in their first year as a marketing agency.

Lloyd  0:21 

In year one, we turned over 23,118.

Lloyd  0:26 

That’s whilst getting on the bus.

Kallum  0:28 

and Lloyd reveals his biggest personal issue with owning his own business.

Lloyd  0:32 

it’s still a real challenge to switch off. That is the reality, that you’re kind of signing up for never fully being switched off from work.

Kallum  0:41 

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows as a business owner. It’s long days and sleepless nights. The only people that fail are the people that give up. Get ready to take notes. This is episode 108 of the business anchors podcast.

Lloyd  1:07 

Dan, what’s the unsexy reality of running a business?

Dan  1:11 

I’m really passionate about this topic. I don’t think it’s spoken about enough because the unsexy reality of running a business isn’t like what it looks like on social media. I think on social media, everything is portrayed to be a lot easier, and to happen a lot quicker than actually does. The unsexy reality of starting a business is it takes years of consistently doing the right things, making mistakes, and trying to figure out stuff to have any level of success. That’s what we’ve discovered.

Lloyd  1:43 

Why on social media then and online it seems exciting and good and loads, people earning loads of money and stuff. So why would that be the case, if that isn’t the reality?

Dan  1:59 

it’s the classic, we’re all guilty of this, the classic using social media to show your highlight reel, you handpick all the best bits, and then communicate that on social media. I guess these kinds of unicorn businesses that have, you know, in their first year turned over 600,000 pounds or grown from one to 10 employees in three months. Those stories are exciting to read. Lots of people will engage with them and they get a lot of awareness and exposure. Then to the normal business owner, it looks like oh my god, everyone’s doing that. When really, it’s because they’re exciting stories. What wouldn’t be exciting is John, the plumber, who spent three years on his own, trying to grow his business, not really growing it and then eventually taking on steward the apprentice in year seven and earning an okay amount.

Lloyd  2:55 

Back in 2016 or whatever. I wouldn’t have been posting online, just missed the bus to work because I can’t afford to run a car. I’m gonna sit in a little room with my brother and probably argue quite a bit and not do much good work because I’m still learning.

Dan  3:14 

Exactly.

Lloyd  3:15 

Yeah.

Dan  3:16 

The funny thing now though, with social media is it’s kind of flipped on its head. I don’t know if you saw this week, the crying CEO post went viral. Did you see that? It’s very recent.

Lloyd  3:28 

Crying CEO?

Dan  3:29 

Yeah on LinkedIn, a CEO had to let his staff go and he sent them a selfie of himself crying and did a post about it and It went viral. The opposite now of being vulnerable, and sharing all the shit bits is actually what people are now doing to get views and stuff, which is interesting.

Lloyd  3:50 

I was just gonna say that is genuine, though?

Dan  3:52 

What? No, this is why it’s gone viral because lots of people are saying rather than trying to help his employees that you had to let go by trying to get help. He’s just talked about himself and how upset he is. Everyone’s like yeah kind of a dick move.

Lloyd  4:08 

Yeah. It’s like, ‘Oh look I’m crying. I’m the victim here but you’ve still got your job. If it was genuine and he’s genuinely upset, fair enough for showing emotions. I think that’s good. I guess that’s the hard thing. Sometimes with social media on the other side, it’s then trying to get attention from the opposite of that rather than it being genuine.

Dan  4:27 

Yeah, I think it’s difficult because you don’t know the intent behind it. So it’s difficult so he’s a shit person because he could genuinely be upset and this could be his cry out for help. He’s got, you know, troubles that he needs help. Also, a lot of people are saying the whole thing like, men can show emotion but this guy showed emotion now we’ve been slating him. Yeah. But anyway it’s unknown what his intent was.

Lloyd  4:55 

I guess he was upset and he just thought, right I better set the camera up. Put it on a tripod and film myself, make sure this angle looks posted on LinkedIn,

Dan  5:05 

A few good parodies were talking about if he took the selfie of him crying, but it didn’t quite look right. So he had to take it again. Imagine him deleting it and taking another selfie of him crying at a different angle and being like, Oh god. But yeah, anyway, he might genuinely be upset. Just to go back to what we’re talking about. I just want to share some of the realities of our business too. I posted about this on LinkedIn a while ago and I got a lot of great feedback from people saying, ‘Oh, thanks for actually sharing the honest thing’. Yeah, because I think we share our highlight reel a lot and we now talk about, we work with some of the biggest brands in the world and we generate millions of pounds to attract revenue for companies, but as Lloyd said, he couldn’t afford to go to a networking meeting and had to get the bus there in 2016.

Lloyd  5:50 

I didn’t post about it though.

Dan  5:51 

You didn’t post about it, no but we’re talking about it now.

Lloyd  5:54 

We just won an award that year, though.

Dan  6:00 

We got a phone call from a very well-known marketeer, who had a huge business and wanted us to invest millions in his next project when we were turning over like 20 Grand.

Lloyd  6:10 

Yeah.

Dan  6:13 

Yeah, so the realities of running our business, this is just the cold, hard truth. So for the first three years of running our business, we were working from our parent’s spare room, and we didn’t hire anyone. Our growth was fairly flat. If you look at it in the grand scheme of things, or revenue was fairly inconsistent,

Lloyd  6:33 

Very consistent I would say.

Dan  6:35 

Yeah. It’s pretty much like a roller coaster, isn’t it? Lots of highs and lows. Mediums and lows. We hadn’t figured out what our unique proposition was to the world. We did loads of stuff, we built websites, we created content, we did the training, and we did everything that anyone would want us to do to pay us. We didn’t have a marketing budget for what we were doing. So that was the first three years of running our business. Eventually, though, after those three years, we hired our first employee and then started to focus on delivering great work for our clients and all those lessons we learned from doing some shit stuff for the first three years and making mistakes and some good stuff, then helped us to start to hire a team. To get to where we are now. We’re now the highlight reel of we’ve got around 10 full-time employees to work with some of the biggest brands in the world and track millions of pounds of revenue from the ads we make. It’s been that shit for three years.

Lloyd  7:28 

Not shit three years, I suppose we should be clear as well, that it’s not like, Oh, that was hard when we started and that was a reality but now everything’s perfect. The reality I think of any business, is that there are good and bad things happening constantly. A couple of months ago, we lost a staff member that went off for a different job that I thought was good and doing a great job. So obviously, that’s not a good thing to deal with. We’ve currently got a client that just isn’t responding to us when we’re trying to do the work on the project. There are always things I think in every business that aren’t going perfectly or are challenging. I suppose I wouldn’t want this episode as well to be like ‘Oh, it used to be like that and now we’re perfect’ and one day you can be perfect. I think the reality is that there is constant balance and there are always underperforming people and over-performing people including me and you, Dan, like we’re underperforming sometimes we’re mainly overperforming.

Dan  8:28 

I’m mainly overperforming.

Lloyd  8:29 

Yeah, I’m mainly under. Yeah, I do think it’s a constant thing and always will be. I guess we will always talk more about the good stuff because I guess it makes sense to grow a business and also it feels good. After all, it would feel rubbish just constantly going ‘haha, this bad thing happened today.

Dan  8:48 

I do think we’re slightly different if we do try to be more honest as well. Like, especially with this podcast, we do try and share the honest, no BS version of what’s happening. Also on your point of still having challenges. The interesting thing I think is we still have challenges as we’ve grown, but they’re just different challenges. So like, we’re not really struggling to survive to bring in enough work to pay the bills, whereas that was the biggest challenge when we started literally trying to get enough money for Lloyds bus journey.

Lloyd  9:25 

Just to point out, Dan had a car. Dan had a nice BMW. I wasn’t adding a dime of finances at that point.

Dan  9:34 

Yeah. It’s just interesting how the challenges change. I’m interested to talk through in this episode, some of those unsexy realities of running a business because I think lots of people will relate. From the feedback I’ve gotten from LinkedIn posts from people like, Ah, this made me feel so much better about my business because I’m comparing it to the reality of what it is like to run a business.

Lloyd  10:03 

I feel like us and our team here, I feel like we’re smashing it. I’m proud of our business, we’re in a really good place. At the same time, just to give context, at the same time of feeling like we’re smashing it. These unsexy things are going on and like, yeah, are things going on as well? So it’s not like, if you’re feeling ‘Oh, I’ve got these challenges like you’re doing a terrible job’ you might be. I think both can happen at the same time, can’t they? Challenges and things you’ve got to try and resolve whilst doing a great job and doing brilliant work.

Dan  10:35 

To try and make the anchors feel better about themselves? Lloyd, what are some of your unsexy realities of running a business are some of the things that you think like aren’t talked about enough,

Lloyd  10:47 

One thing that I think is fairly obvious, but just not being able to switch off as easily because it means something? Like, I think if you’ve got a job that you don’t care about, and it doesn’t have any major implications like you’re not a doctor or something people aren’t going to die. It’s easy to switch off as soon as you leave because you don’t need to deal with that. When you run a business, even though I feel we are very good at this, it’s still a real challenge to switch off. Like we still text each other in the evenings and weekends when randomly we’re thinking about work stuff and things like that. I do think that is the reality that you’re kind of signing up for never fully being switched off from work.

Dan  11:36 

Yeah.

Lloyd  11:36 

I don’t know if you’d agree with that.

Dan  11:40 

What I also want to talk about at the end of this episode is the sexy realities of running a business because we’re gonna say all this crap stuff, but we’re still doing this and we’re doing this rather than being employed.

Lloyd  11:51 

Yes! It’s good to have that balance. I love what I do for work and it’s really good but these are some of the challenges

Dan  11:59 

What made me think of that was, yes, it’s very difficult to switch off but, I love building Knowlton. I love thinking about it, most of it, but at the end.

Lloyd  12:11 

Sad person.

Dan  12:12 

I know that is sad but I get a real thrill out of building this company. Some things aren’t enjoyable to think about at the weekend. I’d say a lot of the improvements we’re making and constantly creating and new opportunities that coming in is really exciting. Yeah, I would like to talk to you about the baton at the weekend, which is probably annoying for you.

Lloyd  12:36 

One more from me, before we get to pick up from you is being responsible for people’s salaries. Yeah. I think whether you’re like the owner or you’re a leader in the business, whatever, you get to the point where you’re like ‘Oh crap’ it’s pretty much down to me to make sure that we can pay these people and we do it. Because, if they can’t get paid, they lose their job, which causes them big problems. Especially when you like the people you work with, that is a big pressure. That’s a big unsexy part of it, the worry of like, actions that I take are going to have an impact on people’s lives now. Most of the time, it’s like, I’m taking positive actions, and I’m helping the business grow and that means we’re going to be able to give people pay raises and things like that kind of thing. It’s still the worry of like shit, if I get something wrong here, this could be bad. I think a way to counteract that I now try and think of it as actually like, that person is here to offer the value that’s equal to what we’re paying them. So it’s a shared responsibility. Of course, the people that work for you have that responsibility. We just need to build around the processes and give them the tools to be able to provide that value to the business. So I used to think of it like, right, I’m responsible to make sure we can pay everyone. It’s like, no, they’re responsible to do good work. To make balance. So that gives it a bit of balance, I guess.

Dan  14:07 

I think something else about hiring people, which I feel like it’s a challenge. It’s probably more of a challenge for you because you’re more of a CEO role that manages our team but trying to strike the balance of being friends with your team and when there are decisions you need to make that are difficult, or like, I don’t know. Probably you more than me, because I’m like the ‘cool mate’ of all the team and everything and Lloyds, like the annoying…

Lloyd  14:34 

Not the cool mate.

Dan  14:35 

It was something that I remember Luke from sleeping giant media said to us a while ago that you get to a certain size and then you can’t be best mates for when you have to make decisions and stuff.

Lloyd  14:48 

I remember him saying that. To me. It’s like once you get past five or six people, there is a bit of a weird separation like you’re not just a group of mates anymore. There is a bit of a separation. Like they’re mates and then you are there. I understand that and it’s fine. I’m really lucky I like everyone I work with. I do think that makes it very hard for difficult conversations. If someone isn’t performing well or something weird is going on with them at work, you have to be like, Come on, mate, stop doing that thing where you put Doritos in your armpits and then eat them in front of everyone. Tay Yeah, Taylor fielder on LinkedIn.  I had to make up a weird thing in my head. And that was the first thing I thought of putting Doritos in your armpits. That does make that harder. 100%. But, again, the other side of it is when you haven’t a good conversation, you’re saying you’re doing brilliant work, and we want to pay you more or like, we want to promote you, or we’ve got this amazing project that we want you to take the lead on? That’s the other side of it, I guess.

Dan  16:08 

Yeah. I think that still, the main sort of unsexy part of running a business for me is reinforcing what I said at the start, which is that it takes way longer than you initially think to have the level of success that you’re expecting. I want to hit this point home that I think any business owner out there if you’re three years in, and you haven’t taken over the world, and you’re just about doing all right, that is better than a lot of business people because most businesses fail in the first three years. I struggled with this at the start, because I would compare myself to these agencies that had just started and they were hiring 50 people. It’s like, Oh, why are we not bringing enough business to hire 50 People in the first year? Some of these are on a different sort of trajectory, we’re taking investment and hiring all those people and then hoping to win the business to pay the people, which we’ve taken more of an organic growth route of actually winning the business and then hiring in that way. It’s difficult to not compare yourself to all of these things you see on social media. When you understand this, and when you understand that that is the highlight reel. Those unicorns are the nought point nought 1%, you can start to feel a bit better at yourself that I am doing all right.

Lloyd  17:24 

Those massive success stories they’re in the minority and then so you’re seeing that like nought point 1% of the top that you’re comparing yourself to. There’s like 80% in the middle, like this massive chunk of businesses that you just don’t see anything of. Yeah, so like the agency, that’s equivalent to the US in Northampton. That’s like, they just hired their 12th person, and they’ve been going for eight years or something. There are loads of those, if we compare we’ve done slightly better than them, but we’re doing better in this but we need to improve on that thing. You don’t compare with similar businesses, you know, the best and you think, why can’t we be the best? You know, there’s a cleaning company that’s just started, and they’ve got these shiny big vans, and they’ve got six employees, and you’re thinking, I’ve been working in this area for five years and it’s only me, I think that’s always going to be the comparison.

Dan  18:24 

Something else is that from a sales perspective, I’m responsible for generating the sales that bring in the business that pays everyone’s wages. As the business grows, and your outgoings get higher, the sales goals grow. So you have to figure out new, better innovative ways to bring in more business because what you did before wasn’t good enough. So when it was just you and I, and we needed a couple of projects now and again to bring 10,11,12 people when it’s like, we need constant new business coming in every week to pay these wages.

Lloyd  18:25 

That’s the unsexy reality of growth in a business, isn’t it? That if you do well, at growing in a month, what you were doing isn’t good enough anymore. So it’s constantly like, oh, look out, well, I’m done. Okay, well hire a couple more people, because we’re winning big now. Oh, by the way, it all has to be better than what it was when you’re saying it’s really good.

Dan  19:23 

We’ve made these again, to be transparent. We’ve made these mistakes through our journey of getting that new business by hiring loads of people, and then not necessarily having the processes in place to bring in enough business to keep that many people. It’s like a constant challenge to do that.

Dan  19:42 

Yeah, I think there’s a lot to think about when you’re growing a business and hopefully these are some of the kind of unsexy realities, but what about the sexy realities, Lloyd?

Lloyd  19:54 

Can I give you one more unsex? just because I’m more of an unsexy person

Dan  19:59 

Go on then, go on then.

Lloyd  20:02 

I’d say, as you grow a business, people want more of your time, all the time. So like, when it’s just me and you. When we started, me and you and we got three customers, right? There’s a maximum of four people that will ever want to speak to me. So it’s like, no, that’s fine. I’ve got loads of time to do that. Yeah, I think as we grow, and our team grows, then we’ve got everyone in the room that might want a bit of your time to speak to you about stuff and ask you things and have meetings. You’ve got all of the clients, you know, There’s probably about 20 different clients we’re working with in some way at the moment that at any point someone from those might want to speak to you or have a meeting tomorrow about something.

Lloyd  20:46 

Then there are supplies that we use, or freelancers we’re working with and I think it gets harder and harder when you’re running a business because lots of people may want your time. I think what I’ve learned is to try and communicate clearly and try and set some boundaries. So I guess, some people might think I’m too firm or harsh. With clients, I try to set firm boundaries like, if they’re saying ‘Oh, I need to meet you right now if I’ve got something important I need to do, I will sort of say, I can meet you at 10 am. Tomorrow morning, I thought I would have been scared to do that. Well, why are you smiling so much?

Dan  21:22 

I’m only smiling. Because I am the opposite of that and I will just answer the phone call and have three-hour phone calls talking about their weekend and stuff and I’m rubbish at this and you’re much better.

Lloyd  21:31 

Yeah, I would say I am better at setting these boundaries. Also with the team like there are some times when I know I’ve just got a crazy day. So I will say to the guys like, oh, that like this afternoon, I will kind of have my head down and stuff and I like to be approachable, but I guess communicating. So people know like, Oh, this is a really important thing. So I am going to interrupt Lloyd because then he’s busy, but it’s really important or if I say like ‘Oh, I’ve got a lot going on at this point in the day they might be like ‘Oh, I’ll speak to Lloyd about that tomorrow’ because I know at the moment, he’s got loads going on. That helps. Yeah, you don’t have an infinite amount of time. No, that’s, I imagine like I’m, I’m experiencing this with a business of this size. Imagine if you had 100. Yeah, 10 times bigger. I imagine that’s tricky.

Dan  22:22 

Can I finish the unsexy part by just sharing some of the data that I looked back at our journey that I think may be interesting…

Lloyd  22:29 

unsexy data.

Lloyd  22:30 

..In terms of turnover and stuff. So I looked back through the archive of Excel spreadsheets, which didn’t have much data on them, because we weren’t earning much, but I looked back at 2015 and what we were turning over. In 2015, when we started the business, Lloyd and I worked in the company. So for year one, I don’t know if you’ve seen this number, I was gonna ask you what you think it is, do you know this is? What did we turn to? In year one. Imagine we gotta pay both of our wages, all the costs of running a business, we turned over 23,118.

Lloyd  23:08 

So that’s why I was getting on the bus…

Dan  23:12 

And that was turnover, profit. We didn’t even work out the profit.

Lloyd  23:17 

We realized for over a year that we weren’t looking at if we were making a profit. We were just kind of trying to survive. At one point we were like, yes, we turned over that much and I don’t know whether one of us asked the other one or like dad asked us or something like that. So have you made a profit? Well, I just kind of like, oh I don’t know actually. No, no, probably not.

Dan  23:47 

We also didn’t look at any costs In the first year.

Lloyd  23:51 

We were just looking at how much money was coming in but didn’t look at any money going out.

Dan  23:56 

Ridiculous.

Dan  23:59 

The year one, we turned over 23,118 pounds. It took us until the 18th of September 2018. So it’s three years past that, to be in a position where we were earning enough to pay ourselves properly and to make our first hire, which was our cousin. I look back at a Facebook post in 2018 and it was the picture of us with our cousin and like, oh, we hired our first person. So it took us that long to be able to feel comfortable enough that we’ve got just about enough money coming in so that we feel alright, now let’s bring on others.

Lloyd  24:33 

Also, we didn’t have the trust, I guess in ourselves or the business to hire someone we didn’t know. I didn’t if you just can take your mind back to that Dan, but it’s kind of like, well I mean and again this shouldn’t be done by the way when you employ people you’re supposed to go through the official processes but yeah, I remember thinking like well, we can’t bring some we don’t know into this. We don’t even calculate how much profit we make.

Dan  25:00 

Let’s just bring it out because yeah.

Lloyd  25:01 

It’s kind of like, Oh if you bring someone we know that feels more comfortable at this point. Yeah, that was, three years in when we hired someone, it’s nice to feel how far we’ve come now we’re like, we’ve got our studios and our office and the team of amazing people it is nice to reflect on that. But yeah, it took time, didn’t it?

Dan  25:21 

So now we’re in 2022, with around 10 full-time staff. We’ve now worked with some of the biggest brands in the world and we also this year have doubled our profits. We just didn’t episode, Episode 106 or 107 sorry, that talked through how we doubled our profits. But yeah, it’s taken that journey to get to where we are now. So it has been an absolute roller coaster and that’s a bit of the unsexy part. Should we go on to the…

Lloyd  25:47 

sexy?

Dan  25:48 

Yeah, because I think it’s important for us to have a balanced view, because it’s not just oh unsexy, like we’re still here, running this business. Why don’t we just go and get employed somewhere? Because we both could get paid a lot more to go and get employed somewhere? I reckon. Yeah, probably. Because we don’t know how to pay ourselves well enough.

Lloyd  26:08 

It’s sexy stuff, right?

Dan  26:09 

Go on, what’s your sexy stuff, Lloyd? Why do you like sexy stuff? What’s good about running a business?

Lloyd  26:14 

My wife would tell you that my sexy stuff is the flexibility with time. Yeah, that’s one thing, just feeling like you do have flexibility. A more important thing for me, I get excited about, I sound sad like you did earlier. Like being able to build a team around you. I feel like we can achieve things that there’s no way I could have achieved on my own because it feels like building an extension of you. Now we’ve got like, this gear and great people and stuff and it’s like, as a group of people, we can achieve cool things and do great work that I could never have done on my own.

Dan  26:56 

When you were using CyberLink Pro to edit your videos and had a crappy DSLR Yeah?

Lloyd  27:01 

Yeah, that didn’t even shoot in HD.

Dan  27:06 

Customers paid us for those videos.

Lloyd  27:09 

They didn’t pay us much but they paid us. Yeah, so that’s, that’s a massive thing for me. It feels like kind of infinite potential, I guess. We think of what you could do on your own, there’s always going to be a limit, like a hard limit of this is how much time I have. These are the skills that I have the time to develop but building a business feels infinite for potential and that’s exciting to me. Yeah, and sexy,

Dan  27:37 

That is sexy, I think my most sexy part or the thing that I love the most about this is the fulfillment I get from feeling like I’m building something that’s having an impact. Like, I don’t know, to come into work and feel like we’re creating content and running campaigns and helping brands and building some and hiring people and paying for their livelihoods. I feel like that feeling of feeling like you’re having an impact, a positive impact and like the whole focus of our positive impact plan is to ensure we’re doing that so yeah.

Lloyd  28:11 

That’s one of mine actually, like supporting people to progress in their careers and stuff. That feels good to be able to be a part of that. Obviously, like, we won’t get it exactly right every time. I do feel like we’re managing to put people in positions where they can develop, they might be with us for the next 20 years or they might be with us for the next six months but like helping them improve and learn and stuff.

Dan  28:38 

I get a good feeling seeing them do good stuff. Yeah. Which I never thought I would have. You know, like when you see people doing good stuff. I mean, like that was good. Yeah. Yeah. Any other sexy parts of running a business, Lloyd?

Lloyd  28:52 

Well, I don’t want to describe it as sexy but working with you. Being able to work with my brother. Yeah, it’s the good part. Yes. I don’t want to think of it as sexy. Yeah but having that freedom, like it would be very lucky if we found an employer that was like, Yeah, well, how are you and your brother your weirdos? So yeah, that’s brilliant. I think we would never be able to spend this much time together. No. Well, our bosses would find it weird. Well as your brother here again, yeah. He worked somewhere else. Yeah, that’s good and I think outside of that, like, where we have control over who we hire, it’s being able to work with nice people. If you’re employed by someone else and someone else doing the hiring can be working on the right knobhead. Yeah, but having control and then coming into work like, Oh, I like these people in this room. This is good. Yeah, I think it’s something that I didn’t think about until I was reflecting on what’s good about running your own business. If someone’s horrible and absolute dickhead, like we do have the ability to be like, can you stop coming here now? please, cuz it’s not nice for everyone.

Lloyd  30:10 

Any more sexy things?

Dan  30:14 

Just a couple more for me. I love the feeling of when a new client puts their trust in us and says they want to work with us. Right big dopamine hit off about all the hard work.

Lloyd  30:26 

I was worried about what you were going to say. The big hit was…dopamine.

Dan  30:30 

…of pitching and all the work that goes into that and then convincing them you know, you should work with us and then they choose to work with us. That’s pretty good. Also, getting feedback from clients, when they say really nice things about our work.

Lloyd  30:39 

That always feels good, doesn’t it? Or if they’re like, Oh, your team is so good. Yeah, yeah, they are.

Dan  30:47 

So I think there are lots of good things. I think that’s why we are still doing this and still get a lot of enjoyment out of doing it but at the same time, I’m glad we’ve shared that unsexy stuff because hopefully, people will relate to that and if you’re, like I said, in the third year of running your business and just getting by, then you’ll like most other businesses, so don’t feel bad.

Lloyd  31:08 

Don’t be too harsh on yourself. There will be sexiness to balance the un-sexiness.

Dan  31:13 

Yeah. So that’s it. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please do tell people about business anchors, can you please do a post on social media and talk about it and share it with your friends? It helps more people listen to the podcast, and hopefully, it’s useful and yeah, you know, spreads love.

Lloyd  31:29 

Are you gonna announce the competition?

Dan  31:35 

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot about that. Yes!

Lloyd  31:38 

It was weird because you said we need to do this.

Dan  31:43 

This is the most exciting part of the episode.

Lloyd  31:47 

Yeah, you are excited.

Dan  31:49 

Our wonderful sponsor for the podcast, Adobe Express, is giving away one year’s premium access to Adobe Express and I want to share with you how you can enter that competition in a minute before we do that. Lloyd has come up with a creative way to communicate some of the things we love about Adobe Express. We tasked Lloyd with coming up with something creative to talk about what he likes about Adobe Express and go on Lloyd tell us how you’re going to do this.

Lloyd  32:22 

So, what I’ve done, you know, when you’re at primary school and every autumn, I felt like it was? they may write autumn down the side of the piece of paper and then you write a poem where you start with A B C? Do you know what those poems are called?

Dan  32:37 

Do you know what they’re called?

Lloyd  32:38 

No.

Lloyd  32:40 

So I’ve done one of those for Adobe Express. Okay. Are you ready? Sophisticated. Are you ready for my performance?

Dan  32:47 

Yeah, go on. So exciting. You go on

Lloyd  32:49 

Adobe Express, Dan what do you think of it?

Dan  32:53 

It’s great.

Lloyd  32:54 

Oh, before you answer, I’ve got a few reasons to try it. Bring your content to life with animations. Easy to create and share. Easy to collaborate with colleagues to share templates and files. X-rays are weird, right? Probably should get back to Adobe Express though. Royalty-free photos, every font you could ever need. Standout Photo Effects to be applied in seconds. Seriously, you should give Adobe Express a go.

Dan  33:22 

Oh, you are so immature. X-rays are weird, aren’t they?

Lloyd  33:29 

Yeah, I struggled with the X. I don’t think anyone noticed.

Dan  33:35 

So hopefully you enjoyed that which segues nicely on to how you can win a one-year premium subscription of Adobe Express, which is simply by commenting on this video and we will randomly pick.

Dan  33:52 

Listen to the podcast. We post video clips of these across our social media on LinkedIn. Instagram, tik, Tok, Facebook, any of those places and just comment underneath this video. You can say whatever you like, and we will randomly pick someone from the comments to win that one-year subscription. So is that alright Lloyd?

Lloyd  34:12 

That’s right. I was just thinking X-rays are weird, right?

Dan  34:15 

Yes, they are weird. Yeah.

Dan  34:22 

Why do we both go silent?

Lloyd  34:25 

I thought we were finished. Okay. Now we usually finish with seeing you in your ears next week.

Hopefully, this episode has given you a realistic insight into what it takes to run a successful business! If you have any more questions, then why not start a conversation with us here at Knowlton.