[00:00:09.380] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:10.480] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:10.920] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:12.860] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:15.320] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses in the last seven days. And welcome back to those who've been with us before. We do this every week, and we are both self-employed. So this podcast is all about things that have affected us. And one of the things that we looked at a long time ago is Taylor's new business. So he started up his own self-employment business, and we said at the time that we'd come back and revisit it after a year or so and just see how it was getting on. And it's been a year or so.

[00:01:00.780] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:01:00.780] - Gordon
It's been a bit longer than a year, but not by much. When, do you remember when you started?

[00:01:07.760] - Taylor
I started in July 2019.

[00:01:10.640] - Gordon
Ah, two years then. So it was a year since we started the podcast, so two... July... Yeah, two years. Two years and a month. July, August, yeah August we are now, aren't we? So let's just check in with Taylor and find out how things have been going, if they've been going the way that he expected them to go, if they've been going better or worse because of lockdown. Over to you.

[00:01:38.900] - Taylor
So yeah, I think that, I think business has gone a lot better than I probably expected, not because I thought I'd do bad, but just I had no idea what to expect really.

[00:01:50.260] - Gordon
And no customers at the time.

[00:01:52.200] - Taylor
Yeah. So if we go back from when I first started, I've come a long way in terms of my experience. My kind of, what would you call it? Self confidence, I guess. And my, kind of not performing, but kind of presenting skills have obviously increased. And, yeah, just all around kind of my skills have increased, really. And obviously with that comes with more clients, more knowledge. You know, well known in some communities, just because of how often and regular I comment and replying in there. So, yeah all round, really, really good.

[00:02:35.220] - Gordon
So let's just look at a couple of things that you did to get customers. First of all, you joined BNI.

[00:02:42.900] - Taylor
Yes.

[00:02:43.860] - Gordon
And that is a networking group. And because of the business that you are in, web design, there are lots of people who run businesses that need a good website. And even when you have a good website, after a period of time, you need to either update it or renew it completely. And you and I both know this because we've both done that for our own websites. And so for that sort of business, BNI works really well. Would you agree?

[00:03:12.400] - Taylor
Yeah, I think it does work really well. And especially because a lot of the people that, kind of clients I get, they're not people that may necessarily need website for the business per se, but they need it because they know that it's a way that people find out whether or not a company's real or not. So they kind of use it as a kind of...

[00:03:36.300] - Gordon
Social proof.

[00:03:37.100] - Taylor
Yeah, social proof exactly, so they put their portfolio on there. And sometimes people just don't have the time. You know, a lot of people are very, very busy, and they're very busy trying to do their own skills and their own trade. That they just don't have time to worry about their own website, and so they never get round to kind of looking at it, really.

[00:03:57.020] - Gordon
And BNI also helped you to do public speaking because you have to talk at the meetings and basically give your elevator pitch.

[00:04:10.020] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:04:10.020] - Gordon
And then every now and then you get to expand on that a little bit. And I know that most of the time you've been with BNI... Well, I guess not most, but probably half the time, over half the time that you've been with BNI has been on Zoom, hasn't it?

[00:04:28.760] - Taylor
Yes. So we obviously had to go on Zoom, because of the way that the world kind of crumbled to everyone's houses. And yeah, we were online, and then I actually ended up becoming the Secretary of our chapter.

[00:04:42.040] - Gordon
That's right.

[00:04:42.040] - Taylor
So I had a bigger role, and kind of really had to kind of, you know get to grips with public speaking, and just understanding, you know not being afraid to kind of just go for it, really.

[00:04:53.730] - Gordon
And that's really helped with your confidence.

[00:04:55.570] - Taylor
Yeah. Definitely.

[00:04:56.600] - Gordon
So I'm guessing what you're saying is, if the business would work with BNI, and you'll know very quickly if it will work or not, then that was a really good thing for you to do. It's quite a big investment to begin with, but it's paid off in spades, right?

[00:05:11.930] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, even if you don't get much back in terms of monetary value, you'll probably end up getting a lot more than just that because you gain the connections, you gain the experience, the confidence. You know, we have a lot of people that joined and they'd never done speaking in front of people because they never liked it, they didn't enjoy it, or they just weren't good at it. And this gave them, you know they had to otherwise, they're representing their business, and obviously that represents on to you or your business if you don't, you know. So you know, a lot of people have gained a lot of experience and just confidence because of this. So you gain a lot more than just the monitory value at face.

[00:05:54.730] - Gordon
Ok. So moving away from BNI, you have quite a few customers now, and as well as doing web design, you're also hosting.

[00:06:05.600] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:07.080] - Gordon
And you've added, have you added any other products to, products or services that you offer?

[00:06:15.060] - Taylor
Only maintenance, which is kind of alongside hosting. But apart from that, not really. I find that if you stray too far away from offering lots and lots of services, that you end up kind of doing too many things and one could become overwhelmed with, you know, the amount of stuff that you have to do. But also, you know, I want to be good at one area and stick with that. And just be happy, happy with that.

[00:06:40.900] - Gordon
And the other thing is that hosting and maintenance are both reoccurring revenue aren't they?

[00:06:48.220] - Taylor
Yep.

[00:06:48.220] - Gordon
So it's something that you do have to do something for.

[00:06:52.820] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:52.820] - Gordon
But for the hosting side, you only need to set it up and then deal with any support requests.

[00:06:58.330] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:58.330] - Gordon
And the maintenance is something that you do in bulk for all of the sites that you have. So it's reoccurring revenue, which is a great way of building your cash flow.

[00:07:10.840] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:07:10.840] - Gordon
Basically. Everyone needs cash flow in their business otherwise they're going to really suffer. So looking back at the last two years, are there any big challenges you had as a business owner?

[00:07:24.400] - Taylor
I think the biggest one was giving up control. It's something I've always struggled with from the beginning really is, the more clients that I got, the more my name got out there and the work that I do, the busier I got on, and the more work I took on and yeah, it just got to a point where I kind of, I didn't want to give away the control because it's a scary thing, because it's your business, it's your kind of, your name out there that is what gets kind of diminished if you do a bad job. And so that was the one thing that I was always scared of. And I've actually found someone who is amazing and does a really, really good job for me, and yeah I pass work out to him and he's helped me a lot.

[00:08:15.100] - Gordon
So when you say losing control, you mean having too much work and not being able to do it all yourself and therefore having to get someone else to do some of it.

[00:08:23.400] - Taylor
Yeah exactly.

[00:08:24.400] - Gordon
Ok.

[00:08:24.400] - Taylor
Because you can give people work, but because it's not their own business, they're not going to have the same drive, same passion to want to do a good job and to the same level of standard that you do because they're not, it's not their business, it's not their company that they are, you know if they do a bad job only me is the person that's going to tell them off rather than...

[00:08:50.180] - Gordon
Yep.

[00:08:50.180] - Taylor
A bad rep for them. So yeah, it's a big, big step to take and it's a scary one, but if you find the right person, it can be really, really good because it, it doubles your workload, really, because you know you can either then just focus on the management side of it, or you can increase your capacity and take on double the work because you've got two people working.

[00:09:12.780] - Gordon
That's right. And that's the only way to really grow, isn't it? Taking on people that you trust. And you're right, that's a big step. So, two questions more then I think. So first of all, is it what you expected? And if not, how is it different?

[00:09:30.560] - Taylor
I think it's never going to be what you're expected really just because of, it's a minefield really. No one really knows what they're doing when they go into it. You've got no prior experience, apart from obviously me seeing what you did when I was at school and stuff like that, there's no prior experience to it. They don't teach you anything like that in school. There is nothing out there really unless you just watch on the internet about what it's going to be like. I think probably clients, getting clients is probably one of the most difficult things to do when you first start up. I think that's probably the main thing is just, you know.

[00:10:06.670] - Gordon
That's the main challenge, getting customers.

[00:10:08.760] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, once you've got over that hurdle of you've got your name out there and you've got enough clients that you end up getting just referred work, and you go off them really. And it's kind of just a nice steady incoming stream. But it's the initial kind of getting your name out there because to get work, you need experience and to get experience you need work. And so you're in a very, very difficult loop that you need to try and break out of and have just one or two people to take a punt on you, to say you know, we'll do it at a cheaper rate maybe, but you know, "we'll give you a go."

[00:10:44.960] - Gordon
To get your portfolio up.

[00:10:46.200] - Taylor
Exactly. And yeah, I think that's probably one of the biggest things that I've realised is that you just need to be able to try and get yourself on the... Like with like the property ladder. Once you're on there, it's very easy to scale up because you've got one property, but getting on the initial property ladder is probably similar to being self-employed.

[00:11:05.660] - Gordon
And a related sub-question to that one is, was there anything that you found really difficult because you had absolutely no interest in doing it? For example, accounting, you know the admin side of it.

[00:11:21.460] - Taylor
I enjoyed setting up the systems. It was, they can be overwhelming. As I said before, I've been through many, many systems. You know, probably won't even be my last system, the one that I'm using right now, just because technology evolves, better technology comes out, better systems come out. But I think, yeah, that was probably the main thing is finding a system that works for me, finding the work flow that works for me. And, yeah, learning stuff that I had no idea that I had before you know. Learning about how to set up subscriptions with banks and things like that. Working out how to... Yeah working out how to do the accounting. I have a great accountant that I pass all my stuff to, that do my end of year accounts.

[00:12:11.160] - Gordon
Good.

[00:12:11.160] - Taylor
Just looking online, asking them questions actually, just to say, you know, "is this? Am I doing this right?" Them just giving me tips and push in the right direction. But you know, again, it's one of those things that you don't learn anywhere else, apart from just doing and you know making mistakes and learning from them.

[00:12:25.740] - Gordon
Yep. Unless you apprentice somewhere. But then that's difficult because you're not running your own business that way. You want to actually start your business because you're only ever going to make money for the person who owns the business, and that needs to be you, doesn't it?

[00:12:40.220] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:41.200] - Gordon
So the last question I have for you in this whirlwind tour of your last two years in business is, if you could go back two years to yourself before you started the business, and this might apply to people who are watching that might be thinking of starting their own business. What three things would you tell yourself?

[00:13:07.700] - Taylor
I don't think I would have done too much differently, really, in terms of what I did previously because I mean, prior to College, I knew I wanted to do web design. I knew I wanted to go self-employed. And so I worked very, very hard working to earn money and also working for an agency where I just was improving my skills and I didn't really have a social life. And yes, that probably was, you know, I probably didn't have as much fun as a lot of people in my College. But you know, now that I've come out of College, I'm probably in a better position than they are both monetary wise, both in happiness, I think. Because I think a lot of people our age struggle with just being happy, not sure what they want to do.

[00:13:54.800] - Gordon
Our age.

[00:13:54.800] - Taylor
And, well my age.

[00:14:00.320] - Gordon
Bit rude.

[00:14:00.320] - Taylor
Yeah, I think people don't know what they want to do and that's causes people to have anxiety and stress and things like that. And because I'm quite, I know what I want to do. I'm kind of settled, I guess in what I'm doing, that I have that stress taken away from me. But something I would say is just believe in yourself and do what you enjoy.

[00:14:22.480] - Gordon
Ok. So believe in yourself. Do what you enjoy. That's good advice.

[00:14:27.520] - Taylor
But if I could go back and tell myself what something else to do. I'm not sure. Just don't listen to other people, that have negative comments. It took me a while to realise that actually, but just ignore them. They don't actually matter. You know, I took it to heart quite a bit at the beginning of high school, and then during the end of high school and College, it was just funny when people used to say stuff because it didn't bother me in the slightest.

[00:14:58.360] - Gordon
Ok, so be true to yourself.

[00:15:01.800] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:15:01.800] - Gordon
Don't worry what other people think. Anything else?

[00:15:04.430] - Taylor
I don't think so, I think that's everything really.

[00:15:08.180] - Gordon
Maybe bike ride a bit more often. That would have been a good thing to tell yourself.

[00:15:15.060] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:15:15.060] - Gordon
Because you have your bike and it's your way of relaxing. But you've been a bit busy recently and haven't had a chance to go out, have you?

[00:15:23.950] - Taylor
Yeah, I need to go, I need to start going back out again.

[00:15:26.340] - Gordon
Just as the weather's getting nice.

[00:15:28.680] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:32.380] - Gordon
Good. Is there anything else you want to add?

[00:15:36.040] - Taylor
I think that it's a lot easier for people to go self-employed at a younger age. It's a lot more scarier to go self-employed at a young age.

[00:15:45.420] - Gordon
But if you fail, then you can, you know, go in a different direction.

[00:15:49.550] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:49.550] - Gordon
It's exactly the same as me. When I started, I thought, "I want to be a magician," you know, 18 years of age. I want to be a magician. If I'm not able to be a magician, well I'm young enough to then go off and do something different. Luckily for me, I'm still a magician, and that's what I do. And that's what I love to do. And because of that love of being a magician, I think that's got me to where I am.

[00:16:15.820] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, I talk to a lot of people, especially adults, that are doing web design on the side. And, you know, I always say, "just go for it." And it's very difficult because taking that leap of expected salary pay to unexpected is very scary and also may not be viable.

[00:16:37.460] - Gordon
Especially if you've got bills to pay.

[00:16:39.170] - Taylor
Yeah, it may not be possible. And so that's one thing that I think that if you ever have thought about doing it, do it sooner rather than later, because it's a lot easier when you're young because you have little to no expenses. And you know, if it doesn't work, you can always get a job somewhere else and work on it. But at least you've started that journey.

[00:17:04.400] - Gordon
Very good. So I hope that has given you some insights, and hopefully it's helped something that you might be thinking about. That's it for this week, except to say that all of the transcripts and subtitles up to this episode, not including this episode because it's, we're going out now, have now been completed. They're all up. They're all ready for you to search on the website. It was a mammoth task, but it's now done. So thank you for joining us. As always, you can find us on YouTube and on Facebook, please like, share and subscribe.

[00:17:44.480] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith to find all of our past transcriptions, videos and be able to search for them.

[00:17:52.700] - Gordon
Just to confirm that, the address is thisweekwith.co.uk, that wasn't mentioned.

[00:17:58.550] - Taylor
No, sorry.

[00:17:58.550] - Gordon
So that's the website. We'll see you again next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:18:06.680] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:18:09.320] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:18:09.820] - Taylor
Bye.

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