Starting from scratch

Welcome to Throb, The Reality of Business podcast. Real business chat from real people without the shiny veneer of gurus anywhere near it.

With your hosts Bertie Cordingly and Paul Chapman and maybe some guests along the route, we'll talk about our experiences of running a business, helping others run a business and sharing real stories based on real experience.

Thanks. Hello again, Paul Chapman. Hello, listeners. Hello, listeners. How are you?

Hello, hello, hello. Bertrand, as they probably call you on the continent. I don't know if they do, actually.

Nobody calls me that anywhere. How are you, Paul?

Fine, thank you, Bertie. Sorry for trying to inject that small bit of fun into our daily lives, but I'll cut that out and we'll go back to being professional.

We're not cutting it out. It can stay there. I'm just saying that nobody calls me. I wasn't in any way offended. I was just saying I've never heard that before. We'll probably never hear it again.

Maybe this will be the start of something new.

Okay, Paul-ond, as they call you in the continent.

I don't think it works that way. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Plow on.

Okay. Plow away. Anyway, so on that amazing bombshell of an introduction, Paul, what are we going to talk about today?

Well, today, Bertie, if that is indeed your real name, this is something we've spoken about a lot. Because of what we do, people are always asking us, where do I start? I've got this idea. And I think the reality is everybody's got a business idea inside them. Not all of them are good. Certainly not all of them should come out. But actually, it is one of the things that we get asked about a lot. So I think unusually for us, we're going to go on a really kind of single topic today. I'm really going to talk about starting from scratch. So what is it you do? What should you avoid? Is it actually a good idea? And what you can do right from the get-go to give your business the best chance of delivering what you want it to deliver? And I guess something that you know a lot about from a fill-my-belly days, I suppose.

Yeah, this is a subject that I speak about a lot. It's probably one of my favourite subjects. So I'm glad we've chosen it today for the 10th podcast. 10? This will be number 10. Unless we record another one and put it in sooner. But no, this will be podcast 10. Let's commit. This is the 10th podcast. Podcast number 10. Podcast number 10. So yes, starting from scratch, starting a business idea is one of my favourite subjects because it's one of the common questions that I get asked. And actually now, it's so much easier to start a business than it ever has been. So it is easier today to start something than it ever has been at all. And you might think, why would you say that? Because a lot of the ideas have already been done, etc. And you might look back and think, I had that idea before and I never did. Now someone else has done it and now they're a gazillionaire. That's even a word. You'll probably know because you look like it.

It probably is. It probably is now. Maybe we'll get a Collins entry for that. But yeah, what I mean by that is, yes, ideas have come and gone. But there are no original ideas anyway. And there haven't been for a very long time. It's very rare you stumble across something that is original. But the ability to start a business literally from your bedroom or your phone or you don't even need a computer nowadays. You can literally just start something off as in take an idea and go and test it. And it is easier than ever. So that's why I love this subject. Because if you have got an idea, you can literally try it out. Generally, pretty much anything. Obviously, there are some exceptions. But you can test things out so quickly. And it's easier than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, especially. And that's why I love this subject now. Because everybody has got the freedom to be able to do that. Very low risk. And you can actually see how it works. So I think what you were saying was earlier, this is where we're going to go a little bit different on today's podcast. So we can actually give you some practical things that you can go away and test. Some ways that if you have a business idea, by the end of this podcast, you'll either think, Right, I'm going to go with this or that's not really for me. But the stuff that we're going to give you today is really good gold advice that I wish I'd have been able to act on like 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

Yeah, I think that is a really interesting point. Actually, it's all around us. Anybody's got any interest in it. It's really easy just to learn and learn from mistakes and learn because everybody's doing it. So many people are doing it. So many people have done it. You can see it everywhere. And I think it is. It's so easy to do. Now, this is not us for a second saying you should be doing this. We've spoken about this before. Go and listen to some of the previous episodes. We've talked about business ownership is not right for everyone. That's not good, not bad. It's indifferent. It's just a thing. And I think that's a part of it. But I think this starting from scratch thing, I think it's really interesting, actually, because when most people think about starting from scratch, what they actually think about is I will start the business. I will buy 10 widgets and I will sell them. You know, I will start this service. So yesterday I didn't do this service. Now I do this service. And I think one of the things that I talk to people a lot about when they're doing this is definitely sounds before you start from scratch. There are two or three things that I think you really ought to be doing. You've touched on one in their testing. But the big one for me is the most important thing in any business, in any level, by any measure, is the audience, is the target market, is the people to speak to. What I see just too often is that people will literally create a thing, put time, money, energy into it, open the doors, and then try and sell it. And I think if anybody is listening to this, thinking about starting a business, the biggest kind of thing I would tell them is to actually do some work beforehand to find yourself a list of the right people. So that when you do open the doors, metaphorical or otherwise, you have got people that know it's happening, that you crucially are interested in the thing that you're going to sell.

Okay.

And this is, you know, I think where people get to this, they can't really get their heads around it. So I thought, as an example, let's just take, I don't know, let's just say you want to set up a B&B in the Lake District. Let's just say that that's been your dream. You've always wanted to kind of do this thing. There are loads of things that you can do in advance that will make that business vastly more profitable, vastly more likely to succeed, and they cost nothing. So if that is the example, if you do want to set up, you know, the B&B in the Lake, do something like, I don't know, create a blog that is all about outdoors life or wild living or get an Instagram. It's super simple. Get an Instagram following of people that like that kind of thing. Build your image bank of different places in and around where that B&B is going to be. Start to engage with other communities. And you can build that. And building an Instagram following is really quite easy. Tagging, et cetera, et cetera. But actually, if you look at what's going on here, is that actually you have got a load of people that are already more likely than General Joe Public to want to come and visit this B&B in the lakes or wherever it is. You've got these people so that you can then go to these people and say, hey, great news. You can now come and stay in this place, in this area that I know you already love. And I think this is a massive one for me is that wherever you possibly can, go and look to build some data, some connections, some people that you know are interested in this. And as you said right at the start, this is so easy to do. Ten years ago, 10, 12, whatever, it was so much harder to the point that it was almost impossible. Whereas now, and let's just go with the example. If I'm setting up a B&B in the Lake District, I can find people who love wild location holidaying from all over the country, in truth, from all over the world really easily. And the most complicated thing I have to do is effectively show them something, which is really easy. And think about this. How would you want to start your business? Either kind of a cold door open or by being able to tell a thousand people, whatever the number is, that you like this stuff, there is another option for them to indulge their passion. But you just don't see it, mate. You just, everybody kind of forgets that till later. And I get why, because we've all done it. But I think it's such a massively kind of pre-start from scratch thing. Have a think about where your customers are or where your future customers are. And we'll come to that in a second, where your future customers are and how could you engage them? Because you can just build it up and build it up and build it. And there's no sell involved there. So it's just communities of like-minded people getting together, which we know they love. So just get all those people, find a way to engage them, and then let them know it's coming. And again, we just don't see it, mate. I think most businesses fail because they don't have enough contact or enough kind of clarity on their perfect target market. And this is a really simple thing that can happen while you are building the website. You know, while you are getting the other shit together, do this bit first. Rant over.

Rant over.

You love a rant, don't you? I do love a rant, yeah. Let's expand on the B&B idea because we're literally just making this up as we go along, aren't we? As in, we haven't already. Yeah, this is like an ask the audience, but we just ask each other a random question. So let's take a bit of B&B. So you would build a blog and then start promoting, what, the local area, for example, and just build an audience in that way?

Yeah, for example, okay, I quite like wild swimming. I quite like getting out rivers and lakes and that sort of stuff, okay? You know, you look on Instagram, there's, I don't know, 340,000 posts that are hashtagged into wild swimming, okay? You think, well, okay, if I'm going to set up a B&B in the Lake District and there's a load of people there that I know like swimming in lakes, well, do you know what? I want to try and engage with that community. And there will be similar hashtags for, I don't know, mountain walking, down to everything from local crafts and all that kind of stuff. But, again, maybe we picked an example here that is a little bit too specific, but anything that anybody listening is going to do, there are people that are easy to find that are already showing an interest in this. Go and connect with them. Let's just say it is the wild. Go and connect with those people that are going wild swimming on Insta. They might connect with you. Well, okay, you're starting to build this audience now.

I suppose we were just talking before the podcast because you've just been away to the Peak District. You're Leicester, aren't you? I'm Nottingham. How far, because the reason I'm bringing this up is because you asked me, have I ever been to the Peak District? So I was like, no, which is criminal. What am I, an hour away from it? Maybe? I don't know. You don't even know where the Peak District is.

It was only 60 miles on the bike and we took a fairly round route. So it's probably about 40 miles from you. So nothing.

So Peak District, like maybe I've driven through it. I don't know. I don't know where it is. I would never look at there for a holiday. Maybe now this year things have changed. But, you know, technically, I suppose I'm not your target market. The thought of open water swimming is just I'm going to go nowhere near that. In fact, I'm going to actively do anything to avoid going in anything that's cold. That just isn't me. So, yeah, I suppose marketing to me is just a waste of your time. Unless you can really capture my attention in some other way. I don't know what that would be. But, yeah, maybe you can think of something. Maybe you can think of some ideas, Paul. I'm not going to. But, yeah, so I suppose targeting you in that example is going to be much, much more relevant. And I think that's the point you're trying to get across. It's actually find people who would be interested in that thing that you're selling before you start selling it. Yeah.

So just to make it help, might be more helpful. Let's just say you want to be selling IT software. Or let's just say you want to be selling kind of laptops. It doesn't matter what it is. If I'm going to go and sell laptops, I've got my decisions to make. I can either go to business owners or I might go to the facilities manager of a large corporation where they've got hundreds of staff. And I think the point I'm really trying to get across is that go and find, connect with, engage with, build a list of your customers in advance of you being ready to sell. Because the alternative is that you get ready to sell, you invest all that money, all that time, and then you're just waiting. And I think it is go and find the people first. Yeah.

And this is what I was just going to get to. I would almost take that a step further as well in that as a smoke test, you know, and I'm going to, this sounds a little bit deceptive, especially in this context. But when you think about it, it really isn't. So let's just take a BNB practical. Well, I'm not going to go and build one. I'm probably going to buy one. So there might be one for sale already. Yeah. So what I would probably, if this was me personally, now that I don't know about the legalities of this in the BNB context, but, you know, let's, this is what I would do. I would go and get the photos of right move or whatever. And I would turn that into a very basic booking website and say, this is my BNB, come and book it. And I would have, I wouldn't plug it into a booking engine, but I would make it seem like the one. And I would make it so people could actually click through availability for May, availability for June, availability for July. Etc.

And then I would probably either push that on the back of your blog or find a way to promote it either via Google ads or Facebook ads or something. So basic premise, landing page, push some ads to it. So yeah, I'm going to spend some money on ads, but it's a hell of a lot less than buying a fucking BNB that nobody wants to book. Do you see where I'm going with this? And then I would measure whenever somebody lands on the page and clicks, because if someone's clicking on availability or then have a button that says book now, I wouldn't take their money. I wouldn't even go that far. The book now would say, I'm sorry, no availability here. However, leave us your details. And when the availability comes in or when we've got this, we will get back to you. So A, my measure of success is not how many email addresses I collect. I just need to be clear on that. My measure of success is how many times that book now button is clicked. So if I've got loads and loads of people that are clicking that button, that to me is telling me that's a pretty sound investment. If I'm running those ads and nobody's clicking now, there may be a problem with the ad or the landing page might be shit. There's lots more variables in here, but you see where I'm going with this. The test, if you can test that, if people click that book now button, then people are probably going to book, like they would book it. They don't know that I don't own that BNB yet. And that's the difference. Now, with a BNB, that's a very extreme example. But the smoke testing can still work. You can use this with a product or a service that you don't have yet. You can just create a video of how your service will work. And the point about a smoke test is you are never deceiving anybody. You're never actually taking their money. Like you could use the same thing for fraud. Of course you can, but you're using this for a legitimate purpose. And that's fine. So I suppose the difference here is maybe not even saying it's full because that's deceptive, right? You just say no availability because actually that's true. There is no availability because I don't own the fucking hotel. I suppose within terms of conditions, you can have this as a smoke test, et cetera. Again, with the BNB, this is a very extreme example. But the point is the smoke test can still be done. 30 years ago, for example, you'd have had or even 20, you'd have had to hire a developer to build that website. There was no way of running those specific ads. You've had to spend loads of time, effort and energy on SEO or marketed this independently of the internet to actually drive people to there. Or you'd have to feel like the tools just didn't exist. So now it's so easy. You can put something up and test it in a day. You could get results in a day. But then in theory, you could take to an investor and say, I've just run these ads. There's a huge demand for this property. We can model this out. We could make a million pound a year in revenue from this. This property is only 200 grand. It's a no brainer. Do you want to go half in with me? Boom. And that's the difference. You've got data to back up them. Whereas in the old days, you would have this idea and you would take that idea to an investor and say, I think this will generate this much revenue. This is my idea. Can I have some of your money to go and test it? Whereas now you can do the testing all up front. And that's the big difference.

Yeah, I think the concept there works across absolutely everything. It just reminds me of a guy. And I forget what industry it was. It doesn't matter. Let's just say it was garden centers he was going to sell to. And what he did in advance, because he went and had a look, he realized there was nothing there already. So he created the National Federation of Garden Center Owners and invited loads of garden centers. I'm going to create this thing. Do you want to be part of it? It's free to join. Now, suddenly he's got this massive database of the right people. And his version of smoke testing was effectively to get this data and then have the conversations. And he'd do like this one with this pretender thing. And he would go, and it's still one of the greatest business questions I've ever heard asked. And he would go and ask them and say, look, effectively, look, I know you've got suppliers. And I know that you've locked into contracts. But what would need to happen for us to be in the mix when that contract comes up? And he learns then when the contract comes up and he learns any irritations. He learned any kind of things that he could do. So actually he can then craft his offering there. And it is a brilliant question that I would urge you listeners to just to ask you about kind of everything. What would need to happen if? But you've got all this stuff. If the answer comes back of, well, look, do you know what? We love our current supplier. Been there for 20 years. I can't really think of anything. That happens again and again. Maybe this isn't the right avenue in. But if it comes back, it's that we love them. Perhaps a bit expensive. Oh, OK. Can I then fight on price? Do I want to be someone that fights on price? But all this stuff, and I suppose, I guess all of this, all we're trying to say is here is that, look, particularly now, more so than ever before, you can get really close to working out whether this can work for you in advance of you having to invest a load of money. Because all the stuff we've spoken to now is pretty much free. Not quite, but pretty much free. And it is. Yeah, exactly. Getting an Insta following, going to fight, even going to have those conversations with someone and say, look, can I buy you a coffee? Can I ask you a question? I think it's so important. Anybody listening to this, just test it first. Find out this whole, there's a gap in the market. Fine. Is there any market in that gap? OK, that's going to work that. And you can test that super easily above and beyond everything. But above and beyond, go and start your collection of people that will likely buy from you. And it is so easy to find because there is groups, communities, everything for any possible thing you can ever think of selling from curtains to cars. There are people that are showing their interest in this. Go and find them. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

There's so many Facebook groups and things like that. You can just go in and ask questions. And like what we're talking about in the networking meetings, there's a big difference going in and asking a question rather than just going in there and buy my shit. Unless there is a group specifically set up for post your holiday rental locations here, whatever. But just going into an open swimming group, for example, and posting that would be the wrong thing to do. But going in there and having conversations about open swimming and mentioning that you have this place. If someone's asking a question, does anyone know anywhere nearby where I can go and swim in this lake and then go back and get a shower and stuff? Boom, you're in. And I think that's the difference with this stuff. And all these things exist. Yeah.

And you just say exactly that. Go and think about it. Don't just smash and grab and be that kind of that insta wanky kind of thing. So I'm going to go and find a load of wild swimmers. So on the Instagram profile, I'm going to have a Paul Chapman, lakes lover, aspiring wild swimmer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So when I'm going to connect with Bertie, who is also a wild swimmer, there's likely to that connection. And this could go on for years. No, it is not. This could go on for years in advance of the business. If you see something you think, yes, we want to do, we could do that. Imagine starting your business with 2,000 people, 10,000 people that you know are interested to buy what you sell. And it's so easy to do. So, yeah, that came out of me. And I think just on that, man, we touched on it earlier on. I think it's really important, I think, at this really early stage of working out what is the business that you actually want to have. And I say this from a point of view of I am someone that built a business that it turned out actually I didn't want. And I think that almost came from unconsciously doing it rather than thinking about it. And, yeah, I think a big kind of hands up as part of that. I think I had to go through that process. I don't know if I'd have spotted it at the start. But I think there is an element where you do need to sit and say, look, what do I really want this to be like? Do I want this to be a side project, which is brilliant? I want to build this massive thing because the things that you need to do are different. I think it's really important trying to spend some time thinking about that at the very beginning.

It is. And that is a crucial first step. And I suppose we've brushed over it. So we spoke about it a lot before. Let's just be really clear. Do not start a business because you think you should be. Start it because it's something that you want to do. Let me say that again, just to be absolutely crystal clear. If you are thinking of starting a business because maybe there's external pressure or you just keep seeing stuff. Oh, maybe I should do this. I don't really want to. I quite like doing what I'm doing. Just don't do it. There's no, you're not missing out on something. You're not going to enjoy it. If it's that feeling that's been inside you for a while and you're thinking, I don't really know where to start. I really want to do this because I've got this passion for making pizzas or I really want to run a restaurant or I'd love to own a B&B or whatever it is. Then you can do it. And you can do those things. You can test those things out without going balls deep into spending a shitload of cash on either investing in a B&B or buying a restaurant or doing all of this stuff. You can test these things out first. You really can.

And I think as a big part of that, what do you want it to be? There's two bits that I think of there. What do you actually want to earn from it? There are plenty of businesses that are just kind of passion projects and there aren't any financial implications. More often than not, I would say that people want there to be a significant earning from it, whatever significant means. And I think it's really important to think that through because then that lets you work out what you need to do. And from there, it then works out, well, OK, who are the people to target? Because I know I did at the start. I entered the wrong phrase, the bottom end of the market. It would have been just as easy to end the top end of the market. And you just do things slightly different. And you need to work out, do you want a thousand customers paying you £10 or 10 customers paying you £8,000? Because it's no different. But the time that you'll need to put in and the mechanics and the processes and everything else behind it will need to be really different. And it's quite hard to change that, I believe. I've got a bit of experience here. It's quite hard to change it halfway through. It's much easier to start. I want this to be a high-end B&B. I want to create an experience where people can happily pay £300 a night as opposed to a more youth hostel-y thing where it's £10 a night. And it's so much easier at the beginning to work that out. You could say, look, I'm going to buy this property. It's currently a B&B. I want to earn £100,000 out of this. So I'm going to put it out at £4,000 a week because I only want to work half a year or whatever it is. And I'm not saying you're going to get it perfect. In fact, let's be very clear. You are not going to get this perfect straight away. But if you start on a trajectory where you're creating a venue that is based around someone paying £50 a night, I would say there's an enormous issue if you then want to change that and think, you know what? We're working all hours for £50 a night. I remember when I first started, I was charging £69 a month for what I did. A guy that I knew doing exactly the same thing, but like a fraction of the work. I would sit and go and do and be with them and do loads. And I was doing £69 and he was doing £700. And he's laughing. And there's nothing wrong with any of that, but it's that decision. And I think that's really important that start from scratch stuff. Get into that background of what do I really, really want this to be? How much time do I want in? What do I want my life to look like with this in it? You know, how do I earn? And just work it back from there. And I think that's really important. I think it gets missed. But if we go a bit more practical, I suppose that's like the background stuff, the stuff that to think about. Where does someone start? So they've done all that. They've started to get the people. They're clear on what it is that they want to do. What's the first step for these people?

I think the first step is to start planning. Now, the word, you know, business plan filled me with fear. And when you think of business plan, you know, the stuff that I had to do to get a bank account initially. Like now you can just go into Starling. Starling is great. What a business account. Download the app. Set it up. Two minutes. Boom. You've got your sort code and account number. Now, I'm not talking about writing pages and pages of a business plan, right? But you need a guide. Now, this is going to contradict what I'm saying. Whatever you put in that plan is going to be wrong. All of it. All of your assumptions. However much you think you're going to earn. Whatever. But that does not mean you do not do a plan. But what you've got, because what this will show you is you need to be able to plan because as you start to work to a plan, you need to recognize when things are going wrong and then change it. Equally, you need to recognize when things are going right and double down on it. But you always need a plan to go after. And it's best written down to some form of goals, vision, like what actually do you want to do? The revenue side of it in the business model is very dependent. Now, of course, you should be modeling stuff out. But again, that's going to change. It could be you've got a really pessimistic business model initially. It could be you have a really optimistic one. But as I said before, going back to point A, it's going to be wrong anyway, regardless. But a business model is a revenue model is something that you should really have and try and understand your cash flow. There are exceptions to that. If you are building something like a sort of social network or a freemium model, that might be something that you don't know how to monetize just yet. But those things are very rare. And I'm not saying that you should be going after those. But if you've got something that you're not sure how you are going to generate revenue, that doesn't necessarily stop you from doing it.

If you were buying a house to convert to a BNB, of course, you need to know how to generate revenue from that straight away or anything else. But if you've got like a like Facebook, for example, right, when Facebook launched, they didn't know how to generate revenue. But then, of course, when you've got something that's that big, revenue comes. But those ideas are in the minority, but doesn't necessarily mean that you should exclude them if you don't know how to generate revenue or if it doesn't generate revenue straight away. Because sometimes you need critical mass and land grab and all that sort of stuff. So if you're running a business for a year and you're not making money or not able to take money out of it, it doesn't mean that it's failing. As an example, with fillmybelly.com, it was three years before I was able to take any cash out of that business. And we measured everything. So how many visits were coming to the website? How many menus were they reviewing, et cetera, et cetera? How often did customers come back? And the orders per day, orders per month, et cetera. And you could see that over time, those metrics were improving, like 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, like 100% in the early days. Then it starts to taper off. The difference between getting five orders a night and 10 orders a night at 10% of an average order value of £16 was like five quid. So if you looked at our revenue, it's gone from £5 a night to £10 a night. It's nothing. But you can't make any money from that. But if you're not tracking the actual revenue, if you're tracking the numbers, that is 100% increase month on month. That is telling you that you need to keep going and find some money and find a way of making that business exist. If the numbers are going down, then it's a different story altogether. Do you see where I'm going with this? You might not necessarily be making money from it. Because you can see that things are tracking in the right direction.

And I guess a big part of this is, as we've said before, is get some experience in your business. It doesn't need to be bought in, but get some experience. Because that's really interesting. Because most people, you'd be like, oh, my God, I've worked that hard. And all I've done this month is get another five quid a night. But actually, you need some of the experience here. But what's actually happened there is you're 100% more popular than you were. But this is where that sort of framing comes in. And I think it's really interesting. Because I'm the same as you. Planning is just critical. Clarity, planning is so important. But I think those measures are massive as well. And I think it's super critical that you have measures week by week, month by month. The one thing I see a lot is that people will set out a year's plan. And actually, by the end of January, let's say, they're not quite where they want to be. And that's fine. Because what they see is, well, at the end of the year, I need to have earned £1,000. By the end of January, they're only at £50. And they're like, oh, it's fine. I've only got to earn £1,200 by December. And you're like, yeah, it's miles away. And actually, you get this kind of this project creep. Because if that happens in January and you don't address it or acknowledge it, it's not a massive issue. But then it happens in February. And you're still behind the curve. And actually, you start to need a 14-month year because you are so far behind. And I think this is one of the problems with plans. People do them and forget about them and send them out into the ether, where actually, you need to bring that accountability. You need to bring that stuff forward. So actually, you can look at it at each point. And then that way, it's really difficult to change things that have already happened. Looking back, I'm like, oh, shit, we should have stopped that. Why were we losing so much money? Well, we were doing this in January. Yeah, but it's June. Why? And this is so important to look at it. And I think what's really important here is that actually, you are right. The plan will always be wrong. But you've got something to follow. And I think there's a big part of this. And again, I'm immediately going to contradict myself is stick to the plan. And even though it's wrong, and it will, of course, kind of change, follow down the corridor of the plan. Don't think, okay, like, these are the things that I think are the right things to do. Just follow it. Don't then try and veer off into something different and do, you know, because if you've got four or five different plan things going on, nothing's going to get through. You need to see this stuff through to the end. So you can actually start to then look at it with proper eyes on it. I think, well, okay, these are decisions made on kind of facts, not hunches, as I always bore people with. And I think it's really dangerous when people have a plan and don't stick to it. But I get that that's also really difficult to say, as we've just said, your plan will be wrong. But do you know where I'm going there? Absolutely.

And I think this is why it's important to understand your vision and where you're heading, that your North Star metric, et cetera, shouldn't really change. We'll talk more about this in specifics of how to measure, et cetera, in a separate podcast, because there's a whole wealth of stuff there.

But your plan is your guide, essentially. But equally, you shouldn't be afraid to change your plan if it isn't working. And I think back to the whole, I'm not going to go into politics on this, like why would we risk upsetting more listeners than our casual profanity and sexual innuendo?

But there was a great analogy with Brexit, right? Now, in fact, no, fuck it. Let's just go politics. Here we go.

Brace yourself, listeners.

Brexit for me was just, here we go. So Brexit, it's just fucking crazy. So if you vote Brexit, then, you know, fine. Possibly now, possibly I can forgive you. There's a lot of misinformation out there. But like, you didn't vote Brexit, did you, Paul? I did not.

No, I didn't. Good, good. Okay.

So there was a lot of misinformation out there. And what I found was that after the whole Brexit thing, obviously there was loads of people like cheering, et cetera. And then as time went on and as the whole debacle, it just dragged on and on. And actually people that voted were like, I would never, ever have done this if I'd have known that this is the result. And I think a lot of people voted as a fuck you to the government and all that sort of stuff. It was a real sort of tough time. And I'm not a politician. I don't really understand the whole things. But what I do know is a lot of people vote for something that they didn't then want. And I think this is the same. Plans can change. And when the whole thing for a second referendum came through and it was like, no, we're not doing it because it's, but there was new data there. And people would have voted differently based on that new data. And the analogy that I loved was that if you booked a restaurant and there's five people booking a restaurant, oh, should we go to this restaurant? It looks amazing. I've looked at the reviews. Should we go there on Sunday? Yeah, fantastic. Brilliant. Decision made. That's the plan. That's the plan. We're going with that plan. Then on Friday, you actually find out that this restaurant only serves actual human shit. Do you still go to that restaurant or based on the new data, based on the new data, can you change your mind?

Or do you just turn up on Sunday and eat shit? And I think that's, it's, there's always new data that comes into a plan. So it's great to have one. It's great to have one. But equally, if the data tells you to do something else, you should have the ability to change your mind on that because nobody wants to eat shit, do they?

No, Bertie. Well, I imagine. That's not go there. Yeah, I think that's it. I think the key bit here is you are, you're still hungry. For me, the plan is I am hungry. No, for the love of God, no.

No, no, no. I've literally, no. I've spout my coffee everywhere. How can you be hungry after that? No.

Okay. The thing you want, this is the sound of someone desperately clinging at straws to keep us on track. The thing you want is to go out with your mates and have a nice meal. That's your plan. Okay. So that is the guide. This is what I'm trying to achieve here. If the first iteration of said restaurant turns out isn't serving the dishes you'd like,

absolutely change. But the plan is still going out for your mates. And I think what I see too often here is that people will go, I'm going to set this business up and it's going to do this thing. And I'm like, okay, you plan for what you're going to do for this kind of six months. Okay. So what are the actions? What are the steps? What? There will be so much zigzagging in there. And that is your change of restaurant. What I'd be saying halfway through, I think, yeah, I wouldn't then be saying, okay, you know, go, you know, I no longer want to do that. I want to do this version of it. I perhaps want to go out for drinks with the guys. Again, it's not a great example, but it's that go through it, go and see it through going. I need to do this to this. See that through. Don't come off and go, well, okay, oh, I'm now going to try and maybe I'm going to do this with it or that with it or this. And I think that's where people go is get your plan, see it through. Because otherwise you'd have simply no idea if it will work because you never get to the end. It's the same with marketing. People do this a lot with marketing. They will just, they'll start on something and then they get, their mind gets taken by a shiny thing. And then they, you know, so take direct mail. They go, oh, we're going to do some direct mail. Cool. And they'll send it off, but they'll half do it because direct mail is that it's always a seven step process. It isn't, but a direct mail, which has a follow-up of this, which has a follow-up of that, which then you do this, you need to do that and this and that. Great. What most people do, we'll send a letter, do nothing else. Oh, I might do some Facebook stuff now. I think it's never going to work. You're never going to know if it works or not, unless you see it through. And I guess that's where I kind of I'm at with that plan. Plans will also always change. Restaurants will always need to be different. But stick down the same thing. Make sure you can look yourself in the mirror and say, you know, I did everything I could to make that direct mail work. It did not do that. Right. Now what's plan B? What's our next restaurant in that? Exactly. Yeah. No,

you're a hundred percent correct there because people do stop doing things either A, because they're difficult or B, because you said the next shiny thing comes in. So it's all, what's happening with direct mail? Oh, I've just seen that now you can run these ads on, I don't know, some social media part of stuff started that. Why have you stopped direct mail? Because I've got this new idea. No, that new idea should go into a pot. And we prioritize those based on, you know, how impactful they're going to be, et cetera, et cetera. However, why have you stopped direct mail? And if you have stopped doing direct mail, because the data has shown you that that hasn't worked after you have exhausted all of your options, fine, but don't stop it because something else has new come along because that, that is just literally a distraction.

Yeah.

And then what you end up is loads of half baked data that says, direct mail, you know, you can, here's, we did a direct mail campaign. Okay. Why didn't you do more? Oh, because I had this new idea. It's like, well, if it's worked, double down on it. Yeah. And I think this white boils down to when people say I need a hundred customers or a thousand customers or 10 customers, where do I start? And what people forget is they try and scale too early and you should always start with one customer. So if you can figure out a way to get one customer, then all you're going to do is do that again and do it again and do it again, which sounds really obvious, but that's it. And it's long and it's slow and it's boring, but slow and steady does ultimately always win the race. And I think that's the way to look at it. So if you're going out for direct mail, you get one customer from there rather than focusing on the 99 that you didn't get, what attracted that one customer to that mail shot? Pick up the phone, speak to them. Just wondering, mate, why did you actually, you know, sign up? What, what made you join? Oh, I liked this because of this, or we're based in this and this really resonated.

Great.

Then start targeting those more so you can refine them. It's easy to focus on the negative. So you might've sent out a hundred mail shots and got one. That's actually not a bad response rate, but maybe you sent out a thousand or 10,000 and only got one. Still that one customer has joined you. So don't think about the people that didn't think about that person that did and try then and double down on that and then refine on that message. Because if one person has bought from you, others will as well. It's just that you haven't targeted correctly. And this is where you got to at the beginning. It's understanding what is that customer that you're looking for? And it might be that that one person that you have a conversation with, bear in mind, they've bought with you. So they're going to want to talk to you anyway. You're not cold calling them. This is not a cold call. They're now your customer. It's actually bringing them up and say, hi, Paul, how are you doing? Thanks so much for responding to the mail shop. Brilliant. We've got all that process for you. Yeah. What do you think of the problem? What's got you excited about working with us? Let them talk. And just, you don't have to do, I'm just calling up Paul to ask you five questions based on your feedback or whatever. Like none of that fucking bullshit. Have a conversation with them. All the stuff that we said, write down, record as you're going along, keep the conversation flowing naturally. You'd be best mates at the end of it. Solid gold. That stuff then will help you. That is a single customer persona that you can then replicate and start targeting. So if Paul ride his bike at the weekend for whatever, and he's bought your products, then you can start targeting lookalikes of Paul on Facebook. You can start looking them for people that do what you're doing. And then you might find another customer. Let's just call her, I don't know, Mary and Mary likes something else. And I don't know, maybe Mary likes baking cakes. Then you can start targeting people like Mary. This stuff works. This stuff works. So rather than going after everyone, you're going after people that are really specific.

I think this is one of the, I think this is one of the most exciting kind of aspects of business is trying to work out what works. It is also one of the most frustrating things about business is trying to work out what is work. But I guess that's why we talk about it now at the startup stage, the more you can look into the minutiae of everything, which I know means a lot of time and a lot of effort or headspace and all that kind of stuff. The more you can look into that, the better every step becomes. And I, I've always remembered that I equated to, what was that game? You might not have had it as a kid. It was like, you, you drop like a tiny little plastic coin in the top and you had the dials to turn and you've got to get them all to fit. So you turn one to the next and turn to the next. Anyway. That game, Mr.

Chapman is called downfall. Downfall. Best games in the world. It is. Downfall. Someone will tell.

That's what we're trying to do. Underrated. Mate, it'll be on eBay. I might go and find it, give it to the kids. They will love it. But do you know the, this is what you're trying to do with the business because you are every, like, why is that, why is that person out of one out of a thousand bought? Why haven't the others? And you see us a lot with people who do like adverts and stuff. And you think, there is no reason for the person to do that, to, to react to it. Okay. Let's change the ad. Let, you know, and this, you and I spoke about this. I don't know, two or three podcasts ago. What is the thing that you can do at every single stage to make sure what, and your gut tells you this is most likely to work. And again, you just run everything by that. Even the followup call. Exactly. As you said, mate. And it's a great point that if you ring that one person and say, yeah, we're just going to do a survey on it. They're like, what? If you ring them and say, Hey, it's Paul. I'm the owner. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this. Look, I hope you're happy. Anything we do, the chat, just out of interest. What made you choose us? We're really excited that that is a lovely call to have. And interestingly, that can be automated as well. That doesn't have to be things like Bonjoro and those are kind of things that can help with all that kind of stuff. But at every stage, and this is so true, because if you can get this right, when you start, it's way better doing than doing what I've done and try and fit it in afterwards. And it's possible. And you can do all this stuff there. But if you can get these processes in at the start, and again, this, I think comes in that, that, that split of your time, energy and stuff between doing business and thinking about the business. And I think, you know, in, in the start from scratch episode, the more I can encourage people to spend time thinking about not like the romance of the business. And that's important. And to think about what it could be and how it could be like, and what sort of towels are you going to use? And you're going to put some really nice, I don't know, condiments in the bedroom and those kind of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But actually kind of thinking about that, that my new show of it, the more you can do that at the start, the better it will be. And the easier it will be. And crucially, the most more likely is to succeed because the reality is most businesses, I'm sure there are some stats. Most businesses don't succeed. And I think they don't succeed because crucially for me, they simply do not have a clear view of who the people they really want to target are. And also they don't spend enough time thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's money. Yeah. Yeah. That comes in. Generally,

people don't get through and think, actually, this isn't working, but we're okay for cash. Like generally they'll run out of time and money and they have their own pressures. People just don't know when to stop. They'll just be flogging a dead horse. And then, yeah, time money is ultimately the main reasons why they do go. But those things can be triggered by a number of different factors. Spending money on shit that you don't need at the wrong time. If you go and invest 50 grand in a website, right, then, and you don't need it. And you could have tested all of that stuff before. And of course your runway, which is the terminology for how long your cash in your business is going to last, your runway is going to decrease. That's something that you always need to be aware of. As in, how long is the runway? We're going to be spending this stuff. And there's always things you can tweak and whatever to extend that. But you want to keep that as long as possible. So your business has the maximum amount of success, but really question yourself. Do I need this website now? Or can I test the same results before? And I think just going back to your point about automation, like I love automation. I would just automate everything everywhere. If I could, you know, I do, you know, I automate stuff in my house, automate stuff in my business. Like I just love the whole concept of it. However, automation can be very dangerous if you start automating things too early. So going back to your point, you know, about bringing up those customers, I think just to add to that, which I think is what you were going to say, or what you were saying anyway, is don't worry about like thinking, I can't speak to every customer all the time. That doesn't scale. It doesn't matter that it doesn't scale. Do it now. We can always, if it works, we will find a way to make it scale. So there are tools and things out there. Like you don't have to be doing that all the time, but the data you will get from that initially is so crucial. It's so valuable. It will just save you hours and hours of testing just by speaking to customers. Don't think that people don't want to talk to you. They do. People are happy to talk. Not everybody, but if you are a customer and you've just bought something and you get a call from somebody just, you know, thanking you for that, like, it's like, oh yeah, brilliant. Thank you. Nope. No problem at all. That's a nice thing. It's coming from a nice place. You're not ringing to try and upsell them. You're not ringing to try and give them bad news. You're literally ringing up to say, thank you. People like being said, thank you to believe it or not. Even if it's, oh, I don't care. I'm not bothered about that sort of stuff. If you let someone out at a junction and they don't say thank you to it, it ruins your fucking day, right? You hold the door open for someone and they just stroll through. You're pissed off. So don't pretend to me that you don't like being said thank you to because you do. And it's the same if you buy something from someone. So if you buy something from someone and they ring you up just to thank you, and then you start a conversation with them, that is a good thing. So don't worry about it. Don't be thinking, what if they're, what if they're at work or on the toilet or whatever? Like they just won't fucking answer and try them again later. Or shouldn't I send an email and try and arrange it and all this? No, just ring up and say, thank you. Don't worry about it. What's the worst that can happen? Like what is the worst? Like they're flying up now. I'm a bit busy right now. I'm just about to land a plane. Okay, mate, I'll call you back later. I just don't worry about it. Just ring, ring them up. I don't know if the plane would, the phone would ring if they're on a plane,

but we'll find out. The other point. And 20 years time when we can all fly somewhere. I think it really is just two kind of bits. There's just one bit on that. I think it's really good is that by having that conversation. And again, that can be done by email. I bought some books recently. I got what I thought was automated, which was clearly an automated response from the author. And I wrote back to him. Hello, author brackets, email bot. Yep. Love the book. Thanks. Da, da, da, da. Sent it across. Ha, ha, ha. The author comes back to me and I'm like, this is awesome. I absolutely, and he was like that. Hi, Paul, or indeed automated bot yourself, whatever. It was just, it was lovely. And what's from there? It makes it really easy for that guy to sell for me. Cause I am now getting his automated emails. I wanted sales list and he's offered me something new to sell. And this is so important here by starting your business that way. These are the how, this is how we're going to treat our customers. This is how we're going to do our things. It makes us selling massively easier. And I think that is a really important bit, but I just want to go back quickly to a point that you, um, earlier on. I think you've glossed over almost, which is a massive learning from this. You were talking about kind of the 50 grand website. Every single person listening to this will have bought something from a shit website from a website that has wound them up, but they have still bought. And these are probably some of the biggest brands. Yeah. They've got a rubbish website. Look fine. I'm sure they'll fix it. You can't, particularly at this starting stage, the difference between you saying, I'm going to spend 50 grand to get this right, or I'm going to spend 50 quid to get it live is absolutely enormous. Think for yourself, listeners, you have bought something from a site that you have not enjoyed the experience, but you still bought. Okay. Okay. Massive learning there. You do not need to get it perfect. First time, get it in, get it done. That isn't going to stop people buying. If it causes problems ongoing, look fine, but actually you can do stuff straight away. And then you're up, you're live and you have that business rather than that kind of planning stuff. But anyway, I thought that was, that was worth pulling out, mate. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

And that stuff, that is all measurable as well. The design of your website. So if someone's clicking a link from an ad, it doesn't matter what your website looks like. The only thing that may affect that is it's load time, but let's just ignore that for one minute. The look, feel of your website, if someone's clicking through an ad or they've seen something, a link in an email or maybe some other thing, the thing that physically drives the acquisition, there's nothing to do with your website whatsoever. So you could have no website then and actually still measure whether your marketing is working. Your website is actually only going to then convert people essentially. I'm taking SEO out of this. That's a long-term thing anyway. I'm talking for these testing phases. So what I mean is this, let's just say you, you run an ad campaign and you've got your cheap website that you've knocked up in the morning. That's cost you a tenner a month,

right?

You've run your own campaign on one person buys from that and nine people don't. You've got a 10% conversion rate on that. That's your base point. So then actually like you've got a decision then I'm getting one person. I'm losing nine. Do I stick with that website or do I then go and spend, I don't know, five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand, depending what it is to then build that website. You've got something you can measure because even if you're going to do that, the maximum you can convert is that other nine people because the website is not going to make any difference to the amount of people that it's a marketing problem. So changing your website at that stage isn't going to necessarily drive more revenue to your website. So you can quantify, is it worth me spending? So if someone says I can double your conversion, great, fantastic. I'll get two customers. Now, if you're selling products at four grand, five grand, whatever high ticket items, it's worth doing it. Five grand on your website, one extra customer a day. It's a no brainer. If you're selling products for 20 quid, it's just not worth it. It's not worth investing that extra cash in that thing right now because it's not going to bring you that revenue. It's not the right thing right now. The thing to focus on is driving more customers to that website because you know that yes, you might be losing a little bit on marketing, for example, but once you've got those customers and you can quantify how much I'm spending on marketing versus how much this lever I can pull to increase conversion. And bear in mind that lever you're going to pull to increase conversion is only an assumption. So someone telling you they could double it, it might not double it. It might stay the same. It might go down. It might triple it. Who knows? But it's an assumption, but it isn't a silver bullet. And this is where people think that, oh, that shit. If I do a rebrand, it's going to change all this stuff. It's going to be this magic. Everyone's going to want this rebrand. Nobody gives a fuck really, especially at this early stage. I'd love to talk about branding as a whole separate podcast. That's yeah. Maybe we've got differing opinions on this, but I think branding is amazing. I think it's deployed. Sometimes it can be deployed at the wrong time. Yeah, no, I'd agree. Does that all make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. It does.

And I would massively agree on the branding thing. I think maybe that is, that's our next one. But I think for us to wrap this up then, I think for me, it all comes under, if I'm starting from scratch, I would be seeking clarity. I think, and again, this is a really kind of difficult thing to wrap up, but clarity of everything of what I actually want it to be. And therefore who I actually want to attract, what I want to earn from it. No one builds a, not no, very few people build a million pound business. Most people build a hundred pound business. And from that hundred pound business that builds into a 500 pound business, but up and up and up and up and up. And I think whilst it is good to say, do you know what? I am going to create something that is, you know, it's going to make millions and I'm going to do this, this, that is really good. And there is nothing wrong or right or whatever. Yeah. That is an awesome thing to do. It's practically impossible to do starting from scratch. Don't try and do that. Don't put plans in place to do that. Put the actions, the activities in place to get your first customer, to work out how you get your next customer. And I think that for me will be the absolute thing. And this is saying that when I do mates in pub, I've had this idea. What do you think? And I'm always like that, look, these get clear on what you really want. Not what you think it should look like. Not that what you kind of see on socials that it should look like. What do you really want it to look like? And then my starting point on this, it really is that right. Before you do anything, find some people, engage with some people, see if those people are out there. There will be some groups. And I can't think what it will be. There will be some groups that haven't got communities. I've no idea what it'd be, but it's possible. And perhaps maybe not, maybe everything in the community now, but go and find those, go and engage with those, go and build that list of people. Because that's a kind of, that's a side of the desk project. While you're in your current job, while you're looking after the kids, while you're on the run in the morning, whatever it is, go and start that process of it. And do that, get that kind of happening whilst you do the other stuff. But for me, everything in that kind of look, where do you start from scratch? How do you start with it? Look for a clear picture. Look for clarity on each and every part of it as early as you possibly can. And then create that hundred pound business. Don't worry too much about the million pound business. Yeah. Yeah.

Just worry about that first customer, essentially, I think. And then you can grow from there. But yeah, I think that's, I think that works really well. Going back to the practical sides of it. First of all, is it something you actually want to do? Let's hope that it is. And if it is, great. Find a way to test that idea out. Is it, can you, how can you test it? How can you try and sell that or get people to agree to buy it? And when I say that, it's got to be, you can't be saying to people, this is beta. What if I did this? Would you buy it, et cetera? That's okay. But it's never going to give you a true indication unless someone's pressing that actual buy button or if someone's saying like, okay, mate, I'll have one of those, sticking their hand in their pockets. Oh, sorry. I haven't got any for sale. Yeah. But that's great. You've just told me that you want to buy that. There's a big difference between that. So yeah, the more real you can make it look without physically taking the cash. We're not defrauding. It's, yeah, we are, we're just making it look as legitimate as possible to give us a clear indication that people are willing to buy. And that's the first thing. So yeah, the more you can test that, once you start testing it, you will start to understand which customers want to buy. You can then look at those customers, speak to them, replicate them. Of course, you're going to have a plan then. So that's your plan to get to those first three steps. Your plan for your first 10 customers, your first 50 customers, your first 100 customers. Write that down, how you think that's going to look. It will change. It will be wrong. All of your revenue assumptions will be wrong. You'd be really pessimistic or really optimistic, whatever. Stick to that plan and only change it if the data tells you that you should and that if you've exhausted all possibilities, not because, oh, I've had this great idea.

I'm just going to try this. Oh, maybe we could pivot

and we'll just do this. Like it's, or because, or another reason, because it's hard. Because actually, as we've said before, our catchphrase, starting a business is fucking hard work. And it is going to, you are going to feel really shit. Like you're going to get no's to everything that you do, but there will be some yeses in there. So stick to that plan. It's going to be hard work. Accept that. And measure everything. Measure it as it's going along. So as you're measuring this data, as you're collecting this data, measure everything. And depending on what the business is, it's not necessarily the data that's internal to your business. External data. If you're selling something at a fair and you've just got all of your, I don't know, if you're setting up a stall, for example, and you're saying, you look at the data, it's all actually, there's days where I didn't sell anything. I wonder what that can be. Record if it's pissing it down with rain, for example, those things are factors in the business as well. So it's not just necessarily the data that's internal. It's external factors that need to be recorded there as well. Because you could look at that and actually your business is so inconsistent. Yeah, because that's when it's raining. We learn that now. We check the weather forecast in the morning. If it's raining, we don't ever bother turning up. Something like that. All of these things are worth measuring. And then if it's working, just do more of it. Just do more of it. That gets you to the start point then. That will actually show you. And even if it's not generating revenue, and this is the important thing I want to add. If your numbers are tracking in the right direction and you can see growth and you can see the potential of it and the numbers are telling you that it's growing, even if you're not taking any money from it, then it doesn't necessarily mean your business isn't working. And that's the point that may be that you become confident to borrow money or seek investment. Because if you track those numbers and say, okay, if this continues for three months or six months or nine months or whatever, then actually we'll be at break even. So yeah, it's not a business issue. It's not a business model issue. It simply becomes then a cash flow issue. So all you need to do then, and I say all because it's not that simple, but you need to inject some cash in to then sustain you until you can then either take that cash back or however you want to do it. So there's very different things between cash flow issues and revenue model issues. So if it's not generating revenue and it's not tracking or increasing or customers just don't want what you're selling, very different to they do what you're selling but you can't afford to give it to them right now. Two very separate issues. So try and understand those. But those things should be enough to get you started. And if they're not, you know where we are to come and shout at us. Come and ask some questions.

You can ask lots of questions of us and others. Just ask some questions. Ask some questions. You know, most, do you know what? Most people that have started businesses are pretty willing to share. They're pretty willing to talk about it. They're pretty willing to share their experience. Go and look for them. Go and hunt them out. Go and ask the questions. It's, you said that, you said it earlier on. People are often nicer than you think. Go and find out. Do it. Start. It's really the right thing. Just get it going and find out and enjoy it. Enjoy the struggle of it. Enjoy the kind of the downfulness of it. Is that the game? Downfall? Is it called it? Yeah. Downfall. Yeah, that's it. Great. Brilliant, mate. I think that was fantastic. That has helped people a lot. As ever, folks, like, share, listen, tell your friends, write to your auntie, et cetera, et cetera. And we love to hear from you. It's lovely. I love getting the feedback that we're getting from very rude from my friends to people I've not met the other day on Instagram. Paul, I love it. Thank you very much for kind of talking about this kind of stuff.

Before we go, no, we won't see them because they'll just hear in, aren't they? But before we go, I just need to ask the listeners a favor if you don't mind, Paul. So it would be amazing if you have enjoyed this podcast, if you could just leave us a review. That's all I'm asking for today. That would be fantastic. So this podcast is relatively new. I'm not sure what platform you're listening on because I don't have a crystal ball here, but every platform has a little review option on there. If you've enjoyed it, hit the stars. And of course, just write us a comment in there as well. That would be amazing. Thank you very much. And Paul, thank you for today. It's been a pleasure seeing you. I can see you. They can't see you. Yes, it is. It's always lovely to see you, mate. But yeah, please, thank you guys.

We really appreciate your comments, really about your feedback. Yeah, any feedback you can give is great. It's a wonderful thing. We really appreciate it. Do get in touch. Anything we can help with, I think we mentioned this last week, we're going to do a question and answer coming up pretty soon. So anything we can help with, drop us a line, tell us your question. We'll pick some of the best and yeah, we'll do what we can to answer them. But wherever you are, have a brilliant day. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you soon. Bye-bye.

We'll be back next week

for another edition of the Throb podcast.

If you want to find out more, you can find me at paulchapmanuk.com

and you can find me, Bertie, at bertiecord.co.uk. Thanks again. See you next week.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.