Don't Do It Alone

Arn Terry

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey

Podcast for Entrepreneurs

10/3/2020

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The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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don't don't do it alone find a coach find a mentor i'm not talking about you know um your brother or your mom or your dad who has a business and find someone who has been successful in that type of business for example yourself and you know law practicing so if i was to sell the business in in law i would come to you i'll come and speak to you you know if i was just you know set up you know get my business to seven figures i would speak to you because you've been there you've done that so it's find someone who can you know mentor you who have done it not someone who would just be like oh yeah you should do this well okay well have you succeeded [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey and i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several businesses the seven and eight figure companies as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks and today we've got another great guest on the up or on the podcast um arn terry and uh just to give you a quick background on him first of all you'll notice he has an accent and i always like that he's from he's in the uk and i always like the uk accent it always feels like that it just makes you sound a little bit smarter than the american accent not saying that uk is any smarter than americans but it always has that appearance for me at least so it's that we'll get enjoy his accent but a little about bit little bit about his background so father three been married for 13 years and he's been a recruiter for most of his life he actually was doing the recruiting business um during the economic downturn in 2008 had to go through and he'll give a lot more detail had that kind of start to crash along with a lot of the other economies had to pivot ended up working i think he said at a tesco or gas station and and did some of that made a comeback doing that and then kind of there saw some of the similar signs to 2008 coming up with covid and has made it or preemptively made some adjustments and shifts to make sure that what happened in 2008 didn't happen again so if that much is an introduction our welcome to the podcast thank you very much for having me devin i'm not too sure about the accident being more smarter than you anymore i don't know about that one uh but thank you very much yes i am from manchester uk and i'm currently in manchester uk as we're speaking um at the moment and yeah what what a journey it's been um it's been been very interesting so as you said with that introduction as mentioned my story began you know back in 2008 obviously before that but 2008 was the point where like many of us if we were of the age of working and we was affected financially due to the global economic crisis and the financial crash the housing crash whatever you want to call it it was very tough and difficult um so everything as you mentioned you know i was a recruiter at that time and still i'm an international head hunter now but at the time um i was working for a firm and a load of my clients were in the financial um segments one of them being bear stearns the investment bank and they went bump overnight so there was a bit of a build up to 2008 so 2005 i bought my first home and with fiance 2006 we um we got married and so she's my wife and now my wife and 2000 your wife yeah yeah still 2007 we we had uh and we had our daughter in fact so i'm giving him the wrong birthday 2008 and we had our daughter so it was year upon year we had um we had growth in terms of our family building you know from marriage honeymoon and to buying a home like what like all what we're trying to aspire to do or most of us trying to do but what i didn't know what was around the corner was you know the financial crisis in 2008. [Music] um so but what basically happened what that meant for me was to jump in just for a second on that so before we go through the crash and we'll certainly get into that but you were you if i recall in franklin prime you were in the recruiting business which means you help other businesses find good employees right so i think i mentioned one of your clients was bear stearn which certainly with 2008 would have had a big uh you know a big downturn and whatnot everybody here a lot of people saw it happen there but at least for that for that initial period of time i'm assuming before 2008 and started the crash recruiting business was going well everything was looking up hence why he bought a house and hence why he did a few other things so you know what and so as a business goes well it's easy to you know be happy and enjoy things as you saw things go down how did that kind of how did that transition or as you saw kind of that domino effect kind of take place what was that uh because i think that's applicable and we'll talk a little bit also about cova today but i think there's a lot of at least some parallels that can be drawn as far as businesses and seeing domino effects and things getting here slowing down and shutting down and whatnot certainly a different motivation but how is that going through that in 2008 yeah absolutely so you know it's the rat race as we call it so you know you get a big bonus what you do you go on a holiday or you buy nice shoes or a handbag you know you get um a pay rise so you know you buy a house or a bigger house so i was going for the rat race climbing the corporate and corporate ladder so yeah it was very good you know we bought a house we had a great honeymoon and got a new car and so it was it was all up and up and up so you didn't expect it to all go bang straight away and but the unfortunate thing is you know once you start up skilling or upgrading your life um you're dependent on that money you depend on that financial circumstances and the challenge that i had is i'm in sales so it wasn't like my basic salary was going up yes it was going up but you rely on your bonus you rely on your commission so and the car payments the mortgage you know that the lifestyle um was based on my commission monthly commission that was coming through and so when as you mentioned you know it had that domino effect and bare stones went under and i was doing a lot of work for parole systems as well and was a you know a large consultancy pretty much like pwc accenture kind of type of business and so do a lot of work for that big consultancy as as well and base well the doll shop had great conversations with him but the conversation wasn't monetary conversations it was you know we're just going to have to close the doors for now and see what happens so what that meant was i had contractors or interim um high level um candidates out there that were making money uh making me money in the third money and then their contract got stuck stopped which obviously meant my commission would start slowly starting to stop month in month out you saw it happening so what i did as you mentioned on the intro i panicked like most people did i was thinking what what the hell i'm gonna do and we've got this paper coming out but i've got more going on than i've got going in and so i took a job at um tesco supermarket and i wasn't working like at the checkout and missing huge supermarkets i was working in the stockroom or storeroom on the clothing side and so like like many and it's not crimea river story because i know we've all been through this or many of us have been for this unfortunately is you know in recruitment you work long hours i was in the office half seven quarters away i was working so seven o'clock eight o'clock at night um but then on thursday friday saturday sunday i was working at tesco um supermarket as well so it was literally like groundhog day it was constant every single day doing the same thing and it was tough you know it was emotionally tough it was uh embarrassing i know i felt embarrassed i felt ashamed i felt like i wasn't you know giving what i wanted to do to the family because one i wasn't seeing them i was working constantly and two and my pride and joy was the car that i bought me you know maybe audi a4 and so i sold that bought a banger and so it was a very old car i bought and it was it was that bad this car was that bad um the electrics failed on it and had no indicators the speedometer failed and so i couldn't even just i couldn't even know how fast i was going but i'm a bit a bit of a car guy so i knew if i kept at a certain revs a certain gear ratio i knew how fast i was going that way and so it was it was extremely tough for you know a good 12 month period while i was you know trying to piece my life finances back together and my wife was working full-time as well so we didn't really see each other that much and so obviously day care was a big part of our first bones journey as well so if you did that so one question i said i'm i guess i date myself as being a bit too young at this one so i know of 2008 i certainly i was actually in school during the time so i i probably all by sheer luck so i timed it i was in school which is probably a good thing and since i i had friends that were going out about graduating about that time and it was a not a good job market i'm sure as he knew as a recruiter and nobody was hiring um but i i timed it so i graduated in about 2011 11 12. i'd have to look now it's been two it's been long enough but i was after that but did so when you saw that as opposed to koben which is today which is a pretty abrupt just kind of everything shut down was it that kind of an abrupt or was it more of an incremental kind of slowly shut down or how quickly exactly the same exactly the same it was it was like wow this is um what what's the words i can't think of the word when when it's like it's happening all over again it was like wow so um my back story is um as i climbed the corporate line there was chase and copper lager i don't don't do that anymore anymore because you know i've moved away from working for someone and set my own um international headhunting firm and did it for myself so what i was doing in the background was i was learning about how i can make sure that if something like a financial crash happens again i'll be ready for it and in one way or another or another so what happened to me you know true story come march i had um five six candidates lined up um to start and start a new role so as you said it's got a knocking effect and and then had two clients for one for this was two clients so one client had like two three candidates due to start and then basically just straight away stop you know we don't know what's going on unfortunately we're gonna have to you know retract the offers for these candidates so for one my client doesn't get the the highest that the need for two i'm losing out of tens of thousands of pounds and just yeah yeah and then my my candidates aren't getting the job so they're potentially uh handed in the notice so it just gets sticky and this was what was happening back in 2008 so i was like i know what's happening i know what's happening um so before we jump forward to today which we'll still get there but so you saw went through this you know you saw the downturn basically in 2008 recruiting dries up along with a lot of the other job markets or it takes a much more downturn so to speak and you know you go through working with tesco or tesco your wife is working crazy hours you're working crazy hours trying to keep ahead or keep the bills paid get yourself a you know a beater car so to speak with electrical issues how did you kind of come back out of that you know because i think that there's a an overlay with what people are going through today but how did you kind of okay i'm going to get first of all there's always a survival mode we need to make sure we at least cover our bills yeah then we've got to then rebuild and come back out and you know hopefully stronger you know build back up so how was that or how did that go for you it was tough there's no easier way around it it was it was just riding in the wave of time and because i knew that it was going to get better so in the interim what i was doing is i was working the part-time job to try and top up the the lost revenue by way of commission that i was doing and and then i was contacting different companies rather than the consultancies because my my background back then was more of the consultancies more the financial services i had to try and get in contact with you know over here more government side or councils and who were still kind of doing projects and so they still had budget that they had to spend um you know one way or another because i'm sure it's the same over in the us as well once the government gets a grant or gets a budget they have to spend that or they're not going to get the same amount next year and so i i had to think a bit differently and change my model um of clients i was working with and i went and looked for the councils the public sector type of businesses instead and started trying to do business with them and staff did doing business with them as well and but you know i could speak to you for weeks about this it's still it's just condensing it so that that's basically what i did as well as doing my my parents homework so you know i was working constantly you know i don't want to think about the hours i was doing and but it wasn't it wasn't a nice amount of hours that was doing and to get through so that's what basically that just rolled the one and the wave of time knowing that it was going to get better um but through this period it was it was tough so i just had to dig deep stop moaning to myself stop feeling sorry for myself because it was a lot of self-pity there was a lot of you know would have could've should have or x y and z you know or why has this happened to me you know like what what you go through and when i was like you know shut up you've got a family you need to get this done so um like i said my wife was working full-time we had our daughter in daycare and then you know i would see the family as and when and we'll just make the best time we had when we did see each other so that's what i was literally just doing for you know good part of the year so it wasn't something i was you know done over a couple of weeks or a couple of months it was done over a year to build back so everything that we was missing was earning was just putting them back into the pot putting back into the family pot put back in the family pot luckily for me what the client said started to come back and then i started to do well again and then you know promotion because as i said i was climbing the corporate ladder as well and so i got promoted in the business and the salary went up as well which was a huge help and then got back into the you know into the motion of bringing money in um for the family so did you go back so after you you know you you weathered the storm of uh you know 2008 the downturn what not did that for a few years got back and repeat did you go back into recruiting did you say hey you know now this industry is coming back or did you go to a different industry or what what was that transition dave dave i'm i'm i'm still still recruiting now stadium recruitment so i was still working for the firm um you know it was it's not like now because now it was really about where people feel um it was literally you weren't the hours that you have to work so we were still in the office we're still making the cold calls we're still sending out the emails we'll still prospecting we're still building relationships so it was constantly it wasn't a you know oh this is not going well so we're going to jump and go into something else it was no you weather it you keep working you hustle you grind you stay focused you stay motivated and you keep doing it so i stayed in my stay working for that company and i continued working for that company it wasn't until obvious obviously years down the line that's when i set on my own um uh headhunting recruitment firm but during that time of the of the climate you know 2017 and when it was very interesting um i worked and they were just webber's installment and i got better and you know it's one of those things where it's not nice when you go through it but once you've been through it it makes you better and stronger as a person as a um you know as a business as a consultant or whatever you know profession you're in so you so so then you weathered the storm so you and then he came back we said okay we basically you know while while things slowed down while it wasn't as good while some of the clients ticked off you continued to do the recruiting and then supplemental income with the other other company you know other work that you were doing with tesco and your wife was doing with others so then is that now i assume that you stayed with there did you fast forward up to coved yeah fast vote fast forward so what basically happened again um because it is a long story short was i um was thinking okay what else can i be doing to make myself successful so like you um and you've obviously built up seven figure businesses you're very entrepreneurial and i was thinking to myself what can i do what can i do how can i build that you know for me it wasn't even thinking about six figure billions but how can they build a seven six figure business sorry so i failed and i failed then i failed again then i failed again and i felt some more um but at this point i was still climbing the corporate journey so i was still um i still had my cushion because you know as as time went by my salary went up my status went up i wasn't just a recruiter i was you know a manager um a senior manager had me on piano with profit loss and so i you know some of the the hunger went and which was a bit of shame when you're back against the wall you do stuff a lot more and but my summer hunger went so i was i was trying a few things from you know mlm multi-level marketing to selling products and selling this on that and i just kept failing and failing failing and one thing that you always talk about is you know failing for me i believe it's a positive thing and making mistakes as a positive thing because if you're not making mistakes you're not failing for me my my belief is it means that you're not trying something new or learning something new so i stumbled across um social media and making money online because i've never been a social media person at all i was only on linkedin the only reason i was on linkedin is i was this you know professional um headhunter um who was very corporate so i didn't mix with the likes of facebook or instagram they were just for people who were just time wasters and i didn't understand that you use it not just as a consumer but as a business and people that use it as a business and making seven eight figures just by using it the right way so what i basically did was um i educated himself so it wasn't self well it was both it was self education reading books journals youtube et cetera et cetera but then i went on to um obviously it's a thing of the thing of the past at the moment but i went to multiple set up seminars so i was like seminar crazy i would you know jump in the plane go fly down to london go meet people in seminar and meet like-minded people who are making you know 100 000 pounds in the weekend and on social media then meet someone else and meet someone else and then they joined the coaching um um not seminars on a coaching group i was coached and then like a mentoring group as well so i've been coached and mentored and trained the way along the way so then while this was happening in the background i said to myself right okay because um i didn't want to come across as a as a fraud so i was taking my time in social media and i was helping people for free you know free advice except you know as we all do we start off and i wasn't going to launch my social media business of 2021 um because i was going into property just before covert as well i had an offer accepted on on a house that i was going to flip and as soon as that happened i stopped it so i kind of had to pivot very quickly stop my property business and then push in my social media business instead because um what hopefully people are following what i'm talking about i'm not talking too fast is what basically happened when um you know we're in 2020 now when mclean said we're not hiring any staff at the moment of those people that we want to hire you need to put them on hold you know and it was a lot of money in fees that i lost overnight so i was okay how can i supplement that luckily enough because i'd learned about social media in the background but i wasn't really doing much with it because you know my international film and headphone was doing well and i wasn't going to do much with it i thought okay now is your time so i started doing more about marketing branding you know so helping my clients and charging them a fee so okay you're not going to charge me or just a one quick question or follow-up so as you were doing that so so rehearsing through 2005 successful recruiter 2008 comes along turns down make it through go back to recruiting again build up what would be a a good or a profitable recruiting you know clientele book of business getting or that's going back going well again but the lesson if i understand it and kind of what we talked about a little bit before it kind of you said fail fail fail but you kept trying is just saying hey if i'm going to learn any lessons from 2008 if i'm going to do anything different it's going to be with the idea that i'm not going to simply or solely rely on the recruiting business or one given avenue of income right so that way as copenhagen or something else heads i have other skills i can have other avenues and i can have a different source of income such that i'm more i have more diversity i'm able to pivot which is what it sounds like kind of as you saw the signs of covet coming again yeah an abrupt shutdown then yeah where you shift to your social media yeah is that a fair sign correct yeah 100 so what happened was when the business recruitment business stopped and i started charging and i was doing in the background but i wasn't focused on it but i pushed that up and you know pretty much 100 fold so i started charging for um consulting more in terms of the social media side as a coach as a mentor and then i started another stream of income as well which was affiliate marketing um as most people know just selling other people's products and i found that i was actually quite good at that so i started making you know two hundred dollars a day three hundred dollars a day four hundred dollars a day you know i just kept going and going going so i was i was doing that as well and then what i did as another stream of income i then created my own course on how to dominate social media and then i started selling that course um online digital products uh across the world and just promoting that so it happens so quick because like you've said and you know you were articulated a lot better than me and because of 2008 i saw the sign of what was going to happen now it was like it was like a switch as quick as that i was like okay bang this is what i'm gonna do i actually got my pen my pads i was like okay coaching mentoring uh affiliate marketing right what else can i get right okay stick with that for now right okay i've got more people on coaching right okay now i'm coaching people people coming back to me asking me loads of questions right okay now you need to do your digital products because that digital cost that you're creating you can just refer them back to that if you want this digital course i can give you more information sign up to that it's going to cost you x amount of pounds right okay that's checked off the list and then there was more there's more stuff as well so it was like youtube i need to create a youtube channel i need to get my presence up there so i went from like zero um subscribers to just over a thousand subscribers i think it was like i kind of like six weeks or something like maybe maybe a bit more and i think i tell that it was more longer than that but that was for me understanding how to compound and get in contact with people through social media and say hey i've just created my youtube channel and tagging them tagging them in and saying please can you watch this if you do like the content and you do like what you hear please subscribe i'll by the way can you do me a favor can you tag in another five more people and can you ask them to do the same thing so i compounded that to build my youtube channel did that across linkedin i'm fortunate enough to have over 10 000 followers on linkedin so that was part of how i got my subscribers on youtube quite quickly um no that makes sounds like a great plan so well as we start to wrap towards the end of the you know the podcast unfortunately there's never enough time to hit everything no no there isn't no but so next you know so now is your work somewhat coming in and depending on where you live it seems to be different for almost every country in every state and every every place you are but people are kind of coming back from to work or starting to open back up the economy some places are better than others so what is the kind of you know i know it's a crystal ball and especially hard but six next six to 12 months kind of where do you see things going and how do you see things working out it's going to be extremely well and the reason why it's going to work but again it depends what um section you're in as well because why i'm in the erp enterprise resource planning so mine is very i.t focused and we're obviously doing this on zoom so if anyone's in the it space um there's so much money that's been invested in technology and high water amount of money that's been to invest in technology you know especially zoom uh google hangouts and facebook instagram most people now are communicating by way of technology like this so if you're in the technology sector it's phenomenal for you as well if you're anything to do with data that comes hand in hand with social media we're hanging out on social media a lot more as well so what's happening is the algorithms at the moment can't cope with the amount of people now that are piled onto social media so you know artificial learning and data or data science if people want to get into those parts that is that's where it's that's where it's headed at the moment and same thing with manufacturing because obviously we're going to be manufacturing more um components and products for us to to actually communicate with each other so even the manufacturing of hardware is going to go up as well obviously um it's pushing more to you know cloud service or software as a service stuff but that's another thing so it's it's going to get extremely busy at the moment the only problem that we're going to have is if you're in the bricks and mortar business by way of you're a dentist or you're a physiotherapist and it's very touchy feely or you're you're a technician like a nail technician or a hairdresser and that's where it's going to be tough because you condense with the amount of people that you can now book in you condense with the social distancing so that's why why i've been speaking to people you know random people people who sell eyelashes well used to do eyelashes should they say your eyelashes hair and make us on talk to them create a digital product and then show people how to do it and charge them for that product like for yourself for example you know you've got a podcast but say if you know 90 percent of yours were people coming on your show and meeting you at your studio and and due to social distancing my my advice would have been like okay then well one way is obviously you're going to zoom you're going to hand us which is obvious which a lot of people have been doing but not only that if you want to 2x your business or free x your business then you teach people how to become a podcaster you know i'm looking at you now you'll say you've got some you know it's a very expensive setup there so i'll be saying okay then i'll show you how to set up your blog how to do your youtube channel and how to link your products that you're using as an amazon affiliate so you're talking to people and saying this how you become a podcaster you charge them i don't know twenty twenty dollars thirty dollars to do it but you make more money by saying these are the this is the equipment that i bought so anytime they click on your amazon link it takes them to the amazon store and you get paid a percentage per person that buys that product but it doesn't just have to be the mic or the setup or the laptop it can be anything it could be free freeze it could be a boomerang for you know for for anything as long as on amazon so i'm showing people and teaching people that so i'm going to jump in just because we're starting to get close to the end of time so i think there are plenty more things that we could talk through but i always have two questions i want to make sure i hit on before the end of this podcast so why don't we jump to those now so the first question i'll ask is what was your worst business decision um worst business decision was i wouldn't even say with this my worst decision was staying working for someone for too long and that was my worst decision um and then again you know looking at your profile what you've done if you sell multiple companies as well it's like would have because it should have but it's like shut up you're doing it now so don't just just do it so that's my thing if anyone's listening to this and you know they say oh my situation i hate my boss not him a boss but you know your boss you was doing everything for your boss making your boss look better than what he or she is if you're in that situation and you've got a better product service and you can do better off in offering do it yourself create your own company and learn by your mistakes so that's my worst decision not doing my own business earlier on no all right no and i'd say you know the interesting is as many podcasts as i've done and um and and you know get different guests come on that's one of the top answers is how often people wish that they would have you know what it should have could have kind of done this earlier because once they make the leap once they do it they're oftentimes it's such a much more gratifying and enjoyable life and almost like i said it's not that you even hate your boss or hate your job but there's a difference between doing what you love and your passion and what you can control and build yeah this is what others can do so i think that's a great one so yeah okay now we're gonna jump to the the second question always asked which is so if you're talking to someone that's just getting started out in the startup or small business what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them um coach him and find a coach or find a mentor it's as simple as that don't don't do it alone find a coach find a mentor i'm not talking about you know um your brother or your mum or your dad who has a business and find someone who has been successful in that type of business for example yourself um you know um law practicing so if i was to sell the business in in law i would come to you i'll come and speak to you you know if i was just you know set up you know get my business to seven figures i would speak to you because you've been there you've done that so it's find someone who can you know mentor you who have done it not someone who'll just be like oh yeah you should do this well okay well have you succeeded yeah and it's just and you know when once you've got to that level you can fast track a person you can show the people the mistakes that you've made and how you've come up with a solution to get past those mistakes so it would just literally be a mentor or a coach or both and just don't don't take it too serious in terms of you're going to make mistakes along the way you just need to laugh at yourself you know you you need to try and have some fun with it yes it's going to be frustrating but don't take yourself too serious and because you're going to make mistakes all right no i think that's a great piece of advice i think mentors a lot of times can help you to get things going avoid some of the mistakes that people often may get things going and a lot of times if nothing else being an entrepreneur or doing a startup can oftentimes be a lonely journey in the sense that you know a lot of a lot of times you're on your own you feel like you're a failure you feel like your success you don't have a lot of people to talk to about it and so a mentor can often even if nothing else give that lend that listening error and support you and give you guidance to it so yeah thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a pleasure it's been fun to have you on if people want to whether it's use your social media services if they want to hire you as a recruiter or anything in between what's the best way to reach out or connect with you well what i'm doing at the moment i'm doing a free 30-minute and coaching call so free for a minute coaching call and to do with social media so if you want to learn how to dominate social media and just get me on on instagram which would be the best and the best thing i would say because it's hot at the moment and so if you if you just type in freetown mindsets that's free town and mindset or just typing on terry um on instagram that will be the easiest way to get me or you get me on linkedin just type in my name on terry and my my purpose isn't to you know just say sign up to the course it's really to have that conversation with someone and and see if they're you know if i can help them i just want one do my best to help as many people as possible so yeah find me on instagram we've taken from there but literally i'm not i'm on all the platforms which is crazy and i'm loving at the moment all right well sounds like great i would certainly encourage people to reach out to you um use your services connect up with you find out more about the free 30-day or the free 30-minute uh session and consultation and everything else in between well thank you again for coming on it's been fun to hear your story and i it's been fun to hear how you've gone through now two different downturns how you learned your lesson for the first one and how you're going to castle through the second one so yeah best of luck on the next leg of your journey um for those of you that are wanting to have a journey to tell want to come on the podcast and tell your story feel free to go to inventivejourneyguest.com and you can apply to be on the show and certainly if you're a listener make sure to click subscribe so you can hear this episode and all the new our upcoming episodes and lastly if you ever need any help with uh patents or trademarks feel free to reach out to us at miller ip law thanks again arn wish you the best and have a good one thank you very much gratitude appreciation and thanks to everyone that's listening [Music] you English (auto-generated) All Recently uploaded