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Jane Farnham: Hi, I’m Jane Farnham from Great British Talent and welcome to a series of video podcasts where we meet our very talented speakers who are all available for your corporate events.

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Jane Farnham: Essentially, it’s an opportunity for you to find out more about our speakers, what they talk about and how they can help you add value to you and your businesses.

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Jane Farnham: Today, I’m very pleased to say I’m chatting with serial entrepreneur Andrew Scott. Andrew, welcome.

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Andrew Scott: Very nice to be here, Jane. Thank you.

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Jane Farnham: Well, the last time I saw you, you absolutely inspired me. I came away feeling really positive.

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Jane Farnham: It was lovely to spend such an evening with you over dinner, laughing, chatting, being authentic, being real.

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Jane Farnham: It was an absolutely wonderful evening. Thank you.

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Andrew Scott: It was a wonderful evening and dinner and your team are incredible.

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Andrew Scott: So thank you for joining us.

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Jane Farnham: No, it was our pleasure. So, where do we start, Andrew?

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Jane Farnham: Because your story is rather varied and interesting.

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Jane Farnham: Take me back to the early years in Ireland and the very beginning.

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Andrew Scott: Well, I guess my earliest memory wasn’t a particularly good one. So, in March 1972, I was a young toddler and my brother and his wife took us out to tea in the afternoon to a restaurant in Belfast.

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Andrew Scott: And unfortunately, IRA terrorists planted a bomb in that restaurant that was called the Abercorn.

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Andrew Scott: And it was a large bomb and it demolished the restaurants and sadly, some people lost their lives.

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Andrew Scott: Many people were severely injured and maimed and my brother and his wife survived, as did I, obviously.

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Andrew Scott: But it wasn’t without price to pay. So, I spent the next five years or so having physical and mental recovery.

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Andrew Scott: So, serious post-traumatic stress disorder to the point where I was unable to sleep and I had to be drugged heavily to sleep.

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Andrew Scott: And then, that then became the norm in Belfast.

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Andrew Scott: At that point in the 70s and 80s, there was a high level of terrorism, bombs going off, shootings.

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Andrew Scott: So, that was the environment that I grew up in. And a few years later, then my brother unfortunately lost some limbs, an arm and a leg, through a car bomb.

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Andrew Scott: And, 18 years old then, I just thought, this is it. I’ve had enough and I decided to leave Ireland for good.

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Andrew Scott: And start a new life in England.

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Jane Farnham: Wow, that’s definitely a start, isn’t it?

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Jane Farnham: So, how do you think those experiences changed your mindset?

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Jane Farnham: I mean, it was obviously a turning point for you. But, what started you on the entrepreneurial ladder?

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Jane Farnham: Because not everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit, do they?

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Andrew Scott: Yeah, no, absolutely not. And I think that background as well, having trauma from a very young age,

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Andrew Scott: it definitely shapes you, definitely changes the person that you are and that you become.

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Andrew Scott: So, I think for me, it was living in fear and living in an oppressive society growing up.

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Andrew Scott: And then moving to England, moving to London when it was 18.

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Andrew Scott: And then discovering what was possible that in this country, anybody could be anything they wanted.

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Andrew Scott: As long as you work hard and you really committed to something, then the opportunities were boundless.

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Andrew Scott: And I remember clearly not quite understanding why young people, my age,

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Andrew Scott: boys and girls at 18, 19, why they weren’t themselves going out and building businesses.

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Andrew Scott: And, you know, nowadays we call it side hustles, but then it was just money-making opportunities.

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Andrew Scott: And I couldn’t understand why they weren’t doing it.

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Andrew Scott: And I think it was because I had grown up in that environment, in that oppressive environment.

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Andrew Scott: And suddenly to be away from that, in a country, in a city where there were no restrictions.

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Andrew Scott: And anybody could be anything they wanted to be.

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Andrew Scott: This was just mind-blowing for me.

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Andrew Scott: So, my entrepreneurial journey started very early.

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Andrew Scott: In fact, when I was 18, in a property deal.

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Jane Farnham: Yeah, so you sort of had success quite quickly, didn’t you?

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Andrew Scott: I did. Well, I mean, that entrepreneurial journey started when I was 18 at London,

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Andrew Scott: in North London.

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Andrew Scott: And I managed to rent a little bed set, which was a converted garage of a lovely old lady.

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Andrew Scott: A very wealthy lady, very big house.

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Andrew Scott: And she also owned the house next door.

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Andrew Scott: So, I convinced her, or I suggested to her that when the tenants moved out of that house,

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Andrew Scott: she owned that I become the next tenant.

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Andrew Scott: And she laughed at me and said, “Andrew you can’t afford, you know, I know what you earn,

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Andrew Scott: and you can’t afford the rent that big house.”

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Andrew Scott: And I said, “Look, you know, let me have a go.

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Andrew Scott: I’ll rent out some of the rooms.

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Andrew Scott: And in return, I’ll do your gardening, I’ll look after your house,

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Andrew Scott: you know, I’ll do whatever you need me to do, because, you know,

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Andrew Scott: you’re an elderly lady, you’re on your own, you know, I’ll do your garden, I’ll help you.”

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Andrew Scott: And she loved it.

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Andrew Scott: So, you know, a few weeks later, you know, at 18 years old, I’m now living in what today is,

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Andrew Scott: you know, a two or three or four million-pound property.

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Andrew Scott: And I then rented out the other rooms of that house.

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Andrew Scott: And I ended up making more money from the room rentals that I actually did my,

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Andrew Scott: my pay at the time.

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Jane Farnham: So that was the first one. And then, so what was the first business?

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Jane Farnham: In terms of a side hustle.

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Andrew Scott: Yeah, that’s it. So, you know, I had a little job at the time,

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Andrew Scott: but I wanted to do something on my own.

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Andrew Scott: So, I set up a small business called ECS, Electronic Control Systems.

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Andrew Scott: And I had, when it was in Ireland, I had done a course on electronics.

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Andrew Scott: So, I decided to apply that to a business.

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Andrew Scott: So, I had these little intercoms that I made and there were door entry systems.

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Andrew Scott: So, you would fit it on the outside of your home.

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Andrew Scott: And inside the home was the two-way intercom.

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Andrew Scott: And the homeowner pressed the button and talked to somebody inside or outside

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Andrew Scott: and also pressed the button to let them into the house and also pressed another button

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Andrew Scott: to turn it into an alarm.

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Andrew Scott: So, nowadays, everybody’s got these, they’re called Ring doorbells.

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Andrew Scott: But back then, this was completely new and original and there wasn’t anything like this.

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Andrew Scott: And I convinced a bank to let me some money.

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Andrew Scott: They gave me an overdraft to buy some stock and to make these products.

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Andrew Scott: And I went around door to door selling them because I had no marketing budget.

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Andrew Scott: I had no marketing expertise.

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Andrew Scott: So, I went around literally doors, knocking doors selling these devices.

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Andrew Scott: We’re trying to. And after about six months, the bank manager called me in and said,

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Andrew Scott: “Look, Mr Scott, we’re looking at your bank account.

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Andrew Scott: There’s lots going on and there has been zero coming into the bank account.”

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Andrew Scott: And at that point, I realised that I had not sold one device and I had a big shed full of these things.

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Andrew Scott: So, and what I realised, actually, that was my first entrepreneurial failure you like.

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Andrew Scott: But it was also a massive learning experience because what I thought was good,

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Andrew Scott: customers didn’t want.

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Andrew Scott: And what I realised is it doesn’t really matter what I think or my mother thinks or my best friend thinks.

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Andrew Scott: “Great, Andrew, this is a great idea. Go for it.”

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Andrew Scott: What I realised is in business, the only opinion that matters is that of your customers.

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Jane Farnham: Yeah.

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Andrew Scott: Yeah, so that was my first adventure and my first failure.

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Jane Farnham: It’s funny you say that because I used to work on shopping telly doing a bit of sales.

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Jane Farnham: And we’d get these products coming in that I had to sell and I’d be like,

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Jane Farnham: “Oh my god, this isn’t going to sell.” And it would fly out the door and then something that comes in

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Jane Farnham: and I’m like, “Oh, I really like that.” You never sold.

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Jane Farnham: And it was just showing me that my audience was completely different to me in my taste.

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Jane Farnham: And it was a bit eye opening because I really genuinely thought the products that I liked,

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Jane Farnham: everybody would go for it. Absolutely.

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Andrew Scott: Those lessons, quite often, what you learn from when you’re young,

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Andrew Scott: growing up, or your first couple of jobs, they really set you for life and they teach you skills.

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Andrew Scott: I learned from that and I applied those learnings in the future.

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Andrew Scott: I then decided to stick to a corporate path and commit to that because I think quite often what

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Andrew Scott: happens nowadays is a lot of young entrepreneurs are told, “Get a day job and then build the side hustle.”

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Andrew Scott: And that’s fine as the side hustle works and takes off. But if it doesn’t,

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Andrew Scott: what it means is you’re not really 100% committed to your job and your role.

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Andrew Scott: And as a result, that can quite often hold you back in term for your progression.

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Andrew Scott: So with me then I decided to go all in and I literally went all in.

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Andrew Scott: I came into the office in Saturdays. I learned about the business that I was working for.

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Andrew Scott: And as a result of that, I got promoted and promoted and promoted.

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Andrew Scott: So I held a very senior position then at a very young age.

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Andrew Scott: Again, I learned from that and I was then able to progress, move into a new role where,

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Andrew Scott: again, a very senior role where I managed to be part of a team that did a turn around.

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Andrew Scott: Business turned around and build a successful business from there.

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Andrew Scott: And then I spent the next few years then really gaining a reputation as a business growth expert

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Andrew Scott: or a turn around expert.

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Jane Farnham: So I remember when we were chatting, you told me that your first business that you sold made a lot of money.
And then you had a disaster because you

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Jane Farnham: invested in another business and lost everything. I mean, what does that make you come back stronger

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Jane Farnham: than ever before? Do you think, or, because some people I suppose at that point, it’s fight or

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Jane Farnham: flight, isn’t it? It’s sink or swim, I should say.

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Andrew Scott: You’re absolutely right. So I built this stellar career. I became perhaps overly confident.
And I made a business decision

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Andrew Scott: to acquire another company that was in dire trouble. And I felt that I could turn this around,

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Andrew Scott: you know, I’m the turn around king, I’m the growth king, I can do this. I was in my my mid 30s.

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Andrew Scott: And so I bought that business and I didn’t do enough due diligence on it. And a domino effect

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Andrew Scott: took place that resulted in me not only losing that business, but losing everything. I had

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Andrew Scott: personal guarantees, you know, and the banks went after me. So I ended up losing everything

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Andrew Scott: at around 36. And that was really traumatic. I mean, I the only thing that I had, my name at the time,

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Andrew Scott: was a clapped out old five series BMW that was that was old and had, you know, a couple of hundred

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Andrew Scott: thousand miles in the clock. And I remember sitting in the beach in Weston-super-Mare in the

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Andrew Scott: southwest sat on the beach in that car looking at the water thinking what the hell am I going to do now.

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Andrew Scott: But the one thing that kept me going Jane was that I had two young sons. And I knew I just I knew

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Andrew Scott: I had to do something. And I knew I couldn’t let this be the end. And so, you know, I made a commitment

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Andrew Scott: on that day, on that beach to start all over again and build from scratch. And the challenge I had at

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Andrew Scott: that point was I ended up living in a horrible little flat with this old car and over a hundred thousand

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Andrew Scott: pounds worth of credit card debt. But I thought, look, I’ve got to go again. And, you know, and I think

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Andrew Scott: there are a lot of people are in that position where, you know, they don’t know what the future holds.

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Andrew Scott: And, you know, and they can’t see beyond tomorrow. And the one thing I’ve learned from that is,

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Andrew Scott: no matter how bad things get, no matter how impossible it seems, there is always a new tomorrow.

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Andrew Scott: Always, always. So I launched a new business then. It was just me. I set myself up as a consultant.

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Andrew Scott: And because the one thing I did know was how to grow businesses.

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Andrew Scott: Working with two or three companies and driving around the UK in that clapped out old BMW. And,

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Andrew Scott: I started to build from there. Very small at the start just me. You know, after a couple of years,

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Andrew Scott: the car gave up the ghost and I had to pay somebody to take it away. And then I just started building

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Andrew Scott: and building and building. And, you know, I got a few lucky breaks along the way, but primarily,

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Andrew Scott: it was sheer hard work and belief and absolute belief in what I was doing. So I then launched

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Andrew Scott: my company at that time.

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Andrew Scott: And then we built that into, you know, 70 million pounds worth of revenue and three,

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Andrew Scott: seven figure companies and, you know, invested in lots of other companies and built a large property

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Andrew Scott: portfolio on the side as well.

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Andrew Scott: If I’m going to run a business, it’s going to have some premises.

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Andrew Scott: That way I’ve got complete control and I’m not tied to the leases or

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Andrew Scott: dilapidation claims, which is, you know, what really hurt me previously was a legal distribute or

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Andrew Scott: a dilapidations, claim. So, you know, I vowed I would never be in that position again.

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Andrew Scott: You know, I launched one business. I built it up. I got a great management team around me. I then

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Andrew Scott: launched another business, built that up and did the same. And, and I did it again and again and again.

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Andrew Scott: And then in 2023, I was approached by a very high profile business tycoon called Richard Harpin,

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Andrew Scott: who is the guy who sold HomeServe for 4.1 billion pounds two years ago. So he approached me and said,

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Andrew Scott: “look, I love what you do.” At this point, I built a very successful media company called Business Leader

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Andrew Scott: Magazine. And, you know, it, you know, it became really the leading publication for entrepreneurs

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Andrew Scott: in the UK. It was a magazine online, big events, business leader awards, scale-up awards,

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Andrew Scott: you know, and our partners were Amazon and HSBC and BMW and companies of that nature.

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Andrew Scott: And this caught the eye of Richard who approached me and said, “look, I want to be in that space.

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Andrew Scott: I want to support other entrepreneurs.” And we, we got together. I’d worked with him a number of

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Andrew Scott: times previously. And, and then we agreed the deal for him to acquire the business, which took place

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Andrew Scott: in September 23.

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Jane Farnham: So, so what do you think is the most important principle that separated businesses from failure and those that grow and adapt and, you know,

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Jane Farnham: really command the the workplace.

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Andrew Scott: Yeah, you talk to 10 different business owners. You’ll get 10 different opinions.

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Andrew Scott: But, but for me, you know, I’ve now built and sold and grown maybe 15 business or more than 15 businesses.

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Andrew Scott: And I have developed a framework. In fact, I’ve developed several frameworks, one for businesses

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Andrew Scott: and one for individuals within the business. And for the, for the business to create sustainable

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Andrew Scott: growth, one of the things to be aware of is that anybody can build a high-growth business

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Andrew Scott: for a year or two and then it falls off a cliff. And, you know, is the, the stats are something like

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Andrew Scott: 85 cent of businesses fail. So, you know, anybody can have some short term success, anybody can

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Andrew Scott: appear to win big time. But really, what matters is what you do sustainably over the long term.

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Andrew Scott: That’s what really, really matters. And so for me, there are some core elements to that. There’s

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Andrew Scott: three basic principles, which are attract, convert, retain. So attract is constant new inquiries coming

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Andrew Scott: into the business. Convert is your ability to build a relationship with those inquiries or prospects

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Andrew Scott: or inquiries and turn them into happy customers. And then the third element is retain, which is a

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Andrew Scott: real strategy about building those relationships in the long term repeat buyers, customers that

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Andrew Scott: are advocates for you. And if you imagine that as a circle, so attract, convert, retain,

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Andrew Scott: and then sitting right in the middle of that is customer experience. If you provide an amazing

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Andrew Scott: customer experience at the point of inquiry, at the point of the sales process, and then you

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Andrew Scott: continue to do that throughout that retention period, you’re going to build the business that grows

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Andrew Scott: and grows and grows because customers don’t want to leave, they recommend you, that becomes more leads.

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Andrew Scott: So that simple process of attract, convert, and retain.

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Jane Farnham: It sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But so many people get it wrong. I mean, I think we were

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Jane Farnham: chatting about this over dinner. One of my biggest pet hates is bad customer service. And I will let

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Jane Farnham: bad, if I go out from meal, I’ll let bad food go by the buy if the service is good.

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Jane Farnham: You know, I’ll, I mean, I’ll, you know, obviously I expect to be reimbursed if it’s not, not,

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Jane Farnham: you know, whatever, but I just bad customer service and so much so that when you have great customer

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Jane Farnham: service now, it changes your day. I went into my local store the other day and there was this

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Jane Farnham: really, really friendly young lady, probably in her 20 serving me, “hello, have you got everything?”

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Jane Farnham: so natural and authentic, and wasn’t trying to upsell. She was just genuinely trying

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Jane Farnham: to be friendly. And I said to her, I felt like, I felt like my mum, I went, “do you know what,

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Jane Farnham: it has been such a pleasure to be served by you today. I wish we saw this level of customer

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Jane Farnham: service across the board.” And I don’t understand why people with their, when they’re in leadership roles

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Jane Farnham: or supervising roles, it’s smile and attention and giving people what they want. And for me,

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Jane Farnham: that’s the essence. I mean, everything else is, is applicable too, but I think for me, it’s just,

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Jane Farnham: that’s something that people can do very easily.

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Andrew Scott: Yeah, 100%. And this is something our American customers get so right. Yeah. And so well, you walk into a shop in the US, I was there a few weeks ago,

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Andrew Scott: you walk into a shop there, it’s a pleasure, it’s a pleasure to be in the shop,

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Andrew Scott: it’s a pleasure to be in the shop, it’s a pleasure to be in the sales consultants, you know,

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Andrew Scott: the, you know, very often at that level retail stores, there’s some of the lowest-paid people in,

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Andrew Scott: in the working environment. And yet, they’re so important for you as a customer because that’s

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Andrew Scott: your point of contact, whether it’s on the phone or in a store. I used to,

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Jane Farnham: When I used to go on the high street shopping when I was younger, the difference between

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Jane Farnham: the customer service in Next and Gap, which obviously one is British and one’s like American.

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Jane Farnham: It was just different, completely different experience.

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Andrew Scott: The other thing to understand about customer service and customer experience is, you know, companies sometimes think good customer

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Andrew Scott: service is delivering the right product on time. So this is what we sell and we’ve delivered the

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Andrew Scott: right product to the customer at the right time, at the right price. And but that’s not good customer

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Andrew Scott: service. That’s just what the customer is paying for. Yeah. That’s the expectation. Good customer

00:21:19 – 00:21:24

Andrew Scott: service, good customer experiences when you’re doing more than that, when you’re adding more value to

00:21:24 – 00:21:30

Andrew Scott: that. So this concept, a great customer service is meeting the customer needs. That’s just what

00:21:30 – 00:21:38

Andrew Scott: they’re paying for.

00:21:38 – 00:21:43

Jane Farnham: Yeah. Now, I know through your time with, you know, your Business Leader magazine, you ran hundreds and hundreds of events, you spoke and hosted at these events. So speaking comes

00:21:43 – 00:21:50

Jane Farnham: very natural to you. So there must be so much you can cover leadership, marketing, strategy,

00:21:50 – 00:21:59

Jane Farnham: resilience, growth, change management, personal development. What can our audiences really, you know,

00:21:59 – 00:22:05

Jane Farnham: expect from you? And how can you help them in terms of, you know, really getting some added value

00:22:05 – 00:22:10

Jane Farnham: from here and you talk? Okay. Because I know you were

00:22:10 – 00:22:14

Jane Farnham: telling me about that story when you went out and spoke and you had a stream of people waiting for you

00:22:14 – 00:22:18

Jane Farnham: after the events, asking you loads of questions. So you must have, you know, really hit the mark there.

00:22:18 – 00:22:24

Jane Farnham: So what do you think it is that you can really help with?

00:22:24 – 00:22:30

Andrew Scott: Yeah. Well, there’s a number of things there. I think the first thing that quite often entrepreneurship is seen as this tough environment and you

00:22:30 – 00:22:36

Andrew Scott: got to be strong and tough and and the reality is entrepreneurship is the loneliest place in the

00:22:36 – 00:22:42

Andrew Scott: world to be. And it’s one of the hardest things to run a business, especially if you employ people.

00:22:42 – 00:22:48

Andrew Scott: And you’ve got to have your game face on all the time. You’ve got to be on marketing, on sales,

00:22:48 – 00:22:55

Andrew Scott: on finance, on operations, on customer service, on HR, all the time. And it’s exhausting. And it can

00:22:55 – 00:23:03

Andrew Scott: be a very lonely place. And so my passion really is to help, you know, I spent the last 20 years

00:23:03 – 00:23:09

Andrew Scott: mentoring entrepreneurs and and that has really become my passion. So I think for me, what I want to be

00:23:09 – 00:23:16

Andrew Scott: able to do is support entrepreneurs and give them the skills, the right attitude and the framework

00:23:16 – 00:23:22

Andrew Scott: to help them successfully grow their business and enjoy doing it. So it’s partly

00:23:22 – 00:23:27

Andrew Scott: teaching skills and frameworks because nobody goes to school to learn about being an entrepreneur

00:23:27 – 00:23:33

Andrew Scott: or how to run a business. Nobody does that. So these are all learned skills that take time

00:23:33 – 00:23:40

Andrew Scott: And to have the right attitude, the right mindset to deal with resilience, to deal with setback.

00:23:40 – 00:23:48

Andrew Scott: And how to operate at speed, how to get the right focus, how to, you know, make sure you’re going in the right direction and doing the right things. So I think a lot of entrepreneurs—and I was one of these—really suffer from imposter syndrome.

00:23:48 – 00:24:08

Andrew Scott: As you become successful, you perhaps self-sabotage or you don’t feel you deserve it.
And the other thing that happens is when you start to become successful, you very often find it more difficult to make decisions because fear of loss kicks in. You don’t want to lose what you’ve built up. So fear becomes a big issue for entrepreneurs as they’re growing in business.

00:24:08 – 00:24:35

Andrew Scott: And these are all experiences that I’ve had in the past—self-doubt, low self-worth, fear of making the wrong decisions, etc.
So I think for me, what I want to be able to do is to help entrepreneurs grow successful and sustainable long-term businesses through developing their skill sets, supporting the right mindset and making sure they take the right actions.
So that’s really what I’m about now. I want to go on a journey really to support British entrepreneurs to grow successfully and sustainably—and enjoy doing it as well.

00:25:03 – 00:25:08

Jane Farnham: And tell me your thoughts about hiring because I think you place a lot of importance on who you hire, don’t you?

00:25:08 – 00:25:17

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. So for me, I am less about skills and technical skills and I’m all about attitude.
We hire for good hearts and we hire for great attitudes because I absolutely believe that you can teach skills.
You can send anybody on a program, you can sit down and coach them one-to-one.

00:25:17 – 00:25:45

Andrew Scott: And so in our business, we hire for great attitude and then we teach the skills.
We relentlessly teach and train and in our business, absolutely everybody knows—we’ve got about 90 staff at the minute—
everybody knows where we’re going as a business, how we’re going to get there, and the role that they play in that.

00:25:45 – 00:26:02

Andrew Scott: So I think one of the key things in terms of employing people is to make sure it doesn’t matter if it’s the office junior or your board directors. It’s crucial that everybody’s aligned on the same mission.
Everybody understands what the business is about and where it’s going and what it means to them as well.

00:26:02 – 00:26:28

Andrew Scott:So we hire for great attitude, we then instil our values and principles into everybody who joins us and our expectations in terms of where we’re going, what we stand for and our values and principles. So in our office, we have an old traditional metal knight—you know, Knights of the Round Table— and a knight is recognised for courage and for integrity and about doing the right thing.

00:26:28 – 00:26:53

Andrew Scott: So that knight sits in our office and it’s set as a reminder for all of our staff that that’s what we’re about.
We’re about serving customers and we’re about doing the right thing morally, ethically and really looking after our customers.
And we do it with courage. So that’s our sort of business ethos. I’m sure there are many, many organisations that’ve got a similar ethos, but I think for us, that’s the number one.

00:27:03 – 00:27:25

Jane Farnham: Oh yeah, it was front and centre when I came to your offices.
I think it was great and I think that’s why Steve and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting you.
It was just, you know, it’s speaking from—singing from—the same hymn sheet in terms of integrity and, you know,
it’s customer efficiency, customer comes first and trying to do everything with a good heart and be authentic.
And I think that was really clear when I met you and that’s why it was such an enjoyable evening.

00:27:25 – 00:28:17

Andrew Scott: It is because, you know, everything else is smoke and mirrors and it’s fine—you know, it’s fine if you want short term.
But if you want to build something of real value…
So for me what I do, I want to build legacies.
So I build a business, and whether I keep it or exit the business, I’ve built it to become a legacy business.
So with the sale of Business Leader 18 months ago, and I know that Richard Harpin is a good custodian of that business
and he’ll take it on to do great things with it.
So I think that, you know, for all the values and principles, we’re all instilled in that business right from the start.

00:28:17 – 00:28:37

Jane Farnham: Oh that’s great. Well listen, thank you so much for chatting to us today and I can’t wait to get you out and about.
Their audiences are going to be thrilled.
So just finally, what do you love most about speaking?

00:28:37 – 00:29:12

Andrew Scott: I love impacting people to go out and make a difference.
Because there’s one thing having the theory—this is what you should do—
it’s a very different thing to see entrepreneurs and business leaders take that away and then action it.
And actually, for me, I’m really passionate to see entrepreneurs change the business and grow the business
and then come back to me six months later or a year later and say, “Look, actually we’ve applied this and it’s made a massive difference.”
And I think that event that you mentioned a couple of months ago that I spoke at, I think that really resonated with the audience.

00:29:13 – 00:29:49

Andrew Scott: Because it was about being authentic and, you know, business is hard.
There’s nobody out there that has built a business easily.
So it’s hard, and to be around other people and to share that journey with other people and say,
“Look, it was hard. Here’s some of the challenges that I faced. Here’s some of the failures that I’ve faced.
Here’s some of the fears that I had to overcome—but here’s how I did it and you can go out and do the same as well.”
I think that really makes a difference.

00:29:49 – 00:30:23

Jane Farnham: Yeah, and what I love about it is it’s real.
Because when I look at what my children are being faced with in terms of social media—a lot of people, like you say, smoke and mirrors—
pretending that they’ve gone from this to this and it’s all happened very quickly.
So my son often feels a little bit disheartened that it’s not happening quick enough.
And it’s—you’ve just got to keep on being consistent and working hard and learning and growing and all of these things.
But when people make it look, which I think is the social media world, people make things look powerful,
they make it look real—but it’s not actually real.

00:30:23 – 00:31:09

Andrew Scott: So I think, I mean, this is a real challenge.
A lot of entrepreneurs are facing burnout and high levels of stress because they are looking at social media and seeing what other people are doing and thinking,
“Why have I not got that success? Why aren’t I there yet?”
And you know, 90% of it is smoke and mirrors—it’s not real.
And I think real entrepreneurship is not a straight line.
You don’t grow in a straight line. It’s like a hockey stick.
So you’ve got to put in the effort and the time and the blood, sweat and tears in the early years to be able to gain the rewards further down the line.
So you’ve just got to—you’ve got to plant the seeds and then reap the rewards afterwards.

00:31:09 – 00:31:27

Jane Farnham: Yeah, thanks Andrew. Well if you’d like Andrew to inspire, motivate and help develop your team, then do call us on 0175-343-929 or you can email me directly: [email protected]