Escaping the Tech Bottleneck: How to Build a Fully Functional Business Structure With Bruce Skinner - Episode 29

We have with us Bruce Skinner from Alto. Now, Bruce was our first ever guest on the podcast, and he is our first ever returning guest. Bruce has taken a really structured, well thought out approach to structuring and growing his business, and we're going to talk about that.

Having a functional structure for your business will actually facilitate commercial profit money, but also cultural profit, i.e. a great place to work. The commercial and cultural profit can only be there if you work on the future of the business. And so many businesses don't do that. And that's, that's where at Alto, uh, we've, we've seen ourselves come from four guys running a franchise about four years ago to now a wholly owned business with eleven employees. We've turned over similar for the last couple of years, but our profitability has gone up.

Okay. So welcome back to the Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast. And we have with us Bruce Skinner from Alto. Say hello Bruce.

Hello.

Now, Bruce was our first ever guest on the podcast, and he is our first ever returning guest to the podcast. Thanks very much. Yeah. So it was episode five, I think, um, this is what twenty nine. So this is, um, it's been a bit of a journey for us and it's good that you've come back to talk to us.

Yeah, no. My pleasure.

So everything we do as a digital marketing agency is around business growth. People come to us because they want to grow their businesses. And that, you know, we even often refer to ourselves as a growth agency. I mean, it's probably one of those terms that's a little bit up itself. But I mean, certainly, you know, as a, as a, as a business, that's what we do. That's what we're tasked with doing. Um, so Bruce has been on quite a journey and interesting and successful journey with Alto and a journey which is, well, it's still early days, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's early days, but Bruce has taken a really structured, well thought out approach to growing his business, to structuring and growing his business. And we're going to talk about that. Um, but maybe before we do that, we could maybe just talk a little bit about how most businesses kind of go about growing, you know, like I'm thinking of as you refer to the, the e-myth, this idea that if you're good at something, you just start a business and do it and magically stuff happens.

Yeah, exactly.

So I mean, you're familiar with with Gerber's.

Oh yeah. The E-myth and the E-myth revisited.

I've read the E-myth revisited, but when I read the E-myth, it, it resonated. I was like, oh, God, that's that's exactly. It was like he'd written, he'd been watching me growing the business and starting a business, if you like. And, and he'd just been writing down. This is all the stuff they've been doing that he shouldn't have been doing.

Yeah. I mean.

It's made all the usual mistakes. It was really quite eye opening.

It's all about the systems and processes, isn't it? That's the thing. And yeah, it's it's a really it's like every, every business owner and entrepreneur should, should definitely read that book. I think it's a really good one to read.

It is. And do you think I mean, I think a common mistake that people make is if they're good at something like a good programmer, a good designer or whatever. Um, or maybe they're fantastic, you know, as, as to your, to what your business does, maybe they're fantastic at, you know, helping people keep their systems running and efficient and, you know, almost transparent, you know, all the, all the good stuff that you guys do, the fact that you're good at something somehow informs your decision to decide to start a business doing it. And yet running a business is completely different from doing a thing.

Yeah, that's a thing. I mean, invariably when people start a business, they start with they're doing something that they love, that they can turn from a, like a side hustle or whatever into an actual business. And, um, that, uh, that works, that definitely works. And that can take most people from that position of say, um, you know, the excitement of like starting your own business to maybe about one hundred grand a year turnover or something like that. And, um, and that that's, that's fine. That's definitely a good way to test, um, test the market. And then, but invariably, when you get to that kind of brick wall of, of the sort of, say one hundred K turnover, you're working on your own, you've then got to, um, you know, push on and, and then or.

Decide not to just keep rinse and repeat and do the same thing.

Rinse and repeat. Yeah. There are a lot of people out there that would say that they're, they're business owners, but really they're just self-employed. They're working for themselves and, and, and it's not a bad place to be, uh, doing consultancy like that. And it does work. It works.

It's maybe not a bad place to be if you recognise that's where you are and what you're doing. It's almost like that, that decision that, you know what I'm going to be common term lifestyle business. Yeah, I'm making good money. I've got a good network. I'm getting nice enquiries coming in. I don't want the hassle of hiring people, of getting an office, of putting in place systems, etc. I don't want to do any of that. So. And if you recognise that, I think that's fine. I think it's I mean, maybe being a bit critical, I sort of like the delusions of grandeur that sometimes people get when they get to that point in their business. As you know, they're not really running a business. They're kind of running, I don't know what you call it a consultancy or, or they've just kind of got a job really. It's just that they just work for lots of different people.

It's a job and they're working for themselves. But yeah, yeah, that's uh, yeah, that that's that, that stage is, is where I would think most people, how they will start a business anyway. But, um, but yeah, if you recognise that and realise, well, um, you know, I don't want to be the person doing the, the function within the business that, that, um, makes the money. I just want to run the business. I want to employ people then. Yeah, that's that's the I guess that's the first brick wall of most people's business or entrepreneurial journey is to, to, to sort of break through, to let go. Yeah. The decision to let go. Yeah. Yeah. Or, or not. I mean, you can, yeah, you can definitely get you there. There are some pretty, uh, dysfunctional businesses can make it to, you know, over a million turnover if you like, and if not more, but past that kind of one point two million, uh, turnover. Um, if you want to go further, uh, you really need to get functional, you know, you need to put systems and processes in place and have a functional structure for your business. Mhm. And, um, you know, even even simple things, uh, can keep you awake at night if you, if you haven't, uh, got somebody responsible for them or somebody looking after them.

Yeah. And you get to that point and then you become the ubiquitous busy fool. So you've kind of grown this thing. It's making decent income, but now you're starting to either resist the urge or resist the need, rather to get more people in and start and start running it like a business instead of like your hustle almost, you know? And to do that, um, you know, that's a big decision for people to make.

Yeah. It's a, it's a really big decision. And the, the, the thing if it's, especially if it's something that you love doing, there's that danger of nobody can do it any better than, than me. Um, but the, uh, you know, the most satisfying thing that I found in my business is letting people do what I used to do, seeing, you know, the different shapes and, and sizes of how they do the, the function within the business. Yeah. Um, because that's the only way they're ever going to learn. Um, and, um, I mean, for me, it's all about the destination. Um, you know, people, people pick loads of different ways to get to the same destination of delivering a service or, you know, providing a product. But as long as you've got a framework in place to help, to help guide people, then that that's going to be your, your, your best friend. If you're wanting to build that business to, to a better functional level.

Yeah. One thing I would say is as a, as an owner of a small business, there's about ten of us here at Red evolution. Yeah. And as an owner of a small business, it is fantastically rewarding when you see stuff getting done, clients being looked after, campaigns running successfully, businesses, you know, clients, businesses growing as a result of stuff that you had either nothing or very little to do with. Now I am quite heavily involved in, in a lot of our client work, but there are there are some of the campaigns and sorry retainers and things that we work on that I'm kind of not that involved with, you know, other than it comes up in the in the in the daily stand up when when we're discussing all the projects. Yeah, it's so rewarding. You know, we're seeing, you know, even simple things, seeing an invoice go out and it's like, oh, what was that for? Oh that's interesting. I didn't know anything about that. And it came in, it got done, it got invoiced and the client was happy. Yeah. So if anybody is at that point where, oh, I don't know about hiring people and all the hassle, it is hassle, it is hard, but it can be incredibly rewarding as well.

Yeah. I'm completely that is, that is where I, where I'm at as well. It's the, it's that um, moment of, of just trusting other people to do the, the things that you, you did yourself, you did everything yourself. Um, the one thing that amazes me is that, um, when you do kind of devolve the responsibility to, to other people within a business and employ people, like how many people actually, uh, takes to do the functions that you did all yourself when the business was just your own, if you like. Yeah. Um, but you know, that's not saying, oh, wow. Well done. Look at me. I can do so many things at once. That's just kind of credit to, you know, like showing that to get things done well and done right. You know, you need, you need, um, like different people and within different functions within the business focused on that. Yeah. Um, and that's about, you know, in our, in our business, um, uh, we want to deliver a premium product and you can't do that by one person being responsible for, for, uh, like even six or seven different functions within the business, you know? Yeah. Um, it's, it's really difficult to.

So you've taken a very structured approach to, to growing Alto. So let's, let's sort of explore that. Let's look at, um, like, what does that look like at the start? What, what was the decision process to decide? You didn't want to kind of do stuff and see what happened?

Yeah. The whole kind of what, what we would term as a the the bump fix a business model of like, you know, you do something that you love, you run into a problem or bump into a problem, you fix it. Uh, and then you just kind of go about your daily business and do that again. And that's where we were as a business. We were. Do you not.

Think a lot of businesses are like that? Even big successful businesses operate like that?

Yeah, there's, there's definitely elements of that. Um, you know, I definitely see that with businesses where, you know, um, people just, they haven't started with the end in mind of having this kind of like, um, machine, nicely structured business where everybody knows, uh, you know, the right people in the right, the right, uh, functions with the right system, you know, um, like everybody's always like, oh, yeah, uh, we'll get around to that one day. But, uh.

I'll tell you a great example of that. And it's come up in this office because, uh, you know, Alex, who I often do podcasts with. He's bought a house recently. Uh, I've got a nephew who's bought a house recently. So the people who are in that business and my experience as well, it's like whenever they, they, whenever you buy a house, the people you deal with, it feels like it's the first time they've ever done it. It just it just feels like you're not in safe hands. It just feels like the kind of winging it, making it up as they go along. That's been my experience working with like, I don't know, solicitors or estate agents and everything else. And it's and it's what I've seen other people say as well. It's like some of the stuff, it's like, why, why? You know, either they're not explaining the complexity of what they do. So so they're leaving customers frustrated. Yeah. Or they genuinely are just winging it.

Yeah.

I think it's the same thing.

I think, yeah, I think if people understand, uh, and you communicate to them the process. Yeah. Uh, then I mean, that's what these, these podcasts do, they explain a lot of the processes of what you guys do and things like that. And suddenly you realise that there's a lot more to it than that.

But you said it almost in a way, like you actually listen to them. I do not listen to the one we did with you over and over again. Doesn't count as listening to. No, it doesn't count.

I've listened to twenty nine of your.

That's why it's been downloaded twenty nine thousand times and it's mostly you. That's it.

My journey is my commute every day. That's me. I get half of it on the way in and half on the way home.

And by this junction, I should be at this point in the podcast. Yes. Again, it's a bit OCD. Yeah, yeah. But okay, so back to this idea of taking a structured approach. So kind of outline that for me.

So yeah, so we, we, um, Alto, we, we engage with a business coach and um, we, um, the thing I really loved about, um, the process was, um, nothing was a new concept. It was all, it was all just things that, uh, the business, um, needed to do, um, had to do, uh, to function. And, um, we started with what was known as a top down business model. So start with the end in mind. Start with what you want. Um, as a business, like where do you want to be? We started with the vision of the business, um, being, uh.

How hard was that? That sounds like really hard.

It was, uh, it was quite a lot of, uh, um, uh, hours, uh, discussing it with our business coach and, uh, the, the current team and, and.

What level of detail do you get to in that? Do you get to like, I want to live in a house like this, drive a car like this, have this many people be turning over this much money, be working for these type of businesses. Is it all that or none of that?

Yeah, there's there's a lot of those ideas. But the main thing is really it's about your, your personal journey and where you want to go. And, um, there was a lot of, um, sort of like exploration of, of us as people and where we want it to be, what our vision was. And we, we discovered that we wanted to build a business of which we were proud. Um, and, part of the process was like, I remember this quite vividly, just like having to go out of the office that we were in or the meeting room we were in just going what we were talking about a garden actually just there was three of us and we had to go and think of moments of when, when we were proud in our lives, you know, things like whatever you can, you can pick any kind of, uh, insert, uh, proud moment, you know, child winning something or, um.

Like, like the HTML blink tag where you could make text on a web page flash. That was just like one of my proudest moments, figuring that out, finding that I'm a simple soul.

But the proud moments, you know that that ties to emotions and feelings. And that's where, where businesses really are, really are at. You know, you want, you want to really.

Well, to that point, do you do you think maybe there are different, you know, different motivations then with businesses? I mean, I mean, I, I love this business and I love running it. I love the people that work here at the clients. Everything about it I really enjoy. Sure, it's got its frustrations and everything else, but it doesn't feel like work. It feels it, you know? And that's why, you know, I haven't really started thinking about when I might retire, for example, because for me, I'll retire when I don't enjoy it anymore. Yeah. If I'm still enjoying it when I'm seventy, I'll still be doing it when I'm seventy. I'm quite happy with that concept. So whereas other businesses are, it's purely about making money. It's making money we're interested in is like, you know, how can we make money? You know, and it's just a cold kind of. Yeah, I'm not saying they're wrong, but it just seems cold. And it sounds to me like you were that, you know, that is only part of it. Like the financial side of it is only part of it.

Yeah. I mean, like the, the eighties, the nineties, um, you know, the noughties, whatever, all that kind of time.

Greed is good and all that stuff.

Yeah. That's the thing, you know, it was all about share. It still is a bit a little bit, but shareholder supremacy and making um, Monetary or commercial profit. But for me, people really, really need to take in what I would term as cultural profit and what it sounds like within Red evolution. There's a cultural profit that you guys are making here. You know, you everybody wants to come in to the business and, you know, we deal with you.

Nobody's nodding. I'm looking around the office. They're all kind of blank staring me.

We we deal with you as a supplier and, you know, we we we get that that feeling, uh, that cultural feeling, you know, and cultural profit is something I think that, um, businesses and business owners really need to, to put under the microscope and look at because, um, you know, um, I've the news for, for everybody is, is that culture within a business is actually, um, a, a foundation, it's, it's a play, it's something that will generate more profit, uh, commercially. Can we.

Explore that a little bit.

About culture?

Yeah, I mean, I think I get it, but at the same time, we're all at Red evil. And I'm sure although we're all very different, we all have different hobbies, interests, we're all. And this idea of this alignment, this cultural culture. Yeah, I kind of I'd like to understand it a bit more with, you know, organisational culture.

So we, we did a project within our business, uh, on, on culture. Um, and we co-created a commercial culture for Alto. Um, there was four of us in the team, but we involved the rest of the team along the way. Uh, we worked out one hundred and twenty five man hours we spent on this project. Wow. Um, and, um, the, some, some of the sort of, um, quick takeaways, I suppose where, you know, like you said, there are lots of different people. There are hundreds and thousands of different behaviours out there. People can behave in so many different ways, but in terms of values that are that are limited number of values that you can kind of, um, um, um, adhere to if you like. So if you pick, um, maybe three values or four values that, that your, your business is, is obviously positive values and things like that. And then, um, you can, you can, you can build a culture around that. So for example, we, we picked, um, the three values, supportive, committed and authentic. Um, and, uh, these, these were three values that we, we really kind of, um, believed and felt were, were reflective of, of who we were as a business. And those values were already there. Um, but it was a really powerful thing to actually formalise that. And we, we created, um, uh, expressions and expectations of these three values and the, the staff and the team, uh, myself as well. We use the cultural values as a tool, and we use it in the context of what would our culture do next, right? Okay. And it's a it's a framework. It's, it's something that, you know, um, you know, when we were speaking earlier about how business owners, um, you know, do everything they want to, to maybe devolve responsibility away to other people. They want people to make the decisions. And it's great when you see an invoice going out that you had nothing to do with or a sale of something. Um, now those things, um, can be underpinned by culture. Mhm. So, um, the question would be when maybe somebody who's responsible for, for doing a project within red evolution, they, they could have a thought like, I want to make this decision. This looks like a really good idea to do this. Um, I've been asked this question by the customer and they can ask the question, well, what would the culture do next? So in our, in terms of our values, um, how would we, you know, be authentic with this. How would we be, um, supportive, uh, to, to this situation. And it allows our, it allows our, uh, so the culture allows our team, uh, to make loads of decisions that I used to get asked for. Right. Um, we, we've, we've had maybe some disagreements within the organisation and instead of the whole kind of like HR, um, scenario type thing, when, when staff have disagreements, they take the values, um, in it. We have them on a table and they can use them. I mean, we, we want people to live them rather than just read them. Um, but they can use these values to actually, um, work through a problem that they've maybe got with each other. And we've seen that where staff have, have, um, have actually, um, worked out, uh, that, you know, maybe they didn't get to know each other well enough. Um, when, when they started and a disagreement about, um, you know, he's, he's using my coffee cup every day sort of thing. Uh, you know, it's like, well, fine, let's buy two coffee cups. Problem solved. Uh, but when we use the culture to, to explore that, yeah, the relationship deepens. Um, people work out things much better. So, so cultural, cultural profit, as we were speaking about earlier and culture is, is, you know, it, it's, it's not a, a fluffy sort of like.

I like the idea of the, the guiding principle you get from it. One of we have a really short mission vision values and the, the, the first of our three values that we try and live by, work by. And I'm, I'm asking for opinion on this because you've gone through a more sounds like a more detailed process to arrive at them. So the first of our values is to feel ously pursue our client's best interests and that we have used to guide us when we've been looking at a piece of work and thinking, well, what should we do? Because the client wants to do this and it's just not the right thing to do. Or the client's current website isn't isn't right. You know what I mean? It's not right. What do we do? And, and then, you know, I think I've even heard people say, well, should we do this? Well, is that absolutely fearlessly, even if it means that we lose the gig, even if it means the client, like gets annoyed with us and walks away because but we will fearlessly pursue our client's best interest is one of our values.

Yeah. That sounds yeah, that sounds more like an expression of a value. Yeah. Um, I just wonder what the value would be. Um, do right.

By people, I suppose is what we're trying to say with this. You know what I mean? It's like irrespective of how it might impact on us, we want to do what's right for the client.

So that might be the value of being committed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're, um, expression of committed is being fearless. I like that. Yeah. You're being fearless in your, your decision making for for in the interests of the client. Yeah.

Even if they might not like what they hear.

Yeah. So, uh, so it sounds like I could take you through a little culture project here, David, and, uh, get things sorted out.

Yeah, I like, uh, I like the way, the way you distilled that down to the word committed. That's quite good. I quite like that.

Yeah. Although I did steal one of our, our culture, our, uh, values, but it, uh, it definitely made it, uh, made it more real for me there.

Well, going back to the culture, I mean, another of our values is actually the third of the three on the thing I'm reading is to make challenging work fun for us. It's important that we enjoy what we do. Yeah. Um, and what does that feed in to the idea of culture? Because I'm trying to understand what we mean by culture.

Yeah. I mean, for me, making challenging work fun, um, is yeah, I mean, that's, that's definitely a cultural, cultural thing. And, and just, just to sit and explain that, you know, you've maybe got a new team member and, um, there's a, there is a challenging piece of work. And just even saying that out loud, um, it can change the whole context of a, of a situation. So, so yeah, we could, uh, we could, we need to find a value to come out of, uh, making challenging work fun. Yeah. So.

Well, I mean, maybe caring because, you know, I've had situations in the not too distant past where one of the guys, uh, Dave, was actually working on a piece of work for a client. And there was an element of, of repetition about it. Yeah. It was a monotonous piece of work. It wasn't an interesting. You couldn't even make it interesting. And I, I, I kind of put myself in the position if I, because I'm, I'm not that person. I'm the world's worst for doing stuff like that. I mean, there are other people already who kind of almost thrive and enjoy doing stuff that's like, do you want me to do that and get great? I'll do it. I'll leave it with me. Fine. I'm not that person. So I felt, you know, I said to him, look, break that down. Just like do some of it, then go and do something that's actually interesting and stimulating and then just go back to it. It wasn't a real time critical piece of work. Mhm. And that was important to me that he didn't think he was literally going to spend the next three or four days doing this horrible, monotonous job.

Yeah. So you used your, um, expression of, uh, you know, making challenge work fun by, by taking, taking away, um, some of the less challenging work at times and putting some challenging stuff in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess it's just the whole thing around that is actually just using that expression, um, to, uh, to help people understand that, you know, it's not going to be monotony all the time.

So how does the culture that you've created at Alto, which obviously feeds into a positive work environment and makes your guys happier, which means they probably deliver a better service as well. So how do how does it. Are there any examples of how it actually manifests itself in the workplace for you? That was an example for me where it was like, look, that's a boring piece of crap. I don't want you spending days on that break it up kind of thing. Was, was a, was a manifestation of, of a value, if you like, and part of our culture.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, um, certainly earlier I was just speaking about how, um, you know, some of our staff might have had a, um, a disagreement in the office and they've used, used the culture to, um, to address it rather than having a conversation rather than having a fight rather than having a fight. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So like I say, the, the, uh, using my cup. Well, here's two coffee cups. Problem solved. But that doesn't actually get to the. Yeah, I guess the issue is never the issue. Um, when people are maybe having a little bit of a go at each other, it's not about one person using another person's coffee coffee cup. But yeah, unless you have a conversation, uh, and a proper conversation. You've got a tool like the culture and cultural values to go by. I'm just trying to think of a. Without going back to that example, I'm trying to think of another example. I mean, certainly we discussed them. Um, we discussed them in our, um, operational meetings and um, I just can't think of anything off the top of my head right now. Um, certainly we, you know, we've had instances maybe where, um, we've had a client that's, that's calling up, uh, really stressed out, you know, we do it support. So something's broken. They need to get something out. And, um, there's a, there's an element that we speak about where you need to pause, just pause and stop and think. And just because the customer's, um, stressed out, don't take that stress on. Um, so we've used the culture in that way in terms of supportive. So being supportive. Think about what would the culture do next. So you've got a client stressing out and you've got this thing in your mind. What would the culture do next? Then you think, think about one of the values. Think about being supportive and you think, right, okay, um, I don't need to be as stressed as this customer. I need to like work out what their problem is. Yeah. Um, and we've had instances where we've had staff that worked out the problem that our customers have not the fault. So there's two different, two different sides to that and the culture and being able to explore it in a sort of like more kind of deconstructed way if you like, um, has worked really well. So, you know, there's two sides. Um, the customer has a problem. Um, but it's a fault. Don't try and fix the fault. The fault could be the printer's broken. Mhm. Um, but the customer's problem could be I've got a board meeting in fifteen minutes now. Yeah. So it's like. All right, so your problem is let's reroute your computer to print off to the printer on in the other office. Yeah, done. So we've solved the customer's problem. Yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, pausing to think about that, being supportive, um, and just really. Yeah. Um, thinking. So yeah, I think what the culture does is it gives our, um, um, team time to pause and stop and reflect in the moment. And that's, you know, um, there's, there's an expression, I can't think of it right now. If I, if I think about it through the podcast, I'll, I'll, I'll bring it up. But there's, um, yeah, between, um, stimulus and response, uh, there's a space and that's that space where you make the choice about how you're going to respond to something. And it's about teaching people about that between stimulus and response. Uh, you know, there is a space and you can actually take the time to, to choose to, to react and respond in the best way possible.

Yeah, I guess it's what the emergency services would you know when when there are incidents, they carry out dynamic risk assessments. So the the importance of standing back and saying, right, what is going on here? Yeah. What, what resources have I got? How can I make this situation better with what I've got right now? Yeah. Not just kind of just all, you know, just.

I'm stealing that I am. So the dynamic dynamic risk assessment. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. I'm taking that.

As opposed to I mean, a dynamic risk assessment is when things are happening, they're coming at you and you've got to stand back and think about what you need to do. And then later on, um, you'll do what's called an analytical risk assessment where you can actually really just like things are now happening, stuffs getting resolved, and I'm just going to walk around and make sure that there's, you know, that there's nothing dangerous, that there's is everything in place. Is there anything that's a more considered kind of periodic, um, structured analytical risk assessment. But the dynamic is is yeah. I mean, you would be hit with your guys will be hit with situations where they have to do dynamic risk assessments. Probably quite a lot. Yeah. The example you gave about the printing was, was a perfect example. You know, what can I actually do to improve this situation? Well, I could spend two hours fixing the computer, which means the board meetings come and gone, or I can solve this immediate problem. And then.

Yeah, yeah.

Stating the obvious. But yeah, it makes.

A lot of sense. I really love that dynamic and analytic risk assessment because, um, it's another name for what we've got. We've got what we call inaction and after action reviews. Okay. Um, so we really, we really try and, um, promote, um, like learning, uh, within our, within our team. And that was one of the things that, that was brought out of the project when we were, when we were doing the culture was, um, you know, like learning is the learning and, uh, and mistakes they are learnings. They're opportunities to learn. Mhm. Um, so after action reviews, um, as you said, the analytic risk assessment, that's, that's the time when you are in inverted commas, criticising yourself for how things went and seeing how you could do things better. Yeah. And we, we, uh, have, um, actively encouraged these, um, inaction and after action reviews. It's really, I mean, the main thing that people need to, to, um, bring to their consciousness is just pausing. It's just, yeah, just pause. Just like, whoa, whoa. Just and that's for me. I just love that as a life lesson. It's not just a business lesson, but, um.

Fools rush in and all that.

Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. So I'm sure there's a song there. Mhm. It could.

Be. No, I get that totally. Uh, I think, I mean, I think to a certain extent that can be, that can be taught. Even just talking about it raises people's awareness that they should pause for thought, I guess. Yeah, but it maybe comes with maturity as well. It maybe comes with experience and having been there many times and made that mistake of rushing in and thinking, you see the problem? I mean, um, I guess with, with, with your line of expertise in it and certainly in some of the stuff we do, some of the dev work that we do the programming, etc.. Um, quite often it's very easy to home in on something that you think's causing the problem. And it actually isn't that it really isn't that thing that, you know, it's something completely different. Um, but you can come to the wrong conclusion. Then you start down that avenue of having gone the wrong way. Yeah. It's not just in our line of work. I get that it can be impact anybody's line of work, but this, this, um, this is something that's bitten us a few times and, you know, I don't code anymore. Many years ago I used to code, but I'm still of value to the people doing coding and development work just because of the way my brain works. You know, you, you know, you have you thought about this? What about this? And. Oh, actually, no, we never thought of that. And off they'll go. And and again, that's maybe feeds back into the idea of culture, I don't know.

Yeah. I mean that's that is, you know, you could you could have positioned yourself culturally like away from the team being seen as the, the scary business owner. So, you know, that that sounds like.

Um, instead of the, um, the person everyone takes the piss out of. Which I am that person.

But yeah.

Um.

But yeah, I mean, but the thing, the thing there is, is that you're, um, you know, you've positioned yourself, you know, the culture within your business makes you approachable and it allows people to not go down those rabbit holes or rabbit warrens of like, like focusing on one thing because quite often, uh, you know, problem shared and all that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, if you've got that culture within your business that people can, um, say, I'm just not sure what I'm doing here or I need a sanity check. I'm pretty sure I'm doing this right. But you know, like that openness is, is really important with within a business. Um.

So thinking back to this whole idea of the top down business model, I mean, is there any specific elements of it that you want to pull out for us to discuss now that would be of use to, I mean, people are listening to this podcast because they're interested in growing their business. They're interested in digital marketing, as are you, as you are, brother. Um, so what aspects of this structured top down should we discuss that would be of particular use, do you think what's, what's really guided you on your journey so far? Growing quite quickly from a couple of you to ten of you?

Yeah. So I think, um, the interesting part was that, um, although I've spoken quite a lot about culture, um, we only, we only did that project this year. Okay. Um, and, um, with, with our coaching model that we did, they suggested that you do that earlier, but you know, I just probably took that like, oh yeah, we'll get around to culture sometime kind of thing. Um, but yeah, before, before we did that, one of the really interesting projects we did was positioning. Um, and that's, uh, that's about if you don't position yourself, then the market will position you.

Which I think we touched on, but only touched on when we spoke last time. I think we did.

Yeah.

So maybe explore that a bit.

Mentioned that well, from, from our experience, um, it was about sort of like learning about, you know, your, your service, your, your price, your product. Um, there's, um, um, there's another one there as well, but it was, it was about working out where you were at as a business. And um, you have these four pillars. Unfortunately, I can only remember three right now.

Um, you'll fall over. There's only three.

Yeah. Well, we'll go with the milk and stool. Go with the three. Uh, so, uh, so so basically, um, what we learned from this was, was that, um, if you, if you need to sort of like score yourself out of ten, for example, on, on each thing that you deliver within a business. Okay. And um, if you're a, a two out of ten on your service, but, uh, you know, a ten out of ten on the types of products that you sell and then a, whatever, a three out of ten on the, the pricing. Um, people don't like that. People don't like inconsistency.

Just because it's confusing.

Yeah. Well, it's, yeah, it is, it's like people like you.

Is it almost like, like a garage? We love our car analogies. If you go past a little tuppence ha'penny garage and he's got like a Ferrari on the forecourt, you're like, well, that's a bit odd. That just doesn't look right. Why would a garage like that? I wouldn't buy that car. There's bound to be something wrong with it. There's just something jarring.

Yeah, I think, um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that's quite it, but I was just, I was going down the route.

Got to try and squeeze a car analogy.

Yeah.

I just got to do it.

Exactly. Yeah. We just don't want to mention things like a Honda Jazz or something like that. No, that's, uh, you get plenty of them, I'm sure, in the local garages. Um, but, uh, but no, it's more about consistency. And I think in life, people like consistency. They don't, you know, for example, if you phone, um, a colleague up at work and you don't know whether they're going to blow hot or cold or, you know, they're, they're going to be, what mood are they going to be in today? Yeah. People don't like that. People like somebody that's just steady and consistent. Um, but so, so we worked out that we needed to be, um, a consistent seven in, in everything that we did. And what that did was it positioned us, um, at, uh, what we would term as a premium level. Uh, so the positioning, uh, we decided to go for was, uh, this, this premium support services. And, um, we positioned ourselves, uh, like that, but then we decided to tell our clients and we had, I don't know, over one hundred clients at the time. And, um, we offered them out a premium services contract, uh, to everybody and said, this is where we're going. Um, and if you don't, um, feel that you want to be, if you don't want the service, you don't want to pay for this service, then here are, here are alternative suppliers. Um, so we, um, moved.

I thought long and hard about how to word that.

Uh, yeah, yeah.

As opposed to, oh, cheapskates slinging rock.

Yeah. Well, yeah, we did, we did, we.

Did my words, not Bruce's. Yeah.

We did think long and hard about it, but it was, it was about positioning. So the positioning was a really important thing. So we positioned positioned ourselves that and within a matter of months of, of, um, speaking to our clients, um, we probably took our client count down by about sixty percent. Um, yeah, I mean, don't, don't get me wrong. Pressing the send on all those emails was, was really scary. Um, but.

How did people react?

Um, we.

Because they would have realised what you were saying.

Yes. Some people, uh, most people understood. Yeah. Um, and, you know, we did an affair in a fair way and we supported.

These transition.

These, these clients. So a lot of these clients left. So we supported their move to, to another provider. Um, but the natural reaction would be that like, oh, you're, you know, your cash flow must have just dropped off the, the edge of a cliff. Mhm. It was the opposite because we realised that it was the premium clients that we enjoyed servicing. Uh, They enjoyed the services we got from them. We were able to enhance the services and the cultural profit that we got from positioning differently. Um, you know, we, we got rid of, um, clients that maybe had high expectations of our service but weren't willing to pay for it. So we felt that that was a lose win relationship, um, from, from our point of view. And it has to be a win win relationship. Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, so our, our, our commercial and cultural profits actually went up, um, in that time. And uh, yeah, that was, that was the, the back end of twenty nineteen. So twenty twenty, we were, uh, we were charging ahead going, yay, this is it. You know, we're gonna have a brilliant twenty twenty. So yeah, obviously what happened?

I know there's.

Some sort of like.

Something demic kind of pandemic. Was it something like that?

I think there's something went on anyway.

But.

But yeah, that was, uh, that, that made for interesting, um, uh, sort of interesting situation for us.

So just to rewind on that a bit, I'm putting you putting the spotlight on you. If we're taking this top down approach, how did you even have those clients in the first place?

We all, as businesses do things with out awareness. Um, and it's bringing those to your awareness. So we just weren't aware of, of what types of clients we had and how we were servicing them. Okay. Um, and that's, that's the key is the key. There is awareness. And as soon as you bring to your awareness what you're good at, what and who you support. And yeah, we had some, some, uh, and still do have some amazing clients. Yeah. We really like, like, um, our team will come off the phone and say, oh, I just love working with them. You know, it's, it's such a, you must have that feeling with clients. It's never when you call. Well, we try.

I'm only kidding.

Um but yeah, it's um, it is, it's nice to have that kind of like. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So, so the awareness thing is basically we weren't really aware of, uh, of our, of our market, of our position within the market. And when we, when we realised where we were at, it was like, brilliant. Yeah. You know, let's, let's, let's, um, align ourselves with more clients that are, that are in that, in that position. They want that premium service. They want, they want to develop the relationship, you know, the nature and depth of the relationships that we, um, had informed with those clients.

So something interesting based on what you're telling me there. And I think, you know, we're talking about this top down approach. Do you think there's a danger with businesses when they're trying to grow that they don't they don't spell out what they need out of this whole process, this whole journey. And so it's all about what the client needs. And, you know, whoever that client is, whoever that person is, whatever they need. You know, it's your job to try and deliver it. You know, it. I think from my personal point of view, you know, in the last few years, I've recognised that we're, you know, read evolution. We're just as important as all the other businesses that we work for. You know, this is how the guys here pay their mortgage. This is how this is how we live our lives. You know what I mean? It's important as well. And I think when you're starting out in business, I mean, I'm not going to name the person, but there are people I know who, you know, they just kind of yeah, of course, you put your customers, you know, high up on your list of priorities. You look after people, you do right by them one hundred percent, but they almost do it to the at their own personal expense. They do it. They do it in a way that that really harms them. But, you know, oh, but I've got to do this because the customer said, you know, we were going to go away and do this weekend thing are I really can't, I really can't. I've got to do this thing. I've got and I'm like, all right, there's always going to be something that you're going to cancel because a client needs something. Of course you are.

But yeah, no, and again.

I guess what I'm driving at is like that you and your company and, you know, Alto, everyone who works there, what you want out of life is just as important as what you're as, as the way that your clients want something out of life and you're helping them with part of it. Yeah, I'm saying it in a.

Really clumsy way. The nail on the head in terms of like what you're speaking about that is, is what I mentioned just a minute ago when I was speaking about positioning. Yeah, it's about the type of relationships. So it's a win win, lose win, whatever. You know who like it has to be win win. There has to be a mutual exchange of value. And those are the most satisfying relationships. Yeah. Of course, you know, um, and, uh, it's if you position yourself, right, you can, you can definitely get there and you should never, you should never, um, you know, um, put yourself in a position as a business owner where you know you're the last person to, to, to get looked after or yeah, like, yeah, it's fine. Okay, everybody can leave at five o'clock. I'll be here till one a m or whatever. That's a, that's a win lose relationship, you know, with your with your business.

That's right.

Yeah. Um, you.

Know, I think you, I think you saw. Right. And, and I think certainly like the, the lifestyle type business we talked about earlier, the one person type organisations, I think they're, they're the worst. I mean, not, not all of them, but I think they're the worst offenders for this, that they do not look after themselves, look after their own well-being. Yeah.

You know, and I think, um, you know, over ninety five percent of the world exchanges time for money. And that's how that's how we make it. You know, there's only a small percentage of the world actually work out about, um, you know, to have a business that is actually, um, income that they don't have to exchange their, their time for that money. It's, it's a business. Um, and there is one percent of the world that actually, um, has multiple businesses. You know, you're, you're Richard Branson's and whatever else, but, uh, but yeah, it's, um, it's about, it's about that. Um, yeah, the, the people who end up just in exchange in time for money. Um, that's a difficult place to be to, to live a life that is, is fulfilled personally as well. I find, um, you know, you're always, you're always getting that, does.

That feed into the positioning? So it really is part of the positioning. You know, what you need to get out of it is that, is that yeah. Um, because you're going to get what you want out of the business if you're working with the right kind of people, if you are doing the right kind of work. And yeah, that's part of the story to be, you have to position yourself.

That's part of the story. Yeah.

We could position ourselves as guys that build websites for three hundred quid. Yeah, yeah. We don't.

You could.

You know, that isn't what we do. But but there's a good living to be made doing that if you want to do it. But it's for us it wouldn't be rewarding. We wouldn't enjoy it. And there's just nothing about it appeals.

But but who who has positioned themselves in that market? It's Wix and it's weebly and all.

These people and some agencies who do a really good job of doing that. There are agencies, you know, in the north east of Scotland that do that. That is kind of, you know, no matter what budget you've got, they'll sort you out. And that's and that works for them. You know, it's great. Yeah. It wouldn't work for us.

No, no definitely not. But um in terms of the, the model, what you were speaking about, about positioning that kind of feeds into one of the other areas of the model that, um, we've, we've worked on very early on in the business, which is functionality. Okay, so.

Spell that out for me.

Oh gosh. Well, it'd be much better if there was a visual, but we can't do that on a podcast. Paint a picture.

In people's minds with the wonderful use of words. Bruce.

Right. Let's try then. So, so, so functionality is basically defining the functions within your business. Um, and there are things that um, cost the business money like all your um accounting, finance, HR um your, your own internal it all these things will cost the business money and then you've got your, your things that make the business money. Um, so in our case, it's things like the support desk and um our projects team and our, our cybersecurity team. These are the people that make, make, make the money. And invariably, every, every business has infrastructure that they, um, um, need to support and they've got, uh, products or services that they sell to make money. Um, and within there, you need to define every function within the business. You need to define, um, you know, all the things like, um, like HR, like, you know, we've got things like we've got a function called relationship creation and that is, um, in, in, in older businesses speak that sales, right. Um, so we have, um, so we have all these functions within our business, and we have somebody responsible for these functions.

Is that because as part of the positioning, you worked out that you do the best kind of business. When you've got relationships with people, you're not in the pile of, I sell them cheap. You know, it's not transactional, isn't it? It's because because you've done the work on positioning, you've recognised you need relationships in order to get the kind of gigs that you want.

Well, well, I would say the thing about relationships for us, and I think I just touched on it a little bit earlier and didn't quite finish, but relationships for us are the key thing within our business. But it's not just relationships. What we feel that sets us apart is the nature and depth of the relationships that we have with our clients, but the nature and depth of relationships that we have with our team as well with our suppliers. Um, that's a, that's a really important part. And yeah, when we, when we did a project on functionality a couple of years ago, these were the things that kind of got flushed out. Um, what I was going to say about the, the whole functional business structure is, um, you've got your products and services that you sell, you've got your infrastructure within the business that you support. Uh, so you've got your, your money that you make and the money that you spend. And people often think, well, if you take away what you have to spend on the business, um, from what you make, that's your profit. And, um, I would, I would say that that's actually just the margin that a business makes and many, many businesses, every business makes margin. And where you want to make profit is when you multiply that, you multiply that margin. And the only way that you can multiply that margin is to work on the future of your business, is to work on things that will, will create a great future. So things like, um, sort of dimension again, culture, uh, they are, uh, sort of like a business management tool. They're a strategic play for your business, uh, things like positioning your business like we just spoke about. That's something that you need to do. But businesses often think, yeah, yeah, that's for all the kind of like, you know, the big businesses will get around to that sometime. Things like, um, like innovation, for instance. That's something, you know, you must find yourself sometimes in business thinking, oh, it'd be great if we were able to put this in, put this really nice system in place or, or have this person in to, to run, uh, you know, some sort of customer experience program for us. Um, these are kind of innovative things that you can do within your business, but it's like, yeah, well, like, we'll get that done tomorrow. We'll get that done tomorrow. But if you concentrate on the future of your business. So if you take people out and focus on that, you'll multiply your margin into profit. And as I've said before, um, having a functional structure for your business will actually, um, facilitate, um, Commercial profit money, uh, but also, uh, cultural profit, i.e. a great place to work where you want to turn up to work. Um, you know, you maybe you don't want to leave bang on five o'clock, you're maybe there for fifteen, twenty minutes afterwards just finishing off things or whatever. Or, um, you may want to learn some more stuff. So the commercial and cultural profit can only be, um, there if you work on the future of the business. And so many businesses don't do that. And that's, that's where at Alto, uh, we've, we've seen ourselves come from four guys running a franchise about four years ago to now, um, a wholly owned, uh, business with eleven employees. Um, we, we turn over a similar, we've turned over a similar for the last couple of years. Uh, but our profitability has gone up. Um, um, we're selling a lot more, a lot more services rather than product. So and yeah, um, we've become, you know, a decent sized employer in the area as well because of working on functionality, working on, uh, the, uh, the, all the different aspects of the business model. Um, the one thing I would say is, is that, um, it's never ending. It's like it's always a work in progress. Yeah. Of course there's nothing perfect, you know, done, done is better than perfect. Get on and do something. Our first functional, um, structure that we created for our business, um, it had, I don't know about twenty one functions in it, twenty two functions in it. I think we only operated about maybe six or seven of those functions to a sort of level of like measuring the KPIs for each of those functions. But what that did was it took us from a four person business to an eleven person business, a more profitable business. So it's, it's, it's a really, really. I can't advocate enough, um, thinking about the end, starting with the end in mind of having a brilliantly functional business, uh, you know, that has defined a vision, um, has a culture. All these things are there. Um, rather than saying, yeah, like just go and make money and we'll dream about or we'll work out how to do those things later. Um, so.

Okay, I mean, I don't know if this fits in. I mean, we, we've, we're, we've recently developed some software to help us with a certain part of our business where we recognised that we weren't operating efficiently, we didn't have clear visibility over certain data, etc.. And so we've, you know, we've invested in the development of this software, which is now functional. It's probably beyond minimal minimum viable product. It's, it's in production. We're using it. I mean, is that what's is that an example of functionality. Look, you know, solving a problem that was a problem.

So so so yeah, I mean, like we've got a couple of functions, uh, one called service design. So that's about designing and implementing new products and services to, to benefit our clients. I don't know if, is this a client benefit or was it a business benefit?

Both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ultimately we will give clients access to the system so that they can monitor real time what we're actually doing for them. So, so there's, you know, there's almost no need for, for reporting because they can just see at any moment in time either what we're working on or what we've worked on. Um, but importantly, it gives us that visibility as well. So it's a system that will, it will service both, if that makes sense.

And um, so that's, that's, would you say that's added value to the business then?

Hugely.

Yeah.

My view is hugely added value.

And it sounds like it's a system that um you know, it it it's working while you're sleeping. So yeah, yeah, it's it's helping you. Uh, it's, it doesn't require a person to, um, actually sit over it and, uh, make sure that a is, is being switched over to B to C to D. No.

That's right. Because it's everybody's in there, you know, everybody's doing their little bit to contributing to, to the overall, the overall, um, outputs, if you like inputs and outputs of the system. So yeah.

So yeah, so.

We didn't need to develop it. I mean, we, we were, we were fine, but it was clear that it needed, you know, there was a better way.

So that's a prime example of a, of a business management functional, a business management function that you've, you've worked on, uh, the future of your business there. Um, and that's added value to your business. And these are the kind of things like, you know, um, like think about, um, how old you're going to be in twenty thirty, for example, like I'm going to be fifty five, you know. Where do you want to be with your business? Um, and quite often people maybe don't have a wealth plan. Um, they might think that their business is their, their, their pension. Um, and um, but if you're not investing in it, so like, like a traditional pension, you're not throwing money in it. Or if you're not innovating and designing things to improve your business, then you're, you're, your business isn't going to be worth much. And in twenty thirty for if you want to, to sell it or, you know, sell it, um, or, or, uh, move it into a management buy or something like that.

Employee ownership trust or something.

Yeah. You want value, you want to build up value within your business. So these kinds of things build up value, um, within your business. So I think it's probably.

You know, getting back onto the, the business growth theme, it's probably something that is that is neglected. People don't think about enough about where the business is going ultimately what, what their exit might be. And, you know, they just assume that the fairy godmother is going to come along at some point and buy it off them, and they're going to sail off into the sunset. But that's not going to happen if they haven't actually created something using this top down approach of, of, of a business which has got, you know, it's got a defined culture, it's got systems in place, it's got, you know, all of the structures that you would expect any size of business or even, you know, a predominantly large businesses, but you've actually done that with a much smaller business.

And so that's the thing. I mean, you know, we've structured this right, right. The way from um, having, um, shareholders, uh, a, a board of directors, but we call it the future, the future thinking team. These are the people that, um, come up with the, the scarier ideas of innovation for you to go on and do, uh, we have like I am chief executive, you know, chief executive officer, which is a bit big and for an eleven person business, but, um, it's about putting yourself and structuring yourself slightly, uncomfortably or more uncomfortably. Yeah. Um, it's that whole kind of like, um, uh, fitness and exercise thing, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna end up, uh, with a forty five minute, ten K run if all you do is walk. You can have to put yourself through the pain of, uh, of getting out there and training and running. And you could do it with a functional structure, with a training plan, or you could just go out there and run like most business owners do. Yeah. Um, so it's, that's the whole thing about the functional structure is putting something in there that is like big, hairy and audacious, you know, like it's a, it's something that's out there. That's, that's like, whoa, okay. You know, um, a structure of, um, all the functions within your business that's actually bigger than you are now. And like we discussed this pre podcast about the fact, um, that, uh, sometimes in smaller businesses, um, one person might occupy the responsibility for many functions within a business.

Yeah.

But what it will allow you to do is as you grow, you'll know where you need to staff up. You'll know where you need people. You'll know it's like, like for me, it was like, um, processing, um, doing the client relations in terms of like process and laptop sales and um, bits and pieces. I took on that responsibility, but with, because we developed a functional, um, structure for our business, we were able to see that, um, we could recruit in that area and we have done, and we've done it really successfully. And I don't do any of that anymore within the business. And dare I say it, the person that's in that role is doing a much better job than I ever could because I was doing about six roles within the business, you know? So it is about it's about trying to reduce the amount of, uh, responsibility. It's that whole thing about working in your business and working on your business. I know it's like we hear that a lot. I mean.

I'm part of a mastermind group of agency owners. Um, the rest of the guys, the rest of the other agency owners are based in the US. But the guy that chairs that, um, Mike, he, he, you know, he talks about that a lot. And certainly there are one or two members of the group that are running kind of micro businesses. And well, actually, we're all maybe micro businesses with ten or eleven people, but I'm talking about like one or two people, you know, really the really kind of the minimum, the minimum viable product when it comes to being a business one person. Um, and, you know, even then you've got to work, even if you have to split your time, you have to work on it as well as in it. You cannot not work in it when you're, when you're tiny. No, but you should still work on it as well.

Yeah. You should have a percentage. Um, so there should be a percentage of time that you do work on your business, even if you are a smaller, smaller business. And um, we, we kind of worked out that for every ten staff, one person needs to work, um, two and a half days a week on the business. Okay. So as we scale and as we grow, once we hit the twenty staff, then there must be one person working full time, um, on the, on the future of the business, on the business. Yeah. Or, you know, two people, two and a half days each or whatever you can, you can divide it up however you want. But that's the thing once, like it just kind of hit me like, um, you know, once, once we, um, increase our numbers up to up to the twenty, then it will be a case of like potentially I could just be working on the business full time, but I, I do, I work on the business two and a half days a week and the other two and a half days. I still have some clients that I go and see and do bits and pieces, and then just manage the energy of the team as well. Uh, they're sometimes a little bit of operational work has to be done within that, but quite often it's more about coaching them to. Because everybody really does know the answer. They just need it coached, uh, from them. And, uh, that's, that's definitely a fun part. But yeah, working on working on instead of working in, you hear so many people speaking about it. If you create a business model from the top down with your, your vision at the start and have your positioning and your, your functionality and all those kinds of things, you will be able to work on your business. You will totally be able to work on your business. Um, so yeah, right back at the start, we spoke about the E-myth revisited that helps you with functionality that helps you with systems and processes and, and making sure you know where you're going with that. But, uh, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh, really, uh, uh, well, I'm passionate about the subject of it. Um, you know, I've learned so much in the last three years. And previous to that, I've learned so much about how not to run a business. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's how a lot of businesses succeed, isn't it? They do it wrong. They sometimes do it wrong a lot. And then but but they're lucky enough to not do it wrong enough that they go under. Yeah. Um, but equally, I suppose you could follow a formula for business success and but you could still fail. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't. There aren't, you know, there's, there's things you can do that are going to help. Like, it's like, it's like with digital marketing what we do. I mean, you know, we openly talk about the failures because you cannot, with digital marketing succeed with every endeavor. I mean, because if that was the case, it would just be very formulaic. You would know exactly what the outcomes would be. The out, you know, you can predict outcomes better now than you ever could in the field of marketing. But certainly it's there's still no such thing as a kind of like, just do this and it'll just drop dead work every single time.

The failures are such brilliant opportunities to learn. So that's, that's the thing. Um, it was interesting when um, and also failures is, is it's almost easier to kind of default to that and think about things. It was like when, when we were asked, um, you know, can you think of different types of cultures within a business? Uh, it was easier to think of the negative ones, you know, like a boolean culture or this, that and the next thing, but then that gave you the ability to then work out the opposites. Yeah. So, so yeah.

It's just like what we don't want. Let's list all the things we don't want.

Listing things you don't want because we are human beings. We do kind of like gravitate towards negative. And, and that's a kind of a whole protective, ego driven kind of thing that we could go into in another podcast and another time. But, uh.

You'll be the first, third time guest.

Yeah, yeah. That's it. I'm gonna aim for it. There you go. It's going to be my, uh, you're.

Already on target being the first second time guest.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's, um, I just kind of, um, had a bit of a chuckle there and lost the train of my thought there a bit, but, uh.

Well, I think, I mean, we've, we've, we've, um, we've covered quite a lot in this, obviously we've, we've, we've strayed away by design. We've strayed away from pure digital marketing. We've talked more about business growth, we've talked about how there are structured approaches to growing a business. And I would encourage people who've listened to this and want to know more about that approach to reach out to Bruce at Alto. Yeah, you'll find him in all the usual places and have a, you know, maybe there's certain aspects that you want to talk to. Um, maybe even if you needed to be put in touch with certain people who, who, who would maybe help and guide you on that process. I mean, from my point of view, I think my, my business journey has been, has been more chaotic, um, than yours. Um, and.

I've just made it sound less chaotic.

Well, maybe, I mean, it is running a business, starting a business, hiring people. The whole thing is, is chaotic. And, and you know what I mean? We've all sat in a boardroom, you know, gone to a meeting. You know, we've got our new business, we go to a meeting, we sat there and we feel like buskers. We feel like any minute now someone's going to walk out and go, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? What are you doing out there? Who are you? You know, kind of thing. And like, it doesn't change. I've got a pal who's a CEO of a listed business and he and he said, yeah, we felt exactly the same, you know, and I think, I think it's a, it's a trait of, of, of right thinking, intelligent people that you have this kind of imposter syndrome thing going on.

And yeah.

Well, running a business is hard. It really is. But there are there are mechanisms, there are well-trodden paths and systems, some of which we've discussed today, which can really help with the whole process.

Mhm. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing, the thing that gets the thing that was ringing in my head when you were saying that is, you know, we're all just human beings. Yeah. You know, there's, there's no, there's, there's no hierarchy when it comes to that. Um, that's actually, it's a really good thing to, to think about when you're, when you're running a business, you know, we are all human beings. We are all equal that way. And, uh, you know, um, from that point of view.

The people were providing the services for, uh, human beings, our people, the people who are helping us deliver our services, our people with, you know, things going on. I mean, we sometimes say like, if, if, if from time to time we have a difficult conversation with a client or a client's a little bit off with us. Um, I mean, you know, like most businesses, you know, we're not up for being abused, but, you know, we give people a cut people some slack. Nine times out of ten, there's something going on, something it's not about that landing page that we've been building for them. There's something else going on, you know what I mean? In their lives, because all businesses are made up of people, whether it's shell or whether it's, you know, the one, the one person working in the shop next door.

And the, and the human element. Um, what we try and, um, foster within, in, within Alto and just in general is, you know, the issue is never the issue. It's the whole thing about, um, you know, if you with with questioning, you can actually get around and quite often you will have somebody that's maybe in a bad mood phone up to get their computer fixed. But if you can.

Yeah, I can imagine in your line of work that there's, you know, this bloody thing stopped working again.

But if you can, if you can, um, work within the context of the issue is never the issue. You can actually think, well look, this person's maybe, you know, had some bad news today or they're maybe just under pressure. They need to get something done. Yeah. And, uh, think thinking about that, the issue is never the issue. Um, um, can, uh, really sort of like put a human, um, sort of like slant on, on, on how you deal with people in general. So yeah.

So it's a bit like that meme, isn't it? You okay hun.

I'm fine.

Okay. Right. So this has been episode, I think twenty nine of digital marketing from the podcast. We've, we've strayed off the strict Digital marketing subject area, which is which is actually by design. Like we don't just want to talk about digital marketing, we're all about business growth. And that brings in all kinds of different areas. Um, as I mentioned, if there's any aspect of this that interests you that you think, um, you'd like to have a conversation with Bruce, then you can reach out to Bruce. Do you want to tell people how best to get in touch with you?

Well, I mean, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn. Uh, or, um, you can just search for Alta Aberdeen. You'll get you'll get us from there. Um, on.

On just one second. I'm sorry. I'm getting talked out from across the office. Right. What did I say?

You said it again. Digital marketing from the podcast.

Did I? Okay, I said digital marketing from the podcast.

And it's meant to be Digital Marketing From The Coalface. Thank you. Yeah. Podcast.

Yeah. That's why we invited you back because you actually know what this thing's called.

Yeah. But then I managed to take you completely away from digital marketing. But speaking about business growth, I mean, it's, it's a subject I'm really passionate about.

And so you were talking about how people can get in touch with you just to bring it back on track.

Yeah. So, uh, yeah.

Bruce Skinner on LinkedIn.

Yeah. Bruce Skinner on LinkedIn, bruce.skinner[at]itsalto.com Um, feel free to, to get in touch and reach out and excellent. Um, yeah, sometimes we do actually run, um, online seminars from our coaching journey, uh, with our business coach. So, um, if anybody is ever interested in that, then I can, uh, if I ever secure any invitations to those seminars, I'd happily invite people along.

Great stuff. Good stuff. Okay, um, if you want to come on the show and talk about your business journey, business growth, digital marketing, pretty much any aspect of business, uh, primarily business growth, I guess. But I mean, you know, pretty much any interesting stories around you and your business, then get in touch. Contact redevolution.com from all the usual places. Uh, in the meantime, uh, massive thanks to you, Bruce. That's, I think actually we've managed to make this one even longer than the last one that you and I seem to have an ability to make our podcasts really long, which is great. I think there's a lot of good content in there. Anyone's got a long drive. You know, I love a long podcast. You know, when I'm driving somewhere, that kind of thing, it's great.

Yeah. So where's this one going to take people to Edinburgh?

Yeah. You'd nearly get to Edinburgh on the back of this one, I think so, yeah.

If you're leaving from Aberdeen obviously.

We'll edit it down to all the interesting bits. So it'll be about three minutes I think by the time we're done. No we don't actually edit these down. I mean we resist the temptation. We just we just leave them in their entirety. Um, that's, that's, that's, that's our plan and that's what we've always done.

Well, it's been a pleasure really. I've really enjoyed just sitting, chatting.

It is, it's a conversation and it's just a chat and you'll definitely come back again.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Okay. Good stuff. Okay. If there's anything you need, get in touch. Uh, meantime, it's Tara from me.

And Tara from me.