From Startup to Success: Business Building Strategies with Chris Dale

Speaker: 00:00:02

FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Jeff Kikel: 00:00:36

Hello, Freedom Nation. It's Jeff here once again, and another episode of The Freedom nation podcast. And on today's show, I have Chris Dale, Chris is joining us from London, UK. And he's going to share his story with us and I think you're gonna really enjoy today, Chris, welcome to the show. My Friend.

Chris Dale: 00:00:55

Jeff's pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Kikel: 00:00:58

I am so glad to have you on I enjoyed our conversation before the show, and really can't wait to share it with the audience. So let's get started by you sharing your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?

Chris Dale: 00:01:10

So my story starts like everyone with their parents, you know, you got a good school. In England, you've got to go to university you have a generation where no matter what you do, you got to get a degree because you can't get a job. So I went to uni got a law degree hated it after two years and but obviously keeps your parents happy, right? You know, you've got a law degree, came out and did not want to use it. So I fell into sales. I've always worked in a part time jobs or at university as people do to earn money. And I ended up working my way up through a business in an industry that I had no link to, but I love sales. I love people, that was always the thing I found I loved. And what sales also gives you is freedom to an extent, you know, to meet people on your terms. After about 11 years, the company had grown from I don't know 3 million to 50 million. But when one of the biggest in the market, I thought you know what? I've got that itch. You know, I'm working for someone else. I kind of just want a bit more for myself a bit more, as you call it freedom to kind of control my own destiny. So I did yeah, everyone does, you know the right way to do it. You find a worthwhile business partner, you plan it, you delegate your responsibilities, I was put on gardening leave. So I had six months to get it all together with someone I really trusted. And then the wheels came off in the politest way of putting it with about five weeks to go, I've started to get worried that it wasn't right anyway, my partner bailed completely stopped answering my cause, said it wasn't for him and just disappeared off the face of the planet. That's not what you want. And you can go one of two ways. I went into full panic mode as you thought you would I had 26,000 pounds on my credit card living outside my means a nice car to kids house to pay for. And one paycheck still to come in. So and I was always taught say that, you know, there's many reasons incitements you know, genuine interest, our business mind was out and out fear. You've got to pay the bills, you've got to do something. And I had five weeks door to door to set up a business. And it was a train wreck. And it was rough around the edges is the polite way of putting it but it got done and it's amazing what you can get done. When you got a family and and a roof over your head sort of thing that was that was the instigator for me.

Jeff Kikel: 00:03:27

Yeah, well, he you had a family and maybe not a roof over your head if he didn't pull it all off.

Chris Dale: 00:03:34

As far as your mortgage that is way too high living outside my means in sales sort of boiler room industry sort of thing. Yeah. So I love

Jeff Kikel: 00:03:43

Similar world, you know, going from a corporate job to Okay, I'm going to start my own business and make all this money and all of a sudden went from making a lot of money to not a very large amount of money, but still had the same bills that I had before. So I can relate. And it's amazing how good a motivator it is.

Chris Dale: 00:03:59

And it's a real eye opener, because when you run your own business have that level of freedom. Money isn't the driver anymore. You know, money is a byproduct of your success and you enjoy it and it gives you choices. But I went from earning solid six figures earning first year 35,000 pounds. My mortgage cars and bills were 16 breakeven, but it was very much it's for the long term benefit. We are going for this weekend swallow it. We're going to beg steal and borrow. Because it was worth the pump. It was worth the risk. mystery story. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: 00:04:33

That's awesome. That's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about your business what what type of business did you start? And then what what are you doing today as far as that business goes?

Chris Dale: 00:04:43

So I'm very fortunate. So I work with a lot of international. I work in interiors and furnishings, but not in the off the shelf we offer a solution where we go into very expensive properties, kick them out all in one day complete turnkey solution. So our target market are people that come from cultures where service injuries very important where they expected to be done, or markets or the rental markets where it needs to be done because it's based on a return or yield. Sure, we were very fortunate and locked down construction industries in London stayed open. And even now, we're very fortunate because with mortgage rates going up and things are buyers, international debt, cash rich, okay. And I always think back to Alex for Mozi, who's a well known entrepreneur, and he talks about the difference between dealing with there's no difference in who you sell to, it's just better to sell to people with more money. You know, just we're very fortunate, you know, they've got more disposable income.

Jeff Kikel: 00:05:36

Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, for that person that sitting out there, that's the old you, you know, in a job that they don't really enjoy, they're really not in an industry that they like, you know, what, what made you different from the other, let's say, 70% of people that blow up in the first 18 months, what what was different for you, that helped you get past that 18 month period,

Chris Dale: 00:06:02

says two things. One, I don't have an ego, so I know what I'm good at and what I'm not at. So I was very open at the start of that I needed a business partner that did all the stuff I couldn't do. I knew I couldn't do it on myself. And I'm very fortunate, my business partner took a punt on me because he, he was the backend to my front end, he was you know, the black to my wife. And that's good. Knowing your limits. I know what I'm good. I'm good with people. I'm good in sales, I'm good at bringing teams together, I would say my biggest strengths. I'm a good middle man bringing my team together. But I also knew if you're going to be the best, it's better to have quality over quantity of people. I come from a company with 300 Plus at one point, I now have 31 employees. And I would say that's nice. No probably 10 too many for you know, in ideal world. That's great. We've grown we've created this monster but you know, it's about the quality. There's no underestimating how great or good is.

Jeff Kikel: 00:06:57

Well, you're but I mean, you were I think we were talking before you're about an 8 million pound business, right?

Chris Dale: 00:07:03

Or yeah, yeah. And it grows 15% A year pretty much

Jeff Kikel: 00:07:06

30 employees. I mean, the the revenue per employee is pretty dang high. Yeah, if you could get it lower. That's great. But I still think it's pretty reasonable, you know, in the end,

Chris Dale: 00:07:17

And I'll yeah, I mean, the good thing is we try and pay our staff better than anyone in the market. That was the thing, we're getting quality. And we we do actively, we always have, we will swallow the short term to reward so we keep people in the long term, our turnover staff, for people actually leaving is one ever one person's ever less of that. I've hired badly at times, and we'll get to that. Yeah, but that's a completely different kettle of fish. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: 00:07:42

So let's talk about that. Let's talk about some of those challenges. Because I remember you talking about that, that you know that the the staffing part was not your forte early on. So what what did you learn from hiring people for the first time?

Chris Dale: 00:07:54

First thing I learned is I am the worst interview in the world. But generally, there is no one worse than me. You know, I had to learn the hard way to bring people in. The other things I learned is CVS lie. You know, people look amazing on paper. There is no beating for meeting in person seeing their track record in the flesh. I've hired badly a couple of times where I hired on paper talent. I my one of my biggest ethos is I would pick work ethic over talent every day of the week. I can train people to get better you cannot train work ethic into people they've either got it or they haven't. I think you just just the way you brought up, you know your hunger, your driver insecurity you know, I'm Unseld understands insecurity drives you, but you just can't. It's meat. You can't nurture that, you know, and people that work for me, they just wanted more. You know, the it's just that, you know, the athlete mentality.

Jeff Kikel: 00:08:48

Yeah. Well, that I think, yeah, and that's I I'm the same way, quite frankly, I think we're, we're kind of cut from the same cloth. I mean, coming out of the sales world. I mean, I think sometimes I have more faith in people than they have in themselves. And a lot of cases, you know, and the best way I heard it was a friend of mine in Texas here who said, you know, you can't you can't expect eagles and higher turkeys. You just have to find the people that are going to have that drive inside of my totally agree with you. And you know, sometimes I I feel like I see stuff and people that they don't see in themselves. And most times they prove me wrong in the long run. But I think that's a challenge. The other part is being a salesperson by nature. One of the keys of starting a business is you got to get revenue coming in. So what was that like in those early days? When you know, all of a sudden you had five weeks left? How did you make that happen?

Chris Dale: 00:09:49

I think most people when they start decide to set up their own business, they go into something they've either worked in before or they know relatively well, you know, I think she just if I turn around and say tomorrow I'm going to be a footballer I hate Take it to myself, but I'm not good enough, no one's going to take me on, it'll be a very short career. However, unfortunately, he dreams can die. But then I got a piece of paper and when who are the people that trust me, because sales or business in general was a people business, they bind to who they know not not what they know. And it gives you a bit of goodwill, you know, if you go to be cold call someone, they want a track record, they want a history of success, they want to know the financially sound, truthfully, I wasn't financially sound, I had some external investment, again, who came I went to and said, you know, me, I won't let you down. And they invested a quarter of a million pounds in us to get us off the ground and fast track us. But you have to go to people go, You know what, you're a good person, you've done it before, for me, I trust you, and then work from there. I always think people try and spread their net too wide to win any old people, you know, as many as they can. That's how you do it, you know, our market is 20 million pounds. Or, actually, you just need one customer and go deeper with them and take all their business should cost you less to win them cost less to maintain them, and they trust you and give you more and don't go elsewhere. And we started with one customer very early on, in one division of 26. We now have 13 divisions giving us 17% of our total revenue just by word of mouth moving division to division person to person reputations, reputation. And that's actually diluted as we've got bigger at one point they accounted for 28% of our business, I think you just don't trust word of mouth. Here's another deal isn't another deal. And it doesn't cost me anything to retain that customer buying them dinner occasionally you're saying thank you.

Jeff Kikel: 00:11:35

Yeah. But I mean, in the end, it's and I think this is where businesses miss out, is they get so focused on the acquisition side on the front side that they're not thinking about. Okay, well, I don't need a ton of clients. I mean, kind of the your your approach to hiring people, the same thing? Is your kind of hiring clients that are quality versus quantity.

Chris Dale: 00:11:56

Yeah, I mean, and our last business used to cover the whole market where I worked, you know, used to cover every department. And I'm very much about specialization niche down as far as you possibly can. And you'd be surprised what businesses do they make millions of barrels, like there's a company that turns over 11 billion that just zips, you know, who the thought is industry was worth 11 billion, and they control 47% of the industry, you know, you can do anything, if you're good at it. And there is always a market for quality. You'd be surprised how many existing businesses are just crap at what they do. But they're the only ones out there. There are very few really good businesses out there. And waiting to be disrupted. I hate that word. Because it's a bit techie and a bit, you know, kind of, but it's true, you'd be going there just clean house.

Jeff Kikel: 00:12:38

Yeah, and especially they sometimes kind of sit back on their heels, and just expect they're gonna always be the ones and it's that disrupter that can come in and just knock Yeah, just come in treat people, right, treat their clients, right. And yeah, they can end up taking over in the long run.

Chris Dale: 00:12:54

That's what we've done. You know, we've not we've we've accepted our limitations. We know our size. And as we've grown, our type of business has gotten more and more specialized. But we know how much clients willing to spend with us. If they're not willing to we just cut them loose will not for us, thank you very much. The ones with the least money or clients or the hardest work, they just are because they want more for their money. And it's the top end of their budget, you know, the ones who are comfortable in the in the niche that in the area of your spending, the easiest ones that the low maintenance ones that pay the bills and make you happy at the end of the day?

Jeff Kikel: 00:13:26

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's a, it's the same thing in the financial industry, you know, that the largest clients sometimes are the easiest ones to deal with. Because they don't quibble over the small stuff. I mean, they expect somebody to, you know, take care of just service, everything, take care of them. And you know, they're not going to quibble over how much you get paid or whatever, at that point.

Chris Dale: 00:13:47

So true. So true. So

Jeff Kikel: 00:13:49

during the pandemic, you wrote a book, we had a little time on your hands and wrote a book. So tell us a little bit about that.

Chris Dale: 00:13:56

So everyone did something in lockdown. You know, some people bake banana bread, some people took up yoga, I'm a bad cook, and I'm really inflexible, so they weren't for me. And while I was setting up, the company I worked for I kept notes, I started keeping notes of, you know, all the problems I've come across, just you know, it's a way of dealing with stuff, you know, when times are tough, or you know, you're working through stuff. And then it locked down, you left with some free time, and obviously to me and my, my wife is gonna kill me unless I left the house or did something or lock myself away. So I thought, You know what, my experience setting up a business is probably not unique. But everyone, when you try and buy a book on how to set up a business, I learned this, there was no tips for me if you want to set a big company go and get seed funding from Silicon Valley and start with, you know, growth stage and I was like, I just want a little something for myself a bit more freedom, a bit more enjoyment in my life. You know, a bit more choice is the way I describe, you know, freedom. And I couldn't find it. I really couldn't find it. And so I had To, you know, improvise on the spot, you know, in everything I did. And so I wrote one chapter, you know about people get caught up in the weeds, you know, like, Oh, what do I name it? How do I do it, you know, cheerleader name or website, you know, a business card and motivation to go out there and do it and clients, you know, have a conversation. And so I just started writing, and then one chapter turns to two turns into four. And then I sent it to a couple of publishing houses, and they're like, you know, what there is, obviously, it's a great industry to be in self help and business. And I was fortunate to get it on the Amazon bestsellers list.

Jeff Kikel: 00:15:35

Nice episode at nine o'clock, I think so, what are some of the, you know, the concepts that you share in the book, what are some of the the key concepts, so I

Chris Dale: 00:15:43

Try and keep it super realistic. I swear, in the book, I tell some very heartfelt stories of how I cook up. I talk about everything from that first year, what you need, what the goals are, I talk about the niching, and like constraint on one client run not I try and make it break into little segments. So if people wanted to just give it a go, they could go, Okay, I've done that ticket off my list, I could do that. Because when you think of setting up a business, it's this massive entity, you know, huge or how am I gonna do it? How am I pay the bills? I didn't know how to set up a company on, you know, website, I asked a friend and said, How do I do? So just type in this and do this? How do I set up a bank account? Just do this? You know, I'm, how do I buy some stock? Okay, you need to have a company into the warehouse deliver, okay, if you don't ask you don't get, you know, lean on people. And that was my thing. It's a real idiot slide because I was that idiot. That's true. That's true. You know, if I can do it truthfully, you know, there's nothing special about me. I'm average height, average weight average education. And I've managed to pull something together that kind of works.

Jeff Kikel: 00:16:45

Absolutely. So, you know, having to having it all to do over again, what would you have done differently that you've learned? Now, knowing what would you have done differently?

Chris Dale: 00:16:56

I think the obvious one is I work in industry that hold stock. And so a lot of your resources are taken up with warehousing, storage delivery. I look at SAS SAS companies, I look at tech companies, and it's all done through computers and cloud and your margin levels and how you deal with customers you could send stuff into, I would probably do something more personal related writing, you know, consultancy, you know, there's always a niche for convenience and help helping people that doesn't involve a physical location or physicality. It always makes it up to tougher.

Jeff Kikel: 00:17:29

Yeah, I like that. All right. Well, let's transition here a little bit to the Fast Five question. All right here. Yeah. So first question, you wake up in the morning business is totally gone, you have $500 in your pocket, or 500 pounds in your pocket. If you have a laptop computer place to live, what are you going to do first?

Chris Dale: 00:17:48

So I thought about this, I would get the train into London into Central, I go to the most expensive area of London. And I'd watched the people that for half a day. The reason I do that is because they are the people with the most disposable income, pay the most for convenient convenience and services they want problem solved. They are way past the stage of doing it for themselves. They have drivers and they have sorters and fixers and they don't pay for it. They don't do anything direct. And I would find what the least of what they would needed, though, was just the friction in the sticking point there. I've learned very, like I said to earlier rich clients and poor clients that the only differences they have more disposable income, their same level of capacity to deal with it. And then the circles they mix in Word of mouth is so important. So you would have to network and advertise Facebook ads and things like that word of mouth and those industries you look at, you know, most industries at that top level and agency and things like that. They know who their clients are and who they recommend and you never hear of it. It gets done. That's where I would do it. Very old fashioned way. Go and watch it.

Jeff Kikel: 00:18:58

Great. No, sometimes old fashioned works way better than all the fancy tech stuff. That's, that's out there. Alright, second question. What's the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Chris Dale: 00:19:10

Hiring too quickly, is definitely one. The reason being is for every person you hire you dilute the culture culture is beyond important to me and my business. And our culture is fantastic. Where am I? The one thing I'm the most proud of if I was to leave today and they asked what we done, but every time you hire them the dynamic changes within that group a power struggle, the difference and I think just having I've rushed I created a beast where I was trying to constantly double down sales doubled our income, and actually profit profit and sales aren't the same things you know, you can do 10 million pounds in revenue. If you make no profit while you're doing it, you're busier with more people and more hassle. So I would have probably done that slightly slower and kind of take it maybe look to that again. I was might at that point. I was in my zone. Let's Hi We're getting bigger, there's more more business than we can shake a stick at. Breathe, take a minute. And that's what I've learned is people are difficult. They're great. I love the people, I work there the best. I'm so fortunate for that. But people are tough. There are a lot of demands on your time and energy.

Jeff Kikel: 00:20:16

They don't necessarily understand the sacrifices you're putting out as a business owner.

Chris Dale: 00:20:21

No, I think we have a business owner, you have to accept that everything is your fault. Whatever happens in the business, you are 100% responsible for that. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about it. And he says, if you can deal with that, it's quite liberating. Because nothing scares you. Nothing goes wrong. It's on you. If you lost a deal, it's because we didn't pitch it right. Or we didn't do it. Or we weren't up to task. Why? Well, we have to never blame someone else. They work for you. You sign on the dotted line your name above the door. And it's so liberating. It's true. You know, never blame anyone.

Jeff Kikel: 00:20:54

I love it. What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

Chris Dale: 00:20:57

You may not have a mine, obviously, which is obviously a page turner.

Jeff Kikel: 00:21:01

I mean, that's a good one. Well, we'll definitely do that. But it's um,

Chris Dale: 00:21:04

This too. So when I, I love business and self help book, those sort of things. My wife laughs at me every time I go on holiday, and I read those rather than, say, The Da Vinci Code, or Harry Potter. But Gary Vee, sorry. Gary Keller has a book called The one thing about specialization. And that blew my mind the first time I've read it, I've read about four times how all the best companies in the world build or do one thing so exceptionally well, that they're unbeatable. We are apple, a really great example of that, you know, with the first it was the iPod, or the iPhone, and the iPod and iTunes and you know, they obviously have a lot of industries now they work in, but they are the best at it and making the largest company in the world. The other one that really hit home for me and still does is there's a book called bounce by Matthew Syed. He's a British journalist also was an Olympic table tennis player for Great Britain. And what reason it resonated with me is it was about how efforts over talent. So I was I was under the belief that unless you want to be a basketball player, you need to be six foot nine in most industries, you hear you watch films, or they were just born into it, they were the best piano player at four years old, you know what the best sportsman in the world is just came natural to them. It's actually proven it's not, it's about number of hours, you do isolated training, improving against people that are better than you. And when I read that, like, that means anyone can be good or anyone can be the best within reason other than physical activities, potentially. And then you look at some of the people that are the best and why they are and it's like God, could be anyone that could be me if I just wanted it more. It's the first half of that book blows my mind every time.

Jeff Kikel: 00:22:45

I love it. It's fantastic. Great book too. What is a tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend?

Chris Dale: 00:22:52

So I as I said, I'm a dinosaur. So we although I work in quite a tech savvy industry is still quite backward. I actually can't live without WhatsApp. I can live my whole world in WhatsApp, I can contact anyone in the world, I can sell them stuff anything in the world, I can show them anything in the world. I can speak to them. It sounds simple, but I can send them documents to sign I can send them prospectus I can send them video footage, I can call them when I'm on site somewhere to sell them something or show them something. It sounds basic anyone has access to him. For me, the whole point is that I want easy to access industries, you know, just setting up you want to work in nuclear power. Yeah, it's slightly different, you probably haven't technical things to spend money to get into it. I work with people that want an easy access to a bit more freedom or the opportunity to have something more for themselves. And so, for me, WhatsApp is a really great example. I have my phone in my hand when I set up the business. I called some people, I WhatsApp some people and said, Hey, have you got time for a call? Can you help me out? I'm struggling or I really need to call in a favor here. I've just set up a business. And guess what you get a great response when you ask for help people want to help generally.

Jeff Kikel: 00:24:02

Yeah, it's interesting word in the United States. We don't use whatsapp as much. I mean, I use it all the time because I found that you know, when I was working with my virtual assistants, I've got three different virtual assistants on three different continents. The ability for all of us to just communicate I have a lot of people use Slack but I just I had vehemently hate Slack. So you know with with WhatsApp, we can jump on kind of a common chat, transfer documents between each other everything else and we can all be going on three different continents and have that conversation going whenever, whenever somebody's awake. They're answering questions at that point. So I totally agree with you.

Chris Dale: 00:24:40

So my clients are based around the world other than mainland China where they have WeChat and WhatsApp is restricted. But WhatsApp is the access to everything. You know, I have Saudi clients, I have sports people I have, you know, it's encrypted for security reasons. I have royal families I deal with in Saudi Arabia, Middle East and places like that. You know, it's a universal tool.

Jeff Kikel: 00:25:02

Yeah, well, and you know, they're gonna have the money to keep the security up and everything else, which is great. So last question, what is your definition of freedom?

Chris Dale: 00:25:12

This is a real tough one. Because when I was younger, I always changed financial, you know, my opinion of freedom was money. That was it. Obviously, you can buy more things and go more places. And it's such a myth. Freedom is choice. That's exactly what it is. It sounds cheesy, but I can work, I love my job, I can work 14 hours a day, that's my choice to work 14 hours a day, I want to work weekends, I want to go for a run at 12 o'clock, I want to go on holiday for two weeks and work from there, I can do that, you know that I have that choice. And that's my definition of freedom. Even if I was to sell the business, I would still work because I love dealing with people. My business I've taken the bits I'm not very good at and give them to people. And now all I do is deal with clients and understanding what they require, what their backstory is, and what makes them tick. And that, to me, brings me joy and happiness. It's very hard to have freedom when you're not when you're in a big organization, I think are working as a bit in a big machine of 1000s of people. There are people you know that teachers get joy from teaching kids and during their education, I get joy from interacting with people and find out what makes them tick.

Jeff Kikel: 00:26:25

I love it. What a wonderful answer that was. That's one of the best I've heard in a long time. So thank you. Chris, you are fantastic, my friend. I appreciate everything you talked about today sharing your story. It's absolutely amazing. We will make sure that we include even you can start a business by Chris Dale in our show notes so if y'all liked what you heard from Chris today make sure you reach out and buy the book so that you can learn a little bit Chris if they want to learn more about you and your company and all that what's the best way

Chris Dale: 00:26:56

Twitches the safest place? sorry x okay, I am Christiane Appaloosa my handle Yeah, exactly. I am Chris style on x is my and that's the best way to contact me. Like I said, I speak to a lot of people that just send me random questions. I love it. And they're like, What would you do here? And they always overthinking. It's always this big, you know, huge problem with actually deep down. It's the fear to take the leap or the fear to ask for help or, you know, overthinking it a little bit. And I did that. And that's why I always try and reply to everyone because, you know, I still make mistakes every day. I'm not I'm no one no way better than anyone trust me.

Jeff Kikel: 00:27:33

Perfection is not attainable now. No. Well, folks, thank you so much for joining us today. We do these shows every Tuesday and Thursday for you. Make sure that you subscribe to the channel, share it with a friend and please give us some comments. We'd love to hear a little bit about what your thoughts were on what Chris shared today. So thanks a lot and we will see you guys back here the very next time.

Jeff Kikel: 00:28:01

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