Simon and Alan discuss mistakes they have made and how they have learnt from them, including the importance of following up and the urgency of Business.
Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present.
The thing for me was, when I first launched, I was scared of getting rejected and scared of selling. So I avoided it, I would, you could get lost in the website for weeks at home, you could get lost doing the marketing, you could get lost networking, doing research about stuff, anything that selling, because I was scared of it. And that, that one thing I’m not kidding would have cost me hundreds of 1000s of pounds, if I’d have just got out there and sold my product found the right people to sell to and consistently taken action every day. Which is why I do that now. Because I just didn’t sell to start with and it cost me a fortune. Simon biggest mistake I see is people who don’t go out there and sell every day and launch their business.
I think you know what, I think you’re a step ahead of me. I don’t think I realised I had to sell ketamine, I almost thought I didn’t know if it was I don’t think it was ego. I just kind of thought, Look, I got an idea here. It’s a really good really good idea. If I build my website, people will agree with me. And we see so many people that come through our events that have kind of got that, well, I built it. They will come to me now. And they don’t come and that was the thing I wasted months and months kind of just sat in the room going well, I’m developing my idea. What wasn’t I doing? I wasn’t speaking to enough people. And I wasn’t selling and if I flipped it around and spent the first month talking to people and selling rather than building stuff that was kind of nice to have, but not necessary. Maybe the first few projects would have been different.
And actually, that’s what I’ve learned. Now, if we come up with a new idea, I don’t bother with a website page, I don’t bother with a marketing brochure, I don’t bother with anything, I go and try and sell it. And I learned instantly whether someone wants to buy it or not.
That’s the difference.
I think also tied to that point was I didn’t follow up. Because in the early days, I didn’t want to feel like I was pestering people. So I send them an email. And then I would wait and wait and wait and nothing would happen. And what I’ve realised now is people are busy, and they’ve got lots on and emails get left down the list if it’s not top of mind, months can go by and you bring them up and they say oh yeah, I meant to do that. We had one recently, I think was three weeks between following between the first proposal and then following up. you ring them up and it hasn’t happened already. When people genuinely want to talk to you, they really do but we have this fear, living as a British thing. I mustn’t pester them, I mustn’t follow up too much. And actually, that’s one of the most important elements is get on it. If you send them a letter, follow up with a phone call and get an answer, move it on that relentless urgency of making things happen. And if I’d have had that in the early years, I would have made much more progress. Much more progress than than I did.