I Started A Business for £1k and Make £37,000 a Month

An end of year update from your boy Callum ;)

Hey team,

Hope you’re good!

I really hope wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’ve had a great year.

Here are my biggest wins and failures from the year.

I hope you get some value from them.

I think the headlines would be:

1. The agency I started 18 months ago just crossed £37,000 in month recurring revenue.

2. The podcast we re-started 3 months ago has done 250k+ long form views and 2.5million short form views.

3. I just got engaged.

What did I learn from all that?

First up let’s talk money...

Revenue growth:

• 18 months ago we were at NOTHING a month

• 12 months ago we were at £10k a month 

• 6 month ago we were at £18k a month

• Now we’re at £37k a month

I can remember when I used to earn that in a year. 

So it’s pretty mental where you can get to in 18 months.

It’s funny because in the world of ‘get rich quick’ 37k a month in 18 months feels slow or inadequate. 

But the Callum wondering if I should do this at the beginning and scared to charge someone £1k a month, would be over the moon with this. 

So that’s fun. 

The biggest lesson has been growing through Referrals and growing what you do within existing accounts 

That’s all you need. 

You don’t need to get distracted selling.

You can just spend your time on delivering a great service that gets results.

That’s enough to grow.

The second lesson there is…

Talent is everything. Spend the time to hire.

I’ve added a few superstars in my team over the last year and they all came through taking my time with hiring to find the perfect person. 

These guys then do great work and lift our standards.

We then get more business because of it.

One of my main goals for next year is to make sure the whole team is world class at what they do.

The highlights of my week’s are when I get sent work and I fall off my chair because it’s so fricking good.

The 1-2-1s where all we’re discussing is a recent win.

I’ve come to realize that the talent is out there, you just need to agonise over finding it.

What’s cool is everyone in the team is getting on and we have a really nice culture forming.

I would say now is the first time I feel like we have a real team here.

It’s not just me and a couple of freelancers

Next up is some failure though. 

We have lost 1 piece of work this year and there were 2 reasons for that:

1. I didn’t Address an issue quickly enough. I did not nip the issue in the bud quickly and I gave someone too much of the benefit of the doubt to turn it round when really I needed to make the harder call.

2. In those situations I increasingly have realised you need to trust your gut. People will tell you to do a performance improvement plan and work on it with the person, but if in your heart you know something is not right, you’ve got to go with that. 

It’s my same instincts that got this business to where it is, so why would I ignore them when making HR decisions because a manual says otherwise?

You’ve got to be objective.

Ultimately you’re in a cutthroat marketplace and your clients will fire you.

You owe it to the rest of your team and the business to make the hard calls.

Something I’ve realised is I can’t be bothered with mediocrity.

Mediocrity doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.

Producing world class stuff does.

I think the other big mistake was, you can give people a chance and time to improve, but you need to be running contingencies in the background in case they don’t. 

Because in this scenario I got caught quite flatfooted.

I didn’t have a back up plan.

Now let’s talk about pace. 

I’ve been interacting with a lot of successful people this year and one thing I notice is just how fast they operate.

They don’t sit too long in decisions. 

They all seem to respond to emails in seconds.

So it’s something I’ve been trying to replicate.

The hypothesis is basically that every action will have a learning, so the quicker you take action the quicker you learn. 

I’m really enjoying it. It just helps me feel like I have momentum and stops me overthinking.

Content is a super power.

So I run a content agency and I tell all our clients how powerful publishing on the internet is.

It’s all I bang on about everyday.

The fact you can post something and reach millions of people with your message.

So a few months ago I decided to publish a series of 5 podcast episodes and show a bit of what we can do.

What’s amazing is that the episodes did over 250k long form views and 2.5 million short form views.

I added 20,000 followers across social media.

I got 1000s of messages and DMs from all over the world. The business got a bunch of warm leads.

And the whole experience was just surreal.

Because I’m so used to doing this with clients but to finally do it myself, has just been super fun.

I love that people have got value out of the content and found it remotely helpful. 

So yeah, I’m really excited to bring another 5 episodes starting in January.

Finding a life partner

Another big event this year was that I just got engaged. I’ve been in this relationship for 8 years and it’s honestly been one of the best years yet. 

Having someone to rely on, give you advice and love, explore the world with, is just the biggest life hack.

So it was time to make it official.

And other than the business, the highlights of the year have all been holidays with her.

So yeah… go get a life partner and if you haven’t put a ring on it yet… lock it down!

Ok

So we’re onto the last one….

Really it’s just go and get it.

Bring your dreams to life. 

18 months ago I was thinking it would be cool to have a profitable business working on things I loved with clients I love.

I also used to listen to podcasts and go… how cool would it be to have one of them and speak 1-2-1 with some of the smartest people in the world.

I grew up thinking it would be cool to have a gorgeous, smart, life partner.

This year I made all 3 of those things happen.

I hope whatever it is you want from this world.

You go after to it in 2024

The rewards for people who chase what they really want, are far greater than anything you can imagine.

So yeah, go fucking get it guys!

I hope you have a great holiday season and that 2024 is your best year yet.

All my best,

Callum

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