Ecommerce Entrepreneurship: Master Time, Money, Relationships, Purpose | David Braithwaite

Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the ecommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now this is a show all about helping you deliver ecommerce wow. Oh yes, it is. And to help us do just that, today I'm chatting with the mesmerizing, no doubt, David Braithwaite. We're going to get into all things entrepreneurship, which I'm super looking forward to.

We're just going to chat what it is to run a business, all those things. We're gonna get into them. Oh, yes, we are. Before we do, let me just say to you, if you haven't done so already, then why not head over to the website ecommerce-podcast.net sign up to the newsletter. We would love to connect with you.

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Oh, sorry. I should say that's ecommerce-podcast.com/ecommerce-cohort plug the website one more time. ecommerce-podcast.com/ecommerce-cohort. Okay, let's talk about David. A leap of faith taker since 1994. And a business wizard with a zest for life's small movements, or small movements, should I say, get that one right owner of Citrus Financial Management and co owner of three other businesses.

He is all about empathy, turning clients dreams into [00:03:00] reality and grooving to the behind the scenes stories that shape us. He is a strategic coach, veteran and a believer in the power of story. Love that. David's just the guy to guide you and I to the best versions of ourselves all the while keeping it real and having a lot of fun in the process.

David, great to have you on the show, man. How are we doing today?

David Braithwaite: Very good, thank you. And I love the fact that you say it's all about fun as well, because business should be, if it's not fun, you're probably in the wrong business. So I love the intro. So thank you for being so kind.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, no, great to have you all the way from Sevenoaks as well in the good old South of England there.

David Braithwaite: yeah, yep, all the way down here, but it's handy for me. It's an easy commute into London to go and see people and for the coaching that I do. But equally, if I'm flying anywhere, everywhere is under an hour, the coast is under an hour, and it just works. So I haven't moved. I was born, bred, grown up and always lived here.

So I'm very happy here [00:04:00] and very proud to be a Kent boy.

Matt Edmundson: Kent boy. Absolutely. And why would you not be? Why would you not be? I'm as we were talking before we hit the record button, I'm here in sunny Liverpool, actually very stinkingly windy Liverpool. The sky is clear, but the wind is going crazy. I don't know whether you've got this storm going on down in the South of England at the moment, but it is crazy here.

David Braithwaite: Yeah, we had it all last night and at one point I thought. Was it the Film Wizard of Oz, isn't it? Dorothy?

Matt Edmundson: She just takes off,

David Braithwaite: exactly, so we could have been doing this podcast live from Kansas, maybe, I don't know, but it certainly was a bit blowy, it's fair

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

David Braithwaite: was that was a windy day, but it's quite funny, isn't it?

I always think that no matter what's going on in The weather always wins. It's always the boss, and it controls us more than we think a lot of the times, and it dictates what we can and can't do. But every now and again it just says, I'm the boss around here. So it's an interesting reminder, as I look out over my camera and I can see there's chairs from our little patio set and stuff have blown across the lawn.

It looks like there's [00:05:00] been a fight outside at the moment.

Matt Edmundson: hopefully they don't disappear, if we have to just pause the show whilst you run out and collect them, do let me know, wow, great to have you with us, joining us, and we said there in the intro, David, that you've been a business, I think the phrase was a business wizard since 1994, is that? Is that when you started your own venture for the first time?

David Braithwaite: Yeah, it was. I was always I was never very good at school, to start off with I didn't see the point of school being truthful. It's probably hard for people to explain, but I was there and I had lots of friends of mine all said I'm going to be, I don't know, a solicitor or a lawyer, so therefore I've got to do these qualifications, and then I've got to do this, and everything else, so they knew a path.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

David Braithwaite: I had no path, but I did quite fascinate myself with, if you want something doing, often do it yourself, or make it happen. So at one point, I was talking about this with somebody in the office the other day, I [00:06:00] think I had four jobs. So I had a full time job during the week, I still had a paper round during the week, I had a Saturday early morning job in the kitchen, and a Saturday afternoon job in an electrical store. So I was all about trying. Yeah I was very busy, but I was all about trying to earn money because my most important thing when I was that sort of late teens was got to buy a car. And I was always under the, my parents were never ones to give it away, it was always if you want something, go out, work for it, earn it, and then A- you'll appreciate it more and B- you'll learn about life.

Some people may have said it's child cruelty but I was really happy with that. I went off and earned the money that I could and also helped with other things along the way like my grandfather was a bit of a wheeler dealer, he worked for a car company down on the south coast and used to bring back these secondhand cars that I could then do up and sell.

And we split the profit 50/ 50. [00:07:00] So I was always one of these people that was geared around, forge your own path, do your own thing. So as soon as I could leave school, I did and had various employed positions, but never quite found my way in any of them and almost I think probably people that are self employed already know this you aren't, you're unemployable pretty much so I think that from my point of view I found my own path and fell into financial services really almost by accident so I like to say that I'm an entrepreneur first I just happen to specialize in financial services if that makes sense.

So I never set out to be the best of everything in terms of financial planning and oh I'm running my business. It was always for me the other way around. It was having something and ultimately as well, it sounds a bit soppy, I wanted to do something because I was never that academic at school with exams that would make my mum and dad proud.

So that I had something that I could say, but look, I wasn't good at school. I was a bit rubbish, but I've done this [00:08:00] and now they do tell me that they're proud. It's taken 29 years maybe to get there, but it's good. Everyone's got their reasons, but that was one of mine.

Matt Edmundson: fantastic, wow, it's interesting, it's a fascinating story because listening to you talk about that and, the work in the four jobs and the hustle and the growing, the ability to graft I think about the environment my kids are growing up in now. My eldest is 22. My youngest is 16.

And Zach's in the middle of those ages. And I look at the timeframe that they've grown in and actually there's a lot said about Gen Z, which is what they would be or Gen Z to our American cousins, but there's a lot said about that generation. One of the things that I've noticed about that generation is it is incredibly entrepreneurial, right?

And more so than ever, people are starting side hustles, these sort of businesses where they do things on the side. It's become the sort of the thing to do in the modern world. And we'll get into that. I think when I was younger, entrepreneur [00:09:00] was almost seen as a bad word.

I don't know anybody that would have called themselves an entrepreneur, quite often they would, the people that I know that were in business would try and would call themselves a managing director. How we dressed it up, call themselves a managing director. Yeah, which is really funny.

Whereas now it's like a badge of honor. And I think it's interesting how times have changed. So when I was a kid like you had a lot of jobs. As my kids have grown up, I'm listening to you talk about your parents and saying they're brilliant because we've done that with our kids.

We've, it's always easy to give them everything. It's harder not to when you've got the means to, I think. And actually just going, no, you've got to go earn some, I will pay half if I think it's worthwhile. Other than that, you've got to go figure it out. And I think it's taught them the value of a pound, for want of a better expression.

David Braithwaite: It definitely has. I had an example literally this weekend. My son is quite, he loves his photography. He's 14. He loves photography. And he got a drone a couple of years ago that was [00:10:00] quite a decent investment to make. And of course, now he wants a better one. He was talking to me and I was explaining to him, Look, actually you don't have to buy these things brand new, you can find them second hand on auction websites and things like this.

So now, teaching him what's an auction.

And then he came to me and he said, Oh, I'm really interested in this particular make and model of drone. I said, Yeah, but you've got your other one there, you need to sell that. He said, Yes, I'll sell that. I said are you going to do that? Yeah, I'm going to do that.

Then, during the week, I've got a message from him saying, Dad, can you bid on this for me on this auction website? I said, yeah, I can. I said, who's paying for it though? And he said I'll do it when I sell that, and I'm willing to do jobs around the house to make up the difference, if you let me know.

And that's the difference, is that it wasn't a gimme. It was look, I'll do it, but I recognise that there's work involved. I've got to give something of myself. Rather than just take and I think that he's also, he's grown up his whole life with me, running my own business. And I think it's become more natural, but as you say it's different now.

And I'm thinking as [00:11:00] you were saying, that when people had their own business before, maybe they were more. Tradespeople or they had a shop. And I think also what's changed is in here we are talking about e-commerce, and the word ecommerce wasn't probably even around. So 30 years ago it probably wasn't really invented.

Certainly the internet wasn't really there. And the opportunities are there, but also the rate at which these kids, dare I call them that, can get information, and things like the TikTok and Instagram, all the, so they're seeing people earning money through different routes, off their own back, than what was available to us before, things like YouTubers that are making millions of pounds, it's like, what, even I don't understand that, but he gets all of that, and it's a different world now, but the speed at which you can get information, and you can find information, try something, if it doesn't work, so what? Move on to the next thing, because you've got a whole lifetime ahead.

It isn't a one and done, whereas I think it used to be, a lot with my career originally, was what job are you going to go into? I always remember my parents saying, go into banking, because that's a secure job for life. [00:12:00] Really? And you think now, you think, God, if I had taken that advice and got in for the safe, steady job, actually, A- it would have been quite boring, and B- probably actually not as secure as what they thought it would be.

I'm glad that I've found my own path, really. But, yeah, but at the same time, it has to be a little bit of difficulty. Otherwise, everyone would do it, we still need the employed people to be employed. We still need the entrepreneurs out there trying things and pushing the boundaries. And that's, the joy of life.

Matt Edmundson: No, absolutely. It's interesting, isn't it? When you, people ask a lot about, they ask, I get asked a lot about entrepreneurship. In fact, I've got, I'm on a podcast later talking about entrepreneurship. And it fascinates me. This idea that entrepreneurs basically see a problem and they work hard to solve that problem, and that's what entrepreneurs do.

And I think you've got to have a bit of grit to follow that through because it's not a straightforward path, right? And if [00:13:00] you can do it and do it well, then there's a chance you can make money at it. If you don't do it and you, or you do it badly, there's a chance you're not going to make money at it.

And it, it strikes me as we are seeing like I get asked a lot, should I start an online store? I want to do a side hustle. I want to do this. I've had enough of my job over here. I want to start to build my own business. And so now it's very much a case of why I can do that online.

And it enables me to sort of transition over a period of time. I'm curious from your point of view, with the coaching and the stuff, the work you do with entrepreneurs, what are some of the habits that you see? Entrepreneurs, generally, or you could talk specifically about onlIne. What are some of the habits maybe that we have, which are formed well and which are good and we should carry on with them?

What are some of the habits maybe we need to go away and find and work on? Yeah.

David Braithwaite: I I think that what we do as entrepreneurs is very good at solving people's problems. We find a niche, we find something that needs to be solved. And we're often very [00:14:00] passionate about what it is that we do. We absolutely believe in the product, the service, whatever it is that we're doing, we get it.

It's almost like we're over enthusiastic, we want everybody else to get it sometimes. And I think you're right, a lot of the time with entrepreneurs, we need a crisis to get excited. We need something, we always need something to go, ah, I've solved, because we love the fact that we came across this issue, and we've solved it, and actually that gives us a great deal of feedback, for want of a better word, but I would say one of the biggest problems, and this is where I started, because I actually attended Strategic Coach, as a client before I became a coach in 2009. And I took from my story I found that I was building the business, but it felt a little bit like one of those hamster wheels that you get on.

And as I'm on it, it is turning faster and faster. And I knew I wanted to scale the business, but I didn't know how. Because going back to my school days. I was not that bright and they don't teach entrepreneurship at schools, which is a big thing that they should [00:15:00] do. They should say, here's all these careers or actually entrepreneur is a career as well. It tends to be what you want to do.

So I was going through I was actually due the first my son was going to be born then. And when you talk about scaling a business, it was like I wanted to do more with what I had, and if you're thinking if I wanted to double my turnover, you think I've got to double my hours, and that's crazy.

You've got to find a way of working more efficiently and hiring in the right people, for example, to help you build the business. So I think the biggest victim entrepreneurs is that we are never finished. There's always something we can be doing. And I wanna make sure when my son came along that I didn't miss a sports day that I was with him.

I needed to be with him. And I wasn't in here working from seven till seven, seven days a week. And you're permanently tired and worn out. And I think what I see a lot from entrepreneurs as well is that we feel. Often, when we need a break, it's almost like we've got to [00:16:00] justify it. I've worked so hard, I have to have some time off now.

We have to feel that we earn the time off. Whereas actually we should be thinking about it differently and taking that free time as a priority because actually, we've just come back off from an extended break during Christmas if lots of people have had that and I came back really excited about what the year was going to hold and you feel far more creative and freer rather than ground down tired. So Dan Sullivan that actually does a lot of the coaching and it's his coaching course. He says it says that you need a break when everybody around you seems to be more stupid

Matt Edmundson: I love that. I

David Braithwaite: And it's so true, when people, you get a bit, your views get shorter, we feel we have to earn this time off, but actually, if we book in the free time first, because we're, and the families and the loved ones are more important, and then work fits around that, often it's the [00:17:00] other way around for entrepreneurs, is that you're always on, and especially when you're talking about ecommerce, which is, can be for a lot of people, 24 7, 365 days a week, because there's always something going on, and the internet never closes, does it?

It's not a nine to five internet, it's always something you can do with different, especially if you're dealing with customers and clients globally, they're all over the place in terms of time, so it's always doing that, and especially I think if you're, particularly as, going back to the word proud of your business, you'll always try and do what you can for that extra mile to please a customer or client.

And sometimes that can be at the detriment to you, if you're using that family time up. It's like the same when you go out for a meal and you're going out and you've got your phone and everyone puts their phones on the table. Are they really present? Meh.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

David Braithwaite: It's difficult. I know it's difficult to switch off.

And these so called smartphones, they're there for our convenience, not the callers, I always say.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

David Braithwaite: so it's difficult because they can follow you around and you just get a ping, a notification. It's always demanding attention, whereas actually probably our [00:18:00] attention should be better spent with the people that we're with.

So that's what I see as the biggest negative side from being an entrepreneur. If you can get the hang of that and get the balance right, then I think you're in for a happier life.

Matt Edmundson: It's interesting you talk about this David, because . One of the myths, that is prevalent in people wanting to start an online business is the belief that they can be a digital nomad. So I've seen the rise in people doing this and I've seen the rise, in countries accepting the, what they call now the digital nomad visa, which is genius.

My kids are, when all my kids have gone, I am doing this, right? And this is where you can in effect get a visa to work in a country or to go live in a country for an extended period of time because you are doing your online business. My business, I do the podcast, I have my ecommerce businesses, I've got my coaching business.

I can do that from anywhere in the world as long as I've got an internet connection. It's just the way it is, right? We've got a great team here in Liverpool, got a [00:19:00] warehouse. I don't need to be here. I can move around. But I don't. And this is why I call it the myth. It's not that you can't, it's just that most people don't.

I can start an online business and then I can go work on the beach in Tahiti. But I can count on one hand out of the thousands of people that I've spoken to that end up actually doing that. There's this sort of, this romantic notion when you start an online business that's what you could do, but the reality of it is you don't because the rest of life just happens around you and consumes you.

And so I hear what you're saying and I definitely, the taking of the free time and just to find out I'm smiling because I still fall into that trap 30 years later and I remember last, just last week, so we're recording this on a Monday, last Monday. I didn't have any recordings scheduled for the podcast and so I grabbed my notebook and I walked to the city center from my house and I walked the long way, I took a two hour walk down by the river.

I, I sat in a coffee shop with nothing, I didn't take my computer, I just sat there with my journal [00:20:00] and then walked back and the whole thing took 6-7 hours. I will tell you now, it was one of the most productive days I've had for a long time.

David Braithwaite: There you go.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

David Braithwaite: And I have a saying that almost everything will work if you unplug it for a while. And it is, I do a lot of my planning not in the office here when you've got things to distract you. It is about getting out and doing something and doing the working in the coffee shop or taking away, like if people do goal setting for example, it's better to do it somewhere that's a nice inspiring place rather than the same four walls you're already in because that's all familiar.

And it's distracting, so I completely get why you do that. I'm quite efficient working when I've had to write stuff for brochures and things that we've done for the office. I've done it out of the office because I just feel a bit more free. I'm sitting there, I'm looking around in the cafe, you get the people, the hubbub, the noise, and it feels like it's proper focus time, I would

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah.

David Braithwaite: the [00:21:00] fact you're in somewhere where people might find that a bit alien. But I'm there. You can't just sit there and look at a wall, whereas you can in your own office. If you really wanted to. But in a coffee shop or something, it's really good. It just feels more inspiring to be somewhere a bit different.

And if you had a walk down by the river, and it's, you've freed your mind, and you've got nothing else there, and put your phone in airplane mode, that's gonna be a good day. And you've remembered that for that fact that it's so simple to do, but not a lot of people do it. That's the difference. You don't have to do this stuff.

It's not for everybody, but it really works if you try it and it's worth the go.

Matt Edmundson: yeah absolutely. So how do you how would you advise someone who is working a full time job, they're probably not liking it really and they've decided they're going to start a side hustle and they're listening to this show, it's probably an ecommerce business, right? So they've set up an online business.

They're either selling a digital product or a real product, they're maybe having it made, shipped over and they're trying to do, they're trying to do all the things they need to do to grow an [00:22:00] ecommerce business, which is in reality used to be very simple and now it's becoming more and more complicated, such as a way of things, right?

We take something simple and we mess it up. So on one hand, it's I've got to take time, quite a lot of the ancient religions have this Sabbath idea, don't they? Which, let's just be real, works very well. The idea of taking a day of rest. But at the same time, I'm working eight hours at work.

I'm coming home working five, six hours of an evening. And I need to, on one hand, I need to put the time in to, to actually get the thing started. But at the other time, I'm at the other side, I'm like how do I do that? The whole resting, but how would you talk to someone like that, maybe, who's listening to the show?

David Braithwaite: so I think you've got the right idea is that people would do that you keep your full time job you need to still keep your rent and everything over your head and the house that you've got or flat wherever you are. And then if you're working eight hours a day, there's 24 in a day. So how much sleep do we really need?

So it's then coming back in the evening and working on your what they call the side hustle whatever it is e commerce and they work on [00:23:00] that but also how much do they really need from a financial point of view, what else could they cut back on? How much are they actually needing that car they've got on the drive?

Could they actually downsize and go and rent somewhere smaller? So they're not having to a lot of people buy it's something one knows from a financial planning point of view,

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

David Braithwaite: a lot of people spend a lot of time and money buying stuff that they don't necessarily need but it's sometimes there to impress other people, it's sometimes there to make themselves feel good.

All put off the evil moment. So for some people if they actually condensed down their life and simplified it a little bit and said actually what can I get away with selling, what can I get away with downgrading in, do I really need that type of car, so that your income that you've got to bring in isn't quite as heavy as what it needs to be, you've got your full time job and your side

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

David Braithwaite: But actually, what is it you need to bring in?

Is the fact that it's not working that six hours extra in the evening because of the fact your outgoings are so big. So it's looking at not just the income you're [00:24:00] bringing in and the time, it's looking at minimising your outgoings as well, if you're serious about doing this. But unfortunately, I think a lot of, again, coming back to my son, there is an awful lot of stuff on TikTok and the like, where it almost makes it sound too simple.

Oh, you just do this, you just do that, and look at all the money coming in.

If it was that easy, everybody would do it, there has to be work involved in some of this. So don't be afraid to put the work in. If you're serious about making this work, it will. And at some point, hopefully, then the balance will tip and you can give up your full time job and then the world's your oyster.

But it's about minimising your outgoings and looking at your lifestyle that you've got and cutting a cloth I hate to say it, and putting in as many hours as you can. But you've just, you've got to do it. That's what you've got to do if you can't afford to give up your full time job. Yet.

Matt Edmundson: yeah I love this. You're talking about how, I'm going to use this phrase, downgrading your lifestyle, right? And it's. I think this is where a lot of people that I speak [00:25:00] to are wanting to start a side hustle either to escape the drudgery of the 9 to 5 that they're working at, or they're doing it because their job is not creating the lifestyle that they want and so they set up another, they set up a business to try and create their lifestyle that they feel like they want and so whenever you talk to people in that situation and I don't know if you found this, David, I'd love to know if you have, but I would have said similar things to people.

It's let's look at how we can cut back so you can go forward, right? So you can prune for want of a better expression, to produce the growth, to produce the fruit. How can you do that? And it's not a very popular question because people don't like the idea of going backwards to go forwards.

David Braithwaite: Progress sometimes, no, but it's true, there's a saying, all progress starts with telling the truth, right? And I think also there is, there's a danger as well where, again, going on things like the social media, where people that have [00:26:00] set up their own businesses and things are on there, it's like a showreel.

And there's lots of criticism for some of these people posing by Lamborghinis. You can even hire the shell as a set of a private jet. Do you know this? You can hire this set that's a private jet to go in there for an hour. You have photographs taken and then you use the pictures of this lifestyle in your social media.

So one thing you've got a private jet you've been on. It's all rubbish. A lot of it is all rubbish. It's not supported by anything concrete and what I find is certainly again from the financial planning side of things, the people that have got the real money, don't talk about it, the people that haven't are the ones that are more extrovert in showing you what they're the ones that wear the labels, that have the flash things, because they're almost trying to put a show on.

Yeah, actually, the ones that, the most humble ones that we've come across are the ones that got the real money. Because they've got nothing to prove. They're just doing what they need to do for themselves, and it's not about [00:27:00] anyone else, it's about them. Talking about it, recently we were driving through France last year, and I just noticed that most of this is probably a sweeping statement, but you drive through France, nobody there seems to be bothered about what car they're driving. They're all much of a muchness. You don't notice suddenly a Bentley Mulsanne going down the road, or a Ferrari. You just don't see it, because they don't seem to be hung up on that lifestyle. They're just happy doing what they do. A car that's a six litre whatever versus a one litre mini or whatever is probably broadly going to get you to the same place at the same time.

Whereas here it seems to be a bit, that we sell in UK that the sales of big flat screen TVs go up just before a lot of international football matches because people are coming round to other people's houses. They're going to buy these things to show their friends. Oh, look at my TV, and it's just a bit of a plastic lifestyle I hate to say it, but yeah, if you're serious about doing it, cut your cloth and that's where you've got to start, and swallow it. [00:28:00] Or you're not serious, really, you can't spend money you haven't got yet.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's, or get ready for burnout, trying to do it, right? It's or amass a lot of debt on a credit card, trying to live a lifestyle, it's one way

David Braithwaite: Yeah, that's a road to ruin as well.

Matt Edmundson: Have you ever read the book The Millionaire Next Door?

David Braithwaite: I think I have got it on my bookshelf here, but full transparency, no, I've got it here though, I haven't read it yet.

Matt Edmundson: It's a really fascinating book. It's an old book, I say an old book, it's probably 15-20 years old and I judge old now on the basis of my kids ages. That's good, that phase of

David Braithwaite: So we're very similar, it's okay.

Matt Edmundson: And The Millionaire Next Door is a fascinating book because it's these guys basically interviewing people who were millionaires. And what they discovered was that people who created their wealth, as in a lot of immigrants, for example, would come into the States, they'd work crazy hours, they'd save everything, they wouldn't spend it, they'd invest wisely.

They'd created a lot of wealth. They weren't driving around in flat flash cars. They were wearing [00:29:00] jeans and a t shirt, you know, they weren't wearing Hugo Boss and all that sort of stuff. You wouldn't really know. That's why the millionaire next door, what they discovered was the people that inherited the wealth.

So somebody dies and therefore I have been given a large chunk of wealth or I've grown up in wealth and I've become used to it. They're the ones that drive the flash cars. Where the fancy clothes because this, having part, reading this book was part of the reason why I decided with my kids not to ever pay them pocket money when they were growing up.

Now I give them an allowance now they're at uni, but I didn't ever want to create this entitlement thing. And so the premise of the book was if you create it. You know how to keep it. If you're given it, you know how to spend it and it's going to go quick. Within one or two generations, it tends to go.

And I hope I'm doing the book some justice in paraphrasing it like that, but it's a fascinating book, very insightful book on the whole concept. Yeah.

David Braithwaite: another, there were lots of the people, certainly here in the [00:30:00] UK, and presumably other countries as well, that have come into unexpected wealth through things like winning the lottery. Actually, you go back to see them a few years later, and they're back to where they were before. It's because they've spent without the right mindset, they're not used to it, so therefore they've reached their own level again.

Which just seems to me like an absolute crying shame and a waste of money but, they're back to where they started and it's a shame really, but yeah, I've got a friend of mine, he's a financial advisor, if there's there's a thing over here, Premium Bonds, where people can, it's like a lottery, isn't it, where you can put money in, and he's the advisor that goes in to see the people who've won a million pounds, and some of the stories that he hears from them is just fascinating, some people don't know what to do with it. And some people have spent it before he's even got there, and it's different.

Whereas what he's trying to do is to make it last and last and give for generations, where some people are going it's my money, I'm going to spend it, it's totally different mindset.

Matt Edmundson: let's talk about that a little while, because obviously the reason people want to set up side hustles, people want their own ecommerce businesses. And I appreciate we're not necessarily [00:31:00] talking about ecommerce tactics today. We're talking more about the mindset, I think, of being the entrepreneur, the guy driving or the gal driving the business.

You start to be successful, right? You start to make a few quid, excuse me, or a few dollars, a few bucks for our American cousins, And the temptation then is, I think you, it's very easy to live to the edge of your means, right? So if you can, if I can live on say, I don't know, $2000 a month now, and then next month I start paying myself $3000 a month because of business as well.

I can quite easily live according to 3000 books and then not really have anything extra to show for it. And then it goes from 3000 to 6000. And again, so as people start to get successful, as we start to see the, the shekels rolling in, what sort of things should we be thinking about?

David Braithwaite: So when you're getting more successful entrepreneur, there's four freedoms that we coach at Strategic Coaches. Time, [00:32:00] money, relationship and purpose. So the first thing is your time. The reason why a lot of people want to set up their own business is because they want to have their own say over their own time.

Take as much time as you want off without filling in a whole new form and all that sort of thing. Relationship is to be able to deal with people that you want to deal with and spend time with those be with. And your purpose is what's your why? What you're doing? But the money aspect of it there, money buys your freedoms.

So from my point of view, what I've always done, certainly, and I coach this with people, is you don't spend what you've earned. You just take what you need and leave the rest of it in there because there's a It's a subtle difference of how you handle things, especially if you're growing a business when opportunities might present themselves to you, where you need money.

You need to hire that person that's come across your desk that you think, crikey, that is a really good hire, I can't afford to miss him or her. If you've got the money, you're controlling it. The money shouldn't control you, it's a [00:33:00] difference. From the freedom of money, it can massively help you grow a business.

And I've always taken from the businesses I've got, exactly what I need. And in fact, three of them I've never taken a penny from. Because I don't. But why would I take money from a business and then effectively throttle it? Because there's no point having zero in the bank, and then worrying, because Things happen, right?

We had a thing called a pandemic two years ago, so we as a business never furloughed anybody, because we had that emergency pot to make sure that we could still pay the people, and that's paid off, whilst a lot of people didn't do that, and are being, staff are disappearing because they're being poked from other companies all this stuff.

We've never had that. Because we try and look after the people, but if we didn't have the money to do that, those choices and decisions where I've got the option is no longer an option for me. So I want to make sure I'm in control of the money, and I'm putting it to good use. So the money thing is a really important thing.

Only take what you need. [00:34:00] Yeah, okay. It's nice sometimes to treat yourself every now and again. So if I'm going to do a speaking something for a conference overseas, often when I'm there I'll buy myself something as a little reward. Pat On The Back type of thing, and it could be anything from a set of cufflinks or whatever you want, or sometimes nothing if you can't see anything that's fine, but actually just leaving the money in the business to leave yourself in control puts you in a much stronger position, both from a financial point of view, but mentally as well, because when things do happen, those curveballs, whenever people are struggling, you're in control still, not a lot of other people.

It's like when you go and drive your car, if it's always got a full tank of gas. It's much easier. I'm going to worry about where I'm going to go. It just causes you less stress, I believe, to have the money there when you can, rather than just going out and spending it. Often, sometimes, to keep up with the Joneses.

So it comes back to that again. So keep control of that money. Time, money, relationship purposes. Those are four freedoms. You want to make sure you concentrate on making sure that they [00:35:00] are freedoms and not restrictions.

Matt Edmundson: It's super powerful this idea that you spend half your life buying things you don't really need to impress people you don't really like. And it's that kind of, when you look at it, you go, yeah, okay. And I think,

David Braithwaite: Always use the best crockery for yourself, that's what I always say. Don't save it up for somebody who comes around once in a blue moon, use it, that's what

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, listening to you talk, I think, take what you need, which I do. I don't, I was talking to the staff the other day about this. I personally haven't had a pay rise, I don't think in 12 years of running the business, not because I couldn't take a pay rise, but I live a life where actually I don't need it and I'd much rather the money stay in the business.

When we grew Jersey, which was our beauty company our ecommerce beauty company. We bootstrapped it and we scaled it with the money that we had. So whenever we purchased stock Andy, my business partner in Jersey, [00:36:00] who's an absolute legend his whole premise was we never buy stock on credit.

We always buy stock with the money that we've got. We sell it, we keep that cash. We don't take any out and then we buy more stock with it until you're buying, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds worth of stock. And it meant that when business. inevitably had its setbacks, its trials, its tribulations.

We owned the stock. I wasn't then scrambling around to try and find money to pay the supplies for the stuff that I had on the shelves. My invoices were always paid. I always, it's one of those things, isn't it, with supplies. If you say no, I'll pay you when I order. I don't want credit. Amazing how much of a nicer service you get out of them,

David Braithwaite: 100%. Just had something, so I'm having the side thing here, I'm having some bookshelves put in here to take all the books that I've got round this room. And the guy I should deposit, I'll pay it on the day. You saw that was quick, because guess what, if there's a queue of people that are wanting these things put in, he's probably going to give me a bit [00:37:00] more

Matt Edmundson: one. Yeah,

David Braithwaite: I've given him attention, and again, it comes down to cash flow. If you've got the money, I'm in control of it. I can pay it. So I'll always pay my tax bill on time. Everything's always done on time. It just makes your life easier. But as you said earlier on, by having that cash flow there, to decide, you could decide actually, I'm gonna buy this stock and put it there, and then that security it buys you is huge.

And your mental state of mind and how you feel about the business, you're not desperate. You're controlling it and you're driving it forward through making choices. Yes, you could do it, but sometimes the harder route is actually the far easier route in the long run. Rather than just getting a line of credit and having a load of stuff there that If it went wrong, that's not a good place to be.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I'm with you. And I appreciate people listening to the podcast might go there's no way I can do that. And that's, I'm not saying you should do what I did. I'm just saying this is what we did. And it worked very well for us. It's another way. And I'm glad that we did it. It was very hard at first.

But you know what? [00:38:00] It's stayed with me the whole time. So whenever we've done ecommerce businesses since, we're just about to launch a new one. Buy the stock up front with the cash. Have we got the cash to do this? Yes. Good. If we haven't, no. And it's not that, I think I learned this in my early twenties.

I had a lot of credit card debt and once I'd managed to pay it off, I'm like, I'm never getting into credit card debt again. The only debt that I have it's the Mortgage on my house. Whenever I've bought cars, whenever I've bought anything, it's always been out of the money that I had. And it's just been a principle that's followed me around really, and I don't necessarily think it's easier, I think it can be trickier at first, but I think it's easier in the long run, because, I've got friends that went on ski trips, but they've got 12 grand on the credit card they've now got to pay off, and it's okay, I don't have to do that.

David Braithwaite: No. And also you think we're so used to doing things like shopping around for things, so they have spent 12 grand in your example on a ski trip, and they've put the flights there, they've got the place they're staying there, they shop around for all these bits, but what they haven't banked on is how much [00:39:00] interest that's going to cost them.

So the actual holidays cost is actually far higher than what they thought it was going to be and it restricts you in what you're actually looking to do and certainly thinking about my situation one of the businesses that I started was because we had the cash to invest in it and get it going from the get go and leave it funded for a year before it was able to earn its own but if I if that opportunity had come up and I hadn't got the money It would have been wasted, and I'd probably always be kicking myself thinking, Oh, if only, what if, as it is, I'm not. I'm like, I'm glad we've done that. It was having the cash that created that decision that I could make rather than having it made for me.

Matt Edmundson: No, totally agree. I'm very aware of time, David, that has just gone by at a million miles an hour. It's just unbelievable how quickly it goes. No I've thoroughly enjoyed talking about this topic of entrepreneurship and it's okay it's nice I think on EP, every now and again, just to take a step back and think about ourselves and our own.

State of being and where we're at is [00:40:00] just talk to me briefly and in the last few moments if you can about Maybe why as an entrepreneur who is either doing the side hustle full time like me, ecommerce entrepreneur, why I should think about something like a coach to help me with the whole process?

David Braithwaite: You dunno what you don't know. So I would say that for a lot of people you think about it in other contexts. If you were going to go down to using me as example, first of all I was never taught how you hire people at school or anything. So having a coach for me, and I still get coached. is giving me all the bits that I should have been taught at school but don't.

But also, probably more importantly, it's very easy, as we said at the beginning of this conversation, to get caught up in the day to day and you just keep going. There was a, there is a Netflix series on called Drive To Survive, if you've ever

Matt Edmundson: Oh, yeah the formula one thing. Yeah

David Braithwaite: That's it.

Brilliant, exciting series to watch, but what I learned from that is that the race [00:41:00] isn't won on the track, it's actually won in the pits. It's the crew that you've got there, it's all the fine tuning that you do, it's the testing, it's everything that you do, then you send the car out on the tracks. And us as entrepreneurs, we're similar to that, that while we're doing the hustle, the business side of it, we also need that moment to pause, like you did when you went for that walk and you took a journal.

It's how do you actually unplug? So Strategic Coach for me It's a chance for me to, and I was there last week doing it, is a day for me where you've got a group of entrepreneurs in the room that all think like you, where you can be you. So if you have got staff, for example, all my staff can come to me with all their problems.

Who does the owner go to? Because you can actually end up bottling it up. So in that group, it's a place where you could be yourself and discuss everything you want to talk about, but it gives you that moment to stop, pause and think, but also give you tools and strategies to work through during the day so [00:42:00] that you get that downtime.

You come back to your business and you're raring to go. So every quarter I'm planning my next quarter, my next year, my three years, five years, lifetime. And just having that moment of just pausing, sometimes you've got to slow down to go faster, and that's what it does for me. And likening it to if you're going to go to the gym and get fit.

You're probably going to get fitter or get better results with a personal trainer than you are just going down there and pulling a few weights and hoping you get it right. Okay? So that is why I think everybody should have a coach. Just so you get the down time, the thinking time around the tools and things that they give you to do, but you've got that time for you as well and to be around a room full of other people that are like you.

Because we're a bit of a rare breed, us entrepreneurs. It's good to find a few more of us out there in the

Matt Edmundson: yeah, Lunatics, I think is the is the official diagnosis. David, listen, it's been a wonderful chatting to you. If people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect find out more about what you do, what's the best way to do that?

David Braithwaite: If they want to do that, they can just Google my name, they'll [00:43:00] find me in various places. But I've got a landing page, so Strategic Coach, I've built for anybody listening to this, which is davidbpodcast.com, that's davidbpodcast. com. What they've got on there is, there's an eBook, and there's a couple of tools that you can just sit down.

So if you are thinking, perhaps I need a bit of that downtime. Go down there, you can download some tools and do some thinking about your business using some free things that's already there for people to help them out a little bit and give them a little insight as to what coaching might look like.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Yeah. Brilliant. We'll put the link into the show notes, of course. And I, just from a personal point of view, I've been in business for a while now and you don't have to wait until you become successful to get a coach. I think if I'm honest with you, getting a coach was what helped me be successful.

I think it's the other way around. And I've

David Braithwaite: too late and I had a lot more stuff to unravel. The knot gets more complicated. That's what I would say. So don't let your knot get too [00:44:00] tight. Get it sorted out.

Matt Edmundson: don't get you, not get too tight. And on that bombshell, ladies and gentlemen, David, thank you so much for joining us. Super stoked, man.

David Braithwaite: Matt. It's been a pleasure.

Matt Edmundson: Ah, it's been great. Love the conversation. Like I say, always nice to talk about these kind of things. So yeah, great conversation. Thanks again. Now, of course, a big shout out to today's show's sponsor, the eCcommerce Cohort.

Remember to check them out at ecommercecohort. com. Come join us in there. Why not? Let's have a laugh, see what it goes. We like to have fun. Now be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, because we have yet more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss any of them.

And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first to tell you, you are awesome. Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden. You've got to bear. David has to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the eCommerce Podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app, the team that makes this show possible.

The wonderful, amazing team [00:45:00] that makes this show possible. Sadaf Beynon, Tanya Hutsuliak. Our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, if you would like to know more, head over to the website, ecommerce. podcast. net, where incidentally, you can also sign up to the newsletter. It'd be great to see you over there.

So that's it from me. That's it from David. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week, wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.