Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Welcome to 'Stripping Off with Matt Haycox,' where we bare it all on business, money, and life. Get ready to peel back the layers of success with entrepreneur, investor, funding expert, and mentor with over 20 years of experience building and growing businesses, Matt Haycox.
Tune into steamy conversations with industry titans, celebrities, and successful entrepreneurs as they strip down their stories of triumphs, setbacks, and the raw realities of their journey to the top. Matt is going down on business, money, and life, and will take DMCs to new heights!
Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Are You Shit with Money? Brutal Truths on Financial Freedom & Building Financial Literacy
Tell us what you like or dislike about this episode!! Be honest, we don't bite!
#FinancialFreedom #MoneyTalks #BusinessSuccess #FinancialLiteracy #WealthBuilding #EntrepreneurLife #RealTalk #FinanceGoals #MoneyMatters #LifeLessons #EntrepreneurJourney #SuccessMindset
Are you shit with money? My guests might just have the answers to turn your financial mess into success. It’s National Financial Awareness Day, and I’m serving up some no-nonsense, uncensored talk about money—real stories from people who’ve hit rock bottom, turned to OnlyFans, or built empires from scratch.
I've been there too—millionaire by 20, bankrupt by 27, and now running multiple 8-figure businesses. So, if you’re ready to face the brutal truth about your finances, tune in. Whether you need a reality check or some hardcore inspiration, this is where you’ll get it.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:09 - Daniel Priestley
16:26 - Kerry Katona
21:37 - Jermaine Pennant
36:38 - Lottie Moss
46:55 - Tyron Ash
01:01:30 - Katie Price
—
Thanks for watching!
SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR MORE!
—
Website
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
—
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST!
Spotify
Apple
—
Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer
As an entrepreneur, investor, funding expert and mentor who has been building and growing businesses for both myself and my clients for more than 20 years, my fundamental principles are suitable for all industries and businesses of all stages and size.
I’m constantly involved in funding and advising multiple business ventures and successful entrepreneurs.
My goal is to help YOU achieve YOUR financial success! I know how to spot and nurture great business opportunities and as someone who has ‘been there and got the t-shirt’ many times, overall strategies and advice are honest, tangible and grounded in reality.
How financially motivated are you? Who do you have around you as professional advisors? Have you learned any lessons from losing the money?
Speaker 2:My first paycheck. I blew it in two weeks.
Speaker 1:How much was?
Speaker 3:it £14,000. We're all human. Just because we get paid a lot doesn't mean that the troubles that the normal people have we don't have.
Speaker 4:I've had all these years of being ripped off. I don't trust anyone.
Speaker 1:When does a tag come off and when do you start your own business?
Speaker 5:What I ended up doing was creating a solution to my own problems.
Speaker 6:I started my first company at 21. It went from zero to a million in its first year and then it went to 10 million in year three.
Speaker 7:Let's talk about OnlyFans Plug it, plug it, plug it, plug it.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not giving you a mate's rate, Matt, I actually had friends that did it. I was like this is a bit of me.
Speaker 1:It's been reported that you're earning half a million quid a month from it.
Speaker 7:I wish I was but the first month I made £170.
Speaker 5:I definitely tried to fast track a result the wrong way.
Speaker 3:A taxman. He was saying I owed a million or so. I was thinking, oh my God, I'm going to have to go bankrupt.
Speaker 1:I don't know why they keep going on about the bankrupts. It's just so boring. Just get over it. How does someone create that demand? It's Going back to that first business you set up, which I think you said was a million, then three million then, ten million in terms of turnover. I mean, did you know what you were doing back then?
Speaker 6:I did a bit. I had worked for two years for this guy called John and I was just super lucky that I was employee number three for John and he had no business name, no bank account, no offices, any of that sort of stuff. So we rock up at his house and we're starting a business and he's got this big thing out on the table which is the yearly planner, and we're basically putting our first campaigns in and we're going to try and do this by this date and this is what we're going to do, literally this is what we'll do on Wednesday and this is what we'll do the following Thursday, and kind of map out the whole year. And that business took off. So I went, that business went zero to six million in two years and we went from no employees to 60 employees in about two years.
Speaker 6:So it's, it's pretty like it's a little bit monkey see, monkey do, and it was the ability to kind of go through a startup journey without risking anything myself and to have that experience of being under a mentor's wing every single day. I mean, we were working crazy hours, you know, 60 hours a week being a direct report to an entrepreneur, and then that kind of gave me. You know what I needed to know. Um two years in, I had a conversation with john about can I get shares in his company? And he said, no, uh. So I went off and started my own and, you know, I copied what I'd learned and started a fast growth company I was going to ask you that actually because I'd seen in a couple of the other podcasts you'd done.
Speaker 1:You know you tell the story where you asked John for some equity. I mean knowing what you know now about running businesses and building teams and, I guess, maintaining loyalty, do you think you made a mistake not giving him that equity?
Speaker 6:Well, certainly not the way I pitched it. So we were loading boxes into the car and I was telling him that I wanted equity in the company. So anything that's a big decision like you know, equity or something like that, if I had the maturity, I would have put together a slide deck and I would have explained what I'll do for that equity. I wouldn't have felt entitled to it. I would have said you know, this is what you know, this is what I intend to develop for you. And you know, here's the extra side of the business. Is there a way that you can structure it that would work for you, work for me? So there's lots of ways I could have approached it much better. Given the way that I approached it.
Speaker 1:uh, I think he would have been crazy to say, yes, it was a ridiculous, immature, uh entitled way of going about asking for equity in a business one of the things I heard you say, uh, the other day on a podcast was well, I wrote it down it's a key personal influence that shouldn't be running their business, and I actually recently heard someone else saying that a good CEO doesn't do any work, which I presume the two things are probably heading in the same direction. I mean, if you are a true key personal influence, is that ultimately where you will get to that all the kind of day-to-day tasks are delegated and your job is there as a promoter, a connector, a figurehead?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I think the value proposition of a great CEO is someone who can bring in great, talented people, create alignment within the team, promote the business, open doors, create demand. For whatever it is that you do, you know the hardest thing in business is demand. Every business is a relationship between the demand and supply. So if you think about a business that should be very, very profitable but isn't very profitable is an airline, because everyone in an airline thinks about how planes take off and land on time and it's all about supply side. It's about safety and capital allocation and all of the things that go into the supply of running airplanes. You take a business that is focused on the demand generation. Take Rolex, for example. They're very, very focused on how to make sure Rolex is the number one brand. They have all the top athletes and all the top sports events and all that that they work with and they're very focused on the demand creation. Now, if you take any business, the demand side is way harder than the supply side For a long time in the industrial age.
Speaker 6:If you could build it, people would buy it right. If you could create a pair of scissors right, you could smelt the steel somehow, pin them together and sharpen them and all that stuff. Whatever you do to make scissors, if you could make a pair of scissors, people would buy the pairs of scissors, right? That wasn't the problem it was. The hard thing was making it. Fast forward to today. You go on Amazon and you type in the word scissors. You're going to see 150 different versions of scissors. You're going to have clothing scissors and craft scissors and kid scissors and colorful scissors and giant scissors. You know little tiny ones that fit in the purse, right? You're going to get that like thousands and thousands.
Speaker 6:The hard thing is not making something. The hard thing is selling stuff. So the ceo or the founder or the entrepreneur has to be on the demand side. Now this is the biggest error that all entrepreneurs are making. All entrepreneurs get into something that they love the idea of doing the work. They go oh, you know, I want to be a coach. Why? Because I like the idea of coaching people. Okay, that's great. How are you going to win coaching clients? You know, oh, I want to run health retreats. Why? Because I love the idea of running a health retreat. Okay, but how are you going to fill the health retreat? So it's the demand generation side. That's hard. That's what stops people. That's what makes businesses fail. It's almost never the case that a business is flooded with demand. Everyone wants to buy from that business and the business goes bankrupt. It's always the case that they're very good at the supply of what they do and they can't sell it and in today's world, where there pretty much isn't any new products, you know everything's already been done.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know how? How does someone create that demand? How you know how do they create?
Speaker 6:distribution it's personal brand it. It is having a relationship with the marketplace. You know, there are certain things like for me personally, if I launch a piece of software, which I've launched a piece of software just a couple of weeks ago, there's a few thousand people who will show up to a launch event just to see what's Dan launching.
Speaker 6:If someone who doesn't have a personal brand launches the exact same product, very few people will show up and talk about it, and if someone with a bigger brand than me launched the same product, they'd get a better result again.
Speaker 1:But short of telling that business, that new business, that they need to have a figurehead with a personal brand, what kind of unbranded methods of lead generation are out there now that work in a cost-effective manner? The ones that don't rely on that? So, for a business that hasn't got a figurehead, who's got a personal brand, who can drag some people in on day one? What works in today's oversaturated market?
Speaker 6:There's not a lot. You can take most marketing campaigns and if you strip it away of the personal brand at the moment, the cost per lead goes up exponentially. So if I put away of the personal brand at the moment, the the cost per lead goes up exponentially. So if I put, when I say personal brand, we don't even need someone who is well known, we need someone who is the founder who talks to camera, all right, if you let I run a lot of facebook ads and instagram ads and all that sort of stuff. We spend, I know, about 100 grand a month on different ads for across the different businesses. So I know exactly that if you have a company branded ad or a the founder's face on the ad like you can halve the cost of the ad. The cost per click just drops. If you have a founder who's talking to camera and doing one of those little shorts and you boost that, you're going to get leads for four or five pounds, versus if you have a company branded thing, you're going to get leads for 15 pounds.
Speaker 1:You know like it's going to be three times as much and I've been reading a lot later on facebook ads or, you know, google ads etc. That unless you, unless you've got more back-end sales, unless you've got lifetime value of that customer, that it's almost impossible to get profit on the front end. Is that something you'd agree with?
Speaker 6:Oh, totally. Businesses are an ecosystem and anything that's overly simplified doesn't work now. So you could take any product and you can say we run ads for it, we generate leads for it and then we sell that product. That won't be profitable. You have to have an entire ecosystem. So if you take someone like Gordon Ramsey, he's got books, tv shows, restaurants, all actual products that you can buy on the shelves. So he's got an ecosystem of products and services. So anywhere he he's generating leads, he's making money. You know, for me I've got eight different companies. Some are software, some are services and agencies, some is education and training. You know it's all of it working together as one nice ecosystem that makes the whole thing work. Do those?
Speaker 1:eight businesses all feed each other as well.
Speaker 6:They do Some kind of relationship yeah exactly At the heart of all of it is this idea that we develop entrepreneurs who stand out, scale up and make positive impact, and pretty much everything relates to that theme and it all just works nicely together In a small business. I just talk about four products. I basically say you need a gift, something you can give away for free. You need a product for prospects, which is a first product that people can buy cheaply, easily, quickly, just to test you. You need your core product or service and then you need your what we call product for clients, which is the ongoing journey. So it's those four products in an ecosystem.
Speaker 6:So when I've bought businesses, I often buy businesses that have a core product that's strong but they're quite weak in in the other areas. I get the founder to write a book and that gives me a gift or a product for prospects. We create an introduction workshop. That gives me a gift or a product for prospects. We create an online video master class. We put that on YouTube. We get a series of like really nice podcasts out and then we create a continuity subscription product on the back end. So we'll basically build out the four products. I've bought several businesses where I've bought them when they're doing about a half a million of revenue by the end of year one of owning it. We can be at 1.5 to 2 just by building out the product ecosystem.
Speaker 1:And are you normally buying them and then wanting to retain the existing owner as that figurehead to help build him out into a key person of influence?
Speaker 6:We can or we can if they want to leave. That's fine too. We've had a couple where we've bought businesses where the founder has gone off to do something else, but I've also bought businesses where we've actually bought the business and kept the founder know they're loving being part of the group and if you've replaced the founder with somebody else, are you bringing that person in to be a a visible figurehead?
Speaker 6:I mean, you don't spread yourself thinner and thinner by making yourself the figurehead of these businesses um, so, depending on the business, some of them, some of the businesses, are just genuinely downstream from what we do anyway. So it's not super important because we do have a figure ahead upstream and then there's just a like an unbelievable flow of business that's just coming down. So, for example, there are certain businesses that only need a dozen clients a year and they're making millions. You know, average value of a client is 80 to 120 000 like tech businesses, it services and that sort of stuff. Um, so with those businesses, you know, it's totally fine to just have a team who operate that business really, really well and if they're downstream from what we do and we can find those clients, we can find those clients for them.
Speaker 6:Um, but then there are other businesses that I've got, like rethink press, where lucy and joe run rethink press, lucy mccara joe yeah, joe's brilliant lucy mccara is extremely well known as I've got like Rethink Press, where Lucy and Joe run Rethink Press, lucy Makara, I know Joe, yeah, joe's brilliant Lucy Makara is extremely well known as the expert at book writing, so they've stayed on, they've joined the group and they've stayed on as the figurehead role and Lucy does an amazing job of that.
Speaker 1:And does that so using that business as an example? Does that bring its own customers in there? Because I would have imagined that it's almost just gets gifted all its customers who come in. So people come in and read Key Personal Influence or join your KPI program and it says I need a book Immediately. Go to Rethink.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's exactly how it happens. We get thousands of people coming in and they go off to Rethink and publish their books and write their books. And we just created some software called BookMagicai which helps people write their book using AI and then go and get a rethink press deal. Yeah, look, as I said, the hardest part of every business is getting customers and getting. It's such a noisy world right now. You know everyone's in competition with everyone else in the world. Everyone got handed a megaphone called social media, so customers are overwhelmed, they're confused, they need support, they don't know where to look. They're constantly hearing conflicting messages. So that is the hard part about business. If we can master that, we can pretty much run any business that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I noticed you were talking on one of your podcasts the other day about that. You're a fan of SEIS and you know like to chip it up into 20 lots of 12 and a half K. Do you have like an existing investor base that you repeat on various projects, or do you use your key person of influence status to go out raising your investment Both?
Speaker 6:I've got a group of probably 40 investors who are all successful entrepreneurs, post exit, loads of money, loads of experience, and I tend to. They tend to snap up anything I'm doing as quick as I quick as I can, but what I tend to do is just to hurry things along. When I launch something, I will put on an investor zoom call and say I'm launching a new project. If you're interested, I already know who's going to invest, but I like to stack like 80, 90, 100 people on that call.
Speaker 6:So that everyone feels, feels the, the feeling of of oh my goodness, lots of people are interested in this. And then I'll say fill in an application for shares and tell me how much you're willing to invest. And most people put something like twenty to fifty thousand. But then I cut everyone back to twelve and a half thousand and I say I'm gonna take on these selected twenty at twelve and a half thousand each, which is the SEIS round.
Speaker 6:And what's interesting is most people are trying to get more money out of investors and most people who try and raise money for a business they think they're going to get one angel who puts in quarter of a million. That never happens. Most angels want to put in maybe 20, 30, 40, 000 and they want to be in with some other angels. I want as many. I want more angels, because they're all. Each individual angel is someone who can open a door and someone who can help in other ways. So I'm looking for like 20, 30 angel investors, ideally. But but the the thing that's most angel investors find strange about when I launch a project is that I cut them down in how much they can put in. So they've said to me they're willing to put in 25, 35, 45, and I'm saying you can put in 12, 12 and a half, and they're like oh, okay, I wanted to put in more than that.
Speaker 1:Does that ever close any doors for you where people go? Oh, I can't be bothered putting in a smaller amount.
Speaker 6:No people fight. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1:People fight to get. They don't want to miss out. They're just annoyed that I won't take more money. Well, you've mentioned a few times through this conversation OnlyFans. So, I guess let's dig deep on that.
Speaker 7:Plug it, plug it, plug it, plug it. No, I'm not giving you a matrix map. I know you're on there.
Speaker 4:Star 467,. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to come and find you in Spain on the beach building sandcastles with your tits out Right OnlyFans. How did it start?
Speaker 7:Well, the first lockdown, I got no work and I had to pay my rent and I had this beautiful it was actually a wedding present off my first husband's jukebox with all my Brad Stewart in it, my Roy Orbison, my Elvis, my country and western, and I couldn't afford to pay the rent and I had to sell it. And then someone mentioned OnlyFans and I looked into it and I thought shall I start doing that? Because I've done Nuts, I've done FHM, done Zoom, I've done all those magazines. I thought fuck it. So I sat the kids down. The only one who was really against it at first was our Lily, and then, when the money started coming in, they all got the free iPads and they were like Mum, get your tits out.
Speaker 7:But yeah, we're a very open family anyway. Do you know what I mean? I have no privacy. I'll go to the toilet. The kids come in asking me what's for tea and Mum can have some money. I'm sat there having a shit. I'm their mum. So it's like, well, why not just make money out of it? And our Heidi got a bit of shit and it upset her. These boys said something to her. I said well, turn around and tell them to tell the dad to stop fucking subscribing and make sure I will too.
Speaker 1:And she did. You say when rolling as well. I mean, it's been reported that you're earning half a million quid a month from it. Is that true, can you say?
Speaker 7:No, not half a million quid a month. I wish it was. But the first month I made 170. But I'm going in the millions now. That's what I'm up to.
Speaker 1:In the millions collectively. I've been doing it for three years, yeah yeah, so I'm doing alright. And how do you promote it? How do people find Instagram like this?
Speaker 7:I've promoted it on the TV. For me it's. I've been able to invest in myself. For me it doesn't matter your house, I've been on every side of the coin you can think of. I went from having nothing to get my clothes off a car boot sale, with my nan going on the rob with my mum. That's how I remember being nine years of age.
Speaker 7:And it was Christmas. We just got moved from a refuge into a new house. Well, it wasn't a new house like, but we got rehomed and it was Christmas. We just got moved from a refuge into a new house. Well, it wasn't a new house like, but we got rehomed. And it was Christmas morning and we had no decorations. And the people from the refuge knocked on Christmas morning with a bin bag of secondhand stuff like you know, like a love heart smelly thingies put in liquor drawer they don't do them anymore and you know corned beef and bread and I was so eternally grateful. And then I became a millionaire overnight and then split up with Brian. Then I got the Iceland deal. Then I had my own reality show, became a millionaire again, gone, lost a lot, got a little bit back, went back into bankruptcy, become a millionaire again. I don't know anybody who's done that. I'm a grafter and I will work and continue to work my ass off because of those kids.
Speaker 1:Have you learned any lessons from losing the money?
Speaker 7:The one thing I've learned is money doesn't make you happy. It just gives you options. For me, I've been on every side of the coin you can think of, and what I like about the money is the options it gives. Me is to create these amazing adventures with my kids, because it's the memories that you create with your family. That is all you're going to take with you to the grave, not your latest fucking Gucci bag or the cars or the house you live in. I can't take it. I want to make sure that I create a great adventure with the children, and you know. And then, chris, oh, do you remember when we did that? Do you remember when we did that? And that is what I like to do and that's why I do what Do you think you're too much of a reckless spender.
Speaker 7:No, not anymore. I don't very buy anything. I put weight on and lose it. I'm up and down that much. I've got a massive wardrobe. Sometimes I put weight on. I've got a new wardrobe again because I've not worked for ages. Then I lose weight and I've got that wardrobe there because I've lost weight again. But no, I'm not.
Speaker 7:I was never a reckless spender. I could afford stole my money. David mccue google him. He got sent down for it. But people all just think, ah, she, she, it was mark, it was mark did.
Speaker 7:I was with cute's bank and I was signed. I was on that much medication. I was signing blank checks to mark croft. And I remember, yeah, my second husband who was my mum's drug dealer. That's how I met him. And my second. I remember max clifford ringing me up and saying kerry, going into bankruptcy. I said what? I didn't even know what bankruptcy was. What are you talking about, mintage? He went you owe a tax bill of £86,000, which was pennies to me. I was earning over half a million a year. It was nothing. I go and check the bank and it's all gone. And I've gone round to my accountant's house. I I kicked his door down, I jumped on him. I threw hot coffee, I put him in a shibble, got rested, got through in the cells. I went please raid him. Anyway, they raided him and in his ceiling there was a big box and it had all these checkbooks from different accounts and different banks and then Companies House, kk, media, kk, high.
Speaker 1:Nothing to do with me. Was it just you, or was it Robin and other clients?
Speaker 7:No, it was other clients. I was the only celebrity one that he did. I think he did seven years for it. But your money's gone. You don't get it back. So that's how I lost my bankrupt, that's where I lost my money and best thing that ever happened, because you see all those little hangers on.
Speaker 1:It all just disappeared. Adhd aside, I mean, how are the pressures on mental health in general in football, you know playing at that top level? I mean, do you see it? Now you understand things better. Do you see a lot of people suffering?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you do now because you see a lot of players come out. A lot of people are saying you know about their mental health. You know people think how is that possible? You're getting paid X, y, z a week, blah, blah, blah. But it's not as easy as that. Yeah, you're getting paid a lot of money, but then you also have a lifestyle as well to maintain with that money. Then you've got the pressure of trying to perform at your highest ability, then the pressure of trying to stay in the team. When you don't stay in the team, you get down.
Speaker 3:You don't know what's going on in that player's life, personal life, whether it's wife, girlfriend, family. There's so many factors that come into. I said we're, we're all human. Just because we get paid a lot, it doesn't mean that the troubles that the normal people have we don't have. Just that we got a good income with it. So when I was playing, there was nothing about mental health I've. If I really, you know, was in dark places, I wouldn't go into my coaching staff or my manager and go my head's not with it. You know I'm struggling Because I would think that my place would be a jeopardy. I would think that they would go. Yeah, yeah, his head's not with it, let's not select him for this week. We want someone who's in the right frame of mind.
Speaker 3:So I never had anyone to speak to, even when I was in dark places. I would come in training with a massive smile on my face jack the lad to cover what I was actually going through, the depression that I was seeing and feeling oh hey, boys, I've been trying, and then go home, and then you'd be just in a, in a sulky well, let's talk about money, money, money, money.
Speaker 1:You can't talk about football, uh, without without talking about money. Obviously they both go very much hand in hand. I mean, how financially motivated are you?
Speaker 3:um, back then and now, obviously you know you want to be comfortable in in life. So yeah, I think everyone's financially motivated to a certain aspect. You know everyone wants to be I'm nice, want to be comfortable, be able to live comfortably and enjoy, enjoy things you say now you just want to be.
Speaker 1:Do you think your, your financial aspirations, have changed over the years?
Speaker 3:yeah, when you're getting paid that much money and having no support, no stability, not coming from money, and you're having the wrong people surround you and you're left to your own devices, it's it's hard to manage that money so talk to me a bit about, um, I guess, about some of the money you had, some of the spending you did the investments you did.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, did you, uh, I mean, were you spending everything you were earning or were you, were you putting stuff away?
Speaker 3:well, it was in properties. I didn't. Again, I didn't have any. I was literally financial literacy, didn't understand it, didn't. You know I didn't come from a background with money, I didn't. You know my parents never had a mortgage. You know I was living in a council house. I got brought up in a council house. My dad never taught me how to invest money. No one really told me how to invest or what I should and what I shouldn't but your agents don't try and help, the club doesn't try and help no, no, the club back then.
Speaker 3:I guess now it's probably a little bit different, but when I was playing it would be maybe the PFA putting a pension this much amount again. You just me, would go in and go. Oh, I still understand it. And yeah, my agent really didn't tell me to invest in anything, but I bought properties and I would want it to be the mortgage as cheap as possible. So I was paying interest only and I was getting you know at the time, 20, 30 grand a week and just spending the rest of it and spending the rest of it and but but no one, I, I didn't know.
Speaker 3:I thought it was fine because in 10 years I can sell this property or earn more money. If you're only paying interest only, it's not going to go, a lot of money it's not going to unlock. So I was just wasting money For all my credit, just wasting money wasting money.
Speaker 1:What do you waste on? Do you have a specific like clothes, cars? It would be just yeah, it would be.
Speaker 3:Just, you know, holidays trips to Vegas, you know, one bill was 30-something thousand. Rather than getting cars in the right way, I would buy them outright. Bought a Ferrari, then I'd trade that. Give them the Ferrari, then pay 100 grand for an Aston Martin DBS. I think about it. That's just stupid.
Speaker 1:Did it never feel stupid to you at the time?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Because you thought what? Because you thought the money had never run out. Well, I thought, well, I spend this and spend this and I'm sure it's alright. I'll wait till next month because my wages come in next month. But yeah, but I guess. But did you never think that there will be a time when there is no next month? You know?
Speaker 3:Well, when you're 20, 24, 25, 26, you're thinking well, I'll calm down next year. Yeah, well, not even that. You think well, yeah, I'll get a move next year or I'll get a new contract or, worst case scenario, at the time, I'll go China. You know, because that's when a lot of people was going China, I thought I'm 27,. I've still got another 10 years in this game. I'm still getting this kind of wage in 10 years' time. But little do you know. It doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1:So when did you finish playing?
Speaker 3:I finished my major contracts and probably professional terms not professional, but Premier League was 2013.
Speaker 1:So how was your kind of financial situation at that point?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was good, but I didn't have a club for about you know, six months and then you can see with your outgoings, which you know 15 grand a month, when you're not bringing anything in. It starts taking a hit with your lavish lifestyle as well, because at that point it's hard to just then stop that lifestyle. You still maintain it. Your savings and what you earned starts going away slowly and you get a new contract to another team, but it's nowhere near, you know Premier League wages.
Speaker 1:So, when you finished, what did you think? What was your plan to commercialise yourself at that point. You know, what was life going to look like yourself at that point? What was life going to look like?
Speaker 3:It was dark, it's hard. Every professional will tell you when they come to the end of that road. It's not like they've got qualifications, where a builder will come to the end of that one job and think, right, I'm going to go into a job here. When you're a footballer, once you've finished, that's it. If you're a tradesman you've got tradesmen on your you can do that for as long as you, your body can. If you're an accountant, you can do that for as long as you, you know, I mean, but once you're a footballer, that's it. Certain stops and I've got no qualifications to be anything else apart from a footballer and you didn't want to look at management and um no because I don't think management would have would me.
Speaker 3:So then I got into thought what can I, what am I good at? And it was. I thought media might be a good platform. I thought I'm okay in front of a TV. Some people you know go shy and people saying you've got a good personality, you've got, you know, you're very charismatic, so that would be a good option.
Speaker 1:So I thought you clearly couldn't be a chauffeur.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. So I can't do that. So I tried to right well career, let's go media. But for a year or two it was hard even getting gigs like that because of my reputation with the bad boy tag Is he reliable? And all this. So it wasn't just an easy decision like all right, finish football. No, let's be me, let's be a pundit, let's be radio, let's do this. You know the the offers and the jobs was was far from few. It was, it was.
Speaker 1:It was very difficult um, just from a practical perspective and just you know, just talk, talk for people a little bit about, I guess you know, day after bankruptcy. Uh, because, like you say, you know, you, you give your assets in, you don't have access to your bank accounts, et cetera. I mean, have you got the kind of newbies co-op bank account, the vanquished credit card with a £250 limit?
Speaker 3:Well, like I said, you know the initial period, maybe the couple of weeks. Yeah, it's scary, it's nerve wracking. You're having meetings with an insolvency practitioner, you know you're giving all these details. He's asking all this easy information and, with adhd, I was like I can't cope with this.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to switch off and I wasn't a person who managed my financial situation. I didn't have records, I didn't have information. You know, I couldn't even tell you my you know, mortgage, mortgage account numbers. I couldn't. You know, all I could give you is my address and postcode. The rest I wouldn't know because I have no letters, no, nothing. So when all this, this information that they wanted was, yeah, for me it was difficult. Then the bank got in contact and said, right, we have to close this account, and I had to apply for a new bank account and I couldn't even use Apple Pay. I was like, absolutely not. So, yeah, you have to go through all of that. And then you think to yourself, oh my God, how am I going to, how am I going to get by? But you do, and it's not as bad as people you know may think or how, how it sounds.
Speaker 1:Did, did. Did you ever have any problems with your insolvency practitioner thinking you're kind of taking the pitch?
Speaker 3:You're like, oh, this is a multimillionaire footballer, he's hiding assets, he's got a collection of watches at his mom's house, but yeah, so they kind of went through that I had. They started asking me about crypto, which I had a crypto account, and I said, oh, I took screenshots of it. I said look, nothing's in it Cause I don't. You know, I only had a little dabble just to see how it was. They put loads in and they wanted the login details. They didn't trust that. You know, what I was sending them was legit, so they wanted login details.
Speaker 3:You can't just send someone an email and password and try and get encrypted, so you need like two autifications. You need to, you've got to, you know. So I had to try and time it when they wanted to go in to send them this three-digit passcode, the right. Do it now. Boom email, you know. And obviously they got in and they realized all right, it's legit on that. But I think they must have did, for, you know, summits not a mess because they're leading up to the. I got a, an email previously saying that we may think of restricting your and be be lengthening the period of your bank.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because of the way you maybe you know I mean they may think, yeah, you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Normally you're in and out in 12 months and normally it's like nine months, but they've got the ability to extend if they think you've been misbehaving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so I, you know, the um practitioner sent me that email and I was like mate, trust me, I'll give you everything that I possibly can, all the information, all the financials that are there. It's not guaranteed that they're going to do that, but they said that they're considering it. Um, but I was emailing them. But, like mate, I'm not lying. But yeah, they definitely thought that there was some hidden gem somewhere do you?
Speaker 1:do you regret your previous spending and your and your decision not to take professional advice and get more financial?
Speaker 3:yeah, I do I do. Looking back, I regret it, but I've got to understand that I had no family support. I had no one around me advising me in you know what, what's best, I'm no one helping me make these finance, financial decisions. I came from nothing. My family was poor. I was poor growing up, you know. I didn't know about investments, I didn't know about mortgages, I didn't know what happens. I didn't you know, I was kind of blasé to it, not knowing. I know people say but yeah, but you're an adult, well, they don't teach it in school and then my parents certainly didn't teach it to me. So, cheaper, and yeah, obviously, the spending side of it, I won't say I regret it because I was earning enough to kind of spend certain things and buy certain things. It was just, I would say, should have maybe saved more for a rainy day or just better investment.
Speaker 1:someone should have said right, jay, you're earning 80 grand month, get off your interest and just put an extra repayment, three grand a month Over three years it's almost 100 grand, but no, it's a funny one as well, because I always talk about not regretting anything I have done or anything I haven't, and I know it's easy to say in many circumstances, but probably not money. But my theory theory always is because a lot of people say to me you know, I've had some pretty fucking wild spending days myself, and you know, okay, look, you know, um, my position now is better than it was pre-bankruptcy. So, uh, I guess I'm not, I'm not complaining, but you know, often people say to me well, don't you you regret that? You know when you've you bought 500 grams of art that went down to zero, or you've gone on, you know, a 50 grand holiday when you could have gone on a 20 grand holiday.
Speaker 1:But you know, I mean, I, I very much take the view and I honestly don't do it to just to convince myself but I take the view that, first of all, if I hadn't spent it on x, I would have spent it on y. And while I'm listening to you, I'm thinking well, you could have put a million quid aside by not spending a million quid, but then you'd have just had the million quid to pay the tax man and you know it's either way, it's going and I just think you know, unless you completely change yourself as a character, you know, if you don't spend it on girls, you're going to spend it on booze, you'll find a way to spend it.
Speaker 1:But I also then very much believe and I'm not into manifesting or reading the secret and all that crap, but I do very much believe that one thing leads to the next. And I look at the money I lost on art. Well, okay, I lost the money on art, but during that I've made a relationship with my art dealer. He introduced me to a guy who ultimately became a business partner, who I did, you know, shit loads of business with. You know, a guy that ultimately I fell out with absolutely horrifically. And then you know to again, people say, well, don't you regret meeting him? I said, well, I can't regret meeting him because, as much as I fucking despise him now, but you know, back then I can't change history and he was good to me at a time when nobody else was.
Speaker 1:And I just think, you know, yes, we can, we can look back and we can say, oh, I shouldn't, shouldn't have done this, I shouldn't have done the other. But ultimately, you know, all of those things have led to where we are today and if we dwell on it too much, it's just more negative energy that's going to prevent any kind of moving forward. And, yes, that's not an excuse not to make adjustments for tomorrow. You know you've got to learn from the mistakes that you've made over the years and hopefully you know your spending and your investment strategy is going to be different for you for the next five, 10, 20 years. But you know, but to sit there every day go fucking hell. You know, if I'd have got that car back off Fernando, that would have been 70 grand. And if you know, if I hadn't bought that girl down the disco a fucking bottle of champagne, that'd have been another 200 quid. But you just can't live your life like that.
Speaker 3:No, no, you're totally spot on. Like I said, if I didn't Fernando, I'm going to find Fernando after this, isn't he? Yeah, you've still got that Porsche, pal. What are you thinking? Yeah, 500 quid.
Speaker 1:Hey, matt Haycox here Now listen. If you've been enjoying this business advice, you need to check out my podcast no Bollocks with Matt Haycox. This podcast. It comes out nearly every day. We get four or five episodes a week and we talk no bollocks, just the raw, real business information that you need to know. Business information, tactics and strategies that I've learned the hard way over the last 25 years of doing business. I've made the mistakes and I've lost the money, so you don't have to. So check it out. No bollocks with me, matt Haycox. So let's go back to your prolific childhood spending. So you met the accountant James.
Speaker 1:That was cool you said you met James, and you've been with him ever since. So what did he say to you? How did you start to manage your money back then?
Speaker 2:Because I. So what did he? What did he say to you? What, what, how did you start to manage your money back then? Because I mean, I presume I mean, honestly, I've never been good at managing my money and I will admit this like I spent every penny of what I made back then, everything, and it's one of my biggest regrets in life. Until I mean, until around about now, honestly, yeah, like to be honest, like now I've got money in my account, but, honestly, for a lot of years I really struggled because I was just spending and spending. And for the longest time, when I was, you know, 18, 19, 20, whatever, when I was really doing modeling, I was just making money, making money, making money. I didn't have to look at prize tags, I could just like, I was just spending and spending. I thought it was an unlimited supply of money. Turns out that's not real.
Speaker 1:Can you put a figure on what you think you've earned and spent?
Speaker 2:God, it would be sad to honestly.
Speaker 1:Go on, let's depress each other.
Speaker 2:I honestly don't even want to, because it's honestly like it's so depressing and so I feel like it's just like if people are listening, they'll just be like god, you idiot, like it's a very lumpy seven figure sum very, very lumpy sum of money, like it is crazy.
Speaker 2:But but you know what it's taught me that you know the thing is, with money you can always make it back. This is the thing and it's really motivated me to be better with my money now, and rather I figure out now than when I'm in my 30s or 40s that, like damn, I should have saved my money. You know, I'm still very young and I've still got a lot in my career that I want to do and I know I can do.
Speaker 1:So you know it's a lesson, but do you regret it?
Speaker 2:I think I regret spending the money. I regret not buying a house, I regret not doing investing. I regret not doing investing in something with that money. But I actually did. I tried to buy a house back then and I asked my accountant can you ask the bank? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They declined. They said I was an erratic spender. I was like, yep, that sounds about right. So I actually wasn't even allowed to buy a house back then. But I do really wish I'd figured it out and spent less.
Speaker 1:Let's be clear you could have bought a house you just spent so much money.
Speaker 6:You wanted a mortgage my spending was so up and down, it was like one.
Speaker 2:One month I'd spend a certain amount. One month, I'd spend less. One month I'd spend more. So they need it to be like on a on a you know trajectory, but um, but yeah, but I do regret it, but at the same time you can make all that money back, and it's taught me so much as well to be better with money, and that money does run out are there any other than just spending on clothes and living a good life and any specific like one-off crazy purchases or by a some dinosaur?
Speaker 1:remains that you've had sat in the front room or anything?
Speaker 2:what? No, like I think I spend a lot of money on just like hotels, really nice holidays. I once went to LA and I like paid for my friend's flights and paid for like a nice villa House in the Hills. It was like 10 grand for a month or something, Like you know, like that kind of craziness, but it was, yeah, more just places I was staying and the holidays that I was booking, the flights I was booking, but I had no respect for the money because I was like if I missed a two grand flight, I was just like just book it again, just do it again. You know, fine, we'll have another two grand a day. It just didn't process in my brain that you know this money will run, it's going down, you know.
Speaker 1:And you know, when I stopped modeling full time, it was going down, down, down because I wasn't making any more, you know. So, yeah, you're actually, I want to say, one of the few, probably the only person I can think of knowing or speaking to. You know, from a from a media type life, who, um, who actually was happy to spend money. I mean everyone else I know will say, oh, you know, they've spent seven hours this afternoon ringing the travel lodge to try and get them to do a collaboration, to get a £50 room for free instead. I never like doing that.
Speaker 2:I never like trying to get free things, and I still have a bit of a weird thing with that where I'm like I'd rather just pay for it. I don't like to feel like I owe people anything and I like to feel like I've got it myself. If I'm going to stay in a nice hotel, I want to be like hello, mrs Moss.
Speaker 2:I'm like yeah this is my room and I paid for it. But yeah, sometimes it's fun to get free things. You know, if you've got followers, you've got a good content. You know you might as well get free things from what you do. You know the perks.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about OnlyFans. Yes, how did that come about? When did you go on and where was your modeling career at at that point?
Speaker 2:so I went on about three, two, three years ago now. Um, yeah, about two and a half years ago, I think so in the earliest stages of it yes, yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't even know how long only fans has been going for now, but, um, yeah, I actually had friends that did it and I saw them doing it and I was like this is a bit of me and for the first time, I really found that I'd felt like I'd found a group of people, because I was doing with other girls that were doing OnlyFans as well, I was shooting with them and I found like a group of people that I fit in with, finally, and I was like, oh my god, these are my people and, um, I just really loved the whole process of it being able to create my own content, of being able to dress how I wanted and shoot what I wanted and being able to have, like, control over the pictures I was releasing and the videos I was releasing and what were you first?
Speaker 1:were you first shoots nude? Um, yeah, I think so yeah, had you done any of that, anything like that, before?
Speaker 2:no, I'd always been a very liberal person, I've always been not sexual, but I just really like the female form and I really like it makes me feel empowered. It might not make everyone feel empowered, but being naked and, you know, dressing in like sexy underwears, I feel great about myself, and I met a group of guys that also felt the same, and so we'd shoot together and I had the best time, and it was actually when I was in la that I started it. So we were outside by the pool shooting, I was having the best time and I continued doing it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and and at the time were you still doing mainstream work um no, I actually got dropped by my agency for doing it for doing only for yeah, so that's kind of where I was going with the question, um, but so you, so you were, or you were still doing work, and then you did only, and then I got the call up and they were like, yeah, we can't have you anymore because you're doing any plans.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, fine, I wasn't that bothered at that point. I had I was in a contract still um with a clothing brand that I'd been working with, did they drop you as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, they did. But I kind of expected it and I'd looked over the contract before that I wasn't breaking any of the rules. So they just dropped me without. You know, they didn't charge me or anything for it. They just chose not to work with me again. But it was fine. But you know, I just think it's so silly because I think, like, why should I be punished for, like, wanting to do what I want to do? You know, I don't think it's that offensive.
Speaker 1:I had Sarah Jane Dunn. I don't know if you know her from Hollyoaks. She was on there a few weeks ago and and her her story was kind of around OnlyFans as well. I mean, she'd been on Hollyoaks for about 20 plus years or something like that, and then she started doing OnlyFans during I'm going to say it was like the back end of COVID or something, because obviously you know she'd been earning less, but she didn't. Nor does she do anything more than implied news. You know, just still bikini stuff and she got fired from Hollyoaks for it and I guess you know her whole anger around it was. You know, we've spent our whole career at Hollyoaks being forced to do the Hollyoaks annual calendars and stuff where we're doing it in bikinis, which none of us want to do because we're actresses or actors, not models. You're not giving me enough work, so I go and do the OnlyFans and then you fire me. But I think she says she earned more in her first month than she would have earned in two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly who's laughing now. What was your first month? My first month was good. My first month was good. Yeah, I, um I was, it was nice. It was nice by first month, yeah, but um, you know, I I still make very, very good money off of it does it, does it tail off over time because, up and down, depending on the months as well. Obviously certain months do better than others. Christmas.
Speaker 1:Christmas, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So this is the thing there's like lonelier months and then there's months where people are on holiday and people aren't really doing it.
Speaker 1:What is the lonely month?
Speaker 2:Honestly I'd probably say like December. It's kind of like December, february and January Do you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's like people are just inside, no one me. It's like people just inside, no one's like out doing things, so people just on, only fans, um, but yeah, I really enjoy and I think everyone should just be able to do whatever they want to do and whatever their heart desires, and I don't think there's anything a shame, like shameful about you know what I do. I really don't feel any shame, for I feel very empowered about what I do and I found a lot of like-minded people through it so I guess, so you start the only fans you lost, the agency lost, lost the contracts you had.
Speaker 1:Has that gone full circle now insofar as because I guess, obviously going on only fans gave you a lot of press at the time as well um, so, as that then brought other contracts and another agent and stuff, who, who probably work in a different field and don't, uh, don't care about the only fans association, yeah, 100 and I think I found a better deal now.
Speaker 2:So I feel much happier that I took that risk, because 100 it was a risk. I could have carried on doing what I was doing making you know loads of money and I thought you know what I need. To be true to myself now. I need to do something that's going to make me happy now and when I did. It's the best decision I ever made. I have an agency now who are incredible. They really listen to me. They really you know, whatever road I want to go down, they're like what brands do you want to work with? Who do you want to work with in terms of you know collaborations? And I will tell them and they're like great, that's the perfect route for you they go out and find it for you yeah, they go and get it for me.
Speaker 2:So, yeah and um, that kind of led me to like celebs, go Go Dating as well. It was like this I've never done television before.
Speaker 1:Was that your first thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was my first television opportunity and I'd never. I just want to do everything in life. I want to be able to say that I've done it. All you know.
Speaker 1:Because I'd heard you'd done Made in Chelsea as well. But was that? No, I didn't do Made in Chelsea, oh okay.
Speaker 5:That was my ex and I have a few friends on the show as well, but you've never been on. Never been on. Okay, I was an estate agent for years on the high streets. I was always the top salesman, always doing what was required.
Speaker 1:Just working for someone else at this point High street agencies.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and that's how I kind of I left school. I knew I didn't want to go to university. I knew I didn't want to study. I love trying to make money, I love putting deals together and for me it was very much like well, going to sales, like going to a property. My dad was buying a few buy to lets and stuff, knew the estate agents, so that's how I got in there and I loved the job until I hit that sort of plateau where I was running the office at a very young age, like 22, 23, had a company car that was kind of admired by everyone. But for me it just was never enough and I guess I just got a lot, a lot of frustration spill over when I wasn't really achieving what I believed I could achieve. And from there it, it led me down different paths and I ended up making some pretty silly decisions to try and effectively just to try and make money.
Speaker 5:And greed is it? Is it that really? It's a good question, because is it greed? I think that, like, my answer is no. I think that often, a lot of the times, people go down the wrong path. There are people that make very bad decisions, unforgivable decisions. There are some people who um frustration boils over, and for me it was never greed, it was, it was frustration and impatience, impatience, frustration, impatience. And I think I definitely um tried to fast track a result the wrong way and that was what my um rebellious side kind of came out um, and, and there I was, and that, and, and the chickens came home to roost, as they say I mean you don't have to answer this if you don't want to.
Speaker 1:But, um, it was kind of setting me up for a second question, but when you, when you got caught with within, uh, intent to supply, had you already been doing stuff prior at that point? Um, yeah, I mean it'd been going on for about four years, so and I guess the reason I ask the question then is because because you know we talk about the impatience to fast track to something better. But then do you think that's also maybe an excuse as well that if you hadn't have been caught you'd have still?
Speaker 5:you'd have still been doing it and still been doing it because, ultimately, what kind of once you get that taste, you probably slip into that world and and the and the easy money probably lasts, you know, you think it lasts forever yeah, I think that, like I was extremely guilty of being attracted to fast money instead of proper money, and that meant that I would always have a few, few thousand pound on the hip but I never actually was building anything of substance, anything of value. Um, and that in itself is dangerous because it's a repeating cycle. It reloads itself every single week. You get that cash on the hip, you throw a few bottles of champagne around in the club on a Saturday and then you're back to square one on Monday, and that's kind of how my life was, and you know it was stupid. It was a, it was a bubble that, you know, you fool yourself into thinking is the real world, and then, when you actually get out into the real world and you realize how business works, you realize how real people actually operate, you realize just how deluded you were in trying to make that work for yourself on any kind of a long-term platform.
Speaker 5:Did you ever have any formal sales training? I have been for a few different sales training courses that were put up by companies. I've never really sat through courses, to be honest. The reason being is real estate for me is not a straight sell, so what I find is that it's a combination of a lot of skills. So you've got to be an excellent marketer, you've got to be an excellent relationship builder, an excellent networker. You've also got to be very methodical. You've got to be able to do research, data, all of these things present a case, present a presentation, whatever it might be, and then you've got to be able to close. So it's kind of like when I started training myself in real estate.
Speaker 5:What I realized was I was very, very good at closing a contract and getting something done. But my, my, the methodical side of it, the research, the data, the pound per square for evidence, all that stuff. I was a bit slapdash with it because I didn't enjoy that. That was too process driven. So I got really into the nooks and the crannies of that how to do it and how to be an expert at it and that served me very, very well as I put the whole thing together. I've been on Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within seminar. I've gone through Jordan Belfort's sales training course. There's a few others in there that slipped my mind, but I've done a few. I do like the art of selling a lot, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's funny because I mean I, you know I've read a bit on sales, never been on any course read a few bits and you know, sometimes when I'm talking to someone about something and it's someone I know they might be taking the piss a bit, going oh God, you're such a fucking salesman, you know.
Speaker 1:And I always say I actually don't believe I could be any lesser salesman. But I just think you know my let's say two skills or particular areas. I mean one skill is in relationship building, but then the other thing that I think I bring to selling is an absolute belief in my product. And I think if you can build a relationship and you truly believe in your product, then ultimately it sells itself. I mean I think maybe the skilled salespeople are the ones who can sell absolute shite. I mean I don't think I could sell something that I don't believe in. I mean any business I've ever had has either been a product that I do genuinely use anyway, that I am the customer for, or a product that I would be a customer of. Should I fit into that demographic? I've never sold something disingenuously and I think for me, if you can build a relationship and if you truly love love what you do or love what you sell then you're 90 of the way there I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 5:I think that, um, the days of being a kind of hit and run, double glazing salesperson, um are becoming a lot more obsolete now because there is a lot more involved with a sale, I think, especially a product or service of serious value. When you're talking about, for example, I can relate it to real estate. You know, getting that contract signed of someone to list their house for 2 million pounds, and let's just say they've got to pay us a fee of two and a half percent, which is 50,000 pounds. 50 grand of anyone's money is not a small amount of money. So for them to entrust us with that process, there's got to be a few boxes ticked. The first thing is the relationship and the likability has got to be there. They've got to trust you and like you. If they don't trust you and like you, you ain't getting the business. It doesn't matter if it's the best pitch in the world. The second thing is the process has got to be a process that they believe is going to work and also that you believe and deliver it in a way where they are going to work, because it's one thing, saying this is great. I always call it the so what?
Speaker 5:Factor if you say something which could be a feature or a benefit to somebody, they might like the sound of it, but if they can't fully understand, resonate exactly what it means to them and how it's going to benefit them, then that also becomes a redundant process because you're just shouting facts.
Speaker 5:If someone can say, right, well, if I instruct you to sell my home, this process that you've just gone through with every incremental detail, is going to attract 10 times more buyers than a high street agent's going to attract. The process of the open house and the multiple block viewings is going to attract a lot more competition into the process. And then you, being the expert negotiator that you are going to negotiate the price to the highest possible level. What that does is it kind of binds the whole process together and then they're going to go yeah, that's the person who's going to sell my house. And then the 2.5 fee is very easy to close compared to the one percent fee, the high street's charging, because their process doesn't compare with that and the. So what factor is? All that process means this person is going to sell my house and they're going to sell it for the best possible price, so I'll pay the fee. So let's rewind again.
Speaker 1:You were working. You're out of prison. You're working for an estate agent. At this point, you've got your tag on yeah. When does the tag come off and when do you start your own business?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. So honestly, had they had the company I was at, satisfied what I was looking for, I'd have probably still been there today. What happened was my social media. I was like the first person to ever do these property tours, ever do the walk through tours and attract all of that that attention of luxury property and luxury tools on social media. So my instagram started flying off.
Speaker 5:I was getting people wanting me to list their properties right across different parts of prime and super prime London, but this particular company were insistent that I operated within a certain geographical area of North London. So when I started going into different territories, they were saying, no, there's one of our other offices there, you have to pass it to that office. And I'm saying basically, no, that's not going to happen. And it was then that the clashing between me and head office kept happening. Because I wanted to expand, I wanted to grow a team. I wanted to expand, you know, very, very quickly, and I was, and they were putting limits on what I could do and that was where I realized that this wasn't the right company for me. I looked around and searched around other companies that could satisfy what I was looking for and it just didn't exist and what I ended up doing was creating a solution to my own problems.
Speaker 5:I wanted I'd built a big enough kind of brand and name on social media that everybody sort of knew me in the industry and I thought, well, I'll just do it, even though I get a small team together and we just operate in different parts of London, I'll be really happy with that. I've done the maths on it. I know how many we need to sell, I know how many we need to do, but it exploded. We were over 100 agents within six months and the reason was people wanted the flexibility. They wanted to be associated with an actual luxury real estate brand, not a low-end one. And, of course, the social media was a massive attraction as well. And the combination of it all then just exploded and we were doing massive business. We were selling properties kind of hand over fist. Talk to me about personal brand.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mean, obviously it's something. Uh, you know something that you've got a great personal brand of. You teach it to your agents so you obviously see the value in it. I mean, for the people listening who haven't quite bought into the personal branding train yet, why should they be doing it and what are the benefits of having a strong personal brand?
Speaker 5:Building a personal brand is a long game. The reason most people won't do it is because they won't see the initial benefit of it for maybe six months a year, two years, three years, maybe five years. What it is is a slow burner that builds people's trust with you as an individual and with the businesses that you represent. So what I really like is that I'd say most days now someone will stop me somewhere and say I love your videos, love your content, I love your business, whatever it might be, and it's really nice to know that that reach is actually happening in real time. So when I put a value on that, I think to myself what are the benefits of that? Okay, so someone says I like your content. That's not really the purpose of it. What the purpose of it is is that there is credibility and trust built within that. So what's the ripple effect of that?
Speaker 5:Well, the ripple effect of that is that someone might know someone who refers someone who is going to list a house with us and they go oh yeah, I know that guy.
Speaker 5:He's on social media or he's on Instagram or whatever it might be, or I watch the TV show, or they're selling loads of houses, or you know he's a bit outspoken, but watch some of his podcasts. Whatever it might be, it's kind of like the whole thing marries up as your digital interview, your digital CB, and people now can tell more about you through your social media than meeting you in person. That's what the ironic thing about it is. You could spend an hour with someone, shake their hand and you'd have to take everything they say to you on face value and they could spin you any story they want. Or you could go onto their Instagram and you could see what they've been up to for the last two, three years and you could pretty much have an accurate window of what type of person they are, where they socialize, who they hang around with, how they dress, what they do for work, what they do for business all through a picture gallery that's on social media.
Speaker 1:The amount of people I've had to fire and then going and seeing the social media afterwards and said, fucking hell, if only I'd have looked at this six months ago, 12 months ago, I would never have hired them in the first place. But I think as well, something people always miss with personal branding is you already have a personal brand. And when they say I'm not into all that personal branding, you already have a personal brand anyway, it's just a question of how much do you want to amplify it?
Speaker 5:Absolutely, and I think as well. People say I don't like doing videos. I don't, you know, I don't like the camera. No, like I've got news to you like nobody likes doing videos, nobody likes the camera, you do it because it's necessary. And also that kind of bodes in with the fact that anything that's worth having isn't you don't do it because you want to do it, you do it because you have to do it. It's a necessary evil on the bigger scheme of things. And, unfortunately, if we were all, if we all had the luxury of doing everything we wanted whenever we wanted, then nothing would ever get done, because that's just not how things are achieved.
Speaker 1:And, like you, said, it's marketing at scale. You might not like making. You might not like making videos, but I'm sure you'll ultimately grow to like making videos a lot more than you like making 200 cold calls a day pick your poison.
Speaker 5:Of course and I think that you know it's just necessary. I just will not ever tolerate someone who doesn't see the benefit in it. They're not welcome in our business For me. They must do social media, they must build their personal brand, they must talk to their audience, they must build their engagement, because if someone's going to go and list and sell a house with them, then first of all they're going to want to know they're attached to an established business. I think we tick that box pretty well. We've got credibility. We've got a lot of property that we've sold in.
Speaker 5:You know the millions of pounds and all of this but what about the agent that's just knocked on the door? What about the agent that's just called them? Let me just check them out. Oh, okay, they're talking about the market. They've got some amazing properties they've sold. They're doing some really cool property tours and they're talking about some success stories they've had with other clients. Looks good, let's go with them or land on the page. There's absolutely nothing there. There's a picture of their dog and just launched in real estate, or just started my real estate career. It's like they're probably not the agent.
Speaker 4:For us, at the end of the day, it, whether it's bad or not, if you communicate, that's, that's the key. If as soon as you ignore things, that's when it becomes a problem. So always communicate and then they know you're still there, not ignoring, so the problem doesn't get worse. You've just got to communicate. If you're in a bankruptcy or anything, you set up a payment plan, do all this because, at the end of the day, there's so many people in this bankruptcy and anything. You set up a payment plan, do all this because, at the end of the day, there's so many people in this bankruptcy. And it's so annoying that the media every day bankruptcy Kate, bankruptcy Kate it's like, yeah, we get it, she's in a bankruptcy. So many people get in a bankruptcy. Just let me get on with it.
Speaker 1:So what's actually happened, though? Because obviously I take everything I seen in the press with a pinch of salt. So the first time we met, you were just about to maybe, and then you did have what was your first bankruptcy, I think then.
Speaker 4:Yeah, apparently I'm in another one. I didn't even know about that. I read that in the paper.
Speaker 1:But when you say apparently you are, are you saying that the press are talking shit?
Speaker 4:I didn't even know about that one.
Speaker 1:I just know I'm in one, are in it though. Well, I just know I'm in one, I only read that I'm in another one. So I only knew that last week. So I've got to deal with that because I've had no letters about that. Around you as professional advisors because obviously that you know I don't anymore why?
Speaker 4:because, because, look, I feel like I became noise and annoying for them. So at the end of the day, they can't help solve it. So it's like if there's a bill to pay, I've just got to do a payment plan with them and they find out what you earn. They might want to take a percentage of what you earn, so I've got to get back to them and sort all that back out. But I'm not ashamed of it. I've turned a leaf around. I've come out of a really bad dark place and the way my brain's connected now it's like it's okay, you can deal with it, it's fine, it's not the end of the world, you're not dying. You still got your family, still got your friends, still got your house, my house is safe. Everyone's always like, oh, our house is good, my house is safe.
Speaker 4:Bankruptcies are different with all different people and people have to remember that you can get insolvency or I'm still learning it all myself but can you really? I've just got to deal with them, with it, I'm fine, I'm working, I'm in. I feel like I've done a reset button from when I first started modeling and my headspace. Then I feel like I've gone back to that. I've had all these years of being ripped off, stitched up, you name it in shit places this, that. And now, through therapy, I feel like I've gone through a washing machine tumble dry, come out the other end, learnt it all. And now I feel like I've reset the button, because now doors are all open. I'm positive, manifest the double numbers. And now I'm like Kate, it's okay, you're here, you're alive, you've gone through it, you've survived, and now it's just starting again.
Speaker 4:Not starting again, I mean my mindset starting again. I'm earning well, I'm focused. It's like I've started again. But yeah, you have the bankrupting, but you do payment plans, you pay payment and then you just get on with it, rebuilding, and that's what I've done. I feel like I'm in a better mindset than what I was then and I'm earning again. Because when you go through a stage of breakdown and the paper's right about it, people are like, oh no, she can't be right to go near because she's probably like mentally not Do you know what I mean? Mentally, not able to work or whatever. And I was like that. But now I'm flying Like I'm having to turn work down now because I've learnt don't take everything on all at once. You know, you've got like.
Speaker 1:What work are you doing now? What makes up your income?
Speaker 4:I'm doing two shows for Channel 4 at the moment and everyone knows they take time to film. I'm doing loads of podcasts. I do the podcast with my sister. We've got a tour again in May. I'm touring also through the summer.
Speaker 1:What's a tour?
Speaker 4:Like you're going to theatres or something to do, a show To our shows. My book comes out in July, july the 18th my new book, my autobiography, so obviously I've got a promo for that. What else am I doing? I do my OnlyFans, which I fucking love doing, because that's like the Jordan stuff. Although I don't get nipples out or show anything, it's just like when I used to do Lo FHM, and I love being in front of the camera. I'm a show-off. I love it.
Speaker 1:You can't take that away from, so I also do that we've had quite a few people on here who've turned to OnlyFans anyone can do? It. You're big mates with Kerry, aren't you, kerry? Yeah, so Kerry was on here.
Speaker 4:She goes a bit further than me now, but I'm just staying where I am.
Speaker 4:Do you know what Girls and guys smash? Onlyfans. And I think people think it's just for porn. It's not Like the way I look at it is. It's just like me doing my shoots. I used to do no different, but I love it and it's good for my head because it's all I used to know and love doing. So I do that Literally. I am so busy. And then I'm doing a lot of what are they called Gay prides, doing half-hour singing sets, but once you've done that, the TV I'm just full. And then I'm starting my YouTube channel up again because I left that it's so hard to build subscribers on that. But I'm opening that again. I want to do more reality on that again. So, yeah, busy.
Speaker 1:So tell me, because I just want to talk about. I guess, people and people around you. So I said to you a minute ago, like who's advising you with this stuff or who's helping? You? Said you know nobody. Then, obviously, with all these different work things you're doing, you're doing I mean especially when it comes to books and Channel 4. Oh no, I have people who do content. Oh yeah, no, I do.
Speaker 4:I thought you meant like I don't have an entourage, I don't have a manager anymore because they've ripped me off or they've done bits. I just don't trust anybody anymore. Don't trust anyone because I've had friends let me down who I thought were my friends. Friends betray me. Friends sell stories, managers the same. You think they're close when really they just want their 20%. I don't trust anyone anymore. Matt, like nobody.
Speaker 1:Hey, matt, here Just interrupting myself quickly to say thank you for listening to no Bollocks. But did you also know I've got another podcast, stripping Off, with Matt Haycox, very different? No bollocks is the quick daily business tactics that you need, but stripping off we just do it once a week. We go deep, deep, deep with a ceo, with a celebrity, with an athlete, with this an international inspiring character. We find out what makes them tick, we find out how they got to where they got to and we find out how you can learn and benefit from them too. So jump on over to spotify, itunes, youtube, wherever you listen to your content, and I'll see you on a future episode.
%20(1)%20-%20Copy.png)
