Screw It Just DO It with Alex Chisnall

What's the one thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unecessary? In episode #126 I talk about the one thing that stands between you and your goals. The one thing is about getting extraordinary results in every situation.  No matter how success is measured, only the ability to dismiss distractions and concentrate on your one thing stands between you and your goals. The one thing is about getting extraordinary results in every situation. Having just re-read the awesome book 'The One Thing' by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan for the umpteenth time, I thought it about time to share it, and my thoughts with you. This one is the Game-Changer. Let's StartUp!

"When we sold that business we actually retired. We went on this phenomenal holiday to Thailand and Malaysia for 6 weeks but after a matter of days, we were both really bored. We were in the pool in Malaysia and we just said "look, we know, we've got to do Grenade now" and the rest is history. It was meant to be a hobby, we were meant to be able to do it from wherever we were in the World but it very quickly turned into an obsession. This isn't a sob story...Grenade was our baby." Really enjoyed this chat with Juliet Barratt, Co-Founder of sports nutrition brand Grenade. They launched during the last recession during 2009/2010 with just £27 in the bank then sold for £72 million to Lion Capital last year. Juliet left as of the 1st January and she's now doing a lot of giving back, working with the Princes's Trust, Virgin Unite, working with some start-ups as well. Whereas her husband and Co-Founder Alan is still the CEO of Grenade. Grenade has over 50 staff, it retails in more than 80 countries around the World, is a market-leading sports performance and acting nutrient brand, incorporating a wide range of innovative high-protein and low-sugar products. They've been named as one of the UK's fastest growing companies and have been featured in the Sunday Times Fast Track Top 100 many, many times. What's the secret to their success? Well, you'll have to listen to this episode to find out. Things that we talk about include: timing, why there is never a perfect time to launch a new business brand, making yours distinctive and memorable investment, with connections recruitment, with longevity in mind partners, and working with yours and also, pink Grenades I start up by asking Juliet why she decided to start a business, what her motivation was, and where they think they could have taken this brand from day one.

On a personal level my why is to provide better opportunities and a better life for my two girls. On a wider level still, its to help everybody live the life that they want. On their own terms. To be in control of their destiny. If they so choose. I guess you could call it a Screw it, Just Do it attitude. One of the challenges that we have is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to get our voices heard above the noise that's out there on social media. Did you know that there are now more than  2,000,000,000 websites 2,000,000,000 Facebook Users 500,000,000 Linkedin Users 500,000,000 Blogs, 260,000,000 Twitter Users 111,000,000 Instagram Users 23,000,000 Youtube channels Yet only 550,000 podcasts... You can see where I'm going with this one so I'll let you finish the sentence. Creating and growing this podcast has completely changed both my business and personal life. And it's also the fastest growing form of media. I believe there's a massive opportunity here for you. In the same way that everyone was told that they had to have a website, a blog, join social media, create an app...the next big opportunity lies in business owners starting their own podcast. So I've put together a completely FREE book which you can download called the Podcasting Secrets Blackbook which you can download from:https://screwitjustdoitacademy.com/squeeze-pagecmodczmo It will help you:   🎧 Understand the technology and tools needed - I'm a not a techie so if I can do it..ANYONE can 🎧 How you can use podcasts to promote you and your business 🎧 How to actually record and publish a podcast - again far easier than you think 🎧 The Do's and Don't when it comes to podcasting -from someone who's already made all the mistakes for you - me!   What else would you be like to learn about when creating, growing and monetising a podcast? Let me know if I can help 🤨   ⬇️Let me know by emailing alex@screwitjustdoitacademy.com ⬇️

"Instagram's actually terrible at connecting people in the offline world. And, it really is a photo contest. It doesn't really matter how knowledgable you are or how qualified you are as long as you're taking nice pictures, that's how you're going to grow your influence, and so we're basically saying "look this is total BS", on myCrew, we're championing people of influence versus "influencers". We're saying, on myCrew, you're going to build the real influence and the more you do, the more sessions you host, the more people you attract and the more sign-ups you get, and actually, people showing up, the more prominent and influence you're going to get on our platform. And that's a pretty powerful sale for the people we want to attract." On today's show, I welcome Greg Drach, Co-Founder of the world's first social platform for fitness, myCrew.  myCrew was created by the brains behind the world's largest social running club, Midnight Runners, and global internet phenomenon Dubsmash. Having witnessed both the transformative power of social running and technology's ability to connect and unite, Greg, along with Christian Dörffer and Daniel Taschik, decided to bring something different to the fitness scene. Now, the app, which is available from both Apple and GooglePlay stores initially launched in London with 5,000 active users. With myCrew, you'll select your city (with new ones being added regularly) and immediately have access to locally-hosted runs, workouts and more. Once you sign up for an activity, you can chat with those attending, organise the details and get ready to move. Greg's now based in Venice Beach in the States and he told me how he believes in the power of running to motivate, to connect and inspire people.  On today's show, the two of us talk about: Accountability Reinventing your Social Circle Where to connect with like-minded people online How to build influence However, we start up with Greg telling me how he came up with the idea for myCrew.

"The January rush happens, every year, in February, people are giving up. How do we fix that problem? Using these 3 things that we've identified, how do we apply that to a product that can tackle that particular industry?  "All of us have jumped on planes and lived overseas and started other companies. Once you've got that passion and bug to try and do something that you really enjoy, it's difficult to put that down when you've really got that great idea, or you think you've got that great idea and trying to deliver it. "I think there's going to be more innovation in the next 3 years in the fitness sector than we've had in the last 30 years. A lot of the stuff that Dan mentioned, Sammi mentioned, technology, it's all coming to a head now and it's going to create some incredible businesses. And I do think there will be a Netflix of fitness, a platform that will be as familiar as Spotify, Uber, Netflix in the fitness sector and we hope we're that platform but there are some other great companies out there who are building some really interesting businesses as well." I really enjoyed chatting to all three of the Fiit founders (Ian McCaig, Sammi Adhami & Daniel Shellard) at their very futuristic studios in Stratford, former Olympic Park in London. We shared a love of fitness, we all attended University at Bath at some point in our lives, so we certainly weren't struggling for conversation. Plus, with Richard Reed on their board of Directors, we had something in common again having featured Richard on this show.  Thus far, they've had over 100,000 downloads of their fitness app 'Fiit', and over 5,000 5-star reviews. They've got fitness influencers like Matt Roberts and Chessie King taking their classes alongside ambassadors such as Fearne Cotton and Binky Felstead. So they're certainly set up for success.  Now, with Fiit, the three of them are trying to solve the fitness industries age-old problem of customer retention. They're taking three fitness trends, fitness influencers and their impact on the industry, think, Joe Wicks and his impact, they're taking hardware and software to gamify your experience, think Peloton or Zwift, and they're taking the rise in boutique fitness, think Barry's Bootcamp or 1Rebel. Now, combine all this with the timing of the technology available, we're taking streaming, 5G coming and they've got a really interesting story to tell. On this episode, we talk: Scaling at speed Customer retention, Building a community Laser Focus Client Avatars. But I start off by asking how the three of them came together to found Fiit...Let's StartUp!

"I love performing but actually, I'm overcoming it now, but I really freeze up and get nervous when I have to talk in public. I like the idea of a performance speech to the public but the free, off-the-cuff, point a camera at me, I just don't become myself. When I performed at the Opera House, you can't see the audience, nice big spotlight, only child here got to be a princess for 13 years, when I wasn't being all the other hilarious roles.    Pietra quite often says to me "I know you want to go to Mars but we've only got the petrol to get to the moon".   I always hated it, I always hated performance. I think that it takes a long time for people to realise what their strengths are.   Ella took me to see a concert of Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Cadogan Hall and that was just amazing but we could see a gap at that moment to fill and it had never been done before so there was no challenge at that point for us, we were just so committed that it was a project that lasted five years for us. It had a setback, it had a pilot phase where it wasn't excepted and carried on, we wanted to do it ourselves and at that point, it grew and then had different challenges again.   We were working on Inala, Ella composed the music with Ladysmith Black Mambazo who Nelson Mandela took to collect his Noble Peace Prize, the legends. She sat around a piano, in South Africa and we took ourselves off there to start this project and she sat at the piano, surrounded by nine Zulu men, at the grand age of 22, and just played her music and they co-wrote five songs in that short time that we came back with and presented to the Director of the Royal Ballet.   He (Adam) sent me a message "Congratulations, that's amazing! The Grammy nominations!" And he text me a screenshot of the nominations that had just been announced and we had been nominated for a Grammy award."   Welcome to episode #121 of #Screwitjustdoit. On today's show, it's my pleasure to welcome the Sisters Grimm, that's Ella Spira and Pietra Mello-Pittman.   I'm all for taking #Screwitjustdoit in different directions, shining a light on different industries, different businesses and this is very much the case with Sisters Grimm.   I attended a British-American Business Christmas lunch, back in December, and I was sat at a table sponsored by Virgin Atlantic Delta and sat right next to me was Pietra and Ella. We got talking and I literally spent the entire Christmas lunch enthralled by an amazing business that they'd put together which is just celebrating 10 years and I thought this would be a fantastic subject for the show.   So, who are Sisters Grimm, what do they do? They're two of the UK's most exciting and successful, original theatre-show producers. They're best known for a fusion of the legendary sound of the African male choral group, Ladysmith Black Men Bazoo, with ballet, to create the Grammy Award-nominated show, Inala.   So Inala sold out the Edinburgh festival, the UK tour performed five times in Moscow at the famous Chekhov international theatre festival, returned to the UK for a sell-out tour at Sadler's Wells. In fact, I believe they sold something crazy 80,000 tickets - think of Wembley and you get an idea of the number of people who have been to this show and they're back again for a very limited run in the West End from April the 30th this year as well.    The music from the show, which Ella composed alongside Ladysmith, was released separately and won a Grammy nomination and then they went on, Ladysmith, to win a Grammy award.    The ladies have been to the Grammys, they've also been to the Royal Variety Show alongside the likes of Ed Sheeran, Shirley Bassey, Simon Cowell etc.  Ella has worked with the likes of Bruno Mars, remixing in his music, and David Arnold, the composer of several of the James Bond scores. Whereas Pietra has danced all the classic ballets as a royal ballet ballerina and her ability as a choreographer and creative director has helped the duo win a 'woman of the future' nomination for arts and culture.    They're celebrating 10 years as the Sisters Grimm, an incredible story spanning many different continents, just been up for an export champion award as well, looking at China, Japan and Dubai this year but they are back in the UK for a limited time   I'm going to start off by asking Pietra to explain exactly who the Sisters Grimm are and what they do and the obvious question, of course, about where that name came from.    Let's start up!    

On today's show, I welcome Timothy Armoo, the 24-year-old CEO and co-founder of Fanbytes, a mobile video advertising platform helping brands like Warner, Apple Music and Sony reach teams through Snapchat and TikTok influencers.  Fanbytes' campaigns have seen then featured in Forbes, Huffington Post and The Times, to name but a few, with Forbes describing them as 'rewriting the rules of social for generation z'.  Fanbytes is Tim's third company, having started his first company at just 14 and selling his second company at just 17.   So, a big challenge for any marketing team for a brand is reaching and engaging with their target audience. More challenging still, is trying to figure out who is that audience is.    Fanbytes, with its exceptional understanding of generation z, tells brands who they should be marketing to and how they should be doing it.   Snapchat is the platform of choice, along with TikTok, through which search Fanbytes distributes its client's videos ensuring maximum engagement through targeting the right people at the right time.   So, the idea for Fanbytes came to Tim in his cousin's bedroom. He noticed he was always buying lots of new hats and trainers and wondered what motivated him to buy them. His cousin said that YouTube personalities were his inspiration and that's where the idea for Fanbytes came from. They're a company that helps brands to collaborate with influencers, such as those on YouTube.   Tim wanted to build a new advertising offering for the 21st century that will help brands to collaborate with online stars and personalities     A big part of what they do is data, so they built an algorithm that will enable them to measure the influence of the influencers, to see who was perfect for each brand's campaign. More importantly still, they used it to match influencers with brands.   With data being at the heart of everything they do, the strength of the data set up within their USP, and with other similar players in the market, they needed to differentiate themselves. So, they've done that with their real-time data analytics platform which enables them to measure their campaigns in a way that nobody else can.   So, I really enjoyed going up to London meeting Tim at Fanbytes HQ. I found him incredibly knowledgeable, very charismatic and I think you, the #Screwitjustdoit listener, will find this a really interesting and really relevant chat, especially if you are looking to market and to do business with millennials. We talked about many, many things including opportunities in underserved markets. We talked about opportunities which live in university, or outside university education, opportunities outside of people being inherently lazy and businesses being inherently lazy.   I think that you're really going to enjoy this one, let's StartUp!   "So I'm going to say something which might offend some people but I think it's just real talk. At Fanbytes we help brands to distribute their videos on social, so brands come to us because they're trying to reach and engage communities, specifically on Snapchat, Instagram or TickTock and we build these communities and these influencer networks for us to be able to reach an audience in a very specific targeted way. We work with the Kardashians, for example, they come to us to help them promote their show... like it's the Kardashians, that's pretty interesting. The thing is, most brands are lazy. In fact, most people, in general, are lazy. People are inherently lazy. "Can you take that piece of content and use the exact same thing on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, Twitch, Tumblr and TickTock"...like yeah OK, cool. But, if you can essentially change that, that's where you can build something of significant value.   All these numbers are just banded about. I think recently I saw someone describe themselves as a 'nano-influencer' with 0 to 2,000 followers, like, Jesus Christ.   Fundamentally, Amazon is essentially like an online Argos, like an online catalogue. I think the mediums may increase but the fundamentals of marketing still stay the same.   I am not ashamed to say I started solely with the purpose of making money. I was a 17-year-old living in a council estate and I had just really started to discover the power of the internet. To me, this is my way out of being poor."    

Welcome to Episode #119 and on today's show I want to talk about Reload - our first Mid Year Mastermind This event is for you and is being held on May 3rd at the 5 star Hilton Hotel in Bournemouth on the sunny South Coast of England. I've put this together for listeners of the show and it follows on from last year's StartUp & Scale Summit - which Piers Linney from Dragon's Den headlined. I didn't want to wait until the autumn before our 2nd summit so decided to put this together for you. I've also partnered with the European StartUp Association and will be hosting the UK leg of their pitching competition at this event - with the winners going through to the final in Malmo, Sweden, in September - for more information if you'd like to pitch your business visit here What is it? It's an exclusive one day event limited to just 100 people that will bring you the clarity you need to re-focus on this year’s goals and ensure 2019 will still be your best year yet - even if you're not on track right now. Why You Need To Attend YOU - This event will help you refocus on your overall business goals, as well as your overall aspirations as a business owner. CLARITY - Ever suffered from shiny new object syndrome? I get it! This event will assist you on regaining the clarity needed to sign off on those goals and plans. GROWTH - You'll not only get to learn from our expert speakers throughout the day, but every attendee will also get a mentoring session with one of the mentors that I have hand-picked from my network. For the full schedule plus a list of all of the expert speakers and mentor just click here I've put together an amazing package for every attendee including a full day of masterclasses with our expert speakers, a mentoring session, and three connecting sessions with like-minded entrepreneurs. Plus, a two-course lunch, food and drink throughout the day,not including a place on my Podcasting Academy, #Screwitjustdoit merchandise, tickets to future events and a copy of Richard Branson's 'Screw it, Let's Do it' book! Who's it For? Entrepreneurs Business Owners StartUps ScaleUps Managers Freelancers Plus! ANYONE that wants to help build a powerful, profitable business. ReLoad will inspire you to think big as you build your business. With listeners in 104 countries now, I know you can't all make it. However, if you can, I encourage you to spend a day working ON your business - not IN your business. If you've got any questions just email alex@screwitjustdoit.org or Dm me via social on @alexchisnall - I' love to meet you in person and hope to see you on May 3rd in my home town of Bournemouth!  

"Why are you coming to my site? Who are you? Because personally I couldn't explain to anyone why have you got 6 million visitors coming to your site every month? I know what they're doing on my site, but why are they doing it?" Welcome to episode #118 of Screw it, Just Do it where I welcome Chris Parker. Chris has a problem that most of us would love to have - what to do with 6 million web visitors a month? He's the founder of whatismyipaddress.com . He's an entrepreneur, and online privacy and security expert and he's got a fantastic story to tell... Just wrapped up my first Podcast Masterclass from the Screwitjustdoit HQ in Bournemouth and I'd love to help you if you're thinking of launching a podcast. You are you're on my media so in my opinion, if you've got your own business, you should have your own podcast. I'd love to help you with it, take a look at my brand new Podcasting Academy here plus I'll be announcing new physical Masterclasses next week. On to Chris's story, and he's clearly doing a pretty good job of monetising his 6 million visitors already by bringing in just under 7 figures a month for the last few years.  You can see how you can get close to Tim Ferris's Four Hour Work Week by not employing any staff, not having an office and choosing how many hours he works in his business every week. Plus he loves the fact that by employing freelancers he's able to help others pursue their entrepreneurial dream. On today's show we talk about: The beauty of staying small The Importance of mentoring If in doubt, ask - for help. Let's StartUp!

"If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying "Circus coming to the showground Saturday", that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk into town, that's promotion. If an elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, that's publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it that's public relations. If the citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately they spend a lot of money at the circus, that's sales. And if you planned the whole thing, that's marketing." Welcome to episode 117 of Screw it, just do it. I'm your host Alex Chisnall and on today's show, it's my pleasure to welcome Allan Dibb. Alan is a serial entrepreneur, marketeer, technology expert and number one best-selling author of the book 'The one-page marketing plan'. Now, when I heard about this book I thought we all need to know about how to get new customers, make more money and stand out for the crowd. I didn't realise Alan lived in Melbourne, Australia but it's not a problem, got him on the phone and recorded a show for you. Before we dig into that I would just like to say a massive thank you to everybody who has subscribed and downloaded the show this week - we hit a high of number three in the iTunes chart which blew my mind! The only two shows above us were Rob Moore's 'Disruptive Entrepreneur' and buy some strange quirk of fate, I was with Rob last weekend at his business building conference. And number one, surprise surprise, was Gary Vaynerchuk - never going to shift him from the number one slot are you?! So, the UK and the US number one business podcasts were ahead of mine, so a huge thank you for anybody listening now who has subscribed to and downloaded our show. I never knew that was possible, it means the world to me. It means more people get to hear the Screw it, just do it! message, more people get to be impacted, and can help to start and scale their businesses. So a huge, huge thank you!