About This Episode
Meet Phil Fraser who runs the Business Sounding Board service as a business coach and is also the host of the Leeds Business Podcast. That podcast is amazing and I highly recommend you follow and listen to a few episodes of Phil's business podcast that talks about entrepreneurship and mentoring entrepreneurs.
Phil has run many affiliate marketing businesses with successful exits and he shares his take on not just what he does but common mistakes he sees business owners make today.
Full Transcript
Show: Revenue Optimization with StatsDrone
Episode: Business Coach & Mentorship with Phil Fraser
Host: John Wright
Guest: Phil Fraser
Published: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 10:26:00 +0000
Duration: 39:23
Speaker labels are a two-speaker split from pauses (host vs guest). Timestamps are `[HH:MM:SS]` from the episode audio. Light ASR; names and brands may need a pass.
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John Wright: You've got to have a bit of ego to launch your own business because in essence you've said this is what's in the market I can do better than that and
Phil Fraser: And having that and that's ego in the in a positive way not in a negative way But having that ego then runs counter to the whole concept of holding your hand up and saying I need some help And that's the difficulty in that. It's not a weakness. It's actually a strength It's actually an investment in you as the business leader
John Wright: To actually say can I have somebody sitting next to me? Who's been there done it got 20 30 40 years more experience than me and can advise me and that why would you yeah? It's if you take if you use the example of I don't want to go to school because it might make me look a bit Thick you know I go to school to learn more stuff. It's a positive not a negative So if I've got a business coach a business mentor I call myself a business sounding board if I've got one of those sat next to me. Hey brilliant I'm plugging into 30 years of experience. I haven't got
John Wright: I'm John right and you're listening to affiliate be I the business intelligence and affiliate marketing podcast brought to you by Statstron
Phil Fraser: Welcome to the affiliate bi podcast today We're chatting with Phil Fraser who is the founder of which bingo which was an affiliate site that he later saw He is now a business coach and mentor with the business sounding board And he's also the host of the leads business podcast which are you have some phenomenal guests on there? So Phil welcome to the show Thanks for me on John and Rather than starting at the very beginning about your affiliate days I wanted to talk about how you listen into a business coach and how that's going for you and yeah What is it like? Okay, I always tell us Explain this explain it this way that hang on let's start again
Phil Fraser: So I forgot put me I forgot to put me lights on Why go do the in sorry do the intro again? No, I'll cut that up. Well, just yeah, just how was it transitioning to a business coach? Yeah So I would say the same things to people when you read business books it's about startup and it's about growth and it's about scale and then it's about exit and
John Wright: They never write the next chapter
John Wright: What do you do next some people go back to the start of the book other people go I'm gonna play golf and for me I wanted to stay working, but I didn't need a job I didn't particularly people want the stress of doing launch again going all the way back to square one so somebody said to me why don't you be a when you do some business mentoring and
Phil Fraser: Many business owners will recognize what I'm gonna say next which is who the hell's gonna listen to me I was making it up as I was going along I didn't know what I was doing and that sort of feeling of sort of part imposter syndrome part not valuing what you're doing put me off a little bit and I
John Wright: Parked it and then for various people Kate's me was saying oh Phil you've done this business friends We've got businesses and contacts And I started giving them advice and they seem to simply benefiting from it And then when kovid hit over in the UK, we had glorious sunshine for two months Which obviously is a rare which is a rarity and I was sat in the garden I thought right okay, I'll put a business plan together and actually do this
Phil Fraser: Professionally, I sat down and thought okay who's making unusual thing who's the target audience? What's the product and
John Wright: What I came up with was the need for small business owners to have somebody to lean on and to talk to and
Phil Fraser: just To be there for them and I use the phrase it doesn't need to be lonely at the top Because when you're running your own business, it's great. You can make all the decisions you will take the strategy this way We'll do that product will recruit this person But a lot of the time you haven't got somebody to go Can I just sense check this with you or? I've got three ideas which one's the best one or I've got a major problem. I don't know how to get out of it or As I've had as I had with one of my clients, I hate my business I've fallen out of love with it and we've got to point where you fell back in love with it
Phil Fraser: But it's also things like accountability when you're running your own business You can do what you want, but I compare it to a cold piece of broccoli on your plate It's good for you. You should eat it. But actually you don't want to you'd rather have The cheesecake at the end. So an accountability partner then says John you have you done? a B and C that you're supposed to do and you know, I did the exciting stuff and often it's I
John Wright: Sit down with my clients and each meeting starts with okay. What do you want to discuss? It's very much client-led the client will say I had this problem this week or often it's This issue fell out of what we discussed last time So we discussed doing x y and z yeah, I did x y and z but ABC have fallen out of it What do we do about that? And what I don't do is I don't give solutions I gear our prod and poke and say have you thought about this? Have you thought about that and in in many situations and this is why I think I'm qualified to do what I do
John Wright: They're very similar to things. I've been there had the sleepless nights had working till 2 o'clock in the morning Logging in sit on a beach all the things that business owners do and all the problems with staff and trying to find clients And chasing bad debt all the shit that comes we're running a business I've done so I can sit down with one of my clients and say this is how we made this is how it played out This is what we considered but I don't tell them what to do. I allow the client then say ah, I could do this How does that sound okay? Let's let you know, let's talk about that. So it's business. It's almost like being a business therapist. So
John Wright: That's the quite long has the quite long explanation of what I do And there's a lot in there Would you say as well like it's maybe because you mentioned how you know being a business owner can be lonely And I think maybe a mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is not being vulnerable and just doing something as basic as asking for help Yeah, and the one of the major issues is if you think about it, you've got to have a bit of ego to launch your own business
John Wright: because in essence you've said this is what's in the market I can do better than that and Having that and that's ego in the in a positive way not in a negative way But having that ego then runs counter to the whole concept of holding your hand up and saying I need some help And that's the difficulty in that. It's not a weakness. It's actually a strength It's actually an investment in you as the business leader To actually say can I have somebody sitting next to me? Who's been there done it got 20 30 40 years more experience than me and can advise me
John Wright: And then why would it if you take if you use the example of I don't want to go to school because it might make Me look a bit thick you get now I go to school to learn more stuff. It's a positive not a negative So if I've got a business coach or business mentor, I call myself a business sounding board if I've got one of those sat next to me Hey, brilliant. I'm plugging into 30 years of experience. I haven't gone and
Phil Fraser: What you're saying right now I'm actually gonna skip a question because what you're talking about goes right into it So I had Mark Wright who he won the apprentice and he set up an SEO agency And he said by not having advisors or mentors It's like why small businesses stay small. They don't grow little scales Just want to get your take on that where like having that business coach and mentor helps you be accountable And I think it helps you make smarter decisions to like you said stop working on the shiny things to having the cheesecake Do the boring broccoli bits that are gonna be the right decisions Yeah, you're gonna have to title this episode don't eat cheesecake eat broccoli
John Wright: And That's what Mark Wright says he's absolutely true only know what you know and you don't know what you don't know obvious but if you've run you know, if you're running a business and you know, you've got it to half a million pound turnover or you know million dollars to know whatever the figure might be you've only been to you've got to there and
John Wright: Very much it's a case of what got you there won't get sorry what got you here won't get you there to your next stage
Phil Fraser: So you're then let's say you hit a million dollars turnover
John Wright: Shit, how do I get past that? I don't know how to get past that What if I had a mentor sat next to me who's taking his business to five million dollars? He's got the playbook He's read the playbook. He just says to me have consider this do this think about this and they're often and and We all do this we forget what we've learned was learned
Phil Fraser: So it's not a case of oh everybody knows that why would people not know that people don't know that because they've not learned it yet so if that having somebody who's been who's walked the path you're about to walk is invaluable and Most realistically for what you benefit most business coaches and business mentors and people like me not expensive
John Wright: Compared to you look at your various cost lines in your business and you look at what your inputs might be After having a coach it's an investment and as with any investment you put your money in you get a bigger return at the other end And yet business coaches are investment
John Wright: We in the UK
Phil Fraser: Don't have the same culture as maybe North America has in terms of yeah, everybody's a business coach. Everybody has a mentor It's like it's part of your business toolkit over here. It's
John Wright: almost a negative but you've also then got snake oil salespeople who've never run a business haven't been there haven't done it, but I've read a couple of books on coaching or Worst case scenario bought a franchise if just give them a playbook and go read that to your clients But yeah, it's you're investing in yourself as a business owner by having a business coach and by doing that you then benefit your team and your business Yeah, you mentioned there Would you say that your podcast has made it easier for people to trust you because you said there's so many people out there I think people on the buyer side they struggle with who can they trust? It's like trying to find an SEO agency
John Wright: And we know there's a lot of snakes out there that are just selling absolute garbage So would you say your podcast has helped you differentiate you between the hundreds of other people that are basically pitching the same thing? I think it the original plan was to raise my
John Wright: Awareness in my in the local area, which is why it's focused on leads, which is where I live and yes It has raised my profile and then the next stage is to go. Okay, it's the yes the no like trust I've got to get to I've got to get to first base which is no The like bit hopefully they get some of that nuance from me as a host but then and I've actually I've just been to a networking event this morning and
Phil Fraser: I'm really happy because about four people came up to me said I listen to the podcast and I was like
John Wright: Which is oh my god, it's real people think this is like a real podcast And he all those it's that imposter syndrome kicking in again. Yeah, so the no Level is yep tick. The like is then me following it up by networking being out there pushing my message and
Phil Fraser: The trust come can only come through things like testimonials and reading that sort of thing or just Getting to point as you do when you buy a lot of professional services is okay Do I get on with this guy? Can I do I feel like and I can trust him because at some point you've got to go. I'm gonna sit down with this guy and
John Wright: At points we might I might be discussing my innermost fears about my business. Oh shit. We're great. It's going down the toilet So yes, the podcast the aim of the podcast is to raise my profile. I
Phil Fraser: probably should put a bit more of
John Wright: Examples of what I've done in there as well not in a I'm gonna talk five minutes about what something has happened But to follow up or maybe if a guest says something I can then link it to something I've done So that that been there done that aspect gets out via the podcast But yeah at the moment, it's just by people saying to me. Hey, I listened to the podcast
Phil Fraser: And these are people I've never met before it's not friends and family. It's not my mom going to all my like podcast She's not target audience These are real people who do real business and they're listening and it's you know what it's like It's almost an honor that somebody gives you their time to listen to your podcast Which is why I'm hugely appreciative Of everybody whether it leads to any business or not by the nature of them giving me half an hour of their time Once a week is just amazing
John Wright: Yeah, I agree even for me to leave I've interviewed you for our affiliate interview series and I just know from I just feel lucky that I get a chance to ask people like exactly in your situation Almost 20 years of running affiliate sites and having an exit It's I feel like at some point I should be paying my guests to download and kind of steal some of their knowledge and it's just but it's great to get that feedback of people listening and I'm hearing some of that at conferences as well So I just try to put a bit more value into it And what I think is breed is not feeling the need to sell anything. Yeah
John Wright: Yeah, and the other thing and one of the things I sort of the flip side of that fear when people launch a podcast is Oh my god, nobody's gonna listen Yeah, oh yeah. It's like launching a party and nobody comes to your part But I looked at it the other way around and said, you know specifically with what I'm doing. I'm spending an hour
John Wright: Talking to to experience business people and even if nobody else listens I'm learning so there's a benefit there for me and and you've had this if you'd have run mark And I I remember watching him on the apprentice or watching Prince every if you rang mark Ryan today mark Can I pop in your office for an hour and just sitting ask you loads of questions?
John Wright: People like what the hell are you talking about? Why would I do that? But actually what you said is can you sit and you know record a podcast? They've done exactly same thing. It just happens. I might go in front of you. So even if nobody listens
John Wright: You as the host you're getting an hour's worth of benefit. I'm getting an hour's worth of benefit Hey, if nobody else is fine, I don't mind
Phil Fraser: Yeah recording mark was great because I just got a lot of insights and some of these podcasts record I just take a break walk away for an hour and just go Wow, that was I feel like I could have paid a thousand pounds and that would have been worth their time Yeah, if mark had said I'm not gonna the podcast but pay me a thousand pounds and do my mastermind
John Wright: You yeah, I'll do that Which ironically not he does run masterminds
Phil Fraser: He's given anyone great and what it wasn't that but it wasn't pitching But so I'm gonna put you on the spot and I want to ask for some of your favorite guests You've had on your show because I've listened to a couple of them people that I didn't know Obviously you're focused in the UK specifically reads But yeah, you've had some amazing guests and some stories of people that I've made it really big and I just love how the accidental
Phil Fraser: Entrepreneurship stories. Yeah the accident they I think I mentioned it in an interview with With somebody either this week or last week the amount of times people go Oh this happened by accident or I wasn't gonna do it But this happened and we've had I've done I'm just I think I've just hit 30 episodes So we've had people Talking about selling businesses for 50 million pounds We've had a guy talking about a 30 million turnover business
John Wright: Disappearing overnight because of covid. I had a guy who As part of his as part of his tail said oh I ended up in Australia So my follow-up question was how can we only do to win Australia?
Phil Fraser: He's always just after a nearly successful suicide attempt and you go wow So people are being really open at one of the I think probably my most downloaded episode was with a guy who took over the family business and
Phil Fraser: eventually for various reasons because the banks and the financial crisis in in I think it triggered from 2008 eventually had to walk away from the Family business and yeah, that's really tough But then we've had people who have built businesses from nothing People who are fifth and sixth generation who've taken over from great grandfathers That's one that was a couple of weeks ago and he's talking about you're changing it from what it was doing in 1860 when it launched to What he's doing going forward in 2024. So I've been incredibly lucky to get some fantastic
Phil Fraser: Learnings but as you say you're the other side of the world, but it's still learnings for you because there's just and everybody
John Wright: Is just so open in sharing? The business journeys themselves are really interesting But then to say to him, okay, what did you learn from that? What can you share with our listeners and that's the amazing bit because they're then saying we did this is what happened These are the lessons we learned and other people will go go back to it's almost going back to the mentoring Excuse me, you're learning from other people's businesses. So yeah, there's been a real variety and What I try to do is I started obviously by people I knew what connections of people I knew and that sort of thing But I've always all the way through thought I want to get somebody who's got something Wow in their business
John Wright: Yeah, where I interviewed a guy. I think it was about episode 10 or 11 who makes jukeboxes like good old-fashioned 1950s jukeboxes and I just I've seen them they're amazing absolutely amazing these things. I just thought that's a Wow. He makes the coolest product Tell me about it. And then it what fell out of that was lots of stuff about other things about
Phil Fraser: Manufacturing in Britain again young people into manufacturing. It just exploded into lots But so his Wow thing when I started with it was a cool product, but there's lots of other stuff around it So everybody try and get something that's okay. What's the Wow in the in your story, but so much falls out of them
John Wright: Yeah, and I want to continue the theme of talking about the benefits of podcasts So the next question I have is going back to our roots in iGaming Playbakers acquire was acquired by better collective for it. They close to 200 million dollars and They've recently posted that they've got for the top 50 sports podcasts Would you say that it's gonna be a powerful strategy for affiliate marketers to get into the space knowing what it's both done for us? personally
Phil Fraser: That's a really good question because
John Wright: In certain instances you can see podcasting as a
John Wright: Like a direct marketing tool Episode goes out. Here's a link 10 percent off 100 free whatever it might be On the other hand It's probably its biggest tool is brand awareness
Phil Fraser: um and
Phil Fraser: Within those two things. I think the difficulty is you've got to get people to listen. So you've got to create interesting content
Phil Fraser: That's the key to podcasting is interesting content
Phil Fraser: and the question is for affiliates Can you regularly create? interesting content That people will listen to because i've got to listen
John Wright: but also and this is why
Phil Fraser: as when we were in affiliate my
John Wright: Most of our marketing was online because if i'm listening to a podcast a bit about your listeners. I listen to podcasts I'm either driving or i'm doing something else. So it's a secondary thing
Phil Fraser: If you're asking me to make An action like sign up download whatever it might be
Phil Fraser: I ain't doing that in the car and I ain't doing it when i'm doing whatever else i'm doing So if you look at the from the direct marketing point of view, i'm not sure it's a brilliant tool We always did our marketing online because you're online you there. It's just click a link
John Wright: From a brand awareness point of view. Yeah
Phil Fraser: Just by the nature of if you're an affiliate and you run a podcast that gives you a brand kudos
John Wright: One of the problems or one of the issues is as you well know
John Wright: It's bloody hard work And then you go, okay, if i'm going to
Phil Fraser: If you're getting it properly if you're an affiliate you've got to take on a full-time member of staff because you're our podcast guy or girl
John Wright: So you all right, whatever that salary might be
Phil Fraser: On the basis that it's a maybe a brand builder or maybe it's you try and do diematic
Phil Fraser: You've then got to look at the opportunity cost of that money
John Wright: and saying okay, let's say Just pick a randomly pick and figure i'm going to give somebody 35 000 pounds a year
Phil Fraser: $40,000 a year to do this What could you do with that? That you know works a bit more effective is more direct
John Wright: but if you have if you're big enough to have
Phil Fraser: the marketing budget for brand building
John Wright: And this sort of goes almost back to where we started with which bingo by the time we were the size we were We were doing the which bingo awards. We were doing an industry annual report we were doing
Phil Fraser: And then we also created a website got it ranking and then you're basically producing you're basically making money with affiliate marketing now that we know that there's so much competition in the written space
Phil Fraser: and I think the barrier to entry into podcasting and video is the fact that You need to know what to fix something's interesting good content a branding purpose or objective And we also know that those podcasts they don't last very long And they don't always go for people to get started and even when they do get started, they don't always continue and they keep moving it on
Phil Fraser: Yeah, it's one of the things when I started I set myself a target of having 10 episodes
John Wright: Because there's a stat out there something like 95 percent of
John Wright: Podcasts don't 95 percent of the podcasts that have ever been launched
John Wright: Are not still live with more than 10 episodes something like that and then the thing with podcasting And it's people fall into the truck all the time. I actually wrote an article about it Hey, let's do a podcast because that's what everybody's doing. Hey, let's do a podcast And you go dave you're the podcast man You got a budget go and do it and about four episodes in dave goes bloody hell. This is hard work
Phil Fraser: And people give up. So if you are going to commit to it, it's
Phil Fraser: It's not difficult to do
Phil Fraser: But it's hard work to do it Consistently and consistency is the key to a good podcast as well as content and all the other things
John Wright: Yeah, I agree I think the consistency to even being an affiliate in creating content is something that I haven't been As steady over the years, but I know with this podcast I said I have to produce and launch the one episode per week and I got to make it interesting So it's everything from quality guests to the planning. I'm grateful that I Got uncomfortable and did it and I didn't want to be one of those five percent stats I said if i'm getting this started i'm putting my name on the line of saying hey We're using this to promote our own company and this isn't stopping. I don't really have an agenda of this is going to end One year or two years. It's I actually want to do this for a long time. It's it's on this affiliate marketing. It's the thing
John Wright: It's i'm down for always wanting to record Yeah, and like I say a lot depends on the size of the affiliate and the budget
John Wright: And the willingness and the commitment
Phil Fraser: But it starts with okay Why are you doing it if you're doing it because hey, everybody else has got a podcast. That's the wrong start point
John Wright: Agree And I want to go a little bit further into the work you're doing now as a business coach and mentor Yeah, and as someone that does that for people and also I know that with you You're always looking at other people going I think you need a coach and mentor So what are you seeing in people that they should be doing or patterns? Of both the things that they're doing wrong and maybe we can spin it around and go What are the collections of things that make for great case studies? Yeah, so my my core client base is
Phil Fraser: maybe three years old maybe half a million turnover up to
John Wright: 10 years old five million turnover something like that. So in that space
Phil Fraser: and the biggest problem in that space is the business owner
John Wright: not delegating enough Of the work Okay. Now that appears at different levels and it's different issues. But in almost every single example
John Wright: It's as simple as and your listeners may well be sitting there with the same thing is i've got a to-do list That's got 50 things on it
Phil Fraser: I've only got eight working hours a day I'm stuck and that's stuck be stuck in lots of different levels and all that sort of thing and
John Wright: The first thing I tend to do is start talking to about
Phil Fraser: work prioritization and Also, and lots of things the same sort of things fall out. So you got work prioritization. Okay
John Wright: That as a skill in itself Is important. So we're back we're back to our broccoli nut our cheesecake
John Wright: But before that is okay
John Wright: What should I be doing?
John Wright: And what should I not be doing?
Phil Fraser: And there's a number of ways I look at this is
John Wright: Are you doing the 10 10 dollars an hour jobs the hundred dollars an hour jobs or the thousand dollars an hour jobs?
John Wright: Or you flip it the other way around and you go. Okay. How much do you pay yourself as the owner of the business? you know, let's say you pay several hundred thousand pounds or even fifty thousand pounds
Phil Fraser: and They'll say I still do the bookkeeping and I still do the debt chasing and I still order the stationery and I deal with the landlord When the toilets get blocked And you go. Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute Would you pay? A bookkeeper or an admin assistant fifty thousand dollars a year to do that job. Well, no, of course wouldn't
John Wright: So why are you paying yourself? $50,000 a year today you're doing it you're doing one of the ten ten dollars an hour ten pound an hour jobs
Phil Fraser: So that's the the mindset of the delegation. Okay, what should I not be doing? Okay, if i'm not doing it How do I give it to somebody else? I haven't got anybody. We'll recruit somebody or get a va And then they go. Okay, if i'm gonna do that and I always saw it when I As I grew my business and again, as I said before this is something I did so i'm not
John Wright: Preaching something I didn't do so I was stuck and I always looked at it slicing bits of you off As an affiliate classic example, so I write the content. I do the code. I speaks the affiliates I go to affiliate conferences. I send out the invoices. I I check the money's come in I speak to the guys in india who do my coding I speak to i've got two freelance account managers Blah blah blah blah blah you've got you've got to get rid of loads of these things So you recruit yourself a coder you recruit yourself an account manager. You recruit yourself a bookkeeper I can't afford that then we go back to the
Phil Fraser: Ten pound an hour jobs hundred pound an hour jobs thousand pound an hour job Where do you as the business owner add most value?
John Wright: You add most value turning up london to go to ice and igb
Phil Fraser: But you don't add value chasing Gala and mecca because they haven't paid last month's affiliate revenue And that in a microcosm is part of the main problem business owners have is Not is doing the wrong stuff
John Wright: And they're not having the capacity to get rid of that stuff. So that's that's almost like the first bit
Phil Fraser: The second bit is then is the other side of the coin for that is okay. If i'm getting rid of all this stuff What should I be doing? And then obviously depending on the size of the depending on the size of the business you've got
John Wright: It's going to be it should be things like
Phil Fraser: long-term strategy managing and motivating staff It might be coordinating marketing, but it might be just
Phil Fraser: Discussing things with your marketing exec or your marketing manager or your marketing director depending how big the business is And one of the things one of the key parts in my business journey Was when I got a number two in to run the business
John Wright: And this comes on to another question which we'll get i'll get on to
John Wright: Is the first thing I'd do is okay. What's his job spec? What's he going to do? He's going to do this this which are all things I did so it's slice. It's the slicing things off me
John Wright: Then the other side of that coin is okay. What am I supposed to do?
Phil Fraser: Because I don't want to be treading on his toes because he that's his responsibility
John Wright: So then you have to look inward and go, okay, what should I be doing?
John Wright: And actually and I say this to loads of clients is have you got a job spec for yourself? No, it's my business. I run the business. I can do whatever I want wrong
Phil Fraser: You run the business. You should have a job spec and this name is where the rest of your team have a job Commitment out. Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? Which is partly where an accountability partner like a coach or a mentor or a sanny board comes in So you're then clear as a business owner what you should be doing and then you can focus on doing it
John Wright: And everybody else is clear on what they're doing
Phil Fraser: because you've given them job specs
Phil Fraser: and targets and expected levels of performance and all those sorts of things and that that is in theory that's one of the things on your Job spec as a business owner. He's managing your team, you know and
John Wright: wherever you are in your business growth
John Wright: Whether you're a startup whether you've got your first two members of staff Whether you've got a team of 10 whether you've got a team of a hundred and twenty managers who are heading up business units It's still the same thing. Are you doing the stuff you should be doing and if you're not
John Wright: How do you solve that problem? and that is
John Wright: That relates to every single client i've got Or had as well. It's the same issue all the time
Phil Fraser: And so not really sorry and obviously lots and lots of things then fall out of that. So how do I recruit a Marketing manager. How do I recruit a marketing director? If we can have a marketing team? I've been got to allocate a budget Yeah, lots and lots of things fall out of it But the the core thing is the business owner doing what the business owner should be doing And getting rid of however you get rid of the stuff. He shouldn't be doing
John Wright: Yeah, that's a great Answer of one core concept of why it's powerful and I think the irony is that it's easy for people to see other people making Those mistakes, but I think the reason why coaches and mentors are important is because Sometimes you can be so stuck in your routine and not really seeing what you shouldn't be doing That a guy like you will come on board and would actually see like this is quite clear This is what you're doing and obviously it's that same pattern you've seen both and over again
Phil Fraser: Maybe it's why therapists there's always a running joke that therapists need a therapist, but they're amazing at what they do Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's as I say all of these things are things I did
John Wright: all of the same things I When you start and I get this when you start up as a startup, you got no budget You got no funding. It's bootstrap everything. So we started by
Phil Fraser: back in the day invoicing on a word document and my Credit control was an excel spreadsheet and it was green if it was paid and red if it still wasn't paid something like that
John Wright: And I continued doing that continue doing continue doing until my accountant said oh, we've got a presentation We've got a presentation from a company called zero coming and you might like them. They're quite good So I went along and sat next to a guy haven't seen it's a guy who I knew And he said and I and he said what are you doing for your accounting moment? I said i'm using word in excel and he
Phil Fraser: You know i'm using sage but i might turn to it and at that point I thought
John Wright: And then so we got a zero in and then I got a bookkeeper in is the best thing I ever did It took so much shit off my desk
Phil Fraser: and Cost me I don't know. I can't remember which we charge. He probably charged 25 pound an hour
John Wright: And I was pulling I know what figure pick a number. I was pulling as my salary. What an enormous saving
Phil Fraser: And i've then got all that time to then go do the thousand pound an hour job
John Wright: Yeah, it sounds like common sense. But again, it's yeah, it's always like you said it's like when you're able to slice off little bits of you is when you can get sharper leaner and
John Wright: Yeah, like actually have an identity and say this is the one or two things I do rather than everything Yeah, and it's the one or two things that add the most value as well
Phil Fraser: Great insight So I want to end this off with the question I ask everyone is for What do you see as the future of affiliate marketing as it intersects with business intelligence as we seem to be getting Not just ai but we're more data-driven society these days
Phil Fraser: Let me caveat that with i've not been in the affiliate industry now for
John Wright: Coming on five nearly six years However, I still talk to various people who were in the industry and an affiliate and I think
Phil Fraser: Particularly gambling the issue has become as I see it from the outside the big have just got so much bigger
John Wright: That the old school bedroom affiliate just can't compete But then if you overlay And i was talking to somebody this morning about this
Phil Fraser: The issue with ai-driven chat gpt Dreadful content that's actually Overrunning real Quality content particularly in the rankings just makes people go how am I supposed to compete those? I think they're the two things that that
John Wright: Will make I use it broadly, but the bedroom affiliate the smaller guys Be able to compete because the bigger the biggest is just getting bigger and bigger Was it on tv? It was either on tv or radio, but there was an odds checker ad running and that's fine But back in the day odds checker were
Phil Fraser: A few lads like we all started bedroom affiliates, you know, they're now owned by a vc fund who can afford to pay
Phil Fraser: however much money to run radio ads um So it depends on it and it depends what your targets are what your aims are I know there is still a land grab going on in the us and other
John Wright: Non, I suppose you call non-core
Phil Fraser: Geographic areas africa i'm guessing is still going to be a big open territory for everybody to get stuck in But you got to set your targets now. I I think my story And similar other affiliates from my ilk of bedroom to a plc is harder. It's not necessarily impossible But I think you've got to have something different now It can't just be knock up a wordpress site put a few banners on and a few links
Phil Fraser: And let's make some money I can't see how that would work now. It have to be something else. Maybe podcasting is the solution I don't know, but there are so many different ways of doing it And as I say i've been out of the industry a long six years is a long time in the gambling industry So it's hard for me to judge but they will be my views from the outside It's just it and yeah again overlaying that on top of that you then got all legislation and everything back in the day Affiliates used to be i'll say yeah, these are our top 10 recommended
Phil Fraser: Uh sites to go and play at And somebody come on the site and go. Oh, they must be really good because they're the top 10 recommended sites to play at Whereas now it's this is an ad this is an ad this is an ad So when you read that you go, oh, maybe it's not necessarily top 10 places to play It might be where they're getting the most money from and that's the same with every that's not just gambling affiliates. That's every
John Wright: Affiliate market in the whole world, you know, if you go to any do any search you go to any website and it's got a top 10
John Wright: Don't trust it? Yeah, I think to summarize what you said when we talk about AI content and the this concept that you could actually ask like an AI Surgeon to say what are the best casinos already compare it? I think affiliates they have to be beyond content Like why is it recommended? It's recommended because we've done x y and zet like we actually have players that go through the site I think I think we're well past the aged information and I think some affiliates They're still stuck on it. Like I have to do content for the sake of content and not moving into
John Wright: The exchange of value world that were we live and breathe But I think affiliates they don't always see themselves as going I need to transition to that space as well Yeah, I think what the word you said there is key is where does the affiliate add value? And that's almost where an affiliate should start. Where can I add value to this discussion?
John Wright: And then that opens the gates to everything else not how can I produce a thousand words on?
John Wright: The latest slot site Phil. Thank you so much for doing this I want to give it back to you to say where can people subscribe to your podcast and we'll mention all the links including Your business as well Yeah, so if anybody needs a business sounding board, they can find me at www.filfraser.co.uk
Phil Fraser: Do not go to filfraser.com because that's a medieval costume company So don't go there if you see lots of pictures of robin hood, it's not me. You're on the wrong site You could always find me on linkedin. Just search filfraser And the podcast if you just google leads business podcast We're on apple we're on spotify. We're on Google podcasts while it still exists and we have a youtube channel as well And anybody if you're running a business and you need some advice, just give me a shout. Happy to talk to you You'd have to pay First call is always free And I can say the podcast is brilliant. I listened to it and you've got some amazing guests
John Wright: And actually i've got sorry one other thing as well if you go to filfraser.co.uk
Phil Fraser: And you sign up for my newsletter that you get a free tool to help your business as well If you're a business owner, so there you go. You get a free gift just by signing up We will add that link in the show now. Thanks a lot phil
John Wright: Pleasure. Thanks. Have me on Thank you for tuning in to the affiliate bi podcast I'd like to take this time to ask for small favor to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcast That helps us expand our reach to rank higher in podcast directories and reach more listeners