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Nick Cramp Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Nick Cramp
Nick Cramp is todays guest joining us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots business podcast.
Nick is one of the new types of business coaches with thinking that aligns perfectly with the message of Join Up Dots
Bigger is not necessarily better.
As we have seen from more and more guests who have appeared on the show, there comes a point in the entrepreneurial journey when they start questioning the chase.
They are spending their time chasing after more listeners, more email signups, more conversions….more more more and it doesn’t feel like how they imagines a successful business to feel.
They end up saying no to family commitments as they are too busy.
They walk the road to burnout with no other option until now. Perhaps they dont need to. Perhaps they already have enough its now time to make things better not bigger.
How The Dots Joined Up For Nick
As he says “I may not have all the answers but do have thirty years of observations and experience, initially as a business owner, and later as a coach.
Combining this with the theoretical knowledge gained from my MBA has enabled me to create a transformation programme that can help leaders and their organisations to successfully navigate the challenges the business growth curve may pose.
Sometimes a critical friend can be your greatest ally, a fresh set of eyes to help you join the dots.
I was a frustrated owner of a couple of businesses that never matured from adolescence.
I can therefore empathise with some of the dilemmas you may face as you look to potentially scale further.
I lacked a compelling vision and map, which I can now guide my clients towards.
I aim to provide the service, that might once have supported my aspirations and helped my businesses thrive.”
So when did he stop in his tracks and think to himself “Nah, this isn’t working. I need to get serious on this business building process”?
And what is the biggest obstacle he finds with his clients…their preciousness over what they have built, or simply a lack of business knowledge?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Nick Cramp.
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Nick Cramp such as@
Why western males are the ones that are driving the need for scale at all costs.
Nick talks about the importance of knowing what stage your business is in, and knowing when its transitioning.
Why having the fight and the desire to make a difference is the key component to making things happen.
and lastly……….
Why Nick is now the one that makes sure that the business works for him. not the other way around.
How To Connect With Nick Cramp
Return To The Top Of Nick Cramp
If you enjoyed this episode of with Nick Cramp, why not listen to some of our favourite podcast episodes such as Spike Ball Founder, Nick Ruiz, Sarah Caltieri or the amazing Luke Hyde
Or if you prefer just pop over to our podcast archive for thousands of amazing episodes to choose from.
Full Transcription of Nick Cramp Interview
Intro [0:01]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock and start getting the dream business and life you will of course, are dreaming God. Let’s join your host, David Ralph from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.
David Ralph [0:40]
Yes, good morning world. Good morning, listeners. Good. All of you. Thank you very much for being here with us on Join Up Dots. Well, today is an interview show. And today’s guest is is one of those new types of business coaches we’re thinking that aligns perfectly with the message of Join Up Dots bigger is not necessarily better. As we’ve seen for more more guests who have appeared on the show, there comes a point in the entrepreneurial journey when they start questioning but Chase, they’ve been spending time chasing after more listeners more email signups more conversions more, more more. And it doesn’t feel like how they imagined a successful business to feel they end up saying no to family commitments as they’re too busy. They walk the road to burnout with no other option until now. Perhaps they don’t need to. Perhaps they already have enough and it’s now time to make things better and not bigger. Today’s guest says I might not have all the answers. But I do have 30 years of observations and experience initially as a business owner and later as a coach. Combining this with the theoretical knowledge gained from my MBA has enabled me to create a transformation programme that can help leaders and their organisations to successfully navigate the challenges. The business growth curve may pose sometimes a critical friend can be your greatest ally, a fresh set of eyes to help you join the dots. Yeah, she says join the dots it should be Join Up Dots, but I let it go. I was frustrated oh no have a couple of businesses that never matured from other lessons. And I can therefore empathise with some of the dilemmas you may face as you look to potentially scale further, I lacked a compelling vision and map which I can now guide my client towards, I aim to provide the service that might once have supported my aspirations, and help my business thrive. So when did he stop in his tracks and think to himself, hang on? Hang on, this isn’t working, I need to get serious on this business building process. And what is the biggest obstacle he finds with these clients, their preciousness over what they’ve already built? Or simply a lack of business knowledge? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Nick Cramp.
Nick Cramp [2:58]
Really pleased to be here and looking forward to our conversation.
David Ralph [3:01]
So you were close. You say Join Up Dots on your website, you get
Nick Cramp [3:07]
close, I didn’t want to get sued. And you know, you know what you’re like, I don’t want all that lawyer stuff. So I just missed a bit out.
David Ralph [3:13]
Yes, it’s good enough. It’s close enough for me to to want you on to the show. So let’s just jump straight into this. Because this is something that I am I’ve been fascinated with for probably last two or three years. And I got fascinated with it. It’s a long story, but I’ll abbreviate it in case you don’t know, I hit an absolute acute burnout. I almost died. I looked at my business and bought I need to close down everything other than what is needed to work to get my health back. And at that point, I started terming it i anti scale. I was looking at it and thinking, I’ve already got literally everything here. Why am I trying to get more with this and more fat. And so it’s a perfect alignment with what I believe. Why do the welds still chase for these metrics? It’s ego, isn’t it?
Nick Cramp [4:02]
Yeah, it’s ego and more pacifically it’s Western macho ego. I think that Western males are the ones driving this agenda. And I think that it’s hard for people to go against the norm. And to take a stand. They just feel that they need to be continually bigger. And that goes from adolescence onwards. You know, as when we’re adolescent and age, we want to grow bigger, we want to and there’s that kind of inbuilt mentality. I think that we’ve got to be brave enough to go against the grain.
David Ralph [4:40]
But if you look at say, like nature, you don’t get an oak tree going, hang on. I want to be the biggest it just grows to what it is. And it’s happy with that. But it’s weird, isn’t it? Why we think that we have to grow bigger. It’s not my daughter. My daughter is the tallest one in the class. And she’s going oh, I’m too tall. Oh wow. height being tall. My wife is the smallest you’ve ever met in your life, you know, she she goes into places and she thinks it’s a live version of health. And she would love to be taller, everybody’s striving for something that they have that they’re not basically. And it’s strange when it applies to business as well.
Nick Cramp [5:21]
It is. And it’s, and as I say, I think it’s just something that we need to get bigger initially to survive. So it’s understandable, I think, in the startup phase and growth phase that there is this focus on getting big or big enough to be profitable and to be sustainable. But I think the challenge then is being aware enough and wise enough to realise at some point, you don’t need to get bigger. So So
David Ralph [5:51]
when did you stop and realise, Nick, right? You know, it big isn’t always the best way Did did you have this epiphany in your own business?
Nick Cramp [6:01]
No, I didn’t have an epiphany I it happened to me, rather than something that I realised I had two businesses, I had a health club, which I started when I was 24, and a preschool and nursery, which I started a few years later. And I was always have the mentality that I needed to be bigger, and bigger turnover, more customers, more clients. And that was mentality that I had and the one I adopted and work to. But I didn’t realise that there was more to it. And we got the stage where we just ran out of money ran out of energy. 2008 recession came and we couldn’t continue. So I ended up selling one business and closing the business. So it was only about within the last five years that I realised where my mistake was. And it’s only with hindsight, and the benefit of working with other businesses, that I’ve got the clarity on now, what went wrong for me and what opportunity I missed.
David Ralph [7:09]
You said one word that really flagged up to me, and it’s energy. And I think energy is the key thing. But as business owners, and certainly in the build stage, we do not reflect on the let’s preserve the energy, let’s use the energy in the right way. You know, I talked to so many people and I say, I’m just exhausted, I’m exhausted. And I say when was last time you had a break? When did you actually leave it behind? You know, you’ve got to leave these things behind to come back stronger. But we can’t because we feel like we’re we’re letting it down somehow.
Nick Cramp [7:46]
Yeah, I think that is the key. And I think the the analogy I make is with being the lead Husky or being sleigh driver. And I think that to get the business up and running, you need to be the lead Husky at the front setting the pace. And you’re pulling the business along at the speed that you can. But you need to realise that very early on, you need to put a team of Huskies in around you. So a leadership team below you in the business, that have the energy in the vision to maintain the pace without you being at the front. And you can then drop back to being the sleigh driver, given the strategic direction, not having to tie yourself at the front. And I think that’s the key factor is bringing other people in that share a level of vision and level ambition with you. They’re aligned with your values that can set the pace with you. And it’s not all about you.
David Ralph [8:44]
It’s all about you. Did you not want to start singing their neck?
Nick Cramp [8:49]
Well, I didn’t want to do that too early, because I think it might put off a few listeners
David Ralph [8:53]
Oh, you can never go too early. Never go too early. So I’ve got your book in front of me, which is it’s really, really a good book. If you are in business. This is like an MBA, I was saying to Nick before we recorded, I get so many books from guests. And they’re literally like one or two ideas stretched over about 360 pages. So you can sort of flick through it and get it really quick. This came through the poster me and I thought I’ll read this and I thought Blimey, I really need to read this because this is this is an MBA. So let’s just talk about this. How did you gain the content? How did you decide on what was relevant to your clients? Because it’s quite difficult, isn’t it? When you’re building an online course or you’re writing a book, you could literally have 70 sort of versions of it. How did you decide what was most important?
Nick Cramp [9:43]
I think it’s been slimmed down. I think the first version was even longer, and I wrote down everything that I thought they might need. So it was kind of everything I knew that might be relevant. And then I’ve tried to hone in on what I think are the core components that need to change between adolescence and maturity. So I talk about adolescent businesses being businesses that are, have been around for a while, are successful or making money. But they’ve got a frustrated, overwhelmed lead are in the middle of them. And they haven’t transition to a different structure. And they’re still stuck doing what they’ve always done. So I’ve tried to focus on what I think are the key elements, they need to change across the business, to move the structure and to move accountability from them to others. And also just to focus more inwardly on improving the offering improving processes. So the things that do focus on making the big, the big, the business better, rather than than bigger. So trying to drop the bigger mentality, and just have a period where everybody across the business is focused on better.
David Ralph [11:08]
Now, this strikes me as you know, obviously, a business book. But as I was reading, it is no different to a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, building their own businesses still has the three components, which apply, and I want to break these down, because these are important, okay. And mindset, this seems to be the number one thing that runs through your book, and I do a lot of coaching. Now, I never used to think I was going to be a coach, but I’ve kind of naturally fallen into it. And one of the things I say to people is, no matter what I tell you, if you haven’t got the mindset to make it happen, it’s not going to work. You know, you’ve got to have personal belief, you’ve got to wake up each morning with a refreshed view of okay, yesterday was tough. Let’s go again. And mindset is difficult. I heard the new Tottenham manager the other day talking about the Tottenham players. And he was saying, I think we’re going to be all right, he said, because they’re willing to fight. If you’ve got fighting you, you can learn the skills, you can learn the this sort of knowledge, but it’s the fight and the mindset, which is the big bridge to cross 100%. Agree,
Nick Cramp [12:17]
I think that when I started coaching 1315 years ago, I had a false belief that I could coach anybody. And irrespective of their mindset, I felt I could add value and help them yeah, I’ve now got the wisdom to realise that unless they’ve got the fight in them, unless they’ve got the desire, then it’s not going to work. And the first thing I’ll do with any potential client to spend 45 minutes with them, just chatting about what’s missing for them. What what they really want to achieve. And just to see whether I feel they are coachable. I want to know that they’re in that right space, that they are frustrated enough, that I’ve still got a lot of desire and ambition. And if that’s there, then I think I can work with them. And I think that’s why the mindset is key.
David Ralph [13:10]
Now, what you talked about, there was a red flag again, the frustration, because I remember when I was in my corporate gig, I couldn’t bear it. I got to the point every day, I was like Jesus Christ, like I never I was a bit you know. And so I was always peak moment of going back over this, I’ve got to do something on my own. I get a lot of people that connect with me, and they kind of they will they say no, I’m earning 100 grand amount, you know, I don’t really need to do is but just but it’d be a nice thing to do. Would they be clients that you say, actually, you’re not at that point, you haven’t got the desire, you’re going to be wasting your money.
Nick Cramp [13:50]
They would I think there’s better people out there for those people. I think that I’ve created or understand my niche now and I know what I’m looking for in a client and I know who’s good fit. And I think that they’ve got to be still committed to this. This is not a part time gig, transforming the business from where they’re out to one that runs autonomously without them takes an equal amount of energy and effort as getting the business off the ground is different kinds of work that they’ve still got to be all in so I want I feel that that’s the commitment they need to make.
David Ralph [14:29]
How do you give somebody commitment can can you just not
Nick Cramp [14:35]
how do I give someone commitment? Yeah, well,
David Ralph [14:37]
when you’re dealing with someone, I find that there’s certain points where you can see but commitment starting to dip, they were really good. They’re really focused and then they start to dip and that’s the moments where I always think that’s when I earn my money. When I start really bringing them to the fore and giving them the Ralph motivation rocket that I was called it the when you You’re firing into them, and you can see them grow. And yes, I’m ready to go again. So how do you give them that commitment?
Nick Cramp [15:06]
I think one thing I’m one thing I think it’s really important is that they lay out what they’re committed to very clearly at the start of our relationship. So I get them to put together what I call the core commitment, which is around their wives, their, what their house, their who’s, and just get them really clear on why they’re doing this, what they’re going to achieve, how they’re going to achieve it. And I get that printed off on a side of a four, and I have a copy and they have a copy. And that’s my remind a piece all the time that I get them to refocus on why they’re doing this. Yeah. And making sure that purpose, and I know it sounds cliche, but making sure the purpose is front and centre. Because if the purpose is just more money, it’s not that motivating, because at certain point, most of us are got enough, you know, a bit more just means that we go on a slightly nicer holiday, we’ve got a slightly shiny a car, but it’s not a massive motivator. So at some point, there’s got to be a bigger motivator than purely the money. So I spend quite a lot of time initially in the coach relationship digging quite deep, and trying to help them discover for themselves what really is motivating them, and what success truly looks like for them. And just almost ignore the trite, you know, I want more money, but for what, what’s the bigger house going to give you? What’s the more money what’s, what’s it going to do for you? And I think it’s down to that, David, I think it’s getting back to the core purpose.
David Ralph [16:44]
I’m always looking at my lifestyle as how do I simplify it, I’m a great believer in, if you can simplify your life being you need less customers, you need less hassle. You know, it’s one of those things, if you’ve got the big mortgage, and you’ve got the big house, and you’ve got the three cars, you’ve got all that your team that debt, or that that sort of expense, month after month after month. And I was talking to a guy the other day and a friend of mine from long term ago. And I said to him, if I didn’t have any kids, if I didn’t have any sort of wife or wherever I’d be living in Peru or somewhere, you know, I would just be basically finding somewhere with the the lowest living expense I possibly could find and, and kind of being retired constantly, you know, I don’t see why people look at trying to cross a bridge of financial expense without doing the work on that bridge, easier to cross.
Nick Cramp [17:45]
Now I would be in a year, next year in Peru, I totally, totally align with that, I think. And I apologise to any Swedish listeners you might have. But there’s a Swedish word called Lagu.
David Ralph [17:55]
We could sing Mac fly every morning together.
Nick Cramp [18:00]
And it’s about having enough. And you know, enough money, enough friends enough time. And that’s what I’m trying to create for myself and be the role model for clients around what that looks like. Seth Godin talks about a minimal viable audience. Yeah. You know, how few people do you need? Not how many people but how few people do you need, as you say, how few customers do you need or clients you need next year? To live the life you want to live? Why do you need more than that? And again, I think it’s a very western culture that we need to get the maximum return. And it breeds a never satisfied mentality. There’s always someone with more. It’s funny,
David Ralph [18:45]
Roenick isn’t it? It’s funny when you realise that you can actually create your own life, you know, and it’s, it’s, there’s moments on building a business, when you actually think and go, I can go again, I can make it even better for myself, you know, I don’t actually have to be there. Early doors in Join Up Dots. I went from working sort of 40 hours a week, corporate to 120 hours a week, Join Up Dots. Now, I work literally a couple of hours a day, you know, but I know exactly what I’m going to be doing in those couple of hours. And I get up at the moment. I’m big on health. So I spent more time meditating and all the things that a couple of years ago, what I said was madness. I spent more time doing that than I do on my business. But when I come up to it, as I say, I know, I know in the next two hours what I’m gonna do, and it might be three emails, it might be a blog post, it might be a podcast, it might be whatever, but I know exactly what it’s done. And that is a mindset bridge. Again, there’s a financial bridge that we have to travel but there’s a mindset when you go, actually it’s my bloody life and I can decide how much I want to work and how much I want to earn and who I want to be with it. It takes time, doesn’t it to get there?
Nick Cramp [20:06]
Well, it’s taken me 55 years to get, I would say it’s taking the time. And I think it’s only in the last few years that I’ve created a life that works for me first, and then works for others as a result of me being the best version of myself. And like you, I am a big believer in exercise and mindfulness. So I start the day with those activities. And I try and lock out client work to 11 Till for Tuesday to Thursday. I mean, that’s what I’m working towards as my ideal week. Yeah, that Monday is my creative week. I’m planning to start my own podcasts very soon. And use Monday for content creation. Use the middle of the week to work with clients and to earn a bit of money. And then Friday for whatever I fancy doing, whether that’s extra client bits, or, you know, random meetings with different people, but just trying to put in a structure that works for me that Max is my my energy. So when I’m with clients, I’m all in, I’m not tired, I’m weak, I’m alive, and the best version of I can be for them.
David Ralph [21:22]
I’ve started bringing adventure day into my life where I realised that I got into a routine of kind of nothing. And I think COVID was a big part of it. And so travel sort of went out the window. And then recently I said to the wife, okay, on a Monday, we go and we’ll explore somewhere in our county. And we’ll have a bit of lunch in a pub. And then we sort of come back and we leave about half past nine in the morning, we get home about four o’clock, and we feel like we’ve been away for two weeks, you know, it’s that kind of little adventure. And it’s been good for the spirit. And, you know, next week we are going just to a place called Tilbury, which is just up the road from us, near Dartford tunnel. And we’ve spent years going across the Darfur tunnel in the car. And so I say, Come on, we go on the ferry, where we leave the car, we get on a ferry, we go across in a little bow, and then wherever bit of lunch and stuff. And the adventure day has been amazing for my business. It really does just give me an understanding of what’s out there. And what I’m missing. And it makes me want to work harder to get more of it. It’s the adventure days been brilliant.
Nick Cramp [22:32]
And you epitomise one of the central themes that I try and get business owners to realise is that the business needs to work for them rather than working for the business. I spent 15 years of my life being an employee for the business I ran. I was first in I was last out. I was the one covering at weekends I was one or doing the extra hours. And I owned the business but I was working for the business. And the thing that’s so common. And the think the life you describe where the business is part of your life, but it isn’t the totality of your life is the correct way around. And it’s trying to I suppose evangelise about that in a way that encourages other people to jump in, and to take that critical decisions that need to take to move from where they’re out to where they could be.
David Ralph [23:28]
Now, in the book, this is interesting, because I used to talk about the power of three. And in my ageing state, I can’t actually remember why I used to talk about the power three, and then I saw it in your book. And I thought, oh, yeah, I used to talk about that. But what was I talking about? Explain to me your version of the power of three, because, yeah, it was a big part of my life for a bit. And I’ve gone totally blank can’t be what I used to talk about it.
Nick Cramp [23:56]
It’s about the capacity to hold simultaneously, certain amount of information. And if we go beyond three things, we forget one of them. So if you’re doing a presentation, or if you’ve got some goals or objectives, the wider you go, the more number you add, it just means that you’ll forget and you won’t focus on all of them. So three is proven in in many different circles to be the magic number that we can maintain focus on and we can hold those concepts simultaneously. And as soon as you go wider than that, then you lose impact.
David Ralph [24:39]
Where does that apply in the basic development of a business? If somebody is out there and they’re starting their own business? They are how do they bring the power of three into it to that’s basically what I used to talk about now. It’s all come to me sort of simplistic minimalism in business. And yeah, the power of three for me was I used to come up. Yeah, you’ve just brought it back to me. But my, my, my Dementia is a thing of the past. And now a new man again, I used to come up with a plan to do three things and being clear off. And they had to be the three dominoes. I used to talk about the three things that I’d sat thinking about that thought if I do this is going to have the biggest impact on my business.
Nick Cramp [25:22]
Absolutely. And I think in business, it just means that we don’t get too complicated. We just simplify things down to what’s our three core values? You know, you see some businesses that lists eight 910 values. And I’m sure if you quiz most employees, they wouldn’t get past three or four of those. Yeah, they can’t recall all 10. So what’s the point? And it’s like goals, how many goals can you actually focus on simultaneously? target markets, you know, I’ve got one is set of ideal client personas. And I’ve got two flanker client personas, which are ones that I will
David Ralph [26:01]
work with if you call them flankers. I just want to make sure
Nick Cramp [26:04]
definitely flanker, okay. Okay. So they sit on the flank rather than the central one. So imagine three fighter jets, you’ve got the main one, and you’ve got two wing men. So they sit together in alignment. But that’s all I want to work with. That’s what I want to write my content for. That’s what I want to focus on. Because as soon as I go too wide, it loses impact.
David Ralph [26:28]
Now, when When did you get to the point when in your coaching business, because we have this all the time, it may sound sexy time, and running a sort of multiple six figure podcast is in many ways sexy, but if I know if I talk to people, they get it. That’s interesting. Well, when I started it, eight years ago, they would go What’s up podcast, I had no idea. But there’s an awful lot of stuff, which is just rubbish behind the scenes, you know, and I always say, you’ve got the VAT to do, you’ve got your tax, you’ve got the invoices, you’ve got all that kind of stuff. You can’t get away with the crap from behind a business, but you can sort of like limit it. And through that process, I think we all get to a point where we go, I’m losing my mojo, I’m not feeling best, like I used to. How do you realise that you’re losing your mojo in a business, which is basically your dream business, it sounds great a Lepanto for a couple of days a week, you know, everything three days a week, please, I would have power three power three, you know, I’m bigger. I’m big go two days a week.
Nick Cramp [27:34]
I think for me, I get my Mojo from. And again, it sounds cliche, but the clients I work with, I think that when you find the right people and the tribe around, you have got the same set of values got the same identity, and I’ve got similar desires, then it’s very energising over the last 18 months, as we’ve all had to switch to a virtual service. In some respects, I’ve really found that I enjoy facilitating a group of clients over zoom, and getting that energy and discussion from the room and getting different points of view in different opinions. And I think that they’re great thing about being a coach, which I’ve only again, really realised fairly late in life is that you don’t need all the answers. That’s not your role. It’s about asking great questions. Yeah, it’s about holding people accountable to the answers they give. So, you know, the book can the ideology, and the concepts are all there to be challenged and to be discussed. And there’s nothing I like more than a healthy discussion around what vulnerability looks like for a leader. And I think that’s where I get my energy from, because the answer to that question, I can then take and build on for my next session. So I think it’s this continual evolution of the stuff you put out there, seeing what others can bring to that conversation. And at the end of that you’ve got an even better version of what you took into the conversation.
David Ralph [29:12]
It’s yeah, I find more often than not, I used to be a corporate trainer used to stand up doing presentations. And I was amazed at how much competence I could give information to people where I didn’t really know it myself. It was just, you know, I was literally a page ahead of them. I’d learned in the morning, stand up there and give them what they needed to do. I speak to people and they want to, they want to join up over dots. They want to know every single thing and I say Yeah, that’s great to sort of deep dive, but don’t get caught in that part of the business of trying to make everything perfect. Just get it out there. Deal with a few customers, see what works and then you become the student yourself. You learn you know, I do a lot of one to one coaching. I used to do a lot of group coaching. And when I thought to myself, I need to, I need to narrow this down a bit. So I did one to one coaching, and then you learn what is working for those people, and then you can come back with a different platform. I think that people are trying to become experts before have a need to be in in some way, although it’s a good thing to do.
Nick Cramp [30:20]
No, I would, I would agree with that. I think the hardest thing about being the leader of you know, a relatively large business or a medium sized business is accepting that you also need to be the learner at some point. And having all the answers is not what leadership is about. And I think that very early on, we kind of hardwired ourself that we need to be the expert in the business on finance, side sales, operations, marketing. But an aware leader, an astute leader realises that, if they know less than everybody else in the room on a subject, they’re actually going to learn in that meeting. If every meeting they go to they are the expert, there’s no learning for them. All they’re going to do is preach what they know. But they’re not going to gain they’re not going to grow that day. So I think it’s having the awareness to realise that we all need to be students at some point, ideally, every week. And that gives us that other perspective. But it also gives us the opportunity to grow.
David Ralph [31:26]
Book, there’s a page that I enjoyed a lot. And it’s just a sort of list of things, and it says Does this resonate. And basically, it’s how you apply the way you’re currently feeling about yourself and your business. And as we’ve touched on, you know, business is business, you get people that think that they’re going to throw something carpet, a few buttons on there, and it’s all going to be a walk in the park, you’ve got stuff to do behind the scenes. And the first one that you say is I thought success would be different from this. And I’ve been looking at that for about a week now. And I keep on thinking to myself, I don’t know if I can answer that at the moment. I think I could have answered it beforehand. But my business is going in a different direction. And I’m not really sure what I’m aiming for at the moment, I’m just kind of going with the flow. Should that be the way? Or should I define what I’m aiming for? At the beginning? Should I have a compass or a map?
Nick Cramp [32:22]
I’m a big believer in just having a compass and the leader having the compass and setting the general direction of travel. I the best holidays I’ve ever had are when we’ve been touring around France or Spain. And we’ve had a general sense of direction we’re going. But if we found somewhere really good would stay there for longer. Yes, yeah. And we weren’t tied to milestones, we weren’t tied to being in a certain place by a certain time, we were able to enjoy the journey and allow deviations to occur, we generally had to get, you know, obviously back to catch a ferry at a certain point. So there were some milestones that we could decide on the pace, sometimes we drove all quickly, sometimes move me 100. And I think that in business and in life, we need to allow ourselves that and I think the meandering periods are where you get the clarity on what actually the next phase looks like. And I talk about plateaus and embracing the plateau. And that, you know, if you’re climbing a mountain, it’s not a continual climb, that mountains don’t work like that we have a childhood view that a mountains like a triangle, and then you just climb at one side and down the other side. In reality, it’s climbs is plateaus. It’s small down hills. And it’s a kind of overall climb, but it takes on different phases. And I think the plateau period, David are really important because that’s when you get the chance to look back. Enjoy the view, pat yourself on the back for what you’ve achieved so far. But you can also use that time to think about the next phase. What do you need, what energy what people around you? What supplies what resources? So I think you know, that period where you’re not quite sure what the next phase looks like, but you’re know, the general direction you want to take is fine. For me anyway, that’s that’s how I operate.
David Ralph [34:22]
I’ve been in a plateau for two years now, literally since COVID. Hit I realised I was on the conveyor belt. And when that hit, it was like, Okay, this is my chance to you know, change direction. And I’ve realised I love the plateau. You know, I find it nice to just sit on a flat bit of ground instead of climbing all the time. Actually, now I’m starting to get that itch, that urge to sort of get going again, but I I’ve needed that for a couple of years of just going on. No, it’s Monday morning, but I just watch a film on Netflix. But you know, and that’s what I mean. This is what where you get your business to support your lifestyle? And so you know, I need very few clients to live my life. And so yeah, I can just do that I can go, Oh, come on, let’s go off for a few days I can’t be bothered and the word, I can’t be bothered. And it is what it is probably my my two biggest phrases that I say in my house.
Nick Cramp [35:22]
Yeah, I get told off the second one all of the time.
David Ralph [35:26]
It is what it is. Yeah, brilliant. So I like you even more, Nick. Good. So it’s a key thing, though, isn’t it because I used to try to make the round pebbles square to get it into a hole. And now I will spend more time just rummaging around trying to find the right paper. And if I can’t I go is what it is. It wasn’t meant to be. And I sort of move away. There’s no striving, I realised that a few years ago, I’ve kind of become Taoist in principle, where it’s almost effortless action. And if it’s trying to make that pebble into a square one to fit in that hole, it’s the wrong pebble, I’m just gonna leave it and your money goes up, your energy goes up, your freedom goes up, everything is good, because you’re not wasting time doing the thing that doesn’t work.
Nick Cramp [36:20]
Yeah, I think that resonates with me, David, I think that, you know, this idea of having lots of followers having lots of impact on social media, you should be on this platform, you should be doing this, you should be doing that. It’s never ending. And you’re always kind of at the beck and call of others, or the beck and call of the market or any current trends. I think having the wisdom to opt out and say no, that’s not for me. And just finding what works for you is really hard, but really rewarding. And just accepting that, as you say, you might not have a square peg. And that’s okay. Maybe you need to invent a round hole, and then your round peg fits it. And I think that’s, you know, what I’m trying to advocate to the people I work with, is that acceptance of where they’re at, and whether apps generally and quite a good place if they allow it to be a good place. Yeah, one strange things I ended up doing with a lot of my clients is given them permission to take time off, you know, giving them permission not to go into the office, and spend the day working on strategy in a different location, go and find a nice cafe, sit there and do some strategizing or do some creative work. And it’s amazing how difficult it is for some people to let go of being in the business working continually in their office. And that’s how they view work. And that’s hard, isn’t it?
David Ralph [37:57]
It is hard. And I’ve got one question. For years before I play the Steve Jobs clip. I’ve been so engrossed in this conversation, I’ve realised I haven’t played any of the things I normally play. I just suddenly looked at them and go, Oh, yeah, I normally do that I was in the flow is why start a podcast, I coach podcasters. And I spend a lot of time saying to people, it’s just another thing to do if your business is running. All right, why why do a podcast? What’s your point of view and
Nick Cramp [38:27]
my point of view on the podcast is that I feel I’ve got a message that I want to get out to a wider audience. So I think that from the feedback I’ve received my ideology and ideas help people create a better relationship with their business. I know I can only work with X number of people directly. So for me, the podcast is a way of encouraging others to think differently about their business.
David Ralph [39:01]
Better before wider, better before wider. That’ll be your next book. I’m gonna.
Nick Cramp [39:06]
I’ll pencil that one down. Yeah.
David Ralph [39:09]
As your first podcast episode and say, I’m a hypocrite. I’m a fraudster and a charlatan. And yeah, I’m getting my message out to more people. Well, let’s listen to Steve Jobs. Now he created these words, and I love hearing them Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs [39:23]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference. The question
David Ralph [39:58]
is that Does it make all the difference?
Nick Cramp [40:03]
What looking back and understand having
David Ralph [40:06]
the faith and having the trust to just keep on moving forward?
Nick Cramp [40:11]
Yeah, I think having the confidence to try different stuff and move things forward is essential. I think that having a degree of uncertainty within our lives is energising. So I think that’s a really important aspect that Tony Robbins talks about six human needs, and two of those are incompetent with each other. Because one is certainty. One is uncertainty. And if we have too much certainty, we’re bored. And if we have too much uncertainty, were paralysed by fear that there’s a medium happy point between the two, which is motivating and propelling. So I think is really important.
David Ralph [40:56]
And when When did your dots join up a nouveau ah, hang on, this makes sense. All the crappy times all the good times? I can see, yeah, yeah, this is where they were heading.
Nick Cramp [41:07]
I think, as I was finishing my book, to be honest, I think that finishing the book and actually sending off the manuscript. At that stage, it felt like I had joined up the dots and created something which was of value to others, and was a value to me. So it was kind of what I was going to be doing for the next period of my life. It felt really energising that I’d got a finite amount of stuff to talk about a minimal amount of clients that I would need to work with. And that meant that I could put like, put work into a smaller part of my life and spend more time doing other things or think only at that stage really have I managed join the dots have been a way that I’ve got a life that truly works for me now. And a balance that I didn’t have previously.
David Ralph [42:12]
You still didn’t say Join Up Dots, you went joined the dots. Yeah, you haven’t learned you’ve been on this show for 46 minutes. I thought he’s gonna He’s gonna master this. And he’s gonna master this.
Nick Cramp [42:21]
That’s just grey hair and forgetfulness. I apologise.
David Ralph [42:24]
Yeah, you’re when you’re, you’re winning that game, just keep on practising it every day, just wake up and say, Well, this is the part of the show that we’ve been building up to. And this is the part that we called a sermon on the mic, when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back and speak to the young Nick, what age of Nick, would you like to speak to him? What would you tell him? Well, we’re gonna find out because I’m going to play the music and when it fades is your time to talk. This is the sermon on mic.
Outro [42:56]
Here we go with the speed up the server man on the mic.
Nick Cramp [43:04]
So I’m going to go back in time, 20 years, until to 35 year old Nick, he was running two successful businesses that didn’t really understand what the businesses were for, and felt that he was defined by the businesses rather than having his own identity. My first piece of advice to 35 year old neck is less blagging. And be comfortable sticking your hand up and saying, I don’t know. I think that 35 year old Nick was scared to admit when he didn’t know something, and felt leadership was about having all the right answers. I did an MBA course. And there’s so many times in lectures where I didn’t understand something, but I didn’t have the confidence to stick my hand up and get someone to explain to me, and I really wasted that opportunity. My second piece of advice would be to hang out with different tribes. I think that I had a very insular existence, and therefore, I only could find a certain amount of answers to a certain set of problems. And I think that I mean, there wasn’t the opportunity of social media and things like that there is now but I think just having again the awareness to realise that I need to hang out with different people. If I’m going to find different solutions, and be challenged in different ways, would be one piece of advice I’d give And the third piece of advice would be, not to put so much importance on stuff, to appreciate that everything is a practice. And if it doesn’t work first time, there’ll be a second time. And just to be more daring, just to try more things, both in business outside of business, and not to be so bothered about what other people think, or their reaction to stuff. So less blagging hanging out with different tribes and keeping the curtain up and realised everything’s a practice.
David Ralph [45:36]
I love a bit of blogging. I do. When you said that, Nick, Nick, isn’t isn’t blogging good?
Nick Cramp [45:43]
blackens good to a point that at certain point, you don’t learn because you pretend that you know the answer. Yeah. And it goes back to being a student in the MBA. There’s so many things I didn’t know. But I felt I was the only person didn’t know. Yeah, the real 35 people, I didn’t want to be the person sticking my hand up saying, by the way, what’s that one, sir? You know, can you explain that to me, because I felt everyone else knew what they were talking about.
David Ralph [46:08]
I remember doing a course on relationship, database management SQL on procedural language. And I was in a classroom. And I couldn’t understand what the guy was saying. And I would look around at everyone, and everyone was jotting stuff down. I’d be thinking, what are they writing? I can’t actually understand a word he’s saying. And it was it was sort of a terrible experience. I did actually pass it. I don’t know how I passed it. But it was Yeah. Yeah. I am the king of lag. And I’m happy with that. So Nick, how can be audience connect with you, sir?
Nick Cramp [46:42]
There’s a number of ways you can jump on my website, which is www Nick kramp.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, under the normal search way, and you can find me on Instagram, and you can email me. So Nick at Nick cramp.co.uk,
David Ralph [47:01]
where have all the links in the show notes to make it as easy as possible? Um, Nick, thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again, when you’ve got more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is always the best way to build our futures. Nick, thank you so much,
Nick Cramp [47:20]
David, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for your time.
David Ralph [47:25]
So, better before bigger, you get to a point where you think to yourself, Okay, do I need to keep on scaling it because scale comes with hassle. And by looking at what you’re actually offering, and thinking, how can I improve upon that, so that I can charge more to the same amount of people is a game changer, it really is a game changer. And I can’t emphasise enough but if you haven’t developed a value ladder, ie, what’s the highest value point in your business and how you can then scale down from that to sell to more and more people then you are missing a trick and you can come over to Join Up Dots and I will help you out with that if you want. Okay, so until next time, my friends you look after yourself, you stay sexy, and I will see you again. Cheers. See ya. Bye bye.
Outro [48:18]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant sell fewer wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to join up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.