How To Build A Business That Doesn't Depend On You

Ange Dove (00:01)

Welcome to You're the Boss Podcast Show and today I have a very special guest with me and that is Peter Bukla. Peter, welcome to the show.

Peter Boolkah (00:12)

Ange, thank you so much. Really kind of you to say special guest. You say that about everyone, don't you?

Ange Dove (00:19)

It's lovely to have you here. So Peter, just just let us know who you are, what you do, just so we've got some context for today's conversation.

Peter Boolkah (00:30)

So today I am an author and keynote speaker, but the job and I also I do still do business coaching. So I've been a coach for twenty one years. Prior to that I've also owned an Italian restaurant and worked for McDonald's for sixteen years.

Ange Dove (00:41)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (00:48)

okay. All right. So but mostly so now a keynote speaker and book author with background in coaching and helping businesses, as I see from the background of your screen there, helping businesses not to suck, right?

Peter Boolkah (00:57)

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (01:08)

Yeah, well and helping basically business owners build a business that doesn't destroy their life.

Ange Dove (01:15)

I love it. I love it. That's what everybody needs. Okay. So just to start off then, just going to let's just dive into a bit of background as to how you moved from working for someone to running your own thing and what was your journey through that. Because I think a lot of people like to hear that people have done it, that it can be done. but just keeping their just having their eyes open to to what the journey is along the way.

Peter Boolkah (01:45)

Okay, so have you ever seen the film Top Gun Maverick? Okay. The reason he was never a general was because he pissed off the admiral.

Ange Dove (01:50)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (01:59)

Ha

Peter Boolkah (02:01)

Now you are laughing but unfortunately I pissed off the Admiral. And at one point look there was never gonna be room for us both in the organisation. So I departed.

Ange Dove (02:05)

That's what you did.

Ange Dove (02:12)

Right.

Okay. Okay. So you didn't get along with the boss, in other words, right?

Peter Boolkah (02:20)

Well it wasn't even my boss, it was the boss's boss, but he took umbrage to something I said years and years ago and just held a grudge. I mean the guy was just a dickhead. Actually still is a dickhead today, but he can't help that, he hasn't grown as a human.

Ange Dove (02:22)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (02:33)

Okay. Well that's a that's a key thing. We all must keep growing, right? all right, so so that's that's what made you leave, but then so when you left, what was that like in terms of were you thinking, well, what what am I gonna do now? Or did you have something planned before you left?

Peter Boolkah (02:52)

No, okay, so I needed to replace it in Camp So I bought an Italian restaurant.

Ange Dove (02:56)

Yeah. okay. Okay.

Peter Boolkah (02:58)

Yeah, because I love cooking, so I thought that'd be a good idea. What a dickhead. That was a stupid idea. Don't ever do that. That was such hard work for such little money. An interesting thing with that one, I actually went into business with someone that worked for me in McDonald's. And I never asked him where he got money from. So there's me thinking I was going into a partnership. His wife lent him the money and then thought she was my business partner.

Ange Dove (03:11)

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Ange Dove (03:22)

okay. No. dear. Okay. All right.

Peter Boolkah (03:24)

Let me tell you, threesomes don't work. It was just the worst year of my life.

So yeah, and also because it wasn't what I was experiencing at McDonald's, I also had lever's remorse. In fact, you know what, I actually had it took me three years to get off my corporate career to get over it. Because look when you when you when you're that when you're somewhere for sixteen years and then you leave, it's like getting a divorce. Except probably more painful.

Ange Dove (03:36)

Mm.

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (03:46)

Okay. Okay.

Ange Dove (03:56)

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like you lose you lose your identity, right? You it's

Peter Boolkah (04:01)

Yeah, totally. All of the above. You lose your identity, you you lose your confidence. There are so many things you end up losing. And actually thank God I had a really good psychotherapist and she helped me work through it over a number of years. But look, loss is real. Loss is real. When you if you do want to leave a corporate career and you've just got to make sure that if it's a traumatic event

Ange Dove (04:04)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (04:07)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (04:13)

Okay.

Okay, all right. It is, yes, it is.

Peter Boolkah (04:27)

Then you've got to make sure that you've got the support in there to transition from one to the other. So I sold the restaurant. You're gonna ask me what I do next. I was actually gonna go back into corporate. A lot of people say to me, how did you get into coaching? It must have been your long life burning ambition to be a coach. People that say that are life with their backside, it's the biggest load of bullshit going. To be honest with you, I was gonna go into another corporate gig.

Ange Dove (04:30)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (04:35)

Hm. Okay.

Ange Dove (04:54)

Right.

Peter Boolkah (04:55)

And I was in between at the moment at that time and I got approached by a franchise correction coach. And I look, out of curiosity, I said, okay, yeah, sh let's let's have a look at what you have to offer. And I wasn't gonna do it till I met the final franchisee. And it was really weird. And I didn't you know that sometimes you get people in your life at the right time for the right reason. And he was what I needed at the time.

Ange Dove (05:00)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (05:20)

Yes, definitely.

Right.

Peter Boolkah (05:24)

So I ended up joining him and we ended up having fifteen years together as partners. And it really was what I needed to develop my new identity and get over the old one. So for that I'm always gonna be forever grateful.

Ange Dove (05:38)

So what were you doing with him? Right, okay. So what did you do with him?

Peter Boolkah (05:45)

He was a business coach, I was a business coach, we had a practice. Yeah.

Ange Dove (05:48)

okay. Okay. So you do coaching with him, so it's a partnership kind of thing.

Peter Boolkah (05:53)

Yeah, I mean there was more there was more of us that eventually in the partnership in the business. But the thing was for me, because he was that many more years older than me, he had that wisdom that I was lacking at thirty four.

Ange Dove (05:56)

Yeah. Okay.

Ange Dove (06:03)

Hmm.

Ange Dove (06:07)

Right. Okay. So so what kind of things did you benefit from from him? How did he help you?

Peter Boolkah (06:13)

He he had a perspective, he had a perspective on life. That he had been on a journey that I'm yet to go on. So he was a bear he was able to see my situation from a totally different lens.

Ange Dove (06:16)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (06:20)

Right. Okay.

Ange Dove (06:25)

Mm. Okay, so that was able to help you because you got that new perspective that you would have seen. Yeah. Yeah. So now you have wisdom. You have the wisdom now. It's time for you to pass it on.

Peter Boolkah (06:31)

You know what the interesting thing is, I'm now the age he was when I joined him. So I can now see I I I see where he's coming from.

Peter Boolkah (06:44)

Or I I either have the wisdom or I'm less stupid. I don't know which one it is.

Ange Dove (06:51)

Okay, so so how did you then get into speaking? How did that happen?

Peter Boolkah (06:58)

It's just a na it was a natural progression. As you start dealing with bigger clients, as you start to develop as a coach, you start to have areas where you kind of specialize. And mine happened to be on business exit and teams. And I just started speaking.

Ange Dove (07:08)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (07:13)

Okay. And what topics were you're speaking on?

Peter Boolkah (07:14)

Look, and it wasn't the biggest part of my it was never the biggest part of what I did. But it was part of what I did. And where I am today, I just want to transition I mean, I'm in the process of transitioning more to the speaking than I am the coaching.

Ange Dove (07:18)

Right.

Yeah. Okay.

Ange Dove (07:29)

Okay. Okay. So that's where your direction is heading. And you're you're speaking on the same topic, then you're how not to suck in business or Okay.

Peter Boolkah (07:34)

Yeah. No, see the topic has totally changed. T see if that was the whole thing. I spoke a lot on very generic stuff. Today I'm speaking very much around the business and how to get sort of founder independence.

Ange Dove (07:50)

Yeah, okay. So that's what we're going to talk about mostly today, right? Is how to get that founder independence, how to have the business run without it depending on you being there. Right. And this is, I think, this is going to help so many people listening to this today, because this is a trap I think a lot of business owners fall into where they get into the business. They start a business probably because they they're good at something, but they're not necessarily good at running a business, right?

Peter Boolkah (07:54)

Right.

Ange Dove (08:18)

And also then they get into the trap and they can't get out of how how do I get out of the running in the business, right? And ru and work on it instead. So what are your what are your secrets to not having your business suck, right?

Peter Boolkah (08:23)

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (08:33)

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. This is gonna be interesting 'cause I'm gonna I'm gonna first piece of controversy. No one falls into the trap, they create the trap.

Ange Dove (08:42)

Mm.

Ange Dove (08:45)

Okay. Right. Yeah. Hmm.

Peter Boolkah (08:47)

Let me explain to you why. Let's take the UK and according to the ONS statistics, which change all the time because they don't know what they're doing. But anyway, there's approximately 5.6 million small to medium sized privately owned businesses, of which 4.2 million are solopreneurs. So you talk about 4.2 million that will never hire somebody. Well, think about this logically.

Ange Dove (09:03)

Mm.

Ange Dove (09:09)

wow, okay.

Peter Boolkah (09:18)

Jobs need to be done in the business. So if you're a solopreneur, you do them all. So when a business starts, yeah, you do wear all the hats. But think about how you start a business. When you start a business, most people will start with relatively little capital. You guess sometimes businesses start as a partnership, yes. But that's quite rare in the grand scheme of things. You start as a solopreneur. So the second you open the door, you are ahead of sales.

Ange Dove (09:23)

Yeah, you're wearing all the hats. Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (09:37)

Mm, mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (09:47)

You're head marketing, you're head of finance if you understand your numbers, but you're still ahead of it, even if you don't understand it. You're head of operations, you're even head of HR in case you need to discipline yourself. But the reality is you're ahead of everything. And when you start your business, it it's gonna be eighteen hour days because jobs need to be done and you are doing it. So from the very second No, absolutely so from the very second you start your business.

Ange Dove (09:52)

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Ange Dove (09:58)

Yes, yes.

Mm.

Mm. Yeah, and there's nobody else to do it. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (10:16)

You are training that business to depend on you. Whether you realise it or not, everything comes to you.

Ange Dove (10:19)

Yeah.

Mm, mm, mm.

Peter Boolkah (10:25)

So you've set the trap.

Ange Dove (10:27)

Right. Okay.

Peter Boolkah (10:28)

You've set it. No one else has said it. You've set it. What most people never do is they never escape the trap.

Ange Dove (10:32)

Right. So how should Okay. Okay. So how how should they do things differently so that they don't set that trap in the first place?

Peter Boolkah (10:45)

Okay, so to answer that question, we've got to look at why they do what they do in the first place. I think that's a great place to start. So let's go back to the normal education system. Most people go to school. Some go to college, a few go to university. By the time they finished all their studies, they have education fatigue and they don't want to study no more. You know what the crazy thing is you can start a business with just having an idea.

Ange Dove (10:50)

Uh-huh. Okay. Right.

Ange Dove (10:56)

Mm.

Peter Boolkah (11:14)

And that's what most people do. They go into business. I'm gonna do this and it's gonna give me this great life, I'm gonna get all my time back and all of this stuff. Wonderful. They go and start their business. But that having an idea alone isn't enough to create a successful business. Now I'm of an age, unfortunately, where I was told you've got to work hard, you've got to work hard. If you work hard, you're gonna make money. And actually, do you know what that was you you're nodding, you had the same your parents were the same, weren't they?

Ange Dove (11:43)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (11:46)

But you know what, that would have worked, that did work in the industrial age. And a bit important of my life was the industrial age. Because actually it was only in 2004 that the industrial age came to a close. And then the beginning of the digital drug knowledge worker age. Today, we are living in the most complex era of business ever. It's so fast changing. You can't get away with just hard work.

Ange Dove (11:50)

Mm.

Ange Dove (11:54)

Hmm.

Ange Dove (11:58)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (12:12)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (12:16)

You've got to be a professional business owner. You've got to be you've got to learn business. Because if you don't, unfortunately you are screwed. And statistics do not lie. 80% of businesses that start up fail within the five first five years. They don't fail because it's a bad business idea. They fail because the founder didn't have a Scooby about what they were doing.

Ange Dove (12:22)

Mm.

Ange Dove (12:27)

Hm.

Ange Dove (12:34)

That's five K's. Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (12:39)

Mm.

Peter Boolkah (12:46)

That is the unfortunate thing. They didn't know what they were doing. They never learned the skills on how to run a business. That's why they went bust. And unfortunately, the economy only knows two things. And think about the economy. The economy isn't racist. It doesn't care what your gender preferences or what your gender is, your religion, your skin colour doesn't care about any of that stuff. It only recognizes these two things your competency.

Ange Dove (12:50)

Right. Yeah.

Mm.

Mm.

Peter Boolkah (13:16)

Or your incompetency. Now, if you're competent, you're gonna get rewarded. If you're incompetent, you're gonna get punished. And this is really important. One of my favorite one of my favorite quotes is God created man in his image. Now let's just take the principle. If that is to be true, then the founder created their business in their image. So everything that is wrong in the founder's business.

Ange Dove (13:21)

Okay.

Ange Dove (13:25)

okay.

Ange Dove (13:34)

Mm.

Peter Boolkah (13:46)

It's down to the founder. You can't blame anybody else. but the economy's bad. Yes, the economy is bad. Throughout history the economy's been bad. The difference is you don't know how to navigate the economy right now because you've not learned the skills. And unless you learn the skills, welcome to the eighty percent club.

Ange Dove (13:48)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (13:55)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (13:59)

I

Ange Dove (14:05)

Whoa, okay. So that's a reality check, right? For anyone thinking I'm starting a business, it's the truth. Yeah, definitely. So what do you what do you recommend then that people starting a business do? Should they when you're saying they've got to know how to run a business, so I presume that would be having a mentor or hiring a coach that can guide them through that process, or

Peter Boolkah (14:11)

It's the truth.

Peter Boolkah (14:33)

I think it's a number of things. Definitely have a teacher, advisor, mentor, coach. And or coaching can start relatively cheap these days. I mean there's good programs and everything. There is something to fit everybody. But learn business. Learn business. Don't be one of the eighty percent. The other stuff is start is start studying business. Read a book. I'm not trying to plug this by any stretch of the imagination.

Ange Dove (14:37)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (14:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Read a book.

Peter Boolkah (15:02)

Well no, you you've got to read a book. You've got to get into the habit of learning. And look, sixty-eight percent of my clients are dyslexic, that's fine. That's why I created the audiobook. There's no reason not to learn anymore. Start learning. Get into the habit of reading a book a month. Then bring that down to a book a book every three weeks, then a book every two weeks, until eventually you get to a book a week. Can you imagine this? Over a five year period, you go through 150 books around sales, marketing.

Ange Dove (15:06)

Definitely, definitely. Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Ange Dove (15:19)

Mm, mm. That's good advice. Yeah.

Ange Dove (15:26)

Right.

Hmm. Whoa.

Peter Boolkah (15:32)

Finance systemization process. Can you imagine your decision making ability at the end of year five? There is no way at the end of year five you are not successful and making money unless you are absolutely stupid. Then the economy will publish will punish you. End of the story. But you then stack in the cards in your favour.

Ange Dove (15:34)

Yeah. Nice.

Mm.

Ange Dove (15:57)

So read up about business, get to understand it, put it into practice will be another thing. Don't just read, put it into practice. and then so let's take apart some of those things then. So if someone is gonna be is gonna set up the business so that the business doesn't rely on them. So they're you know, they're out of it, they're working on building it, they're not working on the day-to-day tasks that keep it going, right?

Peter Boolkah (16:03)

Pi

Peter Boolkah (16:26)

Mm.

Ange Dove (16:26)

So what's it do you have like a formula that that people have to follow or is there a certain hm?

Peter Boolkah (16:33)

Do you know what it's not so much a formula, Angie, and I'll tell you why. Because each business is unique, each founder's unique, and therefore they're gonna have strengths and they're gonna have weaknesses. There's actually looking, okay, what are they really good at? What are they really bad at? The one thing I will say that's an absolute must. If you're gonna start hiring people, and the only way you're ever gonna get freedom back is by buying back your time. Because jobs need to be done in the business. So if you don't want to be doing those jobs, you're gonna have to hire people to do those jobs that you're not great at.

Ange Dove (16:38)

Mm. Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Ange Dove (16:54)

Yes. Yes. Exactly.

Ange Dove (17:00)

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (17:01)

But in order to do that, one thing I say to business is do not make the mistake that most founders make. They hire people into the business, they haven't systemized the process the job that they want them to do. They say, Okay, go ahead and do it. That person spectacularly fails at that job because the founder hasn't learned how to hire correctly, train correctly, manage correctly. So they've set that person up for failure, and then

Ange Dove (17:13)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (17:20)

Yeah.

Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Peter Boolkah (17:29)

They reinforce in their head where I told you no one can do it as good as me.

Ange Dove (17:33)

okay.

Peter Boolkah (17:35)

And then they they they they reinforce the trap that they're they're the only one that can do this shit. And they wear it as a badge of honour. I think it needs to be we need to change it from being a badge of honour to a badge of stupid. But then that's the whole thing around the ego and all of that stuff.

Ange Dove (17:39)

Mm.

Right.

Ange Dove (17:47)

Yes, I agree. I agree. And that's that's that's the thing as well. I think once the so there's two parts to that. There's one is like you you've got to hire, but then you've got to hire well, right? You hire the right people. And that was something I did wrong when I first started my business is I hired the wrong people, just f thinking that I could train them up, right?

But that's a waste of your time and energy and you're basically paying them a salary for them to learn and maybe not necessarily that well either. So when you hire someone who can come in and do the job straight away, my god, it's night and day. It just makes such a difference, right? Yeah. Hmm. Mm.

Peter Boolkah (18:28)

It is. And do you know what the worst thing about hiring the wrong person is? Is that you end up doing the job you hire them to do. It's a bit like me going to a personal trainer, the personal trainer's saying, Have a seat, Peter. Now what would you like to drink? Would you like a biscuit? Now what weights do you want me to lift for you?

Ange Dove (18:36)

Yes, yeah.

Ange Dove (18:43)

I'll do it again.

Ange Dove (18:49)

Exactly. That's exactly what it's like. And it it's not just you doing the work, it's like you training them first. So you're the and then you're wasting time waiting for them to do it. Then you have to do it all yourself. So yeah, it's very painful. So higher right in the first place, for sure. yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So when I started to I started to put ads out that

Peter Boolkah (19:07)

But you gotta learn how to do that. That's the most important thing. It's the skill that you learn.

Ange Dove (19:18)

were much more detailed in what I wanted, outlining the culture of the company, the expectations, and like the ads were kind of designed to put people off, right? Yeah. Yeah. So so I got fewer applicants but much better quality applicants. So that made it easier to to choose people.

Peter Boolkah (19:29)

Perfect deselection.

Ange Dove (19:41)

And yeah, it was just night and day. It's just when you realize that you just have to hire hire right for you know, it just makes your life so much easier. And then you can then start growing the business, right? Working on other parts of the business while someone is working on the stuff that you don't have to do and you shouldn't have to do, right? Mm.

Peter Boolkah (19:58)

Yeah. One hundred percent. But then they're the skills that you've learned over time. So you learn how to do that, which is really important.

Ange Dove (20:03)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So hiring the right people, it's one thing. Then you you mentioned if they're not able to do the job, and it might not be their fault they're not able to do the job, it's if you don't have the systems and the SOPs in place to allow them to do the job the way you need it to be done, right? So talk to me a little bit about systems and how that helps the business.

Peter Boolkah (20:30)

Well, systems McDonalds is probably the best example. So when I went into Rafael McDonalds, I thought every single business was like that. How horrified was I when I left McDonald's to find out it wasn't the case?

Ange Dove (20:35)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (20:41)

Okay.

Ange Dove (20:46)

that's funny.

Peter Boolkah (20:49)

But I tell you something, if you ha if you're in business, there's two there's two resources you must consume. Number one, you must read the Checklist Manifesto. Really, really good book on systemization systemization and process. And you must watch the founder.

Ange Dove (20:59)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (21:03)

Okay.

okay. that's the book on that's the film on McDonalds. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (21:08)

Yeah, that's the story of McDonald's. And actually how they managed. And he did a really good job. I mean, you look at McDonalds, whether you like the food or not, that's immaterial. That it's not about the food, it's about the fact that it's business that has worked for such a long period of time and been successful.

Ange Dove (21:15)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. 'Cause they have the systems to run it every single McDonald's, anywhere in the world, you know what to expect and you're gonna get the same thing. Kind of, kind of. Although I was a little shocked when I left the UK and came to Singapore, it wasn't quite the same thing. The service was a lot slower here.

Like you you go into a McDonald's in London, right? And you you can see a long queue and think, my god, I'm gonna be here forever and like thirty seconds later you're being served, right? They're so quick at getting things done, right? Right. It wasn't such a case when I first came here. I was like so frustrated.

Peter Boolkah (21:56)

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (22:01)

No, do you know what's really funny? Is you probably can get a stir fire quicker than they can cook a million McDonalds.

Ange Dove (22:06)

Ha ha ha.

So that's that's funny. my god. Yeah, so so definitely I mean, 'cause I think it's not fair on the the people you hire either. If you just leave them to, okay, this is the job, go and do it, and you don't give them any guidance, you don't give them any rules, any guidelines, like then it's not fair on them. Of course they're not gonna do what you want.

Peter Boolkah (22:29)

No. It destroys their confidence. And then and then the person scratching their head, why is it every time I hire somebody they fail? I mean, come on, look in the mirror. And that's the that's the one thing I put. Chapter one of my book is actually called The Mirror.

Ange Dove (22:32)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (22:36)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Nice. And I think as well, like having systems in place, it helps morale in the company as well. Because if something does go wrong, you look at the system first and you blame the system first rather than blame the person. Because if the system has something missing that you didn't foresee at the beginning, then you've got to plug that hole and

Peter Boolkah (22:46)

For that reason.

Peter Boolkah (23:08)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (23:12)

And then so what I found in my business was I get the staff to actually plug the hole. So I say to them, Go and no, this went wrong, find out why it went wrong. Can you t let me know how to fix it? And then write the SOPs, fill in the SOPs for what was has to go in, right? So then they have ownership of the job as well. Yeah. And they're they're responsible for fixing it and then not being blamed for it being wrong because it wasn't technically their fault, right?

Peter Boolkah (23:32)

One hundred percent.

Ange Dove (23:42)

Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's something you can look at. So then when you have systems in place, obviously as well, when people are working, you can step away, right?

Peter Boolkah (23:42)

Agreed.

Peter Boolkah (23:52)

Well you can start you can start slowly stepping back and then using the time to then skill up on other areas of the business.

Ange Dove (23:56)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (24:00)

Hmm. Yeah. Okay. And what about like I've heard this phrase that's you can delegate but don't abdicate.

Peter Boolkah (24:11)

I love that one. Look, and it i it goes back on to the three stages of management. You got delegate, follow up and follow through. Look, delegation without follow through is abdication. Yeah, I've told him what I look, I swear corporate all the time. I've told him to do it. It's your responsibility to make sure it gets done.

Ange Dove (24:13)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (24:17)

Yeah.

Right.

Ange Dove (24:24)

Mm. Mm mm.

Ange Dove (24:33)

Yeah, yeah. Love it.

Peter Boolkah (24:36)

It's like having kids. Well I told not to do this, but they did it anyway. Who's the parent here?

Ange Dove (24:44)

Exactly. So you're the parent of your own business, right?

Peter Boolkah (24:47)

Exactly. But it is like being a parent of your own business. And it's like having children at different stages. I mean most of them tend to be petulant teenagers, but anyway.

Ange Dove (24:51)

Yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (24:58)

Yeah. Okay. So so what else can people do to make sure that they are like running the business, they're not in doing the the dirty work.

Peter Boolkah (25:12)

Well the only way they're going to do that is to make sure that every core component of the business, whenever there's stuff that needs to be done, is making sure that then as the business grows that you've got people to do those tasks. So eventually what you're doing is you're taking the owner out of the day to day slowly. And it's a system out look to to get to that position where you can have a business that potentially can run without you, is a minimum of three to five year process.

Ange Dove (25:17)

Mm.

Ange Dove (25:22)

Right.

Ange Dove (25:26)

Mm, mm. Yeah. Need to do that.

Ange Dove (25:33)

Yeah.

Right. Right. Nice. Nice nice nice. So when you're s when you're saying in your the title of your book, your business sucks, right? So what what define what that means in terms of what areas of the business you would define as sucking. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (25:50)

Look, in every single business something sucks. There is no perfect business. But look, Ange, had I done imagine this is a book title, please. your business is good, but it could be better. Who the hell's gonna look at that book? They'd just ignore it. It would just be like

Ange Dove (25:56)

Right. Yeah.

Ange Dove (26:08)

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (26:13)

It's not exactly getting your attention or making you think, is it? So you might as well punch the person in the face and then see what comes.

Ange Dove (26:17)

Exactly, exactly.

Ange Dove (26:24)

it I love it I love it. okay so when you've been coaching people what would you say like unless we've already covered it, I guess we've covered a lot of things here, but what would you say is the the most common mistake business owners make? Like with like if you've 'cause say it's like every single client was like this. Ooh, okay. Okay.

Peter Boolkah (26:45)

Yeah, yeah.

They don't change.

They don't change. Look, they're cut they they come to coaching thinking it's gonna be this magic, this magic thing that's gonna transform them. Listen, you've got to do the work. It's not the look, you're not gonna go to the gym, sit down for an hour, and expect you're gonna have a gym body by itself. It's not gonna happen. You've got to transform your body. Well, you've got to transform yourself. And a lot of people love the romance of change. Look.

Ange Dove (26:59)

Right.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

Ange Dove (27:15)

Yes. Yeah, you gotta do the work on yourself as well. Yeah. Mm.

Peter Boolkah (27:20)

An edge look people love the romance of change. But look, the romance and the reality are not the same thing. You gotta do shit. And a lot of the stuff that you gotta do is not gonna be pleasant, it's gonna be painful. But if you don't change, yeah, but you've got also change, you've got to change you. That's a bit people don't want to do. Work on your mindset, work on your skill set, work on work on all the things that need to be done. And then a lot of people start

Ange Dove (27:22)

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (27:27)

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

Yeah. It's gonna be a lot of long hours, a lot of thinking, yeah, planning. Yeah. So work on your mindset and stuff, right?

Ange Dove (27:48)

Yeah. Mm.

Peter Boolkah (27:50)

Then they make excuses why they can't why they couldn't do what they had to do. Blah blah blah. you don't understand Pete. It was really busy last week, had a really tough week. Boy.

Ange Dove (27:59)

Like, yeah, don't give me the excuses. Don't give me the excuses. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (28:02)

But it is and they d they just come up with them all the time. Whereas and if you keep coming up with excuses, guess what? Nothing's gonna change. And you're just gonna get more and more of it. So that's the biggest thing I've seen.

Ange Dove (28:06)

Right.

Ange Dove (28:12)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (28:17)

so that's frustrating as a coach, right? When the you you you know what they need to do, you tell them what they need to do and they don't do it. Uh-huh. You say what, you don't care? Well, I mean you've d as as as a business owner you have to take responsibility, right, for your own actions. And and I think as well, like you you touched on it a little bit earlier, that

Peter Boolkah (28:21)

Do you know what? It's f it's frustrating until it's no longer frustrating.

Peter Boolkah (28:31)

Well no, w they just no longer become a clo

Peter Boolkah (28:37)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (28:44)

People have to go into running a business with their eyes open. And I think you've opened a lot of people's eyes today. It's not easy, right? It's it's a lot of hard work. It's not a romantic thing to to be a business owner. Right? So if you really, really want it, you've got to prepare to you've got to be prepared to put in the work.

Peter Boolkah (29:02)

One hundred percent. And do you know what it is? Is people think that I'm gonna start a business and by some miracle they're gonna be shitting golden nuggets. It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. Look, you get the occasional unicorn that everyone talks about. Look at this super successful person. They were a success overnight. They don't talk about the ninety nine point nine percent that are not that have to grind it out. They have to work it out.

Ange Dove (29:12)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (29:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ange Dove (29:28)

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think also another thing about business, which I found anyway, is that nothing stays the same. Right? You've got to be prepared for change. You've got to move with the times, you've got to adapt, right? 'Cause nothing stays the same. Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (29:32)

And build it over a period of time.

Peter Boolkah (29:40)

Yeah.

Peter Boolkah (29:44)

Yeah. Look at the look at the last six years. It's crazy. Let's look at it. COVID lockdown. Boom. Then we had global inflation crisis. Supply chain crisis. Then someone decided to start a war in Ukraine. Then we had a war in Palestine. Then we decided to go and bomb Iran.

Ange Dove (29:53)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (29:59)

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Ange Dove (30:05)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (30:09)

Yeah.

Yeah. And I know. And there's someone decided to voy around. We won't mention names. And then yeah. And then Yeah. Everything changes, right? And then also when all that was going on was also AI as well. AI was coming up. AI was changing the game as well.

Peter Boolkah (30:13)

I mean you can't make this up.

Peter Boolkah (30:23)

But you've had all of this stuff, the world is not static.

Ange Dove (30:39)

Yeah, you can't you can't predict. Like for for my business, right, my copywriting business. I never in a million years would ever have dreamed that a computer could write copy. That just was like, no, that's just that would never happen, right? And of course it did. You just can't you can't just expect things to stay the same because they will definitely, definitely change. You have to be you have to be nimble, I think.

Peter Boolkah (30:39)

One hundred percent.

Ange Dove (31:08)

Adaptable to change.

Peter Boolkah (31:09)

And that's what I got back to you're absolutely right, and that's why I got back to the clue was in the title, Knowledge Worker Age. We're in the knowledge worker age, not the let me work hard age. That was the industrial age, gone.

Ange Dove (31:14)

Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (31:25)

So so put that into perspective for me, right? Like as you said, we were we were taught work hard, right? Work all the time. If you if you don't work hard, you're not gonna be paid. Your your pay is commensurate with how hard you work, right? Now that's not the same today, right? What's changed today? What is this? How should people be living in the knowledge economy?

Peter Boolkah (31:48)

They need to learn, they need to learn that what's not working in their business is a skill they're fundamentally lacking. Skill up. Especially if you are a solopreneur, because you're going to be the one that has to do it.

Ange Dove (31:52)

Hmm.

Hm. Okay. Nice. Skip. Yeah.

has to do everything. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay, so Peter, where can people first of all get your book and where can they go to find out more about about you yourself?

Peter Boolkah (32:14)

So I made it really easy about the book. Just go to Amazon.com or your local Amazon market, type in your business sucks. That's all you have to do. You'll be able to get it on audio. You may get it on paperback or hardback, depending on where you are, but you'll definitely be able to get it at Kindle. You don't even need to have a Kindle to be able to read it, you just download the app. And the nice thing is, the Kindle version is still 99 cents.

Ange Dove (32:21)

Yeah. Okay. And this book will come up. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Right. Yep. Yep. Nice.

Ange Dove (32:44)

I love it. And is there a website or anything that or social media account they can go and look at?

Peter Boolkah (32:50)

there's plenty. Just type my name into Google. You'll find me on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook, my podcast channel, my YouTube channel, my website. You just choose your poison.

Ange Dove (32:53)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (33:02)

Nice.

That's nice. So that's that's the sign of a successful entrepreneur is when you can type in the name and you've got choices of things to go to, right? You fill up the page like that. Okay. Yeah, it's so Peter, it's been lovely speaking to you today. And I thank you so much for your candor and for as you say, punching people in the face, making people understand this is not easy.

Peter Boolkah (33:18)

Probably too much choice.

Ange Dove (33:34)

But it's worth the journey if you're willing to put in the the work, right?

Peter Boolkah (33:39)

No, do you know what? Thank you so much for having me. I've had a blast.

Ange Dove (33:42)

Wonderful. Thanks, Peter.