The £10,000 rule | what it really takes to grow a business

If you want to sell £10,000 worth of stuff, I have one question for you.

Have you made £10,000 worth of effort?

It’s a question I ask myself a lot. I see a lot of businesses running sales events. It could be an open day. A webinar. Maybe a Black Friday offer. And they’ll be like: “Oh, we’re going to make £100,000 from this.”

Then they spend £1,000 on ads and they do some leafleting and a bit of promo.

Does that amount to £100,000 worth of effort? 

Because if the answer is no, guess what? They’re not going to make £100,000. Yes, very occasionally you meet someone who’s won the lottery or accidentally made a fortune out of Bitcoin. But generally, when you meet someone who’s made a lot of money, they’ve made a lot of sacrifices to do it.

Everybody I know who’s successful works really hard.

So when you see someone put on an event and expect to make £10million, but they’re only willing to spend £10 on ads and work two days a week, it’s an insult to other business owners. OK, there’s always that anomaly who’s a shining beacon of success with no effort. But that isn’t you.

You get out what you put in.

I’m putting a lot of effort into Codebreak right now, because I want to get the business to the next stage. We’ve recruited three people. We’ve got clients flying in. It’s hard and I’m knackered. And that’s not a woe-is-me moment, it’s just the reality.

Sometimes it goes the other way, though. You’re putting in £20,000 worth of effort to get £10,000 back.

That used to be me, actually.

In my early days of business, I wanted to be affordable. Competitive. I priced myself low, worked really hard, showed up to the opening of an envelope. Two years later, I was in exactly the same position because I couldn’t afford to reinvest in myself.

I couldn’t afford to grow.

Then I changed and realised I needed to charge what I’m worth, to reinvest in myself and do things that make me uncomfortable.

A lot of that change came when I joined a mentorship programme for men called One Man Empire. It’s run by a guy called Charlie Hutton. If you work by yourself and you’re looking to grow your business, check him out – top bloke.

It was a grand a month, I think – not a small amount of money. But that £12,000 investment in the first year added around £100,000 to my business.

It completely changed my outlook.

I remember when Charlie found out what I was charging. F***ing hell, it was embarrassing. We used to manage Facebook ads for like £400 a month. For an extra £200, we’d do organic. And he was like: “You need to be charging 10 times that. £200 for organic is insane.”

My arse fell out.

I was like: “What? People won’t pay that.” He’s like: “Yeah, they will – the right people will.”

You know, I learned more about business and life in that programme than at any other stage of my life. I went from running a yokel operation charging fifty quid to design, print, and deliver some business cards, to charging two grand for a full-service marketing product.

And that’s a hell of a curve.

And an effort. Before Charlie, I was the guy putting in £2,000 of effort to make £20. No wonder I felt ill. Luckily I’m now on the right side of that equation.

A big part of that has been the people I’ve surrounded myself with. Every three or four months, I make a new friend in business. These people inspire me and have done things I haven’t.

If I’ve made £10,000 worth of effort to make £10,000, they’ve made £100,000 worth of effort to make £100,000.

And it pushes me to that next level. So choose your crowd carefully; if you hang around with five drunk people, you’ll be the sixth drunk. You hang around with five millionaires, you’ll be the sixth millionaire.

Guess I’d better bin off all those crack addicts, eh?

Another thing I don’t think people grasp is that there’s a cost to playing small. Unless you play big – and I don’t mean hiring Wembley Stadium – but unless you play with a certain amount of risk and at a certain size, the returns aren’t worth it.

Play small, and you’ll playing small forever.

Taking calculated risks means stepping outside of your comfort zone. Most people are afraid of doing that, but the challenge is where all the reward is. Yeah, that initial step will feel terrifying. You’re sweating, you’ve got heart palpitations.

But the next step after that feels good.

There might come a point where you’re so good at business that you can literally magic £100,000 out of nowhere, but it won’t feel good because you haven’t put in the effort.

And if you’re trying to achieve something, but you want to achieve it without any effort, it’s not going to feel like an achievement anyway. You won’t enjoy your job or your business or your sport or your hobby unless you’re doing things that are actually challenging you.

Challenge and a bit of purpose in front of you is what works.

So, biggest takeaway. If you’re expecting to feel a sense of achievement, but you haven’t made any effort, expect not to feel any achievement.

And be grateful for the grind. It’s an opportunity that’s not afforded to everyone.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.