Mentor Business Podcast

The Budget’s done. Most owners will read the headlines tonight and either panic or ignore them. Both cost money.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast,

Dr Lewis Haydon explains what the Budget means for small businesses, from the subcontractor’s seat of his own businesses. He covers why waiting on a Budget stalls a whole supply chain, why rates relief and national insurance shouldn’t be what drives your decisions, and the cash flow habit he runs with every client.

This is an honest owner-to-owner conversation about taking ownership when the rules keep changing.

What you’ll hear:

• Why the weeks before a Budget can hurt more than the Budget itself
• The “valid barrier” no salesperson can talk their way past
• The three versions of your cash flow forecast you should run this week
• Why your mood as a leader spread through your team, and what the science says it does to decisions
• The one thing to do before the week is out

Chapters:

(00:00) The Budget’s done: panic or ignore?

(00:57) What does the Budget mean for small businesses?

(02:25) Should you wait for the Budget before making business decisions?

(06:57) Small business rates relief and employer national insurance

(09:10) SWOT analysis every 90 days

(10:59) How to update your cash flow forecast after the Budget

(13:11) What should owners tell their team and customers?

(16:05) One thing to do this week

Next episode: how do you know you’re hiring the right person, and how do you fit the hire into your cash flow?

More founder-led conversations at MentorBusiness.comWork with Dr Lewis Haydon: lewishaydon.com

When Microsoft tested its own ideas properly, only about one in three worked. So how do you know which of your marketing ideas are working?

Split testing means showing two versions of one thing to two similar groups at the same time and letting what people actually do decide.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon covers:
• Why “it doesn’t work” is usually an opinion, not data• How to check if your marketer is actually delivering• What a small business should test first• How many people you really need for a test

Chapters:

(00:00) Why most ideas don’t work

(01:48) What is split testing?

(09:39) Is split testing the same as A/B testing?

(13:11) What is A/B testing in marketing?

(20:11) How do you do a split test?

(22:20) How many people do you need?

(27:11) Your one job this week

Research: Kohavi et al. (2012), Trustworthy online controlled experiments: Five puzzling outcomes explained, KDD ‘12, 786–794. https://doi.org/10.1145/2339530.2339653

Book a virtual coffee: https://lewishaydon.com

Dr Lewis Haydon, business coach and mentor who actually owns businesses. Birmingham, UK · lewishaydon.com

Dr Lewis Haydon on why most email marketing never turns into sales, how to build an email list from the customers you already have, and why your monthly newsletter is costing you enquiries.Never sent a marketing email? Or sending a newsletter nobody clicks? This is how to start email marketing properly.In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon challenges the beliefs that stop small business owners using email: that it's dead, that you need a big list first, and that emailing often annoys people. You'll hear how to build an email list from customers you already have, why buying a list backfires, and why one email, one point, one ask beats any newsletter. Part 2 of our marketing series.

Chapters:

(00:00) How to start email marketing properly

(01:03) Is email marketing dead?

(03:58) Keep customers in your orbit

(05:37) How to build an email list

(08:27) Good vs bad email marketing

(12:42) How often should you email?

(13:40) How email marketing generates leads

(17:20) The first-name trick

(19:11) Email marketing best practices

(22:19) Your one job this week

(23:11) Next: split testing

Next episode: What is split testing?

Book a virtual coffee: https://lewishaydon.comMentorBusiness.com: https://mentorbusiness.com

Most small business owners think a CRM is expensive software for big companies. It isn't. Here's what a CRM actually is, and how to build one this week.

A CRM is a system that remembers your customers so you don't have to. Without one, leads are forgotten, follow-ups don't happen, and sales are lost to people you've already met.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast,

Dr Lewis Haydon opens a new series on marketing for business owners who were never taught it, starting with the CRM.

In this episode:

• Why the software is almost never the reason sales go missing, and what the research says actually is.
• The three steps every CRM runs on, and the one most businesses skip.
• The five levels of a CRM, and the one you can start this week for free.
• Why you should never buy a list, and what to build instead.

Chapters:
00:00 Why every owner needs a CRM
00:52 What is a CRM?
06:20 How does a CRM work?
08:57 How do you build a CRM? The five levels
12:40 What's the best CRM for a small business?
14:06 Your next customer is someone you forgot to call back
17:34 Your one job this week, and what's next

Next episode: how to start email marketing from scratch.

What's your goal? I'll tell you the plan.

Watch more at https://mentorbusiness.comWork with Dr Lewis Haydon: https://lewishaydon.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentorbusiness.com_/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mentorbusiness-com/

Most owners think they can't find good people. They can. The good ones leave because there's nothing to own.

In the largest review of why people quit (316 studies), pay turned out to be one of the weaker predictors. How the job is designed mattered about as much.

In this episode, Dr Lewis Haydon, business mentor, covers:

• what a high performing team actually is;
• the three-week test;
• the five conditions a team needs before good people will stay;
• how to improve team performance without being the bottleneck.

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction and the Haydon 5Cs
(01:09) What is a high-performing team?
(02:06) The three-week test
(06:07) The 5Cs of high-performing teams
(18:38) Building a high-performing team
(20:13) Improving team performance
(27:17) What's your goal?

Know an owner whose business pays everyone but them? Tell them to talk to Dr Lewis Haydon.

The Mentor Business Podcast — what owners learn too late, taught early.

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mentorbusiness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn

How to pay yourself as a business owner — the actual order, from someone who owns businesses, not just talks about them. Episode 123.

My best year on record paid me less than the year before.

This episode is everything I learned fixing it: why your pay was never in the plan, salary versus dividends and the third route nobody counts, the cascade — pay, profit, margin, revenue, price — why your diary predicts your income better than your strategy, the pricing and discount trap, and what to do when the business "can't afford" to pay you.

Plus what paid-last looks like at corporate scale, all the way up to the shareholders.

🎙️ Want free live coaching on the show?

If you're brave enough to share your business, message me "LIVE" on LinkedIn.

💬 More on AI and automation in your business? Comment on the YouTube version and I'll make it.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: [Dr. Lewis Haydon]
50+ mentors, new content monthly: https://MentorBusiness.comComment "$100k"to get the Playbook Now!

CHAPTERS:
(00:00) The best year that paid me less

(01:32) Why your pay was never in the plan

(03:19) Why time-for-money caps every owner

(11:01) Salary, dividends, and hours back

(11:43) Know your number

(19:53) Pay, profit, margin, revenue, price

(26:32) Show me your diary (how to spell PAY)

(28:16) Would you hire yourself?

(33:51) Pricing, and the discount trap

(36:46) When the business can't afford you

(40:28) Route it: make your pay permanent

Know an owner whose business pays everyone but them? Tell them to talk to Dr Lewis Haydon.

The Mentor Business Podcast — what owners learn too late, taught early.

Most founders look for investment before they understand what investment actually tests. Funding does not remove pressure. It exposes the founder’s judgement, financial discipline, commercial evidence, and ability to be trusted with someone else’s capital. More founder-led conversations at ⁠⁠MentorBusiness.com⁠.⁠

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, ⁠⁠Dr Lewis Haydon⁠⁠ speaks with Jof Walters about why most founders are not investor ready. This is not about raising money quickly or perfecting a pitch deck. It is a discussion about trust, risk, decision-making, and what investors really look for before they commit capital to a startup.

Jof Walters is an angel investor with experience working with startups and larger businesses, giving him direct insight into what changes as companies move from early-stage ambition into commercial accountability. His experience includes assessing founders, reviewing investment opportunities, understanding risk, and seeing how businesses behave once investor capital enters the company. He brings the investor’s perspective on why some founders secure backing while others lose credibility before the opportunity is fully understood.

Dr Lewis Haydon is a multi-business owner, investor, founder of MentorBusiness.com, and Doctor of Management specialising in leadership and organisational psychology. Together, this conversation examines how founders are judged when they move from building with their own conviction to asking someone else to take financial risk alongside them.

The discussion explores what makes a startup investable and why many founders misunderstand what investors are actually assessing. Jof explains why enthusiasm, ambition, and a promising idea are not enough, and how investors look for evidence, financial understanding, founder judgement, and the ability to communicate risk clearly.

This episode also examines what happens after investment is raised. The conversation addresses how investor expectations change the founder’s responsibility, why funding can expose weak cash control and poor strategy, and how scaling with outside capital creates a different level of accountability.

This is a serious conversation about startup funding, angel investment, founder readiness, pitching investors, financial discipline, investor trust, scaling with capital, business risk, and leadership accountability. Not theory. Not motivation. Just the reality of asking someone else to invest, being judged under pressure, and learning what investors see before founders do.

Takeaways:

• Most founders are not investor ready when they start looking for funding.
• Investors assess judgement before they assess the pitch.
• A strong idea is not the same as an investable business.
• Financial discipline matters before money enters the company.
• Founder credibility can be lost in the first conversation.
• Investor capital increases accountability, not freedom.
• Funding exposes weak decisions faster.
• Scaling requires more than ambition.
• Investors look for evidence, not excitement.
• Taking investment changes the responsibility of ownership.

Chapters:
00:00 Why Most Founders Are Not Investor Ready
05:10 What Investors Look For in a Startup
12:40 Why Investors Say No to Founders
20:15 How to Find an Investor Without Wasting the Meeting
28:30 What Makes a Startup Investable
36:50 The Responsibility of Taking Investor Capital
45:10 Why Startups Fail After Funding
55:20 Scaling a Business With Investment

Keywords:

how to find an investor, startup funding, angel investor, investor ready, what investors look for in a startup, why investors say no, how to pitch to investors, raising investment, startup investment, scaling a business with investment, founder accountability, business funding, investment readiness, startup founder, investor expectations

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mentorbusiness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn

More founder-led conversations at MentorBusiness.com.

Burnout in business is often misunderstood as a personal capacity issue: too many hours, too much pressure, not enough rest. But for many founders, burnout starts much deeper than workload. It begins when the business keeps depending on the owner to make every decision, rescue every problem, carry every standard, and absorb every consequence.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast,

Dr Lewis Haydon speaks with Jim Sephton about what happens when running a business becomes unsustainable because the founder has not let go early enough.

Jim Sephton is the owner of UK HADO, as well as several events and experience companies. His current work focuses on building HADO into a national sport, from grassroots participation through to professional teams.

Together, this conversation explores how burnout can build through people decisions: hiring the wrong people, struggling to delegate properly, keeping too much responsibility, and delaying the difficult moment when someone is clearly not right for the business.

This is a serious conversation about founder burnout, people, delegation, leadership pressure, trust, character, responsibility, and what happens when the business becomes too dependent on the person who built it.

Takeaways:

• Founder burnout is often structural, not just personal.
• Running a business becomes dangerous when every decision comes back to the owner.
• Hiring people does not reduce pressure if the founder still carries the responsibility.
• Delegation means transferring ownership, not just assigning tasks.
• The wrong people can increase burnout across the whole business.
• Keeping the wrong person too long can damage good people as well as the founder.
• Founders often struggle to let go because the business began with them doing everything.
• Character matters when pressure exposes how people really operate.
• Business owners need to build around their strengths and weaknesses.
• Letting go earlier is not stepping away from responsibility; it is learning how to lead the business properly.

Chapters:

00:00 — Introduction

03:00 — Jim Sephton’s business background

07:00 — When business pressure becomes burnout

14:00 — Why founders become the bottleneck

22:00 — Hiring people but still carrying the load

30:00 — Delegation, trust, and control

39:00 — Keeping the wrong people too long

48:00 — Character versus qualifications

56:00 — Letting go earlier

01:05:00 — Final lesson for business owners

Keywords:

running a business, business owner burnout, founder burnout, how to run a business, people decisions, delegation, letting go as a founder, founder bottleneck, business leadership, managing people in business, hiring the wrong people, business owner pressure, leadership burnout, founder responsibility, UK HADO, Jim Sephton, Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon, MentorBusiness.com

Find out more at Mentorbusiness.com | Instagram | LinkedIn

More founder-led conversations at ⁠⁠⁠MentorBusiness.com⁠⁠⁠.

Starting a new business often looks simple from the outside: an idea, a website, a plan, and the belief that people will support it once they understand the value. But new founders quickly discover the real challenge is knowing where to place their attention when funding, proof, marketing, criticism, and time are all pulling in different directions.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, ⁠⁠⁠

Dr Lewis Haydon⁠⁠⁠ speaks with Moshesh Reid about the challenges founders often do not think about when starting a new business. This is not about startup motivation. It is about building something meaningful while facing the realities of funding, exposure, technical development, partnerships, and getting people to understand the problem.

Moshesh Reid is the founder of LearnAnyJob.com, a platform being developed to help businesses offer work experience, job shadowing, workshops, taster sessions, and informal learning opportunities. His work focuses on helping people explore career options through direct experience, while giving businesses a different way to discover talent beyond CVs, interviews, and qualifications.

Together, this conversation examines the pressure of building while working full-time, the frustration of needing proof before support is available, and the hidden cost of accelerator programmes, pitching events, business plans, and repeated advice when they do not lead to real progress.

This is a serious conversation about starting a new business, founder attention, funding pressure, partnerships, marketing, human connection, and building proof in the real world.

Takeaways:

• New founders must think carefully about where their attention goes.

• A strong idea still needs real-world proof.
• Funding can become difficult before traction exists. Accelerator programmes do not always create progress. Business plans can become a cycle of delay.
• Criticism can be used to improve the business.
• Partnerships may solve problems money cannot.
• Marketing and exposure can change the funding conversation.
• Human skills still matter in an AI-driven economy.
• Starting a business tests the founder before it tests the market.

Chapters:
00:00 What new founders should think about before starting
01:38 Building LearnAnyJob.com while working full-time
04:31 The reality of trying to access startup funding
06:35 Why investors ask for traction before funding
08:39 The gap between advice and practical support
10:28 Where startup support can become frustrating
12:07 Turning lived experience into a business problem
14:28 Moving an idea from thought into action
17:55 Handling criticism when challenging an existing system
23:28 Improving the business instead of proving the idea
26:48 Why empathy and human skills matter in 2026
32:11 AI, emotional intelligence, and the future of work
36:44 The real constraint holding the business back
37:52 Building through partnerships when funding is limited
40:50 What founders should think about earlier
43:50 The future vision for LearnAnyJob.com
48:37 Whether the real issue is funding, marketing, or both

Keywords:
starting a new business, new founder challenges, startup funding, early stage founder, business proof, founder attention, accelerator programmes, business partnerships, startup marketing, work experience platform, AI and human skills, founder pressure, real-world validation, business ownership, LearnAnyJob.com

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mentorbusiness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn

Starting in business without recognising how quickly you become the constraint creates a ceiling that only shows itself under pressure. Growth doesn’t slow because demand disappears, it slows because decisions, standards, and execution remain tied to the founder. What worked early becomes the thing that limits scale later. More founder-led conversations at ⁠⁠MentorBusiness.com⁠⁠.

In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, ⁠⁠Dr Lewis Haydon⁠⁠ speaks with Olusegun Akande about what happens when a business outgrows founder-led execution. This is not a conversation about growth tactics. It is about decision dependency, operational pressure, and what breaks when a business can no longer move at the speed of the founder.

Olusegun Akande is a multi-business owner who built a group spanning wholesale, retail, distribution, e-commerce, and hospitality, employing over 120 staff across the UK. Starting from a van in London, his journey reflects the shift from doing everything yourself to building a structure that can operate without you.

Dr Lewis Haydon is a multi-business owner, investor, founder of MentorBusiness.com, and Doctor of Management specialising in leadership and organisational psychology. Together, this conversation examines what changes when the founder is no longer the engine of the business.

The discussion explores how founders unintentionally create bottlenecks as businesses grow, particularly when control is not transitioned into systems and people. It breaks down how dependency builds inside teams, and why execution slows when decisions still route back to the owner.

This episode also examines the operational reality of scaling , from cash flow pressure and supplier relationships to hiring, accountability, and systemisation. The conversation addresses the tension between speed and structure, and what happens when process is delayed.

This is a serious conversation about scaling pressure, operational systems, founder dependency, team structure, and building a business that can function without constant founder involvement.

Takeaways:

• Growth slows when decisions remain dependent on the founder.
• Early involvement creates long-term constraints.
• Teams stop taking ownership when authority sits above them.
• Lack of systems creates pressure during scaling.
• Structure becomes more important than speed as complexity increases.
• Cash flow and operational load increase faster than expected.
• Founders must transition from doing to enabling execution.
• Systems require accountability, not just implementation.
• Hiring without structure compounds inefficiency.
• A business that runs without the founder is built, not assumed.

Chapters:

00:00 Why founders become the bottleneck in their own business
02:10 Starting with a van → early-stage growth model
06:45 When the business can’t move without you
12:30 Decision bottlenecks and team dependency
18:20 What starts breaking during growth
24:50 Cash flow, staff, and operational pressure at scale
31:40 Why systems become non-negotiable
38:10 Building structure before expansion
44:30 Franchising and scaling risks most founders ignore
52:00 Maintaining standards without founder involvement
59:10 What a business that runs without you actually looks like
01:05:00 Where growth still carries risk today

Keywords:

founder bottleneck, scaling a business, decision dependency, operational systems, leadership under pressure, hiring structure, business growth problems, founder-led companies, cash flow pressure, building systems

Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mentorbusiness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn