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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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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
Starting in business without fully understanding ownership structures creates long-term constraints that don’t show up until pressure forces change. Control is often given away early through convenience, not intention, and hiring decisions compound quietly over time. More founder-led conversations at MentorBusiness.com.
In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon speaks with Dan Haywood about what actually changes between a founder’s first business and their second. This is not a conversation about growth or ambition. It is a discussion about control, decision-making, and what happens when early choices limit your ability to move later.
Dan Haywood is a multi-business owner who scaled his first recruitment company beyond £10 million before facing structural limitations in ownership, hiring, and control. His experience includes navigating COVID disruption, rapid scaling, and an attempted management buyout that exposed how little control he actually had over the business he built. He is now building multiple ventures including a technology platform in the warehousing space, approaching them differently from the outset.
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 business judgement evolves when founders move from building for opportunity to building with intention.
The discussion explores how founders unknowingly give up control in early-stage businesses, particularly through ownership structures and external funding. Dan reflects on scaling a business under conditions where decision-making authority sat outside the founding team, and how that affected hiring, direction, and long-term outcomes.
This episode also examines hiring decisions and how early recruitment based on familiarity or attitude can create long-term operational risk. The conversation addresses the tension between hiring people you trust versus building a scalable system for hiring unknown talent, and how culture, process, and leadership behaviour influence outcomes over time.
This is a serious conversation about business ownership, control, hiring decisions, scaling under pressure, investor influence, operational systems, and leadership accountability. Not theory. Not motivation. Just the reality of building, losing control, and rebuilding differently the second time.
Takeaways:
Chapters:
00:00 Scaling a First Business Without Full Control05:10 Management Buyout and Ownership Reality12:40 COVID Pressure and Business Survival Decisions20:15 Hiring Early vs Hiring at Scale28:30 Culture vs Process in Growing Teams36:50 Investor Influence and Control Trade-Offs45:10 Building the Second Business Differently55:20 Risk, Ownership, and Long-Term Decisions
Keywords:
scaling a business, founder control, management buyout, hiring mistakes in business, business ownership structure, investor influence on startups, leadership under pressure, recruitment business growth, second time founder, operational risk in scaling
Find out more at Mentorbusiness.com | Instagram | LinkedIn
Starting in business early introduces exposure before experience. Decisions carry weight before judgement is fully formed, and execution happens under pressure rather than certainty. More founder-led conversations at MentorBusiness.com.
In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon speaks with Jason Aitcheson about what it means to step into business at 20 while comparing that reality to the judgement, pressure, and perspective that develop over time. This is not a conversation about ambition or motivation. It is a discussion about responsibility, execution, and learning through exposure.
Jason Aitcheson is a 20-year-old entrepreneur from Northern Ireland, currently studying at Aston University while running two businesses: a wellbeing technology company and an events business bringing together young entrepreneurs internationally. His position highlights the tension of early-stage ownership; managing time, balancing competing priorities, and building under conditions that are not yet stable.
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 business judgement forms when theory is replaced by real operating decisions.
The discussion explores the difference between starting young and starting later in business. It addresses the impact of digital noise, constant comparison, and perceived pressure to perform publicly. Jason reflects on building two businesses alongside university, the challenge of dividing attention, and why not all opportunities create long-term value.
This episode also looks at the operational reality behind entrepreneurship at any age. Lewis and Jason discuss resilience, failure, mentorship, and why confidence is not a starting point but a result of repeated exposure to uncertainty. The conversation remains grounded in ownership pressure and decision-making, not performance language.
This is a serious conversation about entrepreneurship, founder leadership, business growth, operational pressure, resilience, execution, and leadership under uncertainty. Not theory. Not motivation. Just the reality of building in business before and after experience compounds.
Takeaways:
Chapters:
00:00 Starting a Business at 20
04:11 Learning by Doing vs Traditional Education
09:11 Dividing Focus Across Multiple Businesses
13:35 Time Management Under Pressure
20:02 Why Qualifications Don’t Translate to Ownership
32:20 Failure, Setbacks and Resilience
55:59 The Reality Facing Young Founders
Keywords:
young entrepreneur, starting a business young, founder leadership, entrepreneurial resilience, business judgement, early-stage founder pressure, time management for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and university, operational pressure in business, leadership under uncertainty
Find out more at Mentorbusiness.com | Instagram | LinkedIn
Psychological pressure does not stay personal for long. It shows up in judgement, leadership behaviour, team culture, and ultimately business outcomes. More founder-led conversations at MentorBusiness.com.
In this episode of the Mentor Business Podcast, Dr Lewis Haydon speaks with Eugene Farrell about what happens when pressure starts shaping leadership decisions from the inside. This is a conversation about business judgement under load, not wellbeing as a soft topic.
Eugene Farrell brings more than 30 years of experience in psychological health, wellbeing, resilience, crisis response, and organisational consultancy. He has worked across major organisations and has seen first-hand how stress, overreaction, self-criticism, and distorted thinking affect leaders long before the damage becomes visible in performance reports.
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 the real operating tension between internal state and external responsibility.
The discussion explores how leaders misread feedback when under pressure, why high standards can become self-punishing, and how imposter syndrome continues to affect capable people at every level of business. Eugene explains where emotional reactions begin to distort decision-making, and why reflection, curiosity, and self-awareness matter when the pressure is commercial, human, and immediate.
This episode also looks at the organisational effect of psychological pressure. When leaders carry stress badly, it affects communication, culture, trust, and customer experience. When they manage it well, they create better judgement, stronger teams, and more stable growth.
This is a serious conversation about entrepreneurship, founder leadership, operational risk, business growth, resilience, and leadership under pressure. Not theory. Not performance language. Just the reality of what happens when business decisions are being made by people carrying more than they show.
Takeaways:
Chapters:
00:00 When Leadership Decisions Are Made Under Pressure04:01 How High Standards Become Self-Imposed Pressure10:33 Why Emotional Reactions Distort Business Judgement21:51 When Internal Thinking Becomes Unreliable27:24 Imposter Syndrome in Founders and Senior Leaders39:05 Culture, Communication and Performance Under Pressure54:06 Building a Business Culture That Holds Under Stress
Keywords:
leadership under pressure, business judgement, founder decision making, imposter syndrome in leadership, psychological pressure in leadership, decision making under pressure, founder leadership, business culture under pressure, leadership behaviour, operational pressure in business
Find out more at Mentorbusiness.com | Instagram | LinkedIn
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