Chris Taylor's agency was turning over £100k a month, but he'd been happier in his old £40k sales job.

So he scored every task in his day out of ten for how happy it made him, and the sheet came back full of twos.

Fixing that one boring spreadsheet got him 30% of his time back and pushed his profit up without adding a penny of revenue.

In this episode we cover:

- The YouTube video that outed his auntie and uncle as secret property millionaires

- How one three-day networking event turned into 70 Airbnbs under management

- The tasks he simply stopped doing, and why nobody ever chased him for them

- Why he never follows up a lead: one email, one link, dead by Friday at 5pm

- Whether a personal brand is still mandatory in 2026, and why his answer isn't about views

Chris has spent eight years building businesses: a serviced accommodation company with 70 plus properties under management, a social media agency with a team of 14, and now a software and consulting business that's raised investment.

His whole thing is simplifying what this industry loves to overcomplicate.

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Connect with Chris: @christayloronline on Instagram and LinkedIn, or christayloronline.com

Phil Hughes asked for a pay rise. He was told there was no money in the business. That same morning the owner drove into the car park in a brand new Ferrari.

Fourteen years later Phil runs an AI automation agency and recently billed £18,000 for a job he delivered in ten days.

Before that he spent eight years on a SaaS product that never found its market, then got made redundant with thirty days' notice after eight years of service.

In this episode we cover:

• The Ferrari moment that ended his career in employment
• Why he should have killed his SaaS product two years earlier than he did
• The Facebook post that brought in his first five agency leads
• How £2,000 in ads fixed his offer, his pricing and his sales process in six weeks
• Why he doubled the price of his automation audit and sold more of them
• What most people get wrong about AI, and why he thinks mass adoption will be far slower than everyone predicts

Phil Hughes builds AI and automation systems for service based businesses. He's been writing automation code since 2007 and spent years as a lead developer, including one product he says added £30m to his employer's business. He now works with a small book of retained clients from the Northwest of the UK.

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Connect with Phil: philh.co.uk

Ashley Cannon built a £1.2M cleaning business off the back of a Saturday job. Then he sold it and got handed a £350k personally guaranteed debt on the way out.

He's the most decisive operator Mac knows. He doesn't overthink it. He picks a direction and moves, and he's successful because of it.

In this episode we cover:

• The £60k contract he signed at 21 with no clue how he'd deliver it
• Why he built the business so he'd never be the one mopping the floors
• The bank call after the sale that made him think his life was over
• How he shuts down the "am I building the wrong thing" doubt every founder gets
• The two mistakes that wreck most ad campaigns, and why cost per lead is the wrong number to obsess over

Ashley Cannon is a marketing agency owner, coach and consultant who's been running businesses for 10 years.

He built and exited a facilities company doing over a million a year, then moved into paid ads and lead generation, where he now helps other founders get clients.

You'll learn a lot in this one!

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Connect with Ashley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_ashley.cannon

Connect with Mac on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themacademic

John Hamilton has coached over 600 entrepreneurs. This is how he built The Uncommon, a coaching and mastermind community for entrepreneurs who feel misunderstood by everyone around them.

In this episode we cover:

• The 30-day full money-back guarantee, and how it forced him to get ruthless about exactly who he works with
• How a pro Call of Duty career turned into four founders paying £150 a month for a weekly group call
• The £15k mentorship with Phil Graham that finally gave him the courage to call himself a business coach
• Why vision, not tactics, is the number one problem holding business owners back
• The eulogy exercise that left one of his clients in tears
• Why he only owns 43% of his own company, and how giving away equity built a business that runs without him

John also shares the reading list he actually rates. Rich Dad Poor Dad gets a 2 out of 10.

John Hamilton is co-owner of The Uncommon, a coaching and mastermind community for entrepreneurs. He's coached over 600 business owners and added £5 million to his members' income. No big exit behind him. Just eight years of pure repetition.

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Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hamilton-coach

Giles Denning spent 10 years running nightclubs. Now he runs a free fitness trade show that pulls thousands of the industries biggest names together, and he's building something he believes the men's space is missing entirely.

His take: men's mental health has plenty of reactive solutions but nothing proactive. So he's building it.

In this episode we cover:

• The trade show model: why PerformX is free to enter and still turns a profit
• How he rebuilt everything in lockdown after he quit a job his gut told him not to take
• The men's mental fitness idea, and why most men are sitting at zero
• Going from victim to creator, and the mindset shift behind it
• Why a hard workout plus proper men's work beats a retreat most blokes would never book

Giles also gets honest about the stomach illness he carried for years, the one that turned out to be pushed-down stress rather than an allergy, and what fixed it.

Giles Denning runs brand at PerformX, the business of fitness show, now into its sixth year and drawing 5,000+ people to the NEC.

He's also building Habitual, a men's mental fitness club that blends training with men's work. Over a decade in the UK fitness industry, from gym marketing to nightclub branding to events.

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Connect with Giles: instagram.com/giles_denning

Most founders think they're not getting investment because their pitch deck isn't good enough. Sam Marchant says that's almost never the reason.

As a VC partner who's backed north of 100 companies, he's pretty clear on what actually kills a raise before it starts.

In this episode we cover:

• Why VC is purely growth capital and why judging your business by whether you can raise it is a mistake most founders make
• The bar Sam's fund 21 Ventures actually sets before writing a cheque. all four of their last investments came in at over £1 million ARR with exited founding teams
• Why 90% of founders reaching out for investment have a skill gap problem, not a funding problem, and why giving them money doesn't fix it
• How Sam decides whether to back a founder in the first 30 minutes of a call and why the rejection is almost always about the person, not the product
• The one thing that can never be outsourced, no matter how early or how big the business is

Sam Marchant is a partner at 21 Ventures, a venture capital fund.

He's also co-founder of Scaling MENA, a media company covering the startup ecosystem in the region.

He previously co-founded and exited a CPG business and has been investing at angel and fund level ever since.

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Will Pringle dropped out of university after 8 weeks, took a £1,000 pay cut to break into recruitment. Now he's a group MD with 20+ staff and the best reputation in his market.

In this episode we cover:

• Why Will turned down the recruitment firm that rejected him years earlier when they called him asking for business
• How four of his top consultants walked out in one go, taking over £1 million in fees with them, and how the replacement team is now performing 25% higher than they ever did
• The moment the imposter syndrome hits hardest. Spoiler: it's not when things are going badly
• Going from 84 kilos with abs to 116 kilos at his peak, and what that actually looked like in practice
• His advice on when to spend the money on the car, the holiday, the nice thing. and why buying the thing below what you really want costs you more in the long run

Will Pringle is the group managing director of Big Blue Search, a specialist recruitment agency in the commercial interiors and fit-out space. He's also co-host of the Getting Shit Done podcast. He's been in recruitment for 10 years, eight of them at Big Blue.

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Connect with Will: linkedin.com/in/will-pringle-74ab76112

She's helped countless professionals find lasting love — but what professional matchmaker and dating coach Siobhan Copland reveals in this conversation might surprise you.

The biggest barrier to meaningful relationships isn't your schedule, your standards, or your success.

It's your willingness to be seen.

In this raw and eye-opening episode, Siobhan breaks down why high-achieving women often lead with masculine energy and push love away, why men inherently want to feel useful (and what happens when they don't), and the real meaning behind intimacy that most people get completely wrong.

If you've ever wondered why you keep attracting the wrong person — or no one at all — this one's going to hit different.

Kevin Humphrys has spent years fighting for an industry that keeps millions of people alive — yet most of society still looks the other way.

In this episode, Kevin pulls back the curtain on what's really happening inside the UK's social care sector: chronic underfunding, a massive PR problem, and a workforce that deserves far more recognition than it gets.

Kevin shares how he fell into social care almost by accident, why he stayed and what needs to change before the system reaches breaking point.

We talk about the misconception that care work is low-skilled, why the media only covers the horror stories, and what a proper career path in social care could actually look like.

If you've got parents, grandparents, or anyone you love who might need care one day — this one matters. Kevin also leaves you with one simple thing you can do right now to help push for change.

Dr. Emil is a former medical doctor turned serial entrepreneur who's failed more businesses than most people start.

Now he runs a longevity and biohacking company helping men optimise their lives.

This was a high-energy conversation about doing what brings you joy, learning to dance along the lines of your limits, and why playing it safe is the riskiest thing you can do.

Strap in for this one.

You can follow Dr. Emil here: https://www.instagram.com/dremilofficial/

You can follow your host Mac here: https://www.instagram.com/themacademic/