Episode 277: Getting Things Done with Paul Smolinski
Taking risks and investing in one’s self is what separates successful entrepreneurs from failed ones. There are opportunities in life that you should not fail to see and take advantage of. Paul Smolinski made it happen and got things done early in his life.
Paul Smolinski, formerly of Introbiz and Introbiz Expo as well as the Fashion Sector, runs the PRSNTS company, a global company based in Cardiff. Although based in Cardiff, Wales, UK, PRSNTS works with high-level clients, entrepreneurs, and partners from all around the world.
Paul has previously worked with Sir Richard Branson, Lord Sugar, Grant Cardone, Michelle Mone, Hilary Devey, Les Brown, Dr. John Demartini, Brian Tracy, Sharon Lechter, Kevin Green, Jairek Robbins, Tom Zigglar, Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, many Apprentice winners & Dragon’s Den and hundreds more top entrepreneurs and sports star speakers.
In this episode, Paul Smolinski talks with Adam Stott in another Gold Circle Members event about the importance of consistently making things happen. Paul shares more about the importance of mentorship and networking in order to push your career to the next level. Paul also shares wonderful stories about his Networking Events Listen to learn more!
Show Highlights:
- Exposing ourselves to many conversations
- How Paul was able to penetrate the fashion industry despite leaving school early in his life
- Becoming a manager at a fashion store at 17
- The moment Paul was introduced to business networking events
- Importance of having a mentor or a coach
- Networking Events: How big can you go and how big can you think
- What did it take for Paul to have Lord Sugar on one of his events
Links Mentioned:
Join the Ultimate Three Day Business Event and learn more Business Growth Secrets
Be part of our Facebook Group Big Business Events Members Network
Connect with me on Instagram @adamstottcoach
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Now, the next person I’m gonna bring up, so we’ve got a character for you. You’re gonna love this man. Okay so you love him or hate him but I love him. So, we are gonna be bringing up to the stage someone that has done very, very well in business as well. Super friendly, and super fun. Somebody that really believes in the power of relationships, and I think it’s really interesting. David’s come up here and said, you know, how do you succeed? Focus, get yourself out there because that really is it. If you focus and you get yourself out, the result will come.
The difference is are you speaking to one person and hope it’s gonna happen? Are you speaking to a hundred thousand and hope it’s gonna happen? But where are you gonna get more opportunity? I speak to a hundred thousand, alright, rather than one. So we’ve gotta get ourselves out there, we’ve gotta have the conversations, well push the conversations. So we’ve gotta find a way to expose ourselves as many conversations as humanly possible and we’ve gotta put ourself out there. And we’ve gotta focus on what our offer is. What do we do? What makes us special? And get that in front of the right person. That is business success.
Business success is getting your offer in front of the right person and doing it again and again, and again, and again. The more you can do that, the more you will succeed. And if you are not succeeding right now in something you might not be, you might not feel like you are. It’s because you ain’t doing that. Because you are not having enough conversations and you can see that, right? Raise your hands, you know. That’s all you gotta do. You’ve gotta get out there, you’ve gotta speak to more people.
So it’s brilliant that David has done that, and I’ve asked Paul to come today because he’s just amazing at exactly that. The guy’s amazing at having conversations. He’s very natural, very, very natural at having conversations, very natural building relationships. I was in Wales the other day and he sees me at Wales. He’s like, “I’m gonna come down and meet ya. So how long does it gonna take to guest?” “It’s two hours, don’t worry about it. I’ll be done then, you know.” Just gets in the car, drive down two hours, sit there for lunch, speak to me to thing for two hours and at the back of it we have an agreement.” “Okay, great. I’m happy to do agreement.” And so he’s here today.
Now, the lesson in that is gonna be, hope you have a nice time in Wales, or I’ll see you in Wales. Hope you have a nice time. Oh, maybe we should have a call or maybe you should catch up, that’s what a lot of people do. But with Paul, there’s no messing around, that’s what I love about this guy. Because he makes shit happen. So, that’s the way you’ve gotta be. So I’m gonna talk about some of the shit he has made happen, which is frankly incredible, right? You’re gonna love some of these stories that this man tells you. So Paul, you are the king of making shit happen, right?
Paul Smolinski:
Well, I try to, first of all, welcome everyone, thank you for having me. It’s a few familiar faces I’ve seen here. At [2:47.50], your house in the summer with Gemma, so Gemma Collins. So it’s great to be back. So yeah. I’m going to share some tips, share some knowledge, and hopefully you get someone out of it basically. It’s a delight to be here.
Adam Stott:
So Paul, why don’t we talk a bit about your career actually? Because you started a really successful events business in Wales that serve people all over Wales. You’ve done some of the biggest events Wales has ever seen, all right? So, we’ll talk about those as well. You’ve had a mission in your mind to bring high level, high profile people to Wales. You have a network, Paul’s personal network is incredible. I mean incredible from having people like Richard Branson in your personal network. People like Grandpa Don in your personal network. Some very, very famous people that you spend time with, build relationships with, and you are relentless of building relationships. So where did that start? And let’s go right to the beginning and talk about whole career. And I don’t know all of this, so let’s hear that out, I’m interested to hear.
Paul Smolinski:
So my career was in fashion.
Adam Stott:
Cool, so I didn’t see that coming.
Paul Smolinski:
Left school at 16, because I hated school and I couldn’t be taught anything. Left school with no qualifications. My mission to leave school was to be a fashion super player. I just go mitching off school, play snooker, hustling in the snook halls, playing pool, trying to live from there. And so I left school and went into fashion. I got a job on a YTS earning 25 pounds a week in all of us in Cardiff. And I remember, you know, saying, “oh, gimme a chance. I got qualifications, but I can’t sell, luckily, I learned my sales skills from my grandparents because they used to do the market stores.
My nan’s a bit like Darboy, but a female version, brilliant saleswoman and she was one of my inspirations by Nan. And so I go to the market stores on a Sunday, I was in school, I think I was about 14 or 15 selling like wrapping paper, selling tape and slippers and watches and all that stuff and turtle ninja t-shirts and all that stuff. Then they bought a restaurant down on [5:06.90]. I don’t even know it at all. And on certain days how to make a bit of money, I just sell ice creams.
So I thought an idea, I said, “Well, tell you what, why don’t we do vanilla, strawberry, chocolate. A little table on the front like that, like a box or table. Put a cloth over it, got a scoop and I’ll sell it for 50 pence a time. And if you wanted like a flake, I’ll put a flake on it. and I was doing quite well of that. So I learned sort of sales when I was really, really young and it sort of stayed with me. And then I went into the fashion industry.
So I wanted to leave school and wanted to, you know, work in clothes and luckily, my manager took me on. I used to work, I remember, of a company called Dash, it’s like Benton stuff, track suits, that sort of thing. And I was given a chance to work in House of Fraser, in House of Clive, and my manager left like three months later, so they advertised for a manager’s role. Now, I left school at like 16, no qualifications or nothing, well, I said to the manager, “I can do her job. I can do it better than her.” He said, “Hang on a minute, how can you do a better job than the manager?” I said, “Well, I just can.” This woman was about 26, 10 years older than me. I said, “Well, gimme a trial to see how I can do.”
So, I succeeded doing that. Smash all the figures, and I remember I was the youngest manager in the store at 17 years old in House of Fraser. Like to walk around, go into these band suite, it’s on a Monday, and he’d have all the department managers there in suits and, you know, with like in a broke suits and all that. And there’s this young kid walking there with his track suits saying, “Listen mate, what are you doing in here? You should be out there.” I said, “No, I’m one of the managers. So that was like my claims to famous. He said, “Oh!” You know, “you’re a manager.” I said, “Yeah, I manage your tax.” And the women’s rep manager upstairs was like, you know, eight years older than I was.
So I was 17 years old, I was the youngest store manager and the best thing about it is as department manager, we have a day off or a break. And I have all these old guys, like my dad’s age come to me, said, “Paul, can you sign these checks, Paul?” and I go in those days. Then you write a check and you just a check that the credit card say, yeah, [7:13.42] right? So I just think, “oh, I’m really likely go performance, doing all this now, signing all that. That lasted really well and then I got into the suit industry. So there was a concession manager’s job in Fosters, in Cardiff, and my sister was a deputy manager there. And I went to the suit trades and I was pretty good at it.
And at 21, I always had this vision of being an area manager. Cause one of the big things about me was I was a dad young. I was 20 years old and I was a dad and it was a reality check. So, you’re gonna be a dad, right? You got no qualifications, you got a normal job, but you need to start making a living. So, I went right, okay, I thought, I’m knocking me down. I said, right, I got have ambitions now. I’ve gotta achieve something that I wanna achieve.
And the goal was to be an area manager, and I achieved that when I was 21 years old. Being an area manager, everyone named Top Shop burns and foster stores, company car. In my head, I had this figure I wanted to do 25,000 pound a year and I did. I thought just by focusing on that and working my ass off the other country, I was one of the younger area managers. Then throughout my life, I was area manager for Susu and Moss Boss and worked for Hugo Boss and all that. And then I knew the CEO really well and I was company trainer.
So that was my life. I always wanted to be a fashion, love the fashion industry. Did London, Southwest and everything. And then one day, one of my clients said to me, “Do you wanna come to an event?” It was a polar event in Kai, which every year, polar events, which is like a couple thousand people, and I went to this event. I had some food there, and I was walking down and this girl came to me, she said, “Oh! I know you, don’t I?” I said, no, but while she was doing this, her friend who she was with, she cracking up you as she was.
Adam Stott:
She was trying to give you a date with her friend.
Paul Smolinski:
So she said, ” I know you, don’t I?” I said, “No, no, I don’t. I don’t know you at all.” She said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I recognize your face. You’re familiar.” Started chatting. She said, “oh, I run a network.” I went, “oh yeah?” “I run a company called Intraverse.” “What’s that all about?” Well, it is a network I run and I sort like month events. It’s a lifestyle business.” And I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, when you come to our tent, there’s a little bit of like, you can come meet people, like, you know.” And she said, “yeah, brilliant!” Next minute, the [9:30.82], you know, real like, you know, “wow! Like, I think, oh my God, who was this woman? This crazy woman I’ve met.”
Anyway, cut my story short, I go ahead and marry her. And she said, ” I wrote this business network.” And she said to me, “you’ll be brilliant in this network.” I said, “what’d you do?” She says, “I’ve networking events.” I went, “what’s that?” She says, “well, I do events, we connect people, blah, blah, blah.” And I was like, oh whatever crap that is. Why are you wasting your time? I said, “you know what, get rid of the company. You’re not making money. It was a lifestyle business. She sold to probably about 30,000 a year. It was her and a couple of staff she had. And I said, “listen, you know, don’t bother. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Waste of time. Never waste a time.” And then she nagged me to go to this event in London.
And at this event, there was 500 people there and there was three people talking. There was a woman called Chan Lecter from Rich Dad Poor Dad, probably one of the biggest-selling books of all time. Most successful entrepreneurs, property people of Rich Dad Poor Dad. There was a guy called Andy Harrington, who was Tommy Robinson’s right-hand person. So everyone knows Tony Robbins, and there was a guy called Kevin Green. Kevin Green was the UK’s biggest landlords. Owned about a thousand properties.
So she nagged and nagged me to go on a Saturday to this event. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I’m busy and busy. I was a manager at the time and she said to me, you know, come look at these people. She nagged that. I said, alright, I’ll pretty go. So I went. Sat in the audience like here, 500 people in the audience. Saw three people on stage. The guy comes onto stage first called Kevin Green, talks about property. Had a photo with Richard Branson. I went, oh, I know Richard Branson. You had a photo with him. And he said, Richard Branson mentored me. Wow. That was incredible.
Second guy, come on stage. I’m a coach with Tony Robbins. Biggest, biggest name on the planet, Tony Robbins. He had him as a business coach. And third was a woman called Rich Dad Poor Dad, Sharon Lechter, who wrote a book with Robert Kiyosaki. And she was the one was like mesmerized, like, wow. She was the one that was like, who you network with? Who’d you meet? Who can you help? She was telling me all the principles about the benefits of her network and everything.
And I went, wow. I was that person in the audience. 500 people. It was like a light shining down at me, shouting back to Cardiff in a car with four people going, freaking airport wouldn’t just freaking shut up, you know? Talk about shouting, shouting, shouting, shouting. I had a photograph of me shouting thinking, God, wow, I got a photograph with her. And I thought of with Kevin down with [12:15.92] I thought, oh, brilliant. That was it.
So went home, got really excited, said to the misses, I’ll come into the business. Jack off as an area manager. I get what you’re trying to tell me. Said you know, everyone. How to know everyone? Address all the CEOs, address all the EMDs of companies. And my network was pretty big. I was very commercial. One store manager here cause I was different to everyone else. Had to stand out to make it happen. And I said, “right, if I come into the business, we’ll increase our membership from 30 members to a hundred. If we don’t, I’ll give up the business.” She like, lets just do that.
A year late, sorry, three months later, she said, oh, by the way, we’re going to Culver City. We’ve exhibited at this South Wales Chamber Commerce’s business show. An animal show in Culver City. As of about 80-yard companies exhibited and had these speakers there. While we were exhibiting there, she paid 1200 pound to exhibit. I’m sat there now, I was going, “so what happens?”
She goes, “Nothing. We’ll just stand away for people to exhibits. I went, right. So your wasting money on it? He said, “yeah, but you never know who might come and meet ’em all.” So I spoke to couple of people. Anyway, get back in the car, she sat next to me now. We’ve packed up. I said, “Right, we’re gonna do a business expo.” Said, “how are we gonna do that?” I said, “we’re gonna do one in the stage here in three months time.” Said, “we’ve never done before.” I said, “I know, but I tell you what, I can do a bad job on this, what these guys have done. And they’ve been going for years. The South Wales Chamber.
Three months later we did the business show. I thought, who can we get as a speaker? Who do I know? Oh, I know Kevin Green who’s the biggest property landlord. And I rang Kev, said, “Kev, great to meet you [14:06.93]. Would you be on my first keynote speaker?” And he went, “yeah, I’ll do a few poker wells, full of blah, no fee.” Brilliant. Got Kevin on. We sold 60 stands, had 500 people turn up, and everyone said it was amazing. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been within three months, and that was part of our model that I created in the business. I’d be like my retail days how to, you know, how to stand, how shops stand out through their front windows, track customers into the stores.
So we did the show. Amazing, amazing show. And then about a year later there’s an email come through saying Sharon Lechter wants to mentor people in the UK showing them achieves about eight people. And we went, oh, we want to be mentored by Sharon Lechter. You know, founder of Rich dad Poor Dad. I said, oh, what’s the first thing the expert says to me? What’s the cost? Oh, we can’t afford that. 50,000. We’ve only been in business less than just over a year, 50,000 to be mentored by Shannon. I said we gotta do it. Missis says, Nah, we can’t afford to do it. Can’t afford to do it. I’m the one, let’s do it. No, no, no, no, no. Come back on track. Come on back on track.
So we went to chat about it, we didn’t decide about it. We said, well, if I could sell all these memberships and sponsorship deals and everything in the network, we can raise the 50,000. I spoke to business fighters in the community said, you’re crazy. Don’t pay that money. You must be mad. Now, at the time, Sharon was the business coach to President Obama and George Bush on financial literacy, shut the boards. Work with Donald Trump as well, the whole lot.
She was the top female business coach in the world. The choice was, do I tit the risk and invest in myself or forget its opportunity. What did I do? Take the risk. The difference is the time difference between the UK and in Arizona time difference where she lives. And that meant we were coached at midnight once a month for 12 months. So I’m like this, like that. You know, this is Scottsdale. Anyway, couple long story shorts. She mentored us. We told people we’d be coached by Sharon. We said to Sharon, “will you come up and speak at our show?” “Yes, I will.” And everyone said to me, crazy, crazy, crazy.
But the invaluable lesson she taught us was absolutely incredible of thinking big. Look at opportunities. The people that you knew and some of the stuff she told us we really knew already, but some of the stuff she’s like, well, imagine the network I could leverage on Sharon Lechter you know. So “Sharon speak to our event.” “Not a problem, Paul. Just pay for my flights.” Come over to our house, went to our house. She’s got two homes. She’s got a 5 million pound house in Scottsdale where we stayed at her house and she said, you’re the only people that’s ever stayed at our house. And she’s mentored people around the world. We went to a ranch, a weekend place. Yeah. 50,000 acres. 2021 bachelor place, and we ride on as proper. I’m a city boy. It’s proper cowboy land, so they’re on horses.
They are like, you know, you go into a house above the fireplace, most people have mirrors or pictures. She’s got a 21-foot stuff fair above the fireplace. There’s deal on the wall there. All this stuff’s going on. She was like one of the most nice people I’ve ever met and she treated me like a son and my wife, like a daughter, she lives a bit and she still does.
And she said, I’ll help you grow your business. And that was a life moment change because people said to me, 90% of the people said, don’t do it. You’re crazy. You’ll learn I think the 1% as I call. I’ve always said this, when people talk to me about the people out there, 90% of people will say no. The 1% will say, yeah, because the one-percenters see something different to everyone else. It’s so true, in life you take risks. Is it bigger the risk or not the risk?
And one thing I would say to everyone here, great to see that you have a coach because every business needs a coach. Does it matter how successful you are? How many millions you’ve made? Or starting out? You need a coach to give you advice. There’s always someone there as a ear for advice and take me down that journey as well. So that’s how I got to mentor Sharon Lechter. But prior to that, I had Kevin as my first speaker. The second year, I’m thinking big. Who can I bring in as big? That’s what I confront with nothing I said, “right. Dragons’ Den.” Who do I know from the Dragons’ Den? I don’t know anyone. I know someone who does. Yeah.
So message to Kevin, and a coffee in the car. I said, “Kev, who you know from the Dragons’ Den?” I know Duncan, I know Theo, I know all of my blah blah, blah. He goes, “listen, I’m good friends with Hillary, Hillary Devey.” Yeah. Brilliant. I said, “right. Let’s get Hillary.” So I have to do a proposal. What does she charge? 25 grand. I ain’t got 25 grand. So tell ’em what we’ll do. We’ll raise 25 grand for a charity. Brilliant idea. So at the event, all my competitors like the Chamber, all them thinking they won’t bring anyone to their show. Next minute, we announced Hillary Devey. Turns up in Cardiff a brand new white Rolls Royce.
A number plate said, Hillary Devey, HD or something, and she walked from the door and everyone in the community thinking, ah, yeah, full of shit. They’ve got Hillary Devey, it’s bullshit. Walks outta the door office and go like that shook her hand. She said, “honored to meet you.” And she just had a stroke at the time. About six months earlier we were praying that she was gonna cancel. She canceled. She canceled all the events six months apart.
Adam Stott:
Why would you say she was gonna cancel?
Paul Smolinski:
No, no. We thought no. We were praying she wasn’t gonna cancel. Cause six months prior, six months prior, she canceled all events. So you can imagine here, I’m sitting with the Dragons’ Den staring out your full of shit. Yeah. Guess what? Due the day. Oh, she’s canceled. She, they come in, we were full of shit anyway. Point. Yeah. So I was praying she’s gonna turn up. She turned up, she drove all the way from like say middle spread all the way down in her car.
She walked in, she held my arm, and I walked up the stairs and I walked to the stage there. And on stage, we had Kevin Green and we had Daniel Presley. They’re a brilliant guy as well. And Hillary comes on, starts talking, and the audience goes, wow. Dragons’ Den, Hillary Devey. First-person ever to bring the Dragons’ Den to Wales, which is something that was my vision. Got it. Kevin got it for me.
Thank God for that. But one vital tip that was, if I hadn’t seen Kevin speak at my event and Kevin came to my show, the first one, he would’ve never have got me Hillary Devey because he used the word that sold to [21:19.75] Citizen. I’ve been to their events, they’re briliant, and I recommend you come. He said it was 25,000. Come. Wipe it all off. We’re raising for a charity, and she did, and she turned up. She couldn’t do the party in the night because she wasn’t well. So we raise the money for her and we got Hillary, which is brilliant.
Adam Stott:
But even more than tip is, you’re probably the only person. This is where I’ve said a bit of sparkle, right? Because this is what I wanna see from some of you, is that resourcefulness to make things happen. You know, he went to an event with 500 people, didn’t even know who these people were. Went and made friends with a main speaker, built a relationship with him, kept in touch with him, got his phone number. I’ve got him to come to an event in Wales.
Loved him up even more, tapped into his network. You know, that’s very skillful and that’s working through people, and that’s something that I want you to cultivate that resourcefulness in what you do. Now, the good thing about Paul, he doesn’t take over an answer. But that’s how you can win more, is to cultivate that mentality of not taking over an answer. So I think it’s, you know, doing some disservice just to say they did that because you created it.
Paul Smolinski:
So we did the SAT show. We had 60 exhibitors. We sold up to 120 within one year. And at a time, the Chamber will feel the pressure. Well, the Chamber, this institution has been around for years. Yeah. And within three years we wiped them out. We got rid of all their guys. The main guy who’s director come and joined my network as a member, which was like massive rests at a time. Guy called Graham Morgan and he said, can’t compete. It was only me and the misses and a part-timer. They had an army of people. But it was my vision to say, if I’m gonna do this, it would be the best.
Now the question at the time is we did Culver City Stadium. We did one floor, then we did the second floor, then we outgrew that. Then we had to look at the next venue was a 30,000 square foot venue, a training area as well. Whereas thinking like, okay, pressure every year, watch governments, the press, the council, government to know about how to make it bigger and bigger and bigger. And then the third year, who could we get as famous that I know? I thought, tell you what I get, who’s a very successful business person, was Suggs from Madness. Why would you get Suggs? Well, he’s a brilliant singer, but he’s a big entrepreneur. He was a vineyard in Italy. He’s a voiceover for national lottery. He has a massive multimillionaire farm property.
Also, he had 50 million pounds from Madness. Come on stage and business is not all about Rosie and all that. I remember we hide this massive shed, right? Had to get a massive generator to secure all the electric and everything, yeah? Guess what happens? [24:06.05] on, the generator burst. Where’s the flames? Yeah. We got no power in the stadium. It’s 30,000 square foot. And then sons going, right, okay. I said, do it. Do it. Just do it live. Yeah. So we end, no mic, none of it. Half of its worked, half of it never. We got it back work in the game, but it was a brilliant show. But in the meantime, found that it was a case of how big can you go and how big can you think?
And then the dream was all of us in the Motorpoint Arena, which is like XL. It’s like NEC. 68, 70,000 square foot venue was can we take that venue on and fill it? It’s like four times the size of Cardiff City, yeah? And we said to myself, let’s do, let’s get that venue. We have to pay some, like four times the costs to higher venue. They went to the big money at all. I said, right, let’s go for this venue.
Sort out all the stands. Got Hillary, Michelle Mo, Sharon Lechter, had a massive light up with speakers there and it was like, wow, we had sports celebrities there. We had a couple of thousand. So we got far 400 to a thousand, then to 2000 who went to 4,000 growth every single year. And they’re thinking, right, this is grown, got this even getting bigger, bigger and bigger.
But it was almost the vision of how to make it bigger and better. And it was always a case of the people I could learn from Sharon, the people I knew, got Google involved, saw that old stance and I said, well, it’s okay. And then I started getting to what’s out there? Now, I’ve done the Dragons’ Den, what’s bigger tally at the moment? Yeah, The Apprentice. Right.
Let’s go for the Apprentice voice. So I know a mate who knew one of the Apprentice guys, tapped him up at Citizen. Do you wanna talk at my show? Okay. This is Mark Wright. Did know Mark Wright from Adam, but I know he won The Apprentice 2014. So I said to him, come to my show. I’m gonna help you market your business and I’ll get you new clients as well. Got on like a house on fire. We got on brilliantly.
Yeah. So we did the show, we had the girl farm. We did the cakes, Alana, she had shared the cakes and then they, we built that relationship with the Apprentice with us. So in my mind, I’m thinking worth it. Got the Apprentice, who’s next? Lord Sugar. You got no chance Paul. You got a no chance, you know. We got from Kevin Green to the Dragons’ Den to how could you get Lord Sugar?
Lord Sugar doesn’t speak at events. He’s retired. He’s a billionaire, right? It took me two years. Yeah. Nag, nag, nag, nag. And it was the Apprentice winners that guide for me. They said, and I always remember the time, it was Christmas time, all the Apprentice with us go to his restaurant in Essex. Yeah. And he said, right guys, just let you know, tell all App Press witness now and then the two guys at The Apprentice are pitching him that night to come speak on my show, right? Or pitch it down.
Just letting you know, guys, I’m not moving out of London. It’s more events and Im retired from events, so I’ll do a couple of things to help your business. But that’s it. Right’s going on shit now. Well, how we gonna pitch this one? And he said, and an artist, I don’t know. So there had a few drinks now, and he said, right before you make that decision, Lord Sugar, can you do me one favor? He said, what’s that? I need you to speak in Cardiff. Cardiff? Now, Lord Sugar’s life, he lives in America. He lives in the Dockland. And he lives in Nice on 30 million pound ships. That’s his lifestyle. That’s what he live. And he’s got a place in [27:57.80] where the winners go there, give him the check then all that stuff, right?
So he said to Lord Sugar, you got no chance. He said, tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give you his agent, right? Now his agent is a guy called X. Works for Frank PR. Now, any of you guys deal with Frank PR? They’re one of the world’s biggest PR companies in the world, right? He gets me his right-hand man.
Now I’ve gotta negotiate with him his fee, right? His fee came through the email. The missis saw that, she’s just about to tap going, haha no chance. See you later. Press present. Say forget it, you know? Big money. Shit we can’t afford it. I said, hang on. And don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t press yet. Don’t press yet. I’m gotta work up this. I’m gonna do this. Anyway, I said, I know the scratch out to do it. Whoa, you know, you’ve got extra Graham down the back of the sofa or something. I said, no, no, no. I haven’t got that, but I know how to guess a hundred grand. Okay. How you gonna do it?
And this is what I remember the last of words, beyond your right. Beyond your right if you, if it fails and all that. And in my head I’m thinking, shit, does he have got Lord Sugar come in, the competitors magic, the world’s press, you know, you know Lord Sugar coming to Cardiff, right? And I remember telling Sharon, and Sharon said to me, why are you doing it, Paul? I said, reason why I’m doing is this. To see big name speakers, you gotta go to London or you go to Boom and go, no one comes to Wales ever. No one does. I said, right, I’ve done the Dragons’ Den, I’ve done The Apprentice, let’s go for Lord Sugar. Right. Okay. Shit, Lord Sugar.
Anyway, I remember signing the contract. We got him. He’s going do a payment at Fred’s, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Spread up his payments. Anyway, beyond your end. Pressures on. Now to the rules, Lord shows coming to Cardiff. Right. And all the Apprentice winners as well. Cause we had the agreement with the BBC, if you won in Apprentice, you come speak on my show, which is brilliant. On top of that, I had a client who was flying over to meet Grant Cardone. In 2018, 95% of people in the UK never heard of Grant Cardone. Who? Some sales guy on social media that I was in. No, no one heard of him.
Obviously, I’ve heard of him and I knew he was a big fan of Lord Sugars. So I said to my friend, give Grant Cardone this book, which is a book that Trace wrote, signed it and said, do you wanna speak on stage with Lord Sugar? Okay. Had a message back from his team. Yeah. Yeah. Grant Cardone would love to come and speak on stage with Lord Sugar. Yeah. As long as you pay his fee. Yeah. Guess how much his fee is? 200 grand. So I’m into 300,000 pounds already. 300. Before you open those doors. 300 grand with set up and lighting and stands and all that. I mean, it’s a half a million pounds before I even sign a ticket for this show. Half a million pounds, talk about pressure. Yeah?
Every night I have to go to bed, sleeping. You bent off air, Paul. You better not fail. Story short, those who came to the show said it was one of the best events, biggest events they’ve ever seen in their whole life. And someone said to me, and I stood on stage in front of 7,000 people and I said to everyone, this was a dream that you can achieve everything in life if you know who you’re connected to make things happen. I always remember the stage where it was a buildup to Lord Sugar. I remember, there was like 600 people who paid 150 to 500-pound tickets. Yeah. And I’m on stage interviewing Lord Sugar.
Now, how many people do you know who interviewed Lord Sugar? [32:13.00] Yeah. So I’m looking at him now, right? He comes in, he flies into Cardiff Airport on his jet. Cardone flies in on his jet. It’s about who’s got the biggest wheelchair. Cardone’s jet, 60 million. Yeah, Sugar’s is about 10 million. So his jets like, like that to there. So they both come into the show, they drive in, Sugar walks in grumpy as out. Where were I gonna go [32:41.55]? Comes into the green room here. All the Apprentice with us are there now. I said, nice to meet you. Paul. Nice to meet you. Chased. He goes, bloody put cameras in you.
That’s the first thing he says, you bloody cameras here fucking up. He’s pissed off already and then right goes on. I think he likes you Paul, I think he likes you, I said he don’t think he liked me tell you. So sort of interview on stage. So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, told you I made things happen. This was a dream. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lord Sugar. The audience is being filmed live on iTV,. BBC, Sky is packed over there, right? He sits down, puts his jacket on. I’ve got an hour with him, right? These are the rules. Don’t discuss football. Don’t discuss the Apprentice. Can’t talk about those two things.
What’s the business say? You’re fired, Lord Sugar. What’d you say that for? Say that. Yeah. Making a joke. Everyone’s laughing. Yeah. grumpy guy is going visual, get like that, you know? And I said to her, anyway, cut long story short, what we did at the show was, I’ll give you an example, is an hour with him. Most people would interview a top billionaire for 50 minutes and give 10 minutes to the audience. Do you know what we did? I had 15 minutes with him. 45 minutes I give to the general public as Lord Sugar always like to ask.
What would you like to say? When we had school kids in, we had teachers in, we had young entrepreneurs in, we had everything. And I thought it’s not about me. I’ve done my job. My job was to get him here. That was it. That’s what was more important to me. Not, look how famous I am talking to Lord Sugar, wasn’t the case at all. I wanted to say, there you go. But that my job. That was it and then we did the after party with Grant Cardone who was an absolute legend.
And you know what, for about six months, nine months later, I got to Tesco [34:48.96] and they said, you know what? I wanna thank you because the amount of people that I brought over the years of all the best speakers in the world that inspired people, that set up a business and been successful. With Hillary, with Sharon, with Michelle Mo, with The Apprentice with us, and people I’ve never met in life that said it was you that made me an entrepreneur today. And that was like, you know, thankful, like, you know. So that was good.
Adam Stott:
I wanted to bring Paul today because he makes things happen, you know. He makes things happen in a big, big way. And I’ve seen him do it time and time again. Like I said, when he came to mind, he met J Martin. The next thing, he’s at the house for a week, right? And they go out to dinner every night, best house, you know, he’s just got a really good weight with people. And I think that for all of you to become more successful, I think we’ve gotta tap into that. How many you agree that if you got better at that you could make more things happen? Raise your hands. Yeah, absolutely.
So I’m viable today to come and share that story with you. But we had a great chat in Wales the other day, and Paul’s also agreed to work with you as Gold Circle members and he’s gonna train you on how to network and build relationships with influential people. And I think that’d be pretty cool. The program and David as mentors and coaches to really support you.
And I wanna see some of you doing these things, you know. I wanna see you doing the things that David’s talking about today, getting laser focused and you know, really getting yourself out there. I wanna see your networking and making things happen and building your networks. And see your lives properly changing cause it’s through big moves and thinking bigger that you can make bigger things happen. And I think sometimes our reservations, we get two reserves, right? About what we do, and we don’t put ourselves out there enough.
But the only way that we’re ever gonna achieve the level of success that you all wanna achieve is by thinking bigger, taking more action, getting yourself out there, working together, and actually learning these skills. I do think Paul’s skill, and I’m gonna be really… Paul’s skill is building relationships with people. Very, very good at building relationships. And I wanna see how much of that he can rub off on you. Who’s up for that challenge? Absolutely, right? You know, and that’s where we are gonna bring him into the program and that’s gonna be, again, we’re gonna do a Zoom session biweekly in the same way. Ben has been doing that with the sales process.
And we might be doing some mentoring and coaching in there as well with some one-on-one mentoring and coaching for our Gold Circle members. So, Paul, I love how heartfelt it is for you as well, because you know, you really do have that heartfelt approach. So I said to Paul, we’re sitting down in Wales, and I talked to him about working with you’s. Like, can we do parties? Can we have some fun? You’re like, can we go out together? Can we do this or should we get that? Like, well, we’ll get there, but it’s the most important thing if I want to get them performing. Yeah. But we have fun too. I love that as well and I think we could bring some of those for sure.