The Wise Why

Ant Parsons
Good morning, Kirsty. So yeah, Ant Parsons, I work with OXLEP. A lot of the time. Oxford to local enterprise partnership. But I do that through my own business. ALP Synergy Limited, which I’ve been running now for nearly ten years. It will be our 10th birthday in 2024.
Kirsty van den Bulk
Wow. So can you expand a little bit about what ALP Synergy does? And then we’ll. Come back to. That.
Ant Parsons
We ask ourselves that question quite often. What do we do? Because we do a range of different things and some of it is very obvious and people can see it. So you know, I met you through business support, working with small businesses. You know everything from a, you know, a sole trader, a solo opener, up to a business with 50 staff. In Oxfordshire and we work with them and we help them to get started, to thrive, to grow. So we do that and we have a programme of different support across Oxford. You’re doing that. We do very similar in Berkshire. So you could say we cover some of the Thames Valley and we also run a grant scheme for businesses in the Forest of Dean and in the Cotswolds. But then something completely different. We also run a charity called the Foundation for Water Research. It’s water-related. Clarity, which fits with our backgrounds but the charity. Got to a point where they wanted to close down and. All of their. Staff. Had got very old and retired, so we’ve been running that charity for the last two years and and we’re. Giving its assets to other charities so that the good work can carry on and then closing that charity down.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Wow, I have no idea. So where did ALP synergy come from? Because it’s a family business.

Ant Parsons
It is a family business, so myself and my business partner/wife Leslie, both worked at the Environment Agency. We’re both environment sustainability people at heart, but for anyone who’s ever worked in a in a big public sector organisation, one of the best things is how they develop you and train you. And we had such fantastic development and training, we’d worked our way through the organisation and we got to a level where we thought this is probably as high as we’re going to go and we love what we’re doing and we love the people we’re working with, but it’s not really fulfilling us. So that gave first me the nudge to say, hold on a minute. There’s something else out there. Go and do what you want to do. And so I left first and then six months later Leslie left and and we set up a LP synergy. So another little little secret. So a LP. Ant and Leslie Parsons. And the synergy is about what we do. We bring people together, we bring projects together to make them better.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Brilliant. And So what was it like taking that leap of faith and jumping into the unknown?

Ant Parsons
It I wasn’t scared because I’d spent the last couple of years in the Environment Agency. My role was to go and explore what others were doing and to see if there were different ways to do. To deliver environmental outcomes. So I’ve been given. A sort of a a bridge to the other side. Go and look and see how you could do things differently. So I’ve been doing that for two years, so I had lots of things that I. Thought we could do. So it wasn’t scary. So I was very happy jumping. I’ll be totally honest. I never. Did any paid work for over 9 months? So all of the thoughts and ideas I had and I left with. Didn’t go anywhere. All of the all of the leads. That I left the Environment Agency with were still great friends, but they didn’t turn into work. They didn’t turn into contracts. You know, I had to put a lot of thought into how we were going to do things and change my ideas to actually. Find work.
Kirsty van den Bulk
I’m really pleased you shared that because a lot of people seem to think that you launch business and you’re going to go and get work straight away, or you might have initial success, but actually you have to have this planning stage. I know I went through it and that’s kind of where I then reached out to offset because it was like if I don’t start earning money. This is just a dream.

Ant Parsons
Yes, absolutely.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Sorry, can you expand expand? A little bit about how you help people in my position at that point.

Ant Parsons
Well, I mean, I I wish people. Would engage with us, you know, if if they’re in the position that I was in or you were in and you had a career or you were doing something and you were thinking, you know, I’ve got this dream. I’m going to change at some point. I wish people would engage with us at that stage because we can say there’s a lot of things you can be doing to get yourself started in the business. While you’re still working. And I’m not talking about, you know, all of a sudden doing 60 hours a week because you’re trying to do both the job and work for yourself. But a lot of things, just like thinking through, what’s your mission? What’s your objectives? You know, how much are you planning on being able to earn in the 1st 12 months? Because it’s not necessarily that you’re going to be able to replace. Your income straight away. You know what sort of online presence do you? Want. Shape your online presence. Get the get the whole foundations ready. Before you really do need to have those clients on board and and I I remember you know, managers many, many years ago saying if you’re going for promotion, become that person in that job long before you apply for it. And it’s the same as running a business become the business owner. Before you are.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s.

Ant Parsons
And we can help. With that.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s great advice, and actually that is exactly what. I remember you. And Paul and I was sitting on the calls. And it was like. Right. Well, what am I missing? And at that point, I wasn’t a voice. I was doing the social media, but I wasn’t the voice of authority and I joined the call and. Got the work that I booked. The podcast. Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, honey. And now, of course, you’re helping me after Monday because we had a call on Monday. Take the next leap of faith and. And so I’m just going to say out to people you might have a business idea, and I’m gonna just back up. You’re saying that you might have a business idea and it might. Feel like a big. Hairy bottom goal and you might think it’s not. Achievable, but actually. With the support of ants, you can navigate it, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. So on a personal note, thank you.

Ant Parsons
You’re welcome. I would say that’s that you’re in a way. It’s a perfect example of what we want to do. We want to bring things together and make them better. And our call on Monday wasn’t just with me. It was with one of our advisors, Paul Homes, and a number of other small businesses. And you know, that is an example of some of the support we do. We bring peers together with experts and we have discussions. Collaborative problem solving, you know, and it’s all fully funded by central government because central government wants you to grow your business Kirsty. It wants you to be successful, wants you to pay more taxes.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love that.

Ant Parsons
The central government wants to succeed.

Kirsty van den Bulk
OK. Yeah. No, I really love. That, and I mean, I think people realise that cause a lot of a lot of people come to me and go. So how did you get to really well? And it’s like, well, when I did the techniques of course, which was. Brilliant and in invaluable. Enjoy. Thank you very. Very much. But I also did offer and offset, gave me. It was I I combined the two, but the business acumen and that. Is support and actually you know I’m still in touch with people from all those courses and when we get. Down, because let’s talk about the loneliness a little bit, because even slightly different. We’ve got Leslie, but it can get all in your head or have you not? Have you been lucky? To avoid that one.

Ant Parsons
No, you’re you’re absolutely right. And it’s a, it’s a. It’s definitely one reason we know a lot of businesses do connect with OXLEP. And with our. Support, but yeah, I mean as a as an entrepreneur, as somebody starting a business. You’re highly likely to be surrounded by other people that are either business people in very different businesses or employees. Which means that none of them. Understand what you’re going through. They might understand some of the business challenges, but they don’t understand your particular challenges, so. That, you know, our peer groups are really, really good at at helping you find connections. And you know, we create a group of eight people and you’re not going to get a brilliant connection with all eight. But there’ll be two in there that it works with. And it and it is lovely to hear that you know that you’re still in touch with those people if you bump into them at a networking event, you know you it’ll be hugs. And hey, how are you doing and how’s that thing gone? You know, you’ll have a connection and, you know, you can pick up the phone to me at any point and say. And that thing we talked about, I’m doing AB and C what do you think? And I go absolutely because I understand it. To that point.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s really important. I I can’t stress enough how to anyone who is thinking about launching a business. We’re lucky we’ve got OXLEP. We’ll find your local EP because we won’t. Meet all their. Aunt, which I’m now going to come on to. Who’s inspired? You along your way.

Ant Parsons
Who’s inspired me? But, you know, I mentioned about leaving the Environment Agency. I had a fantastic mentor who’s now a very good friend in the Environment Agency, and I probably. I I was connected with him for the last 10 years of my career there and he just, you know, everything about how he did business. I just liked the way in which he led people, the way in which he would make tough decisions, the way in which he would support people who are going through challenges. He was a real people person, but he knew his stuff as. Well, and he very much believed in collaboration and expanding groups and networks and things. So. So he definitely inspired me and and he actually, when I was leaving, he was my manager at that point. And he said to me, he said you’re only halfway through your career. And Are you sure you want to? Leave and I. Said Steve. And then there’s. A hint, Steve? I’m only halfway through my career so. That’s absolutely why I have to leave. I’ve got so much more I want to do, you know, and. You know, he he inspires me. Since then loads of people. I mean, I’ve had people that I’ve had, I’ve done amazing work with clients or partners. I’ve had people that I’ve not got. On. With. But what I would say is from every one of those relationships we’ve learned and we’ve grown. Brunel University did an awful lot of work with Brunel University around the connection between research and society, so they’ve got amazing researchers. But they wanted to make sure that that research was turning into impact impact for businesses, impact for the environment impact for people. So I was helping make those connections for them and and we did projects all over the world pre COVID we were in India, Indonesia, Kenya. Making connections with the developing world. Build them with global challenges like plastics and microplastics in the ocean, things like that. So. Yeah, I mean I the list is very long of people that have inspired me, Kirsty.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So the environmental side of things, because it’s really important, it’s we’re touched on it. You know we have one, one how much can one little step. Change one thing that you do. Yeah, one little bit of extra recycle. One bit of not buy that plastic bottle. What’s the impact? How much can we change just as a a small person? I’m not asking to be a scientist here, but I think. It’s. Important if to to to share this. Because one of the. Bullets I’m working on. We’re looking at how we can the impact. On the environment of your life, at sea and and other aspects. So I’m just wondering. About that impact, it’s such an important word. It’s such a buzzword at the moment, the impact that we can we can we as individuals can make on the.

Ant Parsons
Every one thing that everyone individual can do is essential. And. It is impossible to know whether the activities that you do this weekend, whether they’re going to, you know, change the world from an environmental viewpoint, but you can guarantee that if this weekend you go and do your Christmas shopping on the High Street. And you buy better quality, fewer things for people. You know, we’ve got to look at consumption. We’ve got to look at short life of products. We’ve got to look at reducing what we buy, reducing what we. Waste. If you shop local. And put that money back into the local community. And if you buy better things. And you know, I was, I was looking through some photos with Leslie yesterday, and there was one of her and her best friend from five years ago. And she had her favourite top on that. I know she’ll wear this Christmas and it’s like you’ve had that top for five years and it’s still one of. Your favourite best tops. And it was probably a bit more expensive than the. Other tops that she wears. But the qualities lasted so that was. A great buy. It’s everything that we do will make a small difference, and we all have to do everything that we can do to protect the environment.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. I’ve got a pair of gloves which unfortunately I now have to say goodbye to yours. Wearing them this morning to take our little ones to the bus stop. And yeah, they’re not. Keep my hands were very longer. They are 20 years old.

Ant Parsons
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
It’s right.

Ant Parsons
Yeah. So when So what do you want for Christmas? Don’t need anything really happen.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah. Yeah, well, why won’t this? That’s a good question. I don’t need anything. So I’m just going to put that out there. My husband and I go through this every year. What do you have? Christmas. And we look at each other and go. We’ve got each other and that sounds really sappy. So now you can get ill, but actually that’s kind of important to us as we’ve got each other, we’ve got our health, we can pay the mortgage, we have a child. Don’t need anything. We’ve got everything we want.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So actually, as we talk about Christmas, because it’s coming up, have you put your decorations up? It is the 1st of December.

Ant Parsons
It is no, not yet. We’ve made plans to put them up next weekend. So what’s that? The the 8th, 9th of December. The decorations will be going up and we have got a rather large Christmas tree right outside our house, which sadly, I have to get one of my neighbours. Bring one of those cherry picker crane things home because we can’t get the lights on the top of the tree anymore, so it becomes a it becomes a community thing. The only way to make this tree look nice for the street is for the community to come together. Can do it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
We want a picture. OK, there has to be a picture in picture for the socials. Yeah. You talk for inspiration there. There have been. I can hear in. In what you’re talking about. There have been many. Aha moments on the way. I wonder if you could talk about some. Of the good. Ones and maybe some of the bad ones.

Ant Parsons
Yeah. Yeah, so. I think. The biggest aha moment, that really, if it hadn’t happened we I wouldn’t know you. We wouldn’t be here doing this as you’ve alluded to there. You know as an environment and sustainability background to what we do, that’s what I expected to be doing. When when I left the Environment Agency, I was going to be helping make connections around environmental projects and for. Three to four years, that’s what. I did and. And Leslie had left the Environment Agency as well. But she was. She was having to do part time work elsewhere. So that we could afford to live and she was helping me when I really needed it. And and it was that. There was a switch where we thought, you know. This. If we carry on like this, we’ll never get what we wanted, which was to be working together to be working for ourselves and to be able to choose the work we do. And we decided we had to go back to some. Of our core skills. The the organisation, the stakeholder engagement, the programme management, the leadership and focus on those rather than the environment. So the topic of environment and sustainability took a back seat and we focused on our core skills that enabled us. To start working with Oxlip, because that’s what they need. You know, they they weren’t looking for a business to go out and connect with local SMEs and support them on sustainability. They were looking for someone who could organise a really good programme of support. That could pull together, A-Team to deliver amazing content and workshops that could bring stakeholders together. That could make sure that we could report on. The successes of what we do. So ultimately we’re just, we’re just great programme managers, really, and we’ve applied that through a wider network network to help businesses to grow.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Brilliant. That is exactly so. Exactly the same thing I launched in the pandemic. I thought I went down where I could make money, which was public speaking and on camera coaching because it was a pandemic. I could make money and yet my business is back to my core skills of sales and marketing. And that is what I I help people do is stop talking awful. Still absolutely 100%. You know, public speaking on camera but it’s actually the nitty gritty of what you say and how you say it and how you can go to market and it’s that sales and marketing and that’s how I earn my money. And that’s what I set out to launch. But because the pandemic I didn’t, and no one back to it. And and there was that one moment where I suddenly realised I wasn’t doing what I was.
Speaker
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I was wrong. I was good at public speaking in on camera, but that was me body shopping and and so offset taught me. You and Paul particularly in this case Paul we’re very clear on body shopping. I wondered if you could cause a lot of small business owners do this and I wondered if you could explain exactly why your business can’t scale that your body should.

Ant Parsons
Body Shop. What? What do you mean, Body Shop?

Kirsty van den Bulk
I don’t. So it’s when you’re you’re. Literally charging an hour for your services.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So it’s been my phrase.

Ant Parsons
Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s only so much of your own time and, you know, there’s very few people who say, do you know, I want to start a business because I never want to have. Any free time ever again in my life. They got. That’s not. That’s not in anybody’s preferred missions. That’s where you end up because you are selling yourself for time and. You have to then start to say, well, hold on a minute. I need to. Step back from this and find out well what. Are the tasks what are the things that I can do? That I can get. Other. People to do so that you can, you can do the things that only you can do. Your business can then start to grow and in the small list of examples that can be getting a virtual assistant to manage your e-mail and do some of your social media posting. But then ultimately you want to replace yourself. Ultimately, you’re looking for someone else that’s better than you. And does everything that you can do. And is keen to be part of your mission and your vision so that they can come in and help you to grow. And we’ve been extremely lucky in finding some great people and and our model is is much like a lot of the. Customers, we’ve got five staff. So the five people in house, but we work with 20 plus advisors. Who are all? Like me, but different. You know, they’re all. They’ve got an expertise, so they’re either into innovation or they’re into marketing and sales or they’re into business scale up or they’re into finances and they’re happy to work with small businesses and help them and transfer their knowledge. Some of these people are are quite young. Some of these advisors are quite young and, you know, really. At the sharp end of their topic and others are, you know, close to retirement, but they’ve got an awful lot of knowledge and experience to share.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you I. I’ll do you a little bit of work. With digital boost. To give back. So I want to talk about mentoring because I think when you launch, I know for me, I couldn’t afford a a business mental. You know it. It just wasn’t in my budget. If I was paying a fitness mental, I couldn’t afford, or if I was early enough and that’s where offset the gap. It gives you that that kind of bridging. But I was you mentioned mentoring earlier and I just I was using active listening. I wondered if we could talk about mentoring and then you could also explain what active listening is.

Ant Parsons
Yes. OK, thanks. You didn’t tell me about that one and so well mentoring and I don’t I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna get cause arrow in the chat or in the feedback here. But there’s a lot of a lot of views about what coaching is, what mentoring is and and I’m I’m not in that space for me and mentor is somebody that helps someone.

Kirsty van den Bulk
No, sorry.

Ant Parsons
Role and they may use a few coaching skills, coaching questions, but they’ll also share a bit of their own advice and guidance and support. And whereas a coach probably won’t, coach will just be digging and finding what’s inside you. And so for me, mentoring is really important and I don’t think I’ve ever had. One mentor over a very long period of time. I I’ve always. One of my early business ideas was setting up something about mentor moments. Because I think you need. You regularly need a little redirection. A little nudge, but it might be that you don’t need that with the same person all of the time, and for me I can think back to many, many people that I would say have played a mentoring role for me over time, but they were never my mentor. If that makes sense, and apart from that one person, so Steve uh so?
Kirsty van den Bulk
Hey.

Ant Parsons
Mentoring now I think is really important. Oxlip offers mentoring support. So. As. As long as you’ve got a business and you’ve got ambition to grow, you know in terms of turnover, in terms of staff or other things and we, we don’t mean, you know, you’ve got to have five staff, but you know, a solo planner who’s saying, you know, this time in two years time, I want to have a business with two staff. And I want us to be turning over ex. Then we can provide a mentor not. The whole period, because we’ve only got a finite amount of money, but we can provide a mentor to help you on that journey and hopefully help you.

Ant Parsons
Getting over a few hurdles or a few steps forward, and then let you go and you go on and you you do what you need to do and you come back six months later and say, I’ve done that. It’s amazing. Now I need now I’ve got another challenge. Brilliant. Great. Is it the same mentor you need or do you need a different one? Well, no. Before I was talking about sales and marketing. Now I need to know about my finances. Great. OK, let’s provide you with the support you need when you need it to help you.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you. I think that’s really important because I don’t think people realise I think a lot of the perception is you come into a course and then you’re gone. I have done I think for different courses now. And and it really helps me at different points on different aspects of the business and yeah. And if it now and I go, yeah. Actually I’m I’m I’m kind. Of proud of this. In fact, one of. The jobs I’m. Doing now I. Wouldn’t go to do if I. Hadn’t actually done the offset course. Because my own, I couldn’t wear mine. Stevens rather than and my mind, diners would have come in and. Got the air. You can’t do that and I lost my confidence and it was Andrea and I remember speaking to Andrea and she went, you can do this. You’ve got this. And I was like. OK, OK, I’m going to put on my break pants and go for it. And I don’t know if I’d take the leap of faith if it wasn’t for Andrea.

Ant Parsons
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many so many success stories and we would put you in the brackets of one of the success stories of people we’ve connected with. And we’re not claiming the benefit. You know, we have we haven’t. Done what? You’ve. Done. We’ve just enabled, you supported you, you know, helped you at a time when you wanted, wanted some help. And we’re willing to take it. And as a result now. You know, I I know you’re doing really, really well and you’ve got bigger plans ahead, which is really exciting and.
Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, they those ones came out last week. Thanks to Andy Lambert by the way.

Ant Parsons
Yes, Yeah, I mean looking at. Looking at some of the successes, we know that there’s a lot. Of. People who started on their journey with OXLEP and they’ve gone on to do amazing things and and I talk a lot about growth and I and then I have to check myself and say, well, everybody wants to grow. Some people just want to be. Their business and that’s fantastic as well. But I always think standing still is a challenge, because if you’re not, if you’re not growing as a person, and if you’re not keeping your business abreast of the things that’s happening, then you will become out of date and you will, you know, you will disappear. So. So I talk about growth, but I mean, you know, the business leader growing as well as the business. And we’re here to support.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Now I’m going to ask about active listening. So I did plant the seed earlier and did sales technique there just and I was wondering why I did that. So if you could explain about active listening that. Would be really cool.

Ant Parsons
OK. So let me so active listening is a skill. It’s not something we’ve invented. We know we’ve, we’ve, we’ve all got it as a parent, as a partner in a relationship. You will listen to the other person on a regular basis. So. A low level of active listening would be where the child where your partner comes to you and says oh, I want to do this and you’ve already switched off you, you know that they’re talking, you’re not really listening to what they say cause you’re deciding in your head how you’re going to say what you want to say. You’re not interested in what they’re saying. In a work environment that could be a colleague coming to you for help on something, and it might be that you’re a bit frustrated because you’ve helped them before, so you’re just throwing the answer at them. But that’s not what they need. If it’s not worked before, so a low level of active listening is where you’re not really listening. You’re thinking about how to respond. A better level of active listening would be where you you actually do you you pause your own brain and you let the information come in. You let it soak in, you’re listening to it, and you’re asking questions. So Kirsty, tell me you’ve just said AB and C. Tell me more about that. You know, that would be a powerful question. You can’t say yes or no to it, so you can’t close me down. I’ve forced you to go in and tell me more. So I’m actively listening. And I’ve made you feel more important as well because I’m interested. I’m not just trying to get rid of you. I’ll give you an answer. So that’s a middle level of active listening, a really great level of active listening is where you can do all of those things. But you can also observe as well. So you’re listening with your eyes. You’re listening. To their body language you’re listening to. Do they? Do they look comfortable? Are they shifting around in their seat? You know what’s going on for this person? Have I just asked a question that they’re not happy answering? Hmm OK, I need to pack that. Maybe I need to come back to that later, so that would be the higher level of active listening. And delivering a lot of support over zoom as we do. And I know you interact with a lot of people over, you know, video conferencing. I do think you can still do that high level of active listening. Even you know, through a camera hundreds of miles away, potentially, you know, you can see I’m generally comfortable. I can see that you look very comfortable.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And literally looking. So this is the other thing. When I film the wise why when we’re doing this, I am relying completely naturally on my my hearing because you are just there. If I turn my head. That’s you at my screen, but you’re in my peripheral view, so I am watching you can. Definitely. And you know, seeing if you’re shifting and and it’s, it is hard when you do that because you’ve had a couple of things where I’ve spoken over you or and and it’s difficult because you’re doing the active listening, but also you’re worrying about dead air space and all these other things. But I am watching you in my peripheral vision and listening to everything you’re saying. And yeah, it I think it’s a really good gift. And actually I think active listening is the gift of sales as well. If you talk about listening to your customer, but actually really listening to the customer and not making that assumption of what the customer wants is the difference between how you sell and how you serve. So that’s why I asked you the question.

Ant Parsons
Yes, and it’s a skill we have to keep practising. So I would say the number of times I’ve introduced people to active listening would suggest I must be an expert in it. And and my wife, my business partner Leslie, will regularly turn around and say, well, you don’t practise that, do you?

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love that. I really do. And so this is on the table 10 we you’ve been talking for a good nearly 30 minutes. So you get to turn the tables and ask me a question. And as I was saying, people, I’ve got no idea what it is and I don’t want to know until you ask them so but. Your bits and see if you can make me uncomfortable.

Ant Parsons
So yeah, I I. Was going to ask you about how OXLEP supported you, but you’ve you’ve brought that in throughout, so you’ve ruined that one for me. So. So I’m going to ask you a slightly different question then. So you’ve told me you don’t want anything for Christmas, but if you could have anything for your business for Christmas. What would that be?

Kirsty van den Bulk
So I would have somebody who would knock on my door and say let’s get this farm going. Let’s let’s get this. Idea that you’ve got to get people off the streets to empower them to get all the way through and we yeah, it’s the big. Thing. Is people who on the streets, people who’ve been in refuge, people who have just not had that luck in life could have that safe place. So if I could have anything for Christmas, it would be somebody. Knock on the door and say OK.

Kirsty van den Bulk
If you’ve got the vision. Now let’s make it happen. But that’s been my Christmas dream. I even thought. And don’t laugh. I even thought maybe I could get a speaking slot because I used to be a presenter, an actor, maybe get a speaking slot on Loose Women and elevate my status. And then I could use all that money to launch it. You know I’ve I’ve that that’s how much it means to me to get out to really empower people with the qualifications because when you find yourself there with absolutely nothing. It’s the loneliest place that would ever be. And you’re fighting the black dog every step of the way. And to really know that, you have a worth or you have the chance of having worth and to get myself out of it. I was very lucky. I went back to my parents and for my parents, I was very enough of a bag of wombat. Ian Thompson helped me hugely, helped me, and then I went back to my parents and I did that, did a degree and slowly but surely I was able to put in the steps to rebuild my life from being absolutely destitute. But I would love to help other people do it because it was knackering genuine knackering and at the end of my degree I then brought my life because I was exhausted, and if I could help one person get their life back and avoid that self destruction, then my job is done so somebody can knock on my door. And actually say, yeah, whichever way it is, look this women or alternatively knocking the door of money also might be really happy.

Ant Parsons
So I mean, assuming this video is going to go viral, which usually they do, don’t they, hopefully.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Of course they do.

Ant Parsons
Hopefully somebody out there, either with the influence, power or money to come and knock on your door. If you can’t do it this Christmas, then connect with Kirsty in the New Year and work with her over the next 12 months so that by this time next year Kirsty’s business dream can come true. And.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Of course. This is gonna go viral, right?

Ant Parsons
In terms of Loose Women, one of those people that have inspired me, so this guy’s named Andy in case he watches this, he’s got a saying. If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Great price.

Ant Parsons
So if you knew you could get on to Loose Women, what would you do to do it?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Ohh UM. Course it. Well, I know what it. Wouldn’t do to it. I think that’s a.

Ant Parsons
Say yes, they’re going to say yes. So how do you do it?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yes, I I just do it because of course I would do it. I’m the right age. I’ve got the experience. I’ve got 71 episodes of The Wise Why and people there who my personality, of course, I would do it. There is. I wouldn’t even not do it. They wouldn’t even cross my mind not to do it. Because sorry.

Ant Parsons
Are they going To Ask so how? How you they’re going to say yes. So how are you going to make it possible for? Them to say yes.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Oh. That’s a really good one, cause when that leads me onto going on strictly because, you know, I was a terrible dancer. I wasn’t. I was a good dancer. But I wasn’t good enough. Cool, really good one. I’m gonna have to go and think on that one. I’m gonna plant that seed there and let it there and then go and water it. I’m not gonna try. And. Answer that now, but I’m gonna let those boots grow.

Ant Parsons
Excellent.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thanks for making me go and think again and thanks and let me share my my hairy bottom goal.

Ant Parsons
You’re you’re very welcome, Kirsty. Thank you, for wonderful chat. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Or if you can catch up and. Watch it on. And listen again, because there’s some really interesting nuggets. There about business. Acumen and at. Listening so thank you.

Ant Parsons
Thanks Kirsty.