Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription

Endings Transcript Sam Jones

[00:00:00] Hazel Showell: Hello everyone. I'm Hazel Showell and I'm here to guide you through the toughest transitions in life, business, and even love. Welcome to Endings

[00:00:10] Sam Jones: we were just in reception, laughing our heads off. We must have looked like three Mad Men to be honest.

[00:00:14] Hazel Showell: In today's episode, I'm speaking to Sam. Fresh out of University shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, Sam and a couple of friends took a leap, putting their creative heads together. They launched tuna fish, a social media marketing agency. Sam's story is one of identity and perhaps growing up a little too quickly. In this episode, I want you to notice how Sam reflects on his own missteps, how he uses humor, and how he doesn't take himself too seriously.

Starting a business from scratch, then letting go of it can be a tough process. But first, let's go back to the beginning.

[00:01:00] Sam Jones: My description of TunaFish was we were a bit of a weird business. We won a lot of awards but there is that film at the Oscars every year that gets nine nominations and no one's watched it and it makes no money. That's essentially what the business was really.

[00:01:16] Hazel Showell: Despite Sam’s humble attitude, TunaFish did win awards, quite a few of them. Clearly, they were doing something right.

[00:01:24] Sam Jones: say there were like five agencies up for a pitch. It would probably be the four biggest agencies you could think of, and we'd kind of be the fifth in the room

[00:01:32] Hazel Showell: Sam was rubbing shoulders with the top marketing agencies in the field. He’d made it to the big leagues, sparking conversations of a potential sale of the company.

[00:01:41] Sam Jones: We got approached and basically someone was looking into buying the business in the sense that where they'd probably buy 70%, we'd have 10% each, and then there'd be some investment put in to grow it and then we'd exit together basically.

[00:01:55] Hazel Showell: The prospect of selling the company had become a little overwhelming. There was no firm deal in sight. The dominoes slowly looked like they were starting to fall.

[00:02:06] Sam Jones: In the agency world things can go wrong quite quickly. When we started, someone who's kind of a mentor and someone I've always looked up to kind of said to me, you only really need three things to go wrong in a short period to end the company. And basically like seven or eight and Over maybe like a three to six month period, like 50 grands worth of debt can become a couple of hundred grand if you're not earning anything the other side.

[00:02:31] Hazel Showell: A crossroads had appeared. It was time for Sam to balance the realities of the business he created with the circumstances he faced. It was time to make a decision. A difficult one.

[00:02:46] Sam Jones: So basically we kind of just damage limitation, decided to call it, then went and saw an insolvency company. It was like the day before the lockdown got called in the end. Before the pandemic got caught it before the lockdown got called in the end and like the three of us had got two like founders. We were just sat in and it had been like a tense couple of months before then and we were just sat in the reception and we just all started laughing basically because that was kind of, it really.

It's a strange way to go but it's, it is like it is. And that, I think one of them got a photo on the time and in that photo we actually looked like the happiest we'd been in mum's cuz it was over really. So yeah, I think that was the time. I, I think sort of before that we kind of believed we could get out of it and I think we, we were approaching it in pretty rational ways as well, where we just, we were just trying to work our way for it basically.

Most businesses have tough times and that was ours. And it obviously didn't end the way you at we wanted it to, but it is what it is.

[00:03:44] Hazel Showell: I'm, I'm more interested cause as you said, seven or eight things went wrong at once, which very few businesses could survive, including things completely out of your control.

Uh, and that's, that's often like, say what happens, but I suppose I'm still interested in that moment. The release and the relief of it's over. You know, that's as bad as it's gonna get.

[00:04:11] Sam Jones: It was, it was just kind of like, We just knew we'd lost a fight. Really. Do you know what I mean? And like the, the thing with tuna fish anyway, and the three of us is individuals like Rick and M as well.

Like humor is our approach to everything really. Like if we're in trouble, we'll try and laugh our way out of it. If stuff's going great, we'll have a laugh. Do you know what I mean? So it was kind of a bit, sort of on point for where we were anyway, but it was just that point where we sat in the office. We was about to go through a door, met a guy, meet a guy we've never met before, and basically agreed to shut the business, and we was just sat in silence.

There was all this stuff going on around us. The office we had the meeting in was pretty chaotic cuz there was people like packing up the computers to go work from home and all that sort of stuff. And we were just in reception, laughing our heads off. We must have looked like three Mad Men to be honest.

[00:04:59] Hazel Showell: Yeah, I can imagine. It's almost like the photo you'd never expect to create. Yeah. Sitting in an insolvency practitioner laughing. But I wonder how many people get to that moment and where you think it's going to be the worst moment of your life and actually,

[00:05:17] Sam Jones: It's not, yeah. So it was like, obviously like you, you, you spend 10 years building something and you kind of have an image in your head on how that may or may not end.

And, and that's the one that probably doesn't cross your mind really, but like, if you're in that situation, you've got no charge really, but to just deal with it and, and that's what it was in the end.

[00:05:37] Hazel Showell: So if you go back to the beginning though, of those 10 years, what do you think you learned about yourself from setting up a business

[00:05:46] Sam Jones: When we set up the business, we, we were with three creatives and we'd all met on a creative uni course and like basically when we started the business, we had to be something else as well. And what is quite interesting over that 10 years, like I'd say over the last five, like two of us, two of them, so like 66% hadn't done anything creative.

We just completely like almost lost ourselves in the business side of running a business and kind of. I think now that, and probably for Rick as well, that's probably where we fit naturally. So I guess we've kind of gone into it with an idea of who we were from a, professional standpoint and come out of it almost the complete 180, because they are opposite sides of completely different kinds.

So there's that, I, I kind of think in a way that running a business or wanting to be an entrepreneur or whatever you call it, is a mental illness in a way because. A lot of the time, it's horrific, let's be honest. There's always, and it's stuff that you can't predict. You'd just be having a nice like Wednesday afternoon and then something's just going to hit you in the ribs from the side that you couldn't have ever predicted with a thing at all.

And after a while, you kind of live for that really. And, it is nearly two years since, we shut Chew in Fish now, and I've had a bit of time out, I've been doing a bit of consultancy and stuff and I'm. Getting itchy feet to start something. And I'm like, what? Why? Who in their right mind would put themselves through that again?

[00:07:18] Hazel Showell: I hate to say it, but sounding like you're a bit of an adrenaline junkie. You like the, you love the vows of fixing problems.

[00:07:24] Sam Jones: Probably more than likely. Yeah.

[00:07:26] Hazel Showell: But also, the one thing about being a business owner is you have got to be really good at solving problems on your feet. And that's what gets the brain buzzing, and that's what you're good at.

So if that's what you're good at, then. Incredibly well-fitted to do this insane job that is running a small business.

[00:07:46] Sam Jones: Not, good enough, not good enough, unfortunately.

[00:07:49] Hazel Showell: It's like, don't give up. Now, you're good at it, but maybe get the business model right this time. Charge enough. Yeah, no, you

[00:07:58] Sam Jones: worth, yeah, maybe. I don't actually think any of that, cuz by the time we got to that point, you're 10 years in, you get your pricing writing and stuff. Um, none of that stuff really contributed to our downfall really. It was just mainly. Just weird situations that we got ourselves in ca in the terms of people trying to buy us.

[00:08:17] Hazel Showell: Do you wanna say a bit more about that? Cause I think when we talked about the, almost the what started the process that almost culminated in the end of the business, it did seem that the, a big part was played by the, in that Cycle that you went for. So do you want to say a bit more about that?

[00:08:38] Sam Jones: we'd always grown the business sort of bootstraps. We'd never took investment. It wasn't really something we'd considered even to be honest. And then probably a bit before that, I think we'd got to the point where maybe the three of us were maybe interested in a new challenge anyway, where we kind of grew it to a point.

And basically we got approached and someone was looking at buying the business in the sense that where they'd probably buy 70%, we'd have 10% each, and then there'd be some investment put in to grow it, and then we'd exit together basically. I think, that was the start of how things turned out the way they turned out really. So I think probably two decisions that I got wrong in, in that period was one, I was working on the deal, hired the senior sales guy who sold himself to us. Great. But that was the only thing he did sell Joe in that whole process, which was straight and yeah.

And then I was kind of working on the deal that dragged on a bit as deals do so, the whole of me coming out of the sales team is kind of growing back the longer this deal goes on and then it, the kind of deal was more or less agreed and we got to the point where it was ready to go over the line and it got pulled.

The reasons for that, I'm not entirely sure to be honest, and I'm not sure of all I'll ever know. So try not to think too much about that. There was a lot going on at the time. There was like an election called and that was the kind of stuff. Which said to us, but I'm not sure that's the truth, I'm kind of over it enough.

So that was like a six month period where there hadn't been any sales basically. And we'd ate into most of our cash suppliers. I think if you, if any business as a six month kind of problem period, they're kind of in a bit of trouble. So yeah, we was in trouble. So that was kind of like the backend 2019. And so we was rowing back, not really knowing what we was rowing, straight headfirst into the pandemic really. We'd had a couple of chats during that period with like maybe bigger companies. Some of our competitors was looking at maybe doing a merger or like them acquiring us or something like that.

And yeah, basically the pandemic port put an end to all of that, and we just decided to. Call it a day before the kind of decks got absolutely chaotic if that makes sense.

[00:10:53] Hazel Showell: But that's the thing, isn't it, that when you're on the other side, and I know you've said that sometimes you've been on the other side of that where people have ended up owing you money and it always felt, you know, really unfair, but now you've experienced it often there's a lot of businesses just doing the best, doing the best they can and getting as much as they can.

[00:11:13] Sam Jones: Yeah, I think for us, like put going, like just kind of going away as well as we could, so like how it kind of come about is I wrote a blog which I was planning on putting out as soon as the insolvency was confirmed. Cuz again, there's a bit of a process where you're in insolvency, but it's not complete yet. So it was just sitting around. It was during that first lock. And then I got a call from a journalist who was like, well, i've heard what's happened. I'm gonna put a story out. And then I was like, can you wait?

And we like, basically the sales guy you had mentioned a bit earlier, he'd, he'd tipped off a journalist what was happening, which was probably the most initiative he showed during that whole period, which is crazy, but it is what it is. So that blog went out probably a bit earlier than we wanted it to. And to be honest, it was great once it did everyone knew you weren't lying to anyone anyway. You wasn't really seeing anyone during that pandemic. So that was the end of it for me. I think once that happened, that was the laundry under it. And then you can start moving on.

[00:12:09] Hazel Showell: How did people react? Who knew you once the news was out?

[00:12:13] Sam Jones: Yeah, so to be honest, all the people uber important to me knew anyway. It, it'd been like three or four, I think this was probably, it was probably about this time of year, like October time. So, and cuz all the insolvency stuff was moving quite slow cause the pandemic, so there'd been like five months really where this had kind of been going on.

So a lot of people knew anyway. And I, I, by that point I'd obviously had a bit of time to sort of mull it over myself. But then the sort of reaction from like people we don't know was great really. I think we got like 2000 messages. I think there was one negative one in.

[00:12:46] Hazel Showell: But then isn't that, maybe just say something about how good your reputation is.

Doesn't it say how liked you are if people can just want to support you? When something like that happens, if there's only one negative message in a thousand.

[00:13:02] Sam Jones: Yeah. To be honest, that was just like in our trainer's office as well, which was a bit mad in the photo that went with it. But that's the one you think about though, and it, but Oh,

[00:13:10] Hazel Showell: fashion advice.

[00:13:12] Sam Jones: Yeah. Yeah. That's the one you think about that I love them trainers. So yeah, no, obviously it was nice and I think that the main thing was we was just completely honest, the blog's still online somewhere.

But basically, it's along the lines of, look, I've made some mistakes. The business has gone under, I'm sorry. And that was kind of it really. And where is I dunno where again, when you've run a business for a long time, you see businesses probably a couple go under a year and there's always a bit of blame passed around or something like that. And with this, there wasn't really any, it was my decisions that put us in the grave really, and a little bit of the pandemic, but I think that'd be a cop-out. Authenticity had always been pretty important to us as a business.

So to kind of close in the most authentic way possible was really important to us. So that was it.

[00:14:02] Hazel Showell: Yeah. Cause I hear you talk about the importance of being authentic, being you. You also seem to take a lot of the burden for this, those decisions. You know because a deal taking longer than you expected.

I think when we talked about it, I said, Hmm, there are a lot of advisors in a deal that can tell you it takes longer than you think. So I think feels like you're being a bit hard on yourself. Have you heard that before?

[00:14:30] Sam Jones: Maybe. Maybe I am, but maybe I'm not. But again, it's that sort of like just taking responsibility for your actions. Do you know what I mean? Like they were ultimately my actions. So,

[00:14:41] Hazel Showell: so at the time when things were getting difficult for the business, you also mentioned that personal life was getting a bit out of control that you'd been drinking. And so the fact. You were dealing with so many other things at the same time, you know, that must have been very hard.

[00:14:58] Sam Jones: Yes. So like that sort of backend of 2019 started, 2020 was just a bit of a weird period. There was obviously like the business stuff which was going on sort of ended up in a bit of a weird situation in my personal life. There was family illnesses. It was just a bit, it was everything at once, if that makes sense.

I don't, I'd always liked to drink and we'd always kind of liked going out and never honest. There was probably a bit of a drinking culture within our business and I think there definitely is within the local business community. And I almost crushed that threshold a bit where I'd gone from like enjoying going out and drinking to go out to almost drinking to forget a bit, if that makes sense.

Drinking on my own or drinking in the house, which I've never really been. So yeah, again, in that first pandemic, stopped drinking. I think I don't really keep a track of it, but I'm probably about two and a half years sober, but now feel much better for it. I've always had issues with anxiety and panic attacks since I was a kid anyway and it's helped that massively still go out, but just don't drink and kind of leave when everyone gets to the point where they start chatting absolute breeze. So I guess it was quite good for me in that sense, really, where it's allowed me to kind of get a handle on that.

[00:16:11] Hazel Showell: So, What was the point when you were able then to stop drinking? Was it the business or was it a different point?

[00:16:19] Sam Jones: No, so basically like I, it'd been in my mind for a bit and I'll be honest, there'd been like people around, around me in the business community that I'd seen do it. And the one that stands out in my mind, Don McGregor from Social Chain, we. were In the same building for a long time and there is periods where we'd go out together and he's been very open about like similar problems as what I had.

And I'd seen a lot of the good that it had done for him really. So it was one of them things that I knew I needed to do. Just before that lockdown I checked into the aa. I know it's anonymous and you're not meant to talk about it, but here we are.

So I checked into that, done a couple of sessions, and then we were like, we moving it onto Zoom and I didn't think that was for me.

[00:17:00] Hazel Showell: So, but that shows real strength of character. That you can say I don't choose to do this anymore. I want to just stop. And, you know, since this is a podcast about endings and sometimes it's all sorts of different types of endings and you know, your business one in a way was forced on you.

But when it comes to things like stopping drinking or ending that I can also be just a choice. This needs to stop. Yeah.

[00:17:24] Sam Jones: I love how you have gone. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a podcast about endings. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get the guy who ran his business into the ground. Yeah. Cheers for that.

[00:17:33] Hazel Showell: No. Well, the whole point is that we have a culture that isn't very good at talking about what stops. Because the one thing that as you are working on at the moment is that when something stops, it opens up a possibility for something new to. And there's a phrase saying you can't say hello to Lu said goodbye.

So you can't figure out who you are now until you've stopped being Sam from tuna fish. You can't work out the man you want to be until you are sober. All of those things have to stop. Yeah,

[00:18:09] Sam Jones: there was a bit of an identity crisis for a while, and maybe not to rush into something in the sense where I spent just under 10 years as Sam from Tuna Fish

and maybe it took me a little while to work out who some without tuna fish is ever honest. And we had like two really long lockdowns where I was just sat in the house chilling with the dog. And then it's, it probably took me a bit too long to almost like, I feel like I've worked at a million miles a hour now for 10 years.

And then I had that almost force break, which everyone had with the pandemic and then it probably took slightly too long to maybe get through the gears again, but yeah. It is what it is.

[00:18:46] Hazel Showell: But that's the bit now is, think about identity as a psychologist. We work with that all the time.

The layers of who you are, because there'll be many of those layers. Are still there, that, you know, the values that you have, the parts of you that are still you don't change. There might be some bits you've learned through this process that you think, okay, I don't wanna be that version of me anymore.

But I like this version of me, so that'd be interesting, you know? Is there anything yet that's caught your eye that you think, yeah, I could care about that enough, maybe to work on for the next 10 years?

[00:19:22] Sam Jones: So I'm trying not to like, rush into anything. Is the truth done? The consultancy probably seriously for the, maybe the last six months enjoying it. No real complaints there. But I will start something again. I'm probably gonna wait until the world isn't on fire or is on unless on fire than it is at the minute. And then, yeah, I don't know what the future is if I'm honest and I kind of quite excited by that cuz I kind of feel, since we started tuning fish, it always had a plan of kind of loosely what the future looks like. And I don't at the minute, which is quite scary, but I quite like it.

[00:19:56] Hazel Showell: Do you know there's a whole new, well, there's a movement, I think in Europe. They're called the Effortless Entrepreneur, and it's this idea of no plan. You just do the thing in front of you and there's, there's something, it's a little scary about no plan.

Yeah, I don't know enough about it, but it's one of those things that. Yeah, sometimes taking a bit of time to figure out what you care enough about and also be seeing what turns up. As you said you gave your first 10 years to doing something very particular, and it's okay to take a bit of time to figure out what next and what matters. Is there anything you definitely wouldn't do? Learning from the first 10 years?

[00:20:37] Sam Jones: Um, yeah, a hundred percent would not start an agency ever again.

[00:20:41] Hazel Showell: Okay. Fair enough.

[00:20:42] Sam Jones: No, I'm willing to, I'm willing to hang my hat on that, that I am absolutely done in the agency world.

And that's not, that sounds like really negative. It isn't in my head. It's not because of the way it ended. It's just a case. I had 10 years doing it. I want to try some other stuff. Probably won't do a service based business again for the same reason ever. I just wanna see what happens and go from there.

[00:21:13] Hazel Showell: So you might have heard that Sam has really wrestled with identity, which is how we see ourselves. An identity is layered like an onion, and if you think we are all built up of layers and we're built up of family, National cultural identity. It actually starts really early, but that idea of how other people see us, which is sometimes not entirely consistent with how we see ourselves now, having a professional persona isn't unusual and not having any time to understand who you are personally outside of that per persona is not unusual for people who set businesses up straight from university, but most of us do have that.

Because if you think of yourself as three intersecting circles, there's who you are to yourself. There's who you are to other people, and there's who you are as a professional. The more aligned they are, the more authentic people are gonna find you. And frankly, the less energy it takes, it's so much easier.

If you have to be someone very different, any of those areas of your life, it always costs you. And it is worth checking from time to time that it's the cost you are prepared to pay. Now letting people see the real you or even bringing elements for yourself a little close together so there's less difference, can make life easier and feels rewarding.

So when people really like us, they're like us and not the mask we wear, but if they don't, it says probably more about them than us. Now through the process of building a business, it can feel like sometimes people like that professional mask. And it's how close that might feel to the person we are inside.

And in some situations who he was as a business owner the guys that were having fun after work and the drinking culture, all of that became who he was and his identity. And being Sam from Tuna Fish was somebody he was for 10 years. And it's something we see a lot in people who've run businesses for decades and then sell them that one day.

You think, well, who am I now if I'm not that? And Sam admits he found not being Sam from tuna fish is quite hard to figure out. Well, who? And that process is something that many of us take time over to figure out who are we? Who are we when I'm not in that relationship, or who are we when I'm not that job?

Or who are we when I'm not that title? And it is worth taking time on. It's not a fluffy thing. And yet it's something that people. Spend enough time on and it is the bit that will rip your heart out. Certainly. I spent a bit of time doing some research on how it felt to sell your business and some of the descriptions I heard were things like, it's like having your soul ripped out or doing a hand break, turn down the motorway.

This is not easy stuff. And that was nothing to do with the act of selling your business. It was how it felt. Cuz that's all about changing your, I. You might have also found that the emotional process, and you might have heard some of the emotions that some went through because you know, clearly somebody's pretty resilient, but your brain has to process the end of something.

You have to process loss and our brains process loss as grief. We have to let go. That idea of allowing grief is like any kind of sadness. The movement of sadness is to take us away from society for a little bit so that we can heal, and then when we're ready, we're ready to rejoin. So Sam has taken a little time to step out and step aside to heal, and when he is ready, he'll rejoin.

Clearly, he's got some views on what he'll do when he rejoins, and I'm sure everyone will absolutely wish him all the best when he does. But as with people, when they end relationships or end businesses for different reasons, the grieving process is one that needs to be attended to because the initial, what can be sadness or anger, the negative emotions have to be processed in their time.

And that there's a point when you truly let go of the past when you can say the old ways. The new way is not yet set in stone when you're in this weird, neutral zone where nothing's certain, it's a bit strange, and that's the stage you hear that slams in right now. But many people going through loss, once they can physically and emotionally let go of the way things were of being the person they used to be or doing the job they used to do, being able to let go of the things that they need to end or stop.

That's when this new time can be because yes, it can feel. A bit unsettling to be in a situation where the old way's gone, but the new way's not set in stone. But that can also be a period of self-discovery of finding out who do you want to be when you finish paying for who you have to be. That is Carl Young, by the way that's not me. That is a really interesting time of innovation. Giving yourself a little time to figure out who you want to be next before you launch into something new is healthy, and whether that's because it's the end of relationship or a business, it doesn't matter. Giving yourself some time and then when you're ready, you move on cuz.

Then you can see what's possible when the old ways have gone, and you can create a new plan based on a picture of the future that inspires, that makes you feel hopeful, that it makes you want to play the game again, and most of all focused on a purpose. And that way you're not running from a failure or from an ending, but towards a start and a new.

So thank you so much to Sam for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Endings. If you'd like to share any thoughts, I would love to hear them and you can reach me at Hazel Cs on Twitter or on LinkedIn if you are interested in understanding the endings happening in your life a little.

I'm the perfect thing for you. It's my five step worksheet. It's developed specifically for listeners of this podcast and based on years of my research. The first step will only take you 20 minutes to complete, but it will bring you a lot closer to understanding how to make these difficult decisions around endings.

Click the link in the show notes to download your Thriving through endings worksheet now. And finally, if you know somebody who is wrestling with decisions about ending their business or winding up, then please share it with them. I'm Hazel Sha. I hope you'll join me again for another episode of Endings.

Endings is produced by Fascinate Productions