Why Your Business Makes Money But You're Still Broke | Courtney Hill

[00:00:00] Why Most Entrepreneurs Struggle With Money, Cash Flow, Business Growth, and Property Investing with Courtney Hill Are you building a profitable business or simply working harder to keep it running? Understanding your numbers, managing cash flow, and making smarter financial decisions could be the difference between surviving and thriving as an entrepreneur. According to First Citizens Wealth's 2025 Beyond Wealth Report for Business Owners, more than half of surveyed business owners are experiencing financial stress,

[00:00:29] with 63% identifying inflation as a major concern. Rising interest rates, economic uncertainty, and shifting government policies are making financial confidence more important than ever. But despite these challenges, entrepreneurs continue to pursue growth, build wealth, and create opportunities for the future. On this episode of Let's Have This Conversation, host Kevin McShan welcomes Courtney Hill,

[00:00:54] entrepreneur, property investor, and founder of Hill Bookkeepers, a UK-based bookkeeping and financial management firm dedicated to helping business owners gain clarity, confidence, and control over their finances. Courtney has built Hill Bookkeepers from the ground up, growing it into a team of financial professionals supporting businesses across multiple industries.

[00:01:16] Alongside her bookkeeping firm, she is building her own property investment business, gaining first-hand experience in serviced accommodation, short-term rentals, and real estate entrepreneurship. Having navigated the challenges of building and managing multiple businesses, Courtney understands that sustainable success requires more than generating revenue. It demands financial discipline, strategic decision-making, resilience, and a clear understanding of where your money is going.

[00:01:45] In this conversation, we explore The Entrepreneurial Journey How Courtney built Hill Bookkeepers from the ground up and the lessons she learned about entrepreneurship, leadership, and perseverance. Cashflow Management Why understanding your cash flow is essential to maintaining financial stability and avoiding costly business mistakes. Financial confidence

[00:02:10] How business owners can move beyond financial uncertainty and make informed decisions using accurate financial information. Sustainable business growth The importance of building strong financial foundations, developing effective teams, and scaling without sacrificing profitability. Property investment Courtney's experiences with real estate investing, serviced accommodation, and short-term rentals Overcoming entrepreneurial setbacks

[00:02:38] How resilience, adaptability, and strategic planning help business owners navigate unexpected challenges. Building long-term wealth Why successful entrepreneurship requires aligning business finances, investment opportunities, and personal financial goals. Whether you're launching your first business, managing an established company, exploring property investment, or looking to improve your financial literacy.

[00:03:04] This episode offers valuable perspectives on building a business with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose. Because business success isn't just about how much money you make. It's about how effectively you manage it, invest it, and use it to create lasting opportunities. Join us for an engaging conversation about entrepreneurship, financial management, business growth, and the mindset required to turn ambition into sustainable success. I'm Kevin McShan.

[00:03:34] Let's have this conversation.

[00:03:38] If you're ready, I'll take a moment to welcome you to the program.

[00:04:10] And I'm super excited to learn about your career in bookkeeping and as an entrepreneur. It's great to see you. And thanks so very much for being here, my friend. Amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Courtney, I wanted to start our conversation by asking you about your perspective on women's empowerment in business. And how you believe it's sort of evolved over the course of time.

[00:04:40] Because I know you started your company from the ground up, my friend. So I'm starting our conversation by asking you your perspective on how women's empowerment has really evolved. What are your thoughts there, my friend? Yeah, definitely. So I think with women's particularly, there's a lot more opportunities now, of course, than what there was many years ago, centuries ago. And I think women bring a bit of a different perspective.

[00:05:08] I think men and women both bring different perspectives, different opportunities to the table. You know, women might share more of a caring approach to something. But then, you know, men might tackle that in a different way. I mean, me personally, I kind of started really with kind of nobody on my side and then got into business, started with property originally.

[00:05:36] And thankfully, I had a lot of, well, there weren't many role models women in my particular circles, actually. It wasn't until more the last couple of years that then I've actually managed to meet some women role models more in the finance world. And, you know, there are becoming more and more women in these areas now where there wasn't much before. But I think both men and women bring something different to the table. And it's important to have both. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:04] Now, you're the founder of Hill Bookkeepers, which is a UK-based bookkeeping and financial management firm. And it's dedicated to helping business owners gain greater clarity, confidence, and control over their finances, my friend.

[00:06:22] And so I'm curious to ask you about how many impact they're making through your work and how providing entrepreneurs with the clarity and confidence to understand their financial potential really empowers them to make a difference in business. What are your thoughts there, my friend? Yep. So most business owners, we start with an idea and we get into business and all of a sudden we've grown this business, but we have no idea about the finances.

[00:06:52] So ultimately, we have no way of knowing what the business is doing. And by not understanding your business and your numbers, you might understand the operational side. But by not understanding the numbers side, it's like driving a car blind. You don't know where the business is going. You can't make, you know, informed decisions about the business. So I think it's really important for you to either, you know, understand the numbers or have someone explain it to you.

[00:07:21] And, you know, again, a lot of us don't start business coming from an accounting background or a numbers background. We have an idea and we run with it. So really understanding our numbers is really going to drive those decisions on, OK, are we making enough profit in this area? Or actually, you know what, this area of the business isn't doing so well. Let's pivot or change the model slightly. But you can't do that without the data. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:48] And, you know, I know that you have had sort of varied entrepreneurial experiences from your bookkeeping firm to dabbling in property investment.

[00:08:04] So I'm curious, how have your entrepreneurial experiences shaped your leadership philosophy, your view on leadership, and how it strengthened both your business judgment and the influence your long-term vision has had based on your entrepreneurial experiences? What are your thoughts there, my friend?

[00:08:33] Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I think my leadership has really changed in the last couple of years. So when I started my first property business, it was really just me on my own. Of course, I didn't have to work with the builders. But for Hill Bookkeepers, we've built a team. So we're currently a team of eight at the moment. And so my first couple of hires, again, I'm still learning how to delegate and also how to really get the most out of the team. What did the team look for? Because, you know, people are not just incentivized by money.

[00:09:02] They want a really nice culture that they fit into and that they can really thrive in. That isn't just incentivized by money. It might be something else. It might be, you know, a pat on the back. It might be growing. How can I improve in this situation? And, you know, it might just be having a manager that really listens to them. So I think my leadership style particularly has changed in the last few years as the team has grown.

[00:09:26] And I've realized I'm working with more and more people and growing a bigger team that, you know, people will require different things. And what one person might require working in a company might be different from somebody else's. Like I say, they could be incentivized by money. But typically, in my experience, it's not just the money that's the be all and end all. They might want, you know, like I say, what's their growth going to look like over the next 5, 10, 15 years? That kind of thing.

[00:09:53] So my leadership style has definitely changed a lot more in the last few years. Yeah, absolutely. We've asked earlier about women's empowerment. But I also wanted to talk to you about women's influence and growing ways that women can continue to strengthen their influence, authority, and representation in the business world.

[00:10:14] So what opportunities do you see for women to become more influential in terms of their entrepreneurial journey when it comes to their overall influence, their decision-making? And what practical steps can they take to build confidence to expand both their authority, their networks, and their lasting impact on entrepreneurship? What are your thoughts there, my friends?

[00:10:44] Yeah, so I think firstly, confidence comes from, you know, having a lot of exposure from things, right? And, you know, doing things time and time again. That's particularly how I got a lot more confident at doing things. Like if we take it back to when I first started in property, and I bought, when I bought my first one, I was dealing with all these builders. And I was this 21-year-old girl. These builders walked all over me, you know.

[00:11:08] So I think, and I only really got the confidence to then stand up and actually question those decisions or question those things that the builders were saying to me over time. When I actually, I spent a lot more time practicing how to speak to them, a lot more exposure. I think what's great is the education now for women is great in terms of, you know, if you want to go into something, there's going to be a YouTube video on it or a podcast on it or something like that.

[00:11:35] And women can just reach out to those female role models and say, oh, tell me a bit about your journey. How did you do it? Or it's just about really speaking up and sharing stories so we can all grow together. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I also wanted to build on that discussion by having you define what do you think it really means to have the equality of equity of opportunity for women in business.

[00:12:05] And what I mean by that is how do you define equity and equality for women in today's business environment? Because as you and I both know, despite meaningful progress in the field of entrepreneurship, women still face barriers when it comes to leadership involving access to capital or professional development and representation.

[00:12:32] Because we all have heard this saying that representation matters. So how do you define equity of equality for women in business? What are your thoughts then? Yeah, for me, it's about having the same opportunities despite what gender you are, you know. If, you know, two people, one man, one woman were going for the same role, what would determine that role?

[00:12:56] So, for example, I know in finance, there's still quite a big imbalance of men and women in those top CFO roles of companies and sitting on the board. There's still quite a big imbalance. And I know these large corporations are leaning more towards trying to get more of a 50-50 role. But sometimes that still isn't the case.

[00:13:18] And, you know, even with the pay gap, if you look at two people, very, very same, similar experience, again, the men still get higher pay than the women do. On average, this is. So I think for me, equality and equity is about having the exact same opportunities despite, you know, your gender. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:41] And to that point, I'm just curious to get your thoughts on inclusion and diversity overall in organizational culture. So, Courtney, as you may know from listening to my podcast, I was born with cerebral palsy. And I advocate for people with disabilities to be gainfully employed because I always say that people with disabilities have to pay taxes too, right?

[00:14:09] So, can I get your perspective on inclusion and diversity, not only in business, but overall in organizational culture? How important do you think it is to infuse folks with disabilities into the world of work, my friend? Yeah, I think that's really important. I mean, actually, the company that I worked at before I started Hill Bookkeepers, we had such a big emphasis on this.

[00:14:35] So I worked in the rail industry and there was such a big emphasis on lots of funding going into accessibility and inclusion. So, you know, even to the point where other platforms are the same level as the trains, so you can wheel onto it. Or, you know, just having, you could have an app on your phone to ask for assistance. So if you were getting off at a certain stop, there's somebody there that can help with the assistance side of things.

[00:15:04] And I think it just gives a completely different perspective. Like, somebody would have a completely different perspective over, okay, oh, we should do this or, you know, oh, this would be a really cool idea over somebody else. And I think it's bringing all of that together and sharing those ideas and really bringing to the table the different perspectives. Like I say, somebody might not have thought of something that might, you know, be really helpful.

[00:15:31] Particularly, like if we go back to the train example where I used to work before, we drove so much into that. And we saw that there was a huge increase in overall, like, kind of happiness and overall, what's the word I'm looking for? Like just accessibility to be able to actually use the trains, whereas that might not have been the case before we started thinking. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:16:00] And, you know, Courtney, I want to talk to you about something that most entrepreneurs struggle with when they expand their business. And that is delegation.

[00:16:13] Because, you know, it's one of the most important decisions and experiences that entrepreneurs can have, moving from managing every aspect of their business to relinquishing control and building a team and trusting others to contribute to the success of the business.

[00:16:37] So what have your experiences been when it comes to learning about delegation, developing talent and establishing accountability and creating a workplace culture where people feel empowered to have their own sense of ownership? What are your thoughts there, my friend? Yeah, definitely. So I think for any growing business, delegation is really important because when you first start, if you start from the ground up, at the beginning, you start doing everything yourself.

[00:17:07] And it's only really when you grow, you realize, OK, there's 24 hours in a day. I do need some time to sleep. So how can I manage that time? And at the beginning, what I did is I was hiring a lot of generalists. So, again, we run a bookkeeping firm. I would just be hiring generalists, not really putting too much thought into, you know, as long as they were a good fit culturally in terms of did they have the same sort of values for the company? Did they have the same sort of values?

[00:17:35] Did they have the client's needs at the forefront of the things they were doing and really driving this company? But then as I've hired more and more over the last couple of years, and of course, we're growing the team as well at the moment now. I'm trying to hire more specialists in their areas instead of just one generalist that can just, you know, take over a lot of things. So then we can hopefully drive more talent.

[00:18:03] Then what we've also got is we're nurturing that talent within the company. So we're quite close. We're pretty much a family at Hill Bookkeepers. We really, like, get along together. And I remember the first time that people, like the people in the team, they started speaking to each other because we're a fully remote team. But they started working together without me initiating things.

[00:18:27] And I remember the day that happened and I was really happy that the culture that I've been trying to build this entire time is now starting to actually work. I'm starting to see that, you know, I did hire the right people. And of course, we'll take that going forward. But I think hiring is a really important part of any business. And it's it can be difficult. You know, you have an interview with them and you can take them through a staged process.

[00:18:55] But ultimately, you don't really know what that person is going to be like until you're, you know, three, six. Well, I'd probably say about six months into working with them. And then you start to see what they're actually like. But, yeah, I think delegation is such an important part of any business and it's a skill to learn. It took me it took me a while or I started to delegate and then I'd start doing other things. And then I'd be like, oh, I need to find someone to delegate that bit to so I can focus on the bits that I'm really good at.

[00:19:24] And that's how we're going to excel the business forward. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one of the most interesting things you probably deal with working in bookkeeping is helping entrepreneurs really understand interesting realities of entrepreneurship.

[00:19:44] When a business can appear profitable on paper, we're also experiencing some financial, significant financial challenges. So from your perspective and experience, working with business owners, what are some of the most common financial mistakes or barriers entrepreneurs make or overlook?

[00:20:08] And why do you believe that profitable businesses sometimes struggle with their cash flow? And what practical strategies can help them out of this sort of conundrum if they find themselves in it, my friend? What are your thoughts there? Yeah. So I think some of the main or the common issues we see are people mixing their business and personal expenses together.

[00:20:35] A bit of practical advice, always have a separate business bank account. Don't try and mix it all together. Particularly so if you've got a limited company and you're mixing everything together, it just gets really confusing. It really does. And then, you know, if you end up, if the director ends up owing the company the money and it's still outstanding at the end of nine months in the UK, we have something called the S455 tax, which I think as of today, it's about 35.75%,

[00:21:03] which is a huge tax on any of that director's loan that's still outstanding. So that's a big one that I see commonly. And the other thing that I see quite a lot is people leaving it till the last minute to sort out their finances. And they will only get the finances in order to just satisfy HMRC and submit to Companies House.

[00:21:23] What I would argue, whilst that is important, I would also argue that actually knowing your numbers to then drive the decisions in your business is equally slash more important so that you can plan for the future. I think the other thing is a lot of people that I've come across and a lot of our clients, it took them quite a while to switch. So if they had an accountant or they had a previous bookkeeper that they weren't 100% happy with and they kind of deep down knew that, you know,

[00:21:52] their accountant wasn't on their side or, you know, they're constantly chasing them for things, that kind of thing. They didn't want to swap because they thought it'd be too much effort. And then they get burnt later on. So we had an example back in January where a client had been with their accountant for 10 years and there was no PAYE scheme set up. But there was a salary reported on all the tax returns in the company accounts. But you can't have a salary without the PAYE scheme. So we had to go back 10 years through these accounts.

[00:22:22] And there were so many different mistakes. And this only got found out. Normally it only gets found out in the unfortunate circumstances of, you know, having an investigation. Or in this case, the gentleman was going through a divorce, unfortunately. And, you know, the solicitors then dug all of this up. But I think keeping your expenses separate, having someone on your side that can really talk you through the numbers,

[00:22:48] really keep them up to date and really kind of be proactive about what these numbers are showing you, you know, that kind of thing. In answer to in terms of the profit and the cash. So on paper, the profit might look great. But that cash might be going, you know, if you've got loans or, you know, you're paying for other things. That necessarily isn't going on your profit sheet.

[00:23:14] So we've all heard the, what is it, the turnover is sanity and profit is vanity. And then, of course, cash is king. Well, cash is king because you need that cash. Without the cash, it might look profitable. But you might not necessarily have a profitable business. And, again, that's why you need to go back to the numbers and see what are the numbers showing you. Why is that the case? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:39] So that leads to my next question about financial literacy and understanding the literacy behind the numbers. As you just been telling us the importance of knowing our numbers. So I'm curious about your perspective on, you know, financial literacy and giving more business owners who are passionate about their products and services,

[00:24:10] but they're not so much knowledgeable about the financial literacy. How important is it? Do you think entrepreneurs need to close that gap? And talk to me about the importance of financial literacy overall. What are your thoughts there, my friend? I think overall, every business owner needs to understand the basics to at least know where their business is going. That's not to say, oh, you need to be an accountant.

[00:24:38] You know, you need to be your finance team. It's not. You can have someone there showing you or helping you and guide you through those and telling you those important factors. But it's OK to have someone there. But you still need to understand it so you can drive those decisions like I mentioned earlier. And like I say, you're not not everybody is going to come from a financial accounting background. And that's OK. I think as long as you understand the basics, you know, what's your profit margins?

[00:25:06] What is your cost to deliver this to each customer? You know, what are your overheads? Can you decrease your overheads or, you know, and do you have someone on your side telling you this information? If you're not, if you don't, you know, there's a lot of people that don't enjoy numbers. That's OK. But you need someone there to at least help guide you through that and explain those numbers to you in layman's terms. You know, in finance, we always use terms like accruals, prepayments.

[00:25:34] But, you know, to the average person that didn't come from a finance background, they're not going to know what that is. And I think just explaining that in a way that makes sense for them so that they can use that data is really important. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, Courtney, I also was curious to see your perspective on, you know, the advantages and challenges of having multiple streams of income and diversifying that income.

[00:26:04] Because I know through both your bookkeeping form and property investment experience, you've really gained experience in navigating different business models and revenue opportunities. So I wanted to discuss the advantages and challenges of developing multiple income streams. And how can entrepreneurs determine where the diversification represents progress?

[00:26:34] And how can you find out where, you know, more study has to take place? So what are your thoughts on managing multiple streams of income effectively, my friend? Yeah. So like you mentioned, so I've got the property and also the bookkeeping side. So I think in some instances, it can be important to diversify. So, for example, with the properties, you could have, I don't know, different strategies or properties in different areas.

[00:27:03] Same with the bookkeeping. So that's obviously a separate to the bookkeeping. However, what I would say is I've seen the most progress in my businesses when I focused on the one income stream. So right now, I've got my properties in the background, but my main focus is the bookkeeping. And I think whilst I can manage them effectively right now, I'm not actually working on the property side as much. Like I'm not actively buying a property right now or doing a renovation.

[00:27:30] I'm focusing 100% on the bookkeeping revenue and that revenue stream. So I think if you really focus, you can achieve a lot more on one. That's not to say, oh, I might not buy more property in the future because I will. But I just know that when that happens, I'm going to need to divert some of my attention away from the bookkeeping stream and go more into the property. We actually just renovated a property recently.

[00:27:56] And again, I then wasn't focusing on much on the bookkeeping side of things. My attention was diverted. So I couldn't go, you know, gung-ho on just the one income and really grow it. But that's where I've seen the most growth in the bookkeeping business is when I've completely put the blinkers on, blocks everything else out. And I've solely focused on that. Now, that's not to say like if, you know, if the bookkeeping revenue drops or, you know, I don't know, we have another stream of income.

[00:28:26] That's not to say, oh, well, you know, the other two are completely off. Maybe I just get somebody there to manage it. I mean, I'm still working that bit out, right? But at least I know that if I put 100% of my focus on this one thing, I'm going to probably 10x that one thing as opposed to try and divert my attention across multiple streams of income and then not really achieve as much. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:28:50] I wanted to also get your perspective on the relationship between business growth, operational efficiency, and financial visibility. As a business owner and entrepreneur, you know the importance of creating systems and to make a more reliable sort of return on your investment as a business owner.

[00:29:16] So talk to me about the importance of creating systems and the relationship between business growth, operational efficiency, and financial visibility. What are your thoughts there, my friend? I think systems are really important for any business. Without systems, again, it's like without having the finance, without having systems, and having a business that just relies on you, you can –

[00:29:43] So, I mean, for some cases it would work, but you would be causing yourself a lot of trouble later down the line. If you're removing one of those exit strategies to sell the business, if the business solely relies on you, your business isn't as sellable, right? And if you wanted that as an option later down the line, you're kind of closing that door. I think – I mean, we're a big advocate for systems.

[00:30:07] We are always trying to develop our systems, and we're creating a new system at the moment for the onboarding process. So instead of, you know, as getting manually involved, it's just an automated thing now where, you know, it's a much better user experience for the clients as opposed to, you know, you might need to wait a couple of hours for me to reply, and it's all human-based. It's a lot more streamlined now. So I think having systems in the business is a really good foundation to then build upon.

[00:30:34] If your goal is to then grow your business, if you've not got the foundations right, you're probably going to be growing a problem. So we're at the point where, you know, we've built the business, and we're still growing, but now we need to change our strategy because what I've realized is a lot of decisions still go through me.

[00:30:53] Now, if anything happened to me tomorrow or I wanted to sell the business, then, you know, we're not going to get a very good valuation because it's still relying very heavily on me as opposed to having the right systems in place. So I think having the systems in place for any business as a foundation is correct, but I think as you go through the different stages of business, you know, you'll look at Alex Hormozy and his businesses.

[00:31:19] You know, he's got completely different processes because he's thinking longer term, right? So he's kind of developed that. Now, somebody that's just started their business, they won't necessarily know what systems they need to put into place until they reach the next bottleneck. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:35] You know, I wanted to talk to you about balancing entrepreneurial ambition versus financial responsibilities because, you know, entrepreneurship often requires you to take, you know, calculated risk or make bold decisions and willing to pursue opportunities without the guaranteed outcomes.

[00:32:01] However, ambition without financial discipline can create sort of that significant challenge or bottleneck we've been talking about today. So I'm curious, how do you distinguish between strategic risk-taking versus a potentially costly financial sort of mistake? What are your thoughts there, my friend?

[00:32:30] Yeah, I think firstly, I'm a very big advocate for testing things and taking calculated risks. But I think calculators is the key word there. I'm not just going to take all the money in the business and just go and splash it on something that I think might work. What I'm a big advocate for, though, is having a safety net first. So building a safety net. So if you're a business owner and you want to test a theory or you want to put some money into ads, for example, right?

[00:32:58] What I would suggest is have at least six months operating costs there ready. So if you've got no revenue in the business, could your business survive for the next six months? And then any surplus that is kind of your play around money. That's what you can go and then use to test on on the ads, for example, or, you know, another form of it could be another investment that you wanted to do.

[00:33:23] Because then at least if you lost that investment tomorrow, you wanted to invest in another company and you lost that investment. You've still got your business that's operating for the next six months that's, you know, bringing still bringing in revenue and, you know, you've got your costs there. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, Courtney, I also wanted your perspective on emotional intelligence and the ability to adapt in business. Because, you know, business is not a linear line.

[00:33:51] It doesn't go in a straight line all the time. So talk to me about the importance of business resilience and the ability to be adaptable. How important do you think that is, my friend? Yeah, that's very important. So I'll tell you a story about my first property. I bought my first property in Burnley, which is in the north of England. And there's a couple of reasons I chose that area.

[00:34:21] One, because the properties are quite cheap there. So I live in London. The property that I bought was £80,000 for a three-bedroom house. That in London, you're probably looking over a million, depending on the area as well. So that was one of the reasons. Now, the second reason I went there is there was a lot of development in the Lancashire area in the northwest of England. So I thought, right, this is going to be great. So I got the keys to the first one.

[00:34:50] And I opened the door. And I had viewed it, thankfully. But I might as well not have viewed it. Because I opened the door. And you could just smell the musty dampness. So it must have been empty for quite a few months. It was tenanted when I first looked at it. But then by the time I got the keys, we're in the winter. It's raining. You know, it's musty smell. It's a damp smell. And I was like, OK, Courtney, you've got this. And then I walk into the kitchen. And I just see mushrooms growing all the way down the wall from damp issues.

[00:35:20] And I'm like, oh, my goodness, Courtney, what have you done? And then I started getting the quotes from the builders. And what I thought was going to be a £10,000 refurb ended up costing about £35,000. So, which is a huge difference, right? So I've based all my numbers. And I'm a numbers person. So I've based all my numbers on this £10,000 refurb. And the other thing that's worth noticing is I've actually got investors. So I borrowed angel investors money.

[00:35:49] They invested into the deal where I would pay them back a percentage each year. And then upon the refinance, when I've increased the value of this property, I would then pay them their principal back. And all the builders are coming at me. And they're saying, yeah, £25,000, £30,000 refurb. And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, like, what have I done? And, you know, I was 21. I'd literally just finished university, if that.

[00:36:14] And now I'm being faced with this, you know, £25,000 quote. And I'm thinking, okay, let's just go with it. So I started, well, I picked the builder that I was happy with, who filled me with a bit of confidence that he could get the job done. And he drew up the contract. And basically, this contract had a couple of stages to it. So stage one, I think it was about £5,000. Stage two, another £5,000. And this would then go up to about £25,000.

[00:36:42] And the payments needed to be paid every two weeks. So I was like, right, okay, no problem. So he's made a start. He started ripping everything out. And so far, I can see he's doing a good job. So I pay him the first instalment, pay him the second instalment, pay him the third instalment. And I'm now seeing the property. I'm thinking, nothing's really changed. Like, he's done the first week of work. But it doesn't really look like anybody's been back since. And then I remember the builder, he started saying,

[00:37:11] look, you're late on your next payment. You need to pay me. But I was saying to him, well, you haven't really done a lot since I last saw it. Like, and there should be one instalment left after this. And there's still the kitchen, the bathroom, the plastering, the flooring, the painting. Everything still needs to be done. Nothing's really been done yet. And then he basically walked off site because I got ahead of those stage payments. So I ended up paying him at $19,000 and something in total. And then he just legged it.

[00:37:40] And all he'd done is just strip the property at this point. So I'm now 20K down pretty much. And not a lot to show for it. So now I'm having to, and bearing in mind, this property is five hours away. So now I'm having to get different trade people to come in and try and do their own work and try and get this property to a lettable state where I can refinance it and also let it out. And whilst I was doing this, so not only I'm dealing with all of these builders,

[00:38:09] but now these builders that have come to do a specific job, they're now blaming everybody else for their other jobs. So let's say I needed some plastering doing, they'd be like, oh, well, no, I haven't done this bit because this person before hadn't done their bit. And oh, this person hasn't done that right. And this person hasn't done that right. And it was just this never ending or what felt like a never ending circle of just builders that couldn't, like I was just wanting to get this property done. And it was like, just nothing was happening.

[00:38:39] And it was so frustrating. And now all of these costs are starting to build up. And I think this is where, going back to your question, this is where the resilience comes in because this property really took a lot out of me. And I don't say that lightly. It takes a lot. I've never, this is like the first and hopefully the last time that I feel that way. But it really took a lot out of me internally, like emotionally and physically as well. And what I ended up doing is I ended up driving to the property

[00:39:08] and putting like a little airbed up there and sleeping in the property myself to try and get this done myself. So I was there with the hammer drill, knocking off all the plaster for the damp proof course. There are so many things that went wrong on that property. There's so many that really resilience for that resilience there, you know, that property would probably still be in the same state. And, you know, yeah, we wouldn't have made it through. But thankfully with the resilience

[00:39:38] and I think also having the right team around you. So now I've learned more about builders, right? So I've got a much better team. And likewise, you know, having family, friends around you to then support you or having mentors around you to then support you in those times is really going to help you and get through that along with the resilience. So I think resilience is key for any business. There's always going to be downturns. There's always going to be upturns. And it's great when you're riding the wave. But then if the market changes, like look at COVID.

[00:40:07] So businesses were doing great before COVID in certain industries. COVID comes and, you know, a lot of businesses then really struggled, like particularly in the hospitality area. So it's about how do we, how do we then take this? How do we turn it into an opportunity instead of just dwelling on it? How do we use that resilience to keep going? Because ultimately the businesses that sustain these up and down periods are the ones that are going to be the most successful. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:34] And I've got two quick questions left for you. And I wanted your perspective on the value or the disinvestment in AI and business. How it's helped businesses and how we can guard against making sure that AI doesn't take over the human experience of entrepreneurship. How do you think we strike that balance by friends?

[00:41:05] I think you just hit the nail on the head there. I love AI. I really do. But there's a difference between using AI as a tool and using AI to replace humans. And I think in today's world, I mean, we're still very new into the whole AI world, right? But I think even now, like in today's world, people are craving human interaction. There's so many, if we look at content, there's so many AI generated videos. There's so many AI generated emails. I get tons of emails in my inbox every day. And you can spot a million miles away

[00:41:35] the ones that are AI generated. And of course, I'm going to be less inclined to then reach out because I'm like, oh, well, you haven't even been bothered to, you know, put my name on the email or you haven't even been bothered to personalize that towards me. So why should I spend the effort to reach back out? So I think AI is a fantastic tool. And I think with business owners, particularly small business owners as well, it's hiring people. It's very difficult and it costs a lot of money. And if you hire the wrong person,

[00:42:03] then that is going to cost your business a lot of money. So you need to fire them quickly. But what AI has helped with, I am able to do a lot more tasks using AI that I wasn't able to do before. But that being said, it shouldn't take away the human element. Like people buy from people. So there still needs to be that human element there. You can't just replace your entire business with AI. And I think these businesses that are quick to be made up on AI without a lot of human elements or human interaction, I think those are going to be the ones

[00:42:32] to fail first. You need to be able to withstand time ultimately with business. It's all right creating something one day and then selling it the next. But typically things don't really happen like that. It's normally the businesses that make the most money are the most successful are actually the ones that can withstand that time. AI, as I can say, I said a hundred times before, is such a fantastic tool. It really is. But it can't replace that human element. It really can't.

[00:43:03] Yeah, absolutely. Courtney, finally, tell me, when you look at your life and your legacy in the world of business and entrepreneurship, how do you want your personal and professional legacy to be defined, my friend? I think for me, I want to touch on the finance bit here. A lot of people really struggle with finance and they're scared. They're scared to even, I've had so many clients come to me

[00:43:31] and it's like years later they've come to me after a problem has arisen. And the reason it took them so long is because they were too scared to face how bad the numbers were or they were too scared or their accountant hasn't made them feel particularly welcome or approachable to ask these questions. And for me, I don't want people to be scared of numbers. Use it as a tool. What are the numbers showing you? What are they showing you? And then how can you make decisions from that? If you're not comfortable

[00:44:01] asking those questions, find somebody that you are comfortable asking those questions to. So the main, one of our main values at Hill Bookkeepers is we want to be warm, friendly, approachable. It shouldn't be, I mean, you'll notice the colours on our website. We've not really got any blue corporate colours. It's a lot more like warm, peachy, like very, very friendly, approachable because business owners need to be able to understand the numbers. And if you don't, you're not really running a business

[00:44:30] because you need to know this. So our legacy, I would like to empower more business owners. It doesn't matter where the background they come from and it doesn't matter whether, you know, and it comes with that, having someone in their corner to be able to show their, like, to be able to guide them through them, that, those figures and what do those numbers show? As I said, again, before, to then make decisions about their business.

[00:45:00] They actually are informed. Yeah, absolutely. And finally, my friend, tell me if people want to get connected with Hill Bookkeeping or yourself personally, what's the best way they can do that? Yep. So you can go through the website at hillbookkeepers.co.uk or we've got, we're on Instagram, LinkedIn. If you just type hillbookkeepers, we'll come up. Fabulous, my friend. Well, I really want to thank you for the lead role that you're taking

[00:45:28] in promoting women's entrepreneurship and the quality of business and for the work that you're doing to provide more financial clarity and confidence to entrepreneurs. I really think you're doing outstanding work, my friend, and it was a real privilege to engage in conversation with you today. So I want to thank you for being here, my friend. It's most appreciated. Thank you so much, Kevin. Your questions have been great, honestly. Thank you.