Fredrik, Charlie and Ivan Sandvall interview Jay Dhillon, serial entrepreneur and business owner with over 18 years experience who works with The Prince’s Trust and helps younger people get into business.
Jay started in recruitment, taking a fledgling company from 0-500 staff, doing around £35,000,000 in sales before being selling to an investment firm. Now he invests in property and has an online recruitment business called www.recruitmentboss.com which helps people advertise jobs online.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Prince’s Trust is a UK Organisational Charity which has been running for around 50 years, set up by Prince Charles to help young people get into business or find work. Prince’s Trust runs mentorship programmes to help you people realise their business plans.
Take advantage of E-Mentoring!
What are your top tips for people looking for a job Jay? Make sure your CV is up to date, professionally laid out. This is why investing in yourself is so important, if you can’t do it then pay somebody on Fiverr or another website, $25-50 to get your CV formatted correctly. Also, learn how to interview. This might sound crazy, but the amount of people who I’ve interviewed who haven’t researched the company is crazy. Always quantify yourself, give evidence and show proof, i.e. your figures. Take a written reference too!
What should an employer look for when recruiting Jay? High level attitude! I would take someone on who isn’t as good but is willing to stay until 6:30pm and make that extra phone call. When you advertise, make sure you get the right job description. Don’t advertise for peanuts either, look at the value this vacancy will bring to your business.
Have you got any good routines in your life Jay? I get up at 5am, do half an hour on my bike or treadmill, then I’ll spend 20 minutes reading a book. I keep a notepad and when I’ve read 3-4 chapters I summarise my book. I do that then set my goals, spend time with my children and drop them off at school, then go to the office.
Selling: Get past that first call, once you get past it and you keep doing it and doing it, you get better at anything, so do the best you can and have discipline.
BEST MOMENTS
Jay, what does Invest In You mean to yourself? I think it’s very important and very underrated. For me it means always improving yourself. I invest in books, education, mentors… This year I’ve invested in my podcast, networking and I’m constantly reading!
Spending money is really important if you’ve got it because it really commits you to your programme.
Tell us about your property business Jay? My property business started in 2007, with the profits from the recruitment I was buying single lets. Then I moved on to investing in HMOs in 2013. I used to place a lot of my contractors who worked for my agency in there and when they left I went to the professional market. My next venture will be commercial. My goal now is to buy blocks of apartments.
I went to university and graduated with a degree in Business Studies, but new nothing about business, it was more about computers! Nothing about cash-flow, profit and loss. After working at a corporate company for two years I realised the whole system took you away from actually selling and making money.
Put yourself out there and the opportunities will come.
Do everything to the best of your ability, set yourself up routines and always ask questions.
Jay, what’s the coolest office you’ve had so far? The best office I had was on Singapore Airlines. I’d never flown business class before. They give you a pen and paper, ask you if you’d like a drink. Working on that airline was my best location if that makes sense. Also, we had a hide in Mauritius for two weeks, top floor hotel apartment and on the balcony was a little desk. When you were working you could hear the waves.
Jay on independent and personal growth: The top two tips I would give would be invest in sales and learn how to sell. Always ask the question! Re-negotiate your mobile phone bills, anything you’ve got, ask the question! If you can’t sell, get on the phone and ring your phone supplier and say look, I’ve been with you five years, can you negotiate on my contract? That’ll get you in the mind-set to sell, because that’s a soft sell.
Do as much research as you can before setting your business up. Don’t go into it because it sounds good.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
Business Mentor Podcast
The 10X Rule
Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Joe the Body Coach
Fiverr
The Disruptive Entrepreneur
ABOUT THE HOST
Serial entrepreneurs Fredrik, Charlie and Ivan Sandvall love sharing ideas and interviewing world-class entrepreneurs and influencers. Invest in You is about investments, entrepreneurship personal development and doing fun things. They hope to inspire you to take action, helping others and yourself plus enjoying the journey we call life.
CONTACTS
Jay’s Instagram
Jay Dhillon’s Website
Jay’s Facebook
Music by Dewolf http://www.dewolfemusic.com/
