My apologies to the people who were religiously reading this blog - I've certainly neglected it recently.

I can't remember where we were last... But there has been lots of new developments recently.

First and foremost, I've not only been neglecting the blog - but to some extent, the business. I've compensated by delegating key tasks to ensure that it's still being run efficiently and effectively - but my personal input has been limited. Suprisingly, this has led to little change. A good lesson for anyone worrying about their "locus of control" over a business. I was always a "if you want a job done right... Do it yourself" kind of guy and it's led to me often working harder and less smarter than I ought have. Despite this, we live and learn and I've made good money this week while lying in my bed.

Firstly, I hired a driver. It takes a slice of my profits, admittidley, but it frees up so many man hours for me to be doing more productive things (which I'll talk about shortly) and has meant I'm not on a backshift sleeping pattern.

Secondly, I promoted one of my boys to "captain", he counts the cash, sorts the bags before the shift and does a whole lot of little tasks that I found eating my time before - again, it takes a bite into the profits, but has meant that I'm less stressed and can focus my attention elsewhere.

So, for maybe 10% of my slice - I'm saving 90% of my time. There's a name for this kind of distribtuion, but fuck knows I can't remember it.

So... Why the sudden decrease in work? Why am I, the 100 hour-a-week-holic, hates standing still male suddenly doing as little as possible? It comes back to Tony Soprano's methodology - worker smarter, not harder.

But I've been expanding too. I met another nightclub about potentially taking over their toilets... There were complications (its too far away from the existing club, its more nights, etc.) but they were all addressed before the meeting and a system developed to combat them. Despite this, the meeting didn't go great. Luckily, I know a man who knows the man who owns the club and hopefully that will give us a route to entry. This could also prove a seductive link into an array of other nightclubs... But this is only speculation - if it turns into action I'll start giving the details.

I have another meeting on Friday afternoon with a club that's maybe not as busy as the aforementioned club but doesn't have the same travel distance. It will be a nice supplement to our existing contractor and should boost my earnings to near enough double what they currently are - thanks for economies of scale, Adam Smith.

I'm confident that the new club will be a go-er and that I'll be earning some serious money. However, exams are looming and I'm overly-cautious as to how much work I take on with other, ultimately more important, priorities overlooking.

This being said, as of 12pm on 5th of June I'll be back to my 100hr week, working harder and smarter, at least for 4 months.

Here's a little summary for why I think we've been successful up until this point, it's important for me to remember and I guess you can benefit too - if you're thinking about starting a new business, already run a business... Or whatever:

• Me - None of this could have happened without a bit of determination, elbow grease and having the balls to take a risk. Do all of these things, all of the time and you'll be rewarded, heavily.
• Hiring good staff - Sometimes its luck, other times it's obvious. Either way, good staff make things 100x easier. I have reliable, hard working, money greedy staff who do their jobs to the best of their ability. Aye, they probably skin whatever they give me, but if they're making enough to do that then good for them.
• Support: Family, a partner, experts, business contacts. Get everyone on board. I didn't think my mum would be any use to me in a business sense, but she gave me about half a dozen bottles of barely-used perfume (expensive stuff) when I first started out. Saved me an arm and a leg, especially when I was taking the risk to start out.
• Communicate, commuticate, communicate. All of the time. Every day. Keep in contact. DO IT. You learn a lot, just by being accessible.
• Flexibility - Keep yourself available and flexible. I saved £50 last week just by being "available", not a lot of money, granted, but I filled the beamer up with petrol for free - essentially.

Updates, as you can imagine, won't be as free flowing the next little while - but I promise there will be updates and they will be more in-depth than this. There's a lot of developments on the way - all of which I'll go into detail on at a later date. But there is also a lot of chapters to be read, theories to memorise and models to examine. So, be flexible, fuck off and read something else, then come back in a few weeks. :)