I realized that very soon after the first AI model that this whole industry would completely go under.

And so pretty quickly I realized that I don’t want to end up in a place where AI has replaced me first.

To be honest, I got into the spa industry here in the UK primarily because there’s a huge gap in what can be offered.

We do massage.

That’s the main line of work that we’re in.

But we don’t actually sell massage.

We sell emotions.

We sell an experience.

Spas that charge 70–75 an hour, they sell just a massage.

You come in, you get a massage, you come out, but you didn’t come out of there feeling like you just came back from a holiday.

No Bullsh*t Talks is a podcast for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.

There’s too much bullshit out there, especially when it comes to business.

This podcast aims to highlight what’s true and what’s not in the world of entrepreneurship.

Bringing you honest and raw conversations about the roller coaster that is entrepreneurship.

Each week, my guests will be a high-performing entrepreneur, sharing the ups and downs of their journey.

And helping you prepare for the road ahead while providing you with actionable insights and absolute gems of knowledge.

Stay tuned as I introduce this week’s guest.

Maxim Martin is the owner of Seven Barley Spa, a Balinese spa in central London.

It’s proudly the most expensive spa in London.

He is the former owner of a global copywriting and SEO agency and runs his own podcast called The Expert Hangout.

I present to you this week’s guest, Maxim Martin.

So, welcome Max to No Bullsh*t Talks.

Thank you.

It’s a pleasure to be here.

So, first of all, I think it’d be great for you to tell the audience a bit about who you are, what you do, why you’re here, all that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

So, I run a Balinese spa here in the centre of London.

We’re soon turning four years old.

And that’s the main line of work that I’m in.

So, we’re of course in the service industry.

I specialize a lot in customer service.

How to improve the experience of VIP guests.

We have a Balinese theme which is quite unique.

There’s only one other spa in all of London that has therapists from Bali.

And yeah, that’s about it.

I also have my own podcast.

So, it’s really cool to be on another one.

Thank you for having me.

I enjoy being a guest on other people’s podcasts.

It’s a lot less work, so it’s fun.

But I want to talk to you about how you got into the spa industry because it’s not an easy industry to do.

I feel like I work mainly with founders and entrepreneurs who are service-based.

Businesses, which is so much easier to set up.

And I’m obviously not downgrading any service-based business.

I’m a service-based business.

But it’s a lot easier to get up and running as a service than to have a physical spa.

It’s in central London.

It’s a lot.

And it’s kind of random as well, like spa industry.

So tell me how you got into this and like why are you here in London creating a spa?

Yeah, of course.

Actually my background before I launched the first spa here in the UK, I had a portfolio of small websites.

And we would write copywriting blogs, different kinds of articles for US sites.

And I realized that very soon after the first AI model that this whole industry would completely go under.

And so pretty quickly I realized that I don’t want to end up in a place where AI has replaced me first.

So to be honest, I got into the spa industry here in the UK primarily because there’s a huge gap in what I think can be offered.

Most massage places are either very low-end, charging about 60–70, or are outside of the city.

So outside of the city there are lots of wellness, very beautifully wellness-orientated places such as Aquasana, such as lots of five-star hotels.

Inside the city that is of course not possible because you need a huge amount of space and space is very, very expensive.

So the concept was there are a lot of spas similar to what we are in Dubai, in different countries in Asia, in Japan, in Thailand, which are basically compressed to a city spa size.

So we are a 200-meter space with seven treatment rooms.

And we don’t have pools.

We don’t have saunas.

We don’t have a hairdresser and a nail salon section.

95% of what we do is just massage and we try to do that best.

So the idea was that it exists.

Outside of the city, but it doesn’t exist inside the city.

A lot of this is also, you can see it in Dubai especially, these city spas with a very high level of customer service.

But London just never had anything like this.

So it looked like a great niche to step into.

Wow.

I mean it’s quite a big different jump.

So you’re saying that you had copywriting businesses before.

And it’s really interesting you say about AI taking your job because that’s a big fear that so many people have.

And AI copywriting is ruining marketing in my opinion.

It’s awful and most people complain about it.

And they say it’s really obvious, Google hates it and everything.

So you wouldn’t think it’s a threat, but it clearly has been.

And so many copywriters have been laid off because of it.

So I understand the pivot.

But you also said you wanted to do it before AI got you, but you’re also moving into an industry where COVID destroyed it kind of beforehand as well.

Like hospitality, luxury things like COVID made that really, really rocky as an industry.

And so what were your thoughts about that?

Because I feel like that’s also another industry that blew up and we’re in uncertain times now.

So that must have been a difficult decision for you there.

Well, I actually ended up on the side of opportunity with COVID.

Both me and my sister actually got the lease for it.

My sister also runs a spa.

She runs it in Switzerland.

And the one I have here in London, we got the lease for it in 2020.

And we got it for 15 years at what I assume is about a 35% discount to what the market was supposed to be.

So it was also a business decision where I expected this not to be the last crisis ever.

Like a lot of people were thinking we’re never going to get out of it, which is funny to speak about now.

But at that time, there was no certainty about how long it would last.

But eventually, like every crisis, it ended.

The market stabilised.

But the 15-year lease was signed at the rate that we signed it for.

So I definitely benefited.

A lot from COVID.

In fact, without it I probably would not be able to get such a central location because we are of course very, very well positioned.

Yeah, you’re like in the middle of Tottenham Court Road essentially, right?

You’re really close.

In fact, it’s the perfect location for any of that sort of stuff.

Just out of curiosity for those people, because I know that there have been lots of people I know who are founders who are debating, do I get a bricks-and-mortar location, myself included.

We’ve had that conversation, right?

And I would love to have a physical space for my members club.

But when I run the numbers, it’s so difficult.

And I’m obviously leaning towards not doing it now, especially at first until you establish yourself a lot more.

What sort of numbers are we talking?

You don’t have to say exact numbers, but ballpark figures.

If you want to have a space in the middle of central London, a physical space, and you’ve got a small space, what are we looking at?

Like what do people not just what it costs, but what do people need to be bringing in or capital-wise before they even think about that?

Well, it definitely depends a lot on the concept.

If you are doing a five-star hotel level layout and design, then you’re looking at at least 50,000 for every 10 square meters.

Wow.

So if you have a 100 square meter unit, you probably are looking at somewhere around 300–400,000 just starting price.

If you want it to be really, really high-end.

If you’re doing something on the very other end of the spectrum, something a little bit more bare bones, then you could look at a 100 square meter unit to be furnished and designed for 200,000 or so.

That is if you had the unit in shell and core like we did.

It saves at least 50–70,000 if you don’t have it in shell and core, just because of all the piping and the concrete.

And a lot of the initial design from the previous tenant can be reused as well.

But it’s definitely a very big upfront investment.

The good thing that I really like about London is that the leases are long.

We operated in other countries as well, in Bali and in Thailand.

We were looking to open in Singapore as well.

And leases there are between 11 months and 2 years.

Wow.

And then you need to renew, renew, renew.

And the reason I think for it is because of the very, very high level of inflation those countries get.

They can be just too unpredictable.

So there’s no way that they can solidify a set amount that you pay per year if inflation is between 10 and 30%.

So they have to re-agree every couple of years, sometimes even less.

The very good thing about London is that I got a 15-year lease.

And we do an indexing every 5 years.

That’s very valuable.

That makes for a much more predictable business plan.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think that’s great for someone like yourself who’s really serious and in it for the long term.

But obviously now lots of people probably hearing that are thinking, oh my god, I’ll never sign a…

Lease because 15 years is a long time to be saying I’m definitely going to be in business.

Because a lot of the bullshit that I call out, right, is all those quick hacks, those people thinking short-term.

And so many people are only looking at short-term gains.

And you can never have a physical building if you’re only thinking short-term gains.

What sort of financial planning did you have to do to even think this was a viable option?

Yeah, I think it also is a little bit linked with my previous job and previous background.

I always thought that the best place to do business is online because you don’t need to pay rent.

It’s much more flexible.

And doing that for about four years, I realised that something is priced in.

And this additional freedom is priced in with a huge, huge amount of competition.

No matter what space you’re in, you’re competing against all of Asia and all of the US and huge firms with massive investments.

Any kind of industry that you’re in, you have competition on all levels, from individual to corporate.

So the nice thing about a brick-and-mortar business is that you have a guy to your left and a guy to your right and a couple of guys in the city, and that’s the whole market.

And that changes not over months but over decades.

For example, with copywriting, there was a point in about the second or third year where a lot of writers from Sri Lanka had created these courses on how to copywrite.

And they would do the same thing that I was doing but for a third of the price because they could afford to.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the quality wasn’t bad either.

And I know a lot of people that did dropshipping when it was like the biggest way to get rich.

And then they had to compete against all of China and their quants which develop bots that do it instead of humans.

And they do massive scale, like hundreds of times bigger and faster than any person could.

So that’s the nice thing about getting a brick-and-mortar place.

Yes, you have to commit to 10 years plus for it to really be a sustainable business plan.

And you have to also be sure that what you’re doing today, you won’t be bored of and change your mind in the future.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But you have this limited box that you’re working with.

It’s predictable.

You can anticipate people moving in.

You can react to it.

You have the power to influence the whole market, even if you’re small.

I want to go back to what you just said though about your competitors.

Because I get that online, people would say the opposite.

That online it’s so easy because you’ve got the whole world to gain interest from.

But at the same time, you do have the whole world you’re competing against.

And like you said, if you’re a service-based business and someone in another country can do it cheaper and just as good, then you’re in trouble.

But you said your competitors are basically only the person next door and surrounding areas.

How does that work?

Because I’m thinking your competitors are every spa in London, so to speak, right?

Or not even just that, like in the country.

People go and they Google stuff and still online marketing is required.

How do you consider who your competitors are?

Yeah, I’m very glad you asked that question because I can proudly say that I actually don’t think we have any competitors in all of London.

And we talked about this earlier, that every entrepreneur says how they’re so unique that of course they have no competition whatsoever.

But from a certain point of view, that definitely is the case with us.

We do massage.

That’s the main line of work that we’re in.

But we don’t actually sell massage.

We sell emotions.

We sell an experience.

Spas that charge 70–75 an hour, they sell just a massage.

You come in, you get a massage, you come out.

Me and my partner have recently been to a spa because ours was booked out and we didn’t get a spot at our own place.

They didn’t have a reception.

They didn’t have Wi-Fi.

They didn’t have a shower.

They didn’t serve complimentary drinks or snacks.

You entered this very narrow corridor where you had to go downstairs.

After the treatment they used oil, they just wiped it off with single-use tissues.

The massage quality was excellent.

But you didn’t come out of there feeling like you just came back from a holiday.

So it fixed my shoulder that was hurting, but it didn’t give me that spa experience that people are chasing.

And that doesn’t exist in London apart from hotels.

But people don’t really want to go to hotels because they are priced very high.

And given the fact that they’re not working on customer attention, they’re mainly tourist-focused.

They don’t have too much attention to detail.

So there is really nobody that is a city spa and does it to the same level as us.

Of course, a very biased opinion of the owner.

But why do you think that is?

Like why aren’t people doing that?

Like you said the hotels all do it.

And when I think back to every massage I’ve ever had, I was starting to think I don’t think I’ve had a massage that isn’t in a hotel other than at your spot now obviously.

So that’s it.

But I feel like that’s already proving your point.

Why is that then?

I think this is a very industry-specific answer.

So it may be a little bit boring, but it has to do with staff turnover.

It doesn’t make financial sense for people that work in beauty, including hairstylists or manicure and pedicure specialists, to really stick with the same workspace for a long time.

Because let’s say a hairdresser comes and gets £2,000 for 19 shifts a month.

If they get five clients from the business and go to their homes to cut their hair, they will be able to generate half of that in two days.

So, and the higher up you go in price, the less effort it is for an employee to take your business home.

And no matter what kind of contracts you sign, non-competes and other things, people are people.

They will talk.

They’ll make great relationships with the people they work with.

Especially like I like to think I hire excellent people and our clients connect with them.

And every other business thinks the same.

So that’s a big issue.

If you go very high in price and you can’t afford to pay someone £100,000 a year to be a massage therapist, you eventually see that people that work with you leave.

And surprisingly, clients that were their clients stop coming to your spa.

Of course, that is after you spent a huge amount on advertisement and on customer service.

Nobody comes to your business for free.

You always spend money on it.

So that’s the owner’s rant.

Of course, the reason that other spaces don’t open at such a high level is staff turnover.

Wow.

So obviously the staff turnover is why lots of people don’t have spas.

But let me talk about pricing again.

Because we’ve talked about how expensive it is and everything.

And I talk a lot about market positioning.

You’ve deliberately placed yourself in the market to be the most expensive spa.

And that’s why you’re saying you’ve got no competitors.

And we’ll come back to that because I do believe there’s always some form of competition.

Even if it’s indirect.

Because if you totally disregard any competition, you can get complacent.

And that’s what I don’t want people to do.

So you might not have a direct competitor, but you’ll have some sort of competitors which you need to look at.

But I like the fact you’ve chosen to make yourself the most expensive.

And I find it’s an interesting strategy because, as I said, I work with lots of different types of founders.

And lots of people are price-sensitive, right?

So you see a lot of people trying to undercut competitors because they want to show up as the cheapest.

As a very obvious, easy buy.

But then there are other people who try to price themselves higher because they want to feel more valuable.

And obviously it’s nicer if you’re more expensive…

Charge what you’re worth and all this kind of stuff.

But it’s easier said than done because you’ve got to back it up.

If you’re going to charge more than everyone else, you need to prove why you’re better than everyone else.

So I’d like to hear why you chose to do that.

Because that was a conscious effort.

That was a conscious decision, right, to make yourself more expensive than everyone else.

And how have you backed that up with saying we are the most expensive spa in London or the UK, right?

UK.

So, except for hotels.

Yes.

Taking hotels out of the equation, we are the most expensive spa in London.

I haven’t checked all of the UK, but I wouldn’t be too surprised.

I think when it comes to pricing, there are two concepts that pricing orbit around.

The first one is that most businesses and most service providers underprice themselves, at least by 10 to 30%.

And there’s a good reason for it.

It’s because if you price yourself too high, you can’t really go back.

So people and businesses tend to increase their prices much slower than what they actually could do.

And it takes a little bit of bravery and a little bit of boldness to do a big step and increase your price by 10 to 15% when you’re ready for it.

Some of the clients will chip away and others are not there yet.

They will of course come with time.

So definitely I am on the side of the hypothesis that you should price yourself fairly.

And fairly means what the market is willing to pay.

Of course, you said very correctly that you also need to back it up.

So we don’t spend too much time worrying…

About customer acquisition or marketing.

We don’t have a media representative.

But we have three quality managers.

And we really double down on making sure that without exception every single person gets an incredible experience.

We have something, and actually I recommend that for any kind of service business.

It’s called a customer journey.

You just go through every single interaction that a customer will have with you.

Starting from how do they find out about you, whether it’s a Google ad or a banner.

To the first word that they hear when you call them or when you text them back.

All the way to the end when they leave.

And it typically has between 20 and 40 different steps.

And you find the weakest link in every one of these steps.

And every three months you do it again and try to improve it.

Do it again and try to improve it.

So the first…

First idea of pricing is definitely that I think most people don’t price themselves correctly.

They are being on the cautious side and they don’t go to what the market can actually pay.

The second is of course to do with price elasticity of demand, chapter two of any economics book.

If you’re in the luxury segment, you’re typically a price inelastic product.

Meaning that if you increase your prices by 10%, your demand will fall by less than 10%.

So that’s why we are charging what we’re charging.

And the lack of competition helps a lot.

If there was somebody that was doing half the job that we’re doing, and I know I sound a little bit cocky when I say that, but yeah, it’s a little bit of a surprise to me that nobody’s doing this in London.

Nobody’s doing a wellness spa like we do.

So yeah.

So going back to that again, because some people think that if no one’s doing…

Something, it must be because it’s wrong, right?

Lots of people have this mindset.

Some people say, “Oh, there’s a gap,” and they take advantage of that gap.

If no one’s doing it, then great.

Other people go, “There’s a reason why no one’s doing it because it doesn’t work.”

And how did you know it wasn’t that latter?

How did you know it was the first?

Well, I think we just know our client very well.

This wouldn’t work in any other city except for London.

Why is that?

London is very diverse.

There are lots of high net worth individuals from very different parts of the world.

At least 50% of our clientele comes from Dubai.

So we’re operating in London with London prices, but we’re working on a segment where most people are foreigners.

We have a lot of Russians and Chinese and different people from the Emirates.

We have US clients.

That’s the kind of segment we’re working with.

And they all meet in London.

And if we were to open in even Manchester, big city, it just would not work at all.

Because there’s no demand for it.

There’s no market for it.

So actually UK people are less likely to buy into this concept?

It’s actually you’re targeting foreigners who are just traveling through London?

Not necessarily traveling through.

Or living in London, yeah, for sure.

I think in the history of the company, out of the 15,000 customers that we had, maybe we had 10 that were British.

Wow.

It’s hard to justify this level of experience to someone culturally aligned with the UK.

Because there’s always a question, “Why so much?”

And you go to the other spectrum where in the Emirates this pampering experience is part of everyday life.

Or in Singapore they say if you only have a massage two times a week, you had a rather unhealthy week.

It should be minimum three.

So it’s much easier to justify what we’re doing.

Wow.

This is getting interesting because now we’re talking real differentiation.

Your audience is not British, even though you’re in London.

That’s wild.

So talk me through customer acquisition.

Because you’ve managed to run a spa in central London at the highest price point.

And you’ve filled it with people who aren’t even British.

How have you acquired all your customers so far?

I wish I could give good insight here.

This is definitely not my strong spot.

Marketing and customer acquisition is not something we really double down on.

We waited for about a year and a half until we were operationally profitable.

Before that, we were losing money every month.

And we held the bar with the level of service that we have.

The only level of advertisement and customer acquisition that we’re doing is Google Ads.

We have a pretty good website.

But it’s boring.

It’s basic.

But we do a good job.

And we have referrals through word of mouth.

People come back.

It’s also much easier to retain your current customer than to attract a new one.

In fact, 80% of our revenue comes from 20% of our customer base.

Pareto’s law again.

Yeah, I love it when that comes up.

So, wow.

Do you know what, what you just said, you said it’s boring.

But I’m actually so glad you said it.

Because I feel like so much of business right now is overcomplicated.

The basics still win.

Show up and do a good job.

Make your customers happy.

They tell other people.

That’s still the strongest form of marketing.

Google Ads—simple, measurable, tweakable.

But people are throwing money at influencer marketing, vanity metrics, and flashy campaigns.

And half the time, they can’t even track what’s actually working.

So it’s refreshing hearing this.

In your experience, have you seen companies that focus heavily on customer acquisition actually retain that success long term?

That’s a great question.

Another way to look at this is not just money, but attention.

Unless you’re a massive company, your leadership team is small.

Maybe one to five people.

And realistically, a team that size can only focus properly on two to three projects at once.

If you’re putting 60–70% of your effort into acquiring new customers, you’re only leaving a small portion of your attention for everything else.

And “everything else” is what actually sustains the business.

That’s quality.

Attention to detail.

Customer relationships.

For example, we track if a returning client hasn’t visited for two months.

If they’ve been three times before and suddenly disappear, we flag it.

And one of our quality managers calls them.

Just to check—are you okay?

Did you move?

Was your last visit not satisfactory?

That single action brings a huge return.

But it doesn’t feel as exciting as seeing a 5x return on ad spend.

It doesn’t give that dopamine hit.

But if you actually look at what sustains a business long term, it’s those small, consistent actions.

Often, not saying always because every business is different, but it very often is something that people neglect.

Yeah.

And again, it comes down to those vanity metrics, right?

It’s what people focus on, the numbers that make them feel good, but not the numbers that actually move a business forward.

And so again, it’s so valuable hearing that.

And I want to go back to what you said earlier about the first 18 months.

Because you said you bled money in the first 18 months, right?

And I want to focus on that because a lot of stories out there focus on success.

They focus on the rise to the top.

And loads of people make it look like it’s just a steady climb.

But in reality, most people’s journey looks like chaos.

Up, down, sideways, all over the place.

So those first 18 months—you put in a large financial investment and were losing money.

What was going wrong and how did you get to profitability?

Yeah.

So when you first open any business, quick disclaimer, not everyone can afford to lose money for 18 months.

This was part of the business plan.

It was a calculated, cold, risk-tolerance decision.

I expected this could go even longer if needed.

But the key is trajectory.

There are different ways to lose money.

If you’re losing money and not improving, that’s a problem.

But if you’re improving month-on-month or at least quarterly, that’s acceptable.

So yes, we were losing money, but we were losing it correctly.

We had huge operational costs.

We’re not an online business.

Rent alone is significant.

You might get rent holidays in the first year, but after that, it hits.

Business rates too.

We also do laundry in-house, so our electricity bill is about 10% of rent.

It’s really high.

We could outsource it, but then the towels aren’t as soft and might smell of oil.

So for quality control, we keep it in-house.

As we hired more therapists and grew, revenue increased gradually.

In the beginning, marketing was a bigger focus.

We didn’t just run Google Ads.

We tried creative approaches.

For example, we had someone dressed in traditional Balinese attire standing outside, handing out premium-style cards.

It caught attention.

Another strategy was inviting nearby hotel teams to experience the spa for free.

So their concierges could recommend us.

That worked really well.

Over time, customers started coming.

Location helped a lot since we’re very central.

Another key factor was Google reviews.

If you’re below 4.7, you need to fix that.

If you have over 100 reviews and a 4.9 average, it builds serious trust.

So we focused on delivering great service and encouraging happy customers to leave reviews.

Now, in terms of numbers:

We went from losing 100 units of money…

To 90 units…

And then year-on-year, we saw about 120% growth comparing like-for-like months.

Now in year three to four, growth is around 10–15%.

So we’ve plateaued.

One of the most important things in becoming profitable is being good with numbers.

That’s a critical skill.

And if you’re not good with numbers, get someone around you who is.

Measure things like the rate at which the business grows.

But you’ve got to find your own metrics.

Because if you’re not looking at trends, seasonality, and how much money you’re making versus losing, it becomes very difficult to run a business profitably.

Yeah, I’m really glad you said that because I wanted to touch on the business plan side of things.

There’s this big narrative now—“just start.”

And I get the intention behind it.

Stop overthinking, stop procrastinating.

But people have taken it too far.

They’ve completely skipped strategy and planning.

And what you’ve described is the opposite.

You planned to lose money.

You planned for worse.

Which means when you were losing less than expected, that was actually progress.

Without that plan, most people would panic and quit.

Yeah.

I think planning is really a question of risk tolerance.

If someone is earning 20–30k a year and trying to grow, then I agree—just start.

Do something every day.

Your downside risk is low.

But if you’re investing serious capital—hundreds of thousands or millions—then a business plan becomes essential.

If you’re putting 50–70% of your net worth into something, you should absolutely sit down and think it through for weeks or even months.

That said, I don’t believe in overly rigid, corporate-style business plans.

The ones banks ask for—projected cash flow, detailed growth curves—they’re useful, but they’re not the core.

What matters more is understanding your structure.

For example:

What percentage of revenue can go to rent?

To salaries?

To unexpected costs?

From there, you calculate the revenue you need just to survive.

Then you ask—can I realistically reach that number?

And how?

You can also go deeper.

Think about external factors.

For example, our business relies on high-net-worth individuals.

If taxes increase, people leave the country—we lose customers.

But during a recession, we’re less affected because our audience still spends.

That kind of thinking matters.

If the downside risk is small, then yes—figure it out as you go.

But if the risk is large, planning becomes your safety net.

That balance is key.

Because overplanning can paralyse you.

But no planning puts you at a massive disadvantage.

Even 10 minutes of thinking ahead can save hours later.

And I agree—most founders don’t look at their numbers enough.

They don’t track month-to-month or compare trends.

They don’t know if they’re on track.

And without that, you’re flying blind.

Did you work with experts on this?

No, I didn’t hire experts.

But I don’t think it’s a bad idea.

I personally enjoy numbers, so I handled it myself.

But I’ll admit—there’s probably some survivor bias in that.

Just because it worked for me doesn’t mean it would work for everyone.

Two things I’d strongly recommend focusing on:

First, seasonality.

Almost every business has it.

You need to plan for high and low periods.

For example, Christmas is huge for us, so we ensure staff availability is high.

But in August, when demand drops, we encourage staff to take holidays.

Even marketing should align with this.

If you can only afford a campaign for a short time, run it when demand is highest.

Second, know your customer.

Not just who they are—but how you reach them.

A lot of people identify their audience but don’t think through how to access them.

That’s a big gap.

Both of these require sitting down and thinking properly.

Not complicated.

Just intentional.

That makes sense.

So on seasonality—how do you manage cash flow?

Because knowing your busy months is one thing.

But surviving the quiet ones is another.

What would you recommend?

Really busy.

So they neglect some of that pipeline work coming in.

And we talked about not putting all your eggs in one basket with customer acquisition.

But you still need some form of marketing to keep things moving.

So how have you managed seasonal cash flow and work?

I love this question because accounting might seem boring, but it’s a huge part of business success.

We have a very firm rule: we don’t spend money that we don’t own.

And here’s what I mean by that.

We pay rent three months in advance.

So if March 1st is the payment date, we need to have earned that money already.

We won’t spend February’s money unless we’ve proportionally made enough to cover that future bill.

For example, if rent is £10,000 and we have three months to prepare for it, we need to have earned roughly £3,333 per month toward that payment.

If we haven’t, we don’t touch that money.

We only spend what comes after covering those obligations.

A lot of businesses wait until the last couple of weeks to make those payments.

That’s stressful.

And that’s exactly when things go wrong.

That’s when staff get sick.

That’s when refunds happen.

That’s when unexpected issues hit.

So instead, we prioritize covering bills first.

Then we spend.

We also have something we call a “pillow.”

It’s about three weeks of total expenses.

We don’t touch it.

It sits in a savings account.

It’s there purely as a safety buffer.

This also helps with things like visas and financial credibility.

Banks sometimes check the lowest balance you’ve had.

If it drops below certain thresholds, it can affect approvals for things like hiring international staff.

So maintaining that buffer isn’t just safety—it’s operational leverage too.

So yeah, it might sound simple.

But discipline with cash flow is one of the biggest reasons businesses survive seasonality.

Are Bali spa.

Yes.

And I wanted to come back full circle to the start—your spa.

Like you said, there are Thai spas and other types out there.

But Balinese isn’t very common at all.

So why did you choose that?

It’s a mix of two factors.

First, I’m personally familiar with Bali.

I’ve spent a lot of time there.

I know the culture and have strong connections.

Right now, we even have our own school of massage and bodywork.

Every single therapist that works with us has gone through our training.

And about 25% of the best graduates, we invite to come and work in the UK.

That also makes hiring much easier.

The second factor is positioning.

If you open a Thai spa in London, you’ll immediately be compared to other Thai spas.

And those are usually cheaper and more basic.

For example, there’s a place near Trafalgar Square that does Thai massage well.

But because they’re positioned as “Thai,” customers compare them to lower-priced options.

So they have to constantly justify why they charge more.

By positioning ourselves differently—Balinese—we remove that direct comparison.

Customers can’t easily compare us to Moroccan, Thai, or other spa types.

We set our own benchmark.

Also, Bali as a brand has a certain perception.

It creates an expectation of quality and price.

Like “Italian shoes”—you already have an idea of what that means.

Balinese massage does the same.

It anchors the experience in the customer’s mind.

And because you have your own school, your therapists are actually trained in Bali, right?

So it’s authentic.

Yes, exactly.

That’s what we aim for.

But it’s not just about massage quality.

Customer service is just as important.

That’s why we train it ourselves.

For example, small things matter.

Being fully present.

Not using phones.

Giving customers full attention from the moment they arrive.

Even those first few seconds matter.

People can feel when you’re not fully there.

So we focus on creating that level of presence and consistency.

Not just at management level, but across every employee.

Because that’s what makes the experience feel real.

Like, you know, we’ve talked about how you’ve positioned yourself as the most luxury or expensive spa in London.

But in your industry, especially with wellness growing so much, what are some of the biggest pieces of bullshit you see?

What do you guys stand against?

It’s a pleasure to answer this.

One thing that always amazes me—especially in London—is how businesses handle customers.

You go into a store, ask for something, and they say, “We don’t have it, but go to this other place.”

They literally send you to a competitor.

As a customer, it’s helpful.

But as a business owner, it’s painful to watch.

Why not say, “We don’t have that exact thing, but here’s an alternative”?

Keep the customer.

Serve them better.

To me, that’s a symptom of poor customer service training.

And that’s one of the biggest issues in the industry.

You can’t just hire people and expect great service.

You have to train them.

Properly.

Consistently.

Until it becomes second nature.

I understand a lot of people are on minimum wage.

And sometimes they don’t feel invested.

But if you want a business to grow, customer service has to be a priority.

At least 50% of places get this wrong.

That’s interesting because I didn’t expect that answer.

But it makes sense.

I think part of it is people don’t like selling.

They find it uncomfortable.

So instead of trying to convert the customer, they just “help” them and send them elsewhere.

It feels easier.

Less pressure.

But they’re missing the opportunity.

Exactly.

And the fix is actually very simple.

Commissions.

You need to incentivize people.

If someone earns even 5% on a sale, their mindset changes instantly.

They stop seeing sales as uncomfortable.

They start seeing it as opportunity.

It doesn’t mean being pushy or sleazy.

It just means offering alternatives.

Letting customers try things.

Guiding them.

That works across everything—retail, services, even spas.

You just need to align incentives.

Because when employees benefit from the outcome, they naturally care more about delivering it.

Commission.

In our spa, we have a 2% commission.

That’s it.

And on some harder-to-sell products, we go up to 5%.

It’s a fantastic way for the employee that thinks in the interest of the business to be remunerated.

And it’s a fantastic way for a business to grow sales.

It’s a win-win.

And so you found that having a base plus commission structure has actually helped you grow the business and sell more?

Yes.

That’s my way of running a business.

Before moving to the UK, I structured every business at least 50/50.

Here, that’s harder and I don’t necessarily want to do that.

So now it’s more like 80% base, 20% commission.

But the higher the commission element, the better it is for motivation.

There are also different ways to structure it.

For example, you can guarantee a minimum.

You say, no matter what, you’ll earn £3,000.

But the structure is £1,500 base plus commission.

If they exceed £3,000, they keep everything above that.

If they only reach £2,800, they still get £3,000.

Psychologically, that’s powerful.

Because once they cross that threshold, it feels like everything after is a bonus.

And suddenly, they’re thinking, “I could make £10,000 this month.”

That possibility drives effort.

Of course, managing expectations is important.

I like to be transparent about realistic earnings.

But the key idea is this:

“I can make £25 in the next five minutes if I just put effort in.”

It’s not about skill.

It’s about effort.

And honestly, around 80% of results in sales come from effort.

Not fancy tactics.

Not advanced skills.

Just effort.

So the goal is simple—

Get your team genuinely interested in doing what’s beneficial for the business from a revenue perspective.

your example of the 1,500 plus commission that you said, like say if you get up to 2,800 or whatever, do you ever have people who are sort of like think, “Oh, it’s a lot of effort to get to the 3,000 and then they just can’t be bothered.”

Um, I guess, but or I guess if you get those people, do you immediately know that they’re not the right people for the business?

Um, many different ways you can look at it.

Uh I think the nicest thing about such a structure is that it’s super easy to track it at the end of the year, quarter, or any kind of period.

You can just have a look at their salaries and see is anyone getting higher in their threshold.

And if most people do, except for this one person, you have just identified the weakest link in your team.

Congratulations.

That’s very important.

Um and then you can do whatever you need to do with that.

Um, when it comes to people that don’t necessarily try for it, it’s hard to say.

It depends on their position very much.

Of course, there are some people that are very comfortable with the level of income that they’re getting and they don’t find the structure motivating.

Maybe they don’t need the money or something else.

I don’t necessarily think that it is a deal breaker.

Um, it depends why they’re not doing it.

If they’re doing it because they don’t care, that’s problematic.

No matter what business you’re running, if you have people in the team that don’t care about the well-being of the business, it will really drag you down.

If a person is not doing it for other reasons such as maybe they didn’t receive enough training, if we’re very charitable about it, or they just don’t understand this commission system.

Uh sometimes, like I’m guilty of making very sophisticated salary structures and then people are saying, “Oh, I don’t actually know what I’m doing.”

Um I’ll just see how much money at the end of the month I’m getting.

Uh then you can also work on that.

But generally speaking, it’s pretty good to look at how much you’re paying a person and judging their level of contribution through that lens.

Yeah.

And with the other people, you can try to put them in a different position.

You can try to give them attention and training.

You can monitor them closely.

What if they’re actually doing something that’s harmful for your business, in which case you need to strike a warning or even fire them or replace them.

Um it’s helpful.

You can especially, if you’re not there every day, look at the numbers and identify a weak spot.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Gosh, that’s been so useful.

I feel like I’ve got loads of gems about economics, pricing, staff, benefits, all that sort of stuff, as well as what it’s really like running a luxury spa in central London.

So, where can people find you?

Because obviously the name of your spa is 7 Barley Spa, right?

And that’s near Tottenham Court Road.

Um, but I know that you’re not a massive social media person.

So, like if people wanted to get in touch with you, how could they find you and, you know, what could they ask you?

Um, I also run a podcast.

So, if people enjoyed this and want to check it out, it’s called The Expert’s Hangout.

I get awesome guests on.

Sabrina, you were on just a week or two ago and that was very informative.

We had a really cool conversation about marketing.

Um, if people want to get in touch with me, perhaps I could leave a link in the description to how they can reach out and send a message.

I’m also launching a little newsletter where people can get a little glimpse into the kinds of things that I am researching and thinking about.

From social cues of how to bond with people to the difference between themes and goals and other little bits of information that I found out.

So, if you want to check it out, check that out too.

Amazing.

Well, thank you so much.

It’s been great having you on today.

It’s a very big pleasure.

Thank you for having me.