Mindset - Stay On Mission

If your team doesn’t understand the mission, how can they possibly help you achieve it? In this unfiltered episode of the Stay Hungry Podcast, Joel and Martha get real about leadership, growth and the often-ignored truth: too many business owners either forget or fail to communicate their mission. And when that happens, progress stalls. Culture fades. Clients leave.

They explore why a mission is more than a motivational quote on the wall – it’s the foundation for meaningful direction, accountability and long-term success. Whether you’re running a solo business or leading a growing team, clarity of purpose is what keeps everyone aligned and moving forward.

From cult trainers and Puma nostalgia to leadership slip-ups and the brutal consequences of unclear communication, this episode blends sharp business insights with personal honesty and a healthy dose of humour.

🔹 Why clear direction beats busywork

🔹 How internal misalignment costs you clients

🔹 What it really takes to scale to £2 million

🔹 Plus, the story behind a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trainers in a pizza box…

If you’re serious about scaling and tired of playing business instead of building one, this episode is for you.

Links:

Website: https://www.codebreak.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codebreakcrew/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/codebreakcrew/

Joel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelstoneofficial/
Joel's Facebook: https://facebook.com/joelstoneofficial/

Free Marketing Budget Calculator: https://codebreak.outgrow.us/knowyournumbers

Arrange a call with Codebreak: https://form.jotform.com/241272835208051

Transcript

0:13

Hey Marth, back in the game. Do you know what we haven't said on the podcast, I don't think? What? That you've been promoted. Have we not? We might have done. No, and we wouldn't have. What are you now? Client success manager slash head of client success, which somebody actually said to me the other day, head sounds better in noun. Too late now. Well actually you haven't signed the contract. Well I have signed it, I just haven't given it back to you. Oh that's great. I just won't give you the promotion till the 5th of June then. So, yeah, what's got you to that? How's this happened? You've only been here four years. Yeah, four for four that is. Four promotions in four years. What have you done? Assistant, executive, senior exec, manager? Yeah. Yeah, it slows down now, it slows down now, yeah. Just gonna ask for pay rises, but not the title, that's fine, I get it. Yeah, yeah, it's been a wild ride. I actually referenced in the last podcast about stuff I was doing marketing before I came to Code Break that I thought was good. And compared to what I know now is night and day. Night and day. And I do not have a marketing degree. We've had people work here with a marketing degree. I don't think they're as good as me. Ethan might be. Might be, yeah, but he's just a baby. I mean, they're like, yeah. It's crazy, but things are moving so quickly. We actually had a client who taught marketing in a university and she didn't have a clear, which is terrifying. Terrifying that you pay that much to go to uni and you're a lecturer. So many different, it's like saying like. I guess the fundamentals. Yeah, the fundamentals, obviously really, really important. But also, there's so many different areas of marketing. Like we're performance marketers. We're looking at like money in, money out, ad performance, funnel performance, landing page performance, website performance. There are marketers out there that are like cluster strategic marketers and they're looking at company positioning, brand positioning, brand psychology. I saw an amazing ad for, I think it was Puma or Nike. It was to the song, I was gonna go to work, but then I got high. It's like capitalizing on like the runner's high, right? It's like, they're all like running. I was gonna walk my dog. He's like running with the dog. I just thought, that's sick. I looked out. I was like, Jase, this is a sick advert. He's like, I don't get it. I was like, oh, well, maybe you're not the target audience. Yeah, that's true. But that was like how, again, I'm jumping without any context. I was thinking like, is anybody realistically gonna watch that ad and buy the Puma trainers that they were selling? No, but am I brand aware? Yes. Yeah, and if they weren't doing that, would they fall from being, I mean, I would say trainer-wise, Nike are like the market leaders, and then you've got like Puma, Adidas around, like up there. If one of those stops doing brand awareness, they fall away. When I was in school, Puma was not cool, man. So Puma was really specialist when I was at school. Like Puma King football boots were like really good football boots, but they were like a bit old school at the same time. And then Nike football boots were a bit fancy, and I always felt like I'd break my feet wearing them. I don't know if, were they Adidas, maybe the black ones that looked really old school with the white stripes? Copa Mundials. Yeah. Or Copa Americas. I liked them. They looked like Vans. I wasn't Vans at the time. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah, they do have that kind of like old school. And they were sturdy. I saw so many toes go through those Nike. Tempos. Yeah, specifically the pink ones that all my friends had. Yeah, I don't, because the thing is, I mean, I don't know what this has got to do with what we're about to talk about, but the consumer model that you buy off the shelf is not the same as the ones that the people are wearing professionally. You are, of course. You can buy the professional model, but it would be like 250 quid. At my school, there was a few kids that would have those, but most parents were buying the ones that look like those, but are 40 quid. Now, it's no surprise that you get two foot tackle on you and your toes start hanging out, your cheap, colourful boots. So I was always like, oh, and I always had like random ones, like Lotto or Puma, like the sturdier boot, but like, I don't know. I always think it's a bit weird if you're like playing on like a meadow, like running through mud, you just need some like solid boots. And a stud is literally going into your- I sound so fucking old now. I sound like my granddad used to sound, talking about my foot. He's like, oh, in my day, we just kicked a pig's bladder around. Right. Puma's actually like really my, they've like a line, maybe they've partnered with Hyrox, all the Hyrox stuff. I got some cool Puma trainers. Have you? You've seen them. Have I? They're in a pizza box. I don't think I've seen them. You've definitely seen them. I haven't seen the pizza box for sure. You've not seen my pizza box. It's here. Is it? Okay. I'd like to see it. Do you want to know about them? Yeah. They're Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Puma trainers. I definitely haven't seen these. What? Do you want to know something else? What? They're not in my size. Do you want to know why? Because my size sold out in about three minutes when these came out. And they like go for thousands on eBay now. But if I buy a size three that I can never wear, but I can look at, I got them for like 50 quid. So they're going to be just special. So they come in an actual pizza box. And then inside they come with all the little metal tassels of different turtle things to put on the laces. Would you wear them even if they were in your size? They're fucking cool. I'll show you after. You'll be like, actually. Do you know anyone who's a size three? No, but my nephew will be. Yeah, and they're classic turtles. So they're not going to age. So it could be that I hold onto these for like, I don't know, five years. And then I'll be like, I bought these five years ago with you in mind. Or they just stay on the shelf. Yeah. Do you think you'd appreciate a six year old just going to be like. He's going to like turtles. Yeah, but. He likes dinosaurs. I've covered that off. Yeah, but you'll just wreck them and you'll be heartbroken. I'll buy an off pair. Apparently size three is how you get them cheaper. Yeah, you can have as many as you want. I can believe it. Cause they were like, literally, they were 120 quid at release. I got a voucher for the Puma website and could get them for 50. But the ones in my size on eBay were like 920 quid. And I was like, well, this is fucking brilliant. And they came with like stickers and all sorts of shit. You know, like the people who get those are like touts. What are those called? Chicket touts? Yeah, scalpers. But it's not, it's bots, isn't it? That are doing it for them. Surely we can build one of them. Not just for my own personal use. That's some great segue, Marth. I was worried that we were seven minutes in. What's the mission is the title of this podcast. How on earth is us building a scalping bot for trainers part of our mission? What about a scalping bot for gigs though, that we could get good gig tickets? gift them to clients or ourselves. I've got good gig tickets this year. Yeah where you going? I'm gonna see Lincoln Park later this month at Wembley. Sick and Will Smith? I'm gonna see Will Smith at Wolverhampton University. I mean what a fall from grace that is. That is fucking ridiculous. He probably doesn't know how much of a fall from grace. He's not gonna have a clue. He's never done a world tour and he's waited till his 50s even though in the 90s he was massive and he could have sold out stadiums in the 90s. Maybe he doesn't want to. He's playing Wolverhampton Civic. Maybe he wants to see you in the eyes. I don't want him to look me in the eyes. I'm a bit torn on this because I'm fairly sure he's a weirdo. Yeah there's been a lot. I'm worried he's mates with Diddy. Is it sold out? When he plays Miami that's a banger. He probably didn't write it though. I think he did. I think he was involved in the writing. Is he from Miami? No he's from Philadelphia. West Philadelphia born and raised on the playgrounds where I spent most of my days. Was that not just for the show though? I think that's where he's from too. Oh okay. Has he sold out? He plays himself in the show. He's Will in the show. I've not really watched. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. You're alright Mars. You're quite out of my age. So what's Code Break's mission? You tell me. Help people have fun. Well kind of. It's our mission statement. Our mission I think. What's our mission? Like what's our mission this year? Begins with a two and the second word is million. Yeah okay yeah. Because there's different missions. What are you talking about specifically for this podcast Toil? That we've not spoken anything about but we have spoken about Diddy. What I'm talking about is does everyone in the team know what the mission is? Now you know, you might be playing Daft, there is a poster on the wall in that room with all the different goals for this year that lead to the mission. All the things we need to tick off to hit the mission. And bribes. And bribes to help you do it. But if your team doesn't know what the mission is and why that's the mission, guess what? You ain't fucking getting there. Yeah. And it blows my mind. In the last podcast we were talking about professionalising your business, maturing your business. There's so many businesses that exist to exist, which is fine. I get that. You've got bills to pay. I'm a window cleaner because it's decent money. I choose my own hours and it puts money in my pocket, pays the bills, keeps the kids fed and watered. Get it? That's not quite the same as the sort of business that's going to approach us to scale to 10 million. And if you want to scale to 10 million, you've got to start talking to your team about what the mission is, what the goals are, what they need to check off to achieve that, how we're going to measure it and give direction. Now, I thought of something this morning on my way in and I'm very pissed off about it. We didn't have a May meeting. We didn't have a May team meeting. Did we not? First time we've missed a team meeting in four years. When did we have? Because I went on the 1st of May, got back on the 17th and we've definitely not had one since I've been back. When did we have the Beefy Boys? Was that April? We had Beefy Boys? Yeah, we ordered Beefy Boys in at the last meeting. Who did? Okay, we did. I've not had a Beefy Boys. Yeah, we did. You had Peanut Butter and Jelly. Yeah, that was April. Was it? But you can remember having a Beefy Boys now? Thinking about it, yeah. Yeah, because I nearly died after it because I was so full. Yeah, that was April. Yeah, okay. So, oh dear, that's not good. Yeah, it's a leadership issue. I'm pissed off for myself. But, well, I also then checked and there's none in the diary forever now, so you'd saw it. But how do you keep the team on direction, focused on mission? Do you have regular catch-ups and talk about it? Yeah, I would say after our monthly's, quarterly's, I'm always like... Realigned. Realigned, yeah. But going into it, I'd always be like, oh, I wish I could just do client work for the next, for the whole day. Yeah, and I guess what happens, you just stay at the same level if you do. Yeah. And you have to be so strict. I really struggle with it. Like, I've come from working for myself to having one employee to now having a team. And, like, yesterday felt really unproductive. But I did loads of strategic work and loads of thinking and got loads of ducks in a row. But I didn't do any busy work. And so I went home not feeling that tired. And then I was like, oh, that's a lazy day. It wasn't. But it's quite... And, like, I dealt with something quite big with a client that's been annoying us and sorted it out. But you can feel sometimes like it's been unproductive. But then when you remember what the mission is, did it contribute to the mission? Yes. Well, that's way more important. Me sat in there tidying up Dropbox. Might make me feel busy and good. Does it contribute to the mission? Probably not. Not me doing it. So it helps me have clarity to know what the mission is. It helps me communicate to you guys. Because, let's say a client decides to leave. I need to inform you how that impacts the mission. And if we don't hit the mission, we don't get what we want. It's good as well for, like, purpose. Like, not just think you're coming in every day. Come in and go to work or go home. It's like, no, we're actually pushing towards something that's bigger than... Yeah. I saw something yesterday. It's called the Psychopath Life Coach. Who is it? I don't know. I've not seen him before. He's called Lewis. It's weird because we know a few psychopath coaches called Lewis. Not that... Actually, I do know... Wow. That's interesting. Because I was thinking of a different Lewis to the Lewis you're thinking of. There's a Lewis I like and a Lewis I don't like. And I'll leave that there. And there's lots of Lewises in the world. My brother's best friend was called Lewis. Loads of Lewises. Lewis is one of those names that if you say it over and over again, it doesn't sound like a word. The S is weird on the end. And there's loads of weird ways to spell it as well, isn't there? No. Yeah? O-U? O-U? As in L-O-U-I-S? Yeah. Well, they all need to know that they're called Louis. Okay. Well... But I have seen people spell Lewis like that. I guess you can just call it whatever the hell you want and say it's pronounced however you want. Don't tell me I have to say my own name. Okay. Fair enough. Sorry, Louis. Yeah. So tell me about the Psychopath Coach. Was it good? How did you watch it? Netflix or... Yeah, I watched it on Netflix yesterday when I was having that really productive day. That's the beauty of having multiple screens. But actually, my coach told me to watch it. And some of it was amazing and some of it was terrifying. And it was about a... life coach who's got some psychopathic tendencies some of the horrible things he'd done and some of the good things he'd done but there was definitely a bit of ego, maybe ego, but certainly the positioning was quite guru-esque in the sense that I think there was over 10 people in the program had decided to get the program's logo tattooed on themselves. Ooh that feels very cult-y. It's a lot innit? What is the logo? Just like... Stickman. It was like diamonds within diamonds so quite like Illuminati-esque but it's quite a cool logo like but yeah. I guess if that's your style you could have something similar tattooed on you that night. I'm not suggesting anyone gets a code break logo that's fucking bananas but... I know loads of people who have lightning bolts though. Yeah to be honest if I extend this there'll be lightning involved in it for that reason but our doorbell's about to go. It's gonna piss me right off. I've just seen the postman reverse back to the door. So Jack you can edit this out but yeah getting really clear on the mission so like what are we working hard towards? What are we making sure we're all pulling in the same direction? Getting rid of unclear leadership so if something happens in the business that doesn't point towards the mission get rid of it because you're not a charity and like sometimes you can be so busy being nice thinking all this might help. It clouds the vision and it confuses your employees, it confuses you, takes you off track, confuses clients. Yeah why are you working with them? They don't seem like a good fit. They don't look like me. I thought you worked with people like me. Oh fuck the missions falling apart. How often should you revisit your mission or is it less on a time basis and more on a... So I work hard on this personally and business-wise because I'm always five years ahead in my head and on paper and then I'm always revisiting that to make sure I'm always five years on but I try not to live in dreamland at the same time. You've got to stay present but you got to know what direction you're pointing in so like for example, we've talked about this before on the podcast, taking the team to Orlando has been in my vision for a long time. I mean I think you've heard me say it since you started here. Yeah it was on a poster a long time ago wasn't it? Yeah and nobody really bought into it to start like, well obviously you did, didn't you Stellita? I'm the only one. But I think people were like he's just fucking nuts. Yeah. And I'm like no, on a selfish level the biggest kick I get out of business is seeing everybody else succeed because if I succeed I expect it of myself so there's no reward. If you succeed or the business succeeds or Ethan or Jack or Scott or Neil get something great from it, that like totally selfishly and I'm not ashamed of that, makes me feel good. So when I'm like I'm gonna take the whole team to Orlando, I'm aware that the optics of that are fucking great. I'm not an idiot. We're a marketing company, it's gonna make us look cool. It makes it easier for us to recruit, also cool. But the biggest kick for me will be like you guys knowing I worked hard and earned this. Yeah and it's like, I guess like in like a not business sense people do this with like their holidays. It's like I've worked really hard and I've got something I'm looking forward to regardless of, because we had a conversation didn't we about how like there's always a kickback, like something amazing happens. There's always going to be a rebalance that's a bit shit and if you don't have those things, but it's very unusual like, I mean I've never worked for a business. I don't know anybody, any of my friends who work for a business that are going to Orlando with a team. Also, weirdly, I've actually just put this together in my head, that Orlando you have spoken about before, I've been here four years, maybe like early on. Do you think you kind of manifested Neil? Yeah, Neil wasn't even living in Orlando. Neil lived in New York, never said about moving to Florida, ever. And then moved to Florida and so did his wife's family, so it was like, what? And I said about taking the team to Orlando long before the Neil business relationship was up on the cards, but when you're on mission things start to align, and I don't mean that in like a woo-woo sense, but things happen to make those things that you've repeated to yourself and pointed towards and worked hard for start to unfold, but you do have to go through periods of massive discomfort to see that happen, and most people don't get through the period of discomfort. Yeah. It's not a sob story, but I've been through some shit to make this business happen. Have there been times when you've been like, can't be on? Nearly every day, but like, yeah, certainly business takeover time last year was hard, because I was in business with one of my best friends, we were pulling in separate directions, not just business, in life, and we didn't want to fall out, and the business was tanking because of it. Yeah. That's fucking hard to emotionally, and I've got stuff going on, you know, got a father in hospital and mum looking after a grandmother with dementia and all these different things you're balancing away from it, a wife about to have an operation, it's tough, like business is fucking hard, but when you've got a mission, like, any mission is hard, going to the moon was fucking hard, like, they would have had to overcome so much shit, people died for that mission, like, I think when you want to achieve something that not many people achieve, expect it to be fucking difficult. So your mission should be not something you feel like you could achieve right now, it's got to be... Yeah, like, you've sat in one-to-ones with me where I've said to you Mark, look, I'm never gonna give you an easy time working here, like, get it in your head, this is gonna be fucking hard, it's gonna be rewarding, and you'd, you'd get that. We've had other staff members who've, I've spoken to like that, who've resigned. Literally, we've had, like, a meeting about the mission and they were like, it's not for me, which is fine. Yeah, and that's okay, but if you're not communicating the mission, those people will cling on and drag... the team down not because they're bad people or they're not good at what they do but they're not pointing in the same direction as you you see it in sport you see it in everything and i think like you've got to just keep drumming at home and like we're in a transition period at the moment so scott our marketing manager's moving on to passengers new not uh that's cool um like wish him the best of luck it's a good move for him and his family we're recruiting i'm speaking to the recruiter today um check my watch actually yeah that is tight is it not half 11 is it yeah you want to check for me yeah how do i uh can you talk for three seconds while i go get my laptop no that's right let's carry on um i'm pretty sure it was half 11 i think it's 12 let me i'll message ethan we're gonna have to edit this podcast now because and i talk an absolute shite but um i'm gonna go check yeah okay well i will uh continue on about um um this better be half 11 otherwise i'm in shit is it okay fine sorry but if it was half 11 you would have been happy um back in the game so yeah you've got to just keep like reinforcing it and we're going through this transition period new staff coming in still getting the two assistants up to speed you've just been promoted i've got to get some meetings in with the team and start reinforcing the mission this is what's happening this is how it's going to happen these are the steps we need to take this is why it's important those boxes go out this is why important those landing pages get built this way it's important those ads run this is why it's important that you edit those testimonial videos this is what's going on tomorrow this is what we're going to do as a team next month this is when the next quarterly is for example june is meant to be a quarterly meeting so that needs to go in in the diary that's a full day that's going to be tough to get in but is it worth waiting till you just won't be in it yeah um so yeah it's that and then you'll see a dramatic impact on marketing when you all get aligned on the mission yeah because ultimately marketing is about connection right with your customers with your team clients whatever and we always talk about like the metrics so important the metrics they are so important but the overall mission is connection with your team being aligned like if you are scaling your business there's only so much you can do right and then so there's always a point where you're like and i'm gonna have to pass you over to our lady in accounts or i'm gonna have to pass you over to the designer or your account manager and if you're not beating the same drum you're gonna fall into the trap of clients just fall through the leaky bucket because they've bought into joel stone but they've now got martha dale and they're not aligned and they're not shooting in the same direction and so i wonder how many like how many people how many business owners do you know that do like the monthlies the quarterlys is it something that's encouraged in all the good business owners i know regularly speak to their teams yeah yeah like weekly scrums monthly meetings quarterly meetings annual meetings see weekly the weekly scrums i are like i imagine a lot of people have money meetings or whatever whatever you call it i still feel like that's very much like in the doing and not yeah but there should be then maybe that's on me but there should be comms that come into that meeting that realign us each week keep us on track yeah maybe there isn't enough of that in us maybe or maybe it's just how i'm just something every time to be like remember this is what's important this week yeah which yeah i mean we can definitely get better at it and like we have daily stand-ups as well which i'm not involved in but i'll carry on when scott goes it's important like just double checking what everyone's up to and if they've got any challenges do they need any support and i think otherwise you can go so far down a certain path and realize that it's you're in the wrong direction what point like so since i've been at cobra there was always monthlies was there always no so it used to be more ad hoc we didn't have weeklies or monthlies just kind of when you felt like things were yeah yeah and like because cobra was like a combination of two companies so there was andy's company who had several staff and my company only had two staff we didn't need to have those formalized meetings in my company because we were small we were talking to each other all the time pointing each other in the right direction all the time andy's company had more and then when we merged we had to have lots of meetings to get used to how each other worked and yeah i mean well none of those people are here now so it's like so what if like somebody's listening to this and maybe they do have monthlies or weekly meetings but what would be your like top tips for them to well i guess number one would be if you don't have a mission have one yeah and make it clear like clear steps like a why behind it start like simon said start with why why do we do what we do what's what's the outcome of this because you can be really like directionless otherwise like personally and like as the owner personally and with the business so like i'm in that transition phase at the moment i've got a relatively nice house um my wife's currently out of work looking for a job but we're sort of comfortable so it's like right i need to realign myself to like what's going to make me go again well every every successful person who's written a book says like i thought when i had the first million i'd be happy and then i just wanted the next million and the next million and the next million because there's not there's not yeah there's no purpose behind how many zeros are in your bank account exactly where like for me a massive bucket listing for me was to take hannah to borneo i've done that now so i'm having a bit of a lull at looking at my personal mission and my personal why and i said so we need to get it booked sooner rather than later so that i've got it to point out but then there's also like where in the world do i want to live what what kind of I want to be? Like what kind of husband do I want to be? What kind of boss do I want to be? So there's all that personal mission and then there's how does that realign me and reflect in how I approach the next challenge in Code Break which we found I think the level we're at now different kinds of shit gets thrown at us and I'm having to learn how to navigate that for the first time and I know that when we get to the next tier I have to learn how to navigate that too but that's all part of the journey to the mission. Well someone said to you once didn't they like you hit a certain level in business and you're always in a legal battle. Yes someone did say to me if like if you're not in a legal battle you're not your business isn't at the level you think it is and I was like well why would I be in a legal battle I always pay my bills like we deliver a good service and then quite recently someone who'd had great service from us fucking recharged it back on their credit card didn't see that coming at all and it like you're like well shit I can't just roll over and take that yeah and you end up in a pickle then another situation occurred where someone who'd had a winding up order didn't tell us and when you've got a winding up order you're not allowed to pay out to other companies but because they hadn't told us we were getting paid out to doing the work and now the liquidators demanded the money back well there's another fucking legal situation we're in neither of which are our fault but that's what happens when you're dealing with a volume of different people it's not like like we qualify our clients but I can't fucking look inside their head yeah I don't know if they're gonna have a head turn and do something insane but there's things I've thought about since that we would put in place that we didn't have to have before so like Experian credit checks on all new clients it's going to cost us money but saying well do I want to work with someone who's gone bust twice and has no credit history probably not I could do without the headache of that so let's fucking get that in place two years ago I wasn't on my radar at all and but it's all part of the mission like we you're gonna encounter obstacles and you need to build resilience basically and have you one like north star this is my focus and if the world changes and your mission changes that's fine but you need to fucking communicate it well and you need to make sure it doesn't deflate everybody who was bought into the last mission yeah like we've obviously had to adjust but I've all like I've always been clear that this company's going to get to two million and then we'll go again and I've always been clear that when we hit certain metrics I'll take you all to Orlando and I've never strayed from that no matter how stressful or and one of them's done so fucking hell four months that's wild