Written By Bryan Flowers – Night Wish Group | The Pattaya News | Pattaya addicts | Pattaya unplugged
Loyalty
Guys often ask me advice about staying in Pattaya long term, I have written about it on my Pattaya blog a few times. I would say being loyal is very important when I arrived, I had a partnership with Andy Fletcher, it was more of a marketing/sales/seo/website creation business, Andy is now working alone with a team of people working for him doing Facebook marketing for small businesses around Pattaya. (we use him for our bars to share our content, he has many professionally ran groups) I own a few large facebook groups with him also, but we don’t run it to promote ourselves, we stay in the background, we have always done stuff to promote businesses and our own websites.
Anyway, one day I was offered some very good money to drop my partnership with Andy, it was a very rosy amount of money, but I was wanted for my SEO skills (which Andy has got me onto). But I always remember the help that Andy did at the start, if it wasn’t for him, I may not have been in Pattaya living here or that quick, he gave me confidence as a 25 year old not knowing anyone in Pattaya that I could do it and hes got my back.
I choose not to leave the partnership and we continued to find ways to make more money. We had a lot of setbacks for various reasons, such as trying to find decent Thai staff.
The guy that offered to give me a partnership and all this extra money, turned out to be dishonest and some very bad things happened. I lost around 250,000 that was owed to me and I am very sure to this day that he scammed a load of money and blamed me to the underground people we were doing SEO for. He disappeared. I am very glad that I stuck to my position, I have told some of our managers this story and they leave and it all goes wrong, our company is growing, adapting and strong, other companies here are often running on fumes.
People have tried to buy pattaya addicts forum for large sums of money, (its still going strong with 20-30 sign ups daily) but that was my first stepping stone, I don’t want to sell it. I use it to promote our bars anyway, all the years of hard work, blood sweat and tears running a community is paying off. There is too many politics with selling forums of this nature is because of trust issues. Bangkok addicts we could sell but not Philippines addicts.
Sharing
When I started Pattaya Addicts Forum, I allowed people to share links to other forums, I allowed many links to forums that were constantly attacking us, I helped rival forums, I helped rival bar owners, I want everyone around me to do well, its no accident those around me lose weight or give up smoking, sharing my mindset and time to get people to lose weight or quit bad habits comes right back.
We share our resources with other bar owners, we promote other people for free, but I have started pushing back on people that just take all the time.
I see many business owners attacking neighbours, its madness, I understand a difference of values, but we should all promote our neighbours and sois. Its soi vs soi not neighbour vs neighbour, its hurts people seeing their neighbour full but you need that hot spot next door to you, it’s like them paying for your advertising, you are getting free exposure to qualified leads. What other advertising can get you qualified leads next to your business with money in their pockets? Granted advertising gets people to come to your bar, but they have to break their routines, go out there way, everything is a risk, even if its a risk of not having a good time, opportunity risk, investment of time, going out of the comfort zone, but someone in your neighbouring bar is already in his comfort zone and he can see what you have on offer and there is little effort to check it out and less risk as hes already weighed it up ifs hes going to have a better time in there or not.
I have helped so many people with business disputes and all sorts of problems for free, but its taught me so much, by sharing my time and resources, I have learnt more laws, more processes and more network. Now we have a few business owners paying my wife to sort out issues, pay the right people and pay alcohol tax etc.
I did bar crawls every Friday for years, cost me every time I did it, the payment came later when I opened bars, I had no idea it would help me later, I just wanted to meet members from my forum and help them.
Adapting
Someone said I was just a plumber from the UK, someone said I am lucky because I am an IT guy, both those statements have challenges. No one was born into a leader, no one was born into being a doctor, it’s just surprising for people when they see people making changes or personal growth over a certain age, because most people only change when there is a wedding, birth, illness or some financial emergency. What if you lived in a world where you never identify yourself as a fixed person? All the guys I have seen leave town after being here years have a fixed mindset or they are too proud to change.
I seen myself as an IT guy, I loved business, but I qualified as an electrician because when I left uni, my parents wanted me to finish my electricians qualification because they wanted me to have something to fall back on and perhaps take over my dads customers as he was an electrician all of his life. Others see me as a forum owner, others see me as a news owner, others see me as a bar owner, other see me as an investor in stocks and shares, others see me as a mentor, but I like to see myself as someone that can inspire and motivate people. What I am trying to get at here, is people need to have a growth mindset, you can do anything you want in reality, but I have done many things I didn’t want to at the start, now I can be pickier. There is always sales jobs in Pattaya, even if you just turned up at a company and worked on commission only, but people tell me they don’t like sales.. I hated sales but if its something you believe in and both people win, then its a matter of shifting a mindset, as for they don’t know how to do sales? There is plenty of sales stuff online, check out The wolf of wall street, if you want to learn about sales. There are plenty of jobs I still need to do that I don’t want to deal with.
Positivity
I might not seem the most positive person when I am around people, but when we are looking outwards at things I am positive and optimistic and it’s usually defying over peoples beliefs. Once you understand people much more than most and why they do the things they do and “laziness doesn’t exist” and how we are all right (because we are only judging by upbringing and from our experiences) I am very positive and optimistic with most people, but I believe anyone can be dragged out of a rut and be a much better version of themselves. I am a strong believer in being able to guide people in the right direction, but it takes a lot of time. (I’m talking about people without addictions/mental health issues, as that needs to be resolved before personal development gets serious.)
Thinking Big
I had big dreams about the bars, news, forums, Pattaya, I never cared about money, so I never had it, but the more I make, the more I employ or invest. So my carelessness about money and my thinking big has worked well together. The reason I want to make money now, is so I can pay more to people that deserve it, start new business and grow teams. I doubt I will ever have a large amount in my account. I often blow money trying to promote Pattaya related stuff, our news website isn’t really making 10% of what it costs to run, (long term plans – it will later in the year) but I know at least with our NWG advert on there and personal branding, it should give me value. It also helps us promote Pattayaunplugged.com which we are using to promote events/businesses in Pattaya, funded by Night Wish group and me and Adam Judd work on it for free. (he is also my Partner on The Pattaya News)
Learning
I have been learning many hours per day for many years now, I am busy yes but I enjoy learning, I feel the compounding effect from it, it’s an incredible journey. It’s my best asset and I can use it to help those around me and the businesses I am involved in. You can just watch youtube and use audible app while you are driving/exercising if you don’t have time. I am always multitasking. I wrote this about How to learn a lot cheaply. You need to learn more than you think because there is so much stuff out there that you don’t know you need to learn, that’s a huge challenge I see with people. They have no idea what they need to learn about and the benefits, therefore no desire to do it. I rarely speak to people when I am out, but sometimes I do and I find some of the mindsets I encounter are so poisonous, I could really help some of these people but its highly complex, so I won’t explain it here.
Depression
https://bryanflowerspattaya.com/2017/02/17/motivation-and-my-driving-force/
And very strong work ethics with no days off! It’s not an easy town to make money in.
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