More Best of Berko and Beyond

[00:00:00] Ben Baldwin: Before we dive into today’s episode, a quick word from our sponsors, and by sponsors I mean me, because Berko and Beyond is now proudly brought to you by Chuffed Productions, the video production specialists based right here in Berkhamsted. I know, I’m sponsoring my own podcast. I should’ve thought of it before, right?

So if you’ve got a challenge in your business that a video could help solve, we’d love to help. Head to our website, chuffed.video to get in touch. Now on with the show.

[00:00:37] Sadie Groom: We put into the business a real sales engine, and that, uh, what’s been interesting is our sales engine isn’t full of sales people. We are getting the team to be our sales engine, and are enabling them with different programs to be able to do that, and then we’ve brought into the business a sales admin support person to be able to oversee all this and just make the sales engine work on a daily basis.

[00:01:04] Steve Butcher: ChilFest was only ever meant to be a one-off event. Funnily enough. It… I was gonna do it once, I go, “Great, done it.” But on the Saturday, we had some major issues with the bar which w- you know, they weren’t necessarily down to me, but as the event promoter, I take that on the chin and I take full responsibility of it.

Our bar providers really did let us down. So I made the decision there and then that I would do it again, just to ensure that we got absolutely everything right. The issue we had, sadly, a number of people that attended in year one didn’t attend in t- in year two, ’cause they were under the illusion that the bar would be exactly the same, sadly.

[00:01:45] Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

[00:01:45] Steve Butcher: Um, and in year two we lost a lot of money. I mean, to the degree I had to sell my house to cover the debts from year two, uh, literally. And it’s not the m- it’s not the nicest thing to come home and sort of- Tell me … sit down with your wife and go, “Gina, little bit of a problem. So that we can survive, um, or so the business can survive, we’re gonna have to sell the family home.”

[00:02:09] Ben Baldwin: Whatdoes-  

[00:02:09] Steve Butcher: So when I say I’ve put blood, sweat and tears into ChilFest, I really have. 

[00:02:14] Ben Baldwin: What does Gina say at that point? 

[00:02:15] Steve Butcher: Um- 

[00:02:16] Ben Baldwin: Do you remember? 

[00:02:17] Steve Butcher: Is this a family show? 

[00:02:18] Ben Baldwin: Well, yeah. 

[00:02:19] Steve Butcher: No, it was tough. I mean, she completely-she completely and utterly understood, but yeah, it was tough.

It was really tough. Um, but luckily we had enough equity within our house and so forth, um, to sort of make it work. 

[00:02:32] Ben Baldwin: How do you feel at the t- I mean, that is just a conversation that obviously before you go back and have it, you’re feeling not great about the situation to say the least. 

[00:02:43] Steve Butcher: No. 

[00:02:44] Ben Baldwin: Then having to tell your missus that, how does that feel?

[00:02:46] Steve Butcher: Doesn’t feel great. Um, I mean, from my side- I truly believed in the festival 

[00:02:53] Ben Baldwin: Yeah 

[00:02:53] Steve Butcher: Truly believed in the festival, and I knew that within time I could make it work. You know, the difficulty for, and probably the reason why there aren’t that many festivals, um, in the UK, certainly independent festivals, is that you’ve got two days.

[00:03:11] Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

[00:03:12] Steve Butcher: There’s nine, 10 months worth of planning. Yeah But everything has to go right in those two days. 

[00:03:16] Ben Baldwin: Yeah 

[00:03:16] Steve Butcher: Um, that’s ticket sales, that’s the weather. You know, it’s absolutely everything. Um, and it’s tough. It really is. And, um- 

[00:03:24] Ben Baldwin: I think, uh, the, the, the c- the misconception from a punter’s point of view is they just see the price on a ticket, they see the price of a burger and a price of a pint, and think, “Well, surely they’re raking this in.”

[00:03:37] Steve Butcher: Oh, yeah. I think there’s, there’s probably lots of people out there think we’re loaded. 

[00:03:41] Ben Baldwin: Yeah 

[00:03:41] Steve Butcher: If… Well, I’d love to know where the money is because I’ve yet to find it. Um, but you know, certainly now rolling sort of all the way forward, you know, the budget to put ChilFest on now, um, is around about half million quid.

[00:03:55] Ben Baldwin: Would you have done this on, on your own? 

[00:03:58] Antoine Lever: I probably would, uh, but I would not have got nearly as far, done nearly as well, or enjoyed it nearly as much. Um, having someone that in the bleakest and darkest of moments where you just think this is pointless, someone else is, “I, I think we can do it. I think we can get through.

Here’s a path,” is fantastic. Having a peer, I enjoy the company of peers and, um, and Nick is, is peerless, I would say. 

[00:04:21] Nick Knight: I, I, I agree. I completely second that. I, I think, I, I know people who’ve gone, started alone, and a lot of them actually have failed. Um, not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because how tiring it is to be the sole person to actually, to make, to be responsible for absolutely everything, and they quite often lack some skills.

I would certainly… I c- I can go into a business and sell babblevoice ’cause I’m passionate about the product, but I couldn’t do what Antoine does day in, day out. Um, the sales emotional rollercoaster is not within my skillset. Um, so you know, that, that bolstering of skillsets is, is, uh, just fundamental and you’re, you’ve got that ability to just kinda support as well when things are getting a bit bleak and you go, “Ah,” you can just pull back a little bit and allow the other person to pull forward.

Um, and that is definitely, um… And, and conversely, I also know other people that have gone in with a business partner and have had very long business relationships with that business partner because, again, the same thing have kind of happened, has happened. They’ve got their own skillsets and they just build businesses.

Um, I’m, I’m su- there are clearly examples of people who go it alone and, and, and do an amazing job as well. Um, but for me, I just think that, that if, especially if you’re growing organically. 

[00:05:32] Lorna Smith: The numbers that you’re kind of going to dig out to scale are always going to be The kind of balance sheet numbers, so whether that’s things like your debtors, your debtor book, clearing that up, getting those really good clients on board.

Um, but I guess the difference in conversation is when you’re a startup is, when you’re a startup, you’re spending your whole life trying not to run out of money. 

[00:05:58] Ben Baldwin: Mm-hmm. 

[00:05:59] Lorna Smith: And when you’ve got to sort of like that medium size, like three or four years in and y- and you’re a bit more of an established business, it’s like, what do we do with the money to make it better?

So where do you invest the cash, or where do you invest the profits? Is that better to invest it in technology? Is it better to invest it in people? Do we need more people to grow the business? Do we need, need better systems and processes to grow a business? So I think it’s figuring out the business itself and whether it’s It needs an investment in people or whether it needs an investment in tech, and quite often it can be one or the other, or quite often it can be both.

But I think a lot of businesses think that to be able to scale, they need to just employ more people, but actually they probably just need better processes and systems, and have systems in place, and that’s where the money is best spent. And also things like marketing. So I think a lot of businesses when they’re cutting costs, they’ll cut things that are actually doing them a really good service.

So they’ll cut marketing, they’ll cut training, they’ll cut coaching and stuff like that. But actually, if they don’t focus on those things or it goes away, they’re then just back to them being them- on their own to run their own business. And they might be less successful or they might just find that they just kind of stall a little bit, things just flatline, which is fine for some businesses.

They, they can just cruise for a little while. But the whole point of running a business, if you’re looking at growing it, is to get more business. So you need to sort of spend the money on the things that are gonna get you more business. 

[00:07:29] Ben Baldwin: So we, we’ve mentioned the word d- dyslexia several times. Can we talk a little bit about the diagnosis?

Uh, sorry, about the definition, because I think to some people it means, it means different things, and actually, we… Well, you’ve- I- We’ve pulled up, we’ve pulled up the actual- Yeah … dictionary definition, as it were. 

[00:07:47] Lizzie Edwards: Yeah, yeah, 

[00:07:47] Ben Baldwin: yeah. And we’re not sure you agree with it, or we agree with it. 

[00:07:50] Lizzie Edwards: Yeah. There are, there are aspects.

So the definition was updated in 2025, and I do agree with the definition broadly speaking, and we have to map our assessments and reports and diagnosis to the definition very clearly, and I understand that. But it was interesting to sort of remind myself, it’s- it says, “A specific learning disability, often on a continuum characterized by persistent difficulties in accurate or fluent word reading and spelling.”

And I think that’s a totally accurate, succinct overview. The word that I have a little bit of a problem with is disability. 

[00:08:28] Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

[00:08:29] Lizzie Edwards: I often say, um, a specific learning difference. 

[00:08:33] Ben Baldwin: Yes. 

[00:08:34] Lizzie Edwards: Um, but then in conversations with other people, they will quite rightly point out that actually disability is a word that is understood universally, and sometimes it can be helpful in explaining that having dyslexia, much as having ADHD or autism or dyspraxia, has its pros, but it has its cons as well.

Um, so that awareness and that understanding from other people. 

[00:09:01] Ben Baldwin: I guess from- The child’s point of view from, if i- in your expertise as well, being able to call it a difference rather than a disability- Yes … ha- has pros and cons as well. 

[00:09:14] Lizzie Edwards: Yeah. 

[00:09:14] Ben Baldwin: Probably within a friendship circle, say, “I’m a bit different”- is a bit different to saying, “I, I’ve got a disability,” and how kids react to each other as well. But the, the main thing obviously is that they’re gonna get help through their, the rest of their, their educational life. 

[00:09:29] Lizzie Edwards: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:09:30] Ben Baldwin: Extra time and… 

[00:09:31] Lizzie Edwards: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s really important how, um, that is communicated to the children.

That’s a really good point, and it’s often one of the things that a parent will ask me first of all, because they will say, um, “I’ve told my child that they’re going to come and see you and they’re going to do some tasks and activities, but how shall I explain it to them that we don’t know, but we think you might have dyslexia and we want to find out more to see if you have or not?”

And it’s presenting it in a way that’s positive, as if it’s, it’s not a negative thing. It’s just about ensuring that you get the help that you need and deserve at school and, you know, if you decide to go on to higher education, and then further beyond that in the workplace, just so that people have a, an awareness.

[00:10:22] Holly Giddings: I’m a recovering people pleaser. It’s still work in progress. Um, but it’s changed my life, being able to say no, and then not explaining why. 

[00:10:35] Ben Baldwin: Yeah, and it… That’s in, in personal life and in, and in bus- In everything … a- and in business particularly- Yeah … it’s the important to say n- no to stuff. 

[00:10:44] Holly Giddings: A client said to me once, “Can you, uh, reduce your fees?”

And I said, “No.” And there was probably about 40 seconds of silence, and I’m sitting on the phone, my toes are curling. I wanted to fill the gap, ugh, but I had this big, you know, Post-it Note said, “Do not talk.” Don’t, yeah. Yeah, don’t talk. And then he said, “It was worth the ask, wasn’t it?” Was it? And then, and that is far more powerful than saying, “No, because da, da, da, da.”

[00:11:16] Ben Baldwin: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s- it’s a negotiation tactic. 

[00:11:17] Holly Giddings: It’s a no … It’s, it’s a full sentence. No is a full sentence. And learning that, phew, has blown my head. And now if people say, “Oh, do you want to go?” “No, thank you.” “Why not?” “Because I don’t want to.” How they respond to that is none of your business. That’s on them. If you tell someone that you’re not going to that party or you’re not going, and they go, “Oh, yeah, but you said…”

Okay You don’t have to respond, and that has been the biggest… My mom used to tell me in my 20s that I could have a row in an empty room. I was, I, I was trying to prove something. I was, I was this big, you know, personality, you know? And it, it was a lot, and now I don’t need to be that, and I don’t need to…

This is the big learning. I don’t always need to be right. 

[00:12:18] Amanda Washbrook: So we’ve got Freddie here, um, and Freddie was a West Herts College student, and he’s kindly agreed that we can fire some questions at him. So Freddie, can you tell me how you came to work here at Chuffed Productions? 

[00:12:28] Freddie Goldsmid: Uh, so Ben came into the college. He was looking for someone to do a, do a job, I guess.

He came in, he brought in a project for us to do, which was something that we usually do. It was some training videos, and he brought in the project and basically just gave it to seven or eight people and said, “Here it is. Here’s how you do it. Have a go at it.” Um, and we did, and as Ben said earlier, a couple people were like, “This isn’t for me.”

Um, I didn’t. I, I, I stayed, and I, I think really what got me the job, when Ben came round and looked at me just before we started, I was on the Chuffed website. I was having a look at the website. I think that’s really what got me the job. But, uh, yeah, he, he came in. I did, did a couple things, and then a couple weeks later, I…

One of the teachers or s- someone came in and said, uh, “You got… You’ve been contacted for this job. Do you wanna take it?” And I said, “Yeah.” 

[00:13:24] Amanda Washbrook: And so Ben, perhaps you could say, how have you found that experience of, of taking on somebody through that route? 

[00:13:30] Ben Baldwin: Uh, it’s brilliant. As, as I talked about during the part one of the podcast, is to have someone that you can get basically to work your way, which is quite a big thing in our industry.

So video production is… It relies on knowing where things are and where files are kept, and that they’re backed up, and as we always say, if it’s not in three places, it doesn’t exist. And I think that was probably, we’ll check in with Fred, probably what the, one of the biggest learners for you, wasn’t it, to start with, was media management and what, where to keep things.

[00:14:01] Freddie Goldsmid: Yeah, when I, when I started, uh, my projects at college weren’t the best organized, I’ll be honest. I… They were either just kept on the SD cards or on my computer at home. Um, and then coming here now, whenever I do something for myself, I always just use the folder structure we have here now. 

[00:14:18] Ben Baldwin: Yeah, when you ca- ’cause I remember when you were doing your final presentation and, uh, you were doing that project.

Yeah. So it was like, “Fred, you come in, you use whatever you want, whatever tools and stuff you need.” But it was great to look over his shoulder and, uh, see that he was us- already using the… the, the chuffed folder structure. 

[00:14:33] Freddie Goldsmid: And it won me best documentary, so… 

[00:14:36] Richard Brash: The large language model is, is, is what you would in the old, old days called the database where all the data is held and you’re interrogating it, and it is using your prompts.

It’s, it’s effectively looking at the words you’re putting in a prompt and trying to predict what you require as a, what your question is and, and giving you the answers. Now what it uses a lang- large language model for is to get reference points. So it’s, so it’s saying, “This type of question, this is, this is what the answer,” or, “This is the type of answer we think you’ll, you’ll need.”

What’s really interesting is when you go back and interrogate AI after they’ve given you the answer, because if you say to them, “Is that actually true or are you guessing?” That’s the interesting answer. 

[00:15:28] Ben Baldwin: Because essentially large language models are, they’re just predicting the next word, aren’t they? 

[00:15:35] Richard Brash: Yes.

[00:15:35] Ben Baldwin: It, it, 

[00:15:36] Richard Brash: in, in the simplest term And it’s an aggregation of data as well. So it’s… I mean, I’ve done it several times. Had a really interesting sort of argument, discussion with a friend over a few beers, and we’ve used AI and got different answers to a very specific question. 

[00:15:53] Ben Baldwin: Mm. 

[00:15:53] Richard Brash: And then when I’ve gone back and said, “So this is what I think,” taking the o- other AI’s answer, and it’s gone, “Yes, you’re right.

I, I, I actually made up the numbers.” And I sort of said, “Well, why did you do that?” And then it answered, “It was partly face-saving.” And, and one of the things we’ve done is we use Claude and Copilot. In the settings you can… I, I have instructed Copilot across a whole organization in saying, “You are not here to agree with us.

You are not being used to affirm what we’re saying. We want a critical response of everything we’re putting in, and we want you to categorize your answer.” So now at the start of every single answer, each paragraph I’ve asked it to say, “Is this fact? Is this your, what you think is likely, or is it just a guess?”

So every paragraph now comes back in square brackets at the start so you know, okay, it’s unsure on this. And that’s a really, really useful tool to… And you can change that in the settings. 

[00:17:02] Nick Knight: I think one of the scariest situations that I actually, uh, uh, did though was we eventually sold to my wife’s surgery where she was a senior partner, and I was really…

I, it, it started as a conversation where we’d all had all these conversations about the problems with telephony, uh, uh, and what the headaches that comes along with that. And, and, and GP surgeries- They like, sometimes they like running their surgery and the business side of it, but sometimes it’s just the technical side of it, which is outside their remit, their skillset, um, is just sometimes a little bit too much.

So b- it becomes just a point of stress. But it was equally quite a good opportunity to, um, get that closer insight as well. And it, it turns out actually we worked quite well and that was all, that was all good, and the implementation was in that surgery until, that surgery, that was Boxwell Road in Berkhamsted, which eventually merged and, uh, and we actually then went into the other surgery- 

[00:17:55] Ben Baldwin: Yeah

[00:17:56] Nick Knight: as, as a result of the merger. Um, so you’ve got to stay close to these surgeries is the point. You know, whether it is my wife and I got that extra ability and knowledge because we’re actually having that conversation over an evening meal, or whether it is the opportunity to go and sit with a GP or a, a p- a practice manager and listen to what they, they want.

Without the practice manager having access to that additional information to what is actually going on within the queue and the patients, you preempt a mechanism of preempting customer complaints before it’s a customer complaint. Yeah. Um, so that was the very m- next product that we had, and that was, y- all came out of sitting with practice managers and saying, hearing what they actually wanted from us.

[00:18:39] Lorna Smith: If you’ve been running your business that way, and you’ve always kept a balance in the accounts, then you’re probably a little bit safer. Again, if that balance definitely covers at least three months of your spend, then you’re safe-ish. But the danger of just running everything by your bank account is that you’re just running your business slightly blind.

You don’t know exactly how much everything costs, you don’t know exactly when things go in the business and come out of the business. And so it’s very easy just to go, “Well, I’ve got money in the account, I’ll just pay for something.” But actually, you don’t know what the end of the year looks like. So if you can try and budget at least or do a cashflow, and I- I’m a big thing on cashflows.

Sometimes they’re a little bit tricky to get put together really accurately live document … from the day, from day one, because things change all the time, but that’s fine, ’cause I think as long as you’re measuring your… You put a cashflow together and then you’re measuring your actuals as you’re going through the year, you can then start to work out whether you’re great at doing cashflows, but also whether your budgets and things have been accurate and that you’re on track with everything.

[00:19:51] Steve Butcher: I will always be grateful to the guys for investing in my festival. Um, maybe I’m a bit of a control freak. Yeah, I think maybe I am. And I just, I, I really, really struggled, um, to sort of work with them. And, um, through a very good friend of mine, a lady called Frankie James, who runs a very successful, um, corporate festival called Ideas Fest, um, we’d had many conversations, and she sort of said to me one day, “Why, why don’t you buy the festival back?”

And I, I hadn’t really thought of it, ’cause I’d never thought I’d be in a position from a f- from a financial standpoint to do that. I, I often joked that if I ever, I won the lottery, the first thing I would do would be to buy my festival back before I even told my wife and son that I’d actually won any money.

Um, but I was able to put a proposal on the table, which was accepted last summer. So Chilfest 2026, this year, is the first time, you know, myself on my own since 2019, and I’m very, very, very excited by it. 

[00:20:57] Ben Baldwin: As are we. 

[00:20:57] Steve Butcher: Yeah. And loving life again, so it’s all good. 

[00:21:00] Ben Baldwin: Good man. 

[00:21:00] Steve Butcher: Yeah. 

[00:21:00] Ben Baldwin: Good man. Um, this is gonna sound, uh, interesting, ’cause there’s probably quite a few things, or maybe nothing at all.

If you could change one thing, uh, that you’d done, may- may- perhaps down to one decision, is there anything that you’d do differently regards Chilfest or, or regards the business that you- 

[00:21:20] Steve Butcher: I think it goes back to something I probably said 10, 15 minutes ago. I’m… I haven’t always made the best business decisions, and I know that, and m- my b- my largest fault is that I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I sometimes need to be a little bit mindful of that and sort of think For a longer period of time as to whether something is the right decision or not.

[00:21:46] Ben Baldwin: Well, I, I would say don’t take that half of your sleeve for too long. Just maybe for the couple of those- Life’s too short … for a couple of those decisions- Yeah … just take it off for a minute and put, but pop it straight back on- Yeah … because that’s what people love about you. 

[00:21:59] Simon Double: Yeah. So my sliding doors moment was I was a member of a drama group in Chiswick, uh, during the 1980s, and I think it was the set of Guys and Dolls.

I met a young lady called Shona, who was not into horse racing, but she was quite into horses. 

[00:22:15] Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

[00:22:15] Simon Double: And we started going racing. We, we started going out, basically. Yes. And we went racing is one of the things we did, and I just got the bug. And I just decided I wanted to work in the racing industry. And I applied to an advert in the Racing Post, which was Peter Harris had put it in.

[00:22:32] Ben Baldwin: Yeah. 

[00:22:33] Simon Double: And it was called the winning formula, which is how he branded his syndicates. And again, it wa- it wasn’t a great sell. It was, uh- … uh, do you mind working antisocial hours? Uh, are you sociable with people, and do you enjoy the racing industry? And that was it. And I thought it was probably looking after owners, which it was, but actually there was a lot of selling involved as well which I’d never done really. I suppose I had done selling in terms of when I was a market researcher. You know, you sell to clients. So i- in a roundabout way, I’d done a little bit of selling, but I’d never sold cars or any overt selling, anything like that. So that was my sliding doors moment. Had I not gone to that drama group, had I not met Shona, well, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about, uh, horse racing syndicates 

[00:23:16] Ben Baldwin: You’d be talking to me about writing questions for The Wheel or something similar. 

[00:23:20] Simon Double: Yes. So, um, it- it’s funny, isn’t it, how you meet certain people at certain times, and your life j- can just take a completely different route.

[00:23:30] Ben Baldwin: Thanks for watching this week’s episode of Berko and Beyond. If you’d like to be a guest on the show, then drop us an email, podcast@berkoandbeyond.com. And don’t forget to like and subscribe wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. We’ll see you next week.