Latest / The BEYOND Podcast / Robin Deller: Building the £200M Imagine Cruising Travel Empire

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Robin Deller: Building the £200M Imagine Cruising Travel Empire · The BEYOND Podcast

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  Unknown: In the 25 years I've been in business, the number one thing I
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  am non negotiable on is honestly.
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  Started from nothing and you've grown your business to over 200
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  million. So there'll be some of my day,
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  which is just I've seen this thing, I've got this idea, I've
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  played with it, can we do it? And now we can evolve it.
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  He's built businesses so successful, Virgin and the
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  Emirates Group both wanted a piece of the action.
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  Now a global multi £1,000,000 CEO in business with giants like
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  P&O Cruisers. This week on Beyond the
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  Boardroom, Robin Della reveals what it really takes to make it
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  big in business. Today we've got offices in the
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  UK, we've got offices in Cape Town, we've got offices in
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  Brisbane, in Perth, in Australia and we're opening in the US in a
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  couple of weeks. Common sense to me seems to be
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  like a superpower. I can clearly see that, you
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  know, something from a common sense perspective is obviously
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  positive. And even if somebody's saying
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  that it's not. And the the same is true of the
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  reverse. So, and what I realised is that
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  when you build an organization from the ground up, you've got
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  so many skills that when if you come into a business part of the
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  way through and you end up in a department doing something,
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  there's so much to business that you just will never understand
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  because you won't have gone through it.
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  You have an incredible background, you've achieved
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  immense success in business. You've started from nothing and
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  you've grown your business to over 200 million and you've sold
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  it. Well, you part sold to the
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  Emirates Group, didn't you? That's right.
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  Yeah. I mean that's a mega success.
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  Do you feel that you're successful?
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  I guess it's what, what, what's the definition of success?
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  I think for me, I'm trying to achieve personal goals everyday,
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  both in terms of an evolution of who I am and what I get back to
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  the world and also the team that I work with.
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  So, you know, the business is not about robbing, doing
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  something that grew and became something.
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  It's about robbing, going on a journey where he met different
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  people, saw different opportunities.
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  And over a period of time, we've kind of landed where we are.
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  But they we could have gone off in 100 different directions.
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  And the people I could be working with could be very
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  different to the ones I am. But all of the decisions I've
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  made have been very purposeful. The people I've employed, I've
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  worked with, I've mentored and I still mentored today.
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  So yeah, I'm really proud of where we are, but we kind of, I
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  don't, I don't think about it in that way.
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  It's just about going in everyday and trying to achieve
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  within that moment something and ideally try and do things
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  differently in terms of a constant evolution.
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  There isn't an end game, there's no point in time.
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  And I think to some, to some degree, some of the areas people
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  make in the early stages is wanting to build something quite
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  specific. And in reality, that's probably
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  going to be disappointing when you get there.
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  So it's more about the journey. And I know people say all the
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  time, but it's very true. If you can't enjoy the journey,
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  I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest it's worth doing because it's
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  the journey that should be enjoyable.
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  The outcome is unpredictable. It's not always going to be
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  within your control. So yeah, enjoy the process of
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  building, learning, mentoring and creating because that's
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  where the fun should be. Yeah, I can tell that you're
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  enjoying it, but do you think you're successful?
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  I, I think, I mean, I'm, I'm not the kind of person that would go
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  and talk about me and those kind of using that kind of language.
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  I think I've done what I've done more than I hope to achieve.
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  I I'm more proud of the people I brought with me and the team
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  we've built and the journey we've been on and I think as a
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  definition people would look at us as having been successful.
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  People definitely look at it. You've been really modest.
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  No, no, people definitely do. But I appreciate, you know, for
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  you business is so much more than like you're saying that
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  number or that thing. It's about the creativity and
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  getting really excited that you're building something and
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  you're bringing all these amazing people.
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  I mean, finding really good people is a success within
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  itself. Once you've got them, you hang
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  on, yes, you don't want to. Ever.
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  And, and that part of it is random.
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  Well, for me it's random. So if I go back, I've, I've
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  built a number of businesses over the past 25 years.
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  And the previous I, the business I I built was called Fast Track.
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  And actually one of my first employees there, a lady called
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  Natalie, who now is one of my business partners.
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  And imagine I'd happened to go out for lunch at tgi Friday's
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  and she served me lunch and she was upselling.
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  I can't remember what I ordered, but was upselling every
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  opportunity. You want this, you want that.
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  Her personality just came alive. And for me, I felt she was
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  wasting an opportunity by working at TGI Friday.
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  Like her capability was beyond the need of that role.
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  So I just said to her, you know, here's my card, I know it's a
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  bit random, here's my card. I think, I think that, you know,
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  there's a journey you could go on that could be really
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  exciting. You've obviously got lots of
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  capabilities, you know, give me a call if you're interested.
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  And she phoned the next day. And if I fast track that, that
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  story now, yeah, she's a business partner, I'd imagine.
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  But lots of examples like that where my core team that have
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  been with me over a long period, none of them have have have been
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  on boarded for a standard recruitment process of I need
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  someone get a recruitment company, go out and then
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  interview. It's going to happen.
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  Like that, it's coming. I'm going to, I'm going to ask
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  you about how you recruit, like how what's your recruitment
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  process actually is and what's important.
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  We'll, we'll get to that. We'll get to that.
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  For now, we're determining, you know, you don't see success by
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  the number you actually don't. You are a living, breathing
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  example of a you're a born entrepreneur who loves the
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  process, loves the journey, the highs, the lows, you name it.
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  The, the I I we spoke earlier and you said something about the
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  unpredictability of it. You don't really know and you
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  like being in that environment. You like not knowing every
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  single thing and being told, you know, this is the direction that
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  that's you, that's your personality and fits perfectly
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  with what you're doing. There's something else he said
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  to me that I loved in our pre podcast call.
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  I'm going to bring it up now. Competition or smaller than my
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  ambition. I mean, that just gives me
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  goosebumps. That is the best thing I've ever
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  heard. I love it so much.
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  What I mean by that is when people, when you start,
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  everybody wants you to explain what is it you're trying to
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  achieve. And I've, I've never looked at
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  the competition in terms of trying to be them or do what
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  they do because my concern's always been that I'm just
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  slicing a cake in half. You know, whatever they're
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  achieving, I'm going to be at best part of that experience and
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  that, that capability and that profitability.
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  So I definitely look for ideas, but my desire to achieve
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  whatever that is and that changes constantly.
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  Even today, you know, what I'm looking to achieve over the next
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  12 months, three years, five years is different from perhaps
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  what I perceived it would be 12 months ago.
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  But my ambition is bigger than what I see out out in the world
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  in terms of our industry and the people that do the kind of
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  things we do. I want to just have no ceiling
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  to that. And therefore, I believe that we
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  can be as big and as as successful as time will allow
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  and our capabilities will allow. But it's not in some kind of
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  square box and predetermined. Again, it goes back to the
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  journey. We're just reaching for the sky.
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  And what we know is that we're going to be doing things that we
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  aren't even considering doing at the moment.
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  And therefore I can't look for it because it doesn't exist.
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  The evolution and what we become will be self-evident at the
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  point that we decide to do it, but today it may not even make
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  sense because we're not at the right point in our journey to
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  look at those options as being relevant to where we are today.
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  We're gonna talk because this is, this is like the, this is
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  the crux of, of business and getting into business.
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  It's like you have an idea. Yes.
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  And you think, oh, yes, I, you know, that would be great.
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  Oh, yeah, they doing it. They making money from it.
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  Yeah. And then there's ways of going.
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  Well, here's the reality. How are we going to finance it?
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  And different business people look at different business
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  styles. You know, Elon Musk would say,
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  well, you need to, you know, don't, don't you don't get the
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  money 1st and then do it like do it without the money by
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  presenting something. But then you still have to have
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  something to present. So what do you present?
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  There's all that kind of thing which we're going to get to.
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  But first we're going to talk about how you started and you
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  started at failure. You started at a failed
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  apprenticeship. How did that not chew your
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  confidence? Yeah, I, I, I think when I was
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  at school and immediately after leaving school, I was living
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  life probably more for my parents than for myself.
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  So I wanted, and I still have that, that, that desire today.
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  I want them to be proud of me. So at school what that meant is,
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  I don't know, like any parent, you, you hope your, your child
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  gets certain qualifications, etcetera.
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  But I, I wasn't naturally gifted in that way.
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  So I kind of got through school and then an apprenticeship felt
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  more grown up and a bigger box to tick at a young age than
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  maybe just going getting a standard job.
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  So I just kind of fell into the horror apprenticeship world.
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  I started off as a draftsman. I didn't have any skills in that
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  environment. And actually that first job
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  started me in a direction that at that point I had no idea.
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  But because I didn't enjoy the role as part of that
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  organization, they had a sales arm and I would spend my lunch
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  time with the salespeople. They were younger, similar to my
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  age, you know, slightly older, but they were younger and seemed
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  to be having fun, whereas drawing was quite serious, quite
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  monotonous, quite boring, and I wasn't that good at it.
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  So I like the characteristic and the environment of sales.
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  And that led me to question as to how I'd bridge from what I
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  was doing over to there. But I was not successful at all
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  at a young age. And I think part of that was
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  because I didn't really have any desire to do anything.
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  I didn't really even understand the question.
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  You know, when people say, sadly, when you're, you know,
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  you're at kind of leaving age at school, So what do you want to
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  do? I think most of us have no
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  concept. We we understand the question.
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  It's a difficult question. It's a.
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  Difficult question. So, yeah, so, yeah, so, so I, I
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  was waiting to find something in life that that's kind of how how
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  that period of time. So you knew that you weren't
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  good at this apprenticeship thing that you were doing and
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  you were just drawn to that sale side because you thought, oh,
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  that looks like fun. Some people would dread I.
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  Knew that. Interested.
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  You knew that interested you so in a way that helped point you.
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  That that gave me the direction that I now need to let go of
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  what I'm doing and pray perhaps any expectations other people
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  have on me and move across to that.
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  So just so our audience now, so you're, so you started with a
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  failed apprenticeship, then you went into tell marketing
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  teletext. Is that right?
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  So my bridge into sales, I had some small jobs like I worked
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  for people like the Auto Trader, cold calling and I would say
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  cold. Calling thing.
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  For anybody that sales is going to be a part of your life.
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  If you're building a business, cold calling is probably the
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  best apprenticeship. You can have.
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  It's brutal and you've got to enjoy it because it is the
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  hardest form of selling you were ever going to do.
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  Anything that comes after that is going to be easier.
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  So go if, if you've got an opportunity to go out there even
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  for a short period of time and participate in it, it's, it's an
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  amazing apprenticeship. I've done it.
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  It's, yeah, it's brutal and it humbles you.
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  It humbles you, it does humble you, so I think it humbles you
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  from from that period of time. I then buy pure luck.
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  In hindsight, I'd lost my job in construction and I, I was just
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  looking for something to tide me over and I found a, a, an advert
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  in the newspaper for Tele sales and I said I'd done this kind of
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  cold calling like before, but Tele sales job for travel.
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  I loved holidays in my 20s. I travelled the world a a couple
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  of times. I always loved travelling and I
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  just thought I'd just go and see what it's about.
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  And you can kind of tell the quality of the job when you go
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  in, you have your interview and you get offered the job within 3
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  minutes. So, you know, the skill set
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  they're looking for broadly is not that great.
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  And they kind of give everybody a chance.
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  But to my surprise, even though I'd done some cold calling, but
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  not not to any great degree, I went into that business.
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  That business was called Gemstone Travel.
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  And they basically sold flights and package holidays to places
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  like Greece and Spain on TV. And so it was all inbound calls,
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  which to me, I'm used to phoning people who don't want to speak
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  to me. So they're saying to me, people
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  will call me this found easier. This sounded amazing and they're
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  going to want to go on holiday. Well, holidays are amazing in
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  their own right. So this call should be nice.
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  And the objective is to try and find a holiday that they're
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  after within their budget. And I stayed there for a year
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  and in that year I flew, I was the number one salesperson
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  pretty much from the off course. I then got promoted to
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  management and that gig gave me an opportunity to understand
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  business because I was given responsibility for a a hub of
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  the business in a single location where I was responsible
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  for opening, closing the profitability, spending the
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  money on marketing the sales people.
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  And without knowing it, you suddenly are starting to see the
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  seeds of business and how different elements of business
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  effects of relevance. So in that period, I'd met some
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  people in the company and I just for whatever reason, I don't
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  know, there came a day after a year of being there where I just
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  turned to three of my friends and said, why don't we give it a
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  go? I mean, I've no expectation or
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  desire to ever run a business, but we're good at this.
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  And between the four of us, we've got different skills that
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  collectively seem to equate to the business we're running.
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  But we're running this for someone else.
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  Why don't we try doing it for ourselves?
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  So literally from that conversation, to enter into the
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  industry, into the travel industry, back then there was a
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  requirement to have £65,000 of cash flow.
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  So we challenged each other to go and find one quarter of that
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  over a weekend. OK, So we all went away, We all
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  came back on Sunday evening and one way, shape or form we'd
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  managed to borrow, we didn't. None of us had the money borrow
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  a collective sum of 65,000 that that would then allow us to OK,
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  let's just. Put this into perspective.
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  So you weren't that academic right At school?
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  Not at all You. Went.
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  And did an apprenticeship basically to please your
• 15:05
  parents, as a lot of us do when we finish school and we try and
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  do what our parents want us to do.
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  You realize you didn't like that boring stuff.
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  So you then also saw that you might like sales.
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  And then you naturally went into these cold calling jobs that
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  evolved into cold calling in travel centres, right?
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  And then that you found out through that, that actually
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  there's an opportunity in business as you got into
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  management position that you could actually take this on
• 15:30
  yourself. So you started really from the
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  ground up and you figured out your talent and then you found
• 15:36
  the right people. You at the time you thought they
• 15:38
  were the right people and you had to, from the idea, find a
• 15:41
  way to finance the project. That's, that's the key moment
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  now just to step into that. Why did you need the finance?
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  What were you going to pay? What were you going to do with
• 15:54
  that money? What was it in your head that
• 15:56
  you needed? Yeah, so.
• 15:57
  Back then the money was required as a deposit to give comfort to
• 16:04
  AB to who are the governing body, so it wasn't needed.
• 16:08
  Our industry is cash generative. People pay deposits for
• 16:13
  holidays, so fairly quickly you gain cash in the business.
• 16:16
  I've never borrowed any money other than at that point in time
• 16:19
  over the past 25 years. I've never had to go and borrow
• 16:22
  money, but you have to satisfy ABTA by having a cash flow to
• 16:26
  you had to have. That money in there, yeah, OK,
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  but of. That 65,000, we probably only
• 16:31
  spent 10 or 15,000 in terms of some marketing monies and some
• 16:36
  small recruitment fees. And then we structured the
• 16:39
  business and it was fairly typical and still is today in
• 16:41
  travel that people have paid Commission on the phone.
• 16:43
  So you're only paying for success, and success generates
• 16:46
  income. But how did you convince people
• 16:49
  to give you the money? I think.
• 16:51
  We, we, we, we, we always spoke to our family.
• 16:54
  And I think it's we, we were fortunate that, you know, the
• 16:59
  sum of money was not, I mean, it was, it was of a decent sum.
• 17:03
  It was about £15,000 each. It wasn't crazy.
• 17:07
  It wasn't crazy. It's still a lot of money.
• 17:08
  It's still a lot of. Money, but we were going to
• 17:10
  replicate something we were doing.
• 17:12
  We didn't have a business idea that was unproven.
• 17:14
  We'd got a business idea that was proven.
• 17:16
  It's just that we were paid a salary previously because we
• 17:19
  were doing that for somebody else, OK.
• 17:21
  Yeah, we kind of there was. Some safety.
• 17:22
  There was some. Safety.
• 17:23
  Yeah, you saw that it was working, although it's it kind
• 17:27
  of contradicts what you said before about the whole ceiling
• 17:29
  and don't copy the competition, but there is a place for copied
• 17:32
  in copying the competition, at least initially.
• 17:33
  Yeah, the basics. Like, what is the, what is the
• 17:35
  base plan that allows you to exist and play in the game?
• 17:41
  But yeah, you're right, you know, and I think back then
• 17:44
  things were more expensive in general.
• 17:46
  I think in today's world, there's other ways of doing it
• 17:48
  actually in the travel industry certainly, where you wouldn't
• 17:51
  need to find that sum of money. You can go through consortia.
• 17:54
  There's different consortia in the industry and you can
• 17:57
  participate in that. But but yeah, that the good
• 17:59
  thing about borrowing the money though for all of us was the
• 18:03
  concept of failure was non negotiable.
• 18:07
  It's quite a. Lot of pressure and because
• 18:08
  we'd. Borrowed it off family like
• 18:11
  there is no way we were going to let them down.
• 18:14
  So and we wanted to pay them back as quickly as possible.
• 18:18
  And as it turned out we'd paid that money back in six months.
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  All that money had gone back to those individuals within a six
• 18:24
  month period. But yeah, that that kind of
• 18:26
  pressure, that commitment, I think was quite healthy in the
• 18:28
  early stage where we'd never run a business.
• 18:31
  I think had we been given the money and somebody said, you
• 18:33
  know, whatever happens, happens, I don't know if we'd have been
• 18:37
  that successful or as driven or as committed, like this couldn't
• 18:40
  fail for us. It depends on.
• 18:41
  Your personality type, because there are the sort of business
• 18:43
  people. I mean, I had another
• 18:45
  businessman that you you'll know who was saying that he knows
• 18:49
  people that you know, people come to him all the time and
• 18:51
  say, oh, I just think we need more investment, more
• 18:53
  investment, more, more, more. And then for he thinks why
• 18:55
  you've only just asked for that a year ago.
• 18:57
  Now you want more and then more, and then they get A to banks
• 19:00
  giving them loans. And it's always the net.
• 19:02
  For what? Yeah.
• 19:03
  For what? Purpose.
• 19:04
  For what purpose? And you're not?
• 19:05
  Understanding the value of money.
• 19:06
  I know in some of the later businesses I've had where I've
• 19:09
  had the benefit of having access to money, I've squandered money
• 19:14
  because I had it and I didn't. I didn't perhaps value what I
• 19:20
  was using that money for and understand the benefit of that
• 19:23
  money and the need for that to be successful because if I lost
• 19:26
  it, I lost it. It kind of wasn't a big deal.
• 19:29
  But yeah, in those early stages, we were.
• 19:32
  We had, you know, there were four of us.
• 19:34
  We had the capability with the commitment to want to pay that
• 19:38
  money back and I think we were well set then if if this can
• 19:44
  work, we have the how old were. You at this stage I was the.
• 19:46
  Eldest of the four, I would have been 29, OK, and they would have
• 19:52
  been around mid 20s pretty young.
• 19:55
  Did you have any mentors? Anyone that you went to for
• 19:58
  questions? Who?
• 19:59
  So there was a when I worked in Gemstone, which was the travel
• 20:04
  business where I started off selling, there was a gentleman
• 20:07
  there that came in called John Kent.
• 20:08
  He went on to build some very successful businesses and sell
• 20:12
  them for significant sums of money.
• 20:15
  He was in that business for half of the year I was there and he
• 20:19
  came in to evolve the business. And to broaden the product range
• 20:24
  and he mentored me and a number of others.
• 20:28
  And I'd say through that short period of time, and he was tough
• 20:32
  through that short period of time, there have been probably
• 20:36
  half a dozen successful businesses come out of his
• 20:41
  mentorship. Awesome.
• 20:44
  What a special. Special person to know tough
• 20:47
  love. I mean, that's what it was.
• 20:48
  It was tough love. Yeah.
• 20:49
  Because I. I think about this, you know,
• 20:51
  with myself, my growth, like do I need a mentor?
• 20:54
  Do I want a mentor? How would that work?
• 20:57
  Everyone has such different styles.
• 20:59
  But then it's nice to be also be accountable to someone to, you
• 21:02
  know, yeah, have that much pressure.
• 21:04
  Yeah, I. I, you know, I, I think of
• 21:06
  mentorship in gym. I, I, I don't know that I would
• 21:09
  work well with having a mentor over a long period to achieve
• 21:14
  what I'm trying to achieve. I, I think mentorship is anybody
• 21:17
  that gives you an answer to a question you didn't realise the
• 21:19
  answer to. So, you know, I live my world
• 21:22
  with asking 1000 questions and, and where it's different to
• 21:27
  school perhaps where teachers are restricted with time,
• 21:30
  they're focusing on a large group of people and they have to
• 21:33
  move on. I realised in adulthood, those
• 21:35
  rules have gone in the bin and I could ask as many questions as I
• 21:39
  want. I could clarify, as long as I
• 21:42
  was happy to put myself out there that I didn't understand,
• 21:45
  I could ask them to perhaps restructure the explanation or
• 21:50
  the answer so that I could understand it.
• 21:53
  And I could do that again, again, again.
• 21:55
  And over a period of time, you, you realize that there are
• 21:58
  different ways of learning. And I, I found in adulthood and
• 22:01
  certainly in business and still today, that's the process I use.
• 22:04
  You know, think of me like a six year old.
• 22:07
  Talk to me. Yeah.
• 22:08
  Like, I have no idea. Yeah.
• 22:10
  So I. So I really lock it.
• 22:12
  Yeah. Because I know with that
• 22:13
  knowledge, I'll be able to take that knowledge and use it to my
• 22:16
  advantage. Yeah.
• 22:16
  I think you've got enough. Energy, there's a really good
• 22:19
  energy off you. I can give you something.
• 22:21
  I can see you just running with it and doing really well.
• 22:23
  Yeah, but you need that energy. You need to be fired up and and
• 22:26
  do what you've done. Because, as I say, to put into
• 22:28
  perspective, you started from really from this field
• 22:31
  apprenticeship. Yeah.
• 22:31
  Then you realized you had these talents.
• 22:33
  You came up with this idea, you raised the financing.
• 22:36
  You then went on to start fast Track, which you then sold to
• 22:42
  Virgin Holidays and then went on to start Image cruising, which
• 22:45
  you then part sold to the Emirates Group.
• 22:48
  And you made a lot of money doing it.
• 22:50
  And you've had a really fun time.
• 22:52
  So the success is immense. And what you've done is
• 22:55
  admirable. I mean, it's it's it's
• 22:57
  inspiring. It's absolutely brilliant, but
• 22:59
  like you're saying, it's not by chance.
• 23:01
  It's very well thought through. Yeah.
• 23:04
  It's carefully, yeah. Everything is a process of
• 23:07
  evolution. Everything the process changes
• 23:10
  going back to, you know, you're as good as the knowledge you
• 23:13
  have and the people around you have.
• 23:15
  That's your collective capability and your aspiration
• 23:18
  sometimes is initially restricted within that mindset
• 23:23
  of this is what we can do. You then over time realise you
• 23:26
  don't necessarily have to have all the knowledge as an
• 23:28
  individual or even as a team. You can pull knowledge in and
• 23:33
  you can use that knowledge to give you capabilities that
• 23:36
  either you then go to understand and you own and you build from,
• 23:39
  or you can bring them in temporarily to give you a
• 23:41
  capability to kind of elevate you to a position and
• 23:45
  temporarily. And then that knowledge can
• 23:47
  disappear again because it's only of the moment.
• 23:49
  So yeah, that's. Exactly right.
• 23:51
  Everything's. About it, especially in.
• 23:52
  Marketing in my industry it's so it's absolutely correct and and
• 23:55
  you bring in those capabilities and that they change all the
• 23:57
  time yeah, and. That's it.
• 23:59
  You, you. You've just got to be broad
• 24:04
  enough to know the the limitation that sits within your
• 24:09
  Business Today is almost certainly you and the way you're
• 24:14
  thinking about things. That is mind blowing that.
• 24:19
  Is crazy. To hear it like that, and I
• 24:21
  think especially. If you're the one that's running
• 24:22
  the business people, when you run a business, people are
• 24:25
  reluctant to come up to you and say you're thinking wrong,
• 24:27
  you're doing things wrong. They're not comfortable doing
• 24:31
  that. And, and I think it's through an
• 24:34
  evolution of trying things, putting yourself out there,
• 24:37
  proving them, isolating them, tracking them, testing them,
• 24:40
  succeeding from them, that you start to see the way business
• 24:43
  works, that it's not one leap of faith to go from a point you are
• 24:47
  at today to a point in the future.
• 24:49
  It's made-up of 1000 steps. Yeah.
• 24:51
  And every step, when you break it down, becomes much more
• 24:54
  palatable. And then with each step, you can
• 24:56
  almost certainly break that down into other steps that allow you
• 25:00
  to quantify which of those steps is going to add benefits to you
• 25:03
  as a business and which ones are going to deteriorate from your
• 25:05
  capability. Because all you want to do is as
• 25:08
  soon as you things see things that are not working, you want
• 25:12
  to push those to one side. We, we operate a traffic light
• 25:15
  system in the business. I've always done that.
• 25:17
  Green. Shoots so green is a color
• 25:20
  proven. We love it.
• 25:21
  You want to build upon it, take it forward.
• 25:23
  How do we evolve that green to become bigger amber?
• 25:27
  Not sure. We're not unhappy, we're not
• 25:29
  happy. It's unproven.
• 25:30
  We need to keep working on it, but over a period of defined
• 25:33
  time it needs to become green or red and then red.
• 25:37
  How quickly can we see that colour appear?
• 25:39
  And then you just need to get rid of it.
• 25:41
  So you're trying to, in the early stages, you've probably
• 25:44
  got lots of red flags going, some amber's, you're not quite
• 25:48
  sure on some greens. And you want that colour scheme
• 25:51
  to change in your favour where you've got a Bank of green.
• 25:54
  That's kind of your security for growth.
• 25:56
  You've got amber, which means you're evolving.
• 25:58
  We don't know these things may work, may not, and red is
• 26:01
  inevitable. You're going to fail.
• 26:04
  And what's the definition? Well, the definition is trying
• 26:06
  something that you didn't know would or wouldn't add value.
• 26:10
  You know, understand it. Truly, it's of no use to you
• 26:12
  going forward. Push it to one side.
• 26:15
  Yeah, got to be. Brutally honest with yourself to
• 26:17
  do that. What I mean, you touched on it,
• 26:20
  but what is your relationship with money?
• 26:22
  How has it changed over time in terms?
• 26:24
  Of like how do you? See, money, is it your friend?
• 26:27
  Is it your foe? Are you good with money?
• 26:29
  I mean, on the most elementary level because you have a lot of
• 26:31
  business people, yeah, that might be really good at what
• 26:34
  they do, but they're horrible with money.
• 26:36
  They don't invest well, yeah, they just don't like the
• 26:39
  numbers. They give it to the someone
• 26:41
  else, the finance guy. And actually if it wasn't for
• 26:43
  the finance guy, they'd probably be in trouble and they would
• 26:45
  have gone bankrupt 6 times. I'm probably.
• 26:47
  Probably slightly in that camp. I'm quite, well, I'm quite
• 26:50
  frivolous. So I, I'm not stupid with money,
• 26:53
  but equally I'm not living for some future point where, you
• 26:59
  know, if I save and save and save and save when I turn 70,
• 27:03
  I'm OK or I, I believe everybody should make the most of their
• 27:07
  life. I think you've got to make sure
• 27:10
  that you are not spending beyond your means.
• 27:14
  But equally, enjoy today, enjoy the moment.
• 27:18
  I love giving more than receiving.
• 27:21
  So I love sharing my, my financial achievements with
• 27:25
  others, whether that's charities, whether that's
• 27:27
  friends, whether that's relatives.
• 27:30
  So I enjoyed that more than the OK.
• 27:34
  OK, let me, let me rephrase this.
• 27:36
  So there's also people, lots of business people out there that
• 27:41
  are, let's say there's an obsession with money, OK, the
• 27:44
  other side of it where they will do everything, they will sell
• 27:49
  everything they have. They will put the whole business
• 27:52
  on their house. They will do all of that and
• 27:54
  every penny that they make will go straight back into that
• 27:58
  Russian roulette, right? And sometimes they lose that
• 28:00
  all, but there are those too. So what do you say about that?
• 28:04
  Well. I guess I had advice or we've
• 28:06
  got an order to that I've used for 20 years, one way, shape or
• 28:09
  form. His advice was always that
• 28:13
  sensible business people cash out to some degree within a
• 28:17
  framework where they they stop going to the casino if you like,
• 28:23
  in the way they start well. Said I can't, yeah.
• 28:26
  And his, his advice was always, you know, if you're doing well
• 28:28
  as a business, typically it's a very broad statement, but to get
• 28:31
  free successive years of growth is pretty damn good in most
• 28:36
  industries. So if you're able to grow the
• 28:40
  business to an extent where the value is there and the success
• 28:44
  has been driven, I don't think that it's going to continue
• 28:48
  forever, continue forever. Yeah, you don't need to go and.
• 28:50
  Sell the, the company and the way I've always done it is some
• 28:54
  kind of liquidation. So as I say, we've, we've
• 28:56
  imagined over 3 iterations, I've diluted my shareholding to cash
• 29:01
  out so that I've got a comfortable amount of money to
• 29:04
  go and live the life I want to live.
• 29:06
  And I've left a big chunk of money within the business
• 29:09
  because I believe in the business.
• 29:10
  I believe in it's growth. So I I'm in that, that, that
• 29:13
  kind of, I guess comfortable situation now where the money
• 29:18
  that I've got within, imagine if it all went, it wouldn't matter.
• 29:24
  But having it there does give you as much as I'm saying
• 29:28
  doesn't money doesn't matter. It gives you that extra drive
• 29:31
  to. I don't think about the success
• 29:33
  of the business and the growth of the business being a
• 29:35
  financial outcome, but it is. But that's not his purpose.
• 29:40
  Yes, that's how I understand. I understand so on that it leads
• 29:43
  me very nicely into it's your values.
• 29:46
  What are what are your values? You know, in business what's
• 29:49
  important to you what, what's a total no, no or so.
• 29:53
  So the businesses for me success of businesses will be based on
• 29:58
  partnerships and they could be partnerships internally within
• 30:00
  your organizations with staff. They could be externally with in
• 30:04
  our world suppliers, distributors and the common
• 30:07
  denominator in the 25 years I've been in business, the number one
• 30:12
  thing I am non negotiable on is honesty.
• 30:16
  And I think that having stood by that core principle over that
• 30:24
  period of time has allowed me to create a group of people that
• 30:32
  are successful. Because whether honesty is good
• 30:36
  news, bad news, it's reality. It puts you in a position of
• 30:40
  making decisions based on facts rather than fiction.
• 30:45
  It no, it allows you to delegate.
• 30:47
  It allows you to know that if you're asking somebody to
• 30:49
  support you and as you grow you're going to have to be doing
• 30:52
  more and more delegation. You know that the honesty of
• 30:57
  that relationship will allow you to delegate productively, will
• 31:02
  allow you to invest productively, and will allow you
• 31:05
  to create long term partnerships with all of those people rather
• 31:10
  than short term wins. And that's certainly what I
• 31:12
  found over time. Most of the organizations that
• 31:15
  work with us today are organizations where the people
• 31:20
  we work with, we absolutely trust each other.
• 31:25
  We give and take short. Period of time so there could be
• 31:29
  a. 100 words I could use, but I'd say everything stems from
• 31:33
  that. If if you haven't got that, I
• 31:36
  would suggest nothing else really is an accurate statement.
• 31:40
  It's a perception based on what somebody said, but you don't
• 31:43
  know whether that statement in in its first instance was
• 31:45
  honest. But once we're honest, now also
• 31:50
  everybody has then this desire to help each other.
• 31:53
  So it starts to create a really lovely environment where people
• 31:57
  are nurtured and the ability to help, support, grow and deliver
• 32:03
  to each other. It just happens.
• 32:05
  You don't have to force it. You don't have to write down a
• 32:07
  set of rules. You just create an environment
• 32:10
  that's that's ripe for everything that good, that's
• 32:14
  good, that can come from, that will naturally happen.
• 32:16
  Good values. Good trust.
• 32:18
  And then that your clients know they can trust you and they know
• 32:21
  that when you say something, you're really going to do it.
• 32:23
  You mean it. You do everything for them.
• 32:25
  Staff everybody and you've got to live by it.
• 32:27
  Everything, yes, and sometimes that means that honesty means
• 32:30
  that you're going to be having conversations that you'd rather
• 32:32
  not have and you could divert from.
• 32:34
  You could be slightly dishonest, but actually the consistency of
• 32:39
  a message. And I always say, you know, in
• 32:42
  my business industry, I'd kind of call myself
• 32:45
  characteristically as, as Marmite.
• 32:47
  You know, some people don't like the reality of the honesty, the
• 32:51
  truth. Others would rather maybe take
• 32:55
  the softer approach where everything is quite cuddly and
• 32:58
  nice. It's not reality, but it's not
• 33:01
  confrontational. And some people prefer that
• 33:04
  journey. I, I personally don't, I think
• 33:06
  that if somebody has something to say to me about anything, I'd
• 33:11
  rather just tell me what it is, let me understand it and let's
• 33:14
  work with it and let's do whatever we need to do.
• 33:17
  And I think once you start telling half truths, you then
• 33:20
  end up in a journey of what did I say the last time we spoke?
• 33:23
  What did I say? Whereas if I just now, I just
• 33:25
  said what was, what is, I don't have to try and think about our
• 33:30
  conversation and how this is going to go.
• 33:32
  I'm just going to continue it from where we left off.
• 33:35
  And if I've said something before, I'd stand by it today.
• 33:37
  And if I say something today, I'll stand by it in the future.
• 33:40
  And actually what you realize is people fall into two camps.
• 33:44
  Some people just naturally cling to that, that, that kind of way
• 33:49
  of being that that honest persona and they they like you
• 33:52
  for it. Others struggle with it
• 33:54
  initially, but there'll come points in time during the
• 33:58
  journey and the relationship you have where they see the value
• 34:02
  and they see that perhaps some of the things you've said or the
• 34:05
  conversations you've had where honesty has been quite negative,
• 34:08
  They see that actually there's benefits they've gained further
• 34:11
  down the line. Yeah.
• 34:12
  And the fact that that reality, I just think life's.
• 34:15
  Too short to to not tell the truth.
• 34:17
  Just say how you feel, you know, even in silly things, you know,
• 34:19
  people cheating and things like I think, well, why didn't you
• 34:22
  just tell them you're not interested?
• 34:24
  Anymore. Yeah.
• 34:24
  You don't need to do that, you know why don't you?
• 34:26
  You can, you can simplify it. Take a lot of the stress away.
• 34:29
  Yeah. It's to save you.
• 34:29
  Time it's just inefficient exactly one thing that that I
• 34:32
  find is I don't like inefficiency yes I don't like
• 34:35
  time wasting that that's annoying to me so you similar
• 34:39
  yeah I'm very. Similar and I think when we look
• 34:41
  at KPIs every business, if you haven't got them, you'll, you'll
• 34:45
  end up with them as you grow and they're helpful.
• 34:48
  So the KPIs we set within our business, we define through
• 34:54
  doing it ourselves. So I don't know if we're going
• 34:57
  to for example, in our in our business, we're going to send
• 34:59
  tickets to customers for their holiday.
• 35:02
  I would get one of my senior team to spend hours sending
• 35:06
  tickets to understand somebody who's got the right mindset is
• 35:11
  has a capability of doing that role.
• 35:15
  What what's achievable without going to like an extreme
• 35:21
  scenario, what is underperformance and therefore
• 35:24
  what should we be looking to achieve and therefore who are we
• 35:28
  looking to employ? So and that exists pretty much
• 35:31
  within all the KPIs. We've probably got 100K PIS in
• 35:34
  the business. But rather than guess what the
• 35:37
  outcome should be and what the KPI should look like, why don't
• 35:40
  we just do the job? You know, if we got to take the
• 35:42
  rubbish out. Yeah.
• 35:43
  How many black, black bin liners can you fill up and send out to
• 35:46
  have been 100 yards away over a period of an hour?
• 35:48
  I don't know. Let's try it.
• 35:50
  We'll all grab them. Do it.
• 35:51
  It's a good way of. Doing it, yeah.
• 35:52
  And then we. Know when we then ask the staff
• 35:54
  to deliver on that KPI, we know that KPI has been proven.
• 35:59
  We know it's sensible and then it's fair to expect that that
• 36:04
  will be the delivery and that will go into the expectations of
• 36:06
  the business that that's what we're looking to achieve.
• 36:08
  OK. So you decide to sell your
• 36:11
  business. Fast track to Virgin?
• 36:13
  Yes. Did you meet Richard Branson?
• 36:16
  I've not met Richard. I've had letters from Richard.
• 36:19
  When we sold, you had a letter. From him Richard has.
• 36:21
  People that do those. Things for him, right?
• 36:23
  OK, so you get into this room with these people.
• 36:26
  Yeah. Were you intimidated?
• 36:28
  Were you afraid I. Honestly thought I would.
• 36:31
  Did you? Sweat or did you or did you feel
• 36:35
  I think my. Character I know what I.
• 36:36
  Got yeah, so I. Became I ended up on the board
• 36:39
  at Virgin holidays and I, I think I was, I predicted that I
• 36:46
  would be intimidated, if that makes sense, because I assumed
• 36:50
  I, my, my worth was less than this.
• 36:53
  Like who am I? They are working for this
• 36:56
  amazing brand. I've loved the virgin brand.
• 36:58
  I love the. Virgin brand.
• 36:59
  I love the Virgin brand. That's so good.
• 37:01
  All of a sudden I've gone from running an independent company
• 37:05
  to be in proposition by the brand to then selling to the
• 37:08
  brand, to them being on the board of Virgin Holidays as a
• 37:12
  brand. And then after maybe two or
• 37:16
  three board meetings, I realized that any preconceptions I had
• 37:20
  about what those people would look like, how they'd behave and
• 37:23
  how I would struggle, they went away.
• 37:25
  And actually, I kind of felt empowered.
• 37:27
  And what I realized is that when you build an organization from
• 37:31
  the ground up, you've got so many skills that when if you
• 37:36
  come into a business part of the way through and you end up in a
• 37:38
  department doing something, there's so much to business that
• 37:44
  you just will never understand because you won't have gone
• 37:47
  through it quite right. You wouldn't have need to go
• 37:50
  through it. So I felt that I was able to
• 37:52
  give those board meetings a new take, a new view of whatever the
• 38:02
  subject matter might have been in those board meetings.
• 38:04
  Obviously over a period of years that changed regularly.
• 38:06
  But now I, I believe I added genuine value to that board
• 38:09
  meeting and I, I got to the point where I was excited to go
• 38:13
  to them. I felt valued in them and the
• 38:15
  feedback I got from them was positive as well.
• 38:17
  OK, so. You, you were scared of first
• 38:19
  and then you grew into the role and now let's take it further.
• 38:21
  So then you go to the Emirates group or they come to you.
• 38:26
  How does that work? They so again.
• 38:28
  Same they proposition. You so they proposition you dare
• 38:33
  I say it's even a little it's a, it's a step up there.
• 38:37
  And and then you can I say give away 50% more than 50% was 51
• 38:43
  percent, 51% because then they or the majority stakeholders in
• 38:48
  the business. And how does that feel?
• 38:51
  First of all, because it's your, your baby and you've made that
• 38:55
  decision. And I'll ask you why you made
• 38:57
  that decision. But then also there's seller's
• 39:00
  remorse fully sell you sell in the business, but then someone
• 39:04
  else has majority power over over you who know all of this
• 39:10
  and have this history. How does that work with your
• 39:12
  mind? Like how are you able to process
• 39:15
  that? I think.
• 39:16
  So when we sold to Virgin, I would say seller's remorse
• 39:20
  kicked in quite quickly and in hindsight, when you say quite.
• 39:24
  Quickly six months, weeks within.
• 39:27
  Weeks I I was I was questioning you were.
• 39:30
  Questioning why? Why did I?
• 39:31
  Do it. So financially it was a good
• 39:35
  decision, but I, I kind of, I didn't realize that what you're
• 39:40
  left with is nothing. You know you've got money, but
• 39:43
  now you are almost alone in the because all the staff stay,
• 39:46
  obviously they say. Your stuff, your stuff that
• 39:50
  you've nurtured becomes someone else's stuff.
• 39:53
  It's hard so. They all stay there.
• 39:55
  All my friends now are at work in the company I used to to own.
• 39:59
  So it it was helpful to me understanding what that
• 40:02
  feeling's like and the value of the money and the celebration.
• 40:06
  There was no celebration. I didn't feel like celebrating.
• 40:09
  Yeah. So that crescendo.
• 40:12
  It didn't occur, You know that this.
• 40:13
  Is a very real thing a lot of business people have serious
• 40:17
  seller's remorse so I. Think that then allowed me with
• 40:21
  imagine to have a different approach and understanding as to
• 40:25
  what if you're looking for someday where this happens and
• 40:28
  you know, fireworks and beliefs, that's not going to happen.
• 40:31
  So what are you doing and why are you doing it?
• 40:33
  And I think for me, when we started Imagine my desire,
• 40:37
  whereas Fast Track was auk business sold to Virgin holidays
• 40:42
  operated again the UK business. I just wanted to challenge
• 40:45
  myself, understand my capabilities and therefore
• 40:49
  imagine there's always going to be an international business.
• 40:51
  So today we've got offices in the UK, we've got offices in
• 40:55
  Cape Town, we've got offices in Brisbane, in Perth, in Australia
• 40:58
  and we're opening in the US in a couple of weeks.
• 41:00
  So that was the journey there. But, but the difference between
• 41:06
  the Emirates Group and Virgin is Virgin decided upon buying the
• 41:10
  business, they wanted to change it and they made multiple
• 41:14
  changes and they made them relatively quickly and which
• 41:17
  always seemed odd to me, why we would pay so much money and then
• 41:19
  you'd want to change it at the moment you got it.
• 41:21
  It hurts as. Well, yeah, it's like.
• 41:23
  The divine to try and not take. It personally you think why the
• 41:26
  divine? Mentality and I think people are
• 41:28
  much more and we, we sold 51% in 2015 / 10 years on now the word
• 41:34
  divine now is much more familiar with people.
• 41:35
  I think, yes, it's certainly from a business perspective.
• 41:39
  The mentality of the group in Dubai is completely different to
• 41:46
  the mentality that I saw come from the Virgin Group and
• 41:48
  probably most UK businesses. They are not looking to change
• 41:53
  the business. I've grown the business since
• 41:57
  that purchase back in 2015. The decisions and the way we've
• 42:01
  grown the business have been my decisions.
• 42:04
  Every time I've needed support to go and evolve or perhaps do
• 42:08
  an acquisition, we did an acquisition in Australia 5 or 6
• 42:11
  years ago. They have supported me in a way
• 42:17
  that I would never have assumed. They have been the best business
• 42:21
  partner you could ever hope for. Yes, they've got expectations
• 42:26
  obviously and we've got budgets to me etcetera.
• 42:29
  But in terms of their belief in me, their belief in the business
• 42:35
  and what they want from the business, they want me to enjoy
• 42:39
  the process of making this company the best it can be, and
• 42:44
  they're willing to back that concept, whatever that might be.
• 42:47
  So they're more backers? Yeah, they're more backers of
• 42:49
  you. Yeah, they they.
• 42:50
  Give you the confidence and obviously they've got
• 42:52
  infrastructure support mechanisms to assist in some way
• 42:57
  through that process. But sometimes the biggest hurdle
• 42:59
  you have when you run a business is somebody giving you the
• 43:03
  confidence that you can. Because especially when you're
• 43:07
  AC or if, if, if you're starting your own company, probably
• 43:10
  everybody questions why you start your own company anyway.
• 43:12
  So those those those feedbacks can be get your job instead.
• 43:15
  Get your job instead. Yeah.
• 43:16
  Why are you doing this? You know, don't take these
• 43:18
  risks. So I think now we're in a really
• 43:20
  fortunate position now where we've got shareholders that are
• 43:25
  hugely supportive, are more than happy for us to go and, and, and
• 43:29
  say with the launch in America in a few weeks, that will be the
• 43:32
  biggest ambition we've ever had. It's the biggest market in the
• 43:35
  cruise industry, 10 times bigger than the UK.
• 43:38
  And but we'll start it as if it's a start up.
• 43:41
  It'll be the same process. You know, we'll start small,
• 43:44
  we'll learn, we'll grow. As soon as we see green, we'll
• 43:46
  bank it amber, we'll reflect red, we'll push to one side.
• 43:50
  The only benefit we have now is we can do things at speed
• 43:53
  because we know the scale. We know the process and scale
• 43:56
  OK. So you now you're on a different
• 43:59
  level when it comes to pricing, what you charge and all this
• 44:02
  pricing models. But going back just to the
• 44:06
  original days when you had to charge someone for something and
• 44:11
  you had to ask for money and anything like that.
• 44:14
  Did you ever have this little feeling the similar to the one
• 44:18
  in the boardroom where you went in for the first time with
• 44:20
  Virgin? I feel a little bit intimidated.
• 44:23
  Did you ever think, Oh, I I feel guilty charging almost I feel,
• 44:27
  or did you always know that's my value?
• 44:29
  I'm OK to charge because I'm very sort of business as
• 44:31
  business. I mean, you understand the
• 44:32
  psychological question. I.
• 44:34
  Understand. And I, I think actually the way
• 44:38
  Imagine works that that hurdle has been what's helped us grow.
• 44:44
  So we've created a business that curates cruise holidays and the
• 44:52
  message to the consumer is value.
• 44:55
  So the value proposition is drawn from a ton of negotiations
• 45:01
  by individual suppliers. So we are trying to buy well and
• 45:11
  we're trying to offer the consumer an opportunity to
• 45:15
  experience something at amazing value.
• 45:17
  So that kind of methodology of the way our business works and
• 45:20
  we're known for value. Our, our biggest message is
• 45:22
  we're a value proposition. We're not cheap.
• 45:24
  Our average holidays are over £5000 a person, but they're
• 45:27
  great value. But those that, that, that
• 45:30
  business kind of became through an understanding that actually
• 45:34
  people will pay. So when you say, you know, do
• 45:37
  you, do you have concerns about charging?
• 45:39
  Actually, I don't. What my concern would more be
• 45:42
  about is if they pay, have I given them value for whatever
• 45:46
  that might be? So am I abusing the
• 45:49
  relationship? Because there will be many
• 45:52
  opportunities in business for you to have a quick win.
• 45:56
  Somebody perhaps hasn't seen something or misread something.
• 45:58
  Or you can be discreet and maybe gain.
• 46:03
  All I know from my journey is the there's no longevity.
• 46:07
  You can't build a budget that say says that's going to happen
• 46:10
  and when it's going to happen or what the outcome will be.
• 46:12
  So what you're looking for is consistency and therefore
• 46:16
  knowing your value, whatever, whether that's you as a person
• 46:19
  doing something, whether that's your company offering a service,
• 46:23
  people will pay. And actually the hardest thing
• 46:27
  is as a consumer is finding a company to trust that can give
• 46:31
  you that thing, that service, whatever it might be that you're
• 46:35
  after. So that's really that's the gap
• 46:38
  you're trying to fill. Not question, but am I worthy?
• 46:42
  No, I've built this thing. Is it right to charge for this
• 46:45
  thing? Am I charging too much?
• 46:47
  The customer will determine the value.
• 46:49
  So if you are charging too much, sales will slow down.
• 46:52
  If you're not charging enough, sales will be too rapid.
• 46:56
  It will find it's place where you've landed on the consumer
• 47:01
  acknowledging through the purchasing mechanism that they
• 47:03
  are happy and content with the value.
• 47:05
  You being happy through your returning investment that the
• 47:09
  money you've invested is now driving profit and you just want
• 47:13
  to, once you've understood that environment, protect that.
• 47:17
  And then the business going forward should be based on.
• 47:20
  That's the foundation that everything we do are based on
• 47:24
  the core principles of we're a undefined team between us, the
• 47:28
  consumer, the supplier, the retailer, whoever it might be,
• 47:32
  fairness is what we're looking for.
• 47:35
  Value. We all want to see value in each
• 47:36
  other, whether it's monetary value or personal value.
• 47:40
  And everybody will have a different opinion as to what the
• 47:43
  definition of that is. And the way to to deal with that
• 47:46
  is to ask, you know, what do you want out of this?
• 47:50
  And then to commit, OK. So if we move forward now, I
• 47:54
  know what you want and you understand what I need, my
• 47:57
  commitment to you is that this is what we're going to do.
• 47:59
  This is how we're going to do it.
• 48:00
  This is the period of time, however.
• 48:02
  If I may, clients do change their mind and then they want
• 48:06
  something and it changes. You have that too.
• 48:09
  It's not always that's linear, I think in.
• 48:12
  Certain industries probably more than and I, I understand what
• 48:15
  you're saying. I can think of certain areas
• 48:16
  I've worked in where when you start talking about marketing or
• 48:20
  IT or data, those things kind of wobble a bit in terms of the
• 48:24
  definition of, but I think you've just got to lock it in.
• 48:27
  So my attitude would be like my success is making real the
• 48:37
  commitment I've made for, you know, either on my own behalf or
• 48:42
  on the behalf of the business to give you something that you
• 48:46
  desire in a predetermined fashion over a predetermined
• 48:51
  period. Yeah.
• 48:52
  So I would then take that commitment.
• 48:54
  I mean, I would take that commitment hugely seriously.
• 48:57
  We live off of these commitments because what they do is they
• 49:00
  create ACV. As I explained it internally, I
• 49:03
  just want a better CV next year than this year.
• 49:05
  You know, I want more people saying we work with imagine we
• 49:08
  work with Robin. We did these things and it was
• 49:10
  great, OK. And I just want that to grow.
• 49:12
  And the power of that is effectively what's going to open
• 49:16
  the doors going forward. And you'll see as you grow and
• 49:19
  as you deliver and as you're as you but deliver on your
• 49:24
  promises. Or if you're not, the moment you
• 49:25
  realize you're not, be very open and take that story to the
• 49:29
  individual. I mean from.
• 49:30
  My industry and what I do because marketing is sometimes
• 49:33
  considered a fluffy thing, a little extra, you know, people
• 49:36
  of businesses know, you know you need it.
• 49:38
  Investments vary 4%, ten percent, 12% depending on
• 49:42
  whether you're in whatever you want to, however you want to
• 49:44
  look at it, whether it's digital AI, you know, you can carry on
• 49:48
  and on and on. But you know, the way that I
• 49:52
  look at this is I, I go back to like my consulting roots and,
• 49:56
  and the value almost a down to an hourly level, but I, I really
• 50:01
  look at the sales, you know, when we're since I've joined, my
• 50:06
  team have joined and you've done this initiative and that
• 50:09
  initiative. What exact monetary benefit have
• 50:13
  you had from us? And I get really worried about
• 50:16
  that. You know, it's like my thing.
• 50:18
  I have to know that otherwise I feel immensely guilty.
• 50:23
  And I want to know. And if it's not positive, I will
• 50:25
  make sure it is positive. And, and that's how I look at
• 50:28
  it. I, I believe maybe there's, you
• 50:30
  know, in a way that sales is, is it's so important.
• 50:33
  Ultimately, even marketing people, you know, you're taking
• 50:35
  something to market, but at the end of the day, you want to sell
• 50:37
  your products, you want to present them in the right way
• 50:39
  for that brand, make it look amazing.
• 50:41
  But your your job as a marketing agency, as a marketing hire is
• 50:47
  to move the dial on on those sales full stop.
• 50:50
  And I think. Some industries, estate agents
• 50:54
  like in my personal life, estate agents, well, I don't know, you
• 50:56
  know, they've they've got a reputation probably not so bad
• 50:59
  today actually, but historically bad reputation about being open
• 51:02
  up. I was going.
• 51:02
  To see a estate agent today for the podcast, but history sketch
• 51:06
  on but. Marketing for me, my history of
• 51:09
  marketing is not, it's not naturally pleasant.
• 51:14
  I find that and how can you say? That it depends.
• 51:17
  It depends on the subject matter and that changes over time.
• 51:20
  So I would say historically, words like SEO strategies,
• 51:25
  everybody's promising you the earth and that in reality, and
• 51:30
  the more you do it, the more you understand it is people are
• 51:33
  telling you what you want to hear.
• 51:34
  I like marketing that, as you were saying, is more definable.
• 51:38
  I don't I think your marketing budget should be split depending
• 51:41
  upon your business into that's your that's your mechanism of
• 51:46
  investing in something to create income, to drive profit.
• 51:50
  So having a relationship between the money you invest and the
• 51:54
  outcome is critical. We.
• 51:56
  We have. In our business analysts, I have
• 51:59
  a whole analytical team that sit round a table everyday and they
• 52:04
  analyse every pound we spend. We spend millions, but every
• 52:08
  pound we spend has a predetermined expectation.
• 52:12
  It then has an actual outcome and a variance and everything's
• 52:17
  tracked everyday and the business is updated on those.
• 52:19
  And again, going back to the green, amber, red, if you have a
• 52:23
  marketing agency that is able to demonstrate to a business that
• 52:28
  if they hand you their money, you can invest it for them and
• 52:32
  create profit, Yeah. Well, then in the world I live
• 52:35
  proven, Yeah. I would just keep giving money,
• 52:37
  yeah. No, for sure, for sure.
• 52:39
  And it's funny you say that analysts, because I come from an
• 52:42
  analytical background. So I started in billing systems
• 52:44
  analysis and I used to implement billing systems around the world
• 52:47
  and that's what I did. And I lived in the data and it
• 52:49
  wasn't really for me because it wasn't enough people.
• 52:52
  And I love the whole media. Why am I doing a podcast?
• 52:54
  You know, I just am more of a salesy person.
• 52:56
  And that was my strength, the ability to communicate with
• 53:00
  developers and translate these difficult concepts to these big
• 53:04
  telco bosses and go actually, you know, you need this, but you
• 53:08
  need it in this way. Otherwise that makes no sense.
• 53:10
  And by the way, you're losing money here and, you know, on the
• 53:13
  switch and you know, it got quite technical, but you would
• 53:15
  take these things and you'd break them up and you'd market
• 53:17
  them. You know, it's like marketing
• 53:19
  because you're presenting it in the way that you know, they'll
• 53:23
  they'll get it. And I.
• 53:25
  Think that's it when you're speaking in the world of
• 53:26
  marketing, it goes back to, you know, my desire to ask a million
• 53:30
  questions. I've decided that understanding
• 53:34
  the analytics that sit behind the money we spend and the
• 53:37
  marketing and the way marketing works in different, it's become
• 53:40
  a critical source of growth. So I've taken it upon myself to
• 53:44
  go and understand our industry. But I think this is where small
• 53:48
  businesses go wrong. I think that it's very easy to
• 53:52
  waste money in marketing and it's actually not that difficult
• 53:56
  to track the success of marketing.
• 53:58
  No, it's not difficult. Yeah, it's not that.
• 54:00
  Difficult, but I think small businesses don't focus on that
• 54:06
  area of the business from day one.
• 54:07
  So what they'll find is they're spending money on something
• 54:12
  defined as marketing. They probably can't tell you how
• 54:16
  well that's done, and therefore they don't know what to do next.
• 54:21
  Whereas I would argue that the moment you invest money in
• 54:25
  marketing, as any business, you need to map out what you're
• 54:30
  doing. Why have you invested that
• 54:33
  money? What's the metric you're going
• 54:35
  to use to quantify whether or not it worked?
• 54:39
  Let's just say then, before you even spend the money, assume it
• 54:43
  works. If it works, what would you do
• 54:46
  next? Is it something that you can
• 54:49
  build upon or is there a ceiling limit?
• 54:51
  Because I'd argue if there's a ceiling limit, it probably isn't
• 54:54
  something, again, that's helpful in the early stages where you're
• 54:58
  looking for growth, you're looking for a way of investing
• 55:01
  money in marketing, a tracking mechanism that you can either go
• 55:05
  in and research the best way to track it.
• 55:06
  Mainly it'll be common sense or maybe ask the person that's
• 55:09
  selling you the marketing. How will we know if this works?
• 55:12
  Yeah, but if you can get that element of your business right,
• 55:16
  how do I spend money on generating a communication piece
• 55:19
  to a consumer to trigger an output that creates a mechanism
• 55:24
  of income? Your business is going to be
• 55:27
  amazing. Yeah.
• 55:28
  I mean, literally, if you can just crack that part, everything
• 55:31
  else will change. What you sell, how you sell it,
• 55:35
  who you sell it to, the age demographics of those people,
• 55:37
  where they live, which country you sell it in river it's in the
• 55:39
  UK or America or Australia. The baseline of understanding
• 55:43
  the money you're spending, what you expect and how that will
• 55:46
  help you grow. Sit down and understand that
• 55:50
  model and if it says you can't prove that you can make money, I
• 55:54
  would question why. If it feels like to make money
• 55:58
  you've got to fly to the moon, it's probably not going to work.
• 56:01
  But if it feels fair and reasonable that this investment
• 56:05
  could create a profit margin that you can use to grow focus
• 56:10
  in that area and acknowledge at the end of the spend and whether
• 56:15
  that's a day, a week or a month did or it didn't.
• 56:17
  And what does that mean? And now it did, what do I do
• 56:20
  with it? And if it didn't, regardless of
• 56:23
  what the marketing companies say, turn it red for it in the
• 56:26
  bin. Don't get drawn into how to turn
• 56:28
  red into green because red is unlikely to turn green.
• 56:31
  But you know. Marketing people marketing in,
• 56:33
  especially in big companies, you know, the marketing departments,
• 56:37
  when there's gigantic department, you sort of come in
• 56:39
  there and then you read they can be so rigid too and, and set in
• 56:43
  their ways and they like to just go to the event thing twice and
• 56:47
  that's corporate. I think that's more corporate.
• 56:48
  It's very. Yeah, that's, that's a whole
• 56:51
  another word that there isn't this elasticity and, and and and
• 56:56
  not even risk taking just a little bit of creativity to go
• 56:59
  like it's just, you know, I agree.
• 57:01
  It becomes really. Taxing I Almost.
• 57:03
  Think that having marketing budgets?
• 57:05
  Well, by definition a marketing budget should not be.
• 57:08
  You can predetermine what you think it will be, but it should
• 57:11
  be the one element of your business that is willing to move
• 57:16
  have to move around as much as it needs to based on what it
• 57:19
  sees. Yes, based.
• 57:20
  On what it sees, yeah. And I.
• 57:22
  Think that the difference between perhaps being part of a
• 57:24
  corporate business, the desire to understand the intricacies of
• 57:29
  how you've spent that money and how that's played out is less so
• 57:32
  than in an SME where, you know, we can't fail at this.
• 57:36
  We're probably not spending it on our brand.
• 57:39
  We're probably spending it on creating income.
• 57:42
  And failure would effectively mean disaster because that's
• 57:46
  where the risk is mainly. And again, you know, you can do
• 57:49
  it in big business. We are now we've got a marketing
• 57:51
  department of going to say around 30 people really.
• 57:55
  Yeah, it's a big part of the business.
• 57:57
  And they we run that department like an SME.
• 58:01
  Yeah. So everything is everything.
• 58:05
  Every, every penny we spend is like how I spent it 10 years
• 58:09
  ago. The fact that we've grown, what
• 58:11
  I know about the mechanism we've created is you can upscale it.
• 58:14
  I mean, I could do it if we were 10 times bigger.
• 58:16
  The the mechanism of tracking through data so that if you sit
• 58:23
  in a room with a group of people to discuss success or failure of
• 58:26
  a campaign, say it's not an opinion because we don't do 4
• 58:30
  opinions. It did or it didn't.
• 58:32
  It's either green or it's amber or it's red.
• 58:36
  If it's red, we got burnt. That's fine.
• 58:38
  That's part of our evolution. Be honest.
• 58:40
  Be honest if it's green. Can we grow it because that
• 58:43
  would be fantastic. And if it's amber, can we adjust
• 58:46
  it, send it out again and see if we can turn it green?
• 58:49
  But but we, we really do look, we still work in that
• 58:52
  environment as a small business because that's been a big
• 58:58
  benefit of ours to get us to where we are is being wise and
• 59:03
  sensible and not getting drawn into this world of fluff.
• 59:08
  Because it can get like that where you just don't know where
• 59:11
  the money's gone, what it's done, and you've got no concept
• 59:15
  whether or not you should do it again.
• 59:16
  You've got to be able to track the income back to the money
• 59:20
  that you've invested. You've got to be able to do that
• 59:23
  and your. Marketing people need to be
• 59:24
  talking to your sales people or looking at those sales numbers
• 59:27
  just constantly. It's just that that's what it
• 59:29
  is. That's the that is, it's
• 59:31
  healthy. And and some marketing
• 59:33
  individuals, some marketing businesses don't like that.
• 59:35
  I think it's a really healthy relationship.
• 59:37
  Why wouldn't they? Like it?
• 59:39
  I think that I think marketing can be perceived as a skill that
• 59:46
  sits independently of the rest of the business rather than a
• 59:50
  component of the business that equally is variable in the way
• 59:54
  it speaks. So I can say this in this way or
• 59:57
  I can say this in this way. Those two ways, those AB
• 1:00:00
  versions of the same thing have different outcomes and therefore
• 1:00:04
  inevitably will create a different return on investment.
• 1:00:08
  So they are incorporated. But I think, I think again, in
• 1:00:11
  corporate business, people tend to stay in their lane more.
• 1:00:15
  And as I say, the SME kind of mentality is, yeah, but we're
• 1:00:18
  A-Team now. We want to know everything about
• 1:00:20
  everything. And it's great because knowledge
• 1:00:21
  is really powerful. And that is so true.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah, I've. Worked across I've had a taste
• 1:00:26
  of all the different ones and, and, and also I know how big
• 1:00:28
  agencies work, big marketing agency.
• 1:00:30
  I see how things work there and I see, you know, the small
• 1:00:32
  agency and how corporate. So it is totally different,
• 1:00:35
  totally different, totally different atmosphere.
• 1:00:37
  But let's talk about another important purchase.
• 1:00:41
  Is the employees, the resources, the people that you work with.
• 1:00:45
  How do you know instinctively who to go for, who not to go
• 1:00:50
  for? Like, what is that thing?
• 1:00:51
  Yeah. So I think that will change as
• 1:00:55
  growth occurs. I think if you're, if you're
• 1:00:59
  trying to establish the new business or you're maybe one or
• 1:01:02
  two years inch trading of of your business in the early days,
• 1:01:06
  it's gut feeling. The gut feeling is the most
• 1:01:11
  powerful tool you have. And I always say to people where
• 1:01:16
  I lacked capabilities at school, what it seemed to leave me with
• 1:01:20
  was an abundance of common sense.
• 1:01:23
  Common sense to me seems to be like a superpower.
• 1:01:26
  But I can clearly see that, you know, something from a common
• 1:01:31
  sense perspective is obviously positive.
• 1:01:33
  And even if somebody's saying that it's not and the same is
• 1:01:38
  true of the reverse. So, so it's that kind of common
• 1:01:42
  sense applied with gut feeling. I always say generally if I've
• 1:01:47
  interviewed again, going back over time, not really interested
• 1:01:51
  in CVS, I'll get some. I was going to ask you what?
• 1:01:53
  Is it a good CD look like to good CVS?
• 1:01:55
  You don't look at CVS, no SO. Because I I find that they
• 1:01:58
  position the conversation too specifically because you're
• 1:02:01
  you've already got a predetermined conversation
• 1:02:03
  because they've said my name is I love these hobbies.
• 1:02:06
  I do these things so you don't sit.
• 1:02:07
  There like on The Apprentice and like and then RIP a what?
• 1:02:10
  No. So I'll have, I'll have
• 1:02:11
  somebody, there'll be a process before me where somebody is
• 1:02:15
  ensuring that there is a capability of the individual
• 1:02:18
  that gives them a place at the table for me to speak to.
• 1:02:22
  So I'm then going to assume by the time I speak to them that
• 1:02:25
  they could do this job doesn't mean much.
• 1:02:28
  It doesn't mean that they're right for us or we're right for
• 1:02:30
  them once. So once I speak to them, I
• 1:02:35
  literally, it's just like this. It would just be forget whatever
• 1:02:40
  you wrote on your CV because you had to.
• 1:02:43
  You know, you're asked. They're quite regimented, aren't
• 1:02:45
  they, CVS? Who are you?
• 1:02:48
  What is it you want out of life? And I will look to sell them the
• 1:02:53
  worst version of our business as possible.
• 1:02:55
  I will try and put them off. So my objective is I need to get
• 1:03:02
  rid of as many of these individuals as possible through
• 1:03:06
  the process of recruitment to save the cost, the time, the
• 1:03:10
  effort to me and that person once we've triggered the the
• 1:03:14
  actual employment process. So I will be very raw about who
• 1:03:19
  we are, what we do, what we expect.
• 1:03:21
  There are many positives, but there are expectations.
• 1:03:26
  Even something you know, just using the word we spoke about
• 1:03:29
  earlier of being honest, like I am non moving.
• 1:03:32
  If you show any dishonest attributes we would just cut
• 1:03:37
  ties. You'd say that in.
• 1:03:38
  The first meeting, yeah, because.
• 1:03:39
  I think it's so important, but not everybody is honest in life
• 1:03:43
  or in business. So I need to make sure I've said
• 1:03:46
  it because it's going to mean a lot to me.
• 1:03:49
  And therefore, if it turns out that through an employment
• 1:03:52
  process you're not honest, you'll understand why.
• 1:03:56
  There's no conversation to be had from my perspective.
• 1:03:58
  Like you've literally broken the trust.
• 1:04:01
  There's nothing to build on, there's no foundation.
• 1:04:03
  But other than that, it would be general conversation.
• 1:04:07
  I think you get a feel for people.
• 1:04:09
  So could I work with this person personality dependent upon role?
• 1:04:14
  Because that probably will shift considerably depending upon role
• 1:04:17
  they're looking for. What do they want out of life?
• 1:04:20
  How ambitious are they and where in their life cycle are they as
• 1:04:25
  well? So I think timing is important
• 1:04:28
  as well. I think there's a right and a
• 1:04:30
  wrong time to moving to certain parts of your career.
• 1:04:35
  And if you get that wrong, it might be the right business, but
• 1:04:37
  the wrong time. So it's trying to understand
• 1:04:39
  that, but but generally it's about the person who am I, who
• 1:04:43
  are you and can I see you as being part of our team?
• 1:04:47
  Would I enjoy spending time with you?
• 1:04:50
  Would my team enjoy spending time with you?
• 1:04:53
  Because I think if you are open to being part of a team, to
• 1:04:57
  learning, I think that's kind of what we're after.
• 1:05:01
  We want to mentor everybody we employ so that we get all the
• 1:05:05
  skills they've got. We want to suck that in.
• 1:05:07
  That's the reason we're taking them on board, but we want to
• 1:05:10
  give back all the things we know that quite possibly they
• 1:05:14
  wouldn't know, and those collective things will give them
• 1:05:17
  their career, if that makes sense it.
• 1:05:19
  Makes it easier for anyone listening just, you know, yeah,
• 1:05:23
  get outside the CV and get that conversation going.
• 1:05:25
  Work on your interpersonal skills.
• 1:05:28
  You know, a lot of people spending time on technology,
• 1:05:30
  especially the younger ones, and you've got to practice the the
• 1:05:33
  conversation and because that's what the.
• 1:05:34
  Reality be if you know, if you go on and employ them, that
• 1:05:37
  format of an interview will never happen again.
• 1:05:41
  You're not going to be SAT, you're going to you're going to
• 1:05:43
  be working in a much more kind of normal environment.
• 1:05:46
  And again, I try and do that. It's quite difficult sometimes,
• 1:05:48
  but you know, there's no such thing as wrong or right in
• 1:05:52
  anything you say and it's difficult because this is
• 1:05:55
  artificial. This interview, try your best to
• 1:05:59
  be you because you're going to be you pretty quickly.
• 1:06:03
  If you come into the business within a couple of months,
• 1:06:06
  you'll kind of take off the shackles of expectations and
• 1:06:09
  your personality will appear and try and give me that today
• 1:06:12
  because my concern would be that you are right, but you don't
• 1:06:16
  know how to present that. And the formal environment of a
• 1:06:19
  typical interview, I kind of I think hides that personality,
• 1:06:25
  the human being that sits behind it, that hides behind, I don't
• 1:06:29
  know, qualifications or things like that.
• 1:06:31
  OK, OK. We'll talk about something
• 1:06:33
  slightly different now. Diary of Aceo style your day.
• 1:06:37
  I mean, what does your day look like for productivity?
• 1:06:40
  Do you do like mind exercises? Do you journal?
• 1:06:43
  Like, do you play golf? Like what do you do so?
• 1:06:46
  Typically I love learning, so on my journey into work, it's not
• 1:06:50
  that long. Actually, I I could probably do
• 1:06:52
  if it being longer, it's about 20 minutes in a car, but OK
• 1:06:55
  podcast. Podcast, What do you listen to?
• 1:07:01
  Lots of different. So I would say Stephen Bartlett
• 1:07:05
  would be an example, but it depends on the subject matter.
• 1:07:08
  I'm listening a lot to AI at the moment.
• 1:07:10
  Yeah, but I'm, I'm learning. I'm not really learning from it.
• 1:07:15
  I feel like I don't know any more than I knew when I started
• 1:07:17
  the process maybe six months ago.
• 1:07:19
  And everybody seems to have their own version of what that
• 1:07:21
  is. So I don't know.
• 1:07:23
  I like listening to people. My favorite is kind of similar
• 1:07:26
  to this, you know, someone talking about their journey of
• 1:07:29
  life, what they've done, how they did it, what they found,
• 1:07:33
  learnings that have come from it.
• 1:07:35
  And they'll be snippets. And quite often what I'll do,
• 1:07:37
  I'll, I'll hear something and I will screenshot it.
• 1:07:42
  I'll then go into the office and I'll pull people in the room and
• 1:07:46
  I'll say, you just need to listen to this.
• 1:07:48
  Like This Is Us. We just are not very eloquent at
• 1:07:51
  the way we say it. But when we talk about what we
• 1:07:54
  do and how we do it and why it's special, this person just said
• 1:07:57
  it in a way that's amazing. And I think we need to start
• 1:08:00
  kind of using this thing. So I'll, I'll just maybe of a 2
• 1:08:04
  hour podcast, there may be nothing that particularly lands
• 1:08:08
  as a, as something I'll hold onto, or there may be something
• 1:08:13
  that is, I don't know, 60 seconds long, but it's massively
• 1:08:17
  inspiring even when it lands. It lands, Yeah.
• 1:08:20
  And I'm like, that's. Just that's super cool and I
• 1:08:22
  want to share it to everybody that I think you're not going to
• 1:08:26
  have heard that it's inspirational.
• 1:08:28
  You need to hear it or it might even spot.
• 1:08:30
  Sometimes I've even bought books and given them stuff where maybe
• 1:08:33
  somebody on a podcast, they've written a book.
• 1:08:35
  I've heard them in conversation on a podcast.
• 1:08:36
  I've bought my book. And while I'm doing that, I'm
• 1:08:38
  thinking I could buy another dozen, give them round to some
• 1:08:41
  of the staff because it's just. You know.
• 1:08:44
  Inspirational. So that's my journey in then as
• 1:08:46
  soon as I get into the office, I do a kind of snapshot of what
• 1:08:51
  does today look like as a pre planned expectation.
• 1:08:56
  And that will be a combination of things depending upon the day
• 1:08:59
  of the week, the week of the month, but it will be spending
• 1:09:01
  time with the senior team and also with the strategic team.
• 1:09:06
  I've kind of siphoned off a separate part of the
• 1:09:08
  organization that is allowed to go and look at the future
• 1:09:12
  without having a tie to the budget that we have today.
• 1:09:16
  So America would be one of those.
• 1:09:18
  Now there's a team that have no responsibilities in the business
• 1:09:25
  other than prepare for our entrance into a new source
• 1:09:31
  market, understand the products we're going to sell, why those
• 1:09:34
  are going to be the products. So over time, but on a
• 1:09:37
  day-to-day basis, there's nothing else you have to do.
• 1:09:40
  Or it might be something like do it with the marketing team.
• 1:09:43
  We've got our kind of BAU marketeers.
• 1:09:45
  Then I've got a strategic team where I'll come in and just say
• 1:09:48
  I saw this thing on TV yesterday and I think it's amazing.
• 1:09:51
  I think we should do it. There's one we're doing now
• 1:09:53
  actually. There's an app I found which
• 1:09:57
  creates songs and I am addicted to it.
• 1:10:00
  I'm going to use it for customer service.
• 1:10:03
  So. You, you, you put in some kind
• 1:10:07
  of storylines, not that complicated, maybe 6 or 7
• 1:10:11
  prompts. The quality that it outputs is
• 1:10:15
  unbelievable. So I, I fell upon this about a
• 1:10:18
  month ago, but it's a good, it's a good example of how I spend my
• 1:10:22
  time in a way that I didn't think I would be.
• 1:10:24
  So we're now going to be at the end of the holidays.
• 1:10:27
  We have the holidays we sell typically are groups of 50 or
• 1:10:29
  100 customers. Our average age demographic is
• 1:10:32
  around 68 years old. And we're going to get them
• 1:10:36
  together at the end of the holiday and ask them to
• 1:10:39
  effectively give us the prompts. So what was this holiday for you
• 1:10:43
  as a group of people? What were the highlights?
• 1:10:45
  What did you see? Are there any people that you
• 1:10:48
  met? Anything that feels very
• 1:10:51
  memorable. What emotions have you felt?
• 1:10:53
  Run all that down, put it into this app.
• 1:10:56
  And then we when they arrive home, there'll be a song for
• 1:10:58
  them, but the song will be their song.
• 1:11:01
  That would only make sense to them on their holiday with the
• 1:11:04
  people they went with. To anybody else, it would make
• 1:11:06
  no sense because the memories are specific and the emotions
• 1:11:09
  will be specific as well. So there'll be some of my day,
• 1:11:12
  which is just, I've seen this thing, I've got this idea, I've
• 1:11:15
  played with it, can we do it? And now we can evolve it.
• 1:11:18
  Strategy. But your day is structured, you
• 1:11:20
  know, you know what you're going to do that day.
• 1:11:22
  You go in, you're learning, you're picking up ideas.
• 1:11:25
  You've got your radar sets like it's it's.
• 1:11:27
  Open to be completely emptied if need be.
• 1:11:30
  So I have a an understanding of how I should spend my day based
• 1:11:36
  on what I know. But if, if I, if I discover
• 1:11:40
  something along the way and in the travel industry that does
• 1:11:43
  happen, sometimes positive, quite often negative.
• 1:11:46
  You know, there are events around the world, for example,
• 1:11:51
  most recent would would be the war in Ukraine where, yeah,
• 1:11:53
  cruise ships then redeploy. We've got a whole a whole heap
• 1:11:57
  of things. So we I react to reality rather
• 1:12:01
  than predetermined expectation of how I spend my day.
• 1:12:04
  I try and think of myself as a teacher and I want to spend as
• 1:12:10
  much of the day as possible mentoring whoever within that
• 1:12:13
  day relative to what I'm trying to achieve for a process of
• 1:12:17
  teaching and learning. Rather than ticking a box called
• 1:12:20
  a meeting or a presentation. It's a proper, how do I get this
• 1:12:24
  message across? How do I make it memorable?
• 1:12:26
  How do I get it to lock into them?
• 1:12:28
  So again, going back to what I said earlier, we have an
• 1:12:31
  opportunity in this hour to give you something that forever will
• 1:12:35
  benefit you. How do I make that happen in
• 1:12:37
  this hour rather than we just come in, do something, go out,
• 1:12:40
  then the next, then the next, then the next.
• 1:12:43
  So I take that really seriously because I love it.
• 1:12:45
  I enjoy that. And how do you?
• 1:12:46
  Relax. Family, So spend a lot of time
• 1:12:51
  with the family. We travel a lot together, love
• 1:12:55
  holidays. Things can get stressful.
• 1:12:57
  With business, it's not all golden things.
• 1:12:58
  You're going to have moments where it's hard, yeah, And you
• 1:13:01
  get stressed. I think what you do when you get
• 1:13:03
  stressed so. To unstressed.
• 1:13:05
  Things. Yeah.
• 1:13:06
  So to de stress, I think it's changed over the years.
• 1:13:10
  I think in the first, I don't know, decade, even I, I didn't
• 1:13:17
  find a way of, I just felt stress was inevitable.
• 1:13:22
  And I suck it up. And then I think as time's gone
• 1:13:26
  on, I've realized that it's not healthy to have stress and to
• 1:13:30
  hold that in. And even it's not healthy to
• 1:13:32
  just find something to to do to, to escape from it because the
• 1:13:36
  stress isn't going to disappear. The thing that's happened has
• 1:13:39
  happened. Yeah.
• 1:13:40
  It's. Happened.
• 1:13:40
  It's almost. Like, OK, let's unpack it.
• 1:13:42
  Let's who who do I need to bring in the room?
• 1:13:45
  So what's the object? Who are the people?
• 1:13:48
  Bring them in. Let's unpack again.
• 1:13:50
  Going back to the honesty, that's just what has happened.
• 1:13:53
  Why has it happened? And then how do we work together
• 1:13:56
  as a team to you're? Regaining control, Yeah.
• 1:14:00
  Regaining control. It's a.
• 1:14:01
  Loss of control? Yeah, own it.
• 1:14:02
  Don't let it. Just don't hide.
• 1:14:05
  Don't let it. Control.
• 1:14:06
  You don't let it control. You it almost certainly is
• 1:14:11
  repairable. It's not going to be the end
• 1:14:13
  almost certainly of you, the business, the week, the month or
• 1:14:17
  even the day or perhaps even the hour.
• 1:14:19
  You probably are. You've allowed it to to scare
• 1:14:23
  you. Whereas I think when you own it
• 1:14:26
  and you unpack it and you realize it, you'll be able to
• 1:14:29
  realize in most cases that you just need a process of dealing
• 1:14:34
  with it and you need a group of people that are best to execute
• 1:14:38
  that. And once that's been executed,
• 1:14:41
  or once that decision's been made and that delegation's
• 1:14:43
  happened, move on because it's going to keep happening.
• 1:14:46
  And it's the same in your family life.
• 1:14:47
  But no, I love, I love golf, I love travel, I love spending
• 1:14:53
  time with the family. I'm quite simplistic.
• 1:14:54
  I love TV still. I love reality TV.
• 1:14:58
  Do you watch? Traitors I watch.
• 1:15:00
  Traitors I watch. I've got Paul Gordon coming
• 1:15:03
  here. Yeah, at 2:00 and I did the pre
• 1:15:06
  podcast call with him and I could just see his eyes, you
• 1:15:10
  know, he's it's just, it's such. A genius program Genius.
• 1:15:13
  Program and there are a. Number that come along and
• 1:15:15
  they're so rare, perhaps one every, I'd say 3, three to five
• 1:15:18
  years you'll get something that comes along that it almost
• 1:15:20
  sounds a bit bland when it's presented to you.
• 1:15:23
  Yeah, you think that? Won't be good, yeah, but it
• 1:15:25
  worked. It's.
• 1:15:25
  Amazing. So psychological.
• 1:15:27
  Yeah, very. Psychological if you're in
• 1:15:29
  business. An entrepreneur you're gonna,
• 1:15:31
  yeah, appreciate. It and it's interesting because
• 1:15:33
  obviously as the viewer, you know, you know more than the
• 1:15:36
  participants, which is the same I guess with The Apprentice as
• 1:15:39
  well. But you also see the common
• 1:15:41
  downfalls of people you know. For example, if you come in and
• 1:15:43
  you draw too much attention to yourself and you, you know,
• 1:15:46
  you've got to play things a bit more, you know, Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  It's phased approaches aren't there like for the first couple
• 1:15:51
  of episodes. Just lay low.
• 1:15:52
  It's the same as. Apprentice, don't don't
• 1:15:54
  volunteer to be. I never did, no.
• 1:15:56
  But yeah, it's it's an interesting thing.
• 1:15:58
  Reality TVII you know, from this I take a lot of from you the
• 1:16:03
  knowledge that you've imparted here.
• 1:16:04
  And thank you for your time. No, it's been really trouble.
• 1:16:07
  You're a. Fantastic communicator.
• 1:16:09
  You're a very good salesperson. I think a large of a success
• 1:16:12
  from what I, what I can see of you is that you've got a way of
• 1:16:16
  transferring the company culture that's in your head to others.
• 1:16:21
  You know the whole thing about trust and about breaking things
• 1:16:24
  down into understandable, controllable and common sense
• 1:16:28
  logical things to do and scaling the, the, the, the traffic light
• 1:16:32
  system. You've just worked it out.
• 1:16:34
  You've taken something so seemingly really, and it is
• 1:16:38
  complicated, but you've made it digestible to anyone watching.
• 1:16:42
  You can get it. I think that's your.
• 1:16:43
  Job as a business leader. Business can if you let it.
• 1:16:46
  Business can be ridiculously complicated.
• 1:16:48
  Ridiculously. And you've got.
• 1:16:50
  To realize that to most people, that's not going to make any
• 1:16:53
  sense. If you're trying to create an
• 1:16:56
  understanding of how holistically you're going to
• 1:16:59
  take what you've got and grow it, most people are not going to
• 1:17:02
  understand that language and probably you won't even
• 1:17:04
  understand it yourself. You've got to find a way of
• 1:17:09
  simplifying that story down and getting people on the bus
• 1:17:13
  finitely. You're not going to build this
• 1:17:15
  business. You're going to need people to
• 1:17:17
  back you. You're only going to need a
• 1:17:19
  team. You're going to need finance.
• 1:17:20
  To back, man, you're going. To need a whole heap of people
• 1:17:24
  to believe in you. Your main job is to commit to be
• 1:17:30
  honest with yourself that you believe like you truly believe,
• 1:17:36
  and then to simplify the detail that sits behind why that belief
• 1:17:42
  exists and get everybody to on board.
• 1:17:45
  And effectively they're backing you.
• 1:17:48
  Because if you're wrong, it's unlikely that they've got the
• 1:17:53
  ability to change direction, especially in the early stages
• 1:17:57
  where you just don't have enough experience and data to support
• 1:18:01
  what you feel. You just, you know, you've done
• 1:18:03
  as much research as you can, but reality is until you start, you
• 1:18:06
  know, you don't know anything. But I think that's it.
• 1:18:08
  I think enjoy being a leader, You know, I love building teams,
• 1:18:13
  I love mentoring people. I love learning.
• 1:18:15
  You know, it's a two way St. Be excitable, be quiet.
• 1:18:20
  I still consider myself today to be a bit immature at times.
• 1:18:24
  You know, when we've achieved certain things, I feel like a
• 1:18:27
  six year old and they won't necessarily come in an order of
• 1:18:32
  the size of the prize. There'll be where you know
• 1:18:35
  you've achieved something that people doubted or you doubted
• 1:18:38
  yourself. They were not easy, even though
• 1:18:40
  they may not add the biggest benefit at a point in time, but
• 1:18:44
  you know that through that exercise and that journey,
• 1:18:49
  you're allowing the business to become something that lends
• 1:18:53
  itself to where you want to go. And you know that if you look
• 1:18:58
  behind, everybody's waiting to say we're next, what are we
• 1:19:02
  doing? And they may think you're crazy.
• 1:19:04
  I know a lot of my staff over the years, some of the ideas
• 1:19:06
  I've come up with, they just don't understand why, what,
• 1:19:10
  where and how. But then you look five years
• 1:19:12
  later and it all makes sense. Yeah, there's a.
• 1:19:14
  Fine line between, yeah, insanity and insanity, I'd say.
• 1:19:19
  And a lot of business people would have to be crazy to do the
• 1:19:21
  things that they're doing and to put themselves actually at such
• 1:19:24
  risk. Yeah.
• 1:19:25
  And take these, these loans. Yeah.
• 1:19:27
  And everything you know there is the only scary side, I would
• 1:19:31
  say, of business than anyone watching it is the whole like,
• 1:19:34
  like is your belief in yourself. You can believe in yourself, but
• 1:19:37
  let's hope you're not blindly believing in yourself.
• 1:19:40
  And yeah, some people I. Think get stubborn through maybe
• 1:19:43
  they've either invested time, method or money and they feel
• 1:19:47
  there's no turning back. And I think every one of those
• 1:19:51
  points, you've got to be true to yourself because you're not only
• 1:19:55
  going to let yourself down and you're going to judge yourself
• 1:19:57
  on the outcome, you're going to let other people down.
• 1:19:59
  But just be honest with yourself.
• 1:20:01
  And not everything works. Failure's OK, you know, And
• 1:20:04
  success is great, but it doesn't exist at every corner.
• 1:20:08
  And just because you fail once doesn't mean you can't go on and
• 1:20:11
  achieve. And just because you've achieved
• 1:20:12
  once doesn't mean you're always going to be successful.
• 1:20:15
  Everything's momentarily. The main thing is learn back to
• 1:20:18
  the honesty. Be honest with yourself.
• 1:20:21
  Be honest with the people around you.
• 1:20:23
  And have a way of checking constantly with what you expect
• 1:20:28
  to see. And is that what you're seeing
• 1:20:30
  with with? Reality, because you mustn't
• 1:20:32
  lose touch with reality and that does happen.
• 1:20:34
  You know, I've, I've seen that I've been around business my
• 1:20:37
  whole life from a little kid and watching my dad and his friends
• 1:20:41
  and you know, and my husband and now myself, you know, but it is
• 1:20:45
  slightly. You can't get put off when you
• 1:20:46
  see, you know, the, the negative side of business and then you
• 1:20:49
  think, oh, but the, the highs are so high and they're so
• 1:20:51
  wonderful. So business is a, but it's also
• 1:20:53
  very interesting for me and I know that our view is watching
• 1:20:56
  who want to get into business or even who want to advance in
• 1:20:58
  their role within a a company and they want to do better.
• 1:21:01
  It's, it's always important to hear from others that have had
• 1:21:04
  that success and, and look at that success, Look at how that's
• 1:21:09
  worked and like you're saying, replicate the things that work.
• 1:21:12
  And again the. Traffic light system.
• 1:21:15
  You can apply every element including yourself.
• 1:21:17
  You know, have I? Have I spent my day adding
• 1:21:21
  value? Have I been a green person
• 1:21:22
  today? Have I kind of been there but
• 1:21:25
  not really done much, or have I wasted the day?
• 1:21:28
  Am I going for every day of the week, building up and adding
• 1:21:32
  value to me, myself, my career, and to the business I'm working
• 1:21:35
  for? And one of the other things I'd
• 1:21:38
  say is when when business owners are looking to grow, growth will
• 1:21:43
  almost certainly include evolving structure.
• 1:21:48
  And most of us like to bring on board and elevate the people
• 1:21:54
  we're familiar with working with.
• 1:21:56
  So rather than take on recruitment externally, being
• 1:22:01
  able to mentor people and see them grow internally is much
• 1:22:03
  more satisfying and finding people that stand out
• 1:22:07
  internally, it's quite difficult.
• 1:22:09
  So if you are a person who is, who is achieving, don't be shy.
• 1:22:13
  You know, explain, showcase, you know, maybe ask for time with
• 1:22:19
  your boss in a way that's just about you, not about the
• 1:22:22
  business, not about them. But don't be shy about wanting
• 1:22:25
  to go on wanting to achieve and don't be shy about asking people
• 1:22:30
  to challenge you more. You know, the business can't
• 1:22:33
  help but being structured to a degree.
• 1:22:35
  And if you've got a role within a company, expect certain
• 1:22:37
  things, go and ask for more. Bit like you would at school if
• 1:22:40
  you were academic and have more homework.
• 1:22:42
  I do the same in business. Is there anything else I can
• 1:22:44
  help with that sits outside of what you expected me?
• 1:22:47
  That I can learn something and you'll gain from it that that
• 1:22:51
  that those kind of characteristics.
• 1:22:52
  They are, they're lovely to see an individual.
• 1:22:55
  They don't happen enough, but they're very memorable.
• 1:22:58
  And you bank them. And as you grow, you pull those
• 1:23:01
  people with you as I. Was listening to you talk and
• 1:23:03
  this this is a question just from myself and my own
• 1:23:05
  experience. I spent a very long part of my
• 1:23:08
  career being a really, really good employee, like really good,
• 1:23:13
  you know, I'll stay late and I did what you said.
• 1:23:14
  I would go up. So I've finished my work.
• 1:23:16
  What can I do? Is anything else I can do?
• 1:23:17
  I've done it though, you know, is anything, what can I do?
• 1:23:18
  What can do? And I've, and I've watched
• 1:23:20
  people get fired around me and I've watched Then I thought,
• 1:23:22
  I'm, I'm a really good employee because I will work like I will
• 1:23:25
  just still Kingdom come and I'm going to do everything and to do
• 1:23:28
  that. And, but then to transfer that
• 1:23:31
  mentality from being a really good employee to now being a
• 1:23:35
  business owner and you have to think about, you know, charging
• 1:23:40
  because I was also loyal to the, to the clients and making sure
• 1:23:43
  absolute value. But then to translate it to, but
• 1:23:45
  I now have to make this extra money because I've got this
• 1:23:49
  agency and it's like the mentality.
• 1:23:52
  It's OK managing people. That's fine because you know, as
• 1:23:54
  an employee, you can do that. You can manage teams and all
• 1:23:57
  that kind of thing, but what is that mindset between being a
• 1:24:01
  manager of a, of a business and being an employee?
• 1:24:04
  How does that, how do you see that?
• 1:24:06
  I, well. I.
• 1:24:07
  I think if the business is run well, where I'm talking about
• 1:24:09
  people that are capable, wanting, willing and, and
• 1:24:12
  everybody's different. So when I, when I say we're
• 1:24:15
  looking for these characteristics where, where
• 1:24:20
  business some businesses fail is those people can be perceived as
• 1:24:25
  threats. So it depends on the structure
• 1:24:27
  of the business. If those people are managed by
• 1:24:31
  someone who would like to maybe not let that work ethic
• 1:24:36
  participation known, then move out of the business and go
• 1:24:41
  elsewhere. You need your, you need to work
• 1:24:46
  in an environment where what you do and your attitude to the
• 1:24:49
  business and your work ethic and everything is celebrated, is
• 1:24:53
  acknowledged and opens doors. I don't think every business is
• 1:24:59
  structured to give you that as an opportunity.
• 1:25:02
  So it should be fairly easy to see it shouldn't.
• 1:25:06
  Most businesses don't hide that, you know, but I'd say a good
• 1:25:09
  business, any business is, is going to struggle to find the
• 1:25:15
  majority of the staff having that attribute.
• 1:25:18
  And therefore a good business should see, acknowledge, embrace
• 1:25:25
  and evolve with that person. And that may be an agreement
• 1:25:29
  that there's a moment in time where we're doing something and
• 1:25:31
  we'd like to bring you in then. So it might not be today, might
• 1:25:34
  be in six months or a year, but we can acknowledge, we see it,
• 1:25:38
  acknowledge that we would like that, that way of working to
• 1:25:42
  continue. And we think it's a really good,
• 1:25:45
  a good behaviour pattern. And if we can in the future,
• 1:25:49
  we're going to embrace that and bring you into opportunities
• 1:25:51
  that perhaps sit beyond what you see today.
• 1:25:54
  And then it's like back to the trust.
• 1:25:57
  Do you trust me to have your back?
• 1:25:59
  Yeah. To take you on that journey?
• 1:26:01
  Because I'm just being honest in that at that moment in time.
• 1:26:04
  I'm being honest that I see it, I hear it.
• 1:26:08
  And at the moment I can embrace that.
• 1:26:12
  I will. But today may not be the right
• 1:26:14
  day. So if you don't see that today,
• 1:26:16
  don't get down, keep it up because it definitely will come
• 1:26:19
  and bear fruit. That would be my way of doing
• 1:26:21
  that. But as I say, businesses are
• 1:26:23
  different and management styles are different.
• 1:26:28
  But I think entrepreneurial companies understand the value
• 1:26:33
  in people because they probably started off creating their first
• 1:26:38
  level of success just because there were a small group of them
• 1:26:41
  in A room and working their backsides off giving everything.
• 1:26:45
  And the value is obvious that had we not done that, we
• 1:26:49
  wouldn't have, we wouldn't have existed beyond that moment in
• 1:26:52
  time. Whereas I say if you come into a
• 1:26:54
  business that's been around for a while and you come into a
• 1:26:57
  department and you're on management, it's just a moment
• 1:27:00
  in time within that organization and you're probably not as close
• 1:27:03
  to the individuals within that business.
• 1:27:06
  It's more structured. Where I say even our Business
• 1:27:09
  Today, we speak to it, all the staff all the time.
• 1:27:12
  We're very much still trying to have that family attitude.
• 1:27:15
  It's the way in which we work. And you know, anybody in my my
• 1:27:20
  office here in the UK, my attitude is I'm an open book.
• 1:27:24
  If you want to ask a question, whoever you are, whatever you
• 1:27:27
  do, we actually have like a new starter structure as well where
• 1:27:31
  we bring all the new starters over a period of say three
• 1:27:34
  months, regardless of seniority and department together with the
• 1:27:38
  senior team. Because I think that's where
• 1:27:40
  sometimes there's a fear factor of, well, I can't speak to you
• 1:27:43
  because. And our only job in that one or
• 1:27:47
  two hours sat down having a coffee and saying to me is to
• 1:27:51
  break the barrier down and just to say, look, forget who we are.
• 1:27:54
  Forget what we what we look like on paper, what our badge says.
• 1:27:59
  We're just human. If you feel that there's a
• 1:28:02
  benefit in speaking to us, we really would like you to speak
• 1:28:05
  to us as you go through your career.
• 1:28:07
  We are not behind closed doors, even though you might not see us
• 1:28:10
  constantly because we're in meeting rooms More so, yeah, our
• 1:28:14
  our desire is to help you understand you.
• 1:28:18
  And if there's anything you see that you think is beneficial and
• 1:28:20
  you think I'm the most appropriate person to speak to.
• 1:28:23
  Brilliant. Love to hear it.
• 1:28:26
  So it's just, I mean, it's a different way of working in
• 1:28:30
  business. And I think it's like I said,
• 1:28:33
  it's, it stems from starting from scratch.
• 1:28:36
  They're just natural characteristics when you start
• 1:28:38
  from a blank sheet of paper, like building trust in the
• 1:28:42
  people you work with is like it's it has to happen because
• 1:28:46
  you just don't have a hundred of these people.
• 1:28:48
  And if you can't get the backing agreement, support mechanism of
• 1:28:52
  that small group, we don't have a business like it's gone.
• 1:28:56
  So yeah, those are just lessons you learn, I think that you
• 1:28:58
  carry forward. It's been.
• 1:29:00
  Very educational. That's what I can say for sure.
• 1:29:03
  I've definitely taken, you know, when you say you listen to this
• 1:29:05
  podcast and you take things, there's, there's, I'm, my mind
• 1:29:08
  is full of information and it does make me look at myself as
• 1:29:13
  well in a, in a different way. And, and to think where can I
• 1:29:16
  implement more structure and just to stabilize things and,
• 1:29:21
  and that, that plan for growth as well.
• 1:29:24
  Like what does that look like? So I've definitely been inspired
• 1:29:26
  and I've taken loads and I know that the listeners would have
• 1:29:29
  taken loads and I appreciate your time.
• 1:29:31
  No. It's, it's been fantastic
• 1:29:33
  business is fascinating if anybody's listening and is, is
• 1:29:36
  considering, you know, providing you take the right steps and
• 1:29:39
  understand what you're letting yourself in for.
• 1:29:41
  It's the best thing in the world.
• 1:29:43
  So. And I'm really.
• 1:29:44
  Happy that Mark gave you as a recommendation.
• 1:29:47
  Yeah, no. It's been brilliant.
• 1:29:49
  Who do you think? He's gonna be really, really
• 1:29:51
  good. Yeah, that's been great.
• 1:29:53
  So. Great.
• 1:29:54
  Thank you. Loved it.
• 1:29:55
  Thank you so much. Thanks so much.
• 1:29:57
  Yeah.