Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is George North, professional rugby player and co-founder of Baffle Haus, based in Monmouthshire, Wales.

We’ll be discussing sporting mentality and how it can have a positive effect on business success.

Listen to it in the media player below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Former Rugby Union player and founder of People’s Captain beer, Greg Bateman
• Scientist and The Gut Health Doctor, Megan Rossi, and commercial marketing expert, Jon Walsh – founders of Bio&Me
• Entrepreneur, author, investor and podcaster, Grace Beverley
• Entrepreneur and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins, Ollie Ollerton
• Business owner and former pro footballer, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu
• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today’s guest is George North, rugby player for Ospreys and Wales and co-owner of Baffle Haus café in Monmouthshire.  

George has teamed up with sports stars and small business owners Dion Dublin and Sheli McCoy on Smart Energy GB’s Small Hacks for Small Businesses campaign, to share tips on how the skills they’ve learnt through sport has given them the edge in the business world, by applying a ‘marginal gains mindset’ – a term used in sports psychology that refers to making small changes and improvements that build to significantly boost performance.

We’ll be discussing how a sporting mentality can be a positive influence on business success.

Anna: Hello, George. How are you doing?

George: I am very well, thank you. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, not too bad, not too bad.

George: Ex-cricketer! He’s now a man of leisure. He’s retired.

Anna: It’s the dream, isn’t it?

George: Right. I guess the obvious answer is I am head of security in case anything kicks off! I’m joking. That is not really my role. I’m good for that, though.

For a bit of backstory, we are five guys with very different skills and very different jobs outside of Baffle. I guess my element is more around the commercial side, bringing brands in as well as help organise events. A bit of jack of all trades, master of none.

Between the five of us there, we’ve got boys with very different skillsets, but we do crossover. I would say a lot of my stuff is more commercial: bringing brands in, bringing in manufacturers. In opening those doors, we hopefully providing a better service for Baffle to help to bring people in, with other cocktails as well, I guess. But to summarise, that’s me.

George: Through Baffle Haus, now we are more of an established business. We just started on that handshake and we said we’ll see how it goes, see if there was a market for it. We got very busy very quickly. So very quickly, we had to upgrade our point of sale system (POS), taking the stock, what was selling, how much we were selling. We then got the kitchen, needed a system to get the orders from one space to the other, from the counter to our shipping container, which is a kitchen, which is doing tremendously well. We rely heavily on it, especially with the shop and on stock and what we’re selling there.

Same with rugby, obviously. I use a lot of it in rugby, for analysis and keeping a track on the games I’ve played, how I’d be playing that and how, as a team, we’ve been playing as well. For me, it just helps the whole process be a lot more efficient. That’s something we’ve been looking at now. And we’re in the process of getting a smart meter installed purely to help us be more efficient with our spending. We know exactly what we’re doing, how much energy we’re using. That technology has allowed us as a small business to try and streamline it and be more efficient in everything we do so there is no wastage.

George: Marginal gains theory is massively from a sporting background. I started sport young – I turned professional at 17. Marginal gains, whether it be physically or mentally, it’s about the small adjustments that you make day-to-day to have a really big effect on the process or the outcome. 

For us in rugby, that might be looking at the opposition or changing a tactic for a couple of weeks to implement that, to give a bigger picture in the tournament for, say, Six Nations.

With a business, it’s just understanding what is most important, whether it’s in our plan, whether it’s short-term, medium or long-term plan, how we can implement small changes to have a big effect. Like I said, with our small business it’s about being efficient. So, trying to limit waste from the kitchen, waste from the on the shop and stock, waste from energy with electric and gas and just to try and make the business as smooth and as streamlined as possible so that we can still keep going and provide a service for our very loyal customers.

For us marginal gains is not being afraid to change little things along the way. If it’s not quite working, or we’ve seen something on one bike night, one event that worked well. There’s just taking a bit of initiative and just changing the product for the next time we’d run with it.

I think as well as part of it is understanding as a team that you set your plans in the short term, medium and long term, but that you have to be quite fluid with them as well. You can’t just be stuck in the mud, and you have to adapt to them as well. That for us is, from a business point of view, is why marginal gains works for us. What can we get the next one per cent difference that makes a big difference for us as a business?

George: I think they tie over quite nicely to be honest. I think from my point of view, where I am in my career – I don’t want to say I’m an older statesman now – but you can put the dots together, I’m sure.

I think a big part of it is leadership. Obviously, knowing that we are a small business and how we are in our path, are we staying to our path and hitting our goals? I think teamwork is a huge one. It’s understanding, like I loosely said in a lot of words at the start, is knowing who’s best at roles and best at jobs and be able to dictate to allow those guys, allow our team and our staff to excel in what they’re really good at, and what they can bring to the company and understanding. That’s how the team works. Sometimes someone will be slightly better than you, but as a bigger picture, you have to buy into it.

Communication as well, again, ties in everything, and especially in hospitality where things could change very quickly. So just communicating on a day-to-day – where we are, along with a smart meter. It’s about communicating our energy bills, knowing when we have high peaks, low peaks. Even though we’re very seasonal in our business, we still have to provide a non-negotiable level of energy that’s needed. We have to then try and work out how we get to our bottom line each day, and can indicate that.

We dabbled in that goal setting, I think that’s a huge one for us. We started very much as a handshake over a pint that we’d start this process and see what happens and it’s gone by that now and it’s very exciting. But now as it as it’s turned out to be more professional, is those goals are more and more important and allowing us a real focus, to really go and get them and achieve and still be here, hopefully next year, the year after and to be here for many more years to come.

George: Again, it’s technology. I believe everyone’s got this thing called WhatsApp.

Anna: Love it!

George: I love it and hate it in equal measure. But along with the rest of the guys that I’m involved with, that communication on WhatsApp is huge part of it and understanding how that technology allows us, very much in hospitality where, like I said, things change very quickly. When the weather in the event, or the sun is shining, like it always does in Wales, then we get an influx of customers coming in, and we need to just change people around within the day, move a couple of people off the shop, bring them into the coffee shop area, or the kitchen needs help running food, just those little comms.

On that, technology really allows us to, again, part of the team was just digging together go, ‘Right, slow over the side, let’s move people around’ and keep that product and keep our experience to be the best that can be for the customers for their enjoyment, essentially.

George: Yeah, I’m still playing rugby now and I’ve got other commitments outside of Baffle. It’s getting busier with two young kids, and my wife and two dogs. I’m good at juggling.

I don’t know, I think that’s part of the beauty of the directors and the owners of Baffle is that I think we understand, like you mentioned, that Salts [Andrew Salter] is just one of our team. He’s from a sporting background. Sam, who’s probably our main guy on the ground, keeping everything going day-to-day, he’s from a sporting background, and he understands the pressures and requirements that are put on me. The knowing that when I’m in big campaigns like World Cups, Six Nations, Autumn Series, that I’m more of a distant employee, so I can do things remotely. When I’m not in campaigns, I try and get there as much as I can – maybe once or twice a week if I can – just to get hands-on and a sit down and a sense of how things are running.

But that for me is part of the balance and is leaning on those guys when I’m in my busy periods. Obviously, having that trust and that patience and then to go well, their patience in me I should say, that’s probably the right way, isn’t it? To say, ‘Look, G, you need to focus on your real job. We’ll take care of this for now. And then when you know when the other boys are busy, I’ll go ‘Right, I’m back’ and I’m able to have been more time on my feet on at the shop at Baffle Haus. I can take some of the weight from there.

And where we are at the moment, we’ve got some really exciting things going on. I can do a lot of that remotely. A lot of phone calls, messages and emails. But again, I can do that remotely whilst leaning on the boys at the same time. But the team has a real cool family dynamic to it. So, in terms of how I balance it is they understand what I need, and I understand what they need to get the best out of them.

Anna: As you say that communication must be absolutely vital.

George: Yeah. Like today, I’ve already had three phone calls. One of them was a business phone call regarding Baffle and the other two were, they were just wanted to say hi, and I was like, ‘I’ve got a bit going on today, guys. Can I call you back? Anything going wrong?’ No, no, it’s not just from a chat. And I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s good. But I got I got podcast on I’ve got different things where the kids do drop them off and pick up from school.’ It makes my passion for Baffle and my excitement for it even greater, because it is a great family vibe to it.

George: Yeah. A big part of our thing is how our mantra – I don’t like to use the word mantra – but it’s our tagline, if you may, is ‘Share the Ride’. That’s I guess, how do we want everyone to come, whether it’s you’re a new a new learner rider on a scooter or a pedal bike to a big bike. Women, men, if they’ve got children in sidecars or you’re in a car or you’re a pedal bike, or you want to walk there – because there’s a great little forest around us as well – everyone is welcome and that’s such a big part and I think as soon as you come in and feel the buzz and you know the vibe day-to-day that you get a real understanding of that very quickly.

George: I’m not sure I can say yet, to be honest. We are in the process of looking at options for site two. It’s a bit of carnage at the moment but we think we are in discussions about that which is looking very positive.

For us, we want to we want to really push on from a point that we started last summer, but because the weather was a bit inconsistent, we couldn’t roll it out properly in terms of that Share the Ride line is doing what we call ‘Saturday Socials’. But we’re thinking about bringing them more regularly through the summer months to allow people just to book in and meet at Baffle Haus. An organised ride and back, just to create a bit more buzz and to really push that that’s what we like to do as a family feel.

You do check in purely for numbers so we can keep it small enough that everyone is enjoying it, and a bit more personal. Then we have a good little Riker Bat are trying to push them. And then we’ve got a few exciting days booked for different manufacturers to come down and show some of their new stuff which is wicked. And that’s as cool as well, because it gets people in who wouldn’t get to see new bikes. We get them in to show and for people to have a sit, understand what it looks like. So, we’ve got some big exciting bits coming up. Just keeping busy as per usual.

George: Any tips? Don’t!

Our theory was that it’s something – and I think that’s why it’s been very successful for us – it’s a real passion for all of us. We thought that if we like it, then there must be other people that like it. And from that point of view, we just thought that we have to give it a go, otherwise it would always annoy us. Again, I was very lucky I’m not doing it on my own – I’m doing it with a good group of guys around me.

So, we were able to focus on, like I said, is best roles for best people you know, get to be able to delegate jobs. Sam is incredible at what he does day-to-day, running and managing, Salts – Andrew, sorry – Andrew Salter is content and cameras and building the brand up that way. Ollie and I are just busy where we can around and bringing people in, like I said. Harry is the organised one in terms of paperwork and legals and what have you. So, between us we’ve found our groove and that ability to trust each other.

With us, we did it probably slightly different ways to other businesses. We had a tiny budget, we thought we’d try to see if there was an interest for it. Then Covid hit and like many businesses that completely was rubbish with a capital ‘R’, and allowed us to regroup, sort of refocus. There was a real short window, we were open. It was a real window of excitement. And then when we opened again, then it just got even busier.

We did it a slightly different way. Rather than just getting a big lump of money together, investing all in, we started the opposite way and trying to build it up organically as we’ve gone. Along with every small business feeling the pinch, we’ve had to look at being more efficient with our timings, our pricings, our products, the amount of electric and energy we’re using and allowing us to budget that day-to-day and this time of the year is probably the worst for us. Very seasonal and hospitality is tough, but hospitality when it’s got motorbikes and cars is even tougher. Let’s see when it’s raining on motorbikes.

With the technology in mind, it’s a process we’re going through and we’re having a smart meter installed. It’s something I didn’t realise was an option for us as a business. I have one at home and I knew it was widely available for home use. But for us, it’ll be a big game changer with the business. Like I said, with a very seasonal business. It’s understanding how energy use goes up and down in terms of during the day and I guess that non-negotiable energy that we have to have and allowing us to keep on top of that helping our cash flow and keeping our business going.

But again, with the team we’ve got, the technology, it’s allowing us to hopefully keep us going, but also keep our product and what we’re putting out on the experience took to a great standard that everyone wants to keep coming back, which is hopefully – touch wood – something we’re doing.

Anna: Well, I’m sure that all the groups of friends who meeting around the coffee or a pint, you’ll hopefully that gives them some inspiration of how to get going.

George: Or not!

Anna: Yeah, let’s just chuck the beer mat and leave it.

George: Well, they could just come to Baffle Haus.

Anna: There you go!

George: That would be a way.

Anna: Great stuff. Well, I’ll leave it there. But thanks so much for coming on the podcast, George.

George: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

You can find out more about Baffle at baffleculture.com and for further information on getting a smart meter installed, visit smartenergygb.org. You can also find more tips to boost your business at smallbusiness.co.uk. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on X @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post George North: ‘It’s all about the small adjustments’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Greg Bateman, former Rugby Union player and founder of craft beer brand, People’s Captain.

We’ll be discussing how to collaborate with other brands and how to have a successful trade show.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Or check out the teaser videos below:

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Scientist and The Gut Health Doctor, Megan Rossi, and commercial marketing expert, Jon Walsh – founders of Bio&Me
• Entrepreneur, author, investor and podcaster, Grace Beverley
• Entrepreneur and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins, Ollie Ollerton
• Business owner and former pro footballer, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu
• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Want to read Greg Bateman’s podcast interview instead?

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today’s guest is Greg Bateman, former Rugby Union player and founder of craft beer brand, People’s Captain.

Launched in November 2020, People’s Captain came into being to bring positive mental health to the fore and encourage meaningful conversations over a pint. Beer brewing started as a hobby, but as the process was so healing for Greg – who was struggling with mental health issues at the time – he decided to go ahead and create the business.

We’ll be talking about how to make the most of collaborations with other businesses and tips for a successful tradeshow.

Anna: Hiya, Greg. How are you doing?

Greg: I’m very well, thank you. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. OK, so I’m going to jump straight in here today. It’s so we talked a little bit about the intro, about your career in Rugby Union, and you’ve since moved through to entrepreneurship.

Could you talk to us a bit about moving from being a pro rugby player to becoming a full-time entrepreneur?

Greg: I don’t think I ever had like a ‘Uh, I’m going to stop playing, and then I’m going to go and do this entrepreneur thing.’ I’ve always had experiences and been doing stuff while I’ve been playing anyway, or maybe not always, but I certainly started that journey fairly early.

I wanted to experience lots of different things. When I go into companies now and talk about mental health in the workplace, I really encourage people to try other things and have other identities because that’s what helps build resilience. It’s having other hats that you can put on when times are tough. I think I was well prepared and also spent my time at lots of different companies. Just get lots of different experiences.

Absolutely – and I’m sure all those different experiences helped when you were growing and developing the business.

Greg: Yeah, I think so. I think an important part of that was learning what I didn’t want to do as much as what I did want to do and I would learn about the types of cultures and experiences I liked being around rather than what I didn’t. That’s kind of helped me form a really strong opinion of what great cultures and what great workplaces look like. That’s kind of how I’ve spent my time.

I’ve read before that you’ve said you’ve got to be quite careful about the opportunities you’ve chosen. You’ve collaborated with a few other brands that are aligned with yourselves, such as Tony’s Chocolonely, Jose Coffee, Fourpure. How do you decide which businesses to collaborate with and how does it benefit your business?

Greg: Collaborating is a great way of two companies that have similar audiences but different solutions or different offerings to get in front of each other’s audiences. What we realised pretty quickly is that it’s really, really hard work and really expensive to put your brand in front of the people that you’re targeting. Those audiences probably already exist somewhere and they’re probably looking at similar products and/or similar types of companies.

You think about People’s Captain: we’re a mission or a purpose driven company, right? Tony’s, Jose, Fourpure. We’ve got a collab coming out with Budgy Smuggler in May as well because they’ve got something to say. There’s a business side to it – channel growth and partnerships are definitely a better way of acquiring customers than just out and out paid activity, but also what it does is strengthen relationships and it’s really, really fun. I think we’re sort of talking a little bit in the intro earlier on about learning and I think for me going and talking to advanced companies that are ahead of us has really helped me learn what good looks like and that’s really important.

Anna: Yeah. So, you’ve got a bit of marketing, mentoring – a bit of everything all in one there.

Greg: 100 per cent. I think even now, like for example, we’re a beer company, so we might sell through a wholesaler or we might sell through a big national pub company or whatever it is. I think by approaching things with that kind of, ‘What is there to be learned, what can be done differently?’ and by asking sometimes almost the naive questions, you get permission to challenge the status quo rather than turning up and thinking you’ve got all the answers, which I definitely don’t have. I’m trying to make a real impact on social change and social moments to make that happen through beer.

There are people that know how to run pubs and run wholesalers way better than I do, but they know how to do something I don’t. So, I spend my time trying to work out how I can support what they’re doing to be able to do it. I think that’s a good way of explaining how partnerships are: what are you guys trying to achieve and what are we trying to achieve? Then let’s make the partnership work for both parties.

Even for listeners who are wondering who they can partner with, it’s easy enough to find other businesses in your community – ones that have shared values like you do with the businesses that you’ve collaborated with.

Greg: Yeah, for sure. I think also having pretty strict… not rules, but guidelines, on what works, right? We get approached every now and again to do different stuff or I might go and approach somebody and see if we can do something together and if it’s us doing all of the work, all of the cost, everything – then that’s not a partnership, that’s me paying for some marketing activation. I’ve had to say no to some really big opportunities. It’s because I know that’s not a partnership, that’s just me paying for some work and I’d rather work with people that want to do stuff together, because that’s how you get the most out of it. Otherwise, you might as well pay to be on somebody’s brochure. Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s such good advice. When we’re talking about partnering, especially for a young a drinks company, part of the growth is finding pubs and shops that can stock your drink.

From what I’ve read I see how difficult that is to do. Having to go to the pub with a sampler and trying to follow up with a whole load of emails. How was the experience of that for you?

Greg: Yeah, that’s the easy bit, to be honest, because I don’t think I’ve ever had – and I’m trying to wrack my brains here now – I don’t think I’ve ever done a pitch, a tasting, a sampling. Or had a conversation where someone’s like, ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get what you’re trying to do. Don’t like the liquid.’

Everybody’s keen to get stuck in the hard bit in drinks. Particularly with beer, companies have their own wholesalers and suppliers that they use. You have to sort of win the business, then convince them – the wholesalers – that they should take you on and have you on their shop floor and then go around. You kind of have to sell to people – and the wholesaler has no emotional interest in the transaction, they just want to know that the stock’s going to move through quickly enough.

I think it’s much more about the operations and commercials backing up the great intent. I suppose the other thing I’d say, I’m trying to think as I’m answering your questions. about what’s generic advice that’s outside. I appreciate that not everybody listening is going to be in the beer industry or drinks industry, but I think really trying to have a handle on turning great conversations of intent into action and meaningful business for both parties. Otherwise, we’re all just slapping each other on the bums and saying how good we are.

How would you go about finding that intent and making sure that you’re on the same wavelength?

Greg: I think you try and catch it as early as possible and get as much information as you can up front. What I generally try and do now would be, when we start that conversation with someone, I’ll say, ‘You tell me how we should work with you. What is the blueprint to success? Do I do this bit? Do you do that bit?’ Literally blueprint and go, ‘OK, this is step one. I need to come back to you with this many accounts or I need to have these pubs signed up’ or whatever whatever whatever whatever. Then you’ve got something to go back on because you can say, ‘You told me this. I’ve done this.’ Now I feel like we’re at Step two and that’s the conversation, right? But along the whole journey, I definitely feel like this is a relationship business and making good relationships is a massive key to all of this, for sure.

Anna: Absolutely, absolutely.

In that vein, it kind of helps to know people who know people in the industry when you’re starting out.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, fortunately, beer is quite incestuous and everybody sort of knows everybody. One of the guys who I learned to brew with, he was very senior at one of the national brewers. He sort of knows everybody because he was there for such a long time and has introduced me to people or a friend of a friend of a friend. If you’ve got the right introduction, that massively helps as well. But you only get that by delivering on what you say. I think I’ve probably been quite conscious of that along my journey.

One of my school teachers told me when I was playing rugby and going well when I was younger: ‘Never piss anybody off on the way up because you’ll meet them on the way back down,’ and it’s really true when you’re trying to build a business. You do never know who that person knows. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a direct conversation, but you just have to have really solid integrity and just push forward. And I suppose the other thing I’d say on that is integrity is that I’ve definitely been on the losing side of that in my whole entrepreneurial journey.

I started a property company with somebody and it was a very difficult, acrimonious, finish to that relationship and I ended up buying them out – way over what they were due. But because I’ve never wanted somebody to turn around and say that I’d not delivered what I said – and that’s happened on several occasions with several relationships. But I know, hand on heart, that nobody could ever say that I’ve done them over. Do you know what I mean?

Anna: And when you’re in business and you do have that reputation for always delivering – or even overdelivering – then you know that’s going to actually going to pay off in the longer term.

Greg: Hugely. A great example of that, of delivering, I suppose… I mean, no pun intended, but our first ever trade deal was with a really big pub group and they’re amazing to deal with. We have a strategic partnership with them now. But our very first delivery to them, our truck driver was ill or the doors fell off or the wind was blowing – or whatever the reason was that it couldn’t get there. My business partner was in the truck himself to get the beer there. It was a day late, but he did absolutely everything he could to get the beer there and we still got an absolute earful because deliveries, etcetera, etcetera. It’s never nice to miss a slot. But I know that has brought us a lot of credit because we did what we said we were going to do and, by hook or by crook, we made that happen.

I think you can earn a lot of trust by doing the basics really well. Business isn’t particularly complicated, is it? You’ve got to figure out who’s going to buy your products or service and find a way to get it to them. And I think we can spend a lot of time overcomplicating things. You’ve just got to do what you say you’re going to do. People know you’re reliable, but that’s often why.

Big retailers don’t pick small businesses because they’re often not very reliable. So, you can make a good name for yourself and make a lot of hard yards by just being really reliable. Being good people to do business with goes a long way.

Anna: Absolutely, absolutely.

Sometimes it does involve those direct conversations.

Greg: Yep. I mean, you know, you just can’t be afraid of confrontation. And I say that as somebody probably who’s not… I don’t think I’m particularly good at confrontation, as in, because I’m quite an emotional person. I will take it quite personally because I don’t like to let people down.

Remember what I said earlier about being really transparent and upfront: what’s step one, what’s step two, what’s step three – how are we going to build this together? Then you know what your expectations are from the outset, really. You then know where to go and I feel like once you know what those expectations are, then you know when they’re entitled to be director of you and likewise, when you’re entitled to be direct with them.

A big part of building the business for food and drink is trade shows and getting involved in those. And from your experience, what would be your top tips for listeners who want to get involved in a trade show – maybe their first one?

Greg: Yeah. And I have done a few trade-only as well as consumer and trade shows. I’ve yet to see an out and out trade event that’s been really, really good, and because our customers, for example, are pub groups and that’s who we want. If you go to an event and you don’t have pub groups, but you’ve got lots of people with independent pubs, it’s still great, but you’d rather sell to someone that’s got the buying rights for 2550, 2000 pubs. Then what? Right? Because otherwise you’ve got to do a lot of singles to make up for it.

But I think you’ve got to know the audience and then you’ve got to know how you’re going to stand out from the crowd. So, we’re very lucky that Nathan [a street artist who does the brand’s artwork] is a massive part of our business and the artwork and is very attractive to people, but also our story. How do we tell a story when people come over? We use the art, we use the language and we’re very well… drilled is the wrong word, but we know exactly what we’re saying when we’re saying it. This is how we invite people to make it count. To have a great conversation. We donate to mental health initiatives with the sales of the beer or we can help you and your teams with their mental health needs as part of us doing business with you. Really simple.

I think the other final piece I’d say on trade shows is there are so many people that go to these things as people that are just walking round. They’re actually trying to sell to you and just knowing pretty quickly whether they’re trying to sell to you and what might be of interest. You might need to be very polite, ‘Not here for that today – I’m going to take your details and get back to you next week if it’s of interest.’ I’m here to sell to these guys and that’s knowing that you have the permission to be really direct – polite, but direct – about what you’re there for and what you’re trying to achieve and be very precise about that.

Also on the other side, the consumer side, is that it’s not a business proposal that is like sampling, getting the product in people’s hands, getting them to have a great time, a great experience and interaction with the brand and to come away with an amazing impression of you. I think that’s just knowing, I suppose, what you’re there for is probably the starting point to then make that an awesome show.

As you were saying, the conversation, the way that you would approach people, is completely different. It’s a lot more emotive in the trade show than it is for the wholesaler.

So, of course, that then comes back to knowing which audience you’re addressing and how to adjust. Keep the same core line but adjust it to whoever your audience is.

Greg: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to know what’s going to make them tick, right? For us, like consumers, are so much more conscious nowadays, so we give them a lot of reasons to believe in us as a brand that we’re really the more conscious choice. Retailers are more conscious, but they also want to make some money, and they also want to look after their staff, so we give then those reasons. Then the people in the middle – say, wholesalers – often much more transactional, but having said that, I work with some who are the most amazing people you’ve ever met in your life. I’ve just been there this week and I won’t name them in case it embarrasses them. But it’s way more than just a transactional relationship and the real personal will to help us and for us to help them.

I’ll finish on a question that you do get a lot, but it is a nice question to end on. If there is somebody out there thinking, ‘I want to start a craft beer (or any kind of drinks) business’, what would you tell them?

Greg: I would tell them to be really sure of how they’re going to do it because you’re really thinking about the ‘why’, otherwise it’s not going to be successful anyway. If it’s not got something that’s really going to get somebody to choose from a massive brand or whatever it is, you have to have that anyway. I know that’s probably the answer most people give: ‘What problem are you solving?’ the purpose or whatever. But I kind of feel like that’s hopefully quite obvious from my story and what People’s Captain is trying to do, so I don’t want to give you a really obvious answer.

I think the ‘how’ is probably really important. That’s actually where the value of the business in terms of exits and generating revenue and making sustainable growth is on getting absolutely spot on with the how and being very clear on how you’re going to achieve it.

But then thinking about what I said earlier on about step one, step two, that is definitely step two. The step one is the really important bit. But you know, People’s Captain is from such a personal ‘why’ that is almost so obvious to me, if that makes sense. I think that’s probably my very long-winded answer for it.

Anna: That’s brilliant. Thank you so much and I’ll end it there. Thank you again for coming on the podcast. Greg.

Greg: Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.

You can find out more about People’s Captain at peoplescaptain.co.uk. You can also find more tips on doing a trade show at SmallBusiness.co.uk. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Greg Bateman: ‘If it’s us doing all the work, that’s not a partnership. That’s me paying for some marketing activation’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guests are Dr Megan Rossi (aka The Gut Health Doctor) and Jon Walsh, founders of Bio&Me granola and yoghurts.

We’ll be discussing how to win over buyers and create memorable social media content.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Or watch this teaser video.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Entrepreneur, author, investor and podcaster, Grace Beverley
• Entrepreneur and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins, Ollie Ollerton
• Business owner and former pro footballer, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu
• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Megan Rossi (The Gut Health Doctor) and Jon Walsh podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Our guests for this episode are Dr Megan Rossi and Jon Walsh, founders of gut-friendly food brand, Bio&Me, launched in 2019. Their latest funding round closed £1.6m back in March 2022 and they’ve landed a recent investment from England captain, Harry Kane.

Megan aka The Gut Health Doctor is a dietitian and research associate at King’s College London and a regular on This Morning. She’s released two books and founded the Gut Health Clinic in London.

Jon has had a career spanning over 30 years in the commercial and marketing space, including roles at P&G and John West and a seat on the UK board of Nestle.

We’ll be talking about making memorable social media content.

Anna: Hi, guys, how you doing?

Megan and Jon: Hello! Yeah – really good, thanks.

Smashing. Well, I’ll get straight into it. As mentioned in the intro, you guys are the founders of Bio&Me. What’s the biggest challenge you had in starting the company?

Megan: For me, it’s really designing the products and making sure that every element of it is very much in line with the science. So as a background, I’m a scientist, and I wanted to make sure that all of my research and my beliefs on what’s really going to help people with their gut health is really emulated in this in this product. For me, there was a lot of pressure on getting the product right. It’s not just that, I guess, the science, but I wanted to make sure it tasted delicious. Because, as a dietitian, I know that even if something is really healthy for you, if it doesn’t taste good, people aren’t going to be repeat buyers. For me, it was getting that right formulation of the products.

Jon: Megan is spot on about the product. That was the number one thing to get right. I suppose the other thing that surprised me how it worked, like all those nice big companies you just mentioned in the intro,  when you make a promise to retailers that like 100 per cent customer service, I just really hadn’t realised quite how much goes into making that happen. So many details. They really do matter. I remember at one point, before Covid, there was a shortage of cardboard in the world. I just couldn’t believe that, we’ve got the product, right, we’ve got the branding, right, but somehow, brown cardboard for outers was going to be the problem. There are just so many devils in the detail, you’ve just got to get it right. At age 48 that was a huge learning for me.

Especially for yourself, Jon, what were the challenges in getting Bio&Me on the shelves compared to other products that you’ve worked with before?

Jon: Um, so this is just going to make me sound like I’m flattering my co-founder, but what the big advantage that we had is that we have a USP, a unique positioning. We are the best for gut health, which is what, Megan, by designing the products we were just talking about, does. The retailers are really busy all the buyers. One cereal buyer was telling me that she was getting sent three or four new granolas a week. In order to stand out, you’ve really got to have that unique positioning. That’s what Megan brings to Bio&Me, which is, I think, our greatest strength. The other thought on it, I suppose, is I think there are some people out there who think that you just send one email, you’ve got your USP, everybody will realise it and think it’s fantastic and on you go.

Actually, you’ve just got to be charmingly persistent, you just got to keep going with very good humour, until you find the right moment. In truth, we’re a small start-up, we’re not the most important thing in most retailers’ lives. You’ve got to have a bit of humility and understand where you fit in the grand scheme of things, and then just be ready to grab your moment when it comes.

As we’re speaking in more practical terms, what does that look like? Does it start with an email, maybe a follow-up a week later, building a relationship that way?

Jon: It really depends. I mean, if you can possibly find a warm introduction, so somebody who knows the buyer. If our strategy is quite obvious, you know, Megan has designed the products and knows how to make them best for gut health. I’ve got grey hair, so I worked in food for 20 years or so. So, although I you know, far from it, and you knew all the buyers, I probably only knew one but I might know somebody who knew somebody. So, if you can get a warm introduction, I would definitely recommend that. Emails can work but do prepare to be persistent. I saw one new wine brand who was on LinkedIn talking about the fact that they emailed the same buyer 200 times over a two-year period. That sounds like quite a lot of emails to me. So I think you’ve got to try and find your way to doing it in a way where you’re standing out but in a chillin one of the right way but you’re trying to be the fun part of the buyers job, not a hassle for them.

“One new wine brand emailed the same buyer 200 times over a two-year period”

Jon

Megan: Just to confirm that Jon and I don’t often give each other compliments or we like to flatter each other. Very rare for us. But to add, I think that is certainly one of Jon’s strengths in terms of just really being a people person, and being empathetic, but also being quite charming and how he can get in the inner circle and work with them. So I think that is a definite skill that Jon’s developed. Maybe it’s the ex-Nestle of 10 or so years and all the things you learned there, but you certainly have a way with people, I would say.

Jon: Developed it late in life, maybe.

Megan, you have a real huge social media presence. Talk to me about breaking down scientific concepts, which are potentially quite complicated. You need a lot of time to really digest them – for want of a better word!

How do you make social media posts about a complex subject memorable?

Megan: For me, it’s just thinking about how you would talk to your girlfriends who might not have a science degree. What would grab their interest? What would motivate them to make some key changes in their life to support their gut health? That’s one of the key things. Whenever I’m writing a post, I think, well, how can I grab the attention of my girlfriends? I feel like that is a way that I seem to be able to get some of those key messages, but certainly isn’t something I always get right.

As a scientist, I want to always load the scientific information in there because I find it so exciting. But I need to realise that maybe not everyone appreciates the power and the potential of our gut microbiome, being fed that on a daily basis. Think of new angles to entice people.

When you were launching Bio&Me, I understand that you chose to go straight to market and do your own thing. Talk to us about that and how that came about.

Megan: Do you mean, me working with other companies? It would be potentially that, you know, there were some of the big guys who I thought I had a great opportunity to work together with when they approached me about being the face of their gut health range. But sadly, when it came into understanding what I was able to change in the products, sadly, it was very limited and their products just weren’t in line with the research around what’s good for your gut health. So that’s when I knew I had to go out and do it myself if I was ever going to get into food industry.

Why were they resistant to making those changes?

Megan: It’s a tricky one. I think a lot of it came down to their price challenges. And they were of the belief that the changes that I wanted to make to some of the recipes would have cost them too much in their margin and they wouldn’t have had a financially viable product. It motivated me more to be able to show them that, actually, you can have a product that is absolutely good for the gut and is a profitable business as well.

Now, of course, that’s not something I knew how to do. But I knew that I could find someone who had all those businesses skills, then be able to make sure that it was going to deliver that way. And that’s when I headhunted Jon, he has a different story. But we met in the middle, and we’d work together on another project. I just remember, again, I don’t like to give him any compliments, I’m going to have to pop his head at some stage in this podcast. But, you know, he did have all of those business skills that I knew I needed, and that I didn’t have, to have a viable business. So yeah, I think it really came down to that. And that’s why I am so incredibly proud of everything Bio&Me has achieved, because we’ve done good gut health the right way, but still being able to be a profitable business.

With recent challenges, namely, in the form of the cost of living crisis, how has that affected Bio&Me, if at all?

Jon: If we use the lucky word, we’ve been lucky, so far, in a sense of we’ve been growing very fast. As we’ve grown it, our volumes increase, therefore, we can buy our ingredients at ever cheaper prices, because of the volume discounts we can now get. Megan’s obviously designed the recipes to be the very best for gut health. That does imply that there’s a premium on the ingredients to make sure they’re the right ones. But as we grow, we can obviously buy them cheaper, therefore, so far, we’ve been able to offset inflation.

There’s also a sort of a happy coincidence for us where, when you were talking about product development earlier, you know, we launched in 2019, and then you get lots of feedback from consumers, they tell you what they love, the bits of the flavours they love. They also tell you some things they don’t like. So occasionally, we were getting comments about hardness and taking out the some of the hardness in the product. When we analysed it, that happened to translate to some of the hardest, most expensive ingredients as well, some of the nuts and seeds, etc. We were able to swap those out for softer ingredients, which also helped on the cost, which meant we haven’t had to put a cost increase through at all yet.

Anna: That’s the importance of customer feedback as well.

Jon: Yeah. And this time, we were just very lucky that the where the customers are asking us to go and we’re only talking tiny tweaks. In our fundamental principles of being the best for gut health, we’d never compromise on the taste and flavour side. You mean you listen to your consumers. That’s why, we’re mainly a retail business obviously, we’ve got our lovely partners Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, ASDA, Ocado, etc. But our ecommerce business is wonderful for getting customer feedback. Because they buy from you, they email you. We get lovely emails every day, we get, you know, three, four or five emails from people asking us questions, telling us what they like, occasionally wanting changes. That’s gold dust for us.

Megan: I think that’s also where the social media community comes into play. We’re looking at NPD (new product development). And we’ve got about 20 different products and put it to them. They’re so passionate about it give us really detailed feedback. So it’s brilliant to have that community on side as well.

How are you managing your growth plans without overexpansion and the risks that come with that?

Jon: So I saw a number one focus, by the way, I’m not sure if this is in your question, but is the UK. We quite often get asked about going international right now. We just want to make sure we get absolutely everything right in the UK, on our cereals and on our yoghurts. We’re obviously in two categories, and in truth that is more than enough to be getting on with. If you imagine our ambition is to have our granolas, our pouches and yoghurts in all the supermarkets, and in as many stores as possible in those supermarkets, there’s an awful lot of work for us to do still to do that. We’ve had a great start. We’ve had a great year with a lot of new launches but the truth about a launch with a supermarket is that’s just the start of the hard work, then you got to get a good rate of sale and grow your business with the supermarkets that you’re in so that’s kind of our number one focus. If we get that right next year [2023], I mean, what’s lovely is our business has doubled this year, we just get the distribution we’ve got right. Next year, we’ll double again. That is our absolute number one focus.

Megan: I think to add to that is Jon is very tight with money, which is actually a really beneficial thing.

Jon: Three compliments!

Megan: Is that a compliment? Maybe a backhanded compliment. So I think, again, our growth, the doubling has been done on quite a small marketing budget. We’re very cautious with how we spend the investment that we’ve gotten. And, again, it shows that, if we didn’t throw money at the marketing, like many other companies do, I think our growth could be even more accelerated, but we want to be obviously very savvy, going into some pretty difficult times. Some are quite cautious with that, but still have obviously been achieving pretty good growth.

What kind of areas of marketing do you focus on for the greatest results?

Jon: I used to read a lot about social media. That is a big, big, big focus for us, partly from a brand awareness point of view. But also, that engagement piece that Megan was chatting about is so important, the relationships. You can build up there, then we spend as much money as we can, as close to the point of sale as we can, whether that’s ecommerce on our site or with our retail partners. What we want to do is try and grab people’s attention, when they’re literally in stores or on retailers’ websites, because, you know, we don’t have the millions to do TV advertising campaigns that the big companies like Nestle can do.  We have to find ways to grab people’s attention.

Our best marketing really is our packaging and if we can just add our product and if we can get our packaging and our product into people’s hands, they can read Dr. Megan’s story on the pack, they can try the product and that’s what converts people to us. So yeah, that’s where our real focus is.

Megan: And I just think with the power of social media, the word of mouth, that free marketing, I think, again, that’s how we’ve been able to keep our marketing budget down is kind of utilising the community we’ve already got available to us. They really do believe in the Bio&Me brand and really support it. So, I think that’s helped a lot as well.

I just want to round off with a question for you, Megan. You’re still of course, working in science, but are also an entrepreneur. How has that gone down with the medical community?

Megan: You know, I love that people ask me this. And I think everyone’s responded really positively, I think because I still work as a research fellow at King’s so I haven’t ‘sold out’, so to speak, I’m still ensuring that the products that we are developing are in line with the science. And I think that is something that my colleagues are really proud that I’ve continued to do. If I ever change that, I think I would cop a lot of flack. So I think they’ve been really positive and have loved being able to recommend the product to a lot of their clients in terms of, you know, my nutrition and dietetic colleagues, because they also saw that there was no product out there that, you know, was actually claimed namely good for the gut in terms of the no added sugar, the prebiotic claim that we’ve got and that plant diversity delivering the 15+ plants and each and every product so, they say they’re the experts, they see the product and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is actually really impressive’. And yeah, so I think overall it’s been really positive so far. Knock on wood.

Anna: Well, that’s it for me unless either of you have anything you’d like to add.

Jon: Nope! I quite enjoy these things.

Anna: Yeah, it’s nice to have a chat! Thank you both so much for coming on.

Megan: Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having us.

You can find out more about Bio&Me at bioandme.co.uk and Megan at instagram.com/theguthealthdoctor. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on starting your own business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening. 

The post Megan Rossi and Jon Walsh: ‘Be charmingly persistent with buyers’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Grace Beverley, entrepreneur, author, investor and podcaster.

We discuss productivity and taking part in sales events ethically.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Or watch a couple of teaser videos.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Entrepreneur and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins, Ollie Ollerton
• Business owner and former pro footballer, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu
• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Want to read Grace Beverley’s podcast interview instead?

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. 

Our guest today is Grace Beverley – entrepreneur, author of the Sunday Times bestseller, Working Hard, Hardly Working, and host of a podcast of the same name.

Grace is the founder and CEO of two businesses, TALA and Shreddy. Fitness app Shreddy launched in 2016, followed by her sustainably made activewear brand, TALA, in 2019. In 2020, Grace was named first on the Forbes 30 under 30’s retail and e-commerce list at the age of 23. The entrepreneur landed a £4.2m investment for TALA earlier this year and is also an investor in Wild Deodorant, Clean Kitchen, Drink Nice and Your Heights.

We’ll be talking about productivity and the challenges Grace has come up against in raising funding.

Anna: Hi, Grace, how are you?

Grace: Good, thank you. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all.

So today is the first day of Black Friday. So it’s November 25. It’s a huge day for retail, but also a problematic day for some. If you’re coming at it from an ethical and sustainability standpoint, it can be difficult. On your companies, you have Black Friday pledges.

How can small businesses stay involved in Black Friday and big selling events throughout the year without compromising their ethical and sustainability standards?

Grace: I think there really is no one size fits all approach. Of course, it’s different to every business. And when it comes to sustainability, especially with any area that kind of talks about consumption, obviously, it’s not black and white at all. As much as, for one business, what’s more sustainable might be less so for another business. I think that’s really, really important to bear in mind that, if you’re running a small business, and it’s a really important time of year for you, especially coming up to gifting season and you’re competing against much bigger companies, I think what’s really important is not shaming smaller businesses and more sustainable businesses for getting involved in that.

Now, with that being said, I think it’s very important define the parameters in which you are going to get involved in something like Black Friday. What we do at TALA and Shreddy, we created a Black Friday pledge. So that was essentially saying what we are going to do and what we’re not going to do. That allows the transparency for a consumer to then be able to say, ‘Yes, I am going to buy’ or, ‘No, I’m not going to buy.’

I think when you shame sustainable businesses out of participating in any discounting time, it’s very, very difficult, then, to create a landscape where sustainable business can play any part in changing these industries. When you look at fashion, of course, sustainable fashion is always going to be an oxymoron, it’s always going to be contradictory. But at the same time, in order for the mass market and the mainstream to be better, there needs to be options for companies who produce more ethically and more sustainably, even if that’s not perfect, because sustainable fashion will never be perfect.

I think one of the most important things, and it’ll be different for every business, is to really establish what makes you feel comfortable as a business, what furthers your mission. I think anything that compromises a mission definitely isn’t the right thing to be doing. For example, at TALA our aim is to disrupt the activewear mass market. We want people who usually shop mass market activewear brands to start shopping better, start thinking about sustainability and ethics. We’re completely transparent about the ways that we do and don’t do that in order for people to be able to, I guess, facilitate just the conversation and talking about it and thinking about it a bit more. So, with that in mind, it furthers our mission to be able to offer 10-30 per cent discounts on Black Friday, dependent on the product. That is because we also completely understand that there are gifts to buy and leggings to replace and, in terms of making sustainability accessible, that needs to be a price point. Black Friday will be the only time where certain people can access certain products and therefore we do think that it is really important to create an offering around this time but be really clear about what that is and what that isn’t.

In the same breath, we need to make sure that we are educating on overconsumption. Education on things like panic buying and planning you’re buying, all of those things that can make you have a more sustainable Black Friday. I personally don’t believe that shaming people completely out of engaging in consumption as a whole, like buying gifts, is necessarily going to fix the whole market, I’d rather there be better options within the marketplace.

For those small businesses, I’d say, transparency around the way you engage, but also, small businesses are always going to be far more sustainable than larger businesses. If it’s an important time of year for you engage in it in the way you want to. Just be clear about why you’re doing that and what you are and are not doing.

Could you give us an example of what some of our educational messaging might look like?

Grace: Yeah, sure. I mean, anyone can go to the TALA pages to have a little look at what that might look like. We make sure, at the beginning of any sale period, to put a blog post out that goes into detail about why we what we do participate in and what we don’t participate in, about the risks of overconsumption, about all of these kinds of various different things. And I think that when you’re involved in that industry, it’s really easy to assume that everyone has that background of actually understanding the different industries and that way.

I think that the majority of the time, when I tell some of my friends, for example, the horrors of some of the fast fashion things, they’re kind of like, ‘Oh, my God, what?’ I think when you’re very much in that space, it’s easy to assume that everyone knows that and chooses to ignore that. We try to just make sure that, for example, before the sale goes live, we release something saying, ‘This is everything that’s in the sale’, so that people don’t panic and buy within that moment. We share long-form writing (especially from our sustainability manager) on how to shop better, but also some things you probably didn’t know about Black Friday, etc, etc.

Anything educational, both to help the consumer in their individual shopping experience around Black Friday and around the holiday season. Just general education as a whole on the industry.

You’ve recently raised £4.2m for TALA. Congratulations. There are issues that we already know about for women business owners seeking investment, but possibly also young women, and possibly also somebody who was a former influencer.

What kind of challenges and issues that you experienced when trying to raise funding?

Grace: I would say that women raising capital is definitely the most important part of that to talk about.

When you look at the funding landscape, especially venture capital, but actually all forms of funding, women took 2.8 per cent on the highest year ever of venture capital funding. So that is 97.2 per cent of the entire industry going to male founders. I think that becomes particularly problematic when you think of the fact that everyone’s job is likely to be for a business and that business was going to have to be started from entrepreneurship. Now obviously, all of those weren’t taken funding in some way, but the majority of the big ones were and so that becomes really problematic when you think about it that way. There’s definitely something that I’m completely surprised that it’s never talked about on a like a wider scale. It seems like a niche part of a niche industry. But actually, it’s relevant to the large majority, that’s how all businesses are starting, then how do we get wider gender equality in terms of pay, in terms of every other area of the industry. So, I think that’s really, really important to talk about.

The statistics are stacked completely against women when it comes to funding – that gets far worse when you look at black women. I think the stat for that is 0.024 per cent of funding, which is just the most appalling statistic I think anyone can possibly imagine. The fact that that doesn’t hit the papers every day is completely surprising to me. If you looked in any other industry and 0.024 per cent, was like, ‘That is really, really appalling’.

I also went to Oxford, and we know that founders who went to Oxford or Ivy League are much more likely to get funding. And so there’s, of course, there are elements that would have held me back. I also think that, in part, the influencer way would have helped to kind of spur that forward in terms of being able to guarantee a certain amount of demand, but definitely didn’t make it as easy as certain contingents in terms of being able to kind of get that funding. I think that yeah, as I mentioned, the women getting funding is the most important part of that to talk about.

I was really lucky in our funding round that we raised. TALA was my second business that we were raise funding for, and we raised that 2.5 years post-revenue. We already were able to prove a certain amount of the business model working, and therefore there was less of having to take a ‘risk’. It’s still a risk, of course. Our next stage of growth is reliant on us being able to deliver that and increase that demand far beyond my existing audience.

As you can probably imagine, not having revenue and just betting on an idea, investors are far more likely to choose success stories that they know work, which is more likely to be, as you can expect, usually men in tech. 

Obviously, there are a lot of things that do. We were really lucky to be raising 2.5 years post-revenue. We got six term sheets after six weeks of pitching for about nine hours a day. It was gruelling. But that was obviously incredibly exciting. There were definitely challenges along the way, I have no doubt that we probably walked into some rooms and some people thought, ‘Oh, this seems strange, a female founder and a female managing director. I wonder how on earth they can make money.’ But I’m lucky to be here, very excited about the business delivering on our targets and about to embark on the next stage of TALA.

How have your experiences shaped how you’ve invested in other businesses?

Grace: I mainly invest in businesses that I think I could help in some way. So, that’s usually businesses where I have some experience in the sector, whether that’s a young female demographic customer, whether that’s sustainability, whether that’s fitness, whatever that might be – those are generally the ones I have the most interest in, because I feel like I can help them. That might be their digital marketing strategy, that might be their organic marketing strategy – a lot of these kind of various different things – those are what I generally try to invest in.

But of course, as you’ve mentioned, I do try to invest in women as much as possible. I think that is one of the most important ways for us to be able to start to reallocate those funds. I guess, though, when you look at the gender funding gap, you can probably only imagine the gender wealth gap. he The onus cannot just be placed on women to be funding more women. Of course, it’s part of my strategy. But ultimately, it needs to be a change that happens. People in very different situations from me, and funds to be able to really change that industry.

Anna: Oh, yeah. 100 per cent. A lot of change needs to come from the structure of boards and panels as well.

Grace: Absolutely, and women on investment committees as well within those. I think we saw with industries like beauty through the whole pandemic, you’re shutting down a multibillion-dollar industry for longer than you’re shutting down any other industry purely because actually the people in the decision-making rooms probably don’t value that industry. It seems so superficial. It seems like ‘Well, do you really need to be getting your nails done?’ At the same time, pretty much every other industry was open.

Just looking at the kind of decision-making processes and that probably if you don’t have people in the room who use the services, you’re also going to be missing out on huge opportunities. Because if in that investment committee room there aren’t women there who have problems to be solved by great new businesses, huge opportunities are going to be missed.

Totally, 100 per cent. So, when you were putting together your pitch deck for the TALA raise, you said you ‘disappeared off the face of the earth’.

But of course, organisation is such a huge part of getting through a task like that. Talk to us a bit about your to-do table productivity method.

Grace: So this is my favourite thing, I could probably talk about it for the rest of my life. Essentially, this method is based off the fact that I very easily get overwhelmed. That’s probably because I take on too many things. I have an insatiable appetite for taking opportunities, which is great in some ways, really bad in other ways.

What I essentially realised was, I started doing this at university, I believe. I’d started my first business at this point and then I was also doing my university course alongside and, what has happened, is I’d have a 40-task-long to do list. Every time I was going to a new task I’d be trying to work out which was the next most important task and like, ‘Oh, but I have 15 minutes until my next tutorial, so which one can I do?’ You shouldn’t constantly be trying to find that next task.

What I decided to do instead was just split that to-do list up into tasks, quick ticks and projects. Quick ticks are things that take under five minutes; tasks are the things that take five to 30 minutes; and projects take 30 minutes plus. This enables you to be able to instinctively prioritise, but also time block, because you can probably do a load of quick ticks together or a few tasks together when you have a bit of time.

It essentially just means that everything is a lot easier, both in the moment, and when you’re actually planning out your time. Because, for example, it’s a particularly hectic time. This week, it’s coming to the busiest period in the retail year, which means that there’s a lot on at the same time. We are planning for January, which is a huge area in the fitness space. I’m having all of these approvals coming in that might be approving a marketing campaign for January. But there’s also something really urgent that needs to be done for this week. At the same time I went up to Manchester this week with Meta and have been doing some work with them on their Good Ideas Studio, which means that I was spending time with a few small businesses there, talking to them about their problems, how to resolve those, just getting to know people, getting to network.

All of these different things then come into your schedule. It’s really difficult to be able to block that all out, but also to have full visibility over your tasks. I find methods like that particularly important in terms of being able to actually decipher what you need to do next, how you can be most productive and stop getting yourself so overwhelmed because everything looks the same weighting. Actually, there are three really important tasks and 20 things that you can probably blitz out in half an hour.

Like you mentioned there, you’re a real proponent for time blocking. Asking for a friend – if you’ve got tendencies towards perfectionism, or not running in the allotted time, what tips do you have for getting past these kinds of obstacles?

Grace: So I think what’s really important is to try in part – and I know this is not very useful – but to try in part to see it less as something that you need to absolutely stick to and more like parameters or recommendations throughout your day. However, I would also say on top of that, if you continuously find yourself running through the blocks, you probably don’t know how much time tasks actually take you. I think that that’s something that I definitely struggled with.

One of the first things to do, to actually understand how much time tasks take you, is to start writing it down. Take a one-week or two-week period and just start writing down, say, composing an email. I think that takes me 10 minutes, but it actually takes me 25, or whatever it might be. There are all of these different things that you start to have a bit more understanding. Then you can use that as a manual for how long things will take. What I generally do as well is I add on probably about like a 30 per cent buffer, because I understand that I’m not great at being able to understand that. If I think something’s going to take me half an hour, it’s probably going to take me 40-45 minutes, and I just work that in.

You really do need to be setting yourself up for success rather than failure. Otherwise, it’s going to constantly feel like you’re not doing enough and you’re doing it incorrectly. But I think that’s one of the best things you could do is to start planning and buffers. Same goes if you’re in a job where things often come flying in that need approval within the next hour. Just actually making sure that every two hours, you have a 15-minute block that’s just set aside for urgent tasks. I share my schedule on my Instagram Story every day and what I usually have during that is I have, essentially, allotments for the time that  urgent tasks, when it’s going to come flying in, I’m going to need to be able to deal with them.

As an entrepreneur, and I’m sure a lot of our listeners would agree, they thrive on being busy. How do you keep that in check?

Grace: I’d say I probably don’t keep it [in check]. In fact, I’d say probably that’s the most simple answer. But I really tried to and I try to – every time I get it wildly wrong, I try to really take some learnings out of that in order to be able to make sure I don’t run into that situation again. So, I think there’s a lot of importance of trusting your team and delegating. But then there’s also a lot of importance in starting to give yourself time to recharge and really recognising rest as a form of productivity. I think we see rest is opposite to productivity whereas actually, if you don’t have rest, you can’t have productivity. If you don’t have productivity, you probably can’t have rest, especially if you’re the type of person who has like that entrepreneurial mindset.

So, I think that one of the most important things is there is a temptation to say yes to everything. But obviously, the key is to prioritise things which you feel most passionate about. So, at the moment, for example, this past week, I’ve been doing the Meta Good Ideas Studio, that’s something I’m really passionate about. I’ve really enjoyed meeting the small businesses.

It’s just, I think, it’s really important to prioritise those things that really hit right on your passions, because I feel like you’re going to spend a lot of the time, especially as an entrepreneur, doing things that you don’t want to do. It’s a very natural part of the business. There’s so much admin, there’s so much logistics and you pretty much have to be a jack of all trades. You’re probably only good at about half of those things. I feel like it is really important to, even if something’s extra, those things that are things that you’re really passionate about, like I’ve been doing on that extra project. It’s something that’s been super busy at the moment in the busiest time of the year. But actually, that’s the type of thing I really want to do. It recharges me in a different way, if that makes sense.

Then on top of that, obviously one of the biggest things has been making sure that, over time, and especially over this year, how TALA’s doubled its headcount now, which is fantastic, but it also means lots of new people. In order for that to work, there needs to be a lot of time spent building up people’s confidence, building up systems to make sure that the teams work best with each other.

Allowing that kind of time and space to understand that, actually, pretty much a whole brand team has started within the past three months, and therefore I’m not going to be able to delegate everything at this time. Or I’m going to have to spend a lot more time in work than I probably would the rest of year.

I guess those are the driving factors and the rules I have around busyness. Do the things that you’re really passionate about and make space for those because that is a different type of recharge. Especially if you’re usually in the nitty gritty of the business, and then also get really good at delegating, but understand that it’s not always going to be possible to delegate. Sometimes you just have to factor in that time to spend a little bit more time with people, especially if they’re new.

I think we always have this expectation that we’re going to be able to hit the ground running on everything and it’s just so not the case. So, giving yourself that kind of grace and time in order to be able to adapt, I think that’s incredibly important.

Anna: Well, that’s it from me. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Grace. It’s been great. That’s hard to say!

Grace: Thank you so much. It’s been lovely to chat to you.

You can find out more about Grace at Instagram.com/gracebeverley. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on productivity. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Grace Beverley: ‘The onus can’t be on women to fund other women’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Ollie Ollerton, founder of BreakPoint and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins.

We discuss the goal setting as well as diversity and inclusion in business.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Or watch a couple of teaser videos.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Business owner and former pro footballer, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu
• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Ollie Ollerton podcast transcript

Please note that this podcast contains discussions of suicide.

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Our guest today is Ollie Ollerton – entrepreneur, former Special Forces solider and directing staff on the hit show, SAS: Who Dares Wins.

He joined the Royal Marine Commandos at the age of 18, touring Northern Ireland and Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. After returning home he was recommended for Special Forces Selection. Following the six-month process, Ollie was one of five candidates to pass the selection out of an initial 250 who signed up for the course.

These days, Ollie is the CEO of BreakPoint, a firm giving clients performance tools and insights based on Special Forces expertise along with protein supplement, Battle Ready Fuel and fitness app, Battle Ready 360. He left SAS: Who Dares Wins UK in 2020 and now fronts the Australian version of the programme.

We’re going to be talking goal setting as well as diversity and inclusion in business.

Anna: Hi Ollie, how you doing?

Ollie: I’m doing really well, Anna. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, not bad. Not bad.

I want to jump right in here today and just ask you a bit about your business life. Tell us more about what a typical business day looks like for you.

Ollie: Yeah, typical business day for me. Let’s just go on today. I mean, what time is it now? It’s 9:30 in the morning.

My day starts at five o’clock. Between five o’clock, and I’d say about eight o’clock, there’s only one person involved with that process and that’s me, it’s all about me. It’s focused on me. That really is the time where I invest in myself. I don’t need to go into the too much detail about the routine, but that involves my fitness. So, I’ve been for a 7k run this morning with the dog. I’ve got a sauna, which I go and meditate in for 20 minutes.

Before I do that, I come downstairs, I go through my goals, my main goal, which is what I call a C-type goal, hopefully, we’ll go on to what that means. I write that out and visualise what that feels like, what it looks like, what it feels like, really important. I then have six points of gratitude. That’s my first initial process. As soon as I wake up, together with a hot lemon, of course not just a hot lemon, it’s in water. I don’t chew on a hot lemon.

Now, this is my perfect day – I don’t do it every day. I don’t beat myself up when I can’t do it, or I’ll just give myself a little bit of flexibility on some days. As long as I’ve done that, regardless of how my day goes, I’ve won every day. It’s really important for me to having done that process, especially on a school day.

For me today, it will be then going and working on my business. I mean, I’m known for TV, I’m known for SAS: Who Dares Wins. Not too long before it, because it’s quite a story in itself, that was my sole focus. It was all about BreakPoint, starting my business to help other people through my experience of things that I’ve learned – not just in the Special Forces, but more so, what I learned from when I broke down – my crisis in life. It was my biggest battle, but my greatest discovery. BreakPoint is all about helping people to understand how we can change, how we can be the best version of ourselves.

We’ve got a lot of changes at the moment with our business, we’re starting to build up more online platforms, we’re letting go of more physical assets. So that’s happening at the moment, so we’re really starting to consolidate and to accumulate, if that makes sense.

What you’ve talked about there’s also a lot around the challenges of running a business. You touched on it earlier, that around 2014 you had a period where you couldn’t find your purpose. Tell us about that, and how you went about finding your purpose from there.

Ollie: Yeah, it was. It was an epiphany for me. Because I didn’t even understand that word: purpose. When I joined the military, I didn’t understand what purpose meant – I wasn’t there. I didn’t join the military at 18 years old, going ‘I’ve finally found my purpose,’ and then blah, blah.

I wasn’t, if you want to call it, ‘spiritually connected’ at that stage. Now, 2014 is when I came back to the UK, but 2011-2012 is where I had that real struggle. That for me was where I basically hit my lowest ebb.

Now for me at that point, I’d been thinking that happiness, success, this, that and the other. It an external fix, it’s something out there that’s going to make us happy, make us feel fulfilled. When I hit rock bottom, I was prepared to be responsible for where I was in life. I was prepared to stop blaming my environment, I was prepared to stop blaming other people for where I was, I was prepared to take full responsibility for whom I was, where I was – and to be quite honest and brutal about that.

That was such an amazing thing for me, because that then forced me to look within. But the thing is, the way we’re wired, we’re programmed to think that everything is external.

If we don’t get the grounding of who we are and create that strong foundation of who we are, create that root system that can sustain any storm, then we’re not going to evolve in life. We might make certain kinds of changes and evolve slowly, but when you actually start to look within and understand that’s where the answers are, that’s when you start to make those quantum leaps. That was that was it for me in 2011. I was like, ‘This isn’t what happens.’ Suicide was on my mind – I didn’t attempt suicide, but sometimes I started to think about it all too often. That was a wake-up call for me to say, ‘No, it doesn’t end like this.’ I actually remember hearing that voice: ‘It doesn’t end like this, Ollie.’

That was enough for me to go, ‘Right, I’m doing something about this.’ That for me was what BreakPoint is all about, I was prepared to no longer accept the way I was. I was no longer prepared to accept the patterns of behaviour that were keeping me locked in the repeat habit loop of monotony.

With BreakPoint I was prepared to step into that discomfort, which I knew was short-term, provided I had a destination in mind.

For me, the first part of that was to take away all the negative things that can be easily identifiable negative habits that were holding me back. It’s that simple, isn’t it? Make a list of all the things you’ve got going on in your life or things that you spend your time on a social basis, work basis, relationship basis. Write them all out and then make a list and put a put a tick next to them, if they’re positive or negative.

That was easy for me at that stage in 2014: my relationship was toxic, my relationship with alcohol was toxic. They were the main things that had stopped working – my relationship with finances was toxic too. It was all those things that I had to start working on. That’s easy to make a list of, as long as you’re prepared to identify with yourself, be honest and take responsibility. Responsibility is such a key word that, as long as you’re prepared to be responsible for happiness. I see so many people out there who just are not authentic. I see them lying to themselves on a daily basis and they’re telling lies to themselves, but they, as far as they’re concerned, they’re keeping face to the outside world, they’re pleasing the audience, but they’re lying to themselves.

“In 2014, my relationship was toxic, my relationship with alcohol was toxic, my relationship with finances was toxic”

That, to me, was 2014. That was that change, where we know, it wasn’t an overnight fix. It was something for me where I had to start chipping away at it – tiny, tiny steps. Within six months, I made so much progress, started to get so much clarity that I wanted to share that. That’s when I came up with the concept of BreakPoint.

Now, again, just around that, a lot of people, when it comes to business and stuff, people want to start their own business, they want that independence, they want that control over their lives. Some people are stuck going on, ‘I just don’t know what I do.’ But the thing is, forget what you do, forget the product, forget the service – you’ve got to focus on you. Because once you focus on you and you get yourself grounded, the product or service or thing you want to offer the world will come. You can’t do that from a place where you’re broken.

I mean, it must be the case because you think that being in the military and having a clear mission, and that is your thing to achieve there, I think there are parallels between that and being in business, that you have your business goals. I think this is an ideal time to bring it back in. Talk to me about C-type goals and what that means.

Ollie: Yeah, well, C-goals are so important because look, the way we wired. Well, let me talk first, there’s three types of goals. We call them A-type goals, which are their goals, you can do now A-type goals, that is the language of the ego. The ego wants you to chase A-type goals, because the ego knows there’s probably 100 per cent chance that you’re not going to fail. The ego is not going to be offended when you fail, because it’s scared of failure. The ego is so scared of failure. So, A-type goals is what we’re inclined to chase because we know we can do it. It’s like me saying next week, I’m going to run 100 metres. Now the audience might go, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ I’m sure they wouldn’t actually. But the thing is we’ve done that A-type goal, because we know we’re going to complete it. We’re pleasing the audience, from the outside world looking in, we’re an absolute success. Now, people don’t actually understand that if you’re not challenging yourself, if you’re not pushing yourself, then there’s no growth, maybe the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

So, let’s go on to B-type goals. B-type goals are probably what a lot of people think is that is the correct formula. That is a goal that we know that with a little bit stretch, a bit of planning, we know we can achieve it.

C-type goals are goals that on the face of it are just pure fantasy. The problem is the mind. If it can’t see the path to the goal it negates that it can be done. As soon as you can’t see that path, ‘Oh, no, I can’t do it.’ Your mind is focused on the how, not the why. When you’re focused on the why the how becomes possible, when you’re focused on the how you’re going to look for every obstacle there is, before you and then, especially if you don’t take action quickly, because the universe loves momentum, if you don’t take action quite quickly, your mind will come up with 100 reasons why not to do it. Before it, you’re so focused on why it can’t be done, you’ve actually lost what you’re even setting out to do in the first place.

“C-type goals are goals that on the face of it are just pure fantasy”

C-type goals – let me give you an example there. When I came back in 2014, I locked myself in the house for three months in Cornwall, because I needed to make those changes, I needed to change the blueprint of who I was. My C-type goal was BreakPoint, starting a company, a globally identified brand recognised for the positive growth and development of others. I was still drinking and I was still abusing myself. Can you imagine what my mind was saying? Yeah, you want to start a business helping other people – look at the state of you. How can you help anyone? You can’t even string a sentence together – now you can’t shut me up. But at that stage, my mind was telling me, ‘You’re an idiot.’ We think we’ve got this 1000-person audience round us laughing and critiquing this, but there’s no one there. It’s just your mind.

This is the biggest battle. Once we get over that and say no, that is my C-type goal. I don’t need to know the path. I don’t need to see the footprints. I am the footprints. I’m going to create them once we understand that and just head to that vision of what that looks like and, more importantly, what that feels like because we need to add the emotion. That is the one thing that will pull us through here. That’s exactly how I passed SAS selection. Amazing, isn’t it?

I understand that when you when you wanted to set up BreakPoint, your friends and family were a little concerned about that. How do you overcome it when people who say they have your best interests at heart are limiting in their belief of what you can do?

Ollie: Yeah, we’ve got to be really careful on this because, your family and it’s not always the case. Just because they’re your family doesn’t mean you love each other and get on that. I really understand that.

But really, you listen to them because you love them. They’re trying to help you as best as they can because they don’t want to see you fail. That was really it. For me, it was it was almost like an intervention. It was like I was running out of cash, I was in the house, I just come back from my typical role of being overseas in a war zone earning a fortune and my family would just say no right thing, really. It did make sense to the outside looking in, go back to Iraq, go back on the circuit, do that job earns a load of money behind you in the bank, and then you can start this company called BreakPoint. It does make a lot of sense. First of all, I knew going back to a warzone was so toxic for me. I didn’t actually tell my family what went on overseas. I don’t know, I never really talked about what went on in general in the military. But they didn’t understand what went on and how toxic that was for me.

In a little bit of self-doubt. I came back from there thinking, I was fighting my mind again. Then all of a sudden, I was like, ‘I’ve been doing this in this house for three months.’ I was meditating, goal- setting and doing everything, all this stuff that I never thought of or tried before, because I had nothing else. Then I can remember getting back to the house after that, probably the day after and shouting the top of my voice, ‘Just give me something!’ Give me a corporate client, phone ringing or something, something happening, as nothing was happening.

Honestly, two days after that, I get the phone call from Foxy, one of my best mates. He said, ‘Mate, you want to do a similar thing that you’re looking at with BreakPoint, would you like to do that on TV?’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? That was like, ‘Oh, my God’ people don’t believe in the universe and positive thought and visualisation. I’ve been visualising for all that three months about me and Foxy being on a big stage, influencing so many people. Then all of a sudden, we were given the best platform in the world: the TV.

You were on the UK version of SAS: Who Dares Wins for some time, but you were let go from what I’ve read, because Channel 4 weren’t happy having four white men fronting the show? How has that affected your approach to diversity and inclusion in your businesses, if at all?

Ollie: That was an interesting time for me, because I can remember that phone call coming in. At the end of the day, there were a lot of people being challenged with diversity issues and everything else.

The thing is, as soon as I got that information, I wasn’t prepared to sit there and start blaming diversity, blaming this, blaming that, blaming our ancestors, all this, for slavery, et cetera, et cetera. I just looked at myself straight away. As soon as I heard that message, it was like I got what I wished for.

When I started off in that house that I wanted to create a global brand. The more I stepped into that world of TV, it was taking me further and further away from that. So, for me at that time, when I got that call, we’ve just been given the opportunity for SAS Australia. Now, I was already being taken away from a business for quite extensive periods of time every year with SAS: Who Dares Wins in the UK. To then negotiate a second one, I just started to see my business slip away. So really it wasn’t time for me to leave that. And I’ve been sort of wishing that my soul was saying, ‘This is not where you were aiming to be.’ I didn’t set out to be a celebrity, it’s very much a sideshow for me. But really, for me, it was like I said, as I’m listening to the words on the phone from the exec, and in my head, I’m smiling. I’m going, ‘You got what you wished for.’ It’s a hard pill to swallow, isn’t it? Because I’ve never gone up and said, ‘Here’s my notice, you’re taking me away from a business.’ Because it’s a pay check, it’s comfort, isn’t it?

Now, when it comes back to your question, Anna. I said in The Sun paper, I don’t care what colour, what size, what shape, I don’t care who’s on my team. Everyone should be picked to do the job. As long as they can do the job to the best of their ability and contribute to that team, it doesn’t matter who they are.

I’ve worked with all kinds of different races and, sexes and genre. As long as people can do the job, it doesn’t make any difference. It really doesn’t make any difference. It’s so important that you don’t go the opposite way and say, well, because of that person’s race, we need to have that person in the in the team, that is toxic.

What is the most rewarding part of running your businesses?

Ollie: My service to others. Life changed for me massively when I left the military. All I was thinking about, and one of the main reasons I left the military, was money. I just didn’t understand. I’ve always had expensive taste and back in my military days, I did like to party. I actually thought working was just a just a means to pay for your social life, which was probably the wrong way to look at it. So, when I left, I was just chasing money, money, money, money, money. Money was in the driving seat. I went out to Iraq and I went all over the world to war zones and got paid a fortune.

Looking back, there was no difference. There was absolutely no difference. I got paid a fortune, but I was still had this mindset of lack because money was in the driving seat.

The time that changed me is when I went over to Southeast Asia and was involved in an operation to rescue kids from child prostitution and slavery. I didn’t know the gift that was going to give me. I wasn’t paid for that. I paid to do the operation with my money I earned from Iraq. That was just incredible, because it’s the best investment I’ve ever made with the best return on investment. That’s when I understood the power of helping other people.

In this day and age, I would say the majority of people are more interested in about how many followers they’ve got on Instagram. Even in a close-knit team, people are using each other as a ladder to get to position, we’ve lost the ability to collaborate over compete. When you work for the same organisation, we should be really looking to collaborate. You look at two waves out in the ocean. When they crash together, they cancel out. When you see two waves join, they create one formidable force moving forward, unstoppable. It’s really important that we learn to collaborate. But that really changed everything for me, because all of a sudden money was pushed to the side.

“You look at two waves out in the ocean. When they crash together, they cancel out. When you see two waves join, they create one formidable force moving forward, unstoppable”

My focus then became because that was the DNA that was the heartbeat of BreakPoint, what was created there in Southeast Asia. That was helping other people my life in service of others that then became the passion, the mission, the driving force – the money became a by-product. That changed everything.

To anyone that is in business, I would 100 per cent suggest, yes we have to have our financial goals, but what needs to be in the driving seat is how you’re serving others, because every business is serving someone, how we’re helping other people. I think it’s innate to feel good about helping our fellow man, fellow woman, to evolve in this life, isn’t it?

Anna: I think it’s great to see the focus, especially for smaller businesses, towards having a purpose and giving back to communities these days. That’s really encouraging to see.

Ollie: I think, really, at the end of the day, you’ve got to make sure that that mission statement is your purpose statement, your values. It’s so important, you should never overlook that thinking, ‘I need to earn X, Y, Z to pay for X, Y, Z.’

When I came up with a BreakPoint I kept saying my mission statement. As soon as I have any kind of stress or duress and I mentioned that mission statement to myself, it gives me a sense of purpose, a sense of enthusiasm and a reason for being.

Anna: I can’t follow that, so I think we’ll end there! Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Ollie.

Ollie: Likewise. Thanks very much, Anna.

You can find out more about Ollie at ollieollerton.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on vision and purpose for your business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.    

The post Ollie Ollerton: ‘I locked myself in the house for 3 months to change who I was’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu, professional footballer and founder of The Turmeric Co.

We discuss the challenges of starting a raw liquid food business and taking it to international markets.

Listen to it in the media player below.

You can watch a couple of teaser videos below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Want to read Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu’s podcast interview instead?

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Our guest today is Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu, entrepreneur and professional footballer. He has made over 400 appearances for Reading, Swindon, South End, West Brom, England and Wales, scoring ‘that goal’ against Belgium in Euro 2016.

Before his career took off, Thomas sustained two heavy cruciate ligament injuries. The painkillers he was taking were having adverse effects, so he and his father set out to find a natural remedy and learned of the anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric which he started taking in shot form. He went on to become a professional footballer after being told by doctors that such a career was out of the question.

Thomas decided to take the turmeric shots recipe and turn it into a business. Sales for The Turmeric Co have increased by 600 per cent over the past year and the team has quadrupled.

We’ll be talking about the challenges of setting up the company and expanding into different countries.

Anna: Hi, Thomas, how are you?

Thomas: Hi, Anna. I’m good. Thank you. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all.

As we touched on in the intro, there’s a little bit alluding to how The Turmeric Co came about. Could you tell us a bit more about how the company and how the shots came to be?

Thomas: We launched The Turmeric Co in 2018. Essentially, what we did was we aimed to bring a range of highly functional natural shot blends, which my father had created a decade earlier, to market. We realised that there were a number of consumers purchasing within this shot category of functional shot beverages in the form of liquid foods. The quality on the market wasn’t what it should be, and it wasn’t anywhere near the quality of the product that we were using as a family-made recipe. The blend itself is something which I had used, as mentioned, a decade earlier, to support my own recovery from surgeries I’d had as a teenager.

We realised that if we could bring this to market at scale, we could also impact positively a lot of different people in all different walks of life, to allow them to live a healthy and active lifestyle. So we had to build a bespoke manufacturing facility, in order to scale up our production of these high-quality shots. Then we had to build a logistics infrastructure and a framework within the business sitting under the brand, to allow us to deliver the product direct to consumers in a chilled format throughout the UK.

We successfully achieved that in 2018, launched the business and we built the business and the brands very much as a digitally native vertical brand. So very much around that online customer experience, ensuring that we could educate the customers as well, to take them through the journey of living a healthy and active lifestyle. With that we built a really strong subscription model online. And yeah, we’ve obviously grown year-on-year since launch, we’ve built the business off of three main skews in our range. We’re in a position now where we’re looking to upscale, again, continuing to deliver the product throughout the UK and explore international opportunities of distribution as well.

Going back to where you started, what kind of challenges or difficulties did you have starting and running the business in the early days?

Thomas: So typically, when brands set up, they set up just as that – as a brand, so a sort of brand in the sales channel. But we had to become a beverage manufacturing business as well as a brand. We almost set up two simultaneous business models, which were obviously intertwined, to allow us to deliver the quality of products that we envisaged delivering. And so that was the first challenge in terms of that whole infrastructure – understanding how to manufacture, the accreditations associated with that.

Once we achieved that, which took around two years of research and development to achieve, we then launched the brand. The biggest element and challenge that we faced as a brand was really about differentiating our product with others on the market. Because, sitting on the shelf, it’s very hard to distinguish the differences or the USPs (unique selling points) in what we would see as a really high-quality product in ours, versus a relatively lower-quality product and a less effective product, which maybe contains apple juice, orange juice, water – or it doesn’t have as much of the functional raw ingredients of the turmeric and the ginger roots. It was really just about how we can differentiate that and communicate that to consumers and to the market.

We really did a lot of research, we worked hard in terms of our branding and messaging around the product. The key element for us was building that online store and that online eCommerce platform, which allowed us to really educate consumers and take them on that journey. As we said, we’ve built a really strong network – a really strong community – all focused around healthy and natural living through high-quality nutrition. We were looking to reach as many people as possible with the range and to support people in all different walks of life.

How about expansion as you’re seeing into the future and going internationally? What kind of challenges do you envisage there?

Thomas: So again, because the product is fresh, it’s raw, it has to be chilled. We have to deliver a chilled distribution chain wherever we go. Whether that’s the last mile to consumers, we had to build the boxing and the packaging in a way where the product was insulated and chilled. The biggest challenge that we obviously face is around how we maintain that chilled distribution chain throughout the product lifecycle. And yeah, it’s an additional element.

Again, it’s when you look at sort of products on the market, there’s a lot of ambient shot products, and that’s achieved through pasteurisation. But if you pasteurise a product, particularly a natural product, you’re compromising up to 90 per cent of the nutritional value of the product. Elements such as that are really important where we could be ambient, and we could have a shelf life of over a year on the product. But actually, the purpose and the benefit of the product would be severely compromised. We decided not to go down that route. It wasn’t just about mainstream distribution. It’s about delivering a high-quality shot format to people in a convenient fashion and that’s what we’ve achieved. But now, as you said, scaling that beyond, particularly looking at international markets, the challenge is obviously maintaining that quality and that level of distribution throughout.

Yeah, absolutely. In terms of the shot form, I’ve seen a little bit of pushback from consumers saying that they would like something, say, in a bigger bottle, perhaps with less plastic or something longer life. What would you say in response to them?

Thomas: Yeah, so again, it’s all about the quality of the product that we deliver. And so we cannot use glass bottles, because we don’t pasteurise our product. So we couldn’t move to glass bottles. But as I said we would be compromising the products effectiveness by up to 90 per cent. So what we’ve done as a brand, and as a business, is we’ve embedded sustainability initiatives at our core. So as an example, all of our bottles are made from 25 per cent biodegradable and 75 per cent recycled plastic. We also have just launched a recycling returns initiative, which allows customers to return their plastic bottles, as well as the boxing and insulation directly to us free of charge.

Where we’ve obviously got a subscription model, the way that that works is on the customer’s next delivery, all they have to do is hand back the box with the bottles and the packaging, to the courier and it will be couriered back to us. And what we’re working on doing now is bringing those used bottles back into our supply chain. We’re looking at a deep sterilisation, a deep cleaning process where we can then reuse those bottles. And what that’s allowing us to do is and negate that level of single-use plastic, which obviously is very damaging to the environment, where we’re essentially saying every single one of our bottles can be used multiple times by participating in this recycling returns initiative. It’s something we’re really proud of. As I said, sustainability is at our core. And we’re seeing fantastic feedback from our customers, and more importantly, fantastic participation in the initiative as well.

For our listeners who perhaps are thinking of having a business with a kind of recycling scheme, and what can they expect in terms of costs to set one up?

Thomas: In terms of the recycling scheme, like it’s obviously working collaboratively with the couriers. We worked really hard with all of our couriers to make sure that they’re aligned with our initiatives and with our values to facilitate that sort of level. Now, again, that recycling returns initiative comes at a cost. But that cost is something that we absorb as a business, that we embed into our infrastructure and into our model. But again, it’s not for all businesses, because I think we’re probably one of the only UK-based businesses who really deliver that initiative as a fundamental part of their core. But the impact that it has not only on the environment, but also on the community and the understanding of our brand values is massive because it shows and proves that we’re taking sustainability seriously and we’re really taking forward-thinking steps to facilitate that as well.

Entrepreneurship is quite a common career path for footballers after they retire, why do you think that is?

Thomas: Yeah, I think there are certain challenges which come with entrepreneurship, which are aligned with elite sports. In terms of elite sports, you have to have a high level of competitiveness, that you have to continually deliver and strive towards achieving something. That’s very much similar in terms of entrepreneurship. You’re always going to face adversity challenges, but it’s how you overcome those, how you deal with those and how you can always make the best possible outcome out of that adversity. There are definitely a lot of synergies in that. Also, there’s lots of risks involved in businesses, particularly when you’re trying to deliver such a niche product into a new growing category.

But the rewards certainly are there. The rewards for us [The Turmeric Co] are receiving today over 10,000 positive customer reviews on our range. We’ve positively impacted 10,000 people enough for them to go and write a testimonial and tell us about their own experience. That’s the reward – positively impacting people’s lives. Particularly in this day and age, when there’s so much spoken around health, nutrition and wellness. It’s really an important topic, and you see it in terms of the HFSS regulation, the high fat sugar and salt regulation coming into play now, which, again, I’m very actively outspoken about, because the impact that snack foods, fast food, junk food, highly-processed foods are having on our society, but more importantly, having on future generations is now more prevalent than ever.

An example of that is that since lockdown has finished, one in four children are leaving primary school obese and that that is fundamentally due to nutrition and to the food choices that families and kids are making. Clearly this needs to be changed, there needs to be steps towards positive, healthy lifestyles. And for us at The Turmeric Co, we’re massively passionate about that, and a driver towards that change.

Yeah, I’ve read on your website that you’re passionate about educating the future generation. So how would you guys personally go about doing that?

Thomas: Yeah, so an example of that is that a number of our partnerships with elite sports across different sports sectors. We’ve partnered with over 20 professional sports teams, to build awareness through our partnerships with them on healthy living, healthy, nutritious options and, obviously, the power and the effectiveness of raw functional ingredients, such as fat, such as ingredients found in our range. And building awareness through those partnerships, as opposed to the high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt brands who have a monopoly. You take, for example, McDonald’s, Coca Cola, all of these are highly processed, high-in-fat, high-in-sugar foods, which are ultimately damaging health of society. Their snack foods, and everyone’s allowed a snack – I love snacks as well – but it’s not a staple part of my diet. The issue is that because they’ve had the monopoly for such a period of time, in terms of marketing, advertising and basically being able to control the attention of the masses, through various campaigns, TV campaigns, out-of-home campaigns, partnering with sports organisations. An example of that is in the World Cup. The World Cup final – over a billion people watch that – and the main sponsor of that is Coca Cola. It’s like, of course, when that’s the case, the young kids are going to be more predisposed to wanting these snacks as staple parts of their diets and their nutrition. So as I said, we’re fundamental drivers in making that change, and building awareness to consumers in all different walks of life to have healthy, nutritious options.

I understand that The Turmeric Co isn’t your first foray into business. You had a business previously with your brother called Sports Ledger. Could you walk us through a journey of that business and the lessons that you took into The Turmeric Co.?

Thomas: Yeah, so again, I’ve very much been involved in entrepreneurship throughout my life. I’ve been involved in a number of different businesses, in various different sectors. Sports Ledger was very much around digitising data – sports data – using blockchain technology.

I would say that, in terms of the market, that was very niche, and very early on in terms of that technology, and that technology is very much still developing, but it was a fantastic experience and lots of great learnings in terms of building a team and building the data behind it. And for now, what we’re doing at The Turmeric Co very much is around data and understanding our consumers wants and needs, through their purchasing patterns and to their interactions with the brand. You can really leverage data to offer a really heightened customer experience and tailored customer journeys to really educate them on the path and for us now, obviously, through nutrition and through our range, we can tangibly see that. Yeah, it’s really, really good and great experiences for sure.

Blockchain is pretty popular among footballers. Do you think that it is shaping business and will continue to shape small businesses into the future?

Thomas: Yeah, I think it’s still very early in terms of sort of blockchain technology, it’s a developing space, similar to what the internet was, back in the early 90s, in terms of digitising data, digitising exchange of information. And all blockchain technology is doing is digitising currency. So, being able to exchange currency exchange value across the internet, in a secure manner. But in terms of the development of that technology, it’s still very much early days, there’s obviously a lot of hype around it, particularly things such as NFTs now, there’s a massive furore around it. But it’s more about the fundamentals, and the fundamentals are very early still. There’s a lot of development required in the space. If it continues to develop over time, then then certainly it’s going to be technology which will be adopted by the masses.

Do you think the Metaverse, for example, will accelerate that?

Thomas: Yeah, again, it’s all innovation and technology, and it’s there now. It’s simply around adoption. It just depends – the barriers for entry as they begin to be broken down; the barriers of education as they begin to get broken down, more and more people will be accustomed to it and adopt it. So, yeah, it’s certainly an interesting space, one which I’ve been involved in from very, very early on and have been fortunate enough to have done that. So, yeah, it’s nice to see that that area developing as we speak.

What kind of resources would you recommend for small business owners who are interested in blockchain and how it’s developing and how maybe they can apply it within the business?

Thomas: Yeah, as I said, I think the infrastructure is still in development, so I wouldn’t say there’s particularly significant use cases now. But given that the internet as it is, there’s a lot of infrastructure, whether it’s payment gateways, things such as PayPal, Stripe, etc. That infrastructure is very good currently. There’s not a massive need to move over in terms of moving to a digitised currency in the space at this moment in time. But, yeah, I think, as I said, there’s a lot of development required within the space. I know there’s a lot of work ongoing, but I think that that will ultimately just take time, but yeah, standard methods of transacting in this day and age are more than sufficient.

What we’ve done with our own online store, we’ve built a very robust infrastructure in terms of utilising platforms such as Shopify Plus, utilising platforms such as Yocto (an open-source, build your own Linux programme) to drive referrals, drive loyalty points, and obviously, driving into SMS and email marketing as well. So, those infrastructures are all in place and can be utilised and I think that certainly should be the first point of call for any entrepreneur looking to enter into the eCommerce landscape.

Okay, actually, something’s just jumped to my head. Yeah, The Turmeric Co does turmeric tokens as well. Was the thinking behind it some sort of an alternative trade? So rather than money, people can read blogs or leave a video review. What was the thinking there?

Thomas: Yeah, so it’s just a way to reward customers and we use Yocto a lot in rewards for that. It’s basically a loyalty mechanism for customers who are engaged with us. So, as they make purchases, they are rewarded with tokens, tournament tokens, and then those tokens are then redeemable in store. So, for our loyal customers, they’re continually getting rewarded for purchasing with us and will receive things like different discount rewards, merchandise, so it’s a really unique way to build community and advocacy through those most loyal customers.

Anna: Alright. Well, I think that’s it for me. Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Thomas. It’s been great.

Thomas: Excellent. Thank you so much. Absolute pleasure.

You can find out more about The Turmeric Co at theturmeric.co. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more articles on starting a business. Remember to like on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

The post Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu: ‘We did two years of R&D before launching the brand’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome back to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk.

Today we have a special episode, brought to you by Microsoft. Guests Nico Charritton, senior product marketing manager at Microsoft and Tiffany St James, founder of Curate 42 and Transmute consultancies, discuss hybrid working and the tech tools that can make it happen.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Or you can watch a couple of video teasers below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Founders of My Supper Hero, Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber
• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Microsoft podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have a special episode, brought to you by Microsoft. I’m joined by Nico Charritton, senior product marketing manager at Microsoft and Tiffany St James, founder of Curate 42 and Transmute consultancies, to discuss hybrid working and the tech tools that can make it happen.

Anna: Hello, both how are you doing?

Nico and Tiffany: Very good. Very well, thank you – and yourself?

Anna: Yeah, yeah, very well. Very excited about this podcast!

So, before we jump into questions, tell me a little bit about yourselves. Nico, would you like to start?

Nico: Yeah, sure. I’m Nico. I’ve been with Microsoft for about 11 years now. I lead our go-to marketing strategy for the modern work and security solutions in the small business space from a Microsoft perspective. So, everything around Teams, Windows 365, Office 365, and all of those beautiful things that we know and love very much – that lands with me.

Great stuff. How about you, Tiffany?

Tiffany: Thank you so much. I’m Tiffany St. James and I’m a digital strategist by trade at Curate 42. We help large businesses and complex businesses with deeper digital engagement. So, really helping to understand new technologies and how that can help people connect with their audiences.

Fantastic. And with that in mind, we’ve seen so much change in the past couple of years. So how has hybrid working changed the game for small businesses? Let’s start with you, Tiffany.

Tiffany: Yes, certainly. So, I think business owners more than anything, and particularly small business owners, have to be more adept, really. I mean, small businesses who are perhaps, you know, more flexible, having a smaller remit of people. But really, you’ve got to understand technology, be able to set your own meetings, be able to interact and engage, be able to collaborate, be able to understand new tools and how they can help you to be able to communicate with your customers and your peers. That has accelerated so much in the last few years. There are some of the top lines if that helps.

Over to you, Nico.

Nico: One of the key things that we see in the market is how businesses are pivoting to understand the employee experience, right? Because if you go back in time, the shift to remote work was very messy. There was a very steep learning curve, steep on adapting to managing new tools and stuff like that. Then working from home was very diverse for different people. Think about the flat that has a bunch of housemates all dialling into calls at the same time gets very loud or people home-schooling the kids. It was very, very challenging.

We’ve seen an increase of 250 per cent in meetings. There were no breaks between meetings. So, there is a lot of fatigue. It took a toll on, I would say, physical and mental wellbeing. This is something that as we open back up, we see the paradox of ‘I want to keep the flexibility that I gained through the pandemic, but I want to have more in-contact collaboration with my colleagues’, which is real paradox. And we’re trying to figure out, well, ‘How do we do this?’ What we see now is that people are rethinking the, ‘Where do I work? And how do I work?’ They have a new ‘worth it’ equation, right? It’s something that they are thinking about whether I need to stay or not in this company to fulfil my dreams, even. In fact, 41 per cent of UK employees are thinking about changing their employers soon. It’s something that is very tangible. We see it in the market: there is a great reshuffle there and the war for talent is heating up.

Tiffany: I’m just responding to that really, Nico. One of the things that that we’re noticing as well, certainly in that, waking up to ‘who am I and what do I want to do it for’, organisations looking at how different parts of their teams in demographics are responding to the hybrid challenge. So you have, perhaps, older, more established employees who are actually very well self-directed, but actually, perhaps a little bit more resistant to come into the office, unless it’s in professional services, your accountancy and your lawyers are all brilliantly back in the office, but actually, then you have a younger audience that perhaps are really keen to come into the office, because that’s part of the social life that they have, and actually learning on-site and perhaps aren’t as well directed at home. So, there’s just another nuance and flavour that we know organisations are dealing with.

Nico: Absolutely. One of the things that we usually talk to business owners about is rethinking the business and approaching three angles, I would say, on the people side is prioritising on these wellbeing efforts, being at the centre of the hybrid strategy, providing the flexibility for people to choose when to work, how to work and from where, of course, with the ground rules based on the type of business that they have. Then the leaders having that role as a model of those behaviours that they need to bring if they want to create a culture of hybrid work.

The second would be about the places on thinking about the human interaction being so critical still for having great culture and then how they have responsibility to create this combination of physical and virtual, but rethinking the role of the office space place, right? There is no reason to go to the office, like you need to make it worthwhile. ‘Why would I waste time commuting, there is nothing for me’, right? There is no one-size-fits-all, going back to what we were talking about, being the person who might want to go to the office to find peace and quiet from the housemates or the person who might stay at home to find peace and quiet because they have a great setup of a home office.

Finally, the processes – how do you use tools as an enabler? The tools are not going to create the culture. That’s very clear, right? It’s culture-first with tools as an enabler. Then defining those policies and procedures for asynchronous communication and collaboration, not only synchronous. It’s interesting, because there is a perception of ‘If I’m not in a meeting, I’m not working.’ It’s very tricky, right? Flexibility doesn’t have to be equal to ‘always on’ working. We need to create that clarity with employees. This is very clear.

Finally, on security, right, you need to make sure that you have a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity, because it’s getting tougher.

All vital points – and I totally agree with you about hybrid technology being an enabler. And you yourself, Tiffany, what kind of collaboration software do you use to meet these things that Nico has laid out?

Tiffany: Yeah, really interesting to hear your points, Nico. So, essentially, one of the things that I do help organisations and clients deliver is help them with more agile working. So perhaps in a pre-hybrid world, if you like, then you had people working perhaps in silos, even in small businesses. The marketing team might stick together, and the design team might stick together and sequentially pass projects to each other.

Whereas actually, what we’ve seen during hybrid working is being able to help them work in more the method, I guess, in a more agile way that was developed for software development sprints, if you like. A stand-up morning meeting, which is very easily enabled by great technology to be able to pull everyone together for a quick 20-minute morning meeting is actually probably easier to do digitally. Whether there are people in the room and outside of the room in a hybrid way than it would be together everyone if they were all in-person and on the premises in one place. So certainly using collaborative software, to be able to really change the way in which organisations work in a more agile and collaborative fashion. And, of course, baked into great tools, is collaboration software, such as whiteboarding – being able to click meeting notes in situ, and being able, when someone’s speaking, to be able to comment on that, or to be able to understand how what you’re saying is landing in real time that people wouldn’t perhaps interrupt you in an in-person meeting, but can easily chat within the tools themselves.

So, we’re looking at collaborative documentation and co-creating things together whereby you might actually do something collaboratively, asynchronously as Nico was saying, in different times, and then come together to be able to discuss that. That’s the way in which I’m using these technologies to be able to help people work more productively, I guess.

Anna: Yeah, and there are solutions that can work for different types of employees. Employees that are typically a bit quieter, might find it easier to speak up in a written format, rather than in-person where they might feel a little bit drowned out.

One of the bigger issues that we’ve seen recently, and especially in the past couple of months, there’s been a steep rise in costs. So Nico, how has that affected small business’ ability to access this kind of collaboration tech? And how can they access it in a cost-efficient kind of way?

Nico: Yeah, this is one of the main concerns that small businesses have today – and they come to Microsoft for that very reason. In fact, one of the things that we see that when people moved, or businesses moved from the all in-person to all-remote, they went to any type of technology they could find to make it work and survive. And that was something that was very inspiring to see, I would say at the time.

Then very quickly, business leaders realise that, oh, there’s a lot of benefits from this digitisation. We’ve seen retail shops doing kerbside pickup with click and collect orders. We’ve seen fitness trainers doing streaming of their classes, we’ve seen therapists doing video conferencing with their patients, we’ve even seen dentists taking check-ups and screening online, which is fantastic.

However, very quickly, the cost can start to add up. Going back to what Tiffany was saying, if you think about it, you have document collaboration, you have file storage in the cloud, you have chat and video collaboration, you have forms and surveys for your customers, you have process automation, you have cybersecurity, everything adds up. Then you end up paying like £60 per user per month. It’s just not sustainable for many businesses.

This is where they come to Microsoft because we do have that hero product in Microsoft 365 Business Premium, tailored for small and medium business at just £16.60 per month. Very quickly, you save all of that cost. You can operate and have all of that to have a gold standard of technology that supports that growth that you want and keeps you with that edge and the benefits of the cloud, or even you don’t drag behind if you adopt technology, right? Because that’s another thing – competitive advantage – using technology as a competitive advantage of not falling behind. This is key for business.

Absolutely. But I suppose however great the hybrid working technology is, there’s always going to be some kind of issues there like lag or things that can’t really be helped. Tiffany, you collaborate with other clients and entrepreneurs? What challenges do you face in making these interactions?

Tiffany: Well, absolutely, I mean, I’m a good believer, of course, that there’s great many benefits in reach and time savings with virtual and hybrid working as opposed to in-person. But of course, there are challenges. And one of the things that that I spot quite often is that clients and people that I’m working with and collaborating with have different stages of digital maturity, you know, some are more experienced than others. Therefore, you want to ensure that when you’re working within a collaborative environment, that everyone feels that they have the tools and can use the tools in the right way to be able to do that meeting, that job, that virtual conference, whatever it might be, you don’t want anyone to feel silly. Not everyone likes to be able to ask those open questions when they’re perhaps with people they don’t know. It’s really identifying that.

One of the things that that you can do to help with that, of course, is onboarding. So making sure that everyone’s aware of the tools that they have in their hands, and not dumping them straight into a live event or a live conference, but bringing them into a perhaps a safe area and getting them used to it, assuming that no one has used it at all before, perhaps, and reminding people at the start of either a meeting or an event of the facilities that we’ll be using. So that it’s actually setting that good ground, I think, before you meet or use a piece of technology. That’s setting out, I guess, the rules of engagement: how we’re going to use this, how we’re going to work together today and making that really clear for everyone.

Of course, it’s very difficult sometimes to see nonverbal cues, or they’re more limited perhaps in virtual or hybrid ways of being able to understand, perhaps, body language or looking at the things that aren’t perhaps said. We know, of course, aside from the things that you said, I know that people suffer from digital fatigue, because they’re online so much more of their day than they were before.

Absolutely, yeah. I know if I joined a company, and I had to do a presentation straight away, I would retreat, 100 per cent! There was a lot in there about culture and how different companies handle themselves and respecting employees’ needs. But for the more technical side of, say, video conferencing – Nico, how can small businesses mitigate these challenges?

Nico: I think one of the things that we’ve done over the past few years is iterate on product development. Because we realise that the products that we had when we entered the pandemic, were potentially not ideal for what we needed during or after the pandemic, right? So, a lot of iteration in terms of adding the ability to raise your hand or going to break rooms and stuff like that was really enriching. As Tiffany said, that digital fatigue was a critical problem we needed to address and a couple of little things that we added into the products were the ability to set up by default meeting a bit shorter. So, if you usually set an hour, it will cut 15 minutes in the end, or if it is a 30-minute, you can cut five. Also, during the meeting, you get a five-minute warning when you’re about to close. So, you wrap up and you give people time, right? We’ve seen studies looking at the brain’s activity on how five-minute breaks in between meetings can really help you with your cognitive activity to reset. So that is really good.

Going back to the nonverbal cues. This is something that, for me, is really important. I love presenting and one of the things that I found very hard remotely is how do I bring myself and my gestures, my hands, into the presentation? We added things like Cameo into PowerPoint in Teams. So, you can embed yourself as part of the content. So you are at the front and you’re pointing to the slides and you feel like a news presenter and that brings like breaks through that or even if we look more into the future, mesh into Microsoft Teams is our Metaverse immersive reality where you can use an avatar instead of your camera. So, if you cannot turn on your video, your avatar can move and do the gestures that you cannot do. Because we’re in an awkward space. Those types of little things will help us as we embrace them more and more. Then how do we break the differences between being in the room and being remote? So, if you think about it, if you’re in the room, you might miss that chat or the reaction that you had when we were remote. So, coming in with your phone as a companion and having that through the Teams mobile app. Very easy to access from that. Or how do you get a better understanding of who’s talking or the transcription if you’re remote? So, we have now intelligent cameras that capture who’s talking and you have speaker recognition, those type of things really, really help.

Finally, going back to the way you work, and measuring it, is like fitness. If you measure you can improve. So we have Viva Insights, a module within Teams that helps you understand your patterns of work, how many extra hours you’re working, how much time or focus time you have for yourself, and it gives you practical tips to follow up on things that you committed to, block yourself some focused time to connect with your managers or your direct reports, if you haven’t connected for a while, all of those things and as a leader they can give you practical insights into how the organisation is working. So, you can proactively reach out to them with that coaching to help them cope or prevent burnout.

There’s so much in there, how it can enable employees to kind of manage the wrong workload, but to also let leaders oversee, which is fantastic. A big part of what you were talking about there, I suppose, was the future-proofing and the ongoing developing tech, but there are also vulnerabilities in that tech.

I’d like to move on and talk a bit about cybersecurity, if you wouldn’t mind. It’s a concern for a lot of small and micro business owners. So how can how can they improve their cybersecurity in a cost-effective way, Nico?

Nico: Yeah, this is a top of mind for most small and medium sized businesses. In fact, 65 per cent of SMBs have been suffering attacks in the last year in the UK. And we’ve seen a 300 per cent increase in cyberattacks. So, when you think about all of these, it can be a bit scary. So, we need to make sure that we help small businesses protect and focus on what they want to focus on if their business and in addition to the multi-factor authentication and to the phishing and ransomware protection that we had in email, we’ve now introduced Microsoft Defender for Business. It is an enterprise-grade device protection for PCs, iOS, Android devices, etc. This is different to the traditional thinking of the anti-virus which is what most business owners have, and they think as protection on cybersecurity.

But I usually think of the antivirus being similar to installing a door in your house. It’s a must-have, it’s a very basic thing and without it, it would be a problem and it’s very obvious. But that is not enough now because if you think about it, even without a key, you could unlock that door. Think about the last time you called the locksmith. Having Microsoft Defender for Business is like having a reinforced door with multiple locks and giving the specific key to only individuals that need access to it. And then you have also a building manager going around your house checking for those doors and windows in case there is broken glass and replacing those. Then you have a CCTV monitoring system that is checking everything that is happening, and you have security staff on call that as soon as the alert happens, they come take the burglar out and bring it to the authorities. This is what we have with Microsoft Defender for Business is moving from prevention-only to prevention, detection and automatic remediation. So, businesses now can be like, ‘No, it’s safe’ and mitigating most of those things that happen and we know of because we have all the signals around the world.

And this is in a very cost-effective way because it is already included in the product that I mentioned before, Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Or if you don’t have that, and you want to purchase separately, it will only cost £2.30 per user per month. So, it is a really affordable option to having everything that they would have with multiple solutions from other vendors.

Yeah – and Tiffany, how does this relate to your experience of managing cybersecurity and the sort of tools that you use?

Tiffany: Absolutely. Nico, I love your analogy that you mentioned, particularly cybersecurity can seem such a heavy subject for people who are trying to navigate it, but to equate it to how you manage your house, I think it’s a great way of being able to do so some of the way that I am. What I advise smaller businesses is actually looking at how is cybersecurity affected when you’re out of the office, not just in the office. In the office, there are brilliant tools, as Nico was just explaining, to be able to help organisations, but not everyone thinks about the cybersecurity when they’re working remotely, whether that’s from home or within a café.

Some of the really common things that are really easy to identify is if you can get a separate router, a separate WiFi from the house or WiFi that your children might be on. It’s because they’re probably not as cyber-conscious as you necessarily and therefore they may compromise their devices on your WiFi that you’re using and that might compromise your devices, right? So just be aware of that. You’re also you’re going to benefit from better bandwidth if they’re not on the on the same WiFi as yourself.

If you’re recycling your devices, make sure that they’re securely wiped, including household devices that are shared by other people within your household. Make sure those devices are wiped clearly, if you’re recycling those.

Know that smart devices can listen. You might disable them or not have them in the room that you’re working in, particularly.

Some really tangible things that we can all do with no fuss at all:

• Make sure that you have double authentication on the apps that you use so that there’s a level of security, where it’s recognising yourself through your phone number
• Changing default passwords on devices and software that are given to you
• Make sure that all your software is up-to-date, because embedded in the software that we use, of course, is getting better all the time in terms of better security
• Store files in the cloud that collaborative software has
• Leaders within businesses, even small businesses, have sometimes different administrative privileges and therefore might restrict admin or super admin access to some of the tools that they’re using
• Making sure that when people leave the business – a really, really common one – they change the passwords of entry to apps

Anna: That’s amazing. And there’s so many things that every small business can apply to how they offer is great stuff. That’s it from me, unless there’s anything either of you would like to add.

Nico and Tiffany: It was great to meet you today. Great to have you, thanks so much. Yeah, it was amazing. It was great to be here. Thank you.

You can find out more about Microsoft Teams at aka.ms/hybridsmb. You can also go to smallbusiness.co.uk to learn more about hybrid working and cybersecurity. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Microsoft: Helping SMBs with hybrid working and cybersecurity appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guests are Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber, founders of My Supper Hero.

We discuss finding ethical suppliers, the challenges in setting up a subscription service and My Supper Hero tasting evenings.

Listen to it in the media player below.

You can watch a couple of teaser videos below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Pub owner and winner of The Great British Bake Off, Candice Brown
• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Our guests are Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber. Klass is a TV and radio presenter, designer, classically trained musician and former member of pop group Hear’Say while Barber is a restaurateur and was an investor on BBC series Million Pound Menu.

Jamie and Myleene met at the school gates as their daughters were best friends. Fed up of lockdown cooking, the pair concocted a solution to home cooking fatigue and boring takeaways. My Supper Hero was founded in 2021, with delivered meals that are put together by a team of chefs with less than 10 minutes of prep time at home.

We’re going to be talking about finding ethical suppliers and just what it is that makes a food business great.

Anna: Hello, guys, how are you doing?

Myleene and Jamie: Well, thank you. Great.

Anna: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

So I’m just going to get straight in, you know, food prep for food delivery services is becoming an increasingly crowded market. What sets My Supper Hero apart from the likes of say, Gousto and HelloFresh?

Jamie: I’m not sure it is that crowded market in in what we’re trying to do, because I think that particularly over lockdown, Myleene and I were both in similar situations with our families and that we were kitchened-out. We’d had enough of the daily grind, of deciding what to cook, finding the ingredients cooking it, chopping it, peeling it. We were also I think quite takeawayed-out. I think there’s a limit to how many times a week certainly you can have fast food delivered to your home. All we wanted to do was to eat really, really brilliantly at home with very, very little. effort Then go and do other things with our lives that we wanted to do like watch Netflix or catch up with friends. Although one would think that that was a really crowded space, we couldn’t find that solution. We tried some of the basic recipe boxes, we found the amount of time to put those things together a lot longer than we were expecting and wanted, we were finding the recipes quite basic and we were searching for alternative. That’s how My Supper Hero came about, which was just a very strong focus on eating really well in a short amount of time. This is about high quality plus speed.

Myleene: Also, I think with those boxes and with the general market, the amount of packaging, I can’t believe it, it’s criminal. In this day and age, where we’re so aware now of what’s going on with our planet, I still cannot believe that there is no solution, until what we’re doing. We’ve got compostable boxes, we’re very, very aware of how we’re putting these boxes together and making sure that it’s as economical environmentally as possible, but also with just how we’re using our packaging. So that’s also a huge part of it for both of us.

Anna: So, there’s a lower volume of food or have components, perhaps low volume of components?

Myleene: Lower volume of components. But actually, for example, somebody saw our lettuce. We have the most beautiful hydroponic lettuces, they’re like little rosettes, and they come in these little boxes, little plastic packages, assuming it’s plastic packaging, actually, what you see that it’s plant-based, it’s compostable. So it shows it is possible because someone questioned when I was making a video about it. And I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no’. You know, I’m part of a family with five children, we do want to hand the planet over to our kids. I just think it’s really terrifying when many corporations still aren’t finding solutions to something as basic as that when people are really feeling right. We’re very passionate about it.

I think ultimately, you know what Jamie was talking about there as everybody’s got that sort of, I suppose what’s the equivalent of scrolling fatigue, but in the kitchen, you’ve only got a few recipes that everybody’s got up their sleeve before you’re like, what are we going to do now. And I’ve definitely I hit that mark by Thursday.

Anna: Beans on toast – always!

Myleene: There you go! You can still enjoy that, but at the same time, it’s nice to just have all the hassle taken away. Our line, which is I think my absolute mantra I live by, is ‘Less chopping, more chatting’. That is exactly where I am in the kitchen.

How did you go about finding this target market that you were looking for and who would want your products?

Myleene: Well, we are it. How many of your friends do you speak to and they’re like, ‘What are you making tonight? Oh, I got a box in.’ Then you just think, ‘Oh well how long is that going to take to chop and peel?’ You know it’s for us and I think that’s what’s so nice. We haven’t overthought it because I said to Jamie one day, ‘I just can’t think of anything to make now, and I just don’t want to spend hours making it, I just want to be with my family.’

Jamie: It’s funny, actually, because Myleene’s actually right because it wasn’t contrived. It was built very much for us. I mean, I’m a good cook and I cook quite a lot. But there are things that I just wouldn’t cook at home because it just takes too long. But we are kind of uncovering new audiences on a daily basis. So even yesterday, a guy called me and said that he started to spread the word to his friends and that they use Airbnbs quite a lot. And when you rent out of an Airbnb, what you don’t want to do is turn up there and have to cook. So, they’re ordering My Supper Heroes to their new destinations in advance so that when they arrive there, they’ve got something to cook in ten minutes. It’s not something I’ve even thought of before. And I think that people are kind of discovering it and using it in their own ways. That’s kind of part of the fun of it.

Myleene: I love that this is the audience, you can’t just decide who the audience is going to be. It’s ever evolving, because so much has changed now from the tech side of things to the prep side of things to what we want and how fast we want it and what we expect to get for our money.

I understand that you were going to go for a membership model where members get access to features and special menus or dishes that aren’t available to non-members, but then decided against it. For our listeners who are considering the membership model and the pros and the cons, could you walk us through a bit about that thought process and why you decided against it in the end?

Jamie: We didn’t decide against it. What happened is that we want in Supper Hero to be a regular part of our weekly meal cycle. Myleene, she’s slightly different actually. I think you would have it every day of the week if you had the opportunity to, but I think for most people, this is part of their weekly meal cycle. So, once a week, you get to eat fantastically well at home. I personally find this sort of subscription services where you’re tied into eating four or five meals a week from the same service. I find that quite stressful and a bit of a bind. It also takes up such a large amount of your week, that actually gives you the inability to try and choose whether you know, I can’t go out on Wednesday, because I’ve still got one meal leftover. I find that quite stressful. We wanted people to have it once a week, maybe, again on the weekend.

Originally, we started naively with a very soft, what we would call ‘subscription model’, but there’s no ties to it. However, I say naively, because we set out to do this, and thought that the technology to be able to do that would be really, really easy and found out that it was really, really difficult. Within literally three or four weeks of launching, we found that we were actually having to do most of the work manually and it was impossible. So we pulled that service until we built the technology to go back to a meal planning service. And that should hopefully, all things being equal, go live in about two-or-three-weeks’ time [at time of recording – 25 April 2022], having spent four months building the tech.

What kind of difficulties did you face?

Jamie: We originally thought that you could buy off the shelf, a subscription technology platform, and quickly found out that if you had a razor or a pen, and you were sending the same razor out or the same pen out on a regular basis, that is really, really easy. However, if you wanted to choose which meal you wanted, swap one meal for another, have varying prices, that was really, really difficult. There are much bigger companies that ask that have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on developing that technology. But we’re a lean start-up. So we’ve had to do it in the kind of lean start-up way. We found some fantastic developers that we like to work with and we’ve been working with them for the last three or four months to build out this hopefully fantastic tech platform, which will be ready in a few weeks.

Actually, on that note, you say you’re trying to be lean, of course, as many start-ups are, especially for a food tech business. What tips do you have to try and keep costs down in the early days?

Jamie: I think there’s an old model, which is like you throw all of your costs into accelerating as quickly as possible and just blow a load of money very, very quickly. Actually, during this stage, we’ve really done very, very little marketing and very little outreach. Because we’ve been focused on the product, the most important thing is to make sure that those meals are brilliant. So, what we haven’t done is to go and suddenly take a big cheque and then spend it all on PPC adverts and Instagram ads and just trying to run before we can walk at this stage. It’s just about really making sure the product is incredible.

Myleene: You also want to understand who your customer is. I mean, I dare say that Jamie, deep dives so much into who is our customer, that you almost know them all on first-name basis, and what their orders are going to be, just a real understanding of who the customer is and what they want and how they’re using the service.

Also, if you talk about what the initial challenges were, it’s a good challenge to have, but we always said that we’re going to launch in the area that we both live in like, what, less than a mile away from each other. But then in order to really test what the product could do and send it out in the way that it was intended. We then had to try and grow as quickly as we could but then you have to try and make sure that you could insulate yourself towards those challenges. So suddenly, we’re going out to Wales and to Scotland and with that comes its own challenges.

It has to be obviously safe. It has to be carefully done. It has to taste as good as you say it’s going to taste and people are taking your word for it because until they’ve tasted it, they don’t know what they’re going to genuinely get.

I suppose knowing your customer helps you set the brand’s tone of voice from the off.

Myleene: I’ve really enjoyed that from the marketing side of things – finding what the handwriting is, finding what the photography was going to look like. I love the retro feel behind it. I love how beautiful and vibrant and classy and chic the website looks. I think that people do eat with their eyes. It’s the whole experience. It’s not just about trying to get someone to pop something into their basket, it’s ultimately about that the experience from start to finish. We wanted it from start to finish to be the eating experience.

This is my first experience of hydroponic lettuce in a farm that grows along a wall. How incredible is that? So again, it’s really sustainable. And it’s also done with optimum taste in mind. Everything that we say that our company stands for. So, I think that people don’t even necessarily know the ins and outs of it to that level. It’s ground-breaking.

Actually, I went to go and see the farm today, funnily enough, and it’s fantastic to look at – absolutely brilliant.

How do you make sure that your suppliers ethics match up with the ethics of your business?

Jamie: I’ve been in the restaurant business for 20 years. I’ve got quite a lot of knowledge about supply chain, and we’ve specifically chosen suppliers that match our values.

There used to be – I don’t know if that still exists – But there used to be a very good organisation called the Sustainable Restaurant Association, the SRA. And at one point, they did have a list of the suppliers that they endorsed or recommended. I don’t know if that’s still live. But on the Supper Hero website, I think under the frequently asked questions, there are quite a lot of details of our suppliers. So, people are always free to reach out to our suppliers and see if they can provide them with some business.

[The Sustainable Restaurant Association is still going – here are the links to the website and the list of sustainable suppliers – Ed.]

Coming back to food businesses. Jamie, you’ll be a one to ask on this. Some of our listeners will have, say, a café or something that they want to expand into maybe one or two more branches or maybe they want to go global. When you’re right at the beginning, how do you create a scalable food business?

Jamie: I think for the most part, people who have set out to make a business from scratch, that is scalable, have probably failed, because I think you’re thinking more about the economics rather than the product. When I did Million Pound Menu, one of the things that that was quite apparent is how people just love and engage with food all over the place, whether it’s quick service, snacks, grab-and-go fine dining, cooking at home. Whatever it is, people just love food, they love understanding food. At the end of the day, it’s the – I keep going on about it – but it is the product that is going to is that that is the tail that wags the dog, rather than vice versa, I don’t think that you can set out to create something that’s going to be a global, scalable business until you’ve really sussed out what your real core product and your core value is. And that’s where we are – we’re on the beginning of a journey.

Myleene, you said in the past that you don’t profess to be the best at anything, you’re just not frightened of anything, you just really go for it. So how have you taken that mindset and brought it into business?

Myleene: My background in business is very different to Jamie’s on the face of things, but actually, it’s the same, it’s customer service. Jamie’s absolutely right, it’s about making sure that the customer gets what they want, first and foremost. I provide that service, but ultimately, I’m also a customer.

I’ve had a baby brand in this country [My K], the longest-running baby brand, it’s coming up to 16 years. When you’re working with children, that’s something where you have to make sure that the safety elements and the requirements are second to none, they really have to be stringent.

It’s the same thing, I suppose, when it transfers over to food, you have to be really, really careful about what it is you’re putting together. You have to have an understanding of what it is the customer wants and expects. And whilst I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen, I love my food. I love the presentation of it. I love what it brings together as Jamie was talking and you have said that it’s an, I suppose, essentially an oversubscribed market. But is it? Everyone still needs to eat.

Everybody’s looking for that new place to eat or that new experience and everyone wants to talk about this. Did you try this? Have you tried it with this? I made this the other night. So actually, it’s forever evolving. That’s the side of it that I really do enjoy. I love connecting with people, I still want to eat, I still want to make good food for my family and for my friends. I still want to make an event of it.

That’s why the combination of both myself and Jamie it’s been actually a really refreshing one and a really enjoyable one. I’ve learned so much from Jamie as we’ve been going along. At the same time, there’s so many things that are just massive similarities when it comes to business and it’s easy the products. I love going to the – why wouldn’t I? – the tasting evenings at Jamie’s house, which are just quite an event in their own right. I go with my Tupperware because I end up bringing so much of it home. I love that side of it too because it’s genuine. It’s, ‘Would I eat that with this? How would I eat this? Is this something that we would dive in with our hands? Is this something that the combination of these flavours is something that is familiar to a more general audience as opposed to us?’ It’s those conversations that I really do enjoy, that discovery.

Jamie: The lightbulb moment came for me when we were first talking about the idea for Supper Hero, one of one of my chefs I said to him look, what do you what do you cook at home? For your family know, when you’re in a restaurant, what do you cook? He said, ‘I might get a lamb shank from a local butcher. I’ll probably marinate it for 48 hours in lots of different Mediterranean-type ingredients like feta and apricot and olive oil. Then I might glaze it and have it just with some tzatziki made with some organic yoghurt and a flatbread, and I’ll just grab a piece of the flatbread and dip it. I said, ‘Can you can you do one of those? I want to get Myleene and see what she thinks.’ I call Myleene. I said, ‘Would you come over and try this?’ She came, and I said, ‘It’s lamb’ and she went, ‘I’m not really keen on lamb, just to let you know.’ Anyway, she finished the whole lot. Within five minutes, it was gone. People do like to be surprised!

Myleene: Yeah, it was a good surprise!  I did come in with my judgment, I was really disappointed. Jamie’s quite right.

Anna: So it’s your strengths and weaknesses and your experiences that work together and how they can help you build from where you are.

Myleene: 100 per cent. There’s no point in both of us both doing the same job! So, we’ve got different experiences in different fields. But ultimately, we both care about the customer, we both want to be able to put our name to something that we feel very strongly about and very proud of. That’s why we’ve, as Jamie said, it’s starting small, but it’s very firm footsteps and it’s giving us a real understanding of what our customer wants, which again, is invaluable information. I think that’s something that, as you were talking before, it’s very easy to skirt over that looking as to what your eyes are on the prize – I suppose you have to figure out what the prize is first.

Jamie: It’s a much more enjoyable process, having a partner like Myleene, that we can just share feedback and spar a bit and just kind of just feed off each other’s energy. I really enjoy the journey with a partner rather than just doing it solo.

Myleene: But at the same time gives me Tupperware boxes of lamb to take home! We’ve got the toughest audiences. We’ve both got families, we’ve got kids. Those are the toughest audiences by comparison!

Anna: Oh yeah! Well, I think I’ll wrap up there. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, guys. It’s been great.

Myleene and Jamie: That’s great. Pleasure. Thank you.

You can find out more about My Supper Hero at mysupperhero.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on starting a food-based business. Remember to like us @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.    

The post Myleene Klass and Jamie Barber: ‘We spar and feed off each other’s energy’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Candice Brown business owner, chef, media personality and winner of The Great British Bake Off 2016.

We discuss running a business with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and handling Making Tax Digital.

This episode is brought to you in association with Xero.

Listen to it in the media player below.

You can watch a couple of teaser videos below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Entrepreneur and former athlete, Sally Gunnell
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Candice Brown podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Candice Brown – pub owner, chef, media personality and winner of the Great British Bake Off in 2016.

After winning the show, she gave up her job as a secondary school special needs teacher to pursue baking full-time. She’s released two cookbooks, Comfortand Happy Cooking, and runs The Green Man pub in Eversholt with her brother, Ben.

The pub took a hard hit over the pandemic, with only £416 in their business bank account and Candice in the kitchen making meals for delivery single-handedly.

The business is recovering, and she’s teamed up with Xero to demystify Making Tax Digital.

We’re going to be talking about running a business with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) along with getting involved with causes that you believe in.

Anna: Hi, Candice.

Candice: Hi. How are you?

Anna: Yeah, I’m doing really well, thanks. How are you doing?

Candice: Yeah, good. Thank you busy, busy and all over the place, but really, really well.

There is a two-pronged approach to your day-to-day: there’s the pub owner and there’s the media personality side of things. How do the two work together?

Candice: It’s funny – when people sort of say about like media personality and fame and things like that. It makes me feel funny, because I don’t class myself as that. This is just something I’ve done, I’ve been able to turn a hobby into a job, which is just incredible. Obviously going on the show [The Great British Bake Off] when it was at its biggest – it was the last one at the BBC before the big change over Channel 4. It got huge amounts of views. So obviously, the media interest was there. But I didn’t know what to expect. I never knew what was going on. I didn’t assume anything. So, everything has just been an incredible surprise.

I’ve taken opportunities and given them my all and run with them and really try to try to do things that I can really get behind, that I feel completely passionate about. The pub is one of those – I always wanted something. I suppose, in a way, Bake Off slowed that down, but then sped it up when it came along. It was never going to be a pub, which is interesting, but we just saw the place and fell in love with it. Also, I wasn’t silly enough and I’m not silly enough to think that the media things and everything like that will last forever. I knew I needed a business to fall back on and to have something running alongside and to build and to really kind of develop. That’s where the pub came in.

So, the two definitely overlap. It’s a funny overlap – I definitely see myself as a landlady and weirdly, a business owner now, which is something I never thought I would do. But kind of all the other stuff allows me to build this business, which is just an incredible situation to be in.

What kind of role do you play in the day-to-day on the pub side of things?

Candice: I’m laughing because I do a bit of everything, I literally do everything. And that might be from cleaning if the cleaners don’t turn up, it might be serving, waiting tables, behind the bar, helping out in the kitchen. I bake, so we have cakes of the day and the puddings and things. Obviously, fully involved in recipe and menu development and things like that, along with the head chef and the kitchen team, who are just incredible. I pretty much do everything and anything. I wouldn’t do anything that I wouldn’t expect anybody else to do. I live above the pub as well, so obviously I’m here when I’m here. I’m here all the time. I’m pretty hands-on. I’m hands, feet, head-on – everything. I’m fully, fully in.

That’s the best approach to take as a business owner. I also understand that in January 2020, you were diagnosed with ADHD. Forbes has described this as a ‘superpower’ for an entrepreneur. How do you feel about this statement as a business owner?

Candice: I’ve kind of always exceeded and excelled in physical subjects at school. I think having taught special needs and understanding a little bit I kind of probably knew I probably had something along the lines of ADHD. But it’s diagnosed so late on in women and it’s diagnosed so differently in girls as well. It shows itself so differently – as we’re all individuals – it presents itself so differently.

I knew, working in schools, children are almost the grey. They’re not misbehaving. They’re not falling below. They’re not excelling. They’re not exceeding expectations. They’re just coasting along the middle and they’re doing fine. They’re causing no real problems. They’re just doing okay. That’s what I was and that’s what I did. I loved P.E., I loved food technology, woodwork, drama. Everything like that, I was top. Things like maths I just completely struggled, in history, just could not remember a thing. I mean, I don’t think I even got a registered mark on my history GCSE because I couldn’t remember. It’s things like that. I’d go into school wearing odd shoes at the age of 16. I was late every day – Mum used to leave me at home and take my brother in because I’ve made my brother late.

All of these things, it’s just like, ‘It’s just Candice and she’s a bumblebee’. It’s carried on through life. People tell me to meet them an hour earlier than I should be because I’m late all the time. I started seeing a psychiatrist and I’ve been quite open about my mental health. It was one of the things he said, ‘I would like to address this.’ I said, ‘Address what?’ He said, ‘I want to run a few tests.’ It wasn’t what I was there to talk about. But it kind of made sense. It has, and [ADHD] did enable me to do Bake Off. Give me a week to do something. I will take that week, and probably take two weeks and probably still do it in the last hour of that two weeks, even though it was due a week ago. People were saying, ‘How did you do Bake Off?’ I had three and a half hours to get this done. If I didn’t get it done, I was going to look really stupid, so I had to get it done. There was no choice. That’s how I did it. I would thrive under pressure. It’s the only time I can get stuff done – within a time limit. I mean, you asked my brother I drive him mad, absolutely mad, because he’s like, ‘Do things, do it now, get it done.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah – I was just doing it.’ Then I wander off and go and do something else. But it has enabled me to do the things that I have done. It’s enabled me to proceed to progress and to learn, but in quite a different way and adapting. I’m still learning about ADHD. I’m still learning about myself, which is really interesting for the teacher side of me as well.

But I think, as a superpower? Yeah, I suppose it is for some people. I suppose yeah, it enabled me to do Bake Off, which actually, I don’t know, had I been kind of less thinking about it or thought about it too much, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. But the fact I was like, ‘Right, you know what? I’ve got to get this done. I’ve got no choice. Get it done and do it.’ I over-planned, I wanted to do more. Everything I did they didn’t think I was going to get done in the time limit. But that’s how I do things now as well. I try and squeeze as much as I can into the day. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it can also be quite stressful. But yeah, it’s about learning and managing that.

I think it’s an interesting thing, an entrepreneurial superpower. I mean, I’m quite happy to have that tagline. Might get myself a little cape or something like that. But yeah, it works.

Me and my brother work well together. He’s very straight-down-the-line. He knows numbers. He’s a builder. He knows figures and things like that. Whereas I’d go, ‘I don’t, I can’t Ben, I don’t understand. I don’t need to know.’ But it’s about having that trust and I will say having people around like accountants and things like that, that we do trust because that’s where I fall short. I use my superpowers and my strength to push on. Also, I recognise my weaknesses and I use people I can trust for those weaknesses and learn.

That kind of brings us nicely into one of one of the areas where it sounds like you do struggle a bit, which is the bookkeeping side of things. Of course, with all the problems we’ve had over the past couple of years, there has been the looming spectre of the rollout of Making Tax Digital as well.

Candice: I mean, I will be the first person to say that terrified me straightaway. I was like, ‘How am I going to do this?’ I don’t have real interest in using IT and computers, then the thought of putting tax and numbers alongside IT and computers, was just very, very daunting. I know it is for a lot of people, but it’s so crucial for small businesses today, it’s so crucial and it’s going to be going to become a law. So, we have to do it, there are no ifs and buts about it, we have to be able to do it.

Making it as simple as possible and having a team around us that we trust and know what they’re doing that you can fall back on. It’s so, so important because it is daunting, but as small businesses, we’re going to have to do it. There are no ifs and buts about it. It’s one of those things, it’s got to be done. Same as I approach everything, right? It’s got to be done. But how can I do this in the easiest and best way for me and for my business?

If you don’t have the people or the resources, is there anything else you can rely on to help deal with those bookkeeping tasks?

If you haven’t got that around you, then obviously, packages like Xero are offering a really simple, easy way to do it. And when I went on and had a look at what they were doing, my first thought was, ‘Oh, I could do that.’ And that’s a real benchmark for me. If I can do it, then you can do it, especially when it comes to numbers and maths and things I don’t really have an interest in, so I’m going to lose my attention, I’m probably going to lose my thought process to actually simple effective programmes and an apps like Xero are going to be so beneficial to people, they really, really are, because it’s making something quite daunting, really, really simple and pretty easy and less daunting, because it has to be done.

You’ve got involved in a lot of the other struggles that pubs and other hospitality businesses have experienced too. Everything from reducing beer duty, tackling food waste, tackling no shows, you’ve got involved in quite a lot of causes. For a small business owner who is cash-strapped and potentially time-strapped, how can they get involved in activism and causes?

Candice: I think this is a funny one because when he said about activism, oh gosh, is that like full-on, like, placards and demonstrations and stuff like that? I do follow a lot of charities and I’m one of these people that feels like I’m never doing enough.

If we are struggling, then there can be other people struggling and other people who are struggling more and in different ways. I do lots of bits and pieces for charities. I work with different charities, whether it’s dogs on the streets, Alzheimer’s research Coppafeel. I try and do my bit, but then obviously there’s ones that hit closer to home like campaigning for the reduction in beer tax, because that affected me directly and I know it’s affecting my peers and my colleagues directly who have pubs or are in hospitality. To be to be asked to help or to ask to have a voice about that and use my platform is incredible and really important. Again, daunting, but also using my knowledge and a lot of the time the things I do and what I do it either affects me or it’s something I completely and utterly passionately believe in which means I can give it my all, it means I can get behind it and obviously it’s the same thing as working alongside Xero, that tax going digital is happening.

If I am struggling and I’m worried about that change, then I know other people will be as well. So, it’s so important because obviously, it’s making smaller businesses aware of the legislation and using the benefits that technology can bring. Because actually, we use it so much that there’s other campaigns and things I do, whether it’s working with animal shelters, whether it’s working with Alzheimer’s research, whether it’s a trek I’m doing, people have found those out through technology and social media.

If you’re able to do those things, and able to share knowledge about things like tax going digital, then that’s a good thing, because it does all kind of work through tax goes up on beer, your taxes go up, you need to go to your accountant. That’s what I find weird. Finally, how everything almost comes together in a really weird mush-up circle. It’s just about picking those bits apart, using your strengths, picking the brains of other people’s strengths and learning and having people that you can trust. I think if you believe in something, I think it’s so important to have a voice. As long as you’re not harming anybody else and as long as you’re not being mean or unkind. I think it’s important to have a voice to tell people what you believe in.

I think that’s where it’s just so important to work with, to do what you believe in and share your passion, because you learn from that. But you also can help other people learn as well. Things do happen that you that aren’t right, things do happen that will be of detriment to you. I think you need to ensure that if you believe something is right or something is wrong, you go about it in the right way to try and make a difference. Because we are here, we are trying to do what we’re doing. We’re trying to survive in quite a difficult time. I think if we can make things easy for ourselves or speak up for people that maybe don’t have a voice or causes or activism, then I think it’s it can only be a good thing and sharing through technologies is probably the biggest way that that’s going to happen now.

Absolutely – and sharing your voice and using technology have been central to a very quickly changing landscape over the past couple of years. What kind of advice would you give to other hospitality owners about adapting to a new normal?

Candice: Ahhh, new normal!

Anna: I know, I had to!

Candice: People say normal. Really, you know what? There is no normal. That’s everything that’s through what is normal? Oh, God, I’m not normal. Was that because I’ve got ADHD is that because I’m just different to the next person? Of course, it’s we’re all different.

Actually, being perfectly imperfect is a great thing. But that’s across the board. And I think that’s what the pandemic has maybe shown us as well, and probably even more is that we are all different. What we thought was normal was never really normal. Now it’s completely upside-down, back-to-front diagonal and wiggly all over the place. We have had to adapt that. I think hospitality, we’re probably affected some of the worst.

But I think it showed the resilience of the hospitality sector, that people did come together, and people did do what was right – we can’t be open, let’s do takeaways. We can’t talk to customers, let’s get online. Schools can’t provide free school meals. Let’s do that. It was very, very powerful. I think using that is just incredible. I think we we’re still trying to recoup what we’ve lost. I think a lot of businesses will be doing that as well.

I feel that every day we’re so short-staffed it’s untrue, hence the cleaning, hence having to do work in the pub, hence having to do all those different bits and pieces. Not saying that I wouldn’t anyway because I am here, but it shows. There are so many things that obviously, as an individual I can do, as a business with my brother and The Green Man we can do to bounce back and to get on our feet. A lot of that does come down to planning, having an incredible team, working with a team that we trust, having people that we can fall back on for advice, whether it’s people from accounting, whether it’s tax advice, whether it’s building advice. I’m lucky that my brother, Ben, and my dad, are builders. So if we can kind of use that. So again, but using those strengths to kind of benefit you.

Again, just asking questions, we were quiet in the weeks, we look at what we do for the menu, we change our menu for it to be seasonal and adaptable. Obviously, vegan food is huge at the moment. So, we offer vegan things, which actually a couple of years ago, that’s not really something that probably crossed my mind so much. Make sure there are things for the children to do, making sure the outside area is good. Communicating with customers, knowing where you are based. For us, we’re in the middle of a tiny little village, very little footfall. So, there’d be absolutely no point doing an offer for anyone walking past to pick up a sandwich in blah, blah, and just having a placard outside because people aren’t going to see that. But if we wanted to do that, we could go online, use technology to go right, okay, drive past, pick up a pie, take it away, or pick up a sausage roll, drop in for this. Use your strengths and know your environment. If you have a pub or a cafe that’s on the side of a really busy market town and then get things outside, get music playing and things like that.

We’re never going to be able to throw a rave or a dance or anything like that at the pub because I think the locals would go absolutely mental. But somewhere with a busy town with a lower age customer base, then that might work brilliantly. But also try things. If they don’t work, it’s not the end of the world. Mistakes happen and you learn from them. I think that’s so important. But we do have to adapt, we’re going to have to keep adapting, we literally take every day, every week as it comes. If something doesn’t work, we go, ‘Right, draw a line under it,’ and we move on. Because otherwise, that’s where the danger is. The saying ‘don’t flog a dead horse.’ If it’s done, and it’s not working, don’t be ashamed to go you know what hands up, that didn’t work. Let’s try something different. Because I think sometimes the pressures of, ‘It’s got to be perfect.’ It’s got to work. This is normal. Let’s do that.

I think the last few years have shown us actually, no, we’re rewriting the rulebook a little bit. I think it’s being brave understanding and trying to trying to come to terms with the facts, things do change, things are different. And you know what, that’s okay. But just have a great team that you can trust. Embrace technology, no matter how daunting it might be, ask someone about it, because it is so beneficial in more ways than one. Legally, but also for business.

Would you mind saying a few words about for any listeners that might feel they might have ADHD and they’re not sure? What kind of advice would you give them, such as signs and what to do next?

Candice: I’m definitely not a medical expert or anything like that. I can only go on what I know for myself, but I think if anyone maybe thinks or is showing maybe signs or is just wondering sort of about themselves, then maybe speak to somebody. I know that the NHS and people are quite overrun at the moment. It’s very, very difficult. I think patience and talking to people and actually probably talking to people who are close to you as well and just explain that you are maybe struggling with a few things. Just be patient with me while I look into this a little bit more. Obviously, seek out an expert or find out someone that has been recommended.

But also, again, if you’re in school or you have children or nieces, nephews, anything like that they’re in school and you think speak to the school about it. Schools just do incredible jobs. A hard, tough job. It breaks my heart that good teachers are leaving the profession but speak to them because they do care. In their the fountain of knowledge and they will point you in the right direction.

But I think the key is communication. And if time is a problem and there’s waiting lists and things like that for the NHS, which unfortunately there isn’t they’re doing such incredible but such a tough job then just start communicating with people. Do your research, ask questions and just have patience as well. Just learn to know what works for you. We are all individual, whether it’s ADHD,  ADD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, anything like that, you may have physical impairments, anything, we’re all individual and that is incredible. And that’s what makes us, us. We learn to do things our way. I think that is enough. I think that’s such a powerful thing to be able to do things our very own way. But yeah, just communication is so key – communication, learning and research. Never stop learning in any way, shape or form.

Anna: Well, I have nothing I could possibly add to that as very well said.

Candice: You can tell I used to be a teacher!

Anna: Yeah! Well, that seems like a great place to wrap up. So thank you for coming on the podcast, Candice. It’s been great.

Candice: Thank you so much for having me. I really, really enjoyed that.

You can find out more about Candice by searching @candicebrown on Instagram. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk to learn about Making Tax Digital. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Candice Brown: ‘ADHD enabled me to do Bake Off’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Sally Gunnell, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and former professional athlete.

We discuss the move from sport into business and how older business owners can take care of their wellbeing.

Listen to it in the media player below.

You can watch a couple of teaser videos below.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice winner, Sian Gabbidon
• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Sally Gunnell podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Sally Gunnell – entrepreneur, motivational speaker and former professional athlete.

Born in Essex, Sally actually started out as a pentathlete and long jumper at her local ladies’ athletics club. Over time her talent for hurdle events became apparent, winning her gold medals and championship titles across the world. In fact, she’s the only woman to hold World, Olympic, European and Commonwealth Gold medals all at once.

After retiring in 1997, Sally became part of the BBC Sport team and was a regular on athletics broadcasts in the early 2000s. Since then she’s appeared on breakfast television shows as well as A Question of Sport and Total Wipeout.

These days she runs Sally Gunnell Corporate Wellbeing to encourage wellbeing in the workplace. She also runs Optimise Your Age, giving health and wellness tips to the over 50s, alongside her husband Jon.

We’ll be talking about moving from sport into business and how older entrepreneurs can take care of their wellbeing.

Anna: Hi there, Sally, how you doing?

Sally: I’m very well, thank you. Yes!

Anna: Great!

The first point I want to talk about is you moving from sport into business. So how did you come to that decision? What kind of challenges did you have going from sport into business?

Sally: Yeah, I mean it’s always a difficult one when you retire and I guess it’s difficult when you’re only 27 years old. You’re young and you’ve had one career and it’s probably the career that you’ve had all your life, and then you think, “What do I do next?” So I guess I sort of did it in a way that I would have done with my athletic career. I had to know what I wanted to achieve out there. I had to have aspirations for new things, I had to learn new things. So I planned it, almost. But yeah, I mean, I look back now and I think it was a bit of a gamble. You’re not quite sure where you were going with it. But actually, it made me realise just how much I’d learned from my athletics days and my achievements, and how much of that it helped me to that next stage of my career, but be able to pass that on for others. And I think that that’s what came out of it. And that’s what helped to make it as smooth as possible.

For a lot of athletes, there seems to be a progression from sport into business. What kind of things did you take from the track into business?

Sally: I think so much of it is about, yes, you’ve got to work hard, but you’ve got to work smart. A lot of it is about the sort of things that seem so insignificant, almost, for businesses or whatever, but it’s about being the best version of yourself. What you eat, your sleep, how you exercise, it’s all about your own performance, and whether that’s performance in the workplace or performance with yourself at home, and how that can give you the confidence ,give you the ability, and all those sorts of things. They were sort of like the real area, and I guess a lot of it was about self-belief as well.

That was probably the turning point for me, because I probably wasn’t the most confident of people when it came to athletics and performing at that high level, but I overcame that. And I think some of the lessons that I learned and who I chatted to, and how I work that into myself, which made the difference becoming a high performance and to be able to give people the confidence to be able to go out and achieve what they can all achieve. That’s really where it came from. I think it really helped that I achieved at that high level. So, you went through so many ups and downs, and I learned so much about myself, and I think that really helped to be able to share and explain that story to people.

It surprises me that you said that you’re not confident because you strike me as somebody who is very confident. How did you develop that going into the business world?

Sally: A lot of it is about mindset, it’s about what you believe. I think it’s very easy. I think as a nation we are, especially women, we’re very quick to put ourselves down and think that everybody else looks good, or “I’m not good enough.” That’s very much how I was, like probably lots of other people, but I’m working with sports psychologists and understanding how the mind works. Confidence comes from within. You’ve got to find confidence, you’ve got to shut the demons up and override it. A lot of that becomes part of visualisation. It’s part of mentally preparing yourself, work that you do day in, day out to be a better version of yourself. It doesn’t just click overnight.

I think it was that the power of accepting that we do lead stressful lives and running at that top level was stressful, but it sometimes can be a good thing and to use it as a motivation as well. Just so many key areas that correspond and I think the synergy between performing within the workplace and being the best person you can be is so similar to that that sports field of achieving when all that often seems like everything we do – so many odds against you.

Oh, 100 per cent. I can imagine there would be some kind of challenge between performing individual events on the track, and then having to work as a team on business all of a sudden. How did you cope with that?

Sally: Yeah. Even though I was very much an individual on the track, it seemed like it, it was very different to a football field or whatever else or my relay or being captain of the women’s team. Actually, there was an amazing team of people behind me: nutritionists, sports psychologists, physiologists, coaches. That was the difference of the four years from coming fifth in the Olympics to winning was building this amazing team around us. Lots of people have different goals within their teams, and that’s the same in an organisation. It’s about knowing that you need their support, you need their help, you need their skills to get the best out of yourself and the business that you’re doing, to achieve what you’ve set yourself. So, it’s no different in that respect. Even though I was the one on the track, there was an amazing team of people that got me to that start line.

You always forget that there are so many people behind an athlete. There’s also this rush to compare yourself to direct competitors and other entrepreneurs. I understand it was in the Tokyo Olympics where you were doing the hurdles, and you’re on your way to the gold, and you got distracted by one of your competitors and it threw you off, and unfortunately it cost you the gold medal. How did you feel in that moment? And what kind of lessons did you learn from that?

Sally: Yeah, I mean, I think I learned enormously. I was obviously massively disappointed, because I could have won that. And I think that’s when it made me realise that I didn’t win because I was worrying about things that are out of my control. I didn’t have that sort of real confidence in my own ability. I guess that the whole mental side of it only really came on a year before those Olympic Games the following year. So, that was a World Championships in Tokyo, and literally 12 months later, I’d spent 12 months addressing that doubt. And boy! I always say that we’re all born with that inner voice and it’s always a voice that sort of says. “She looks good over there in that lane” and “She’s won the European Championships.” That’s how I did and of course, you’ve got to have massive respect for your competitors. That’s the same in the corporate world. Yeah, you can learn certain things, but I can’t change those situations. So, why spend that energy and that worry and trying to change something that you can’t? You can only control the controllables, so it was about blocking out all those sorts of things.

That is when it comes back to knowing what you’re trying to achieve out there and having clarity in your thoughts so that when you’re on your path, and you’re not going to get distracted by over here, and  what you’re going to stick to and what that end result is. Once you have that in your mind then those other distractions are able to be blocked out during those times. So, yeah, it was about spending time doing that. It doesn’t just happen. I would spend five minutes each day just sort of going through what I wanted to execute on that day, what was that perfect race and different scenarios – if things went wrong, if it was raining on the day or it’s a difficult lane. It’s just familiar in the mind, really, and I think sometimes in different organisations or within sport, you think it sounds like a negative, but I think you have to have every option open, but you know what it is that it’s going to actually to take to achieve that higher level.

I think that’s part of goal setting as well. It’s knowing what you want, but with flexibility. In this case, it is a literal ‘sticking in your own lane’ when you’re competing.

I think that mental health and its importance to performance has become so well recognised. I’m sure throughout your career, and especially now looking back. It’s the same case in business as well as you’re very well aware through helping companies with their employee wellbeing programmes. Tell us a bit more about what makes a good employee wellbeing programme.

Sally: I think a wellbeing programme has to be one which is very much put together for the employees’ needs. It’s not just a one-size-fits-all, it has to really recognise it in what the issues are within the company, whether that’s retention or whether that’s making people present in what they’re doing. Maybe there’s some health issues or whatever it may be. So, I think it’s really about finding out what they do, that scoping work at the beginning, and really finding out what the issue is and what people actually want.

Then the programmes that work are the ones that are led from the top down. It’s no point in just doing a wellbeing programme for one part of the company. They have to be able to see the top managers being part of it because they need it just as much as everybody else and to be part of that programme. Then it needs to be consistent. It’s not good enough if you’re just going to do it once a year or a couple of times a year. The programmes that really work are the ones that are consistently being put in and information and help and support is regularly there and people know where to go. They know where to tap into it and to be able to ask for help as well. I think they’re the programmes that really work.

I think that with all programmes there’s so many different issues that people can cover within wellbeing. I know that at the moment, it’s very much around mental health and putting First Aiders in, but people have all sorts of different issues around wellbeing. I think it’s about addressing lots of different areas, whether that may be financial, whether that may be physical, there are just so many areas and I think it’s making it right for that organisation.

In your experience of talking to organisations and employees, what areas do you feel are overlooked, generally, in these kinds of programmes?

Sally: I think the ones that the programmes that for a lot of companies we come across, they haven’t got a programme, they literally may just tick a few boxes, through HR or whatever else. But a lot of people within the organisations don’t feel like they’re being supported, they don’t know where to go, if they have got mental health issues, or whatever it may be.

I think with what’s happened in the last two years of the pandemic, people working from home or talking about the mental health issues, the confidence, and I think, a lot of organisations people working from home, it’s finding ways of being able to reach out to people. It is about building resilience, but when you build resilience, you want to make sure that you’ve got the pieces in place to be able to help people build that resilience, whether that’s work or whether they’re in their own life, as well. For a lot of organisations, it’s sometimes building that resilience piece is hard – if there isn’t a water station nearby, or there’s not a park to be able to get out to, or they don’t feel as though they can just take a lunch break, all those sorts of things are just so important for people’s wellbeing. That’s why it has to be led from those top and that information is there and support.

Often what I find is that people are just lacking that information – they want to be better, they want to help themselves, they want to be fitter, they want to know what it is, but they’ve never had that sort of knowledge. It’s about giving people the knowledge and the support and how they get out, get that support from those organisations.

We’re talking online resources – or members of staff that they could speak to – where do they seek this information?

Sally: There’s all sorts of different outlets, depending on the organisation. We’ve got online programmes that we do, which are much more around podcasts that we can roll out to different people. But as people are getting back in the organisation, they want to see face-to-face, it’s helping and supporting HR to be able to deliver that information, because every organisation has different ways of delivering it. It might be that it’s a site that sits on your intranet to information in the toilets. That it’s just finding what works for that organisation.

A lot of the programmes that we’re doing, we have been doing for the last two years, have been obviously very much online, they’re podcasts and they’re help and support. So, organisations can run them literally worldwide to every single person within that organisation, thousands of people because they have to, they can’t just support one group, it has to be able to roll out. So, that’s really helped us as an organisation to be able to reach as many people as possible. I guess, by doing that online and putting those programmes in sport, they have workbooks that they work to, and each month, we have a different subject depending on what that organisation may be. That might be around nutrition, sleep, finance, the physical side of things. That is designed around what that organisation needs.

Wonderful. This is a tricky one, because of course, you can measure things like turnover and your forecasting figures, but how do you measure the success of an employee wellbeing programme?

Sally: Well, that’s why we really want to do the scoping beforehand. We send out questionnaires to people so that we can get what people’s real issues are. Then at the end of a programme or six months through, we will then send out questionnaires to actually find out whether it’s reached the right people, whether it’s helped and supported them. We can then send back information to those organisations, because that is the biggest thing we’ve come up across. But we want to be able to see that change. By doing this, whether that’s every six months or at the beginning of a program, and then at the end, we can see how people have engaged in the programme, and whether it’s actually helped and supported them. Very, very key.

Of course, the boss’ wellbeing is as important as the employees’, especially as they get older. What kind of tips do you have for older entrepreneurs to take care of their own wellbeing?

Sally: Yeah, I think that it’s people realising that you can’t just keep going at 100 per cent. It’s fine if you’re in your 20s and 30s, but it does catch up with you. And it’s the same for all of us, isn’t it? So, I think the thing I’ve learned is that, yes, you have to work smart, and then how to work smart, then how nutrition and your sleep and the physical side of it can affect your performance. That’s about thinking clearly, not having that dip in the afternoon, not being off ill, all those sorts of things.

I think the thing I learned from sport, and that I try and pass on to whoever really, in an organisation, whatever age you are, it’s those little increments that you think are so insignificant, but actually, they play a major part in being able to work day in, day out.

I think with so much of stress and burnout, but stress is part of people’s lives, but it’s learning how to manage that. I think as we get older, it’s about understanding that, actually, you need to get out of the office or get out of, you’re at home, and taking that lunch break. If you need to go home and go to your kid’s sports day, or whatever, it’s all those little things, which seems sometimes so insignificant, are actually things that really play a major part in being able to work. And that’s where it has to be led from the top, it’s good to go off to the gym at lunchtime or to go for an exercise or walk with somebody, to be able to chat with your colleagues or whatever it may be. It’s just allowing people to be able to think that that is the norm. And that’s what it’s okay to do.

Yeah, absolutely. At this time, especially with what’s happened over the past couple of years, I mean, it’s, it’s a prime opportunity to really make those changes, because the way that we work has fundamentally changed.

Sally: Totally. I think now an organisation has to look at wellbeing, it’s so high on the agenda. I think it’s more than ever and it’s giving people the confidence to get back into the office. I think that sometimes the younger generation, they’re in and they’re fine. But as we’ve all got used to working from home now, it’s having that confidence, and that sometimes comes from support from the organisations to be able to do that. That comes under HR and wellbeing at the same time and knowing that you’ve got a great programme in place with people that understand and an organisation that understands to help you to be able to support you.

Anna: Fantastic. Well, that seems like a great place to wrap up. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, Sally.

Sally: Lovely, thank you very much.

You can find out more about Sally at sallygunnell.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more about workplace wellbeing. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Sally Gunnell: ‘It’s about being the best version of yourself’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Sian Gabbidon, entrepreneur, TV personality and winner of The Apprentice 2018.

We discuss her favourite task on the show and social media’s depiction of entrepreneurs.

This episode was brought to you in partnership with UPS.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Alternatively, you can watch a teaser video first.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Abel & Cole founder and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers, Keith Abel
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Sian Gabbidon podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Sian Gabbidon – entrepreneur, TV personality and The Apprentice winner in 2018.

With a keen interest in fashion as a teenager, Sian did a fashion design with marketing and production degree at the University of Huddersfield. She went on to create her swimwear brand, Sian Marie, two years before appearing on The Apprentice. But with a global pandemic affecting sun-seeking holidays, Sian quickly had to pivot to loungewear, reporting a loss of £47,000 from the brand.

She’s since bounced back, partnering with George at ASDA to launch her loungewear range at the beginning of November 2021.

We’ll be talking about growing your brand on Instagram and handling a business while ill with Covid-19.

Anna: Hi, Sian.

Sian: Hello, how you doing?

Anna: I’m very well, thank you. How are you?

Sian: Yeah, not bad.

You started out posting your designs on Instagram after you graduated from university. At the time of recording, you’ve grown that following from almost 120,000 on your personal account, and almost 70,000 on your Sian Marie Loungewear account. I’m sure our listeners would love to know – how do you engage with your audience and build your brand on Instagram?

Sian: It’s a lot more difficult nowadays than it was back when I first set up. Nowadays with Instagram, you have algorithms and all kinds of things going on that can help or not help.

But for me, it was quite organic, especially back before The Apprentice on my business page. We just ended up getting quite a lot of stylists, and even celebrities and people following us because we have designs that others didn’t really have. So, we just really organically grew that following and got more and more support. Then obviously pivoting into lounge, it’s almost like a new audience has came about now as well.

When I was first using Instagram, back in the day, when I first set the brand up, it wasn’t as monetised as it is now. You weren’t really paying to get seen, you were seen automatically. Everyone that follows you will see your posts, whereas nowadays because you have to pay for posts, especially as a business, it’s a lot harder to reach the audiences. You just have to spend a bit more money now. Whereas back then it was a free for all and everyone just saw everything that you posted.

I imagine stylists were probably looking through Instagram at the time to try and find businesses like yourselves.

Sian: Definitely. I think stylists use places like Instagram for new talent. It’s perfect for those guys – they don’t have to go to a store to find things. They could literally just look online, find some really unique different designs. That’s what we were all about, especially with swimwear. It was very much one-off pieces, and pieces that you wouldn’t crash at a pool party in, so it was perfect for celebrities.

What kind of advice would you give to creative entrepreneurs now to get noticed on Instagram?

Sian: I would say now that it still does boil down to that raw talent. If you’ve got a raw talent and you create amazing designs and use the right hashtags – there’s a few tricks of the trade within Instagram that will help you get seen. But I think having that talent – and engaging with the people that you want to see – or sometimes that can work is the kind of tricks of the trade within that you can use to be seen. But I think yes, it’s mainly just about having the talent and getting your pictures on there. And pushing it as much as you can and being a consistent person, posting every single day, making the people that follow you almost know when you’re about to post so that they can be prepared for it.

There are peak times for posting. With Instagram, you should always be posting regular content without posting too much with them without not posting enough. It’s a really tricky balance because you want to keep people engaged, but you don’t want to annoy them. But I think as a designer, especially when we’re creating, if you’re creating pieces that are one-offs, get throwing them all on there and have a wall full of your work so that people, when they do find you, can just flick through and see everything.

Once you became a bit more established, were getting noticed by the stylists and everything, I believe it was an influencer who wore one of your pieces and you got recognised off the back of that as well.

Then the pandemic hit, and of course, people are not going on the sunny holidays. They’re stuck at home and you had to pivot to loungewear very, very quickly. Tell us a bit more about how you went about doing that and how long it took.

Sian: Yeah, so we were like, 90 per cent swimwear in the UK pre-pandemic, and then the pandemic hit. I think we just launched a range in the March, a full swimwear range. It was an absolute nightmare. People were sending stuff back saying that their holidays were being cancelled.

I remember first hearing about coronavirus and having a bit of a, ‘Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s probably going to be fine’. I think back to May, and then this all kicked off. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ This is destroying for my type of business. We did always plan to expand into new areas, just not as quickly as we had to do with the pandemic. It kind of forced me and us to expand quicker than we wanted to. But it’s actually, out of such a terrible time, it’s probably been the best thing that we’ve ever done. Because loungewear for me now – it’s just proven how hard swimwear is, because it’s seasonal. It’s a much smaller demographic graphic in some ways than loungewear.

And the way that, as a designer, and as a brand owner, the way that we turned around the product and made everything happen was so much quicker than it normally would be for a fashion brand. But I think I look at that now and pat myself on the back for being able to adapt it and change so quickly and react to what was going on. And yeah, survive it, I guess.

One of the key attributes of a business owner is to be nimble and to be able to adapt very quickly. You even had Covid-19 yourself – how did that affect you and the business?

Sian: Having Covid was dreadful. Even now, I can’t taste or smell. It’s so bizarre – it’s been months now. And yeah, I can’t taste or smell anything. On a personal level, having Covid myself was weird. I was more scared for family and friends, making sure that everybody else will be alright. My mum’s literally just found out she’s got Covid today. She’s an NHS nurse.

Covid itself was just such a strange thing to live through and to be a business owner through. Every business on the planet was affected in some way by it. And it’s sad that some of them didn’t make it. But you know, luckily for me, I could adapt. I was on the ball and I was involved. I think sometimes people think I’m just sat on a beach enjoying life. It’s really not like that as a business owner – not for me anyway.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a thing with entrepreneurs, especially on social media, where they’re sort of living the highlife and having a good time, but I think there’s less of the imagery of, I don’t know, sitting with a planning board at three in the morning and that kind of thing.

Sian: Social media is amazing. But I think it does depict entrepreneurs and business owners in a certain light that makes everything look glamorous, which is what it 100 per cent is at times. But then there’s a lot of the time where it’s just hard work. You work long hours, you’re full-on, there are a lot of hurdles, a lot of stresses. I think that’s why probably a lot of start-ups struggle or they don’t make it past certain hurdles, because they’re expecting everything to be rosy and it really isn’t. Even in my position now, we’re doing really well, we’re growing and we’re going in the right direction, and I’m in a really happy place. But there are still hurdles, there are still issues, there are still stresses every single day, but as a business owner and an entrepreneur, are you ready for that? You’re ready to attack that and to keep going.

What’s the most stressful thing you face as an entrepreneur? How do you tackle it?

Sian: One of the things that I struggle with as an entrepreneur, it’s a very funny one and I’m sure others would agree, is letting go of things and letting other people do them or manage them. My business, I started myself in my bedroom and I know every single part of the business, even now. And I think it’s hard. I am all about my brand so everything I do is about the brand. And I care. And I think sometimes just letting other people manage things and having a team of people who you need around you, but then allowing them to do it for you. I really struggle with it even now, you have to as the business grows, but I like to do everything myself. I can’t – you can’t do everything yourself.

Is that just a case of, ‘Okay, breathe’? Let them do the thing, trust them? Or is there something specific that you do to try and ease that anxiety?

Sian: I think to help with that, it’s about employing the right people. It’s about making sure that they’re well-trained and know what they’re doing, and that they know you’re there if they need help. If they really need to speak to somebody or ask someone. For me, it’s making sure you’ve got the right people in place for the job. And then allowing yourself to be open to questions and giving help if you need to.

Great. And another challenge that’s coming up that may affect you, is the possible regulation of the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) market? Because I understand that you use a BNPL facility on the site. It’s still under consultation at the moment, but how do you think that’s going to change that side of the business for you as a retailer?

Sian: Are they saying they’re not going to allow it anymore?

Anna: No, it’s just that it might be regulated, like other credit facilities – credit cards and so on. So, it’s more stringent checks and being more lenient with people who are struggling to make repayments and that kind of thing. But it looks like the retailers might have to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as well.

Sian: In terms of Buy Now Pay Later, and we do have it on our site, it does come in handy.

The majority of our sales are just bought directly, through PayPal or credit card. So, depending on how that works, it might affect us slightly, but I think anything that’s going to make people safer and help avoid them getting themselves into debts or anything like that, then, as a business owner, you’ve got to make sure people are safe, that’s the priority.

You started the business on a very low budget. What kind of advice would you have for, say, sole traders or entrepreneurs who want to start a business on a low budget?

Sian: Anyone wanting to start a business on a low budget, I would say, don’t be put off by that. And it actually was, I think, I would personally say it was great for me because it taught me how to be smart with money and how to reinvest profits. I worked full-time when I first set the business up, didn’t take any money out of the business for myself for quite a while I just built the pot. And luckily working allowed me to do that. And me having really early mornings and really late nights to manage your business and a full-time job. But that was my plan. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on making money to begin with, it was more about getting the right things in place, having the website, having some cash saved up for any rainy days or anything that I need it for. I would just say, you definitely can do it, you just have to be very smart about planning and money management.

I’d like to talk a little bit about The Apprentice and your time on it. So yeah, you got right through to the final. What was the most memorable task for you and why?

Sian: The most memorable task for me in The Apprentice was definitely the QVC task, like selling on TV. I remember taking a massive punt and saying, ‘Right, I’m going to pick the most expensive product that we could choose from.’ And in my head, I kind of said to myself, ‘If we win, amazing. If we don’t win, I’m probably going to get kicked off for this task.’ But it was one where I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to take a risk and I’m going to hope that Lord Sugar appreciates me taking the risk. And luckily, I think we won – I’m pretty sure that we won that task. And everything paid off for me. So yeah, that was my favourite one.

Right at the very end, you and Camilla, you seemed to – not as much as other years – but you seem to be in quite a head-to-head with a lot of arguing. Then all of a sudden, once Lord Sugar had made the announcement, it’s as if something just fell.

And you’re not best friends. But you know, you kind of made up again. Tell us what it’s like being in that final, that final meeting room scenario.

Sian: At the time, we were actually really good friends. And we were very similar age-wise and interests, whatever else. So, it was a really strange situation because it was like we were really buzzing for each other when the fan then you were competing against each other. But we knew that when we were in front of Lord Sugar and was in the final grilling, we kind of knew the situation. And we knew that we’d have to say things about each other’s businesses and about each other. And I think we just kind of took it and ran with it.

But we knew that off-camera and behind the scenes, we were friends, and we genuinely would have been whoever, whatever the outcome would have been and whoever would have won, we would have been happy. Had that been coming I would have been absolutely pausing for. It was a really strange one. But what obviously for me, I’ll never forget the moment that I won. But then being in the final was another thing that I’ll never forget either because it was a girl power final.

Were you encouraged to ham it up or was that all real?

Sian: Everything on the show is real. Everything that you see is real. It’s emotional. You’ve been in there for a long time, we’re tired, you’ve been doing all these tasks. And especially by the final I was a bit like, I’m so competitive as well, that I was like by this stage, ‘If I don’t win now, I’m going to be absolutely fuming.’ So fine. I was like, ‘I’m knackered, but this is the final hurdle now and I need to win it.’ You know, I would have kicked myself if I’d came second.

Anna: Well, great. I mean, that seems like a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah. And it’s been wonderful to have you.

Sian: Thank you for having me. It’s been great.

You can find out more about Sian Marie at sianmarie.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more about growing your brand on social media. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

See also: Top 10 most popular Apprentice stars on Instagram

The post Sian Gabbidon: ‘People think I’m just sat on a beach enjoying life’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Keith Abel, founder of Abel & Cole and chairman of Freddie’s Flowers.

We discuss the how he got the idea for Abel & Cole and what advice he has for entrepreneurs.

This episode was brought to you in partnership with UPS.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Alternatively, you can watch a teaser video first.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2019 winner, Carina Lepore
• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Keith Abel podcast transcript

Hello. My name is Tim Adler and I am the editor of SmallBusiness.co.uk. On today’s Small Business Snippets podcast, we’re talking to Keith Abel, chairman of Freddie’s Flowers and founder of Abel & Cole, the organic door-to-door vegetable box delivery business that became a phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

He’s going to be talking about how he began the business, literally as a one-man band, how it grew and the lessons he learned along the way and the advice that he would have for small business owners.

Keith, I know that for you this is a long story. Where did the idea for Abel & Cole come from?

Keith: So back in the days of Margaret Thatcher and the miners’ strike, I was at Leeds University and I went on a trip with a couple of people who you know, to Africa. And we missed our flight back and we had to get another one. So, I had to borrow some money. And that basically was my term’s grant cheque. So, I went up to Leeds with no money during the miners’ strike. I got a job selling potatoes door-to-door. I had sold fire extinguishers from the age of 16 and I was taught how to be a good door-to-door salesman.

So, I went to see this guy who’s building up potato rounds, a bit like milk rounds. I said to him, ‘I’m the best salesman you’ve ever employed’. He went, ‘Right, lad. I know someone who can sell 85 bags of potatoes in a day. How many can you sell?’ I said I’ll sell 100. He said, ‘You’re done. Get 100, I’ll give you £50. You get 99, I’ll give you nowt. You up for it?’ I said, ‘Yep, definitely.’ It was 10 o’clock at night, I was out there.

I’m very glad that I could sell a hundred bags and I get £50 – £13 rent, 50p a pint and fags were just 50p a packet. For a whole term, I lived on my Saturday job selling potatoes door-to-door. I left Leeds went to law school, passed my exams. I went to bar school. I fell in love, unrequited, concentrating a little bit too much on that and not enough on the exams. Failed my exams. Furious father. Kind of kicked me out and I thought, OK, those days, no minimum wage. I got £3.50 an hour price tagging Christmas cards in the basement of Selfridges. I couldn’t face it, so I thought ‘Sod it, no one’s doing this in London.’ So I got together with my mate, Paul Cole, who was at uni with me. I nicked £2,000 off my brother because he’d been traveling for a year and he had that much left over in traveller’s cheques. He was in IT. He was quite wealthy and had traveller’s cheques. I forged his signature to cash them. I gave him a share in the business. I bought a ton of potatoes, a batch of plastic bags, a little clipping machine and a van for £300. And I rented the basement at someone’s house in Catford. And that day, Paul and I bagged up 150 bags of potatoes and sold them.

Of course, by the end of Monday, we hadn’t just sold £150 of potatoes at a mark-up of two times. We built up a potato round. So, the next Monday, Paul went to deliver the potatoes to the previous lot, I went and set up round two. By Christmas we had we had four vans on the road, each costing £300, so they were reliable.

When we moved to organic, I remember thinking, ‘What should we charge for them?’ If no one’s asking, why don’t we charge it at a price where we know we’d actually make some money? We were never making any money. We were living on £70 a week. So we whacked the prices up a bit. But customers really liked them talked about when we started writing about organic farming, they’re Soil Association certified. Soil Association was gathering some momentum. Suddenly, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Middle Class of Wandsworth say, ‘Any chance to some other vegetables? So, I turned around to the organic farmer said, ‘How would you feel about throwing a few vegetables in a box?’ I think, actually, he suggested it to me. And I went, ‘It’s great idea. How much do we charge for it – £8?’ We called it the Essential Organic Veg Box.

What stage had the business got to when you thought, ‘If we’re going to really grow, we need to bring in external investment’?

Keith: We didn’t – this was the exceptional thing about this business. I’ll explain to you why. We just started with our £2000. I got loans – my sister loaned me some money, my dad loaned me some money, but it was little small loans. What we discovered in about 2003, when the business was turning over about £1.5m, if we put out a leaflet, it was a multi-coloured leaflet. And it said ‘truly fresh organic produce straight from the grower to your table’ with an 0800 number underneath it. If we put 1000 of those out through letter boxes in broadly speaking better off areas, we would get three customers. And those three customers would have bought from us three times before we had to pay for the printing or the Royal Mail to distribute it. That was the equivalent of finding a fruit machine that you only had to put the money in after you’d had your winnings. When we discovered that, we decided to experiment small, and we put out 6m leaflets. We trebled in size in six months.

Basically, we had negative cash flow – we didn’t need cash to grow, it was the opposite. As we grew, the cash just piled up. We could buy a lot of our vans with cash, we bought our warehouse with cash, we were generating vast amounts of cash. As we got big, we were paying the Post Office later, the printers later. All the money was just pouring in. It was a brilliant business. We never took a penny of external investment. We built sales up to 35m and it had been unbelievably hard work.

What kind of hours had you been working at the start?

Keith: Right at the start, we would get to the market at three o’clock in the morning. We get back to the warehouse at 5:30am. We packed spuds until 8am, then we go out and have a big breakfast. We’d be door knocking and collecting money until 6pm and we get home at 7:30pm. We were doing that for months. I mean, it was really, really exhausting. You know, I was always getting into the warehouse for 6:30am to open up with Paul, it was it was very, very, very long hours and it was very stressful. A lot of the time we didn’t know what we were doing. But we were just tenacious. You know, we were hustlers. We just kept going, whatever happened, and we kept going.

What do you think the most important quality of an entrepreneur is?

Keith: I’ve discussed this with loads of friends who run successful businesses. We’re all in complete agreement: the number one thing is tenacity. If you’ve got a wall that you’ve got to get around, some people go to the right and they can’t find a way around it to the right. Some people go to the left and they can’t find a way around it. In fact, they find that it goes circular, this wall, and they try to climb over it. It’s got barbed wire on the top and they can’t get through it and a lot of people just go, ‘Okay, that’s it. There’s a wall, I’m stuck.’ But the entrepreneur tries to dig underneath it, and then he realises he can’t quite dig underneath it. So he blows it up. And it’s that sort of, ‘Well, I don’t care, I’m going to find a way to do this.’ that I think it’s the difference between people who survive, and it is about surviving. And those that don’t. There have been lots of times where you just sort of thought, ‘Okay, that’s it, we’re done.’ I’ve always said no, I’ve always been prepared to ring up the supplier and say, ‘Can you give me another month?’ In fact, one supplier when we were bust, and the Inland Revenue put the house up for sale and we were completely against the wall. I just said, ‘I’m not going to pay you. But I’m going to keep trading and I will pay you back eventually.’

Was this pre-equity?

Keith: oh yeah, way before that.

So, there was a cash flow problem.

Keith: Absolutely. That was because we weren’t being detailed enough with our accounting. So that’s the second tip: know your numbers. Have a good bookkeeper or accountant, giving you month-end figures every month. Otherwise you’re flying blind.

So, there you are, along comes Mr. Private Equity. Yeah, I can take this all off your hands, and you can walk off into the sunset with your Jacuzzi and your Porsche. Happy days. What happened?

Keith: In those days, that was called a leveraged buyout. Very simply, what they do is they come up to you, and they say, ‘Can we buy your house?’ And you go, ‘Yeah’, and they say, ‘Right, Mr. Bank, will you lend me the money to buy that house?’ And they go, ‘Yeah, sure. But if you don’t pay the interest back, then we’re going to take over the business.’ They did a lot of leverage, they put in £20m worth of debt. Obviously, you don’t get all the money on day one, you get promise notes for the future. Then they take over running it, and they run it their way, not your way.

But surely you were integral to the business.

Keith: No, I brought in a team underneath me. So, they were the management buyout team. And they were inexperienced – didn’t know how to deal with the investors. And it quite quickly unravelled. Lloyds Bank said, ‘Right, give me the keys, we’ll take over the business.’ This was in 2008, when they were doing that to a lot of businesses in the financial crisis. And they needed people to run them.

I got a phone call one day when I was out skiing. You know, I was turning up once a month to board meetings, thinking they were all buffoons and carrying on with my life. The chap from Lloyds said, ‘Would you meet me for breakfast?’ And I said, ‘Look, I don’t think I’m going anywhere near that business. But I’ll certainly have breakfast with you.’ I was expecting him to say, you know, you give me half the money back and then you can have the whole business. I was thinking I’m not going to do that, they run it into the ground. But he just gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He said, ‘I’ll give you 40 per cent of the business for nothing, and I’ll reduce the debt’, which was at £28m to £10m. It was a no-brainer.

So, you go back in. How long did it take you to turn the business around?

Keith: 18 months. Best part of my life. Sales had gone back from £35m to £27m. In 18 months, with no investment, we took them from £27m to £45m.

How did you do that?

Keith: We were pretty brutal. We did a massive cost-cutting exercise. We had a marketing team of about 20 people in it. Or, as far as I was concerned, they were a non-marketing team because sales were going backwards. We just got rid of all of them. It was much easier just everybody went. We got rid of layers of middle management.

We printed one leaflet – remember I told you that leaflet worked? – they stopped leafleting so I printed a leaflet. It had one of the corniest straplines I’ve ever come up with. I’m so proud of it. Awesome campaign. It said ‘Abel & Cole have turned over a new leaf’ because our reputation had gone downhill. The boxes were crap.

We put all the savings from all these employees into the boxes and made sure they were the best. We spoke to the growers and said, ‘Look, you don’t want us to go bust. We need deals. I know you’ve never charged me less than 50p for cauliflower. I need it for 40p, and I promise you, I’ll be buying from you next year. He charged me 55p. We went around and did deals with everyone we could. We put together, I can honestly say, the best organic vegetable box that has ever been delivered. We also did this massive boxing campaign, again paid for six weeks hence. It was due to go and be delivered on a Tuesday, it was our final throw of the dice. If it worked, happy days. If it didn’t work, we were going to go bust. But at least if we were going to go bust, I said to everyone, that it would be with a bloody good product that we were proud of. We’ve given it our best shot and we were taking over a really knackered business. Phones rang off the hook. Customers got a fabulous product. We let that go for about three months, then we did quite a significant price rise, because the customers were happy and we needed to make some money. So, prices went up, sales carried on climbing through the ceiling, we went from losing money to making £4.5m a year in 18 months.

When you were there, during your second phase, you employed a young guy called Freddie Garland.

Keith: That’s right.

When I left the business, and was having my time out, temps still running it. He rang me up and said, ‘Keith, you know, my parents were florists and I’d quite like to do what you did with veg boxes but with flowers’. I remember I immediately thought that is a brilliant idea.

He said, ‘How do I get started?’ And I said, ‘Well, you’re going to need a van. Why not have a bit of fun and get a milk float? You’re going to need to move back in with your parents because you’re going to be broke for a couple of years. You need to buy a tent where you can turn it into a warehouse. I’ll lend you some money and we’ll give it a go. And if it works, I might invest in it. I’ll help you, you know, because that’s how I started.’

So, dear old Freddie is very hardworking. We worked out he needed about £10,000. I wrote to some lawyers and asked what they would charge for this agreement. They said £10,000 pounds plus VAT. We ended up doing the agreement, with Freddy sending me an email saying, ‘Dear Keith, Thanks for lending me £10,000, I’ll try and pay you back.’ There was no investment agreement because there wasn’t an investment. I was just saying, ‘You’re a nice young lad. I think this is a great idea. I bet it will work.’ Two months later, he was doing about 75-80 deliveries a day. Again, up at four in the morning, packing the flowers in the sitting room, going out on the milk float, bashing on doors in the evening, getting more customers, bringing a couple of friends in.

What was the timeline here? When are we talking?

Keith: That was September 2014. We’ve just had our seventh anniversary. It was between September, October and November. Yeah, Freddie marked down every door he knocked on, what the response was, how many customers he got, how often they wanted to order and when they stopped ordering. Ted and I went and put that into a great big model that we use for our subscription business before and worked out roughly how much money we think we needed to build the business up.

The arrangement we came to was that I would put the money in, largely by loan note, Ted would put the time in and Freddie would do all of the work. That was in April of that year, we put the money in – April 2015. And off we went. For the first year, we didn’t even have a website. Slowly, we built a website and got going.

So, the business is growing and growing and growing and everything’s going well. And then Covid hits. If you’ve got a door to door business…

Keith: Yep. We thought, well, you know, what should we do, we’re going to go bust or we’re going to double down. We’d just started digital marketing. At the beginning of Covid, every other company in the planet just went and stopped marketing. So marketing digitally became very cheap. We thought, ‘Okay, we’re currently spending X amount of money per week on our face-to-face team. We don’t have to spend money on them. We’ll spend all of that money on digital marketing.’ In a period of six weeks, the business went from run rate sales of around about 20m to 44m in six weeks.

What are run rates?

Keith: The weekly sales multiplied by 52. We basically doubled in size in six weeks.

What were you trying to do through the social media marketing? Was it brand awareness, was it sales?

Keith: No, it was very much customer acquisition. It was, ‘Sign up today and get your first two boxes at half price’ or it was, ‘Sign up today and we’ll send you a free vase’.

Do you think that what social media is good for sign ups?

Keith: I think that when you’re small and you’re hustling, you’ve got to really focus on methods of acquiring customers where you can measure the payback in the lifetime value, the return on investment. It’s only when you’re much bigger, and you’ve got bigger investment (which is where we’re at now) that you can start really spending the significant budgets that are needed to build brand awareness.

You’ve said elsewhere that another thing you realise that it’s only when you really start paying the social media companies the big money, the algorithm starts getting behind you.

Keith: Yeah, that is the case. But if you’re clever, if you use the right influencers, if you hustle. If you if you’ve got a small budget, you’ve got to hustle a bit. If social media is too expensive, you’ve got to find other ways of getting your message out there.

Okay, so, we’ve moved now we’re moving away from the pandemic. In July, you had a $60m vote of confidence in Freddie’s Flowers through this new investment. What do you want to do with that money?

Keith: It’s interesting, we’re really blessed. We’ve got a fantastic new investor, they’re not a PE fund. They’re not a fund. They are entrepreneurs, the money’s from entrepreneurial families, and they call themselves The Craftory, because they’re a factory of crafters, people with specific skills. What they’re doing is they’re teaching us the skills that we don’t have and they’re explaining to me where they feel, it’s entirely up to us, but where they feel that money should be invested.

The strategy really is a few-fold it is to make sure that we’ve got the best people in the most senior positions where we have weaknesses. We had a capability study. We know we’re very capable there and we need more capability there. And the particular area we need it is brand and brand building, so we are looking to recruit some senior people who’ve done that before, in what’s called CPG (consumer packaged goods) and a significant amount of budget over the next few years will be built in the different geographies, is just building brand awareness. The other way we’re investing in is geographic expansion. We’re in Germany, we’re about to open a big warehouse in Germany, in southern Germany, doing on distribution on electric bikes. Then in November, we’re going to launch in Los Angeles.

I mean, it’s interesting, you’re saying that one of the things that you’re aware of is weaknesses in the team. I think even at a micro-level or small business level, something I’ve noticed, is that entrepreneurs, when they’re looking to recruit, they recruit people looking in their own image. And that seems to be such a mistake – it’s exactly what you don’t want to do.

Keith: There’s a great thing called Myers-Briggs, or Belbin is another one.

Let me put it simply, I think the easiest way to describe a successful business is like a rugby team. Much more than a football team, because in a rugby team, the prop forward is a totally different shape to the guy on the wing. He’s got a totally different script, a different set of skills. If you’re a prop forward in your business and you go and recruit another prop forward because you like him and you’re both big beer drinkers and that’s what you do and you’ve got the same sense of humour. You’re the same type, you’re just never going to get anywhere.

My blessing at Abel & Cole was recruiting a woman called Ella Hicks. I was in my late 30s. She was in her early 20s. She was a she and I was he. She had all the skills about being detailed, about following things through, about taking notes furiously. I had all the madness of firing out 50 ideas a minute. She would know which ones to capture and which ones we would do. At the same point, she may say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’ So those are the two big skills that any business needs to have to start off with.

Looking back when – you’re still in the middle of your career – do you have a personal business philosophy? Or a piece of advice that somebody told you that you think, ‘Yeah, that’s true.’

Keith: Very early on, when things weren’t going well, and I was thoroughly depressed, and all my friends were being frightfully successful in their careers and I was absolutely broke. I got advised by a man who explained to me that my unhappiness was spreading to everyone else in the business was toxic. That I was a nice guy, and people liked working with me, but I needed to basically cheer up. I needed to look after how they were feeling. If everyone was in a good mood, then they do brilliantly.

For the last 30 years that I’ve been doing business – and I’ve not always got it right, but I always take it very seriously – is how to make sure it’s a great place to work. A great place to work is making sure that the team all know what’s going on within the business, that they sign up to it, that they enjoy, that people are promoted internally, that people feel that it’s a fair place to work, where they’re treated with respect, that they’re looked after, they know what’s going on. They know what the next steps are. That happy environment or culture, as it’s called, really makes a difference.

You know this – when a new restaurant opens up, if it’s got a stress-y owner, and a stressed-out checkout girl, who doesn’t know quite what she’s doing, you just think, ‘Oh God, this is a nightmare.’ If it’s got some fantastic flamboyant smiley person and the food’s 20 minutes late and it’s their opening night, you want to go back there, don’t you? And I think that’s what it’s like for a small business.

Thanks to Keith for joining us today. Remember, you can always follow us @smallbusinessuk on Twitter or at @SmallBusinessExperts on Facebook, and we’ll see you next time.

The post Keith Abel: ‘We went from losing money to making £4.5m a year in 18 months’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Carina Lepore, entrepreneur and winner of The Apprentice 2019.

We discuss the law of attraction and starting a business in a field that you’re not familiar with.

This episode was brought to you in partnership with UPS and AAT.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Alternatively, you can watch the video here.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones
• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Carina Lepore podcast interview transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Carina Lepore – entrepreneur and the latest winner of The Apprentice back in 2019.

She’s considered the most successful candidate of all time, winning nine out of ten challenges and never appearing in the bottom two.  

Before she went on the show, Carina joined her dad to start a coffee shop business after his previous bakery burned down. Now Dough Artisan Bakehouse has two branches in London and has plans to take on Greggs.

We’ll be talking about the law of attraction and starting a business in an unfamiliar field. 

Anna: Hi Carina

Carina: Hello

Anna: How are you doing?

Carina: Yeah, good.

Anna: Hi, Carina, how you doing?

Carina: Hi, I’m good. You?

Anna: Yeah, I’m doing well. Enjoying this lovely heatwave after the thunderstorms yesterday.

Carina: I got caught in that!

Anna: Me too. Oh, I know. I know. And you think, is it just going to be sun, shower, sun, shower.

Carina: I know. It was awful.

Okay, so the first thing I want to ask you is a bit about before you joined your dad’s bakery business. You had your first business when you were 18? Tell us a bit more about that.

Carina: Yes. So, I left school, left sixth form and I had been working for our small High Street shop, I suppose, and I was really just interested in the ways he ran the business. I would start to, at a very young age, say 14-15, I’d start to ask the right questions, just try and get involved with merchandising and his little takings book and where he would get stock from. I started to want to know more about the ways the business worked, really. So, I had that keen interest and drive at such a young age.

It’s obviously A level result day [at time of recording] and we’ve been talking and the main thing I’ve just keep thinking and saying is that when you get them results, you just think, ‘Oh my God. Is this making or breaking my life?’ I remember that as well – and I remember I didn’t get great grades, no, but I still had that entrepreneurial drive. So, I was going do something with that. That was more my route.  

I then went and opened up a shop and I did a shop, car-boot sales and a market – Wimbledon Market. What I would do is I would buy my stock. A lot what Lord Sugar says, and now I can say to him, ‘Smell what sells.’ I would pick top sellers and just bung them in my shops or whatever I had. That was me really. It was bold, it was brave. It was different. It was just something I wanted to do. I was just really excited by it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Great stuff. What was your first business then? I believe you had a fashion store.

Carina: Yeah, it was a shop called Faze. And it was – well, it was a phase actually, because it didn’t last too long. It was more of an ‘I wanted to do it – this is what I was going to do’. It was a sort of, what you would call now, I suppose, clothes that you see on Pretty Little Thing and Boohoo – just fashion clothes for young people. I also started to sell, this was crazy, I mean, spotting trends is key for any businessperson. I started to notice people would like, I don’t know if you know, you’re going to be like, ‘What a weirdo’, people used to wear, like, designer gold teeth. I remember the American fashion sites come in. I was like, ‘I’m going to source grills and sell them’. At the time I was so excited. I had this famous rapper come in, I was like, ‘Oh my God’. But that’s what is exciting. Now 16 years on, it’s the same sort of thing. You know, you smell sales, you spot a trend, you get a few influencers to put your stuff up. That’s how the world is working.

So if you think you’ve got a great idea – and I keep touching on it, and it’s my thing today – is I’ve really learned a lot about different routes coming out of school for A level students really I’ve learned loads about the qualification that AAT offer. It’s an accountancy firm, and they offer this apprenticeship in accountancy. I imagine if I’d had that running alongside me working and wherever it be, whether I was at M&S or Vibe (at the time), but I would have had that in the bag as well. It would have just made me feel even more confident because I would have actually known a bit about real numbers back then. Knowing your numbers in business is just so key, so crucial. I’ve learned loads from Lord Sugar, he could just whip numbers up like this. Whereas, with someone like me, it takes a lot more. But if I’d had, for example, that qualification with AAT I would have been up on his level.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess you’ve been learning as you’re going along, and your dad will have had his own experience and his own business savvy. When you decided to pair up to start the Bakehouse, how did you weave your vision with his – and potentially his business partner’s? What kind of challenges did you have there? Especially as a family member, someone who was quite fragile at the time.

Carina: Yeah, it’s been like a roller coaster. I’m even talking pre-pandemic, that’s a whole different roller coaster. And so I think he just allowed me to run with everything, every element I just would run with and I don’t know whether he just found this new confidence in me as a woman, maybe as a grown-up woman when I was 18. He was telling me, ‘Oh, what silly mistake, go and get a job.’ Whereas now, I was taking an even bigger risk, I was leaving a secure job at M&S with a good salary to then risk us having barely any takings, just to do something risky, but also as a passion of his and mine. And that’s what I really wanted to do. I saw it as an opportunity. He was going through such a dark time, and I’ve never seen him go through anything like that in my life. I did take it as an opportunity for me to help him for once in our lives and give back to him.

It’s worked very well, because he’s got this creative flair. He can’t talk, he can’t relay information. If he was here now – oh, bless him. He’s got this creative flair and anything to do with products and recipes, his personality just comes out in all his products and he’s so fun. That’s what customers love. But yeah, the business side definitely needed to take a different route, more of a structured route. That’s where I think have helped him.

Such a huge part of that route has been appearing on The Apprentice. And I understand that you watched the previous series before you went on. What did it teach you before you went on?

Carina: Oh my God that show. It was between that and MasterChef, but I’m not a chef, so I was going to be one of them. I just loved The Apprentice and everything about it. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s the challenges, the team, Lord Sugar, the scary element, the adrenaline rush – I don’t know. I used to always think it was one of them shows where you think, ‘Oh, I could have done that’ or ‘I would have made that’ and it’s making the ideas. I just love everything about the show.  

I just did the application one night on my phone and then suddenly got through and then just kept getting through the application process and I thought, ‘Wow, this is for me, this is meant to be.’ That’s when I suddenly switched into, ‘Now I need to win the show because this is want.’ I want Lord Sugar to be my business partner. ‘This is for me’ – that’s what I kept thinking – ‘This is meant to be.’ That’s all I kept thinking and then actually getting on there, getting the call that they want you in the house. It was just this surreal feeling, what an experience. I loved everything about it.

Just out of interest, how many steps are there in the application process?

Carina: It’s as tough as the show. They set you up from day one. When you turn up [at the audition], there’s obviously London, Manchester and one other place somewhere. There’s three application spots, I suppose. I went to the London one. So, it was over three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I went on the Sunday. I remember I turned up and there was, like, suits everywhere. It was full of ‘Wolf-of-Wall-Street-type people’ as I called them. It was like everyone was boardroom ready with their briefcases and there were a couple of people like me, more down to earth. We were the minority, 100 per cent. I immediately thought, ‘Oh my God – I just rocked up.’

Then what they do is – it’s very tough, and you learn straight away from that first task – they give you a number, I can’t remember what I was, I’m thinking it was seven. Then you stand up in groups of ten or 20, whatever. You’d stand up on the line. You have to talk for 30 seconds, just talk. ‘Number seven – talk.’

Anna: About anything?

Carina: Yeah, anything. Some people tried to be funny, some people would go with the whole, ‘This is what I do.’ Then it was a bit X Factor style. They’d call your number – half of you would go one way, half the other. That’s how the process was – you kept moving up levels. The more I started to move up, I was like, ‘Oh, I must be doing something right. I’m not going down the list, I’m going up.’ So you keep going up. Then I remember sneaking off. It got to 10pm and it’s exactly how the show is, the days are long. They are so vigorous and they want to literally hone out the best people for this show that they keep you there. I’m ringing my sister going, ‘It’s a school night you’re going to have to put Lucas [Carina’s son] to bed because I’m still here.’ I didn’t know what was happening. They could have kept me the whole night. Then you get to the next set of practice tasks and it’s just so hard. I had to write a manifesto. I didn’t know what that was. I was like, ‘What is this?’

Yeah, it’s a very challenging application process. But they obviously just want the best candidates. That’s why they make it so hard. They need to set you up for how hard the show actually is. It’s so hard. It’s not for the weak. It’s so tough.

Anna: Yeah, it’s a tough 12 weeks.

I’ve read that you’re a big believer in the law of attraction, and that it did play a part in you applying for The Apprentice in the first place. First of all, could you give us a bit of an explanation as to what the law of attraction is?

Carina: Yes. I’m a massive believer. I started, when I suddenly just had something clicking, I can’t remember the day. But I remember doing my vision board. The vision board obviously plays a massive part. If you need any books, definitely start with The Secret. It gives you everything you need.

If you want to change your mindset – I used to struggle with anxiety and massively I still do. Try to breathe and think that everything is written and everything is for a reason and that it’s about manifesting what you want and believing in what you want and achieving and getting your results, really.

I remember this one example. I think I told This Morning or something I was on with Ruth and Eamon. And I remember saying, I sat in my shop – August is always quiet. We’re going through the same thing now. So, I remember it was an August month, and it must have been 2018, just before I applied for the show. I sat there and I saw the AMS 1 (Lord Sugar’s car). It was that car. It was like an entourage of three cars, I was like, ‘It’s Lord Sugar.’ I knew the car from the show. And I immediately saw it as a sign. This is meant to be my business partner. So that was all good. I then applied for the show in January and got on. It all happened quite quickly.

If you believe and if you really think this is [meant to be]. I remember, that was a sign. I’m now going to either meet Lord Sugar, or I had Karren Brady on my vision board. Again, pre-Apprentice, she was up there, just as I didn’t know…

This is a thing with the law of attraction – you can put it out there, but you just you don’t know where it’s going to come in. You can’t force it. It might just happen. Then it just happens that everything I have on that board was ticked off. It’s crazy. I talk to my friends about it who are big believers. One of them is a big artist. He’s really known in the world of music. He is just so successful with it. He has this vision board, he shows people what he puts on, he then takes it off a year later. It could take years, months, I don’t know. But you’ll slowly start to think that I’m actually getting everything I want out of life. That’s what’s so important. I could talk about it all day, I get so passionate about it. And I’m finding other people that really understand it and believe in that way of life.

I appreciate that a lot of it is based on positive psychology – visualisations, gratitude, that kind of thing. What would you say to people who are more sceptical and think it’s a bit victim blaming in some ways? Maybe there’s a sense that if somebody in a business example, say you’re struggling with their business, they’re maybe not manifesting in the right way. Perhaps it devalues the work that the individual does and says it’s more from the universe rather than the actions that the individual has put towards achieving their goals? What kind of things would you say to them?

Carina: Yeah, people think differently to me, which is fine. But ultimately, you get the results that you are willing to put in. I’m not saying you’ve got to go and say this is the thing. This is what the books teach you. I might want a mansion, I haven’t got a mansion yet, but as long as I keep believing that I’m going to have a mansion, then maybe hopefully one day, we’ll just put it out there, just give it away and then stop thinking about it.

But with regards to running a successful business, if my mindset was like, ‘That’s it. What a bad month’ or looking at takings for that month or, ‘We hit a pandemic, we can’t trade anymore.’ If you just say that to yourself all day, you’re going to eventually get into a lull where negativity is just eating you up and you won’t be able to see a way out. Anytime I’m having a bad week, of course, you have to then really think about your thoughts because they play such a big part. But it’s very easy to get wrapped up in those negative thoughts. I even still struggle with it.

For example, last month was a tough month, and I remember thinking ‘Ugh’, but then I put a plan in place. That’s all – you just got to spin it back to, ‘We’re going to go again, team. Come on, let’s go again, let’s strive for more.’ So, I have a bad day and then I’m suddenly back with a notepad and loads of notes. We go again and we push harder. But yeah, getting into a lull is hard, you’ve just got to find something that can find a way that can get you out, whether it’s taking yourself away for a bit, self-love or self-care which is so important. Again, something I struggle with. I really have to force myself to switch off, but you have to because otherwise you’ll be eaten up with all the bad thoughts. You just have to think, ‘Right, let’s go again.’ You know?

With anxiety and having to keep your mental health and your thoughts and your mindset in check. In the last meeting that you had with Scarlett and Lord Sugar, and she said that you weren’t an established business, you’re a newbie and you didn’t really know a lot about the industry. How did that make you feel at the time? How did you cope in such a high-pressure situation?

Carina: Yeah, you do. You do want to just react instantly when there’s something said about your business or yourself or your character or anything like that. It heightens the tension in the room – it’s already really as high as it can be.

I can’t remember my answer. You might have it but I’m sure I was just more of the guidance. And I’d show I would just talk to Lord Sugar and say, ‘Well, I do know my business and I can tell you what I know about my business’ and I would then just relay everything. I didn’t understand her business. I would sit there. I think Claude said to me once, like, ‘You can you can take a nap now.’ So maybe she didn’t understand what I was trying to relay and that I didn’t know my business. But yeah, even if you’re a newbie and a start-up, like I’ve been touching upon, if you can get a great qualification, and if you can understand the importance of spotting trends, and run with it, take risks.

Actually, that is exactly what I was just about to ask you. We do sometimes come across entrepreneurs or want-to-be entrepreneurs who are wanting to go into a field that they’re not so familiar with. As someone who has been there, what advice might you have for them?

Carina: I didn’t know. And I still get dinged up on about being the baker who doesn’t bake. That was the whole tagline I ended up getting from the show, but I didn’t let it deter me or let it put me off. In them interviews that we do with Claude and the scary interviewers, it was so scary. They were just picking me up on the fact that, ‘How can you know your business if you don’t know your business?’ My argument was that you can be a club owner, you could be a restaurant owner or hotelier, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to be the chef of the restaurant or the barman and I’m going know every cocktail, every recipe.

It’s more about your leadership skills, I think, and your passion for that business and that drive. I love everything about the bakery – I love bread, I love seeing them make it. It doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to muck in and make it, but I love the process. I love everything about it. That’s where my passion shines through in customer care, the customer service piece. I tried to relay that in the show that that is actually more important. Knowing your customers and knowing what they want rather than me actually knowing how to knead a loaf. You employ people to do certain skills, you don’t have to have everything. So that was my argument for the show. Any young people out there who have a passion for something, obviously learn about it and know your business, because that is very important. But you don’t actually have to be the chef or whatever.

Looping right back to the start. For people who have got their A levels today and they maybe didn’t get the grades that they expected and they maybe want to go down the entrepreneurial route. What would you say to them? 

Carina: I’ve learned a lot myself from the qualification that AAT are offering. I’m just going to throw out the link. Basically, it’s an accountancy firm, and it’s an accountancy apprenticeship. The link to that is aat.org.uk/123. The 123 spheres on the fact that knowing your numbers is so key. If you didn’t get the grades you want and you know in your heart that university isn’t for you, then definitely explore other routes, explore this route from AAT. See if it’s for you.

If you’ve got ideas about business, just make sure you’ve got a notepad, keep everything jotted down with what you want to do. Keep learning, keep networking. Get all the knowledge you need, reach out to people – some people will get back to you and give you tips and advice in the field you want to go into.

Anna: Great. Well, that seems like a very good place to end. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Carina.

Carina: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

You can find out more about Dough Artisan Bakehouse at doughbakehouse.co.uk. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on starting your own business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

The post Carina Lepore: ‘I saw Lord Sugar’s car and it was a sign’ appeared first on Small Business UK.

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guests are Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones.

We discuss pitching in Dragon’s Den – from both sides.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Alternatively, you can watch the video here.

You can also catch our episodes with:

• Angel investor, entrepreneur and TV personality, Spencer Matthews
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon’s Den Ireland, Lady Chanelle McCoy
• Businessman and The Apprentice winner, Mark Wright
• Entrepreneur and campaigner, Paul Lindley
• Managing director of Brompton Bikes, Will Butler-Adams
• Businessman and author, Gerald Ratner
• Entrepreneur and TV presenter, Trinny Woodall
• Pub owner and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates, Merlin Griffiths
• Founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly Pimlico Plumbers), Charlie Mullins
• Retail expert and former Dragon, Theo Paphitis
• Author and boardroom expert, John Tusa
• Digital guru and investor, Sherry Coutu
• Entrepreneur and former Dragon, Rachel Elnaugh
• Businesswoman and Dragon, Deborah Meaden
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2005 candidate, Tim Campbell
• Gousto CEO, Timo Boldt
• Entrepreneur and The Apprentice 2018 candidate, Jackie Fast
• Investor and former Dragon, Piers Linney
• Investment fund manager, Nicola Horlick
• Supermodel turned entrepreneur, Caprice

We’ve got podcast episodes from the first series looking at:

• How one business owner’s mental breakdown caused her to see trolls from her past
• How one entrepreneur hired a videographer to track their every move and build their business brand
• How funding a business led one entrepreneur to stress-related alopecia
• One entrepreneur’s first professional public speaking engagement
• Adapting to UK life and learning English before starting a business
• Securing seed funding
• Finding the perfect head of customer care
• Reaching a £1 million annual rate of return
• Boosting client numbers from 30 to 850
• Starting a brand new business from scratch

To find out more about Small Business Snippets, you can download the trailer.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, it’s available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Watch the new video versions and subscribe over at our YouTube channel. It’d also be great if you could leave us a review.

Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case.

Tej and Sam’s podcast interview transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Tej Lalvani and Sam Jones – one is CEO of Vitabiotics and Dragon on Dragon’s Den and the other is an entrepreneur who, according to Touker Suleyman, gave one of the best pitches he’s ever seen in the Den.

Sam went into the Den looking for £60,000 in exchange for ten per cent equity of his internet browser company, Gener8. Wowed by the pitch, Touker Suleyman and Peter Jones teamed up to invest in the entrepreneur, leaving Tej and Deborah Meaden with cash in their pockets.

Tej sought out Sam after the show, becoming one of a group of high-profile investors to back the firm.

After four years on the show, Tej will be stepping back from Dragon’s Den this year to focus on growing Vitabiotics.    

We’ll be talking about making a pitch – from both sides of the Den. 

Anna: Hi guys, how you getting on?

Sam and Tej: Hi Anna, how are you?

Anna: Yeah, doing really, really well. Thanks.

Sam: Awesome. Good to be here this afternoon. Thanks for having us on.

Right, we’ve got quite a bit to get through, as you’ve heard in the intro. I’ll start with you, Sam, talk us through the process of going on Dragon’s Den and anything that stood out to you particularly.

Sam: Well, wow, I mean, what an experience. It’d be hard to put that into 30 seconds. But really quickly, I start with what’s happened since and then I’ll jump back to what happened during so.

Since Dragon’s Den, the reaction has been incredible. The pitch went viral. With about 20 million views on Facebook and other five million views on LinkedIn, we were averaging a new download every ten seconds for about seven or eight weeks. Off the back of that, more than 30 different press outlets wrote about us. We used this momentum to raise a modest round of funding, which we were super fortunate to be able to include. Of course, Tej Lalvani and bringing him on board alongside people like Tinie Tempah (the rapper) and Harry Redknapp (the football manager). It’s been a whirlwind since Dragon’s Den, which is amazing.

Going back to the pitch – God, I mean, this was a hell of an experience. I think that we all know, from watching it on TV, that when you walk through those doors, and you come out of that lift, anything can happen. Of course, from the entrepreneur’s perspective, you hardly sleep the night before, because you’re just so nervous. So, you’re standing there in this lift, light-headed and the butterflies are multiplying in your stomach and you’re trying your best just to hold it together. But then your head’s getting noisier – you can’t even remember your opening line – and you’re just trying to tell yourself to breathe. And then there’s that moment where the doors open, and you walk out to the left. It’s total silence. You see the Dragons sitting in front of you, just like you do on TV. You even hear the echo of your own footsteps as you’re walking out to that mark on the floor to start your pitch. I think that’s tough no matter who you are. That’s tough. But that’s how all of the entrepreneurs start on Dragon’s Den.

That’s amazing because you looked so cool and calm when you were on the TV. It’s hard to believe that all of this was rushing through your head at the time.

Sam: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think you’re standing in front of these five incredible characters that we’ve all seen on TV for so long. And of course, you know what each one of those investors can bring to your business. So, I think the real art is being able to calm your mind, take that breath, and then go in and communicate your pitch really clearly.

Yeah, absolutely. And talk us through the stages before that, because I’m sure people who are listening or watching might be thinking of, maybe someday, going on Dragon’s Den.

Sam: Sure. In terms of preparing, well, the thing that I did really simply was I just practiced the pitch, probably 100 times – probably more than 100 times. I knew it inside out. Of course, I watched a lot of Dragon’s Den as well. I imagined answering every question, but then more than that, I just knew my business. I know why I started Gener8, I know what we want to achieve. And then really the challenge was just keeping that mental clarity so I could communicate that to these guys when I was standing there.

What about you, Tej – what were your first impressions when Sam walked into the Den?

Tej: Well look, as an investor, as a Dragon, you look for a couple of things in terms of what they’re pitching and the entrepreneur themselves. When you’re investing, obviously, the pitch is important – to understand the clarity of it. And sometimes, you know, entrepreneurs don’t communicate what it is. And of course, what Sam presented is not an easy thing to try and grasp in layman’s terms. He did a great job of doing that.

Then secondly is the opportunity you see in the business. It seemed a very strong opportunity to potentially disrupt certain things. You ask questions to the entrepreneur and you see how they respond accordingly. So the questions I asked, he responded very quickly, promptly and dealt with the issue, because sometimes entrepreneurs may deflect the question if they can’t answer it. He took on board some of those points or concerns I had, and very clearly went through them and said, ‘Okay, that’s a potential risk’, ‘this is a problem and this is not the solution for it’. That impressed me. I think just the space as well, the tech space I was interested in. So really, there’s a couple of things that you look at, and it sort of ticked all the boxes in my head as a potential investment. I thought it was a fantastic pitch, yeah.

Amazing. Do you have anything to add to that as to what other entrepreneurs who may consider going on Dragon’s Den can learn from Sam’s pitch?

Tej: Well, as Sam said earlier, one is about practicing and watching Dragon’s Den. So few people actually come and really watch the episodes because everything is pretty much there. And you can see how sometimes you can go completely on a tangent because other entrepreneurs have not prepared, they’ve not been transparent. You could get a complete grilling versus having four or five offers sometimes. I think that that is important, preparation. Of course, nerves hit you, and some people can manage them better than others. The Dragons will be lenient if you do forget certain things, because there is that pressure on national television. However, it’s how you deal with it. And this understanding – have you been actually prepared?

The other important thing is understanding the full aspect – all of your business, the ins and outs of it. Sometimes, the entrepreneur says, ‘I don’t really do that, that’s not my role’. But it is your business. You’re an entrepreneur, you need to understand everything about the finances, to the marketing, to the competitors.

That is very important as someone who wants to pitch to Dragon’s Den. Be clear for what you want and what you’re asking for. They just sometimes come on and say, ‘I want this amount of money’. What are you going to do with that money? How’s it going to work? And what do you really want from a Dragon? The clearer the entrepreneur is – the better, the more concise – and really try and explain your business in simple terms. And very quickly, people just someone’s got one for now and you like, and half the time is the questions about trying to understand, ‘What does your business do’? So really, that is an important part. Get that sorted out and use the other time to try and get the investment and negotiate the deal that you want from the Dragons.

Yeah, and sometimes it’s not even on the show, because you’ve got the due diligence to go through afterwards. Off camera, of course.

Tej: Yeah. I mean, that’s a different process altogether. But I mean, in the Den, the idea is you have an intent to do a deal with the entrepreneur. And of course, during due diligence, certainties can probably pop up. The BBC can only do a certain amount of due diligence. As an investor and as a shareholder, there are things about shareholders agreements that you need to look at – the bank, the finances – is it correct? Is there more debt than what was given in the show? By the time you do a deal, it could take three or four months, and the situation may change for an entrepreneur as well. They’re all aspects that get involved. But by and large we try and do every single deal that we agree in the Den.

Great. Sam, coming back to you, when you were having your discussion with the wall, what was that like? What was going through your head?

Sam: To be honest, I think that was quite a surreal moment, because I’d spent so much time, effort and energy in preparing to try to get to that stage. But when that happened, there is this kind of rush of emotion and adrenaline, where I think I was so pleased that when I asked to go to the back, I think you can see on the piece that is broadcasted on TV, I have this big grin across my face, because I’m there thinking, ‘Blimey, what a great place to be,’ and reflecting kind of momentarily on the journey up until there. Before then, of course, thinking, ‘Okay, what are the offers in front of me? How should I go back and handle this?’ So yeah, it was a fantastic moment, really.

It must have been nerve-wracking for yourself, Tej, because you’d put forward an offer. You must just be sitting there in that moment thinking, ‘Well, what is he going to decide? Is he going to take it? Who’s he going to go with?’

It must have been nerve-wracking for yourself, Tej, because you’d put forward an offer. You must just be sitting there in that moment thinking, ‘Well, what is he going to decide? Is he going to take it? Who’s he going to go with?’

Tej: Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s always a tense moment. And that’s the fun of the show because you are competing against other Dragons genuinely for investment. And it’s about communicating what value you can add as an entrepreneur to help the journey and grow the business at the same time. It’s important from the entrepreneur’s side and trying to communicate that at the same time.

And of course, then you have the flexibility of percentage investment, whether you offer more money for the same percentage or whether you prepared to take less equity for the same amount of money. Those levers are there. And then you just see what happens. Of course, ultimately, the entrepreneur decides – they make the decision. You win deals and you lose deals all the time.

Yeah, it must have felt like that on this particular occasion you missed out.

Tej: Yeah, well, it felt like was I should have provided free office space!

Anna: Touker finally shifted it!

Tej: Of course it was disappointing. But equally, I believed in Sam’s vision and what he was doing. We did reach out afterwards, got in touch and and subsequently made the investment because I thought I could add great value to the business. I thought this was a great opportunity. And so it worked out that way.

Great. You say that you’ve never sought out an entrepreneur that’s appeared on the show before – how did you go about seeking out Sam?

Tej: Previously, if I’ve lost deals in the Den, or they haven’t gone through, then usually I just didn’t get it for a particular reason. I just leave it. But yeah, I thought that was an important decision. And at the time, Sam chose two people. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a great opportunity. So, I contacted Sam, and, obviously the other Dragons, Touker and Peter, who invested. They were very happy to have me on board as well. We had a discussion and worked out a deal that was great for everyone.

Talking post-pitch, what’s in the future for Gener8, especially in terms of managing customer expectation around what kind of rewards they can get, for example?

Sam: Right now, the future is really exciting. We’re growing incredibly fast still. So, 1000s and 1000s of new users are downloading Gener8 all the time. We’re scaling the team. When Dragon’s Den aired, there was just four of us. Now we’ve tripled to about 11 or 12 of us. There’ll be 15 of us once we finish this hiring spree. Increasing internal capability is a key thing here.

Additionally, we’re working on our mobile app to get this developed, out in the world. We’ve got over 50,000 people on the waiting list for the app already, which is fantastic. From our side, it’s full steam ahead. We’re chasing down these opportunities. I mean, it really feels like we’ve captured the Zeitgeist in empowering people to control and learn from their data. We’re just running full speed ahead with that, really.

How do you scale up at such a rate as you are without over-expanding or taking any of those kinds of risks?

Sam: It’s amazing to have people like Tej, Peter and Touker – and some of our other shareholders too – who have also been in in similar fast-growth businesses. These guys have gone through it before. There is a tried and tested playbook. Particularly if I look at one of our investors, who is the former CEO of Spotify, he’s been there with the explosive tech growth. Asking our shareholders and our board is always a great area to get guidance from.

The other thing as a result of explosive growth is that, as you’re saying, you need to scale up to meet your consumers’ expectations. There’s always a little bit of a time lag in there. It’s a positive problem. Of course, it is a teething pain that you need to get through. To give you some context, we can receive over 1000 emails, DMs (direct messages) or messages every day from users and new users who are getting in touch. On Friday, when I left the office, we were down to zero in our inbox. On Monday when the team came back, that’s today, we’re at over 1700. Of course, there is this period where we need to put in place structures and capabilities and manpower that will enable us to respond quicker and more efficiently and more effectively. We’re getting there. It’s exciting, as you can imagine.

Yeah. Tej, I can imagine your unique insight has been invaluable here as well, in terms of scaling up in a sustainable way.

Tej: Yeah. What we like to do is work with Sam and see all the all the things he needs for the business to help grow it and we provide it essentially as a wish list. And whether it’s opening doors or contacts or help on strategy or advice, we’re available here to be able to help with the business because we all believe in the mission equally, too. It’s a movement, as Sam was talking about, and it’s a lot more important than just monetary. It’s actually changing the game, people are able to control their data and monetise.

Great. Coming back to a more general topic. Tej, you are very active on social media and you often ask your followers for tips and what their priorities are, what their business goals are. Have you ever seen an example of a bit of business advice or a mantra that’s been presented to you that’s made such an impression on you that you’ve adopted it yourself?

Tej: With social media, I enjoy interacting with all the followers and I try and give bits and tips of advice that I’ve learned along the way. There are many that can apply to different people. And it’s great to hear feedback from how it’s helped change people or given them the push they needed to set up their business. To take decisions that need to be done that may be difficult.

So, in terms of advice that I think they will follow is that there are a couple of principles in my life.

One is that, as a person, I always want to learn and grow all the time. Number two is that if you want to do something, set up a business, you just have to get started and do it. A lot of the time people try and wait for the perfect opportunity or the perfect idea. That’s really hard to do, because it doesn’t exist. What usually happens is, when you come up with an idea, what you end up with is quite different to what you started with. I think it’s always an evolving thing of business. If you have something, just go for it and see what happens. People have that hesitation.

I believe in today’s world, when you’re selling a business, it’s always important to focus on a niche, because there’s no point in trying to be everything to everyone. You’d rather be great at something in particular which no one else can beat you at, then trying to provide something for everyone that’s slightly better than everybody else. So, there are the essential principles.

As for quick tips, I’d say, when it comes to setting up a business. A lot of the time when people start businesses, they imagine how it’s going to be, but it’s a lot of firefighting, a lot of problem solving throughout the way – as long as you’re prepared for it. My wife set up a business recently as well and I told her that, and she realises that that’s exactly what it is. There are always issues, always challenges. That could be small, it could be big. But if that’s what your day is, and it’s about, despite all that, how do you grow? How do you exponentially build your business at the same time?

Yeah, that’s also why as far as again, you should be working on your business, not in your business so that you can help drive it forward. And a similar question to you, Sam – what’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever been given?

Sam: Oh, I’ve been given so much amazing advice that it’d be difficult to select one piece now. But something that I can tell you, or tell the listeners, which I think might be helpful. If they’re ever looking to pitch for investment, or go on Dragon’s Den, I think the biggest variable that will impact the outcome is how you think about yourself when you go into that situation.

What I mean by that is that you need to start by reminding yourself that you’re not singing for your supper. Never stand hat-in-hand, asking for money, because that’s the quickest way to turn someone off. Instead, I think that you’ve got to believe that you’re sharing a secret with the investor. So, you’re telling them about an opportunity that they’re not aware of, you’re pulling away the curtain and unveiling a hidden truth that’s been in front of their eyes all along. And if they’re lucky, you might be willing to invite them on the journey with you. Now, how much more exciting is that? So, the tip that I would give is remember that you’re sharing a secret, you’re not singing for your supper, anytime that you’re meeting with investors or asking for investment.

Tej: I think it was Henry Ford who said this quote: ‘Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.’ Because really, it’s in a belief in your mind. And if you think you can’t do it, then you’re right, you won’t want to do it. But if you think you can, and you want to do it, nearly everything is possible.

Anna: Well, that seems like a great point to end. I’d like to thank you both for coming on.

Tej: Thank you. It’s been great. Thank you for having us. Hope it was useful.

Sam: Thanks so much for having us.

Anna: Thanks, guys.

You can find out more about Gener8 at gener8ads.com and about Tej at tejlalvani.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for articles on perfecting your investment pitch. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

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