Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

007 Top Secret

I could write every week with some story from Who’s Who Publications. Many of the most famous names in society have business interests and feature in one of our publications.

Respecting their wishes for privacy, we do remove entries when asked. Rowan Atkinson was one who wrote to us asking for his details to be kept private. We duly honored his request, be it that it cost him two signed photographs.  Not only is he immensely talented, he was extremely pleasant to deal with.

Now this time last year, James Bond star, Daniel Craig’s PA e-mailed our Editor with the same request. Suffice to say we have done our bit – 007’s whereabouts are still top secret.

Your competition can make you money

One competitor I know takes absolutely no interest in the companies in our market sector. They firmly believe they are the best and have no issues with walking over these companies. To be fair, they have grown to be a big company. Many other people in our industry either do not get the time or cannot be bothered to get to know their competition. It is probably why, when we released “Who’s Who in Leasing” in 2008, the title was not successful – well actually, sales were a disaster.
I on the other hand have always gone out of my way to meet the competition, to learn who they are, what makes them tick. That’s why I did not worry about investing £10,000 in research to produce the publication.
My long term contacts are now coming in useful, as is this data from Who’s Who, as I spend a couple of days on the phone contacting our competition. Many of the chats are quite pleasant, most will go nowhere, but some will bear fruit.

Breeding monkeys

Last year, Who’s Who invested, or wasted, a lot of money, depending how we interpret the results. A definite result was the level of creditor indebtedness at year end. Creditors, (monkeys) were jumping on my back clambering around trying to get their bills paid first.

Now when you have monkeys on your back, you cannot travel fast or long distances. So for us to get started on this journey, one of the key things to do is to get creditors off our back as soon as possible. The task is painful, takes time and is fraught with danger. If you kick a monkey off and do not pay, you are liable to get bitten. It’s better to coax them off with the odd banana or two.

If January was a turning point, then 15^th February constitutes a significant turning point. Cash is starting to roll in and we have been busy writing cheques. One by one we are getting rid of the monkeys.

To be fair, they only jumped on us in the first place because we had an aggressive marketing campaign. Our cost of customer acquisition is high. We also invested into a number of events like the “Small Business Start Up Show” and undertook a few mailing campaigns at a time when most people would shut up shop and close the Zoo.

In 2010 we will invest, but maybe not as much. We will at least reap the rewards from last year’s activity and continue to grow the company, otherwise how will we sell it for £1m in three years?

Dragons’ Den

Word on the street is that the BBC is filming another series of the addictive and highly successful “Dragons’ Den”. Not only do most entrepreneurs like to watch the programme, but this series has does a tremendous amount of good for UK PLC.

Now, it would be arrogant and even misleading to say that I am connected to the Dragons’, but I do have some form of connection with all of them.

Peter Jones up to a year or so ago lived a few miles down the road from me and I regularly saw him in Beaconsfield Sainsbury’s, Costa Coffee, The Wycombe Swan and most recently on Christmas Eve at the Beaconsfield Wine Cellar. I know each time he wants to come over and have a chat, but he can see I am busy with the kids.

Duncan Bannatyne features in a few of our Who’s Who titles and has given us his contact details.

Theo  Paphitis also appears in one of our publications and has gone online to our website to check his details are correct.

James Caan and I both own property in Cannes.

Deborah Meaden invested into a company via the Den, where the owner of the company (One of two founder owners to be technically correct) dropped in to our place when they were on holiday last year.

Now, they all have written their (auto)biography/business book and to date, I have read James’, Theo’s and Duncan’s. Tonight, I am to buy Peter’s and Deborah’s and then read them all and score them out of ten. Results will follow in March.

For the record James, if you are following this, you are in the lead with what I thought was a brilliant well written, interesting and inspiring book.

In Administration. Closed for business

On Friday I received a call from a reliable source. News hot off the press – a competitor in our business sector has gone into administration. He gives me the contact name at the Insolvency Practitioners whom I call. “You’re quick” he says, “We haven’t even sent any NDA’s out yet” . “So is the company in receivership or administration?” I ask.  I still do not fully understand what the difference is, but at least it looked like I knew what I was talking about.

Now I have never had much to do with these Insolvency Practitioners, having never bought a business from them or had to use their services myself, other than when a company I invested in went under.  So for me, this is going to be an interesting “sub-journey”. For competitive reasons and the fact that I have to sign an NDA, it may be difficult to document that much, however, we will at least go on the journey together. Watch this space….

Eddie the e-mail

As the 2010 Winter Olympic Games kick off in Vancouver, I remember back to the 1988 Calgary games where an unknown plasterer achieved instant fame by becoming the first person from the UK to qualify for the ski jump competition. Eddie came last, but 20 years later he still commands a full page article in yesterday’s Daily Mail. Respect!

Last week we have been hurtling down the slopes with our e-mail activity. For the first time ever at Who’s Who, we have used e-mail communication to promote our new business title. So far so good with regards to general interest and sales. I have not done the P & L yet, but I do know our breakeven point will have shifted significantly compared to sending out letters. We also contacted over 20,000 schools via an e-mail campaign promoting our free “School’s Guide to Leasing”. Interesting to see when the offer comes over via an e-mail, people are more sceptical, asking us to confirm there is no buying obligation.

On a final note, I have negotiated to buy 1m company e-mail addresses. Now I know that a lot of them will be useless, but once we can apply some magic with the company credit information we have, I am hoping to get a really good useable list of 200,000 or so. I will keep you posted as to the outcome and what benefit, if any, we get.

Missing your Son’s 10th Birthday party

Parents of young children are often under pressure balancing home and work life. When you have three children, there will always be three birthdays, cricket matches and carol concerts every year, not to mention the days off sick, pick up from cubs and swimming.

We all know that we cannot make every event and many business owners are dedicated and very hard working. The result is that many parents miss their children growing up. Being in business for yourself is a blessing –  it is a reason not to miss your sons 10^th Birthday party. You can always make up the time elsewhere and without a sensible work / home life balance, the wheels will definitely fall off.

For me yesterday, I was able to leave work early and enjoy the fruits of being a business owner, spending time with the family.

Reservoir Dogs

A very pleasant evening spent in the company of Mr. Black (my Indian friend) and Mr. Red, so called because of his “strawberry blond” hair. Both Mr. Black and Mr. Red are long term friends and we have all worked together in excess of 10 years.

Working with friends or family can give rise to a set of unique challenges. The business world is littered with broken relationships of friends who decided to work together. Getting on well with someone in a personal capacity does not automatically mean you will be able to work with them.

I have always worked with friends and family. Clearly, there are other benefits such as loyalty and trust. It has mostly worked for me.

As the three of us walked through Northampton town centre like a scene out of the cult film “Reservoir Dogs”, we were able to share many good laughs as well catching up on important news in the leasing and finance sector. If there was no friendship there, this valuable exchange of information may have never happened.

Mr Big

Mr. Big told me a story once about hiring a large motor yacht in the South of France, the type that has five staff and tenders the size of a small fishing boat . You think you have made it, up until the point when you moor up next to a super yacht twice the size.

I am experienced in buying and selling companies. However, I have just had an hour with Mr. Big running through Project Lightning. Mr. Big’s deals have all been much bigger than mine, suffice to say. His ideas and knowledge of deal structure is phenomenal and a very interesting observation is his desire to ensure the other party always gets good value.

The Project Lightning document will be finished today, subject to tax advice.

Quandary

Do you spend a day on your admin or developing the business? Clearly a day on admin is a day not seeing customers or driving the business forward – we all know that the admin can be done outside of PST.

Regardless, looking at an untidy desk with a bulging in-tray is demoralizing. Paperwork just seems to hang around, lingering in the office. I was once told a story; empty your in-tray and put it into three piles – do now, bin and do later. Then take your do later pile and split it into two piles, do now and bin.

Today was my day off from business development. I arrive home knowing we are up to date, my desk is clean, my mind rid of that thought of outstanding tasks and annoying admin tasks.