Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

Making money out of honey

Sales of bee hives have gone through the roof this year. Apparently, with the massive publicity surrounding our dwindling bee population, another 50,000 people have decided to take up the pastime of making honey. Not only is this fantastic for our eco system but financially Christmas come early for the manufacturers of bee hives – they are making money out of honey!

The bad weather earlier in the year cost our family three new tyres. “So how busy are you?” was my question to the young man changing my tyre for the third time in eight weeks.

We normally sell 400 tyres a week, we are now doing 600. So who bought shares in Kwik-Fit?

“What happens to the old tyres” I enquire

“They get picked up every week and send for recycling.” Apparently they are burnt and the energy used as fuel. “If someone could come up with a better solution to recycling tyres, they would become a billionaire” my tattooed tyre fitter friend informed me.

 So there we have it, business ideas are everywhere, even ones that will make you a billionaire very quickly. There is still hope for us all…

The roads are quiet

People are starting their summer holidays. Traffic is noticeably quiet on the roads, the telephone does not ring as much. For many companies, the next four weeks will result in fewer orders and lower activity levels in the sales office. Mentally, we have all conditioned ourselves to expect less and relax a bit.

There will be companies like my light bulb distribution company that does get affected by holidays or the weather. For many others, the summer period is a great time to keep the pressure up on sales. Customers generally have less to do, the phone does not ring as much, the roads are clear, they can think and plan more carefully.

So for all sales people out there that are not on holiday over the next month, now is your time to give it a big hard push. You will be amazed at what can be achieved in a so called quiet month.

Buying lunch

Years ago, I walked into the local Indian takeaway at 8:00pm on a Friday evening. A wealthy friend/business contact was in the queue before me. He insisted on buying my takeaway.  He like a few other very wealthy and successful people I know would never dream of letting other people pay for the teas, coffee’s or lunch’s we have. They will always be the first person to put their hand in the pocket.

For the last 20 years, I would guess and say I have paid in 80% of occasions (with suppliers, customers and employees), regardless whether the bill is for £2.50 for two teas in a local café or £250 for a meal at a swanky restaurant. I offer and people accept.

I do not think it is always a matter of the other person expecting to be paid for as they are the customer. Most of these people are brain washed having programmed their minds into accepting free offers or not spending any money unless they have to. I would take another guess and say of these people where I have bought the drinks, lunch etc, in 80% of occasions I would be the wealthier more successful person.

Being the first to offer to buy or buying lunch is not a “power” thing. It is about being programmed to being generous and not worrying about the small things in life. These are characteristics of wealthy, successful people. Those individuals who program themselves to be tight with their money or expect a free lunch have also programmed themselves with negative unsuccessful thoughts, and by default they will not be successful.

From what I have seen over many years, there is a direct correlation between who pays for lunch and who is the more wealthy/successful.

Prospect targeting

We are establishing a list of 500 target customers in the south of the UK. These are big companies many of whom will have recognised and established brands. Creating the list is easy, the names are in the public domain, the challenge is to find the correct contact at these companies.

Historically, finding the correct contact was difficult. Gatekeepers do not like giving out contact details of Heads of Procurement or Marketing. With the advent of LinkedIn, not only is this task an easy one to complete, but we can establish a relationship with these people of some form by linking in with them.  I find LinkedIn fascinating. You can call someone or e-mail them and they do not have the time to reply. Send them a LinkedIn message and before you know it, they will be in contact with you.

We test our strategy with BMW. Within 100 miles of where we are based, there are nine people who are linked in to people I am linked in to who currently work at BMW. I test the same idea with Aston Martin and are able to see the Head of Marketing – a business contact of someone I know. Out of those 500 target companies we are looking at, we can guarantee to find the contact we need in all those companies.

Maybe I am cheating. With the Who’s Who brand behind me, more often than not, people will want to connect with me. It will give them access to other successful people and without beefing up my own importance, from what I have seen so far, individuals want to be linked to the Chairman of Who’s Who. By sending an “InMail” or message via LinkedIn, not only will I increase my contact base by 500 people, but also now have some sort of relationship with them to build a business relationship with.

The one that got away

Every few months Mr. Black, Mr. Red and Mr. Cool and I manage to get out for the night for a bite to eat and a few drinks. We meet in Northampton as it is local to all of us and a place that hold many fond memories of monthly board meetings and other company events.

It was either one or two years ago that Mr. Black was on the verge of signing a £5m plus leasing deal with over £160,000 profit in it. All the banks had accepted the credit, the deal was ready to be done. Mentally, Mr. Black was thinking about where the money was to be spent.

It wasn’t even the 11^th hour when the deal fell out of bed, a bit more like the last minute. Mr. Black was devastated, the competition had nipped in under the cover of darkness and stole the deal from under his feet.

Over a drink tonight, we were informed about this customer who was looking – and received – the £5m for their renovation work to their offices, had just gone into receivership. One bank alone had  gone down £3m on the transaction. Luckily for Mr. Black that he did lose the deal.

Going to work feeling ill!

For some people in this world, a bout of man flu an excuse to take a few days off work allowing that rare luxury of sitting by the TV all day watching a whole series of 24 or Lost. For entrepreneurs, it is business as usual.

I struggle in today not feeling 100%. The results are obvious; I have only got 50% out of today. What has been achieved – nothing of any great consequence other than I did upgrade my LinkedIn membership.

I am desperate to get started with my new plan, but illness and holidays will be getting in the way, it is going to be slow progress. Already I am starting to hear those dreaded words from one of my sales guys, “everyone is on holiday.” That’s fantastic I think, less competition to muddy our pitch then.

How much does a pint of water weigh?

I have had a bad cold for five days now so my food intake has been lower and my body is working overtime burning up those calories. My weigh in this morning shows that I have lost ¼ stone in just under a week.

As an experiment, I weight myself later in the evening after eating a meal and sinking a few pints of water. I am back to 12 ½ stone again. Interesting, I have gained 3 ½ lbs in weight during the day. The culprit must be the water intake.

So how much does a pint of water weigh?

The answer is 1lb 5oz. So there we go, problem solved.

That first sip

As I picked up the champagne glass, I closed my eyes to totally take in the flavor of the vintage and  celebrate the moment I had been looking forward to for 105 days, that first sip of an alcoholic drink. I was expecting – hoping – that this was to be one of those significant events in one’s life where you cherish the memories forever.

Yuk, it tasted foul. I filled the glass up with orange juice to dilute the flavor and reluctantly finished the glass. I quickly moved on to a bottle of beer, thinking like a person who has just been involved in a car crash to quickly get back in another car. This did not taste much better and the half empty bottle was cast aside. Over dinner, I accepted a glass of Pinot hoping for third time lucky. After two sips, I informed my wife, to her surprise and delight, I would be driving tonight.

My taste buds were rejecting the flavor. For the first time in my life I can now see how some people can give up drinking alcoholic drinks completely. The process is simple. Give up for long enough and you will break your personal drinking habit, regardless whether it is a glass of red over a meal or two pints after work. You will then realize you can lead a normal fun life without the need for drinking.

New business ideas

It does not matter how focused you are or successful you are, an entrepreneur will always be looking at new ideas and mentally chewing them over to see if they have any legs.

Within the last week, I have seen three new business ideas that could work:

1. LED lighting to go on kids satchels, clothing
2. The Who’s Who Resort in Portugal for events, conferences etc
3. A CCTV system for the home environment

One day I would like to get involved in a B2C product, but with limited band width, that day will have to wait.

A Man after my own heart

I had a great meeting today with a local distributor of CCTV equipment.  We have met before on a few occasions but not got anything off the ground.  Today they educate me to some products they are working with. These guys are stacked out with opportunity, they do not just have a pot of gold in the corner, they have a mine producing the gold in the first place.

When you meet like minded people in business, individuals who have a successful track record, people who have the ideas and enthusiasm needed to make a business go places, stick close to them. Worst case scenario, you will learn a few new tricks. Best case, you can work together.