Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

The Who’s Who resort

My flight to Faro, Portugal, was 1 hour 45 minutes late in taking off. To make matters worse, the next two hours plus I had to endure the kid in the seat behind mine learning to play the drums on my seat, and a constant deluge of loudness from another family.

It’s holiday time, I am flying Easyjet and am off to a holiday resort. What can I expect! Having three boys of my own, I am very tolerant of kids making noise and kicking seats etc. I do not rise to it. However, it’s the parents that get me, their behavior was worse that their children. These situations do help me remember that everyone is different, a useful fact to know in business.

The Who’s Who Resort is the brainchild of Mr. Big’s brother and myself. He owns a four star resort with over 50 apartments, swimming pool, SPA, gym, restaurant, golf course etc. He is keen to develop his business clientele, those companies that want to host events, organise team building or entertain customers. Who’s Who has the customer base and contacts.

It will be interesting to see what opportunities we can generate and what level of interest there is.  We know the events and corporate hospitality markets are on the floor, so generating even a moderate interest will be hard.

Planning ahead

My road map for the next 100 days has been documented. The focus is not just on new customer acquisition, but acquiring a new genre of customers. We are highlighting those brands we want to work with, established companies of size with a “household” name.

Luckily we already have some of those companies as customers already, but what I would like to do is to drive the business into a customer base where average spend will increase per customer. I cast my mind back to when we were selling our companies, we will always get asked who our top 50 or 100 customers are. It’s time now to start quoting recognizable brands.oe

100 days

For the majority of the population, today will be a normal day. Leaving aside those who have a birthday, going on holiday, starting a new job or have some specific event to look forward to, Monday 19^th July will be just like any other normal Monday.

The 19^th July is the 200^th day of the year and 100 days since I put in place my “100 day plan.”

The first thing I do is weight myself, have I hit my target of loosing 23lbs and getting down to 12 ½ stone.? Yes, it has been achieved, and yes, I do feel better for it. My run lasts 75 minutes and covered about six miles this morning. 100 days ago I would have only been able to last about ten minutes without taking a break, now it is nearer 40 minutes.

During the last 100 days, I have not been on a diet, however, I have completely cut out alcohol and all junk food, the longest time I have done without sweets, chocolate, ice cream and crisps probably since the age of five. I am not a weight loss guru, but from what I read is that the sugar is a killer when it comes to weight gain.

I had a list of tasks to be completed, both personal and business. Most of these have been completed, but disappointingly some important objectives were not met. Interestingly though, most of the tasks I set myself which were completed were administration orientated, not sales or cash focused.

As I sit here and review what has been achieved I ask myself a key question – has it been worth it?

The answer is yes and no.

Having a measurable goal with an associated time frame is something to aim for. Things do get done and the results are there for all to see. However, I fear that as per normal I have set too many objectives for my 100 days and most importantly, focused on administrative tasks and not goals that will really drive the business.

 In summary, the plan has been a great idea, I have achieved a lot. The next 100 days will have a different slant to it, the focus being less on admin and more on business development.

As for a night of celebration, with no babysitter we cannot get out, so that will have to just wait for another day!

Disneyland Paris

The family returns home today from a short break at Disneyland Paris. My observations:

1. It’s expensive
2. It is significantly less busy than this time last year

For those lucky enough to visit Disneyland Paris, the average stay will be three nights. It is probably not a main holiday for the masses who visit, unless they are stopping off on the way to get to somewhere else. So I would view this type of holiday as a luxury to most people.

In Las Vegas last year, you could measure the economic climate by how taxi drivers are doing. In Disneyland this summer, it is by the length of the queues, and my gut feel is that Disneyland Paris is 30% down on last year.

The recession is still out there and hits luxury spend first.

My plan to Just Enjoy It!

This is a new catch phrase I am going to use. As we all know, Nike has built one of the world’s largest brands on their slogan, maybe I can do the same with mine?

Starting next Tuesday, I am to make a concerted effort to do what I enjoy doing – getting out and about, meeting new people, deal making, looking for the next big opportunity. I intend to spend less time doing what I do not like doing – admin and chained to my office desk!

My new 100 day plan is being rewritten as we speak to encompass these important changes. It is time the plan really does get me to where I visualize myself in the future.

Just Enjoy It!

As I near the end of my 100 day plan, I ask myself a very simple question; “Have I enjoyed the last 100 days?”

So we are clear, I am making reference to business life here. Having good health, a great family, friends etc, I consider myself very lucky with regards to life at home.

In some respects “no” would be the answer. Cash has been tight and the business has not advanced at the rate we need it to. On the positive side, lots of great things have been achieved, we have set up new divisions, bought customer bases and recruited new staff, reduced debt, oh, and by the way, we are still here!

For many years I always looked forward to Monday morning. Work was fun, I enjoyed it, and we had a ball! Work life over the last few years, especially in “Entrepreneurs Wasteland” has been tough.

By defining the difference between work and pleasure, I have even answered the question.

If you really enjoy work, it becomes pleasure; you do not treat work as work. For me now, I do need to take a serious look at what I do and make sure that I do enjoy it.

To be fair, John Williams book, “Screw Work Let’s Play,” that has highlighted this to me. He raises a few interesting points:

1. What would you do if you can take a year off?
2. Write a list of all the things you like doing and do not like doing

I can immediately see the problem.

1. I really enjoy getting out and about, see customers, meeting people, deal making
2. I am no good at and do not like admin. Every day the first thing I do is to compile a list of administrative tasks and aim to get through them – a bit like my 100 day plan. My day is focused around completing tasks and unfortunately many of them are not sales related.

My next 100 day plan will be centered around enjoying what I do a lot more.

Screw Work Let’s Play

Whenever I go away, I always end up in W H Smith at the departure gate and buy a few books. The genre is always the same, business self help books or biographies of business leaders / entrepreneurs.

I am now getting stuck into a book by John Williams titled “Screw Work Let’s Play”

His premise is that you can do what you love and get paid for it. John Williams has some great ideas and a fantastic outlook on life. The book is a worthy read.

There is one thing that has really hit a cord with me. Happiness brings success, success does not bring happiness. Research has been done that shows people that are happy are more likely to find business success than those who are not happy. I suppose this is common sense, but it is funny how many people think that being successful will bring them happiness and not the other way around.

Lighting up the world

Every business / individual has their own pot of gold, it is just that the majority of us cannot see it.

Tonight I met with my business partner at General Lamps Limited. I have known Gerry (the MD and my 50% business partner) for nearly 30 years. He is bright, honest and hard working – all the key attributes you need in a business partner. He runs the business and has made it the success it is. My input of advice and cash has been fairly small.

Over a meal out I listen with interest to what he has been up to. It’s a great company, a simple business model based on a product we all need. Margins are high and customer retention excellent.

Driving home I ask myself the question, how many light bulbs are there in the UK at the moment and how many gets sold every year. What a fantastic market to be in, and add to that all the legal changes taken place with “banning the bulb” and the advent to LED technology, and we should have some very good years ahead.

Edinburgh sales meeting

Booking Easyjet late is expensive, circa twice the cost to booking early. If I just delegated this task a few weeks ago, I would have saved £100. Not only that, I have to fly from Gatwick as opposed to Luton, adding another 40 minutes onto the return journey.

Our leasing new business sale have been poor over the last few months. A combination of reasons –

1. Banks not wanting to lend
2. Customers posting a poor set of 2008 and 2009 end of year results.
3. Companies now looking to invest or expand

Our customer base is mostly SME’s and many of them hit by the recession. Interestingly I was doing some training on credit information the other day and I chose three customers at random to illustrate what information is on a company credit report. All three had County Court Judgments’ in the last 18 months.

To make this business work, we need to radically change our thinking and what we are doing. I have an idea that in effect will say good bye to the old way of doing things. Like always there is a cost to implement and it will take us into a new market. There is no guarantee it will work so I ask myself the question are we throwing good money after bad?

Breitling

My Breitling Bentley watch stopped working, so off it goes six weeks ago to the Breitling workshop. Now for those who read my diary, you will know I am carful about not mentioning names or making negative comments about a company or product.

Well today I am to change that after learning my watch will be away from me for a total of twelve weeks and not the six that we were told.

When we sent the watch in, I had to sit down after they told me the overhaul (not just a service) was to take six weeks and cost £600. But today, they came out with those classic lines from their sales prevention officer.

1. Apparently my Breitling is in bits all over the place – sounds like they are well organised
2. They cannot possibly get it back to me this month as they are so busy – thanks for telling me that these watches are such poor quality, they all break down
3. Everyone asks for their watch to be done quickly, so apparently I am not the only person who wants to queue jump – well maybe you tell everyone else a load of lies offering six week delivery time and then actually taking three months

The conversation could have been handled so differently. Breitling could have turned this unfortunate situation into a sales opportunity. All it would take is good recruitment  into their customer services team and quality training. I like watches and over time I will buy more.  That conversation will cost them more than £600.