Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

Private education

My wife and I have now visited ten private schools over the last few months, planning for when our children leave primary education at the age of 13. This has been an eye opening experience. Rather than bore you with which schools are the best and why, I will just focus on a few key things I picked up on.

When you visit these schools, they do not proactively sell themselves. Yes they talk about their results and what a great school they are, but they do not move into what I would call sales mode. However, there was one school we visited where they either intentionally or by accident did sell themselves. I felt they were keen for our business, that they really wanted us as a customer. It was no surprise when this particular school made a point of saying how they want to develop children to face the real world, and taught them communication and leadership skills. We liked the school and are definitely thinking about them as an option.
Some of the other schools just felt, or assumed they were the best and decided that “selling themselves” was beneath them. That does concern me.
I see this in business. Some people/companies think that their product/service is so great people will just buy it come what may. For me, this is foolish. Customers want to be loved, they want to feel special. They do not want to be told “well of course your son should come here, we are xyz private school after all.”

My breakfast conference

The Frazer Hall morning conference opened its doors at 7:30am or an 8:00am start. Now we have all been to these early breakfast seminars, you know, the ones you put your name down for but drop out of the day before. I have arranged some of these before and been invited to some, where out of 20 chairs in a room only four have bums on the seats. They are embarrassing for the organisers and the few unlucky souls that turn up.
Now Frazer Hall is in his second year of business, and Steve Frazer managed to find 70 people who said they would like to come along, of which over 60 turned up. What a result!

I polished the board room table for an interview

I carried out an interview recently. As a potential employer, I made sure everything was set out. We polished the board room table, organised the meeting room, brought out the Wedgewood crockery. I studied the CV, researched this individua’ls background and thought about what he could do for our company.
Now to be fair to this person, he was very well dressed and had done some research on us. So why then did he turn up late? He might have only been a few minutes late and it could be our watches were not synchronized, but according to my watch, my laptop and iPhone, he was late. Problem two, no apology for being late. Problem three, he took his jacket off without saying “do you mind if I take my jacket off.” Now you might read this and say “Jeremy, stop being a tosser, that is just so not important.” But it is to me, I – rightly or wrongly – I always ask “do you mind if I remove my jacket.” Clearly no-one has ever said no, but in my mind it does show respect.
Impressions are formed within minutes, if not seconds of meeting someone. Recovery from a bad impression is difficult. I did try to put this behind me and focus on how we could work together, but in this situation there was no recovery.

Business maintenance

We bought a new BBQ earlier in the year. The previous we one took to the dump after a few years of faithful service, the metal had rusted away. The sad thing is if we have looked after the BBQ and carried out regular maintenance, the economic life would be significantly longer. That is definitely the case with the BBQ, all we had to do is clean it after use, cover it, then garaging over the winter.
Over the years, in business and family life we have discarded many possessions that were beyond repair. However, by maintaining and looking after your assets, their life frame will be expanded dramatically. I am not just making reference to repainting an office, or replacing broken items. I am making reference to maintaining your team, the staff that are the lifeblood of the company. They, like your material assets need to be maintained, they need to have money and time invested into them on a regular basis to expand their lifespan. If you do not invest, they eventually will break and just end up on the rubbish dump, sitting next to a rusty old BBQ, that with a bit more love and attention could have lasted another five years.

Bounced cheques

I have waited over three months to be paid for an invoice raised on the 1st March for nearly £6,000. He company involved gave me a post-dated cheque dated the 31st May. It bounced, once, twice, three times. And, I did not even realize that the bank will only present a cheque three times.
Well let’s look on the positive side, at least he gave the cheque in the first place. Another company that owes me a smaller amount has not even sent the money. There is no sense of embarrassment or lying, “we just do not have the money” they say.
I am no expert here, but I am getting the impression that these are not isolated cases. The business world is hurting, the banks are holding no prisoners and taking a hard line. It just makes life so much more difficult for us. We have bills to pay, we are being asked to settle accounts and do rely on our customers paying us.
Going back to this person who bounced a cheque on our company. Why is it that I had to call him to see what was going on? Why did he just not call me and apologise? It will be interesting to see if we ever get paid!

Listening to your wife

Judy does not pass comment on my business on a regular basis. If there is some advice I need, she will always be there to help. So it is with interest that the other day when we were talking about a small monthly consultancy job I do to help a company, she simply just said, “you need to buy up these failing companies” and turn them around.
She is so right. Her comments were left ringing in my ears. I know this is what I enjoy, what I am good at and importantly, what will make us £1m in three years.

Thinking about my plan

Writing this blog does help me think about the basics. Why is it I am halfway through a three year plan and I feel we are no nearer to making the £1m than I was when I started?
I know the reasons why, and my money is on them being the same reasons that 99% of other business people are experiencing at the moment. We generate cash, we make a profit, but it is no way near what it was. Our business is growing slowly and surviving. We are not making those incredible strides forward that I was hoping to be making. It sucks my time and cash, commodities that I need to invest – to potentially risk – into other product ideas or acquisitions.

My plan to make my plan work

I bet there are thousands of budding entrepreneurs out there with a plan of how to make their fortune, they just need someone to invest in them. So like me, they need a plan to make their plan work.
I run a company that finds money for companies. I have spent over twenty years working with companies that want to lend money to fund some new capital investment. I might not be an expert on rising capital in general, but I will have a better understanding than most people on this subject
Most of the companies I am a shareholder in, could grow if they had access to more cash. In leasing or light bulbs, there are many opportunities to grow if the cash was available. Borrowing money or asking for a business overdraft is not really on my agenda, so we need to look elsewhere. However, the pot of cash “elsewhere” is much smaller than it was in 2007/8.
Regardless, I often sit down and run through raising money without the issues of high interest rates or taking on board other shareholders. Even for me, this is not a simple task

A workable plan

I picked up my little black book recently. This is the book on how to make a fortune that led me to start writing this blog. The book that hammers home the importance of visualisation and how if you can see in your mind what you are aiming for, you will get there. It really is a fantastic piece of writing, packed with so much useful advice and ideas based on many years of research.

Chapter seven is called “Organised Planning, the sixth step to riches”

For me to make a million in three years, I need a workable plan. Being honest, I do not have that plan. Well, I have the plan, I just do not have the tools to make the plan work at the moment. My plan requires cash, cash to go and buy other companies. I know that I have the knowledge and skills to turn £1.00 into £2.00 quickly in a legal and safe environment. It is frustrating, we have a tremendous business that is generating cash and profit, but not to the quantum that is needed to implement my plan.
So what is the plan to make the plan work? I will cover that tomorrow!

1BN litres of fuel

In Q1 this year, UK motorists used 1BN litres less petrol/diesel compared to the same time last year, the result being a 2% reduction in traffic on the road. I do not know the exact figure, but we all know the leap in petrol prices over the last twelve months. Add to this the stories of people clearing out items of weight out of their cars, driving slower and pumping up their tyres every week, and it is fair to say the UK public are doing what they can to save money. Big brand name shops like Jane Norman are falling into administration and people are still cutting back to make ends meet.
There is no end in sight for this recession, the average family are finding times tough. People are not embarrassed to say they do not have the money to go on holiday. Ultimately, a lot of what we are going through will be good for us all. It does make us think about what journey is important, where do we waste money, do we really need that new car? I, like everyone else have made cut backs, not because it is “cool to be careful,” but because we need to.