Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

26.2 miles

What started off as an idle chat over a bottle of 2007 Californian Merlot turned into a handshake with friends on holiday to run in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon taking place on the 17^th April next year.

 What have I done? Only four months ago I would not run more than 26 yards let alone 26 miles with 36,000 other people and the world looking on.

 My exercise routine has now culminated in me running 18km in two hours over the weekend, so already I know there is a reasonable chance I could complete a half marathon without any major problem. I now have eight months to train to complete the second half.

 As I am too late to enter the ballot for tickets, the only way to get one is to in effect “buy” your way in via raising money for a nominated charity. Come Monday morning, I will pick up the phone and see what we can do.

How to make £10m in three years?

Making £10m is just as easy as making £1m. The traits you need are just the same other than one, the plan of how to do it.

 As a business person I need to ask myself a simple question. Doing what we are doing, could we build and develop a company in three years to sell for £10m?

 The answer is clearly no. Raising the bar is now making me question a number of decisions we have made. By thinking big, I am questioning my time management, the type of customers we target, our business focus. Most importantly, the type and size of companies we may need to acquire to build a £10m company.

Thinking small will only every get you small results.

 Mentally I am moving to a new platform. Thinking big and raising the standards bar is a positive emotion. I feel better about myself, I relish the challenge. The business problems I face today are the same as they were four weeks ago, but somehow I feel better equipped to address them.

What the hell have I been doing!

Those who are unfortunate enough to have a spell in “Entrepreneurs Wasteland” will find they question their desire and faith in themselves to be successful. They may have been in a job earning £150k per year but now lower their expectations to £50,000. Previously successful business leaders think about running a smaller business. We all know the clichés, “it will less agro dealing with a small team,” or, “I can make more money working on my own.”

 Last year when planning my future I fell into the same trap. A millionaire by the air of 30, but here I am 15 years later setting a target to sell a business for £1m in three years.

 Reflecting on holiday as to where I am this year, I can see that I set the goal low enough to be achieved. A “nice round number” I said to myself.

 The reality was that subconsciously I set a low target as I was in Entrepreneurs Wasteland. My “faith” and “desire” battery supply was low. You start thinking small and your behavioral traits, thinking and targets reflect that. (I respect that a lot of people will say that making £1m in three years is not small.)

 I have been visualizing selling a company(s) for £1m. If that is what I set out to do, then that is what I will achieve. Subconsciously, my thoughts, plans and decisions are geared to this target. And that is where a fatal error has been made.

 I have not thought big enough. Why should the number be £1m when it can be £10m? All I have to do is to move the decimal point over one place to the right – a very small task – and I would make ten times the amount. Richard Branson did once say is it just as hard to make the first million as it is to make another 99.

 I have faith in my own ability to make £10m. I have the desire to make it. Add to this my specialist knowledge and this is achievable. Steve Jobs (Founder of Apple for those of you living on Planet Zog) made a $1m by the age of 23, $10 by 24 and $100 by 25.

 My objectives this year have been about buying a few small companies and setting up a few small “cottage industry” companies. The logic is sound, there is a small cost of entry and we do need to make regular profits. By building these departments/companies, we could have a small number of units making a total of £250k net profit per year within three years.

 As this diary entry is becoming rather verbose. I can cut to the chase, a target of £1m is a load of bollocks, I need to focus my activities on making £10m.

All aboard

Time to say “goodbye” to South East Asia and our summer holiday. As we board the Airbus A380 twin deck Singapore Airways beast, I have time to reflect and think about where I need to take my career and business over the remainder of this year and the next two.

 A holiday is a great time to sit back and reflect, to think and plan. ( a potential very dangerous place to be.) My mind has not been clogged up with any day to day activities. I have called the office a few times a week and replied to some e-mails, but other than that the business has run itself.

 Being away for three weeks is a long time. Even over the summer period, a lot can still happen. The fact that there have not been any emergencies or calls to fend off means two things:

1. The internal support mechanism we have is working
2. We are not driving the business hard enough

 I have made copious notes on thoughts and ideas I have. There is one overriding theme that is bugging me big time though.

 Yet again, this theme came about after spending time reading the works of one person. This blog and my enthusiasm to achieve a lot more in my business career was inspired by reading my “little black book.” (See entry on the 4^th August. By coincidence, I bought the book in Singapore last October.)

 Tomorrow, I will be back in work, and the first thing I will be doing is to make a new personal statement to myself.

Oh dear!

It drives my wife insane, when I pick up a book as I cannot put them down. Earlier in the year, I started reading “I am Ozzy” (Ozzy Osbourne’s autobiography) on a Saturday and spent the whole day just reading. A hilarious read packed with interesting stories on his life.

 The same applies when I am on holiday. Today, looking out over the South China sea I dedicate my time to Sir Alan Sugar’s “The Biography.”

 Sorry Sir Allan, but no recommendation here. When one reads a biography they want to get to know the individual, not just a few facts on a series of The Apprentice.

 People read biographies for a few reasons. They may admire the person or even have dealt with them. For most of us, we are keen to know how they made it, to hear those interesting stories that you do not find in the daily papers. We read these books to be inspired, to be left with that positive glow that we also have the opportunity to be as successful as they are.

 When you find yourself skipping pages or even a chapter, you know you just have to put it down to experience. For me, this book did not tick any of my buttons and will it help me make £830m or even £83, I think not.

Going to prison

In my first every proper job after leaving the education system, I sold laser printers for a few months for a company based in London. Every day, I picked up the phone making call after call searching for the one in a 100 company that wanted a three bin laser printer at £3,000+VAT. My first real opportunity came from Heron, the privately owned property company run by Gerald Ronson.

 Mr. Ronson, back in 1987 operated with two secretaries churning out 1,400 memos per week – no such thing as e-mail then.

 23 years later I pick up and read his autobiography, “Leading From The Front, My Story.”

 What a truly inspirational, hardworking talented man he is. An honest man, full of integrity who has given so much back to society. We all recognise that an autobiography may only present one version of events, but reading his book, it is loud and clear he should have never gone to prison for six months over the Guinness affair.

 I have decided that when I am back I will write to Mr. Ronson directly and thank him for taking the time out to make my life better by writing such an excellent book.

On the beach

Before I ever go away, I always stock up on a few books to read. My opening title is “Top Man” by Stewart Lansley and Andy Forrester, the unauthorised biography on Sir Philip Green.

 “Top Man” is a well written and enjoyable read. It is packed with detail on Philip Green’s life and how he rose to become the most important individual in the High Street.

 Sir Philip Green made it to billionaire status faster than anyone else in British history and now heads up an empire of over 2,500 shops and in one year alone paid his wife (himself)a dividend of £1.2bn. A tough aggressive operator, his temper and use of colourful language is legendary.   Whilst I might not follow those behavioral traits, you cannot take it away from him the success he has achieved.

 A worthy read for any aspiring entrepreneur.

Mr. Hong Kong

To be fair, I did meet Mr. Hong Kong a few days later in Malaysia. Mr. Hong Kong (a 42 year old British chap) was playing with his three year old daughter and my four year old son in the hotel swimming pool.

 He moved to Hong Kong from the UK ten years ago and set up a company selling car insurance. His company is now the largest in Hong Kong employing 130 people, “The Direct Line of Hong Kong” as he called it.

 We spoke mostly about Hong Kong and China. Like Singapore, Hong Kong is growing and he told me with a 16% maximum tax rate is a great place to live.

 Mr. Hong Kong made a comment that really interested me. “China is not good at creating and developing products. They manufacturer an idea created from somewhere else in the world.” It was exactly the same when I had my interest in “In The Bag Limited”. Product designs were created in the UK and sent to China where they sourced the materials and made up the samples, finally manufacturing the product.

 The second point Mr. Hong Kong made was that Chinese companies (or at least some of them) will then take your product and speak to your UK customer directly undercutting you on price. This follows the theme that I have heard where Chinese companies will take a product designed in the UK and then sell it to other international markets.

 Hence, there are numerous opportunities for the British entrepreneur in China. There will be products in existence that have been tried and tested. You do not need to create a new product, just take an existing one and tweak it.

 For me, it is time to get ready for a little trip over to the land of the rising sun.

China’s economy set to top Japan’s

Sipping a can of Tiger beer on the patio of our friend’s house in Singapore, I read the Asia version of The Wall Street Journal. Whilst I do not ready any serious business papers back at home, I do take interest in regional publications when on holiday.

 We all know that China’s economy has been growing at a very fast rate over the previous years. The big news here is that China is looking to surpass Japan as the world’s second largest economy, an unprecedented position for a still-developing country. To give a scale of the size of the Chinese economy, their Q2 exports were $1.339 trillion.

 So what does that mean for the small UK business leader? – They have money to spend and are open for ideas.

 I remember thinking over ten years ago, I need to spend some time in China and see how I could do business there. Regrettably, with a small exception, I never did.

 I am not going to be put off with the 5,000 mile distance, cultural differences and language barrier. I will invest some time to learn more about the country, what their problems are, what do they need, what ideas and products they have we could import.

Singapore economy in overdrive

Singapore is the size of The Isle of Man, except that is has 4.8m people living there as opposed to 80,000. A beautiful, virtually crime free, clean country, that has just celebrated 45 years of independence four days ago. Draconian laws make chewing gum illegal and the punishment for graffiti is four months in jail and three lashes with the rattan cane. I just wish the UK could follow their lead here.

 When the recession hit in 2008, the Singapore economy went into a nosedive. Shipping, banking and tourism were some of the first sectors hit.

 Singapore is now flourishing; the economy grew by 24% in Q1 this year. Re-construction (the re-building of old buildings sometimes only ten years old) is everywhere and the wealth is starting to come back to this country.

 I enquire about rates of tax. Like Hong Kong, Monte Carlo and Switzerland, tax rates are very low. There is definitely a correlation between low tax rates and wealth generation. However, like these countries, it is an expensive place to live.

 So, if you can do business in Singapore, do so. The economy will continue to expand over the coming years.