43. 5 top summer takeaways you should hear to grow your business - Part 1

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership.

0:15Fresh from the holidays, it's time to get back to business. Welcome to our top summer takeaways. Here are some of the very best nuggets from our podcast guests to help you spark ideas, build momentum and help you hit the ground running this autumn. We all face pain and setbacks in life, but how should we frame them so they fuel us forward instead of holding us back? This is top takeaway number one from my conversation with Rob Moore. He talks about mission, resilience and perspective on challenges.

0:48Rob Moore:You know, there's the simple saying, it makes you or breaks you. So everyone listening, including us, have had trauma and hardship. does it break you or do you tap into it and go never again? And I'm still running away from some of my pains, thankfully, them helping me towards success and wealth. So that's one way of staying hungry. The other one is having a really big mission. The bigger the mission, the smaller the problems and challenges. And, you know, if you can focus on something much bigger than you, you're always moving towards something. Imagine playing Snakes and Ladders and getting to the square 100 and then it's like, oh, actually, it's a 200 square game.

1:30Rob Moore:Actually, it's a 400 square game. You know, people who play computer games, they don't get upset when they complete the level. They get excited about the next level. So you always need like a next level. In fact, people who play computer games probably get a bit, oh, I finished the game. What now? So you want to see business and life like Snakes and Ladders, but it never ends. or a computer game where once you complete the game, there's actually another game that unfolds. But you said, and I just want to clarify my understanding, the bigger the mission, the smaller the problem. And so what you're saying, I believe, is if you've got a huge, big goal or you're trying to do something very substantial that really changes things, you have a problem like maybe running out of money.

2:12It doesn't seem quite so sort of desperate, is that right?

2:16Rob Moore:That's exactly that. So I'll give you an example that I have. yesterday my head of marketing resigned. She's actually starting her own business. Oh, I see. And I see that. Well, maybe you inspired her. Well, I did. Too well. But actually, I'd rather that. And actually, that gives me a sense of pride. But, you know, I'm sat here and probably right up there with my MD, the most important person in my company is the head of marketing because we're a marketing business. But because I know I've got a global mission because I want to help as many people on this planet get better financial knowledge, I'm not sitting here focusing on that problem because I've got a bigger vision and it's frustrating because the last head of marketing maybe lasted a similar amount of time and it's one of our most important roles.

2:58Rob Moore:So if I wanted to, I could get really into the depths of difficulties and depression and frustration and I could start going into blame. But because I have a global mission and vision, I know I just, that's fine. I've kissed a couple of frogs as it were, just need to keep looking. I mean, I went through so many PAs until I found my great PA. My MD, she's been with us 14 years. First MD, stay with us ever since. Sometimes you get lucky or you do it well. Other times you kiss a few frogs. It's just the way it is. Business leaders often rely on spreadsheets. But can you really know if you're running your business in the best way by looking at data?

3:37This is top takeaway number two from my conversation with Neil Clifford, CEO of Kurt Geiger. He talks about how he gets his answers from people, not numbers. So I was in charge of 20 stores. And then Steve Robinson, and also a friend called Paul Sweetenum, who was very, very important to my career, sort of saw the fact that I had this ability to connect people. And there was a job sort of created for me called Branch Merchandiser. So I was in, I got my first company car, Renault 5 Turbo, age 21. Right. Right. G-Reg. Love that car. Navy blue. Gorgeous thing. And I used to bomb around the United Kingdom, visiting all of our stores two, three times a week.

4:24And then I would be in head office. So I had this, you know, I suddenly become a head office person on Oxford Street. Yes. And I would connect the stores to head office, which I'm still a big believer in. I drive everyone mad a little bit at Kurt Geiger saying, you know, the answers are in the shops. the answers are in the shop not in the spreadsheets or certainly not not all not get out there get out there listen talk to the staff talk to the managers they know all the answers they know why the the shoes aren't fitting or or you know whatever the issues are you normally discover the answers in the the problems are in the spreadsheet the answers are in the stores so i had this job where i was connecting store performance to head office and um yeah that was a that was a lovely job i love that job but i never read anything at work really i don't read the sales reports really or the so how do you get the information talking listening to people talking and listening i think that's a big feature of business leaders that i think i think i don't know but i think for me dyslexia is a superpower now i mean it was incredibly frustrating and in in at school but because i don't look down well this is my little story or my i'm never looking down and reading stuff i'm always looking up i'm always you know looking in people's eyes and physically physically yeah so i think i'm i'm i'm a better judge of people than some because i take I put more effort into trying to study human beings than I do spreadsheets or words.

6:08Very interesting. Because so many meetings now, there's a lot of people sitting around the table with a computer screen or a laptop. I don't look at any of it. You don't look at any of it? No. You look at them. Mm-hmm. And you learn. Mm-hmm. Just by looking. And, you know, if you're the store manager in Woolwich and half your staff are nicking and then the customers are sometimes threatening you with a syringe of blood for a leather jacket, you know, in 88 when the whole, you know, AIDS thing. Yeah. Wow. You know, you get to understand the human race and the good ones and the bad ones. You end up being quite a good judge of character, I think.

6:46Yeah. In life, with experience, really, don't you? I adore people. All of them? Yeah, in general, yeah. I think 95 % of human beings... You adore people? very decent yeah so talk me through that what what what do you like about them especially well i think i i find them as my fuel really my energy you know i can't work in isolation i can't work on my that's why i can't work you can't really work from home as a ceo really anyway can you no i agree with that and um thank god you know i would be a good example i think it's ridiculous frankly but the um my my motivation energy my learning comes from engaging and working with people because people find the solutions not computers or spreadsheets you know if like me you run a business or manage a team you'll know how important it is to hire great people over the last 65 years readers work with thousands of businesses around the world helping them to recruit and to grow.

7:50This is what inspired us to create Read.ai, your new AI hiring agent. It's here to save you money, to save you time, and to help you get the right match. Whether you're hiring your first team member or your 50th, Read.ai is here to make it easier. Try it free for 28 days, exclusively available during our beta period. Go to Read.ai and get started. Read.ai, your higher power. With thousands of new apps launching every month, how do you make sure yours doesn't fade into the App Store graveyard? This is top takeaway number three from my conversation with Michelle Kennedy. She talks about early growth and seeding strategies to get users on your app from day one.

8:38Michelle Kennedy:There are thousands of apps released to the App Store every month, thousands, and we'll never hear of them. They'll never get anywhere. And it's not good enough to say, well, I'm just going to run some ads on Meta. That won't do it either. So I think that you have to have a seeding plan. Who are the people that you're going to seed this with? Are they going to evangelize about the product so that they kind of share and do the hard work for you? And from there, can you get enough momentum that you then start plugging in other marketing strategies um and for me it was those 200 women so the people you've spoken to before absolutely you've got them all on there day one i was like launches tomorrow do you want to try the beta and they already feel a connection with the business and 200 was enough it was enough to get going and then i was very fortunate that we got used your research pool exactly they feel an emotional connection to it because they've already answered questions they already are interested in nosy enough to go and test it and from there it can grow so you call that a seeding strategy yeah i like that expression yeah so you just gently seed with different people and see and it's just about understanding that so you got started but now you've got five million so do they refer people is that is there a referral yeah so you can tell your friends exactly come and join us invite your friends that's the seeding strategy for those listening you want to get going is a good example and using your research base to do that.

10:08Michelle Kennedy:And think about who your desired audience is. You know, if you are building a SaaS business, go into that business and say, look, I'm building this and can I give it to you? Can you trial it for me for free? And that's the best use case that you can get. You get to see it in the wild. So there's always an example of how to get it out there and be able to observe it. And the starting point doesn't need to be building an app. That always makes me anxious when people say they want to be in that. So where should the starting point be? You can build an environment to test something. And it's so, so brilliant now.

10:43Michelle Kennedy:When you say environment, what do you mean? So it might be if you wanted to build a community product, for example, you don't have to build a community app. You can build a WhatsApp group. It's free. You can test. Can you get people to join that group? Can you get enough engagement going? What are they talking about? You can create these environments in whatever scenario might best suit your business. Just readily available technology to start with. And AI is incredible now. You know, there are no code solutions where you can build something very, very inexpensively and test it before you go into the real depth.

11:13Michelle Kennedy:Just ask AI to do it. Well, you can get a clickable prototype, get it in people's hands, watch how they use it. It's very easy to do. There are tools like Figma where you can do that. There are amazing things that we should all be doing now. So this is all about some bootstrapping something. Absolutely, and go and test it. It's not finding huge amounts of money to build something. Exactly. You can start really small and find that out a lot and learn a lot and take it from there. Exactly. Many great ideas never come to fruition when people listen to that voice in their head. Is it too late for me to pursue something new?

11:50This is top takeaway number four from my conversation with my wife, Nicola Reid. She talks about why it's never too late to start a business and how mature experience can complement younger energy. Nicola, I hope you don't mind me saying that you started your business in your 50s. And some people listening might be thinking, well, too late. I'm past that stage of life where I'd be thinking about starting a business. What would you say to them? Well I remember I've only been to Japan once but I spoke to a woman there who said that typically when you retire in Japan age about 60 you learn a language and a new language and I felt really inspired by that because it just felt like a really optimistic great thing to do at quite an old age and I think if you have a passion you should follow it and I found beekeeping and thought yeah I really I really want to do this and I don't think age should ever hold you back it's you know if you have a passion you've got a if there's a book you want to write write it if there's a business you want to start start it and it just does not matter what age you are that's a very good message is there any sort of you know excuse for people do you come across people saying I'm not going to do that because I think that's right but it's always just about confidence and I think that's why Matthew was brilliant because he gave me the confidence because he was so excited to to be on the journey with me so I was lucky that Matthew found me but I think that you know if you have a passion you should follow your dream and you should make it happen that's so interesting but also maybe look for other people who share that passion yeah exactly because you can support each other and energise each other you're never too old running a business is ultimately about working with people but what do you do when things or people stop working?

14:08This is top takeaway number five from my conversation with Reggie Hayworth. He talks about leadership, culture and building positive energy in teams. I think we all make the mistake of trying to make things work after their lifespan has clearly gone wrong. And you know, I'm sure you know in your heart, if you know your business as well as you or I do and your people as well as you and I do, that they're not happy. It's not working. They've got to go. And we just try and make it work. We pour a lot of energy into it, and it's very sappy. And it still doesn't work. No, no. I mean, nothing lasts forever, does it?

14:50But it is a difficult journey. And you're saying, I think, you know, if you're starting to think something's not working, it's probably not working. And that's the thing. Well, you want to, obviously, you've got to, you do your best to make things work. One of the people I met, had the privilege of meeting once, was Clive Woodward, the chap who took England to their only World Cup rugby. Rugby. Yeah. Triumph. 2003. Amazing. And after that, he became, sometime after, he became director of football at Southampton. And I was taken down there to a game. And I was introduced to him. I knew I had one chance to ask a question.

15:30and and i i said i'm very nice to meet you sir clive um you know i'd love to know what's your secret to building a good team and he didn't pause for a second he just looked at me and said get rid of negative energy i've never forgotten that and and it was such a good it was so simple and if you're running a people business which essentially is what i am and of course you know animals are the most important thing on one level, but it's essentially a people business. You know, this thing of keeping people happy, keeping your staff happy, keeping them engaged, and making sure that there's a positive energy around the place.

16:14And interestingly, in their different ways, the four people who had to go, I think, were not very happy in the job, and probably had become or were seen as negative energy by some of their colleagues or would have felt that way. And it was very interesting how it played out. But I think Sir Clive Woodward was really onto something there. And I'm sure that's one of the reasons he was such a success. That's good. Get rid of negative energy. Thanks for listening to Summer Takeaways. Tune in next time for part two. I'm your host, James Reid, Chairman and CEO of Reid, a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company.

16:56If you'd like to find out more about Reed, all links are in the show notes. See you next time.