49: Is your passion a business worth starting?: The simple method to find out | Johnnie Boden CBE

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

0:16Finding your passion is one thing. Knowing if you can turn it into a successful business is another. Most people never take that leap, but are you someone who should? Today we're joined by Johnny Bowden, founder of the iconic British clothing brand Bowden, known for its bold colours and playful style. We'll explore how Johnny discovered his passion, assessed his strengths and built a brand that's now a household name, and how you too can align your own skills and passions to create something successful. Well, today on All About Business, I could not be more delighted than to welcome Johnny Bowden to our studio.

0:54Fabulous to have you here. Johnny is the founder and creative director of the eponymous Bowdoin. And this is a company he started in 1991 that has grown to a business that is now turning over 350 million pounds a year and has over 2 million customers and sells in a number of countries, but most principally in the United States, Germany, and the UK. This company has become a household name, Johnny. Well, you're very kind, James. And I want to know how it all began. Yeah, what's the sort of story here? It's a slightly awkward beginning, like a lot of businesses. But I started when I left Oxford.

1:30I'm very lucky to go to Oxford. And I went to work in the city because I thought it was rather glamorous. You know, the money was good. The girls were pretty. It was all sounded fantastic. But I was completely useless at it. I was very, I wasn't a very good stock picker or I didn't really get the point. And I didn't enjoy it very much. And my lovely firm, my firms were very kind to me. and they sent me to work in America in 1988. And when I was in America, two dramatic things happened. The first of all was that I noticed all my colleagues in my bank were buying clothes from catalogs. I'd never seen this before.

2:09And secondly, I got left some money by a lovely childless uncle and I thought I've got to reinvent myself because I was so bad at what I was doing. so I threw in the towel and I didn't initially although I had an idea of a good clothing business it wasn't I wasn't old enough to do it straight away so I did a couple of other things that I'd always wanted to do I was a teacher for six months and then I ran a pub for six months and none of those quite worked I was far too greedy to be a successful teacher my I remember spending my paycheck in about a week, my monthly paycheck in a week. And then I didn't like running a pub because I wasn't very good at dealing with drunk people.

2:56And then I met Sophie, who is now my wife. And Sophie is very abrupt. And she pointed out to me that I'd had this incredible start in life. I said, well, I've got this idea of a clothing business. And she said, if you don't do it, I'm going to leave you. So that was the catalyst. for this yes so it sounds to me i mean that you had a sort of 20s where you were trying different things and yes which is is i think to be encouraged i quite agree i always say to young people if they're interested i think it's absolutely fine to try lots of different things but very important in order to find out what you really love and what you're really good at but i think you know you've got to nail it by the time you're 30 i mean van gogh didn't start painting until he was 30 and i wasn't that's quite a salutary lesson but i was always interested in clothes that was the yeah that was the drive now i heard a story about you johnny that i heard many years ago that made me think highly of you which is you was you were sent back to oxford by your then employer i think from the city to talk to students about why they should come and join your firm and why a career in the city was a good thing and i think halfway through your presentation you had a change of heart yes yes is this true this story it was sort of legendary at the time what happened what was your change of heart i i couldn't really speak very convincingly about the city because i thought it was the whole thing was a casino and i don't know why they asked me to talk but i effectively said in fact this is a waste of time this job try and i should try something else for you so you said that and were they aghast they were they were yes i did that a few times so i You did it a few times.

4:30They rolled you up. I was taken off the speaking list. Oh, okay. The speaker's list. But you weren't dispatched entirely at that point. So you arrived at the age of 30. Sophie was being very direct and clear that you should have a go. How did it begin? What did you do? You mentioned you got some ideas from America with this catalogue. Yes. I mean, I think I need to go back a little bit because when I was at school, I used to love going up to the Portobello Road and buying secondhand clothes. And I was also, when I was at Eton, I used to write for the school magazine, The Chronicle. And we got a letter from Harper's and Queen, which was a fashion magazine, saying we're looking for a male, some writers for our teenage edition.

5:15And I'd written an article about what boys, the various tribes of school boys and what they wore. And I submitted this article and they said, would you like to be our male fashion editor? I thought, that's great for the teenage edition. Right. And so I'd always been interested in clothes. And I remember as a very young boy at my prep school, I was always obsessed about what my parents' friends, what my mother's friends were wearing, much to my father's sort of horror. So I had this interest. Where did it come from, do you think? Well, I don't know. My father was a soldier, but he was quite creative and he drew and he played the piano.

5:53And I just think that I was kind of born with an eye, but it was something that was never encouraged. So it was very, very repressed. The soldiers are quite good at dressing up. It's got a lot of bling sometimes. All that stuff. Funnily enough, my family were, in fact, lace makers. So there was something there. And I don't quite know exactly where it came from. The seed of an interest. And I think one of the things I always say to young people is you've got to find out what is your passion? What is it that you're really, really interested in? And sometimes it's very, very hard to work that out.

6:30But you're never going to be happy unless you do something you really love. And I've always loved clothes. So that was the sort of decision you made. That was a decision. And then, of course, I had to work out, well, how can I use that passion? And I felt there was, I mean, it's embarrassing to look back at what we did initially, but I thought there was a gap in the market. I was particularly interested in menswear. And I always thought that there was, in the 70s, there was this great trend for pleated trousers, baggy trousers, John Travolta, and all really pretty tragic shapes. Or they were kind of drainpipe shapes.

7:08I always thought there was a gap for a really well-cut pair of trousers that had a pleat but wasn't too baggy and also had this obsession with deep cotton pockets. It was impossible to find tries of the deep cotton pockets. Also shirts that had soft interlinings. You know, everything had marked suspense. All the shirts had very stiff shirts. And I thought, well, you know, give it a go. And I was very, very scared of doing it. And I thought, I haven't got what it takes. And I spent quite a lot of time meeting other entrepreneurs and realizing that actually, you know you can do it if you really work hard and you have a clear vision and you listen to what other people say so i i started with eight products eight menswear products and there was a market you know there were there were enough people out there who thought this is this is this is quite fun but it took a long time to find our feet we didn't make a profit for 10 years in fact we we lost a lot of money yeah a lot of money right so that takes some gut yeah so you've said a lot here that i want to sort of ask about so you talked about you know thinking as a young person about how to find your passion yes and you you did yes and you continue to work in a way that you feel excited about yes how would you suggest other people might try and surface that well i I mean, there is a book that I love and I always recommend called Start With Why, Simon Sinek.

8:40And it's the most watched TED Talk. And it's basically, you know, digging deep and being really honest with yourself on what you really, really enjoy, speaking to your friends. And then, as I accidentally did, trying lots of different things, you know, I would say to young people, get holiday jobs, speak to people, make a list of all the things you think you might be interested in and speak to people in those professions and say what's it really that taught me through your day would I be any good at it and you can narrow it down so for example when I started the business I had other ideas that I thought I wanted I thought about doing a travel business and then I realized there wasn't much margin in that.

9:24And I thought, I always think it's a very, it's a good idea to be a small, a very small cog in a big wheel, you know, be a small fish in a big pond, whatever the cliche is. The great thing about clothing is it's a big market and you know, you can have a tiny, tiny, tiny share of it and still be quite a big business. So that was a kind of coincidence, really. So going back to your question, try lots of different things, but be really, really honest about what you really love and what you're good at. And I think self-awareness is a terrible, you know, psychotherapy cliche, but self-awareness is the key to happiness, fulfillment, and just, you know, accepting that you're not very good at certain things and better at others.

10:09And marrying that passion with your skills is, you know, that's the nirvana. And I'm a great fan of Jim Collins' Good to Great, which has this magical Venn diagram, which is on where... Book Reggie. That book, Johnny. Coincidentally, it is here. I didn't bring it with me. On page 96, there is a famous Venn diagram, which I've lived by. And one circle is what you are deeply passionate about. The other circle is what drives your economic engine. And the other circle is what you can be best in the world at. If like me, you run a business or manage a team, you'll know how important it is to hire great people.

10:55Over the last 65 years, Reed has worked with thousands of businesses around the world, helping them to recruit and to grow. This is what inspired us to create Reed.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, Reed.ai is here to make it easier. Try it free for 14 days, exclusively available during our beta period. Go to read.ai and get started. Read.ai, your higher power. Say that again, just sort of. Number one, what you are deeply passionate about. Yeah. Number two, what drives your economic engine.

11:38Number three, what you can be the best in the world at. which in shorthand if you can find a job that you really love that first second a job that gives you the sort of money that you need to you know satisfy your material needs and thirdly what you can be really really good at and the hardest bit in my view is to work out what you really really love because we love lots of things and you know what is the thing that combines that with what you can be really good at. And I don't make any great claims about my abilities. But broadly speaking, I really love what I do. It pays me the money that I want.

12:24And I've become quite good at it. It's taken me 30 years. But when I made the decision to set up the business, although we had hideous dramas, I never regretted it because broadly speaking, I ticked these three boxes. Right. That's really helpful. Good to Great was written some time ago. Yes, yes. And it's still very, very relevant. It's still helpful to all of us. So thank you for highlighting that, Johnny. Thank you. Your brand has been described as sort of quintessentially British. It's cheerful. It's bright. It's got personality. Yeah. I mean, meeting you and talking to you, I mean, I think a lot of it seems to reflect you.

13:06But you've also said that your family have been very influential. or your daughters and your wife Sophie into sort of shaping the brand. Can you talk a bit, because you obviously started doing men's. Yes. But now you've moved and it's changed and devolved. It's changing all the time. And that was, we started with menswear and very quickly we realised that men don't spend nearly as much money on clothes as women. Women, men kind of make do. I mean, this shirt I'm wearing is three years old. How old's your shirt? A bit less. men make do for women women as a psychological need to wear to wear new clothes and therefore the market is much bigger and a psychological need yes really to reinvent themselves every day yes i think women really care about what they wear in a way that men don't men are quite happy to wear a uniform but women want to feel great about themselves and you know what they look like is a very important part.

14:07My best metaphor is if you go to the men's gym, what do men talk about? Football. Football, holidays, cars. Do they ever talk about clothes? Not that I can recall. So it made me very sad because I love menswear, but it was a self-fulfilling prophecy because it was a much less profitable part of the business. So the moment we started women's wear, it was immediately successful, more successful than men's wear in monetary terms. And then you become, as a businessman, you have to listen to your customers. And I would say, you know, it's a terrible cliche, but it is, you know, it's a cliche because it's true.

14:56Listening to your customers and giving them what they want is, you know, the most important thing. and not being defensive. You know, they often tell you things you don't want to hear. So in my case, they told me they weren't willing to, they're not willing to spend lots of money on menswear. In fact, when my sister-in-law one Christmas bought her son three shirts from a competitor of mine, I thought, that's it. Your sister-in-law has it? That was a hard one. I thought, you know, that's it. And I said, what's wrong with my shirt? Oh, nothing there. It's a bit expensive. I thought, well, if I can't get you as a loyal customer, what's the point?

15:34Right. And that was very, very painful. So we stopped menswear three years ago. It was self-fulfilling because womenswear was more profitable, so we were spending more marketing money on womenswear. And so menswear died to death. But it was very, very sad for me. But that's quite a good example of your listening to information that you don't really want to hear. And this happens all the time. I'm constantly being proved wrong by our customers. They're very, very fickle in the nicest possible way. So what surprised you recently, the last season or two? In the last, good question. I was in a trade meeting yesterday, and I was quite – I'd be careful, I don't want to give too much information to our competitors – but I was quite surprised at how, well, a couple of quite boring dressers were doing.

16:25In your own range? In my own range, yeah. And I look at the top 10 every week, and it was quite a marked change from the top 10 a month ago. I mean, you know, fashion's changed. The great thing about clothes is it's a huge market. But the biggest problem, by extension, the same idea expressed in a different way, is that there's masses of competition. and our customers are absolutely riddled with choice. And if I look at our competitors 30 years ago, half of them don't exist now. Yeah. And there's so many - Same in our business. Yeah, so many new brands. And that's been wonderful in so many ways, but it makes it hard in others to succeed.

17:13So fashion changes, as you said. I mean, that makes running a fashion business particularly sort of challenging in a way to keep not just abreast of fashion, but ideally ahead of it. So your next range. Whilst retaining your values. Loyal customer base and your value. Yes. I mean, that is that. So how do you do that? I think it's a very, very good question and it's extremely hard. I would say that we have quite a clear, I have quite a clear sense of what the company stands for. We have our rather pompous brand values, which are. Well, tell us what they are. They are, they're three. I always think, you know, you should do everything in threes.

17:50I agree. Uplifting is number one, which means unique, different, colorful, cheerful. We have a tagline which we use in America, which is happiness you can wear. Now, people might sort of cough into their coffee when they hear it because it's a bit naff. You don't use it in the UK. We do a bit, but it's, you know, I think taglines, are straplines are actually can be a bit of a burden and actually images on their own are good enough but um that that is what uplifting means grounded is the second one which means uh versatile relevant for lifestyle ethically made good quality good value and stylish is the third We order it in that way because it's easy to remember, uggs.

18:43Stylish is a pretty naff word, but it means what you think it means. You know, incredibly flattering. Women, you know, the most important thing with clothing is that when she puts an item of clothing on, she feels fantastic. The clothes flatter her. The worst thing you can say to a woman or a woman can feel is a bit frumpy, a bit, you know, a bit tired. I know, and I hope this doesn't sound sexist, but I can tell when I see a customer or a model in our office putting on a really flattering dress, her whole body language changes. You know, Sophie, my wife, I'm sure you, in your life, when we go out for supper, this awful thing every evening that I have to go through when she puts on an outfit and she says, actually, I don't like it very much.

19:32and she goes back and changes it. And, you know, I can tell by her body language that she feels a lot better wearing one outfit than she does another. And that's, it has a transformative power, the right clothes. So that's what you're seeking to do. Yes, but that's what stylish means. Yes, yes, yes. And did you create these three? Yes, I mean, we've had lots of, uplifting, grounded stylish. We've had lots of goes at it, but lots of people challenging me, and I've been able to hold my ground, and actually, thank goodness, for the last five years, they've stood firm. So the answer to your question is, be clear what you stand for, but also listen to your customers.

20:27So the example I gave of the rather boring, the black dress that I was quite surprised by, which doesn't really tick the uplifting box, but it's got some rather amazing details. It's still extremely flattering. And within those values, you have to be nimble and you have to look at what are customers buying? What do they really love? the most important customer feedback you get is what they're buying. So what does that tell you about social changes? It sounds to me that they're going for something more cautious, more subdued, less vibrant. Is that saying that people are a bit down at the moment?

21:10I think that is a very good point. I made this point yesterday. The huge economic uncertainty, America, Rachel Reeves, et cetera. People are, I think, a little bit scared. But I also think that sometimes we've gone too far the other way and we've dialed up the uplifting value too much at the expense of flattering. And customers say, I don't want to wear that bright dress when I go to work. It's a most important part of my job with the team is going through the sales, working out why things are selling and why other things are not. And then also looking at the trends, working out which trends are relevant, looking at the competition, looking at the catwalk, looking at what people are wearing on the streets.

22:07And I've got a fantastic team who, and together, we work this out as best we can. So that's fascinating to listen to. When I introduced you, Johnny, I introduced you as founder and creative director, not sort of CEO or chairman. No, I'm afraid not. This is the company you started. Can you talk me through what's happened and why that is or what's your preference here? Because it's interesting. I do think that entrepreneurs are terrible managers. I think by definition, an entrepreneur is quite wild, always looking at new ideas, quite dynamic. You're disruptive people. I mean, I don't know. I am quite disruptive.

22:45My family find me a nightmare at times because I'm not very steady. I'm a bit volatile. But that's the nature. And I wouldn't have done this if I didn't have that. And to be a good manager, you've got to be very measured. You've got to be very patient. I'm terribly impatient. I can't even – you know, I've got an electric toothbrush. I can't – each bit is 30 seconds. I can't stay – I'm always jumping around, you know, brushing my teeth. It's really weird. I can't – I have some sympathy for that. You know what? I have some sympathy for that. So a manager is, you know, is more steady. And so when I started the business, I had this fantastic chap who came in, who about three years in, called Julian Granville, to whom I owe a lot.

23:34Julian pointed out to me, I was a terrible CEO. I said, right, well, you can do it. So you were CEO at this point? I was CEO. He was finance director. And he then said, you're absolutely useless at this. I said, hands up. You're absolutely right. I'm useless and I hate it. Would you like to do it? He said, yep. So he then made me chairman. And then about 10 years later, he said, you're a useless chairman. I said, that's fine. So is he now chairman as well? He's now chairman. He's fired. I've been fired twice by him, actually. Oh, right. But it suited me because, you know, going back to Jim Collins, I wasn't a good chairman or a good CEO.

24:09And so, but I'm very lucky because I'm a majority shareholder. So you own the business. I own the majority of the business. And I've been able to create a role that really suits me, which I'm better at, which is creative director. Right. So I suppose you've been smart, if I may suggest, by maintaining majority control. Yes. Because a lot of entrepreneurs invite in sort of other investors. Yes. In a situation like that, might have ended up being sort of exited from their own business. I mean, we've had a lot of investors and we've bought quite a lot of them out. We're able to buy them out. But we had some pretty wonderful investors who have believed in me and have supported me and the team.

25:02And we had one particularly unpleasant one who tried to kick me out. And that wasn't much fun. So I always say to people, don't take outside investment unless you really have to. And if you do take it, try your friends and family first. And also, you should put, if you're not willing to put the majority of your own assets into the business, then you shouldn't be doing it. Right. Majority of your own assets. Yes. I mean, I had to put my much to my mind. Of that 10-year period, I guess you would have done. We nearly went bust several times. And my poor wife, Sophie, had to put up with me putting our family house on the line, which was quite scary for her because a lot of it was her money.

25:51And I'm eternally grateful to her for that. I, of course, was completely relaxed about it because I knew it was going to work. Right. And I would say to people, if it's not... So you knew it was going to work. That's quite a statement. I knew it was going to work. Why were you so confident? Because the customers were there and it was up to me to sort out the problems. The problems were all of my making. And I had confidence in my own ability. I was learning all the time. I was a little bit scared, but, you know, it was a job. If it didn't work, my wife would probably have left me. But I did have confidence.

26:27I was learning so much. She might not have left you, haven't you? Well, she had every right to. But I think the thing that I always say and that I have been quite good at, although not as good as I could have been, is listening to other people, listening to my team, giving me fairly frank feedback and telling me that, you know, listening to my team and listening to our customers has been quite an important part of my, you know, the, dare I say it, the success. There's a lovely quote, I remember. The more you listen, the more the universe reveals itself. Yes, which I quite like. That's very good.

27:09That's very good. I mean, I think the other book I've loved, which everybody talks about now, is The Growth Mindset, Carol Dweck, which is all about learning. Every setback is an opportunity. Yeah, yeah. So what was the toughest decision you've had to make as a founder? I think most of the toughest decisions involve people. I mean, firing people is horrible, but it has to be done. And I would say the toughest things have been getting rid of people who are actually quite good, which is not quite good enough. I think there's a big difference between a 9 out of 10 person and a 7 out of 10 person.

27:51um i'm just reading the reed hastings the guy who set up netflix who who says he can justify you know the the difference between a good person and an okay person is it's like it's a multiple of thousands thousands yes and actually so i've had to get rid of some really nice people uh and that's been hard i mean and that's been your experience too the difference between a nine person yes yes Yes, yes. I've got a lot of nine. So what makes a person a nine person, you know, for people listening? It's a combination of ability, temperament, energy. Somebody who is really good fun to work with, who's really open, not defensive, really good, quick to learn, quick to admit mistakes.

28:41uh naturally uh i mean i i i put a lot of store in those qualities that you you're not really allowed to interview and mention interviews but no all that stuff about their personality their attitude their background things that you're not really meant to ask about but i i i do a book called put your mindset to work with a co-author paul stoltz yeah i'm very interested and you're describing a growth mindset. You mentioned Carol Dweck, obviously. There's another quote, character is everything. So it's very important. And one thing we notice in our business, we have sort of high achievers lunches.

29:23And we sort of ask everyone about their background, how they started out in work. And the people who, there's one consistent thread, all of them did jobs as teenagers. Yes, I completely agree. In fact, one of my key interview questions is what holiday jobs have you done? Yeah. And if they can't think of one, they forget it. Yeah. They all work doing various, you know, paper rounds, working in ice cream vans, decorating, all that, things like that. Yes. Which is interesting. The other thing, although it slightly sounds a bit prejudiced, but I'm a huge supporter of people whose parents were self-made.

30:04And anybody whose dad's an electrician, plumber because they know the importance of hard work well they'd have seen that and they'd have probably discussed business exactly and not defensive difficulty yeah yeah yeah i mean taking negative feedback is you know very hard for people um but it's you know i mean i've i've i've i struggle with it at times but i've got better at it um because it it just so it makes life so much easier for the team and for you, actually. Yeah, I was once asked to give a talk to staff at Amazon, rather, about feedback. Yeah. And I said, I don't know why you've asked me, because, you know, as a writer of books, you can look at feedback from your readers on Amazon very happily.