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Not very laudably, I would say.
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My motivation was I wanted to be famous.
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I saw myself as a kind of Steve Jobs entrepreneur type thing, did an entrepreneurial thing, turned out I was absolutely crap at it.
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I am in awe of those people because it takes a kind of special Hutzpah to start with nothing and make something.
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I was too frightened because that now I have 34,000 people.
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You're suddenly going, Cranky, if I cock this up, that's quite a big responsibility.
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Some people spend their entire lives building, you know, dams, and it takes 20 years to build the thing, by which time you've retired.
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But I really love the immediacy of you make a decision and something happens, and people, real people, walk into your shop and behave differently as a result.
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In my view, the the very best thing you can do to make people really happy to work for you is win.
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One, two, three, hello, I'm Jamie Mitchell, and welcome to Three Things, the podcast where we try to unlock the secrets of the founder mindset in conversations with successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.
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And where we insist on leaving with three things, three pieces of practical advice that you can implement in your business today.
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Today's conversation is a fascinating one.
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Sebastian James is, by his own admission, a failed entrepreneur who went on to become one of the UK's most successful retail CEOs, most latterly, of course, as the CEO of Boots.
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But before we start the conversation, I first of all owe Sebastian and you an apology for my twelve months of silence.
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Seb and I recorded this a year ago, about three weeks before my family and I packed our bags and moved to Australia.
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I shan't bore you with the reasons why it's taken me so long to edit this podcast, but rest assured the conversation we had was timeless and just as relevant today.
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Now that we're all settled into our new home, you can expect more podcasts in the coming months.
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But in the meantime, sit back and enjoy this conversation with the fascinating and very enjoyable company of Sebastian James.
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Do you like football?
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Not at all.
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Great.
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Uh not at all.
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I know nothing about football.
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Uh there were used to be two things that that everybody liked that I didn't like, and I now like one of them, and they were dogs and football.
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How could you not have liked dogs?
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Well, I didn't like dogs, but now I love dogs.
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And I've got dog is my screensaver, two dogs, names, types.
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Molly and Nell, White Wheaton Terriers, really sweet, lockdown dogs, adore them, totally get dogs.
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Still don't get football.
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Great.
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They say football is a game of two halves.
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Yes, very true.
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Is a quote that may mean nothing to you.
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How many halves has your career had?
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About eight.
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Um about eight, of which about half of them have been more or less a total disaster.
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A game of two halves.
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Yeah, a game of two years.
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Yeah, about half of them.
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Fundamentally, um when I stopped being a consultant and doing the sort of very conventional path pattern, I saw myself as a kind of you know, Steve Jobs entrepreneur type thing.
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Did an entrepreneurial thing, turned out I was absolutely crap at it, and then went into uh corporate life.
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I'll let you get away with that.
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It's such a I was crap at Yes, no, no, crap.
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Crap is the I I've I've thought about the word carefully, and that's it.
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Um and uh So this I will we I want to get our conversation to the essence of entrepreneurship, but actually I'm not so interested in it in the founding a business part sense as it is the mindset.
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But but let's let's talk about what are you crap at?
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I am in awe of entrepreneurs, people who set up businesses, people who set up uh businesses like the ones you've run.
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I am in awe of those people because it takes a kind of special Hutzpah to start with nothing and make something.
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And actually, I think that is incredibly difficult.
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As it turns out, I don't have that set of skills.
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So let's just run through the list.
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You started with your paint business.
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So left BCG, um, went out to start a funded search company, and we had this tiny, really grotty office up 72 flights of stairs on Victoria Street.
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Oh, yeah, you came.
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Uh that was the beginning, and then we bought this business that made paint brushes because uh I had this kind of you know, this idea that industrial was the way to go.
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I mean, absolute nonsense.
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And we bought this business in Belfast.
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Although theoretically, less former consultants with business school degrees would have been going into that.
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That was definitely the thought.
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We've got the smarts, blah, blah, blah.
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But actually, it turns out that it's not really smart.
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I think the interesting thing about the all of the entrepreneurs who've been successful that I've met is it's not really brain power that has fuelled the success of their business.
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Um, for me, it's about a kind of relentless energy, an inability at any moment to say this isn't going to work.
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And I'm I think I'm too self-reflective and probably not um I probably don't have enough ego to, although you know I've got plenty, but to uh to really be able to say when when things go wrong or when it doesn't move, there is no way in which this fails.
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I get I get too reflective on that.
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You the this was like a 13-14 year period of your early.
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Uh not quite.
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It was I think probably no, not even.
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I think I think in the end it was about six six.
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I'm not talking just paint, by the way.
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Oh, okay, yes.
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No, all of the people.
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It was about 10 or 12 years, yeah.
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And what was your motivation?
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Um not very laudably, I would say.
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My motivation was I wanted to be famous.
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And did you know that was your motivation?
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Yes.
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I mean and when I went to INSIA, I had a I had an offer from um Weber Douglas that was in those days that was a well-known acting school.
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And uh sorry?
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Uh yeah, so I had a I had a bifurcation in my thing.
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I was either going to I had a moment where I was either going to go to NSIAD, business school, or acting school.
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Did you not know that?
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And and I mean it makes perfect sense.
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Uh and uh so I went to and in making that decision, you can imagine which way my parents were encouraging me to go.
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And um and I went to see an acting coach and I did my stuff for them.
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And they said, Look, you'll probably get work.
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You know, you might be the aging rocker who dies at the beginning of midsummer murders, you know, and so on, but you're not, in my humble opinion, Lawrence Olivier.
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And armed with that slightly disappointing information, I went to business school.
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So that was interesting that you But it was all in the service of you know trying to be I don't know why it was at all attractive as an idea, but I mean it's a it's an odd thing, it's a thing that is quite prevalent, has been sort of, you know, social media has made this a you know.
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Well everybody's an actor.
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Everybody is a but to be famous as a driver and to and to own that and say this is something I want.
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Yeah.
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I mean I'm not particularly proud of it as a goal, you know, as opposed to curing world hunger or solving actually I have more I think I have more social goals now than I certainly I did then.
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Um but uh what do you think, Dre?
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Uh I do know I really don't know.
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There was something about the validation that came from public acclaim that I I I know if I had been properly mentally well, it wouldn't I wouldn't have given a damn about that.
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But for sure.
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But but um my particular quirks were such that that seemed enormously appealing to me.
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So having not done it, there is basically four ways you can be famous in the world.
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You can be an entertainer, you can be a um you can be a politician, um, you can be a sports star, out of the question for me, an old fatty.
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Uh, or you can be a very successful business person and particularly entrepreneur.
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So uh so having having the first three having been rejected for obvious reasons, the fourth one was the only one open, and I had a go at that.
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And uh, like I say, it turned out I was crap at it.
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We'll t we'll t we'll talk some more about it in a second, but I just just before we leave this question, because I'm fascinated by uh motivation and ambition and and how it changes through life and these conversations that we can have at this stage of life and about it.
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Uh what were you at school?
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Uh were you a show off?
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Were you a bullied centre stage?
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You were bullied.
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Bullied, yeah.
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No, I was very miserable at school.
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I was very miserable at school, and and I was pretty repellent, to be honest.
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Um I wasn't I was pretty repellent and crap at sport and you know, all the things that you that that have value when you are 13, 14, 15, um, which fortunately have very little value later.
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Uh I was not good at any of them.
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And so I was not happy at school.
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I wouldn't have a good happy school life.
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And perhaps that was another motivation.
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Just on the school topic, I went to I went to a reunion, which I would never dream of doing for a set of reasons I won't bore you with.
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I went to a reunion at my school about probably about 10 years ago.
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And first it was a bit weird being in a room of 250 men with no women.
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But what was interesting to me was that half the men in that room considered that their lives were a success, and the other half considered their lives were a failure.
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And and there wasn't very much correlation between the objective level of success of any of them and the way in which they'd internalized the the trajectory of their lives.
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And and it was it was very telling for me, and I think actually quite an education to realise that happiness is a choice, and you know how you internalize your own life and career is a is a choice.
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I'm amazed that as a reunion of people you haven't met for so long it was that easy to pick out the people who considered themselves a failure.
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Listen, as you walk through life as people you meet, you you can tell immediately whether they are satisfied with the way things turned out for them, particularly as we reach you know our 50s, um, by which time you've you know you either consider that you've reached escape velocity in your own eyes or you don't, right?
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And and I think you can spot it within ten seconds.
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I look at and back to these entrepreneurs that you that you admire, that when I wrote it down what you said, the relentless energy and belief is driven by some pretty dark demons.
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Yes.
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And perhaps you say you're you didn't have the relentless energy, the motivation.
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Um perhaps you just didn't have Well, it was okay.
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I didn't like school, but you know, so slightly stopped whining about it.
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It was fine.
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I I I didn't have an unhappy childhood.
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I was grew up in a nice uh you know middle class home with with with two parents who loved each other, and you do you know what I mean?
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I had a very, very conventional background.
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I I wonder whether slightly everybody has some trauma, right?
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And uh everybody has some trauma.
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And the point is if you then become famous, that is going to be an important part of your autobiography.
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But the ones who achieve something extraordinary and then want to do it again are the ones that I I get really interested in.
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Uh in terms of that, because to put that relentless energy into an entrepreneurial venture and you know the 20-hour days and the health problems that you must be giving yourself, carrying that amount of stress and all the rest of it, and then want to do it again, I find that quite well I I mean the point is all for all of us, working is a release is a pleasure most of the time, is a if we're lucky, yeah.
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If we're lucky, yeah.
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Um well certainly if we're lucky and we and we we get to do things that we know ourselves and find out what our energy is.
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Yeah, you can't qualifications.
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But but the um but yeah, I in that sense I've been very lucky, which is most of the time I've enjoyed working and I couldn't imagine not working.
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I I met I went to dinner the other night and there was I was sitting next to him like my age, and he said, you know what, I'm gonna retire because I'm spent.
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I was like, what in God's name are you talking about?
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You know, you're in your late 50s, you just should be just getting going.
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It it's it it's I'm very, very intrigued by Yeah, but you see, I'm I I I I'm I'm working, but I'm I have been part-time ever since I went plural, and I consider that very different.
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And you know, if I was to ever retire, it'd be doing what I'm doing.
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Which is working part-time and all the rest of it.
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There was to for me a very large element of I just it takes too much out of me the the job.
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Leadership anyway, takes too much out of me to muster up the uh the energy to do it again.
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I find it energizing.
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I think if I didn't do it, I would quickly fall into a kind of slough of despond.
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Which is very common for people in retirement, by the way.
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Uh no, sure.
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I would then croak it.
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But if you write it up, I mean they often croak, right?
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If you didn't have a job.
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If I didn't have a full-time uh full-time, if I didn't have if most of my time was not taken up thinking about some external problem, whether it be a leadership problem or a or a business problem or a business is what I've chosen, so it could be that, it could be anything else.
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But I think I would I would very quickly go into a depression.
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In that sense, we'd be very similar.
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A problem to solve a day is a good one.
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I found myself when I was selling the house uh recently solving the problem of installing my own electric gate motor because mine had failed and I didn't want to pay the cowboy who wanted to charge me.
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That was a fabulous problem to solve.
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I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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I'm not going to turn it into a I would be absolutely terrible at that too.
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It would definitely open the wrong way if I was if I was installing your gate.
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I don't want to leave this conversation about entrepreneurship with a with a sense that somehow entrepreneurs have to uh have have dark demons to succeed.
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I don't believe that.
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I but I believe some of the most extraordinary ones do.
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So let's go back to um your entrepreneurial career a second.
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You've done lots of different ventures.
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So you you did a sort of small buyout of an SME.
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Yeah, we bought two or three in the end.
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Uh we bought rolled it up a bit, we sold it, it was okay.
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I didn't make any money, shareholders did okay.
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It was okay.
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That one was okay, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't I wasn't gonna build, you know, firstly I'd chosen to go into the paintbrush business, which is not an unerring route to being world famous.
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Uh the number of world famous paintbrush manufacturers, I think, is limited.
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I question the world famous motivation given that.
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Well, I you're right.
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I should have thought about it harder, really.
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But anyway, so did that for a bit.
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It was fine.
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Six years, too long, right?
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Too long.
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Yeah.
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But I learnt a lot of things about, I mean, it is incredibly easy for a lot of entrepreneurs, and this does happen to a lot of entrepreneurs.
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They leave business school, they leave university, they they leave, they do, you know, they decide, they leave their jobs, and they decide they want to be entrepreneurs.
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They then end up in a business that becomes the living dead, and they find themselves spending years and years and years.
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So my son Arthur's just left his VC house to go and join one of their investments.
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And it's a long shot, right?
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Yeah, I mean, it could be amazing, but it's a long shot.
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And what I said to them is that.
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To have your eyes open on that.
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Well, also give yourself a time limit and never get in the trap of saying just six more months.
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Because any given business in that situation will always be on the cusp of you know, of some great success.
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The the training you would have got, that you were a former management consultant, you'd worked at both Bain and BCG, you've been to NCAD, you you had all the the blueprint of this thing called business, and then you actually ran nitty-gritty business.
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Now I think that would have been great training.
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Yeah, no, I think it would be.
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Because a lot of these entrepreneurs who go startup tech companies only start having to think like that when the shit hits the fan and they're going, oh, what's cash flow again?
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Yeah, how do what cash flow is what?
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Working capital is it.
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:35.759
The fascinating thing about very big businesses is I'd like to interrupt this conversation just for a few seconds to tell you about the people at All Together who make this podcast possible.
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Head over to altogether.company to find out more.
00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:14.399
Now back to the conversation.
00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:19.519
The fascinating thing about very big businesses is they don't think about cash very often.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.639
Whereas little businesses have to think about cash all the time.
00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:24.960
All the time.
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:30.960
And um and I rem I I mean I I I don't think I knew really what a cash flow was.
00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:31.519
Sure.
00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.399
When I left in Siad, when I left BCG.
00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:45.519
No, because you're all you're talking about grand, you know, you're drawing everything with an 11b pencil, and and actually, in the end, it's about the two-h pencil that that says I've got just enough money.
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.320
My big biggest learning on that was when I joined Mothercare.
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:53.200
And I joined, and I because I I'd looked to try and buy Mother Care because it was very inexpensive.
00:16:54.240 --> 00:17:00.799
And I was working with a with a slightly loopy lady called Anne Iverson, uh, who had run it in the past, and she and I were gonna buy it.
00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:03.679
We we'd we'd you know, we got some backing, we thought.
00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:08.960
Um, and I called the then chairman and I said, Look, uh, I'd be interested in buying your company.
00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:15.440
He said, Look, I we've just appointed uh Ben Gordon as chief executive, and and Ben, I'm gonna give him his head unless you want to make a crazy offer.
00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:20.079
The venture capital company that we were with, the private equity company we were with, said, Look, we're not gonna make a crazy offer.
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:27.519
So I rang Ben and I said, Look, I'm I I've just spent six months looking about looking at your company and building a plan.
00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:29.200
Yeah, I'm about to shredded.
00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:30.160
Would you like to see it?
00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:31.680
So he said, Yeah, I'd love to.
00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:39.359
So I went up to um Watford and I showed it to him and he said, Well, would you like to looks like a pretty good plan, would you like to help me do it?
00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:42.960
And so I actually joined Mothercare as strategy director.
00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.440
Um is that the sliding door moment, do you think?
00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:46.000
I think so.
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:46.559
Yeah, I think so.
00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:51.039
You know, there are lots of people who spend their entire lives looking at opportunities and never actually doing it.
00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:51.519
Sure.
00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:55.680
And I'm very grateful to Ben because he said, Look, why don't you come and uh help me?
00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:56.960
Anyway, I joined.
00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:57.200
Yes.
00:17:57.440 --> 00:17:59.359
And Ben said, That's really glad you're here.
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:03.839
I've got to tell you one thing that you really ought to know, which is that we can't make payroll on Thursday.
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:05.359
Did he tell you that on the first day?
00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:06.720
Uh yeah, Monday morning.
00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:19.200
Um and so so we crafted you and I, we crafted a letter to all of our suppliers that was to go out that afternoon, which read, uh, in common with industry practice, we are moving our payment terms from 30 to 60 days.
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:21.200
And you're sincerely Ben Gordon.
00:18:21.359 --> 00:18:27.039
And and uh about 80% of our suppliers sort of didn't respond, and that was fine.
00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:30.480
Um and suddenly we got ourselves, you know, 30 days of payroll.
00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:32.720
Retail business has a lot of money.
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:37.759
We could make payroll, uh, but but sorry, but it wasn't gonna pay, obviously it wasn't gonna pay off until the end of the month.
00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:40.160
So we had a problem for that Thursday.
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:55.599
And so the next thing we did is we um I discovered that that although we collected the the paper money, it was still quite cash-oriented business then, the paper money every day, and it was taken back to the Bank of England or whatever, the coins were never collected.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:58.559
And so we had about Oh my god, a float of hammock.
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:04.480
We had about 800,000 pounds in coins uh sitting in safes up and down the country.
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:05.759
And how did you find that?
00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:11.039
Uh so we we I think somebody told me, or someone said, Well, we got I think there's some coins.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:18.000
And and and so and so we sent a van, the the the bank, we went to the bank and they said, We'll give you 80p in the pound, we'll collect them all.
00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:28.799
And so they collect they collected them all up and they could put them through an enormous machine, and we had just enough to make our payroll, and then the following month we had the extra month of payables, so we were sort of okay.
00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:32.559
Did did that feel familiar from your paintbrush days?
00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:33.599
Not at all.
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:34.240
This was at all.
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:38.960
This was a sort of this I mean that was properly, you know, properly emergency.
00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:41.039
I I had never ever seen anything like it.
00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:41.440
It was it.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:46.240
Did you ever get to go back to that strategy, that business plan that you'd written and then?
00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.839
Then we did, and we executed it, I think, uh pretty well.
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:57.200
Share price moved up uh eightfold, so it was it did really I mean from a very low base, roughly bust, and then and it was trading accordingly.
00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.720
And then and then as we pull, I know we have to solve a number of issues, operational issues.
00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:10.319
What I realized at that moment was that what I love doing is taking really gnarly complicated things and fixing them.
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:16.960
And that actually interestingly, you don't get complexity until a business, real complexity until a business gets quite big.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:29.119
The sort of relentless drive that you need to go from naught to 100 million is is actually it's a relatively simple set of problems and it just needs push.
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:38.160
Whereas whereas uh uh a large business suddenly need has enormously complicated problems, maybe people problems, cash problems.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:46.720
Uh those that what's really fun is that Rubik's Cube, which which is um which it turns out is pretty much the only thing I'm good at.
00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:50.079
So you're at you're at Mothercare your strategy director?
00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:50.640
Yeah.
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:56.160
Uh the next move was so at this time you're beginning to go, oh maybe this corporate life is okay.
00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:57.759
So then I took a Is that right?
00:20:58.160 --> 00:20:59.359
Yeah, then I took a wrong turn.
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:00.400
Uh another one.
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:05.279
And uh and I went off to start a retail business with my friend Ernesto Schmidt.
00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:07.920
Um and we started So you weren't at this point convinced.
00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:09.039
No, no, you weren't convinced.
00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:11.440
What's this goal of being a few years?
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.440
This was a startup.
00:21:13.599 --> 00:21:13.759
Yeah.
00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:16.400
Um you went and persuaded I think Apax.
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:17.119
Yeah, Apex.
00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:18.240
To give you quite a lot of money.
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:18.720
To do what?
00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:20.720
Not an enormous amount, but quite a lot.
00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:21.839
Um To do what?
00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:23.279
To do what?
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:23.920
I know.
00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:25.119
I'm just gonna let you tell us.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.839
Uh and I I mean I'm actually blushing.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:29.839
Um you can't see me, but I'm actually blushing.
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:37.359
That that uh to set up a uh a DVD retail business um at a time when DVD was relatively neat.
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:38.400
Shop as well.
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:40.000
Yeah, shop like not for physical shop.
00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:42.559
Well, there was no no there wasn't really any online at that time.
00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:45.359
And there were at that time, there were about 800 UK.
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:47.200
Where had Netflix started?
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:51.680
Uh no, yes, Netflix existed, but it was a different model.
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:56.720
It was it was the DVD it was subscription DVD, so you got sent in the post.
00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.759
DVDs were flying off the shelves, and there was no spot.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.119
Specialist retailer.
00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:03.279
There was a good rationale.
00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:12.640
We thought water stands for DVDs, we would have the proper back catalogue, this would be movie buffs, you know, you'd go in there and you'd have a different you'd have a different approach and so on.
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:19.680
And one of the only thing that we were really scared of was that one day you might be able to actually download a movie.
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:23.200
So uh never been done.
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:25.920
And so we went, we did a lot of due diligence on this.
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:26.720
We talked to Forrester.
00:22:27.039 --> 00:22:29.680
And by then you'd seen a lot of internet companies just fall over and think it's a good thing.
00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:35.759
Well, A, and B, they were and B and B, you know, a really big enterprise-level broadband was running at half a megabit.
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:44.319
So I I so we went to see Forrester, we went to see all the people who were hot in those days in terms of internet specialists, and they said to us, look, it's very simple.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:53.920
The physics of the internet means that it will never be possible to download video content on the internet.
00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:55.440
It will never be possible.
00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:56.480
Did they say never?
00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:00.720
They said you will that I I don't I don't know because I haven't got transcripts.
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:10.720
But anyway, what we heard was certainly it will never be possible to download video on So Armed with that reassuring um perspective.
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:13.200
You opened how many in what amount of time?
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:16.880
It was extraordinarily operational.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:19.359
Yeah, it was operationally uh and we got quite good at it.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:23.759
I mean we found we got good at finding sites, getting them to believe in us, you know, taking taking good sites.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:28.480
Did you you your your co-founder with that business was Ernesto Schmidt.
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:29.519
A retailer.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:29.920
No.
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:31.680
No, he was what was his background?
00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:32.960
Uh also consulting.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:40.079
Um So neither of you had actually found sites, develop sites, no, run multi-site operations.
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:41.599
Interesting.
00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:43.599
We had a chair who had.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:46.160
We learned quite quickly.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:46.880
It's not that hard.
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:47.759
Very quickly.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:49.039
It's not that hard.
00:23:49.279 --> 00:23:49.920
It's not that hard.
00:23:50.240 --> 00:24:00.319
No, I'm but in it so I in my one of my worlds, hospitality, I think it's more the the the ability to get it so wrong with site selection and site development.
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:04.880
Well, and people and hospitality is a very difficult business.
00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:06.240
It's a very different shop.
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:15.920
Although it shares a lot with retail in terms of Well, it does, although retail, remember, what's happening in the store is I mean it was more complicated than boots, but but what's happening in an ordinary retail store is relatively straightforward.
00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.960
You know, you you get stock in, you put it on the shelves, people pick it up, you put they pay for it, and they walk out.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:22.880
In hospitality, you're serving them, you're feeding them.
00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:24.640
There's a lot of people behind the each.
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:25.759
You're making the product in the internet.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.839
Yeah, you're making the product live, exactly.
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:29.359
Um I'm distracted.
00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:32.480
Uh three years opening a lot of sites, a lot of fun.
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:33.440
It was fun.
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:34.079
It was fun.
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:35.200
I mean, it was fun.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:36.640
When did it stop being fun?
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:40.640
It stopped being fun when it looked like it was going down the tubes.
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:42.240
Uh when was the first inkling?
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:44.079
The first inkling two and a half years in.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:46.720
So so two and a half years in, a couple of things happened all at the same time.
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:53.759
The first one was every newspaper, it's very hard to remember all this, but every time you bought a newspaper, you've got a DVD clip to the front of it.
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:54.880
I don't know if you remember that period.
00:24:55.039 --> 00:25:01.039
There was a period of like six months when every newspaper would have a free film attached to the front of it.
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:02.880
That's how they were going to sell their newspapers.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:08.400
And the problem with that was not that, you know, people weren't buying, because you know, not only a limited number of people were buying that film.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:11.519
The problem was that that was consuming that customer's evening.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:16.720
And I they didn't want to watch two films in an evening, they only want one film, they got one free.
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:17.839
So that was a real problem.
00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:32.400
And the thing the second thing, which actually was more corrosive, was that the big blockbusters, the big supermarkets, Tesco and so on, as their sticker shock would put Harry Potter and the death of death or whatever, uh, would put that in for a tenner.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:41.359
And although it was costing them 18 quid to buy from the from the studio, um, they were putting on a tenner, and that would drive traffic to the supermarket.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:44.640
And so they want obviously they want to sell bananas, they don't want to sell DVDs.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:53.519
But but for us, deep catalogue is great, but I've got to be allowed to make something out of Harry Potter and the Death of Death.
00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:55.119
Where was the internet at this point?
00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:56.319
What was who was selling on it?
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:04.160
There was a bit of sort of online retail, but but actually we convinced the Amazon would have been pushing out DVDs by then, surely.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:05.599
It was very, very early, right?
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:07.920
And we we did consider whether we should do internet.
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:12.400
And uh such a such a weird statement to hear in this day and age.
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:17.440
We didn't consider whether we should do this internet thing, but you know, uh we concluded yeah, anyway.
00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:18.640
We considered whether we should do it.
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.480
We thought it would be a distraction for I mean, you know, it was 99% of the market was physical reading.
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:24.960
The experience was meant to be a big part of it.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.279
You talked about sort of hiring nerds, maybe you didn't know.
00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:29.920
Yeah, no, we no, we know we did that.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:30.960
We hired film buffs.
00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.359
You did um and so the the experience.
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:34.480
What was your inspiration?
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:35.599
Who who was doing it?
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:36.880
It was Waterstones.
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:42.400
It was this idea of enormously diverse content, deep catalogue uh for people who love films.
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:50.000
Ernesto adored films and he loved, you know, he liked he liked watching Aki Karismeki, you know, uh impenetrable Finnish films.
00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:51.839
Uh I personally I like Harry Potter.
00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.640
But uh so we we did hire people with with film knowledge.
00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:01.759
Of course, we had you know we hired people who are um who were good at dealing with customers, but fundamentally, what what people want when they go in a shop is someone who's nice.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:05.279
And uh effectively you just weren't getting the sales density you needed out of your site?
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:14.400
We started off, took off like a rocket, we were getting really good like for like, it was all great, and then these two phenomena started happening in bulk, and our like for like ground to a halt.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:19.440
We were making very marginal four-wall contributions, i.e., we had half the sites that weren't.
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:25.519
Uh and Apex, quite rightly, quite rightly, said, you know what, this is going to be hard bloody yards.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:26.559
And they were completely right.
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:31.680
You don't see it in venture capital enough, I think, in this country anyway.
00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:36.799
I think with there's a lot of hope still in in sort of keeping on funding business that you could.
00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.240
It's one of the things I've I've um I'm back with private equity now.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:55.200
One of the things I find very relaxing in private equity relative to public markets, or indeed even working for a big um a big global corporation like like WBA is that there is only one metric, and that is how much value are you going to create?
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:59.279
If I can, I'm gonna just end this story.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:04.079
Business fails, you go into administration, I see horrid.
00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:05.680
That's a horrid process, by the way.
00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:20.640
Uh I think a bit like every young person should spend one night in police cells, uh, every young person should try and lead a business through uh failure because you learn more about keeping your own emotions in check.
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:38.640
I may remember you know waking up in the morning, getting the bath and then you know groaning to to try and uh to to to force myself out of the bath and get into the office, uh, knowing that the livelihoods of what was by then I don't know 1200, 1400 people?
00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:39.680
I mean a lot, right?
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:41.359
Um, at risk.
00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:49.119
And you know, you start the day with your business failing, and you end the day every day having found a solution to keep it going for another day.
00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:51.279
And it will probably a week, actually.
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.400
So you start the week, certainly thinking it's all over.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:28:56.960
How long was the really tough period?
00:28:57.119 --> 00:28:58.559
Uh really quite long.
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:11.200
I mean, because you're always looking for you know, you carry on trading, and you're allowed to carry on trading, uh, even though you know it's not going well, as long as you think there is a reasonable chance of a solution, and you can always come up with a with a possible solution.
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.759
And and so Where did your what was the source of your resilience at this point?
00:29:16.079 --> 00:29:17.119
Well, but partly my family.
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:19.359
So Anna was amazing, uh, my wife Anna.
00:29:19.519 --> 00:29:22.160
She was like, you know what, it's not the end of the world, it doesn't matter.
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:24.160
You know, she she put the thing in perspective.
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:26.319
You sort of partly believe it, but it's enough, right?
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:31.519
It's enough to at least put give some perspective as you go in.
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:35.680
Um I had an investor, David Ishag, who to whom I owe an enormous amount.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:36.799
David was an investor.
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:37.599
Yeah, he was.
00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:40.000
Oh, very much so, yeah.
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:41.279
He's a great friend.
00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:43.359
Goodness me, will you please give him my best?
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:45.839
I haven't seen him in years, but we used to speak all the time.
00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:49.599
He's a properly lovely person, but really fundamentally good person.
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:58.720
And he is one of the people, along with Marc Aziri and a few others, who, when it all went horribly wrong, stepped in to help Dina McCallum, another one.
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:10.240
Um stepped in to help in the Well, you know, when it all went wrong, and I I really was uh in despair, and I and I remember walking down, you know, once it had all gone wrong, we you know, and and and I was out and blah, blah, blah.
00:30:10.319 --> 00:30:14.640
And I remember walking down the mile thinking, oh my god, I can't, I don't know, I'm gonna feed the kids, and you know, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:18.400
Dina, Dina put me onto her talent pool so that I was able to earn some money.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:20.160
Oh, you did some consulting with it?
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:20.960
I did, yeah.
00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:29.680
And and David was relentlessly, despite he lost some money with us, was relentlessly um uh positive, helpful forward.
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:31.039
And those people you never forget.
00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:32.000
Never forget.
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:36.799
I I mean I think so how how how bad were you coming out of that?
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:38.000
Bad, bad, bad.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:46.960
Because now we we didn't and we don't have time to talk about all the other lovely adventures, but there was a secondhand online book sales marketplace.
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:50.240
Um we're not gonna enumerate.
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:51.039
It did sell.
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:51.519
It did sell.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:53.119
I remember to Ape.
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:54.960
I remember our very first conversation with it.
00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:57.759
Yeah it did sell to a Libris.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:00.720
Uh to Alibris, yeah, and then they became Ape.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:15.440
Um then we worked together as investors, VCs, deleted uh and tried to transform the world of government procurement uh uh and online publishing?
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:16.000
No.
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:17.279
Contract publishing.
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:18.559
What else did you do there?
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:24.480
Anyway, uh so this was venture number so I forgot what the name of your DVD shop was.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:25.440
Silver screen.
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:26.160
Silver Screen.
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:27.920
It was uh venture number, blah, blah, blah.
00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:28.240
Yeah.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:33.440
I mean there comes a moment where you've done five or six and they don't work, you think I've got to learn something from this, right?
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:35.039
You've got to get it.
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:35.839
It's not there, miss me.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:37.119
It's not there, miss me, yeah.
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.039
It's that little thing which is if you're driving down the road and everyone's from the wrong side of the road, it's probably you.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:47.839
Uh you'd had your taste of of of retail now, because you'd been at mothercare, you you'd now done DVD retail.
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.920
Were you beginning to start thinking actually a lot of things?
00:31:50.559 --> 00:31:51.599
I loved it right from the get-go.
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:53.200
I absolutely loved it.
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:54.960
Um Why?
00:31:55.200 --> 00:32:00.799
Um because um mediacy of retail.
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:05.279
You you got the sales numbers pinged to your phone every day at Silver Screen.
00:32:05.599 --> 00:32:10.240
No, uh uh I got them every day, but but then when I was at uh at Boots, I got them every hour.
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:10.880
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:16.960
So so you and of course you you can't really react in an hour, particularly a company big that that size, but you um What is it about that immediacy?
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:24.480
But there's something about because you make a decision uh on the Monday trading meeting, by Tuesday it's implemented, by Wednesday you see the results.
00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:26.480
And it it there's something very exciting about that.
00:32:26.559 --> 00:32:35.200
You know, some people spend their entire lives building, you know, dams, and it takes 20 years to get permission, and it takes 20 years to build the thing, by which time you've retired.
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:36.160
And some people love that.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:40.079
They love the fact that you know it's all about the very, very long term and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:50.319
But I really love the immediacy of you make a decision and something happens, and people, real people, um, walk into your shop and and behave differently as a result.
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:54.079
You described I think when you were at Dixon's.
00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:55.200
I think.
00:32:55.839 --> 00:32:59.839
You when you before the merger, maybe after the merger, I can't remember.
00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:06.160
When I we caught up, and and you told me then that you what you really liked was that this that you had these levers.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.640
And if you you know you pull them and stuff happens.
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:08.960
Yes.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:09.599
Yes, you do.
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:10.880
I think that's what you're saying here.
00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:12.240
It's like things like that.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:14.240
There's a machine that's built.
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:26.559
Well, I mean, the but the point is, you know, what really one of the very few things you've got to do as a retailer, or indeed any any business that runs distributed assets, and I I run one now, is you've got to try and make the fly-by-wire work.
00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:34.400
Because the with the the you know, if you take organizations that are really complicated and difficult to manage, like the NHS or whatever, you pull the lever and absolutely nothing happens.
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:34.720
Right.
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:44.000
The only complicated thing about retail is, or indeed any of these multi-site businesses, is that right now you don't know what the person you employ in Hull is saying to your customer.
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:44.960
You don't know.
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:46.799
So you've got to create an atmosphere.
00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:55.279
So it's more like politics, you've got to create an atmosphere where everybody in the organization sort of knows what they ought to be saying and wants to do what they ought to do.
00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.640
And that is tremendously difficult, but also tremendously fulfilling.
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:06.640
So you you go, you know, when you go to Hull and you realise as you walk in that the shop is clean.
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:08.159
You've probably never been there before, right?
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:15.920
You the shop is clean, that customers are smiling, that that people are handing out baskets so that customers don't have to carry the stuff in their arms.
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:16.719
Uh, you know, are they?
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:23.119
Please tell me you uh you know the team hadn't been given advance warning, polish that thing overnight, you know, the CEOs come and get the stuff.
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:24.960
Inevitably there's a bit of leakage, right?
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:25.840
See that all the time.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:30.719
So I used I used to I used to every most weekends I would go and see stores unexpectedly.
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:36.239
But sometimes you did you did tours which were advertised, and you know, of course, yeah, you get a bit the smell of fresh paint.
00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:45.679
But but actually, interestingly, the bad ones, and there were bad ones, there have been bad ones throughout my whole career, even when they know you're coming, they're still crap.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:49.599
So you you sort of do know when a a shop isn't right.
00:34:49.920 --> 00:35:00.400
So what's the what what's the secret to we're talking service here, that that element of service that is both personal and informative.
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:03.840
And preferably transactional, leading to a sale.
00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:04.239
Yeah.
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:05.280
What's the secret?
00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:17.199
Well, I don't think there's any one secret, it's a million tiny things, of course, but but fundamentally um it's I think it's it's around clarity of what constitutes great service, how what do customers actually want?
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:25.199
I think it's about trying to recruit people who are nice people and who fundamentally like talking to other people.
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:34.880
And and then the the third one is making it sufficiently pleasant to work in the organization that they want to exercise those skills.
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:36.000
So it's it's a combination.
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:36.719
Lovely.
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:41.440
To know what they want to do, they need to be the sort of people who can do it, and they want to do it.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:46.400
And if they got if you've got those three, on the whole, you know, most people come to work to do a great job, right?
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:46.960
Most people.
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:48.480
And most people are nice decent people.
00:35:48.719 --> 00:35:49.920
And most people are nice, decent people.
00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:52.960
So so you you know you start with some pretty big advantages.
00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:56.000
You've got to be clear what constitutes great service.
00:35:56.159 --> 00:36:05.679
I I you know we expect the shop to be clean in this way, we expect it to be stocked in this way, we expect you to You have to keep that stuff relatively short and simple, though, that list of that list of things that you've got.
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:12.880
Uh yes, and of course, the the more precise you can be, the closer you get to your ideal, the more but the more complex it is, the less likely you are to get there.
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:19.519
So it was a balance complicated retail business company with lots of boots was was at least two and probably three businesses.
00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:20.880
So it was a pharmacy.
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:21.760
So a pharmacy.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:22.480
One business.
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:28.559
One very distinct business, healthcare business, regulated, pharmacist, you know, complicated, right?
00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:38.480
Um responsible for responsible, uh very responsible, and you know, 200 million prescriptions a year, and if you get one wrong, you could really cause some proper damage and you know, really, really careful, right?
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:48.000
Uh one was a preventative health and and sort of you know plasters and bits and bobs business, which is sort of what I would call commodity healthcare.
00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:54.320
And one was a beauty business, and it was the beauty business that was the most exciting from a profitability point of view, but also really fun.
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:56.559
And you wanted to totally different people, right?
00:36:56.639 --> 00:36:59.679
The people who sell beauty need to be beauty obsessed.
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:08.400
You know, that was one of the things that we weren't as boots, but we did we were a bit ashamed of our beauty business, and because it wasn't in the roots of the business.
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:11.119
Because it well, it it actually is in the roots of the business.
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:16.320
Florence Boot started the beauty business in 1936, so it's getting on a bit.
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:19.679
Um so there were two things that when I joined the business, that were self-limited beliefs.
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.800
One one was that the internet was going to cannibalize our business and we shouldn't really invest in it.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:27.119
So we were 1% online at that time.
00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:35.599
And then the second one was that beauty was basically a male, a patriarchal conspiracy, and that it was morally, there was something morally wrong with the beauty business.
00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:48.800
So the two areas where Boots I felt was was punching well below its weight were beauty, where we were the number one, despite the fact we didn't have any of the brands that were growing and blah, blah, blah, but we were slipping, we were slipping away.
00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:51.920
And uh, and then the other one was the internet where we were 1% online.
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:54.960
So 1% online in 2019 was shocking, really.
00:37:55.280 --> 00:37:58.960
And so now the beauty business of boots is is just under a third online.
00:37:59.119 --> 00:38:01.519
So it's uh it's because of course it's a replacement.
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:06.639
You know, if you buy your, I don't know, your clinique moisturizer, and that's the one you want to use.
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:09.360
Um the first time you buy it, you go and try it in a shop.
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:11.519
The second time you couldn't buy online, why wouldn't you, right?
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:20.800
So um so uh so those two things together meant that we could build a much more sustainably profitable and growing business over a period of time.
00:38:21.039 --> 00:38:22.480
It wasn't not that complicated, right?
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:24.719
What didn't you manage to do?
00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:25.679
What do you know?
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:27.599
The list is very long, Jamie.
00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:31.199
But um a big thing that you really thought needed to be.
00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:32.320
So I don't know.
00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:38.239
So one of the things that was very interesting about Boots, and I in six years I don't think I fixed it, um, was the culture.
00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:43.519
So it was it Boots is the loveliest business on earth, full of the loveliest people on earth.
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:49.679
But but the drive to change, changing anything, was incredibly, incredibly slow.
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:51.920
And your lever wasn't so well oiled.
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:52.880
So the lever wasn't.
00:38:54.159 --> 00:38:55.519
You yank the lever and not much happened.
00:38:55.599 --> 00:38:57.280
And and it was definitely true.
00:38:57.440 --> 00:39:01.599
Um and it was it was bound about with ancient shibboleths, you know.
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:04.480
Um it was it was like a sort of old tome.
00:39:04.719 --> 00:39:07.119
Um and it's just not what Boots does.
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:09.440
We know we don't do it that way around here, you know.
00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:11.280
And and I I was interested in what why that would be.
00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:12.719
I mean, I'll give you an example.
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:20.880
Um when uh when I arrived, uh somebody turned up with all the posters that were due to go into the shops eight weeks hence.
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:23.519
And firstly, I said, well, why why on earth are you showing me these?
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:27.920
Because I've got really very little to add to it to your posters.
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:35.920
But I said, since you're here, they look a bit old-fashioned because they've got these these curvy, sort of 1980s curved edges.
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:40.800
So I said, Well, have we thought about you know doing it in a more graphic and more modern way?
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:46.079
And uh and they said, Well, we can't do that because that's the boots brand guidelines.
00:39:46.719 --> 00:39:52.880
So I said, Okay, well, actually, as it happens, the the lady in charge of the boots brand guidelines is is next door, in the office next door.
00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:56.159
So I'm just gonna go and get out of pop next door, say if you've got a minute, you know.
00:39:56.320 --> 00:40:01.679
And she came in and we looked at the posters and I said, Do you do you think this would be better in a more modern graphic style?
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:03.039
She went, Yeah, no, it'd be much better.
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:04.719
I said, Well, why don't we do that then?
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:06.800
She said, Well, it's it's the boots brand guidelines.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:10.079
And I said, But but they're not given to us by God.
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:12.000
These are not the tablets.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:25.599
And and we then had a we had a silly cult cultural moment where I took the boots brand guidelines, which by the way ran to several volumes, and burnt them ceremonially in the car park.
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:28.719
Wow.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:39.679
Uh and and um and we we we rethought the way in which we presented ourselves into a much more contemporary style, which allowed us to then get access to uh to beauty brands.
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.639
Because one of the problems with the beauty brands is that they're a bit like fashion brands.
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:50.639
They say a lot of the new brands, the ordinary and all those people, were saying, No, thanks, boots, will work online and we'll work with with other players.
00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:54.239
Yeah, but then their online sales peter often they come knocking at your door and say we're gonna be able to do it.
00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:55.519
We need distributions.
00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:57.840
But often that's because their brands are dying at that stage.
00:40:57.920 --> 00:40:59.119
So you we have to get them on the way up.
00:40:59.360 --> 00:40:59.760
Yeah, sure.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:05.119
And and particularly even some of the brands we work with, I said Estel Order, we had STL order, and we had, you know, we had a number of the SDL order brands.
00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.440
But you were not an attractive place for the list necessarily.
00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:12.000
No, no, because we look like a supermarket and we and we look like a supermarket, and we I'm an aspi aspirational brand.
00:41:12.079 --> 00:41:12.800
I want to start at the top.
00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:19.599
I want to start at the top, and I want to start in a lovely place, and I'm gonna go work with I'm gonna go work with I don't know, Space NK or So you had to make yourself cooler.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:27.360
So we spent far too much money building in Covent Garden a beautiful concept store.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:34.400
Um and but even there, you know, the the it upstairs it had beautiful brick walls, beautiful old brick walls.
00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:37.840
And the boots design team were like, well, we've plastered those over.
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:40.320
I was like, no, no, leave the brick walls.
00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:56.559
And and and and uh uh and so we we built this shop and I invited Leonard Lauder, who sadly died last week, and their creative director, John and and the UK team and everyone else said, right, come over and see our beauty, our new boot store.
00:41:56.719 --> 00:41:59.840
And they had been saying, particularly John had been saying no, no, no, to any of the new brands.
00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:01.760
Mac, out of the question, you know, etc.
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:07.119
And it they came over and at the end of that tour, he said, Okay, I see what you're trying to do.
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:08.320
And and we got all the brands.
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:14.800
Is this a story of success or is it a store Okay, because we started as a the challenge being changing the culture.
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:21.760
Yeah, so in this case, in this case, this is a So is the act of burning the Bible.
00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:23.199
Helps.
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:26.079
So what's interesting is you can change the culture quite quickly at the top level.
00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:26.719
Yeah, sure.
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:29.440
Um the problem is getting into the permafrost.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:39.199
And uh and while I think there are very few examples, I think, around of of actual material culture culture change in large multi-site operations.
00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:40.480
I think it's interesting.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:41.440
Is that true?
00:42:41.679 --> 00:42:42.559
I think it does happen.
00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.960
I think there's a lot There's a a lot of attempts at it.
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:54.159
But I mean Well, the main thing about culture shape is you can't do it by having a session and then producing a mouse mat or whatever, whatever that may be.
00:42:54.480 --> 00:42:55.039
Post of the wall.
00:42:55.199 --> 00:42:56.159
Or a post of the wall or whatever.
00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:00.880
You have to live and breathe in every conversation up and down a company for a long time.
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:02.159
For a long time, exactly.
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.280
So you have to and remember for since 1843 or whenever how long.
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.360
That was your competition, 1843.
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:14.559
But but the fascinating thing, of course, is back then Jesse and John Boot were unbelievably entrepreneurial and came up and they they were the first discounter.
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:34.559
So if you think back to the history of Boots, right, if you were in domestic service as a ladies' maid or as a housemaid in 1843 and you had a headache, that was tough shit because there was nothing, you couldn't possibly afford the bloke in the top hat who would come around and then prescribe things and it would all be ground up in a thing and delivered to you in little paper, wax, wax paper wraps.
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:36.079
That was impossible.
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:49.760
The boot insight was to say, actually, I can make these in bulk, I can sell them in shilling rolls, and suddenly, for the first time ever, um that housemaid had a remedy for her headache.
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:59.599
And Ditto, Florence Boot, you know, about 50 years later, who said Umrdinary working women cannot afford cosmetics because they come from Paris and so.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.039
Used to be sold in bricks.
00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:05.760
The idea of being the early discounter, completely changing the model, being very radical, et cetera, et cetera.
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:14.719
Those things were in the root of the boots, but they had got lost over the years in this notion of we are, you know, we are the healthcare, we have to be super careful because we're a pharmacy.
00:44:14.800 --> 00:44:23.760
And so we were we were a good pharmacy and a safe pharmacy, but we were amateur retailers because we didn't think fast enough to be good retailers.
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:27.840
And and I think I think we were able to make some improvement, right?
00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:37.440
As a leader seeking to change culture, it's it's helpful, and I think I would say it's essential to find authenticity in the things that you're trying to drive the business to.
00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:38.320
I totally agree.
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:42.800
And so and and and the s a good story is also what people remember.
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:43.679
Yeah, of course.
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:50.639
Um so that communication, I mean the the the the way the style of communication, how you do that, and so on, makes an enormous difference.
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:52.400
But also physical change.
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:55.840
I'm a really big believer in in physical environments.
00:44:56.079 --> 00:45:02.880
So I I think if you work in a dump, the chance of you being really, really good at customer service is small.
00:45:03.119 --> 00:45:03.440
Right.
00:45:03.679 --> 00:45:06.960
And a lot of the other elements are still dumps, right?
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:08.239
And so that's the other thing.
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:10.639
We upgraded hundreds of shops.
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:12.079
And did you see that immediate?
00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.159
It's like it's like uh an academy school.
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:20.559
It's like you can put the same teachers into a brand new academy school and you get a very different but do you feel do you feel just literally it gives it a lift?
00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:20.719
Yeah.
00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:23.119
Yeah, so I mean not just not just I mean customers come in.
00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:25.840
Customers behave differently there, you get you know you get less there.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:27.360
That's a very expensive way of changing culture.
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:32.880
Yeah, incredibly unbelievably expensive, but very important because you know boot the bootstores hadn't been touched for 25 years.
00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:40.719
So what I found interestingly is that the correlation between how much people like working in an organization and how well it's doing is almost 100%.
00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:43.360
People people basically like working for a winning team.
00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:48.400
So I in my view, the the very best thing you can do to make people really happy to work for you is win.
00:45:48.719 --> 00:45:50.239
Uh and of course it's a circular thing.
00:45:50.719 --> 00:45:50.960
Win.
00:45:51.199 --> 00:45:51.519
Win.
00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:51.920
Win.
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:52.960
Win at what?
00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:53.760
Win.
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:54.400
Win.
00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:58.480
Make be more profitable, more successful, win customers, grow market share.
00:45:58.800 --> 00:45:59.519
Because they're proud to work for you.
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:00.480
Because they're proud to be there.
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:04.480
So suddenly their mates, when they go home, are saying, Oh, I went to your new booths.
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:04.960
Amazing.
00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:08.320
So not not seeking to make them happy, seeking to make them proud.
00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:09.840
Yeah, I think that's right.
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:24.000
I think you want to be, I mean, because I think to some extent the validation you get from being proud of where you work is almost is m certainly more powerful than any kind of you know pious statements made by senior management.
00:46:24.079 --> 00:46:29.840
Or I I mean I've got one other story from from Boots, because the other thing is that we should never overestimate our own impact.
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:34.320
So I um I I I I I've learned that lesson.
00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:48.079
Every year, every year uh we used to do this lovely thing, which is that people who were still working in the company 50 years on would come to Nottingham and they would they would uh come for a dinner at uh Lenton House, which is the the Boots old house.
00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:51.119
And um we'd set up a tent and there were quite a lot, quite a lot.
00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:59.599
I mean, there was probably 40, 50 people in the organization who had worked there for 50 years and were still working there, uh, one for 67 years.
00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:02.800
Um I met this lovely, lovely lady.
00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:07.280
We were having drinks before the dinner, and I said, gosh, you must have seen a lot of chief executives over the years.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:09.440
She went, to be honest, I can't remember any of them.
00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:13.360
Uh at which point you realise you are dust.
00:47:13.519 --> 00:47:16.880
And that you come and go doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:17.840
So that's interesting.
00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:21.039
My next question was going to be by this time, you're properly famous.
00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:21.519
Nah.
00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:25.199
As famous as you're gonna be as a business person.
00:47:25.679 --> 00:47:26.239
Well, come on now.
00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:34.000
You're running a second well-known retail, having one car phone, well, third if you two phases of car phones and uh Dixons.
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:37.119
But anyway, uh you're you're you're a famous for a businessman.
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:39.519
Well, I get the paper a bit, but it but not not really.
00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:41.360
No, so still not famous enough.
00:47:41.599 --> 00:47:44.239
You've you've kind of taken a step back on the fame gathering, I can't.
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:44.800
Well Anna.
00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:49.599
Anna, my wife Anna has has made it clear to me that that is the most stupid goal.
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:52.960
Well, of course when did you stop caring about it?
00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:57.679
Um I I stopped I stopped really caring about it probably a decade ago.
00:47:58.159 --> 00:48:05.360
And is that it's not really about the fame as much as it is about the peer group, the the community, the respect.
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:16.719
Of course, but that but the the curious thing is, of course, that of the people that you that I like and you like and we all like, no one uh half of them don't know what you do, and the other half don't care.
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:24.239
And actually, we don't make friends because they are the I mean, well, at least if you're a good decent person, you don't make friends because of what they do.
00:48:24.400 --> 00:48:25.840
You make friends because you like them.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:36.960
And and at the end of the day, you know, that's that is the goal, and that is that the the the the the what I realized is that the validation I was seeking from that wasn't really valuable.
00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:38.079
Wasn't really valuable.
00:48:38.639 --> 00:48:45.199
Um I never quite got to the journey from strategy director to CEO of a publicly traded company in the UK.
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:50.400
It's still it's still quite a big thing to have failed entrepreneur, in your own words, you're crap at it.
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:51.039
I still don't buy it.
00:48:51.280 --> 00:48:56.400
That very quickly, it seems to me, you're suddenly the CEO of Dixon's.
00:48:56.719 --> 00:48:57.519
It wasn't that quick.
00:48:57.599 --> 00:49:02.239
Um so I'm very grateful to another person who was unbelievably kind, who was John Bruitt.
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:05.519
So John said to me, Would you like to come and work at Tesco?
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:07.039
He was at Tesco, he was at Tesco.
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:15.599
I had a series of interviews with a number of senior people at Tesco, and in those days, Tesco was a very tough company, very tough, roughy tufty, very successful.
00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:21.440
One of my interviews, the person I was who was interviewing me let ripped the most gigantic fart in the middle of the interview.
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:25.119
I didn't know that was a part of the process.
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:28.159
Um, actually, had a giant whoopee cushion.
00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:30.159
It was so loud, I couldn't stay silent.
00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:34.719
I went crikey and uh I won't say who it is.
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:36.880
Um went on to be a CEO.
00:49:37.119 --> 00:49:44.800
Um and uh uh and um anyway, it it became pretty clear to me that uh I didn't think I could work with those people.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:51.440
But then John left and was appointed CEO of Dixons, and he was putting together a team and he said How did you know him?
00:49:51.679 --> 00:49:52.559
Uh from BCG.
00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:52.719
Okay.
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:57.760
And uh and he and he said, Would you like to would you like to come and join the team?
00:49:57.920 --> 00:50:01.440
And I did, and I loved every second.
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:05.519
But uh it's another sort of just to be clear, this is another sort of Yeah, of course.
00:50:05.679 --> 00:50:07.440
It these are all sliding doors at moments, right?
00:50:07.519 --> 00:50:09.119
And this is this was a classic sliding doors.
00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:10.639
Started business development.
00:50:10.960 --> 00:50:14.639
Um absolutely loved every second of it right from the get-go.
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:21.519
Wasn't expecting to, the office was pretty grim, but there was there was opportunity lying around everywhere.
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:24.639
And what was interesting believers were working.
00:50:24.880 --> 00:50:27.760
Um no, they weren't working, they needed to be connected up.
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:30.400
Okay, and but connecting them up was really interesting.
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:36.480
And then I found a few people who I just adored working with, proper operators who taught me how to operate.
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:42.239
The first job was to actually incredibly useful experience, was to build the new shop.
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:44.000
So the the shops are all condemned.
00:50:44.239 --> 00:50:46.639
Okay, so here's and so get us a concept for the new shop.
00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:48.320
So get us a concept, build us a new shop.
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:51.119
So we did that, unbelievably successful, thank God.
00:50:51.360 --> 00:51:03.119
Then we did, and then I I I was the architect of uh the only thing I can really point to is of bringing together PC World and Curries into one shop because we used to have PC World and Curries with completely separate organizations, that's the way Stanley set that up.
00:51:03.360 --> 00:51:11.679
He wanted them to compete, and we would have the trading meeting in Curries, I was in the Curries organization at that time, and our first thing was what did those bastards downstairs do over the weekend?
00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:24.400
You know, we were all trashing each other and so and and once a quarter the two CEOs would meet, and I had great admiration for both of them in different ways, and it would be like a sort of like Gandalf, you know, there'd be sort of lightning and thunder, and they would then come down with their pronouncements.
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:42.320
But fundamentally, we were a loggerheads, and I thought, let's put them in one shop, because then we got you know half the rent or whatever, and and let's put them in one shop, and and and the the the the reaction to that suggestion both Curries and PC World furious at the idea.
00:51:42.559 --> 00:51:46.320
John Browitt, uh, God bless him, it's like a good idea.
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:49.840
We opened in Woking, uh no, Weybridge.
00:51:49.920 --> 00:51:52.559
We opened in Weybridge with our first combined store.
00:51:52.880 --> 00:52:00.239
Everything in everybody's power was being done to prevent it from happening, and uh, you know, no people weren't providing us with information we needed.
00:52:00.320 --> 00:52:02.880
It was, I mean, it was I swear to God, it was a real struggle.
00:52:03.039 --> 00:52:07.360
We opened, sales went up 80%, and that was the end of the argument.
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:09.440
And then all the stores became Curry's PC.
00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:11.440
Well, we were able to shut off our real estate, yeah.
00:52:11.519 --> 00:52:14.239
And that's a big that's one of those lovely moments.
00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:15.440
Yeah, there are very few of them.
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:20.880
Next job was then I was given the whole services operational back end delivery, installation, etc.
00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:21.679
Really fun.
00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:22.400
Really function.
00:52:22.559 --> 00:52:26.639
I would I would have got very scared by the oh that was that was that I think I hate the back of house.
00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:28.800
Honestly, that was my best job I've ever had, I think.
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:29.199
Really?
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:30.639
Yeah, because it was so bad.
00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:37.199
Okay, it was so bad that uh even making relatively small changes could make a big difference.
00:52:37.280 --> 00:52:38.159
So I'll give you an example.
00:52:38.239 --> 00:52:39.519
Um we used to repair tellies.
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:40.239
Well, we didn't.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:43.840
We were we were so bad at it, it took up to six months to get your telly repaired.
00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:49.039
One of the problems was that we would pick out the telly from your house, we'd load it in the back of the lorry with the washing machines and all the other stuff.
00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:52.480
By the time it got to us, a third of them were broken.
00:52:52.639 --> 00:52:56.719
Uh so we broke the screen of a third of the tellies, we then sent you a new one.
00:52:56.800 --> 00:52:59.199
Of course, if you were the lucky ones, we sent you a new one quite quickly.
00:52:59.360 --> 00:53:04.159
Um the cost of that absolutely astronomical, because that was when tellies were still quite expensive.
00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:09.119
And so one of my team, one of my team came to me and said, I've got this brilliant idea.
00:53:09.360 --> 00:53:11.440
Let's come up with a box.
00:53:11.679 --> 00:53:18.559
And they came up with a box called the Telly Tana, which had which had wheels on it, which incredibly is patented.
00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:24.559
And um and and we we put the telly in just put the telly in a box.
00:53:24.639 --> 00:53:25.039
And it didn't.
00:53:25.519 --> 00:53:27.679
It was a big, you know, foam box with wheels.
00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:30.320
And our breakage went from 30% to naught.
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:38.239
And and you you can imagine the economic effect of that on the all the toes we did was millions of pounds.
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.519
And so it was that kind of stuff that was super, super, super fun.
00:53:41.840 --> 00:53:43.599
Just for my sake, and we've got to stop soon.
00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:46.639
I've got one conversation I need to have, and we haven't even talked about your current role.
00:53:46.719 --> 00:53:49.519
Um, I'm still interested in this rise to the CEO.
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:50.559
That was just luck.
00:53:50.719 --> 00:53:56.480
So Pete Williams at Jack Wills, uh I met him somewhere and he said, Look, I'm looking for a CEO to run Jack Wills.
00:53:56.639 --> 00:54:02.079
And we had a conversation, and I got pretty close to doing it, and I went, I was actually going to tell John that I was leaving to go and do that.
00:54:02.239 --> 00:54:06.960
And I walked into John's office and he said, and I said, uh I said, you know, we're thank you for making this time.
00:54:07.119 --> 00:54:14.800
He said, Look, before you start, I need to tell you I'm leaving to go and run Apple Retail, and you're in the frame potentially for the CEO job.
00:54:14.880 --> 00:54:26.400
So I shut my mouth and uh there were two or three of us in the in the frame for it, and um John Allen, the chairman, rang me on Friday evening saying, Listen, good news, we've decided to give it to you.
00:54:26.960 --> 00:54:31.440
And I spent the next hour with my head in my hands thinking, Oh God, what have I done?
00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:34.000
Because I've got to be CEO of this business.
00:54:34.159 --> 00:54:35.519
And huge business.
00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:36.639
It's big business, yeah.
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:39.760
Eight eight uh twelve billion, something like that.
00:54:39.840 --> 00:54:40.639
It's big business.
00:54:40.719 --> 00:54:41.440
Um of revenue.
00:54:41.760 --> 00:54:44.639
It's a big change from the heedy days of your sort of startup.
00:54:44.960 --> 00:54:47.119
Yeah, no, and much, much, much, much more fun.
00:54:47.199 --> 00:54:48.239
I mean, oh my god.
00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:51.360
Um So you weren't there going, yppee, I've I've done it.
00:54:51.679 --> 00:54:52.320
Do you know not?
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:53.519
Because I was too frightened.
00:54:53.679 --> 00:54:58.880
Um I was too frightened, because that now I have 34,000 people.
00:54:59.360 --> 00:55:03.840
I mean, boots are 52,000 people, but then you've got 34,000 in Dixons, yeah.
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:06.880
Um and boots a lot more.
00:55:07.039 --> 00:55:09.360
So you you're suddenly going, crikey.
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:15.360
Um that's quite a you know, if I cock this up, that's quite a big responsibility.
00:55:15.679 --> 00:55:22.480
And so I was I was, and again, Anna was totally brilliant, and she was like, you know, you you'll you'll you'll find a way you'll find a way.
00:55:22.639 --> 00:55:22.880
Yeah.
00:55:23.119 --> 00:55:24.960
So that was how that's how that happened.
00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:28.719
And then of course, once you break into that, you then get other ones.
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:31.440
Um I want to talk about entrepreneurship.
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:32.000
Yeah.
00:55:32.159 --> 00:55:58.000
I don't want to talk about founding companies entrepreneurship, but we sort of started on and the the sort of tenacity, more the mindset and more the attitude and the skill set, or um I don't know what your business school days taught you about entrepreneurship, if anything, but one of the things I remember vividly was the I think Stevenson definition of entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources under your control.
00:55:58.239 --> 00:56:03.519
Terrible words, but basically, success is that thing over there, yeah, and I'm gonna go for it.
00:56:03.599 --> 00:56:08.800
I'm not gonna be held back by the fact I don't have money, people, skills, yeah, you know.
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:14.159
I mean, frankly, taking the CEO job of uh of Dixons was a fairly entrepreneurial.
00:56:14.480 --> 00:56:18.159
No, it wasn't it wasn't because what you've got in big corporations is the opposite.
00:56:18.239 --> 00:56:21.199
You've got unlimited resources, unlimited assets.
00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:24.800
You you have the it's more like being uh in charge of an army.
00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:32.159
You you it's about how you configure and deploy rather than about the relentless goal regardless of the resources you're disposed of.
00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:39.119
You you look at boots and you say, we need to have a much stronger beauty part of our business.
00:56:39.280 --> 00:56:43.280
And you've got, frankly, an entire organization designed to not make that happen.
00:56:43.440 --> 00:56:44.719
That to me is entrepreneurial.
00:56:45.119 --> 00:56:45.840
No, it's not.
00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:48.400
There you're taking existing assets and redeploying them.
00:56:48.719 --> 00:56:51.599
It's also a very useful skill, but it's different.
00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:55.119
Much of our world's economy is organized into large corporations.
00:56:55.199 --> 00:57:03.840
And by the way, the entrepreneurs who are able to go from that pursuit of the regardless of resources, blah, blah, blah, right the way through to running giant global corporations.
00:57:03.920 --> 00:57:04.559
We know all their names.
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:10.960
The Bill Gates's and the Elon Musk, those people there are very, very few who are able to make that transition from one to the other.
00:57:11.199 --> 00:57:13.119
Turns out I can do the second, I can't do the first.
00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:14.079
And that's okay.
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:14.800
I think that's okay.
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:16.559
Let me reframe a question then.
00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:21.199
Do you ever want people to act more entrepreneurially in your organizations?
00:57:21.519 --> 00:57:26.159
And what would you mean by that if you ever said So I think that there are certain cases.
00:57:26.559 --> 00:57:33.440
One thing that big corporations are extraordinarily bad at is identifying new opportunities and exploiting them to turn them into big businesses.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:34.320
I mean, extraordinary bad.
00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:37.039
And in my current business, you know, we there are lots of things I would like to do.
00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:38.559
Which is healthcare, yeah.
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:40.239
So we have 300, right?
00:57:41.199 --> 00:57:42.960
300 eye hospitals or around Europe.
00:57:43.039 --> 00:57:46.639
So it's the biggest in the world in eye care and eye surgery.
00:57:46.880 --> 00:57:48.639
And it's it's interesting because it's healthcare.
00:57:48.800 --> 00:58:05.519
But there are lots of entrepreneurial opportunities that you you long for the business to have people in it who say, well, you know, with limited resources, I'm going to build something that's really particularly really quite major, and not be in the mindset of, oh, well, we're a big company and you know we can't do that because of this, and we can't do that because of this.
00:58:05.679 --> 00:58:11.519
So Boots was a good example where I wanted to build an online healthcare business and they've done a really, really good job.
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:15.119
And we, you know, you get one or two people who really want to drive it and make it work.
00:58:15.280 --> 00:58:22.079
And they have access to resources, they're actually quite hard to get because you're too little in the organization to get any traction.
00:58:22.320 --> 00:58:25.840
So though the really entrepreneurial ones, they will beg, borrow, and steal.
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:28.480
They'll they'll bootstrap in the way that entrepreneurs bootstrap.
00:58:28.559 --> 00:58:28.639
Yes.
00:58:28.880 --> 00:58:34.400
And and that is uh so, yes, is that there are opportunities for those kinds of skills.
00:58:34.719 --> 00:58:44.559
I I wanted to talk about this transition from really big, well-known retail to a more international private equity, but it's a whole it's a very different beast you've got into.
00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:47.679
So that you've you've you've put your finger on the two reasons why I've done it.
00:58:47.840 --> 00:58:51.360
So I know I'm I'm 59 years old, and I thought I've got one more in me.
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:54.320
Uh, I've got I was very happy at Boots, very happy.
00:58:54.400 --> 00:58:57.599
Um I could have very cheerfully carried on for another two, three years at Boots.
00:58:57.840 --> 00:59:05.679
It was opportunistic, as so many things are in a career, but um, I got a call, and um there were two things that appealed to me, and you've said them both.
00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:10.239
One is private equity, which I've never really done properly at scale, and the other one was international.
00:59:10.480 --> 00:59:17.119
It's fun to deal with and to learn how to communicate with people from Spain and from Holland and from you know, and to get stuff done in those environments is really fun.
00:59:17.199 --> 00:59:19.519
And then the third thing was it's healthcare.
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:30.559
Because what my real dream, at some stage, I will come back and say to whoever's in charge at the time, can I have a little piece of the NHS that you will let me have a go at at trying to fix?
00:59:30.719 --> 00:59:32.239
That's what I really want to do.
00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:39.440
And that they might tell me to piss off, or they might say, Great, uh, but but that's what I'd really like to do, and I need to have more healthcare credentials to do that.
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:41.440
On that bombshell.
00:59:43.039 --> 00:59:46.480
Because I've got so many questions.
00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:50.800
Uh you are meant to give three pieces of advice, very actionable pieces of advice.
00:59:51.119 --> 00:59:52.000
You can do it on anything.
00:59:52.159 --> 00:59:55.440
Conversations we've had now, or it could simply be about everyday life.
00:59:55.599 --> 00:59:56.400
I don't mind.
00:59:56.559 --> 00:59:57.679
What's top of your mind?
00:59:58.079 --> 01:00:02.079
Absolutely number one for me is don't worry.
01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:03.760
It's gonna be fine.
01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:14.400
So um that there have been times in my life, and there are certainly times in everybody's lives, when you think, oh, I'm you know, we're I'm doomed and I've made a misstep, and it's all gonna get horribly wrong.
01:00:14.639 --> 01:00:20.559
Unless you, you know, you put your hand in the till and you end up in jail, you are going to find a way out of it.
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:23.199
And even in those cases, you can say to someone, it'll be fine.
01:00:23.519 --> 01:00:23.840
It'll be fine.
01:00:24.639 --> 01:00:25.280
It'll be fine.
01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:26.960
You're not gonna die.
01:00:27.519 --> 01:00:29.440
It's really hard without an anna.
01:00:29.679 --> 01:00:29.920
For sure.
01:00:30.159 --> 01:00:30.960
How do you say that to yourself?
01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:32.880
Forget a flip chart and write it on there.
01:00:32.960 --> 01:00:34.159
It's going to be fine.
01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:44.800
So when if you consider the worst possible outcome of your current situation, you get to a place where you go, This could happen, you kind of you then go, and then it'll be fine.
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:51.519
You know, so that's the first and most important thing is the second thing is as quickly as possible.
01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:54.159
In my case, it took about 15 years.
01:00:54.639 --> 01:00:57.599
As quickly as possible, try and identify what you are not.
01:00:58.079 --> 01:01:02.000
So as it turns out, I am not an entrepreneur.
01:01:02.159 --> 01:01:20.000
I never was, and it it was very foolish to keep spending all that time trying to be one when actually I was I could have so much fun doing what I am, which is somebody who unlikes complicated, gnarly, you know, difficult corporate stuff.
01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:24.239
And if you can identify that in yourself, then that's great.
01:01:24.559 --> 01:01:29.440
There will be lots of entrepreneurs listening going, I've got big gnarly problems every every day in this.
01:01:29.840 --> 01:01:30.559
They're not really though.
01:01:31.679 --> 01:01:36.639
Because usually entrepreneurial businesses, if they're any good, are very, very simple in that what they're in the goals they're trying to achieve.
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:39.599
And that leads me to the third one, which is cut and run.
01:01:39.920 --> 01:01:40.559
Cut and run.
01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:41.440
Cut and run.
01:01:41.599 --> 01:01:46.000
You you need to set absolutely clear time frames on a business idea.
01:01:46.320 --> 01:01:48.159
You matter much more than the idea.
01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:50.079
The idea may be a crap one.
01:01:50.239 --> 01:02:03.280
You will be it is a human nature to be extraordinarily unwilling to release an idea that you got engaged with, which uh and that will consume time that you are not getting back.
01:02:03.519 --> 01:02:14.000
And so it it's uh it's a it's a tough one, that, because the entrepreneurs who really made it have maintained their self-belief during periods where most of us would have gone.
01:02:14.559 --> 01:02:15.119
But they've pivoted.
01:02:15.280 --> 01:02:15.840
They've pivoted.
01:02:16.079 --> 01:02:22.159
And it's very it's very unusual that they've carried on the same track, which wasn't working, wasn't working, wasn't working, and then it suddenly came right.
01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:23.760
It happens, but it's rare.
01:02:24.079 --> 01:02:26.880
What they've done is they've gone, no, I've I've missed that idea.
01:02:27.039 --> 01:02:29.679
But me, I can make something happen.
01:02:29.920 --> 01:02:31.039
That idea was the wrong one.
01:02:31.519 --> 01:02:34.880
The cut and run can also be a you know, make your early call on plan B.
01:02:35.119 --> 01:02:37.119
On pivot, yeah, on plan B, on whatever it is.
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:42.239
But because we know we it's very rare actually that that it's your first idea that is the one.
01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:46.079
And and so being willing to let go of that idea is is critical.
01:02:46.320 --> 01:02:50.320
Anyway, that for what it's worth, that's what they're you and I have known each other for donkeys years.
01:02:50.719 --> 01:02:56.400
I haven't seen enough of you the last decade or so, but I have watched with admiration.
01:02:56.639 --> 01:03:08.559
Well, I mean I haven't told anybody that, so no, with with admiration I've watched your personal pivot and excited for this current venture.
01:03:09.039 --> 01:03:12.559
I'm excited by the maybe that that future goal lying ahead of you.
01:03:12.719 --> 01:03:17.920
Oh, that I'm excited about and uh for sure there will be uh uh open doors.
01:03:18.239 --> 01:03:19.599
Uh Seb, thank you so much.
01:03:19.840 --> 01:03:20.559
Thank you.
01:03:20.880 --> 01:03:24.719
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Sebastian James as much as I did.
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:31.840
Seb and I may not have seen eye to eye on the question of entrepreneurship in big business, but I think most of that was semantics.
01:03:32.159 --> 01:03:38.320
After we stopped recording, Seb went to a whiteboard and outlined his plan for saving the NHS.
01:03:38.480 --> 01:03:42.159
I really do hope he gets the chance to implement some or all of that in the future.
01:03:42.559 --> 01:03:43.519
Watch this space.
01:03:43.840 --> 01:03:48.960
Apologies again to Seb and to you for the delays in getting this episode published.
01:03:49.119 --> 01:03:50.719
I hope the wait was worth it.
01:03:50.960 --> 01:03:53.440
I'll be back soon with new podcast episodes.
01:03:53.599 --> 01:03:58.239
Please make sure you follow to get notified when I eventually get round to editing them.
01:03:58.400 --> 01:04:00.559
And in the meantime, thank you for listening.
00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:03.439
Not very laudably, I would say.
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:05.679
My motivation was I wanted to be famous.
00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:15.439
I saw myself as a kind of Steve Jobs entrepreneur type thing, did an entrepreneurial thing, turned out I was absolutely crap at it.
00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:24.000
I am in awe of those people because it takes a kind of special Hutzpah to start with nothing and make something.
00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:29.600
I was too frightened because that now I have 34,000 people.
00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:35.920
You're suddenly going, Cranky, if I cock this up, that's quite a big responsibility.
00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:43.200
Some people spend their entire lives building, you know, dams, and it takes 20 years to build the thing, by which time you've retired.
00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:52.159
But I really love the immediacy of you make a decision and something happens, and people, real people, walk into your shop and behave differently as a result.
00:00:52.399 --> 00:00:56.880
In my view, the the very best thing you can do to make people really happy to work for you is win.
00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:22.000
One, two, three, hello, I'm Jamie Mitchell, and welcome to Three Things, the podcast where we try to unlock the secrets of the founder mindset in conversations with successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.
00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:29.760
And where we insist on leaving with three things, three pieces of practical advice that you can implement in your business today.
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:32.159
Today's conversation is a fascinating one.
00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:44.400
Sebastian James is, by his own admission, a failed entrepreneur who went on to become one of the UK's most successful retail CEOs, most latterly, of course, as the CEO of Boots.
00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:51.519
But before we start the conversation, I first of all owe Sebastian and you an apology for my twelve months of silence.
00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:58.319
Seb and I recorded this a year ago, about three weeks before my family and I packed our bags and moved to Australia.
00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:07.359
I shan't bore you with the reasons why it's taken me so long to edit this podcast, but rest assured the conversation we had was timeless and just as relevant today.
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:12.240
Now that we're all settled into our new home, you can expect more podcasts in the coming months.
00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:20.719
But in the meantime, sit back and enjoy this conversation with the fascinating and very enjoyable company of Sebastian James.
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:22.319
Do you like football?
00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:23.120
Not at all.
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:23.680
Great.
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:24.639
Uh not at all.
00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.080
I know nothing about football.
00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:33.199
Uh there were used to be two things that that everybody liked that I didn't like, and I now like one of them, and they were dogs and football.
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:35.039
How could you not have liked dogs?
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:37.280
Well, I didn't like dogs, but now I love dogs.
00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.560
And I've got dog is my screensaver, two dogs, names, types.
00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:47.599
Molly and Nell, White Wheaton Terriers, really sweet, lockdown dogs, adore them, totally get dogs.
00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:49.120
Still don't get football.
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:49.759
Great.
00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.560
They say football is a game of two halves.
00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:53.599
Yes, very true.
00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.080
Is a quote that may mean nothing to you.
00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:58.400
How many halves has your career had?
00:02:58.960 --> 00:02:59.599
About eight.
00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:04.400
Um about eight, of which about half of them have been more or less a total disaster.
00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:05.599
A game of two halves.
00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:06.560
Yeah, a game of two years.
00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:07.680
Yeah, about half of them.
00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:19.360
Fundamentally, um when I stopped being a consultant and doing the sort of very conventional path pattern, I saw myself as a kind of you know, Steve Jobs entrepreneur type thing.
00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:27.280
Did an entrepreneurial thing, turned out I was absolutely crap at it, and then went into uh corporate life.
00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:28.879
I'll let you get away with that.
00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:32.479
It's such a I was crap at Yes, no, no, crap.
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:35.680
Crap is the I I've I've thought about the word carefully, and that's it.
00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:47.759
Um and uh So this I will we I want to get our conversation to the essence of entrepreneurship, but actually I'm not so interested in it in the founding a business part sense as it is the mindset.
00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:50.240
But but let's let's talk about what are you crap at?
00:03:50.639 --> 00:03:55.919
I am in awe of entrepreneurs, people who set up businesses, people who set up uh businesses like the ones you've run.
00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:03.919
I am in awe of those people because it takes a kind of special Hutzpah to start with nothing and make something.
00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:07.520
And actually, I think that is incredibly difficult.
00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:10.800
As it turns out, I don't have that set of skills.
00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:12.800
So let's just run through the list.
00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.719
You started with your paint business.
00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:25.040
So left BCG, um, went out to start a funded search company, and we had this tiny, really grotty office up 72 flights of stairs on Victoria Street.
00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:25.839
Oh, yeah, you came.
00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:33.439
Uh that was the beginning, and then we bought this business that made paint brushes because uh I had this kind of you know, this idea that industrial was the way to go.
00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:35.040
I mean, absolute nonsense.
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.959
And we bought this business in Belfast.
00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:42.480
Although theoretically, less former consultants with business school degrees would have been going into that.
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That was definitely the thought.
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We've got the smarts, blah, blah, blah.
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But actually, it turns out that it's not really smart.
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I think the interesting thing about the all of the entrepreneurs who've been successful that I've met is it's not really brain power that has fuelled the success of their business.
00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:06.800
Um, for me, it's about a kind of relentless energy, an inability at any moment to say this isn't going to work.
00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:25.199
And I'm I think I'm too self-reflective and probably not um I probably don't have enough ego to, although you know I've got plenty, but to uh to really be able to say when when things go wrong or when it doesn't move, there is no way in which this fails.
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:27.439
I get I get too reflective on that.
00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:30.639
You the this was like a 13-14 year period of your early.
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Uh not quite.
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It was I think probably no, not even.
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I think I think in the end it was about six six.
00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:38.000
I'm not talking just paint, by the way.
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Oh, okay, yes.
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No, all of the people.
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It was about 10 or 12 years, yeah.
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And what was your motivation?
00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.399
Um not very laudably, I would say.
00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:50.959
My motivation was I wanted to be famous.
00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:53.360
And did you know that was your motivation?
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:53.839
Yes.
00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:59.600
I mean and when I went to INSIA, I had a I had an offer from um Weber Douglas that was in those days that was a well-known acting school.
00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:00.959
And uh sorry?
00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:03.680
Uh yeah, so I had a I had a bifurcation in my thing.
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I was either going to I had a moment where I was either going to go to NSIAD, business school, or acting school.
00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:09.920
Did you not know that?
00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:12.240
And and I mean it makes perfect sense.
00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:18.959
Uh and uh so I went to and in making that decision, you can imagine which way my parents were encouraging me to go.
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And um and I went to see an acting coach and I did my stuff for them.
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And they said, Look, you'll probably get work.
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You know, you might be the aging rocker who dies at the beginning of midsummer murders, you know, and so on, but you're not, in my humble opinion, Lawrence Olivier.
00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:39.759
And armed with that slightly disappointing information, I went to business school.
00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:53.120
So that was interesting that you But it was all in the service of you know trying to be I don't know why it was at all attractive as an idea, but I mean it's a it's an odd thing, it's a thing that is quite prevalent, has been sort of, you know, social media has made this a you know.
00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:54.160
Well everybody's an actor.
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Everybody is a but to be famous as a driver and to and to own that and say this is something I want.
00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:03.439
Yeah.
00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:12.800
I mean I'm not particularly proud of it as a goal, you know, as opposed to curing world hunger or solving actually I have more I think I have more social goals now than I certainly I did then.
00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:15.040
Um but uh what do you think, Dre?
00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:17.439
Uh I do know I really don't know.
00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:26.879
There was something about the validation that came from public acclaim that I I I know if I had been properly mentally well, it wouldn't I wouldn't have given a damn about that.
00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:27.519
But for sure.
00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:35.199
But but um my particular quirks were such that that seemed enormously appealing to me.
00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:38.240
So having not done it, there is basically four ways you can be famous in the world.
00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:48.800
You can be an entertainer, you can be a um you can be a politician, um, you can be a sports star, out of the question for me, an old fatty.
00:07:49.279 --> 00:07:54.160
Uh, or you can be a very successful business person and particularly entrepreneur.
00:07:54.480 --> 00:08:01.600
So uh so having having the first three having been rejected for obvious reasons, the fourth one was the only one open, and I had a go at that.
00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:03.600
And uh, like I say, it turned out I was crap at it.
00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:17.360
We'll t we'll t we'll talk some more about it in a second, but I just just before we leave this question, because I'm fascinated by uh motivation and ambition and and how it changes through life and these conversations that we can have at this stage of life and about it.
00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:19.360
Uh what were you at school?
00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:21.040
Uh were you a show off?
00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:22.800
Were you a bullied centre stage?
00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:23.439
You were bullied.
00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:24.079
Bullied, yeah.
00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:25.600
No, I was very miserable at school.
00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:30.399
I was very miserable at school, and and I was pretty repellent, to be honest.
00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:42.720
Um I wasn't I was pretty repellent and crap at sport and you know, all the things that you that that have value when you are 13, 14, 15, um, which fortunately have very little value later.
00:08:42.799 --> 00:08:44.159
Uh I was not good at any of them.
00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:46.559
And so I was not happy at school.
00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:48.159
I wouldn't have a good happy school life.
00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:49.840
And perhaps that was another motivation.
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:56.799
Just on the school topic, I went to I went to a reunion, which I would never dream of doing for a set of reasons I won't bore you with.
00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:00.000
I went to a reunion at my school about probably about 10 years ago.
00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:04.080
And first it was a bit weird being in a room of 250 men with no women.
00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:12.559
But what was interesting to me was that half the men in that room considered that their lives were a success, and the other half considered their lives were a failure.
00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:20.960
And and there wasn't very much correlation between the objective level of success of any of them and the way in which they'd internalized the the trajectory of their lives.
00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:33.039
And and it was it was very telling for me, and I think actually quite an education to realise that happiness is a choice, and you know how you internalize your own life and career is a is a choice.
00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:39.039
I'm amazed that as a reunion of people you haven't met for so long it was that easy to pick out the people who considered themselves a failure.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:54.960
Listen, as you walk through life as people you meet, you you can tell immediately whether they are satisfied with the way things turned out for them, particularly as we reach you know our 50s, um, by which time you've you know you either consider that you've reached escape velocity in your own eyes or you don't, right?
00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:58.480
And and I think you can spot it within ten seconds.
00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:13.279
I look at and back to these entrepreneurs that you that you admire, that when I wrote it down what you said, the relentless energy and belief is driven by some pretty dark demons.
00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:14.080
Yes.
00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:19.120
And perhaps you say you're you didn't have the relentless energy, the motivation.
00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:22.159
Um perhaps you just didn't have Well, it was okay.
00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:25.039
I didn't like school, but you know, so slightly stopped whining about it.
00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:25.840
It was fine.
00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.080
I I I didn't have an unhappy childhood.
00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:33.759
I was grew up in a nice uh you know middle class home with with with two parents who loved each other, and you do you know what I mean?
00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:36.240
I had a very, very conventional background.
00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:39.200
I I wonder whether slightly everybody has some trauma, right?
00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:40.639
And uh everybody has some trauma.
00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:45.440
And the point is if you then become famous, that is going to be an important part of your autobiography.
00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:55.039
But the ones who achieve something extraordinary and then want to do it again are the ones that I I get really interested in.
00:10:55.200 --> 00:11:16.399
Uh in terms of that, because to put that relentless energy into an entrepreneurial venture and you know the 20-hour days and the health problems that you must be giving yourself, carrying that amount of stress and all the rest of it, and then want to do it again, I find that quite well I I mean the point is all for all of us, working is a release is a pleasure most of the time, is a if we're lucky, yeah.
00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:17.679
If we're lucky, yeah.
00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:23.600
Um well certainly if we're lucky and we and we we get to do things that we know ourselves and find out what our energy is.
00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:24.960
Yeah, you can't qualifications.
00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:35.279
But but the um but yeah, I in that sense I've been very lucky, which is most of the time I've enjoyed working and I couldn't imagine not working.
00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:41.840
I I met I went to dinner the other night and there was I was sitting next to him like my age, and he said, you know what, I'm gonna retire because I'm spent.
00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:44.320
I was like, what in God's name are you talking about?
00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:48.320
You know, you're in your late 50s, you just should be just getting going.
00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:59.120
It it's it it's I'm very, very intrigued by Yeah, but you see, I'm I I I I'm I'm working, but I'm I have been part-time ever since I went plural, and I consider that very different.
00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:02.080
And you know, if I was to ever retire, it'd be doing what I'm doing.
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:04.879
Which is working part-time and all the rest of it.
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:12.320
There was to for me a very large element of I just it takes too much out of me the the job.
00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:18.240
Leadership anyway, takes too much out of me to muster up the uh the energy to do it again.
00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:19.759
I find it energizing.
00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:24.320
I think if I didn't do it, I would quickly fall into a kind of slough of despond.
00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:26.480
Which is very common for people in retirement, by the way.
00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:27.440
Uh no, sure.
00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:28.240
I would then croak it.
00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:30.480
But if you write it up, I mean they often croak, right?
00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:33.840
If you didn't have a job.
00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:53.279
If I didn't have a full-time uh full-time, if I didn't have if most of my time was not taken up thinking about some external problem, whether it be a leadership problem or a or a business problem or a business is what I've chosen, so it could be that, it could be anything else.
00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.639
But I think I would I would very quickly go into a depression.
00:12:57.039 --> 00:12:58.240
In that sense, we'd be very similar.
00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:00.399
A problem to solve a day is a good one.
00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:10.639
I found myself when I was selling the house uh recently solving the problem of installing my own electric gate motor because mine had failed and I didn't want to pay the cowboy who wanted to charge me.
00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:12.480
That was a fabulous problem to solve.
00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:13.360
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:16.320
I'm not going to turn it into a I would be absolutely terrible at that too.
00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:22.639
It would definitely open the wrong way if I was if I was installing your gate.
00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:30.960
I don't want to leave this conversation about entrepreneurship with a with a sense that somehow entrepreneurs have to uh have have dark demons to succeed.
00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:31.759
I don't believe that.
00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:34.559
I but I believe some of the most extraordinary ones do.
00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:38.960
So let's go back to um your entrepreneurial career a second.
00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:40.879
You've done lots of different ventures.
00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.320
So you you did a sort of small buyout of an SME.
00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:46.240
Yeah, we bought two or three in the end.
00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.360
Uh we bought rolled it up a bit, we sold it, it was okay.
00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:51.759
I didn't make any money, shareholders did okay.
00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:52.639
It was okay.
00:13:52.799 --> 00:14:03.120
That one was okay, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't I wasn't gonna build, you know, firstly I'd chosen to go into the paintbrush business, which is not an unerring route to being world famous.
00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:06.639
Uh the number of world famous paintbrush manufacturers, I think, is limited.
00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:09.759
I question the world famous motivation given that.
00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:11.600
Well, I you're right.
00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:12.879
I should have thought about it harder, really.
00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:14.639
But anyway, so did that for a bit.
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:15.200
It was fine.
00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:16.799
Six years, too long, right?
00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:17.440
Too long.
00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:17.840
Yeah.
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.320
But I learnt a lot of things about, I mean, it is incredibly easy for a lot of entrepreneurs, and this does happen to a lot of entrepreneurs.
00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:31.679
They leave business school, they leave university, they they leave, they do, you know, they decide, they leave their jobs, and they decide they want to be entrepreneurs.
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:38.080
They then end up in a business that becomes the living dead, and they find themselves spending years and years and years.
00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:44.080
So my son Arthur's just left his VC house to go and join one of their investments.
00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:45.679
And it's a long shot, right?
00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:48.960
Yeah, I mean, it could be amazing, but it's a long shot.
00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:50.000
And what I said to them is that.
00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:51.120
To have your eyes open on that.
00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:55.600
Well, also give yourself a time limit and never get in the trap of saying just six more months.
00:14:55.759 --> 00:15:01.200
Because any given business in that situation will always be on the cusp of you know, of some great success.
00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:14.080
The the training you would have got, that you were a former management consultant, you'd worked at both Bain and BCG, you've been to NCAD, you you had all the the blueprint of this thing called business, and then you actually ran nitty-gritty business.
00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:16.720
Now I think that would have been great training.
00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:17.519
Yeah, no, I think it would be.
00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:24.639
Because a lot of these entrepreneurs who go startup tech companies only start having to think like that when the shit hits the fan and they're going, oh, what's cash flow again?
00:15:24.799 --> 00:15:26.000
Yeah, how do what cash flow is what?
00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:26.879
Working capital is it.
00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:35.759
The fascinating thing about very big businesses is I'd like to interrupt this conversation just for a few seconds to tell you about the people at All Together who make this podcast possible.
00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:38.879
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00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:14.399
Now back to the conversation.
00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:19.519
The fascinating thing about very big businesses is they don't think about cash very often.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.639
Whereas little businesses have to think about cash all the time.
00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:24.960
All the time.
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:30.960
And um and I rem I I mean I I I don't think I knew really what a cash flow was.
00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:31.519
Sure.
00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.399
When I left in Siad, when I left BCG.
00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:45.519
No, because you're all you're talking about grand, you know, you're drawing everything with an 11b pencil, and and actually, in the end, it's about the two-h pencil that that says I've got just enough money.
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.320
My big biggest learning on that was when I joined Mothercare.
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:53.200
And I joined, and I because I I'd looked to try and buy Mother Care because it was very inexpensive.
00:16:54.240 --> 00:17:00.799
And I was working with a with a slightly loopy lady called Anne Iverson, uh, who had run it in the past, and she and I were gonna buy it.
00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:03.679
We we'd we'd you know, we got some backing, we thought.
00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:08.960
Um, and I called the then chairman and I said, Look, uh, I'd be interested in buying your company.
00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:15.440
He said, Look, I we've just appointed uh Ben Gordon as chief executive, and and Ben, I'm gonna give him his head unless you want to make a crazy offer.
00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:20.079
The venture capital company that we were with, the private equity company we were with, said, Look, we're not gonna make a crazy offer.
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:27.519
So I rang Ben and I said, Look, I'm I I've just spent six months looking about looking at your company and building a plan.
00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:29.200
Yeah, I'm about to shredded.
00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:30.160
Would you like to see it?
00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:31.680
So he said, Yeah, I'd love to.
00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:39.359
So I went up to um Watford and I showed it to him and he said, Well, would you like to looks like a pretty good plan, would you like to help me do it?
00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:42.960
And so I actually joined Mothercare as strategy director.
00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.440
Um is that the sliding door moment, do you think?
00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:46.000
I think so.
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:46.559
Yeah, I think so.
00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:51.039
You know, there are lots of people who spend their entire lives looking at opportunities and never actually doing it.
00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:51.519
Sure.
00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:55.680
And I'm very grateful to Ben because he said, Look, why don't you come and uh help me?
00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:56.960
Anyway, I joined.
00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:57.200
Yes.
00:17:57.440 --> 00:17:59.359
And Ben said, That's really glad you're here.
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:03.839
I've got to tell you one thing that you really ought to know, which is that we can't make payroll on Thursday.
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:05.359
Did he tell you that on the first day?
00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:06.720
Uh yeah, Monday morning.
00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:19.200
Um and so so we crafted you and I, we crafted a letter to all of our suppliers that was to go out that afternoon, which read, uh, in common with industry practice, we are moving our payment terms from 30 to 60 days.
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:21.200
And you're sincerely Ben Gordon.
00:18:21.359 --> 00:18:27.039
And and uh about 80% of our suppliers sort of didn't respond, and that was fine.
00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:30.480
Um and suddenly we got ourselves, you know, 30 days of payroll.
00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:32.720
Retail business has a lot of money.
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:37.759
We could make payroll, uh, but but sorry, but it wasn't gonna pay, obviously it wasn't gonna pay off until the end of the month.
00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:40.160
So we had a problem for that Thursday.
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:55.599
And so the next thing we did is we um I discovered that that although we collected the the paper money, it was still quite cash-oriented business then, the paper money every day, and it was taken back to the Bank of England or whatever, the coins were never collected.
00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:58.559
And so we had about Oh my god, a float of hammock.
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:04.480
We had about 800,000 pounds in coins uh sitting in safes up and down the country.
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:05.759
And how did you find that?
00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:11.039
Uh so we we I think somebody told me, or someone said, Well, we got I think there's some coins.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:18.000
And and and so and so we sent a van, the the the bank, we went to the bank and they said, We'll give you 80p in the pound, we'll collect them all.
00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:28.799
And so they collect they collected them all up and they could put them through an enormous machine, and we had just enough to make our payroll, and then the following month we had the extra month of payables, so we were sort of okay.
00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:32.559
Did did that feel familiar from your paintbrush days?
00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:33.599
Not at all.
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:34.240
This was at all.
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:38.960
This was a sort of this I mean that was properly, you know, properly emergency.
00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:41.039
I I had never ever seen anything like it.
00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:41.440
It was it.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:46.240
Did you ever get to go back to that strategy, that business plan that you'd written and then?
00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.839
Then we did, and we executed it, I think, uh pretty well.
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:57.200
Share price moved up uh eightfold, so it was it did really I mean from a very low base, roughly bust, and then and it was trading accordingly.
00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.720
And then and then as we pull, I know we have to solve a number of issues, operational issues.
00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:10.319
What I realized at that moment was that what I love doing is taking really gnarly complicated things and fixing them.
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:16.960
And that actually interestingly, you don't get complexity until a business, real complexity until a business gets quite big.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:29.119
The sort of relentless drive that you need to go from naught to 100 million is is actually it's a relatively simple set of problems and it just needs push.
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:38.160
Whereas whereas uh uh a large business suddenly need has enormously complicated problems, maybe people problems, cash problems.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:46.720
Uh those that what's really fun is that Rubik's Cube, which which is um which it turns out is pretty much the only thing I'm good at.
00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:50.079
So you're at you're at Mothercare your strategy director?
00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:50.640
Yeah.
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:56.160
Uh the next move was so at this time you're beginning to go, oh maybe this corporate life is okay.
00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:57.759
So then I took a Is that right?
00:20:58.160 --> 00:20:59.359
Yeah, then I took a wrong turn.
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:00.400
Uh another one.
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:05.279
And uh and I went off to start a retail business with my friend Ernesto Schmidt.
00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:07.920
Um and we started So you weren't at this point convinced.
00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:09.039
No, no, you weren't convinced.
00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:11.440
What's this goal of being a few years?
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.440
This was a startup.
00:21:13.599 --> 00:21:13.759
Yeah.
00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:16.400
Um you went and persuaded I think Apax.
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:17.119
Yeah, Apex.
00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:18.240
To give you quite a lot of money.
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:18.720
To do what?
00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:20.720
Not an enormous amount, but quite a lot.
00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:21.839
Um To do what?
00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:23.279
To do what?
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:23.920
I know.
00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:25.119
I'm just gonna let you tell us.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.839
Uh and I I mean I'm actually blushing.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:29.839
Um you can't see me, but I'm actually blushing.
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:37.359
That that uh to set up a uh a DVD retail business um at a time when DVD was relatively neat.
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:38.400
Shop as well.
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:40.000
Yeah, shop like not for physical shop.
00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:42.559
Well, there was no no there wasn't really any online at that time.
00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:45.359
And there were at that time, there were about 800 UK.
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:47.200
Where had Netflix started?
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:51.680
Uh no, yes, Netflix existed, but it was a different model.
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:56.720
It was it was the DVD it was subscription DVD, so you got sent in the post.
00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.759
DVDs were flying off the shelves, and there was no spot.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.119
Specialist retailer.
00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:03.279
There was a good rationale.
00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:12.640
We thought water stands for DVDs, we would have the proper back catalogue, this would be movie buffs, you know, you'd go in there and you'd have a different you'd have a different approach and so on.
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:19.680
And one of the only thing that we were really scared of was that one day you might be able to actually download a movie.
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:23.200
So uh never been done.
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:25.920
And so we went, we did a lot of due diligence on this.
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:26.720
We talked to Forrester.
00:22:27.039 --> 00:22:29.680
And by then you'd seen a lot of internet companies just fall over and think it's a good thing.
00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:35.759
Well, A, and B, they were and B and B, you know, a really big enterprise-level broadband was running at half a megabit.
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:44.319
So I I so we went to see Forrester, we went to see all the people who were hot in those days in terms of internet specialists, and they said to us, look, it's very simple.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:53.920
The physics of the internet means that it will never be possible to download video content on the internet.
00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:55.440
It will never be possible.
00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:56.480
Did they say never?
00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:00.720
They said you will that I I don't I don't know because I haven't got transcripts.
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:10.720
But anyway, what we heard was certainly it will never be possible to download video on So Armed with that reassuring um perspective.
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:13.200
You opened how many in what amount of time?
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:16.880
It was extraordinarily operational.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:19.359
Yeah, it was operationally uh and we got quite good at it.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:23.759
I mean we found we got good at finding sites, getting them to believe in us, you know, taking taking good sites.
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:28.480
Did you you your your co-founder with that business was Ernesto Schmidt.
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:29.519
A retailer.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:29.920
No.
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:31.680
No, he was what was his background?
00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:32.960
Uh also consulting.
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:40.079
Um So neither of you had actually found sites, develop sites, no, run multi-site operations.
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:41.599
Interesting.
00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:43.599
We had a chair who had.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:46.160
We learned quite quickly.
00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:46.880
It's not that hard.
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:47.759
Very quickly.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:49.039
It's not that hard.
00:23:49.279 --> 00:23:49.920
It's not that hard.
00:23:50.240 --> 00:24:00.319
No, I'm but in it so I in my one of my worlds, hospitality, I think it's more the the the ability to get it so wrong with site selection and site development.
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:04.880
Well, and people and hospitality is a very difficult business.
00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:06.240
It's a very different shop.
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:15.920
Although it shares a lot with retail in terms of Well, it does, although retail, remember, what's happening in the store is I mean it was more complicated than boots, but but what's happening in an ordinary retail store is relatively straightforward.
00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:20.960
You know, you you get stock in, you put it on the shelves, people pick it up, you put they pay for it, and they walk out.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:22.880
In hospitality, you're serving them, you're feeding them.
00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:24.640
There's a lot of people behind the each.
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:25.759
You're making the product in the internet.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.839
Yeah, you're making the product live, exactly.
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:29.359
Um I'm distracted.
00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:32.480
Uh three years opening a lot of sites, a lot of fun.
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:33.440
It was fun.
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:34.079
It was fun.
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:35.200
I mean, it was fun.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:36.640
When did it stop being fun?
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:40.640
It stopped being fun when it looked like it was going down the tubes.
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:42.240
Uh when was the first inkling?
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:44.079
The first inkling two and a half years in.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:46.720
So so two and a half years in, a couple of things happened all at the same time.
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:53.759
The first one was every newspaper, it's very hard to remember all this, but every time you bought a newspaper, you've got a DVD clip to the front of it.
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:54.880
I don't know if you remember that period.
00:24:55.039 --> 00:25:01.039
There was a period of like six months when every newspaper would have a free film attached to the front of it.
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:02.880
That's how they were going to sell their newspapers.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:08.400
And the problem with that was not that, you know, people weren't buying, because you know, not only a limited number of people were buying that film.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:11.519
The problem was that that was consuming that customer's evening.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:16.720
And I they didn't want to watch two films in an evening, they only want one film, they got one free.
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:17.839
So that was a real problem.
00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:32.400
And the thing the second thing, which actually was more corrosive, was that the big blockbusters, the big supermarkets, Tesco and so on, as their sticker shock would put Harry Potter and the death of death or whatever, uh, would put that in for a tenner.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:41.359
And although it was costing them 18 quid to buy from the from the studio, um, they were putting on a tenner, and that would drive traffic to the supermarket.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:44.640
And so they want obviously they want to sell bananas, they don't want to sell DVDs.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:53.519
But but for us, deep catalogue is great, but I've got to be allowed to make something out of Harry Potter and the Death of Death.
00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:55.119
Where was the internet at this point?
00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:56.319
What was who was selling on it?
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:04.160
There was a bit of sort of online retail, but but actually we convinced the Amazon would have been pushing out DVDs by then, surely.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:05.599
It was very, very early, right?
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:07.920
And we we did consider whether we should do internet.
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:12.400
And uh such a such a weird statement to hear in this day and age.
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:17.440
We didn't consider whether we should do this internet thing, but you know, uh we concluded yeah, anyway.
00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:18.640
We considered whether we should do it.
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.480
We thought it would be a distraction for I mean, you know, it was 99% of the market was physical reading.
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:24.960
The experience was meant to be a big part of it.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.279
You talked about sort of hiring nerds, maybe you didn't know.
00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:29.920
Yeah, no, we no, we know we did that.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:30.960
We hired film buffs.
00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.359
You did um and so the the experience.
00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:34.480
What was your inspiration?
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:35.599
Who who was doing it?
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:36.880
It was Waterstones.
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:42.400
It was this idea of enormously diverse content, deep catalogue uh for people who love films.
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:50.000
Ernesto adored films and he loved, you know, he liked he liked watching Aki Karismeki, you know, uh impenetrable Finnish films.
00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:51.839
Uh I personally I like Harry Potter.
00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.640
But uh so we we did hire people with with film knowledge.
00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:01.759
Of course, we had you know we hired people who are um who were good at dealing with customers, but fundamentally, what what people want when they go in a shop is someone who's nice.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:05.279
And uh effectively you just weren't getting the sales density you needed out of your site?
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:14.400
We started off, took off like a rocket, we were getting really good like for like, it was all great, and then these two phenomena started happening in bulk, and our like for like ground to a halt.
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:19.440
We were making very marginal four-wall contributions, i.e., we had half the sites that weren't.
00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:25.519
Uh and Apex, quite rightly, quite rightly, said, you know what, this is going to be hard bloody yards.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:26.559
And they were completely right.
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:31.680
You don't see it in venture capital enough, I think, in this country anyway.
00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:36.799
I think with there's a lot of hope still in in sort of keeping on funding business that you could.
00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.240
It's one of the things I've I've um I'm back with private equity now.
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:55.200
One of the things I find very relaxing in private equity relative to public markets, or indeed even working for a big um a big global corporation like like WBA is that there is only one metric, and that is how much value are you going to create?
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:59.279
If I can, I'm gonna just end this story.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:04.079
Business fails, you go into administration, I see horrid.
00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:05.680
That's a horrid process, by the way.
00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:20.640
Uh I think a bit like every young person should spend one night in police cells, uh, every young person should try and lead a business through uh failure because you learn more about keeping your own emotions in check.
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:38.640
I may remember you know waking up in the morning, getting the bath and then you know groaning to to try and uh to to to force myself out of the bath and get into the office, uh, knowing that the livelihoods of what was by then I don't know 1200, 1400 people?
00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:39.680
I mean a lot, right?
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:41.359
Um, at risk.
00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:49.119
And you know, you start the day with your business failing, and you end the day every day having found a solution to keep it going for another day.
00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:51.279
And it will probably a week, actually.
00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.400
So you start the week, certainly thinking it's all over.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:28:56.960
How long was the really tough period?
00:28:57.119 --> 00:28:58.559
Uh really quite long.
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:11.200
I mean, because you're always looking for you know, you carry on trading, and you're allowed to carry on trading, uh, even though you know it's not going well, as long as you think there is a reasonable chance of a solution, and you can always come up with a with a possible solution.
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.759
And and so Where did your what was the source of your resilience at this point?
00:29:16.079 --> 00:29:17.119
Well, but partly my family.
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:19.359
So Anna was amazing, uh, my wife Anna.
00:29:19.519 --> 00:29:22.160
She was like, you know what, it's not the end of the world, it doesn't matter.
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:24.160
You know, she she put the thing in perspective.
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:26.319
You sort of partly believe it, but it's enough, right?
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:31.519
It's enough to at least put give some perspective as you go in.
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:35.680
Um I had an investor, David Ishag, who to whom I owe an enormous amount.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:36.799
David was an investor.
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:37.599
Yeah, he was.
00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:40.000
Oh, very much so, yeah.
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:41.279
He's a great friend.
00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:43.359
Goodness me, will you please give him my best?
00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:45.839
I haven't seen him in years, but we used to speak all the time.
00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:49.599
He's a properly lovely person, but really fundamentally good person.
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:58.720
And he is one of the people, along with Marc Aziri and a few others, who, when it all went horribly wrong, stepped in to help Dina McCallum, another one.
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:10.240
Um stepped in to help in the Well, you know, when it all went wrong, and I I really was uh in despair, and I and I remember walking down, you know, once it had all gone wrong, we you know, and and and I was out and blah, blah, blah.
00:30:10.319 --> 00:30:14.640
And I remember walking down the mile thinking, oh my god, I can't, I don't know, I'm gonna feed the kids, and you know, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:18.400
Dina, Dina put me onto her talent pool so that I was able to earn some money.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:20.160
Oh, you did some consulting with it?
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:20.960
I did, yeah.
00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:29.680
And and David was relentlessly, despite he lost some money with us, was relentlessly um uh positive, helpful forward.
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:31.039
And those people you never forget.
00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:32.000
Never forget.
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:36.799
I I mean I think so how how how bad were you coming out of that?
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:38.000
Bad, bad, bad.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:46.960
Because now we we didn't and we don't have time to talk about all the other lovely adventures, but there was a secondhand online book sales marketplace.
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:50.240
Um we're not gonna enumerate.
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:51.039
It did sell.
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:51.519
It did sell.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:53.119
I remember to Ape.
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:54.960
I remember our very first conversation with it.
00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:57.759
Yeah it did sell to a Libris.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:00.720
Uh to Alibris, yeah, and then they became Ape.
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:15.440
Um then we worked together as investors, VCs, deleted uh and tried to transform the world of government procurement uh uh and online publishing?
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:16.000
No.
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:17.279
Contract publishing.
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:18.559
What else did you do there?
00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:24.480
Anyway, uh so this was venture number so I forgot what the name of your DVD shop was.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:25.440
Silver screen.
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:26.160
Silver Screen.
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:27.920
It was uh venture number, blah, blah, blah.
00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:28.240
Yeah.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:33.440
I mean there comes a moment where you've done five or six and they don't work, you think I've got to learn something from this, right?
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:35.039
You've got to get it.
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:35.839
It's not there, miss me.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:37.119
It's not there, miss me, yeah.
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.039
It's that little thing which is if you're driving down the road and everyone's from the wrong side of the road, it's probably you.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:47.839
Uh you'd had your taste of of of retail now, because you'd been at mothercare, you you'd now done DVD retail.
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.920
Were you beginning to start thinking actually a lot of things?
00:31:50.559 --> 00:31:51.599
I loved it right from the get-go.
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:53.200
I absolutely loved it.
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:54.960
Um Why?
00:31:55.200 --> 00:32:00.799
Um because um mediacy of retail.
00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:05.279
You you got the sales numbers pinged to your phone every day at Silver Screen.
00:32:05.599 --> 00:32:10.240
No, uh uh I got them every day, but but then when I was at uh at Boots, I got them every hour.
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:10.880
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:16.960
So so you and of course you you can't really react in an hour, particularly a company big that that size, but you um What is it about that immediacy?
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:24.480
But there's something about because you make a decision uh on the Monday trading meeting, by Tuesday it's implemented, by Wednesday you see the results.
00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:26.480
And it it there's something very exciting about that.
00:32:26.559 --> 00:32:35.200
You know, some people spend their entire lives building, you know, dams, and it takes 20 years to get permission, and it takes 20 years to build the thing, by which time you've retired.
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:36.160
And some people love that.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:40.079
They love the fact that you know it's all about the very, very long term and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:50.319
But I really love the immediacy of you make a decision and something happens, and people, real people, um, walk into your shop and and behave differently as a result.
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:54.079
You described I think when you were at Dixon's.
00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:55.200
I think.
00:32:55.839 --> 00:32:59.839
You when you before the merger, maybe after the merger, I can't remember.
00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:06.160
When I we caught up, and and you told me then that you what you really liked was that this that you had these levers.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.640
And if you you know you pull them and stuff happens.
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:08.960
Yes.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:09.599
Yes, you do.
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:10.880
I think that's what you're saying here.
00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:12.240
It's like things like that.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:14.240
There's a machine that's built.
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:26.559
Well, I mean, the but the point is, you know, what really one of the very few things you've got to do as a retailer, or indeed any any business that runs distributed assets, and I I run one now, is you've got to try and make the fly-by-wire work.
00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:34.400
Because the with the the you know, if you take organizations that are really complicated and difficult to manage, like the NHS or whatever, you pull the lever and absolutely nothing happens.
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:34.720
Right.
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:44.000
The only complicated thing about retail is, or indeed any of these multi-site businesses, is that right now you don't know what the person you employ in Hull is saying to your customer.
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:44.960
You don't know.
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:46.799
So you've got to create an atmosphere.
00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:55.279
So it's more like politics, you've got to create an atmosphere where everybody in the organization sort of knows what they ought to be saying and wants to do what they ought to do.
00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.640
And that is tremendously difficult, but also tremendously fulfilling.
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:06.640
So you you go, you know, when you go to Hull and you realise as you walk in that the shop is clean.
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:08.159
You've probably never been there before, right?
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:15.920
You the shop is clean, that customers are smiling, that that people are handing out baskets so that customers don't have to carry the stuff in their arms.
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:16.719
Uh, you know, are they?
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:23.119
Please tell me you uh you know the team hadn't been given advance warning, polish that thing overnight, you know, the CEOs come and get the stuff.
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:24.960
Inevitably there's a bit of leakage, right?
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:25.840
See that all the time.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:30.719
So I used I used to I used to every most weekends I would go and see stores unexpectedly.
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:36.239
But sometimes you did you did tours which were advertised, and you know, of course, yeah, you get a bit the smell of fresh paint.
00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:45.679
But but actually, interestingly, the bad ones, and there were bad ones, there have been bad ones throughout my whole career, even when they know you're coming, they're still crap.
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:49.599
So you you sort of do know when a a shop isn't right.
00:34:49.920 --> 00:35:00.400
So what's the what what's the secret to we're talking service here, that that element of service that is both personal and informative.
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:03.840
And preferably transactional, leading to a sale.
00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:04.239
Yeah.
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:05.280
What's the secret?
00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:17.199
Well, I don't think there's any one secret, it's a million tiny things, of course, but but fundamentally um it's I think it's it's around clarity of what constitutes great service, how what do customers actually want?
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:25.199
I think it's about trying to recruit people who are nice people and who fundamentally like talking to other people.
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:34.880
And and then the the third one is making it sufficiently pleasant to work in the organization that they want to exercise those skills.
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:36.000
So it's it's a combination.
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:36.719
Lovely.
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:41.440
To know what they want to do, they need to be the sort of people who can do it, and they want to do it.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:46.400
And if they got if you've got those three, on the whole, you know, most people come to work to do a great job, right?
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:46.960
Most people.
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:48.480
And most people are nice decent people.
00:35:48.719 --> 00:35:49.920
And most people are nice, decent people.
00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:52.960
So so you you know you start with some pretty big advantages.
00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:56.000
You've got to be clear what constitutes great service.
00:35:56.159 --> 00:36:05.679
I I you know we expect the shop to be clean in this way, we expect it to be stocked in this way, we expect you to You have to keep that stuff relatively short and simple, though, that list of that list of things that you've got.
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:12.880
Uh yes, and of course, the the more precise you can be, the closer you get to your ideal, the more but the more complex it is, the less likely you are to get there.
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:19.519
So it was a balance complicated retail business company with lots of boots was was at least two and probably three businesses.
00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:20.880
So it was a pharmacy.
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:21.760
So a pharmacy.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:22.480
One business.
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:28.559
One very distinct business, healthcare business, regulated, pharmacist, you know, complicated, right?
00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:38.480
Um responsible for responsible, uh very responsible, and you know, 200 million prescriptions a year, and if you get one wrong, you could really cause some proper damage and you know, really, really careful, right?
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:48.000
Uh one was a preventative health and and sort of you know plasters and bits and bobs business, which is sort of what I would call commodity healthcare.
00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:54.320
And one was a beauty business, and it was the beauty business that was the most exciting from a profitability point of view, but also really fun.
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:56.559
And you wanted to totally different people, right?
00:36:56.639 --> 00:36:59.679
The people who sell beauty need to be beauty obsessed.
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:08.400
You know, that was one of the things that we weren't as boots, but we did we were a bit ashamed of our beauty business, and because it wasn't in the roots of the business.
00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:11.119
Because it well, it it actually is in the roots of the business.
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:16.320
Florence Boot started the beauty business in 1936, so it's getting on a bit.
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:19.679
Um so there were two things that when I joined the business, that were self-limited beliefs.
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.800
One one was that the internet was going to cannibalize our business and we shouldn't really invest in it.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:27.119
So we were 1% online at that time.
00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:35.599
And then the second one was that beauty was basically a male, a patriarchal conspiracy, and that it was morally, there was something morally wrong with the beauty business.
00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:48.800
So the two areas where Boots I felt was was punching well below its weight were beauty, where we were the number one, despite the fact we didn't have any of the brands that were growing and blah, blah, blah, but we were slipping, we were slipping away.
00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:51.920
And uh, and then the other one was the internet where we were 1% online.
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:54.960
So 1% online in 2019 was shocking, really.
00:37:55.280 --> 00:37:58.960
And so now the beauty business of boots is is just under a third online.
00:37:59.119 --> 00:38:01.519
So it's uh it's because of course it's a replacement.
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:06.639
You know, if you buy your, I don't know, your clinique moisturizer, and that's the one you want to use.
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:09.360
Um the first time you buy it, you go and try it in a shop.
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:11.519
The second time you couldn't buy online, why wouldn't you, right?
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:20.800
So um so uh so those two things together meant that we could build a much more sustainably profitable and growing business over a period of time.
00:38:21.039 --> 00:38:22.480
It wasn't not that complicated, right?
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:24.719
What didn't you manage to do?
00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:25.679
What do you know?
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:27.599
The list is very long, Jamie.
00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:31.199
But um a big thing that you really thought needed to be.
00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:32.320
So I don't know.
00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:38.239
So one of the things that was very interesting about Boots, and I in six years I don't think I fixed it, um, was the culture.
00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:43.519
So it was it Boots is the loveliest business on earth, full of the loveliest people on earth.
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:49.679
But but the drive to change, changing anything, was incredibly, incredibly slow.
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:51.920
And your lever wasn't so well oiled.
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:52.880
So the lever wasn't.
00:38:54.159 --> 00:38:55.519
You yank the lever and not much happened.
00:38:55.599 --> 00:38:57.280
And and it was definitely true.
00:38:57.440 --> 00:39:01.599
Um and it was it was bound about with ancient shibboleths, you know.
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:04.480
Um it was it was like a sort of old tome.
00:39:04.719 --> 00:39:07.119
Um and it's just not what Boots does.
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:09.440
We know we don't do it that way around here, you know.
00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:11.280
And and I I was interested in what why that would be.
00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:12.719
I mean, I'll give you an example.
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:20.880
Um when uh when I arrived, uh somebody turned up with all the posters that were due to go into the shops eight weeks hence.
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:23.519
And firstly, I said, well, why why on earth are you showing me these?
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:27.920
Because I've got really very little to add to it to your posters.
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:35.920
But I said, since you're here, they look a bit old-fashioned because they've got these these curvy, sort of 1980s curved edges.
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:40.800
So I said, Well, have we thought about you know doing it in a more graphic and more modern way?
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:46.079
And uh and they said, Well, we can't do that because that's the boots brand guidelines.
00:39:46.719 --> 00:39:52.880
So I said, Okay, well, actually, as it happens, the the lady in charge of the boots brand guidelines is is next door, in the office next door.
00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:56.159
So I'm just gonna go and get out of pop next door, say if you've got a minute, you know.
00:39:56.320 --> 00:40:01.679
And she came in and we looked at the posters and I said, Do you do you think this would be better in a more modern graphic style?
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:03.039
She went, Yeah, no, it'd be much better.
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:04.719
I said, Well, why don't we do that then?
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:06.800
She said, Well, it's it's the boots brand guidelines.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:10.079
And I said, But but they're not given to us by God.
00:40:10.800 --> 00:40:12.000
These are not the tablets.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:25.599
And and we then had a we had a silly cult cultural moment where I took the boots brand guidelines, which by the way ran to several volumes, and burnt them ceremonially in the car park.
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:28.719
Wow.
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:39.679
Uh and and um and we we we rethought the way in which we presented ourselves into a much more contemporary style, which allowed us to then get access to uh to beauty brands.
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.639
Because one of the problems with the beauty brands is that they're a bit like fashion brands.
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:50.639
They say a lot of the new brands, the ordinary and all those people, were saying, No, thanks, boots, will work online and we'll work with with other players.
00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:54.239
Yeah, but then their online sales peter often they come knocking at your door and say we're gonna be able to do it.
00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:55.519
We need distributions.
00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:57.840
But often that's because their brands are dying at that stage.
00:40:57.920 --> 00:40:59.119
So you we have to get them on the way up.
00:40:59.360 --> 00:40:59.760
Yeah, sure.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:05.119
And and particularly even some of the brands we work with, I said Estel Order, we had STL order, and we had, you know, we had a number of the SDL order brands.
00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.440
But you were not an attractive place for the list necessarily.
00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:12.000
No, no, because we look like a supermarket and we and we look like a supermarket, and we I'm an aspi aspirational brand.
00:41:12.079 --> 00:41:12.800
I want to start at the top.
00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:19.599
I want to start at the top, and I want to start in a lovely place, and I'm gonna go work with I'm gonna go work with I don't know, Space NK or So you had to make yourself cooler.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:27.360
So we spent far too much money building in Covent Garden a beautiful concept store.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:34.400
Um and but even there, you know, the the it upstairs it had beautiful brick walls, beautiful old brick walls.
00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:37.840
And the boots design team were like, well, we've plastered those over.
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:40.320
I was like, no, no, leave the brick walls.
00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:56.559
And and and and uh uh and so we we built this shop and I invited Leonard Lauder, who sadly died last week, and their creative director, John and and the UK team and everyone else said, right, come over and see our beauty, our new boot store.
00:41:56.719 --> 00:41:59.840
And they had been saying, particularly John had been saying no, no, no, to any of the new brands.
00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:01.760
Mac, out of the question, you know, etc.
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:07.119
And it they came over and at the end of that tour, he said, Okay, I see what you're trying to do.
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:08.320
And and we got all the brands.
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:14.800
Is this a story of success or is it a store Okay, because we started as a the challenge being changing the culture.
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:21.760
Yeah, so in this case, in this case, this is a So is the act of burning the Bible.
00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:23.199
Helps.
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:26.079
So what's interesting is you can change the culture quite quickly at the top level.
00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:26.719
Yeah, sure.
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:29.440
Um the problem is getting into the permafrost.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:39.199
And uh and while I think there are very few examples, I think, around of of actual material culture culture change in large multi-site operations.
00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:40.480
I think it's interesting.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:41.440
Is that true?
00:42:41.679 --> 00:42:42.559
I think it does happen.
00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.960
I think there's a lot There's a a lot of attempts at it.
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:54.159
But I mean Well, the main thing about culture shape is you can't do it by having a session and then producing a mouse mat or whatever, whatever that may be.
00:42:54.480 --> 00:42:55.039
Post of the wall.
00:42:55.199 --> 00:42:56.159
Or a post of the wall or whatever.
00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:00.880
You have to live and breathe in every conversation up and down a company for a long time.
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:02.159
For a long time, exactly.
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.280
So you have to and remember for since 1843 or whenever how long.
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.360
That was your competition, 1843.
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:14.559
But but the fascinating thing, of course, is back then Jesse and John Boot were unbelievably entrepreneurial and came up and they they were the first discounter.
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:34.559
So if you think back to the history of Boots, right, if you were in domestic service as a ladies' maid or as a housemaid in 1843 and you had a headache, that was tough shit because there was nothing, you couldn't possibly afford the bloke in the top hat who would come around and then prescribe things and it would all be ground up in a thing and delivered to you in little paper, wax, wax paper wraps.
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:36.079
That was impossible.
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:49.760
The boot insight was to say, actually, I can make these in bulk, I can sell them in shilling rolls, and suddenly, for the first time ever, um that housemaid had a remedy for her headache.
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:59.599
And Ditto, Florence Boot, you know, about 50 years later, who said Umrdinary working women cannot afford cosmetics because they come from Paris and so.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.039
Used to be sold in bricks.
00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:05.760
The idea of being the early discounter, completely changing the model, being very radical, et cetera, et cetera.
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:14.719
Those things were in the root of the boots, but they had got lost over the years in this notion of we are, you know, we are the healthcare, we have to be super careful because we're a pharmacy.
00:44:14.800 --> 00:44:23.760
And so we were we were a good pharmacy and a safe pharmacy, but we were amateur retailers because we didn't think fast enough to be good retailers.
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:27.840
And and I think I think we were able to make some improvement, right?
00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:37.440
As a leader seeking to change culture, it's it's helpful, and I think I would say it's essential to find authenticity in the things that you're trying to drive the business to.
00:44:37.760 --> 00:44:38.320
I totally agree.
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:42.800
And so and and and the s a good story is also what people remember.
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:43.679
Yeah, of course.
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:50.639
Um so that communication, I mean the the the the way the style of communication, how you do that, and so on, makes an enormous difference.
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:52.400
But also physical change.
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:55.840
I'm a really big believer in in physical environments.
00:44:56.079 --> 00:45:02.880
So I I think if you work in a dump, the chance of you being really, really good at customer service is small.
00:45:03.119 --> 00:45:03.440
Right.
00:45:03.679 --> 00:45:06.960
And a lot of the other elements are still dumps, right?
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:08.239
And so that's the other thing.
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:10.639
We upgraded hundreds of shops.
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:12.079
And did you see that immediate?
00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.159
It's like it's like uh an academy school.
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:20.559
It's like you can put the same teachers into a brand new academy school and you get a very different but do you feel do you feel just literally it gives it a lift?
00:45:20.639 --> 00:45:20.719
Yeah.
00:45:20.880 --> 00:45:23.119
Yeah, so I mean not just not just I mean customers come in.
00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:25.840
Customers behave differently there, you get you know you get less there.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:27.360
That's a very expensive way of changing culture.
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:32.880
Yeah, incredibly unbelievably expensive, but very important because you know boot the bootstores hadn't been touched for 25 years.
00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:40.719
So what I found interestingly is that the correlation between how much people like working in an organization and how well it's doing is almost 100%.
00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:43.360
People people basically like working for a winning team.
00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:48.400
So I in my view, the the very best thing you can do to make people really happy to work for you is win.
00:45:48.719 --> 00:45:50.239
Uh and of course it's a circular thing.
00:45:50.719 --> 00:45:50.960
Win.
00:45:51.199 --> 00:45:51.519
Win.
00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:51.920
Win.
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:52.960
Win at what?
00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:53.760
Win.
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:54.400
Win.
00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:58.480
Make be more profitable, more successful, win customers, grow market share.
00:45:58.800 --> 00:45:59.519
Because they're proud to work for you.
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:00.480
Because they're proud to be there.
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:04.480
So suddenly their mates, when they go home, are saying, Oh, I went to your new booths.
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:04.960
Amazing.
00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:08.320
So not not seeking to make them happy, seeking to make them proud.
00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:09.840
Yeah, I think that's right.
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:24.000
I think you want to be, I mean, because I think to some extent the validation you get from being proud of where you work is almost is m certainly more powerful than any kind of you know pious statements made by senior management.
00:46:24.079 --> 00:46:29.840
Or I I mean I've got one other story from from Boots, because the other thing is that we should never overestimate our own impact.
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:34.320
So I um I I I I I've learned that lesson.
00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:48.079
Every year, every year uh we used to do this lovely thing, which is that people who were still working in the company 50 years on would come to Nottingham and they would they would uh come for a dinner at uh Lenton House, which is the the Boots old house.
00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:51.119
And um we'd set up a tent and there were quite a lot, quite a lot.
00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:59.599
I mean, there was probably 40, 50 people in the organization who had worked there for 50 years and were still working there, uh, one for 67 years.
00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:02.800
Um I met this lovely, lovely lady.
00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:07.280
We were having drinks before the dinner, and I said, gosh, you must have seen a lot of chief executives over the years.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:09.440
She went, to be honest, I can't remember any of them.
00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:13.360
Uh at which point you realise you are dust.
00:47:13.519 --> 00:47:16.880
And that you come and go doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:17.840
So that's interesting.
00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:21.039
My next question was going to be by this time, you're properly famous.
00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:21.519
Nah.
00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:25.199
As famous as you're gonna be as a business person.
00:47:25.679 --> 00:47:26.239
Well, come on now.
00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:34.000
You're running a second well-known retail, having one car phone, well, third if you two phases of car phones and uh Dixons.
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:37.119
But anyway, uh you're you're you're a famous for a businessman.
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:39.519
Well, I get the paper a bit, but it but not not really.
00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:41.360
No, so still not famous enough.
00:47:41.599 --> 00:47:44.239
You've you've kind of taken a step back on the fame gathering, I can't.
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:44.800
Well Anna.
00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:49.599
Anna, my wife Anna has has made it clear to me that that is the most stupid goal.
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:52.960
Well, of course when did you stop caring about it?
00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:57.679
Um I I stopped I stopped really caring about it probably a decade ago.
00:47:58.159 --> 00:48:05.360
And is that it's not really about the fame as much as it is about the peer group, the the community, the respect.
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:16.719
Of course, but that but the the curious thing is, of course, that of the people that you that I like and you like and we all like, no one uh half of them don't know what you do, and the other half don't care.
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:24.239
And actually, we don't make friends because they are the I mean, well, at least if you're a good decent person, you don't make friends because of what they do.
00:48:24.400 --> 00:48:25.840
You make friends because you like them.
00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:36.960
And and at the end of the day, you know, that's that is the goal, and that is that the the the the the what I realized is that the validation I was seeking from that wasn't really valuable.
00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:38.079
Wasn't really valuable.
00:48:38.639 --> 00:48:45.199
Um I never quite got to the journey from strategy director to CEO of a publicly traded company in the UK.
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:50.400
It's still it's still quite a big thing to have failed entrepreneur, in your own words, you're crap at it.
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:51.039
I still don't buy it.
00:48:51.280 --> 00:48:56.400
That very quickly, it seems to me, you're suddenly the CEO of Dixon's.
00:48:56.719 --> 00:48:57.519
It wasn't that quick.
00:48:57.599 --> 00:49:02.239
Um so I'm very grateful to another person who was unbelievably kind, who was John Bruitt.
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:05.519
So John said to me, Would you like to come and work at Tesco?
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:07.039
He was at Tesco, he was at Tesco.
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:15.599
I had a series of interviews with a number of senior people at Tesco, and in those days, Tesco was a very tough company, very tough, roughy tufty, very successful.
00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:21.440
One of my interviews, the person I was who was interviewing me let ripped the most gigantic fart in the middle of the interview.
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:25.119
I didn't know that was a part of the process.
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:28.159
Um, actually, had a giant whoopee cushion.
00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:30.159
It was so loud, I couldn't stay silent.
00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:34.719
I went crikey and uh I won't say who it is.
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:36.880
Um went on to be a CEO.
00:49:37.119 --> 00:49:44.800
Um and uh uh and um anyway, it it became pretty clear to me that uh I didn't think I could work with those people.
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:51.440
But then John left and was appointed CEO of Dixons, and he was putting together a team and he said How did you know him?
00:49:51.679 --> 00:49:52.559
Uh from BCG.
00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:52.719
Okay.
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:57.760
And uh and he and he said, Would you like to would you like to come and join the team?
00:49:57.920 --> 00:50:01.440
And I did, and I loved every second.
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:05.519
But uh it's another sort of just to be clear, this is another sort of Yeah, of course.
00:50:05.679 --> 00:50:07.440
It these are all sliding doors at moments, right?
00:50:07.519 --> 00:50:09.119
And this is this was a classic sliding doors.
00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:10.639
Started business development.
00:50:10.960 --> 00:50:14.639
Um absolutely loved every second of it right from the get-go.
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:21.519
Wasn't expecting to, the office was pretty grim, but there was there was opportunity lying around everywhere.
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:24.639
And what was interesting believers were working.
00:50:24.880 --> 00:50:27.760
Um no, they weren't working, they needed to be connected up.
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:30.400
Okay, and but connecting them up was really interesting.
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:36.480
And then I found a few people who I just adored working with, proper operators who taught me how to operate.
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:42.239
The first job was to actually incredibly useful experience, was to build the new shop.
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:44.000
So the the shops are all condemned.
00:50:44.239 --> 00:50:46.639
Okay, so here's and so get us a concept for the new shop.
00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:48.320
So get us a concept, build us a new shop.
00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:51.119
So we did that, unbelievably successful, thank God.
00:50:51.360 --> 00:51:03.119
Then we did, and then I I I was the architect of uh the only thing I can really point to is of bringing together PC World and Curries into one shop because we used to have PC World and Curries with completely separate organizations, that's the way Stanley set that up.
00:51:03.360 --> 00:51:11.679
He wanted them to compete, and we would have the trading meeting in Curries, I was in the Curries organization at that time, and our first thing was what did those bastards downstairs do over the weekend?
00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:24.400
You know, we were all trashing each other and so and and once a quarter the two CEOs would meet, and I had great admiration for both of them in different ways, and it would be like a sort of like Gandalf, you know, there'd be sort of lightning and thunder, and they would then come down with their pronouncements.
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:42.320
But fundamentally, we were a loggerheads, and I thought, let's put them in one shop, because then we got you know half the rent or whatever, and and let's put them in one shop, and and and the the the the reaction to that suggestion both Curries and PC World furious at the idea.
00:51:42.559 --> 00:51:46.320
John Browitt, uh, God bless him, it's like a good idea.
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:49.840
We opened in Woking, uh no, Weybridge.
00:51:49.920 --> 00:51:52.559
We opened in Weybridge with our first combined store.
00:51:52.880 --> 00:52:00.239
Everything in everybody's power was being done to prevent it from happening, and uh, you know, no people weren't providing us with information we needed.
00:52:00.320 --> 00:52:02.880
It was, I mean, it was I swear to God, it was a real struggle.
00:52:03.039 --> 00:52:07.360
We opened, sales went up 80%, and that was the end of the argument.
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:09.440
And then all the stores became Curry's PC.
00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:11.440
Well, we were able to shut off our real estate, yeah.
00:52:11.519 --> 00:52:14.239
And that's a big that's one of those lovely moments.
00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:15.440
Yeah, there are very few of them.
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:20.880
Next job was then I was given the whole services operational back end delivery, installation, etc.
00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:21.679
Really fun.
00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:22.400
Really function.
00:52:22.559 --> 00:52:26.639
I would I would have got very scared by the oh that was that was that I think I hate the back of house.
00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:28.800
Honestly, that was my best job I've ever had, I think.
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:29.199
Really?
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:30.639
Yeah, because it was so bad.
00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:37.199
Okay, it was so bad that uh even making relatively small changes could make a big difference.
00:52:37.280 --> 00:52:38.159
So I'll give you an example.
00:52:38.239 --> 00:52:39.519
Um we used to repair tellies.
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:40.239
Well, we didn't.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:43.840
We were we were so bad at it, it took up to six months to get your telly repaired.
00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:49.039
One of the problems was that we would pick out the telly from your house, we'd load it in the back of the lorry with the washing machines and all the other stuff.
00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:52.480
By the time it got to us, a third of them were broken.
00:52:52.639 --> 00:52:56.719
Uh so we broke the screen of a third of the tellies, we then sent you a new one.
00:52:56.800 --> 00:52:59.199
Of course, if you were the lucky ones, we sent you a new one quite quickly.
00:52:59.360 --> 00:53:04.159
Um the cost of that absolutely astronomical, because that was when tellies were still quite expensive.
00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:09.119
And so one of my team, one of my team came to me and said, I've got this brilliant idea.
00:53:09.360 --> 00:53:11.440
Let's come up with a box.
00:53:11.679 --> 00:53:18.559
And they came up with a box called the Telly Tana, which had which had wheels on it, which incredibly is patented.
00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:24.559
And um and and we we put the telly in just put the telly in a box.
00:53:24.639 --> 00:53:25.039
And it didn't.
00:53:25.519 --> 00:53:27.679
It was a big, you know, foam box with wheels.
00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:30.320
And our breakage went from 30% to naught.
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:38.239
And and you you can imagine the economic effect of that on the all the toes we did was millions of pounds.
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.519
And so it was that kind of stuff that was super, super, super fun.
00:53:41.840 --> 00:53:43.599
Just for my sake, and we've got to stop soon.
00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:46.639
I've got one conversation I need to have, and we haven't even talked about your current role.
00:53:46.719 --> 00:53:49.519
Um, I'm still interested in this rise to the CEO.
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:50.559
That was just luck.
00:53:50.719 --> 00:53:56.480
So Pete Williams at Jack Wills, uh I met him somewhere and he said, Look, I'm looking for a CEO to run Jack Wills.
00:53:56.639 --> 00:54:02.079
And we had a conversation, and I got pretty close to doing it, and I went, I was actually going to tell John that I was leaving to go and do that.
00:54:02.239 --> 00:54:06.960
And I walked into John's office and he said, and I said, uh I said, you know, we're thank you for making this time.
00:54:07.119 --> 00:54:14.800
He said, Look, before you start, I need to tell you I'm leaving to go and run Apple Retail, and you're in the frame potentially for the CEO job.
00:54:14.880 --> 00:54:26.400
So I shut my mouth and uh there were two or three of us in the in the frame for it, and um John Allen, the chairman, rang me on Friday evening saying, Listen, good news, we've decided to give it to you.
00:54:26.960 --> 00:54:31.440
And I spent the next hour with my head in my hands thinking, Oh God, what have I done?
00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:34.000
Because I've got to be CEO of this business.
00:54:34.159 --> 00:54:35.519
And huge business.
00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:36.639
It's big business, yeah.
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:39.760
Eight eight uh twelve billion, something like that.
00:54:39.840 --> 00:54:40.639
It's big business.
00:54:40.719 --> 00:54:41.440
Um of revenue.
00:54:41.760 --> 00:54:44.639
It's a big change from the heedy days of your sort of startup.
00:54:44.960 --> 00:54:47.119
Yeah, no, and much, much, much, much more fun.
00:54:47.199 --> 00:54:48.239
I mean, oh my god.
00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:51.360
Um So you weren't there going, yppee, I've I've done it.
00:54:51.679 --> 00:54:52.320
Do you know not?
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:53.519
Because I was too frightened.
00:54:53.679 --> 00:54:58.880
Um I was too frightened, because that now I have 34,000 people.
00:54:59.360 --> 00:55:03.840
I mean, boots are 52,000 people, but then you've got 34,000 in Dixons, yeah.
00:55:04.320 --> 00:55:06.880
Um and boots a lot more.
00:55:07.039 --> 00:55:09.360
So you you're suddenly going, crikey.
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:15.360
Um that's quite a you know, if I cock this up, that's quite a big responsibility.
00:55:15.679 --> 00:55:22.480
And so I was I was, and again, Anna was totally brilliant, and she was like, you know, you you'll you'll you'll find a way you'll find a way.
00:55:22.639 --> 00:55:22.880
Yeah.
00:55:23.119 --> 00:55:24.960
So that was how that's how that happened.
00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:28.719
And then of course, once you break into that, you then get other ones.
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:31.440
Um I want to talk about entrepreneurship.
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:32.000
Yeah.
00:55:32.159 --> 00:55:58.000
I don't want to talk about founding companies entrepreneurship, but we sort of started on and the the sort of tenacity, more the mindset and more the attitude and the skill set, or um I don't know what your business school days taught you about entrepreneurship, if anything, but one of the things I remember vividly was the I think Stevenson definition of entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources under your control.
00:55:58.239 --> 00:56:03.519
Terrible words, but basically, success is that thing over there, yeah, and I'm gonna go for it.
00:56:03.599 --> 00:56:08.800
I'm not gonna be held back by the fact I don't have money, people, skills, yeah, you know.
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:14.159
I mean, frankly, taking the CEO job of uh of Dixons was a fairly entrepreneurial.
00:56:14.480 --> 00:56:18.159
No, it wasn't it wasn't because what you've got in big corporations is the opposite.
00:56:18.239 --> 00:56:21.199
You've got unlimited resources, unlimited assets.
00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:24.800
You you have the it's more like being uh in charge of an army.
00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:32.159
You you it's about how you configure and deploy rather than about the relentless goal regardless of the resources you're disposed of.
00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:39.119
You you look at boots and you say, we need to have a much stronger beauty part of our business.
00:56:39.280 --> 00:56:43.280
And you've got, frankly, an entire organization designed to not make that happen.
00:56:43.440 --> 00:56:44.719
That to me is entrepreneurial.
00:56:45.119 --> 00:56:45.840
No, it's not.
00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:48.400
There you're taking existing assets and redeploying them.
00:56:48.719 --> 00:56:51.599
It's also a very useful skill, but it's different.
00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:55.119
Much of our world's economy is organized into large corporations.
00:56:55.199 --> 00:57:03.840
And by the way, the entrepreneurs who are able to go from that pursuit of the regardless of resources, blah, blah, blah, right the way through to running giant global corporations.
00:57:03.920 --> 00:57:04.559
We know all their names.
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:10.960
The Bill Gates's and the Elon Musk, those people there are very, very few who are able to make that transition from one to the other.
00:57:11.199 --> 00:57:13.119
Turns out I can do the second, I can't do the first.
00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:14.079
And that's okay.
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:14.800
I think that's okay.
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:16.559
Let me reframe a question then.
00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:21.199
Do you ever want people to act more entrepreneurially in your organizations?
00:57:21.519 --> 00:57:26.159
And what would you mean by that if you ever said So I think that there are certain cases.
00:57:26.559 --> 00:57:33.440
One thing that big corporations are extraordinarily bad at is identifying new opportunities and exploiting them to turn them into big businesses.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:34.320
I mean, extraordinary bad.
00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:37.039
And in my current business, you know, we there are lots of things I would like to do.
00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:38.559
Which is healthcare, yeah.
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:40.239
So we have 300, right?
00:57:41.199 --> 00:57:42.960
300 eye hospitals or around Europe.
00:57:43.039 --> 00:57:46.639
So it's the biggest in the world in eye care and eye surgery.
00:57:46.880 --> 00:57:48.639
And it's it's interesting because it's healthcare.
00:57:48.800 --> 00:58:05.519
But there are lots of entrepreneurial opportunities that you you long for the business to have people in it who say, well, you know, with limited resources, I'm going to build something that's really particularly really quite major, and not be in the mindset of, oh, well, we're a big company and you know we can't do that because of this, and we can't do that because of this.
00:58:05.679 --> 00:58:11.519
So Boots was a good example where I wanted to build an online healthcare business and they've done a really, really good job.
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:15.119
And we, you know, you get one or two people who really want to drive it and make it work.
00:58:15.280 --> 00:58:22.079
And they have access to resources, they're actually quite hard to get because you're too little in the organization to get any traction.
00:58:22.320 --> 00:58:25.840
So though the really entrepreneurial ones, they will beg, borrow, and steal.
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:28.480
They'll they'll bootstrap in the way that entrepreneurs bootstrap.
00:58:28.559 --> 00:58:28.639
Yes.
00:58:28.880 --> 00:58:34.400
And and that is uh so, yes, is that there are opportunities for those kinds of skills.
00:58:34.719 --> 00:58:44.559
I I wanted to talk about this transition from really big, well-known retail to a more international private equity, but it's a whole it's a very different beast you've got into.
00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:47.679
So that you've you've you've put your finger on the two reasons why I've done it.
00:58:47.840 --> 00:58:51.360
So I know I'm I'm 59 years old, and I thought I've got one more in me.
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:54.320
Uh, I've got I was very happy at Boots, very happy.
00:58:54.400 --> 00:58:57.599
Um I could have very cheerfully carried on for another two, three years at Boots.
00:58:57.840 --> 00:59:05.679
It was opportunistic, as so many things are in a career, but um, I got a call, and um there were two things that appealed to me, and you've said them both.
00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:10.239
One is private equity, which I've never really done properly at scale, and the other one was international.
00:59:10.480 --> 00:59:17.119
It's fun to deal with and to learn how to communicate with people from Spain and from Holland and from you know, and to get stuff done in those environments is really fun.
00:59:17.199 --> 00:59:19.519
And then the third thing was it's healthcare.
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:30.559
Because what my real dream, at some stage, I will come back and say to whoever's in charge at the time, can I have a little piece of the NHS that you will let me have a go at at trying to fix?
00:59:30.719 --> 00:59:32.239
That's what I really want to do.
00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:39.440
And that they might tell me to piss off, or they might say, Great, uh, but but that's what I'd really like to do, and I need to have more healthcare credentials to do that.
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:41.440
On that bombshell.
00:59:43.039 --> 00:59:46.480
Because I've got so many questions.
00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:50.800
Uh you are meant to give three pieces of advice, very actionable pieces of advice.
00:59:51.119 --> 00:59:52.000
You can do it on anything.
00:59:52.159 --> 00:59:55.440
Conversations we've had now, or it could simply be about everyday life.
00:59:55.599 --> 00:59:56.400
I don't mind.
00:59:56.559 --> 00:59:57.679
What's top of your mind?
00:59:58.079 --> 01:00:02.079
Absolutely number one for me is don't worry.
01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:03.760
It's gonna be fine.
01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:14.400
So um that there have been times in my life, and there are certainly times in everybody's lives, when you think, oh, I'm you know, we're I'm doomed and I've made a misstep, and it's all gonna get horribly wrong.
01:00:14.639 --> 01:00:20.559
Unless you, you know, you put your hand in the till and you end up in jail, you are going to find a way out of it.
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:23.199
And even in those cases, you can say to someone, it'll be fine.
01:00:23.519 --> 01:00:23.840
It'll be fine.
01:00:24.639 --> 01:00:25.280
It'll be fine.
01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:26.960
You're not gonna die.
01:00:27.519 --> 01:00:29.440
It's really hard without an anna.
01:00:29.679 --> 01:00:29.920
For sure.
01:00:30.159 --> 01:00:30.960
How do you say that to yourself?
01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:32.880
Forget a flip chart and write it on there.
01:00:32.960 --> 01:00:34.159
It's going to be fine.
01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:44.800
So when if you consider the worst possible outcome of your current situation, you get to a place where you go, This could happen, you kind of you then go, and then it'll be fine.
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:51.519
You know, so that's the first and most important thing is the second thing is as quickly as possible.
01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:54.159
In my case, it took about 15 years.
01:00:54.639 --> 01:00:57.599
As quickly as possible, try and identify what you are not.
01:00:58.079 --> 01:01:02.000
So as it turns out, I am not an entrepreneur.
01:01:02.159 --> 01:01:20.000
I never was, and it it was very foolish to keep spending all that time trying to be one when actually I was I could have so much fun doing what I am, which is somebody who unlikes complicated, gnarly, you know, difficult corporate stuff.
01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:24.239
And if you can identify that in yourself, then that's great.
01:01:24.559 --> 01:01:29.440
There will be lots of entrepreneurs listening going, I've got big gnarly problems every every day in this.
01:01:29.840 --> 01:01:30.559
They're not really though.
01:01:31.679 --> 01:01:36.639
Because usually entrepreneurial businesses, if they're any good, are very, very simple in that what they're in the goals they're trying to achieve.
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:39.599
And that leads me to the third one, which is cut and run.
01:01:39.920 --> 01:01:40.559
Cut and run.
01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:41.440
Cut and run.
01:01:41.599 --> 01:01:46.000
You you need to set absolutely clear time frames on a business idea.
01:01:46.320 --> 01:01:48.159
You matter much more than the idea.
01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:50.079
The idea may be a crap one.
01:01:50.239 --> 01:02:03.280
You will be it is a human nature to be extraordinarily unwilling to release an idea that you got engaged with, which uh and that will consume time that you are not getting back.
01:02:03.519 --> 01:02:14.000
And so it it's uh it's a it's a tough one, that, because the entrepreneurs who really made it have maintained their self-belief during periods where most of us would have gone.
01:02:14.559 --> 01:02:15.119
But they've pivoted.
01:02:15.280 --> 01:02:15.840
They've pivoted.
01:02:16.079 --> 01:02:22.159
And it's very it's very unusual that they've carried on the same track, which wasn't working, wasn't working, wasn't working, and then it suddenly came right.
01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:23.760
It happens, but it's rare.
01:02:24.079 --> 01:02:26.880
What they've done is they've gone, no, I've I've missed that idea.
01:02:27.039 --> 01:02:29.679
But me, I can make something happen.
01:02:29.920 --> 01:02:31.039
That idea was the wrong one.
01:02:31.519 --> 01:02:34.880
The cut and run can also be a you know, make your early call on plan B.
01:02:35.119 --> 01:02:37.119
On pivot, yeah, on plan B, on whatever it is.
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:42.239
But because we know we it's very rare actually that that it's your first idea that is the one.
01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:46.079
And and so being willing to let go of that idea is is critical.
01:02:46.320 --> 01:02:50.320
Anyway, that for what it's worth, that's what they're you and I have known each other for donkeys years.
01:02:50.719 --> 01:02:56.400
I haven't seen enough of you the last decade or so, but I have watched with admiration.
01:02:56.639 --> 01:03:08.559
Well, I mean I haven't told anybody that, so no, with with admiration I've watched your personal pivot and excited for this current venture.
01:03:09.039 --> 01:03:12.559
I'm excited by the maybe that that future goal lying ahead of you.
01:03:12.719 --> 01:03:17.920
Oh, that I'm excited about and uh for sure there will be uh uh open doors.
01:03:18.239 --> 01:03:19.599
Uh Seb, thank you so much.
01:03:19.840 --> 01:03:20.559
Thank you.
01:03:20.880 --> 01:03:24.719
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Sebastian James as much as I did.
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:31.840
Seb and I may not have seen eye to eye on the question of entrepreneurship in big business, but I think most of that was semantics.
01:03:32.159 --> 01:03:38.320
After we stopped recording, Seb went to a whiteboard and outlined his plan for saving the NHS.
01:03:38.480 --> 01:03:42.159
I really do hope he gets the chance to implement some or all of that in the future.
01:03:42.559 --> 01:03:43.519
Watch this space.
01:03:43.840 --> 01:03:48.960
Apologies again to Seb and to you for the delays in getting this episode published.
01:03:49.119 --> 01:03:50.719
I hope the wait was worth it.
01:03:50.960 --> 01:03:53.440
I'll be back soon with new podcast episodes.
01:03:53.599 --> 01:03:58.239
Please make sure you follow to get notified when I eventually get round to editing them.
01:03:58.400 --> 01:04:00.559
And in the meantime, thank you for listening.
