How to Run a Retail Empire – Touker Suleyman

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Can you imagine buying a failing business for £1 and turning it into a £70 million retail brand? Well, that’s exactly what Touker Suleyman did, not once but several times, and on this episode he talks to Adam Stott and shares the deals, the disasters and the hard-won lessons behind building a genuine retail empire!

He’s not just done this once; he’s done it multiple times. And you know what’s epic about today’s episode? He shares many of the strategies that he put in place to make this happen.

If you’re an ambitious business owner, this is a must-listen. You’re going to absolutely love the episode today on business growth secrets.

He explains: 

1. Why he lost everything to fraud in his twenties, and the due diligence lesson that saved his career
2. Why basket value is the single biggest thing that makes or breaks a retail business
3. Why you should never give a bank a personal guarantee

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:25 Touker’s Immigrant Background And Early Life
• 00:02:52 Starting In Fashion By Accident
• 00:03:19 First Job As An Article Clerk
• 00:04:22 Getting Involved In Public Companies
• 00:05:04 The Fraud That Cost Him Everything
• 00:06:22 The Power Of Due Diligence
• 00:07:14 Bouncing Back From Losing Everything
• 00:09:32 Moving Into Turkish Manufacturing
• 00:10:36 Employing Thousands Across Three Countries
• 00:11:07 The Ralph Lauren Opportunity
• 00:11:50 Buying Hawes & Curtis For £1
• 00:12:50 Scaling From One Store To A Retail Empire
• 00:14:23 Building Ghost, Finery And Other Brands
• 00:15:09 The Turkish Billionaire Who Changed His Career
• 00:19:47 Bringing Jobs And Dignity To Bulgaria And Georgia
• 00:22:57 The Ghost Perfume Standoff With Procter & Gamble
• 00:29:43 What To Look At Before Buying A Business
• 00:30:15 The Claire’s Deal And Why It Failed
• 00:31:12 How To Increase Your Basket Value
• 00:32:20 The Retail Brands Touker Admires
• 00:34:40 Solving Low Basket Value In Real Businesses
• 00:36:30 The Traits Touker Looks For In Dragons’ Den
• 00:38:18 How He Became A Dragon
• 00:40:36 The Best Part Of Being On Dragons’ Den
• 00:42:16 The Framework For Turning A Business Around
• 00:44:46 Why Trust Beats Being A Hard Boss
• 00:45:11 Business Lessons You Can Only Learn From Experience
• 00:45:46 Always Challenge Your Invoices And Never Trust One Quote
• 00:47:00 Why You Should Never Give A Bank A Personal Guarantee
• 00:48:02 Using Supplier Terms Instead Of A Bank Loan
• 00:49:37 Ads

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Let’s jump in.

We’re on. Hi, everybody. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Oh, everybody. For not being on the beach this afternoon, on a Friday afternoon and being here that that shows commitment. So let’s get the show on the road. Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ve all been really, really excited and everybody’s been, you know, really excited for you coming on.

And there’s so much value to add. I think it’d be really cool for us to perhaps learn a little bit about your background. Tucker, if you were to take us back to the beginning, what was young Tucker learning about business and money that kind of set you on the road if you were to take us back all the way to the beginning.

Wow. Well, I’m of Turkish Cypriot background. I remember my family are immigrants. They came to the UK in 1959. I was five years old. So you can work at my age.

I’m entitled to an old age pension card where they take one. And my family were hardworking restaurateurs. I went to a normal school in London, and I think I first got.

The attention to become an entrepreneur when I was probably in my early teens, and I was buying and selling things, but my real break came. I mean, it was of course, like all immigrant families, they want their children to be lawyers. This was this was before mobile phones, before computers, before anything. So my family wanted me to be a professional.

Well, you know, most immigrant families to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, something that they’re proud of. My family said, what do I want to be? I thought, I want to be an accountant. They know why, but I was good with numbers. So I started an accountancy firm and we were doing an audit, and one of them was a fashion house.

So I bought a few clothes and gave it to my grandmother for her. And then she calls me up and she said, those clothes you gave me. Can you get more? I said, why? She said, I sold them. That’s when you sold me. And we started off me buying these clothes and. And she had a little ring of women at home.

And that’s how I got into the fashion business. And of course, from a very young age.

I was interested in business. So my first job, proper job, was I was an article clerk at the firm of chartered accountants in London. I was earning 5 pounds a week. That was my salary, and we were doing these audits. And in those days there was three ways to make money that. So I was given the job of dealing with small businesses and and it was free.

One was the property business. Now this was in.

Early 70s before your time probably. Yeah. So it was probably in 73, 72, 70 around that period. And, and I was doing it was so in those days it was accountants, sorry. It was property. You have a celebrity or you’re even the fashion business. They were the three businesses then which was making in my eyes anyway. So I chose fashion.

So I left account. I didn’t finish my account as I left accountancy and started up with a partner. In those days he was a manufacturer of clothing and I was a good salesperson supposedly. And and I started selling clothes on to retailers. So it was in those days, not on the high street anymore. It was a who who remembers seeing that there’s quite a few.

So it was CNA in those days and a few other retailers. And from there I became successful at a very young age. And then I got involved in public companies. So.

Biggest lesson of my life. So at the age of 28, 27, 28, I was chairman of two public companies in the UK. And one of the biggest mistakes that I made was that we took over a business and we assumed that being a public company, all the figures were correct. And when we in those days there was a Coopers, a lot of today were sorry.

PwC were called Coopers and Library in those days. So we did a a review of the business to raise money and all the figures were fraudulent. So rather than having 60 million with assets, they had 20 million worth of debt so that the property will have to be 20 million, stock up for ten on the books, always fraudulent.

And in those days you couldn’t see it. So I lost everything. Good lesson. At my age, I wasn’t married, I had no children. And Lloyds Bank, I’m still with Lloyds Bank after 50 years and it taught me a big lesson. So whatever you’re doing, if you’re buying a business, if you’re buying stock from somebody, if you’re selling to somebody, if you’ve got a supplier, do your due diligence.

Due diligence is knowledge. And today it’s very easy. You’ve got the internet, you’ve got AI. Now in five minutes you can get any information you want on anybody, on any business or any idea, you know. And that’s the first thing I learned about business. Don’t do anything without doing your due diligence. You know, even if you’re starting a new business, you know, and probably get to that a bit later about how you start a new business and what you look for.

So from then on, I went into manufacturing and became very successful. And and in the before we jump into that too, I’d love to know, like when you lost everything. We had a situation yesterday when I bought somebody up on stage, a great person that a little bit of a hangover from going through a situation. I think most successful people have lost their business or had some failures.

I think it’s very natural. I’m a self of experienced that and I know how it feels. I just think that if you were to take yourself back to then how did did that feel? What did you say to yourself and how did you start to change things? You know, the the, the funny thing was, was that in my situation, it was public knowledge.

When I got involved in this public company, shares were free. Pence they went to free pounds overnight on the back of Polly Peck. In those days, you know, I think for me it was I remember it was like being on your own, isolated and the only people you could really turn to with your family and really close friends.

But I that’s what kept me going. I knew that I never wanted to give up, and family helped me bounce back really quickly, and I didn’t give up at all. And I put it down to experience. It takes that inner strength. You, you don’t think you’ve got it, but you have. And you’ve got to search for that inner strength to keep you going.

That’s really important, you know? And I think if you don’t fail, you won’t become successful. We all fail. It’s part of being an entrepreneur. And all we’re going to do is lift yourself up, rethink wherever I go wrong. What have I learned? Start again. And sometimes you need friends and family to start again. That’s what I had. Yeah I think brilliant to have that resilience from from there.

You said that you went on to, to the next thing. How did you like select the next thing. How did you bounce back. Did you go through any kind of like down period. Well I think I think what happened was being in the manufacturing world and in during my young age, I had two factories, one in Stoke on Trent.

I had my own production in the UK, clothing this’s and I built up a good business and and where I went wrong was I diversified through the advice of some stockbrokers in those days to go into public company, and that’s where I went wrong. But so I had a lot of loyal clientele, people I knew, so I could bounce back quite quickly.

I did, and the next move I did was in those days, there was a lot of manufacturing in the UK, and I was of Turkish Cypriot background, but never went to Turkey to look for manufacturing. So I went to Turkey and I realized there was an opportunity that I could manufacture clothing far cheaper than anybody else, hence went into manufacturing at one point and I was in partnership with my brother.

At one point we were employing 7000 people making clothes for marks dispensers. BHB, It’s Philip Green Day’s Arcadia pre Philip Green Day’s emphasized and so on. But just saying. But what I’m saying is I bounced back and became successful. And it was only when I mastered manufacturing employing a lot of people. And at one point I factories in Georgia, Bulgaria and Turkey all all been and we employed about 9000 people at one point in full supply in the market.

And then I was approached by Ralph Lauren. Would we make shirts for them for the European business, which we were making? And I realized it was the easier business than fashion. So we we started supplying Ralph Lauren and I said, why can’t I do it, have my own brand? So I walked down German streets with German Street is a very famous street in London for shirt makers.

Been there for over 100 years. I looked all the old brands and I thought, why can’t I own a brand like that? So I looked online. There was no line in those days. So. So I asked somebody about companies House who was doing what, and there was one company called Hawes and Curtis, and they were owned by a company called cordons, and they were in trouble.

They had about 800,000 pounds worth of debt and that one little shop, and it looked desperate. So I approached him and said, your business is about to go broke. They said, yes. I said, well, I’ll buy enough you for a pound.

So I bought the business for 1 pound. When I then did what? I then went to every person that was owed money and said, look, we’re about to go into liquidation. Would you take £0.10 in the pound? So I paid everybody off £0.10 in the pound. I had an iconic brand which was turning over in those days, 300 grand.

And we’ll do 70 million this year. Wow. Give it up.

So so that was my initial journey where I was a middleman supplying other people. And I decided to to control my own destiny. And my destiny was to have my own brand. And that was put that power back into my control. But then I realized that with one store, you had no scale in order to do your own designs, your own product, your minimum quantity, you need to.

So very quickly, I opened 30 stores, closed half of them in between in the next five years because I was a small business. In order for me to be in the best position, I was not a good covenant, so I had to do with the second best location, the second best, but now it’s the opposite. So I went for a stage where whereas most businesses would have gone through a kVA in chains around, we paid landlords off, we got our leases and now we’ve only got 20, what I call flagship stores.

That’s all we’ve got. Yeah. And of course, since my, my original days, we had the introduction of mobile phones, which didn’t exist when I started. Then we had the internet, then we had online selling and all of that. Today is part of our daily lives. You know, technology is changing very fast, as you know, and and now.

I learned how to build a brand from there. I then bought a brand called Ghost Woman’s where brand that people know. And then we then bought a brand called finery, which is a disruptive women’s brand. We invested in a brand called Made to Measure, and then I was approached for Dragon’s questions. Now, you know, I think it’s really amazing to understand the journey.

I think in each part of the journey, there’s a lot there. Oh, yeah. I mean, people say you write a book. Yeah, I’ve set a lot of people. Yeah, I think the opposite. But the operator part, I mean, of things that have come into my mind, there’s a couple of things that come into my mind is, first of all, you the way that you tell the story, you know, was there no moments of fear, fear of expansion.

You know, you go out, you get the factories, you get these people working for you. Did you experience that along the way? Well, I’ll give you a few examples. So one of my key suppliers in Turkey was a gentleman, God rest his soul, and he was a billionaire virtually. And I’ll tell you a little story, because he helped me in my career.

This is we all need a break. Sometimes in life there’s an opportunity that comes along and you say, well, I want to grab that opportunity. So I had a little showroom in the West End of London and one afternoon a little. Well, he was older than me. Came to my office and said.

The little restaurant up the road said, you’re of Turkish Cypriot origin. I’m from Turkey. Do you mind if I come in and maybe give me a glass of water? I said, sure came in. And he sat there and he said, you were in the clothing business? Yes. He said, I’m in a textile business in Turkey. This is before I even went to Turkey.

This is how I. And he said to me, well, these are sort of fabrics that I, I do. So I said sure. So he said I want to go for dinner tonight. Do you know where you would recommend me? So I would take you for dinner. So anyway, he went for dinner and then he said, next week if you come to Turkey and I’ll show you what I do.

That’s all fine, man. And of respect. So I get on a plane and I get somebody picks me up on the VIP as I land. In those days, I remember turkey was very restricted. I mean, you couldn’t bring foreign newspapers in there were. They were very tough. You couldn’t bring labels for your garments through customs. You had to declare them.

It’s not a hurdles. So I arrived at a VIP and he puts me in a hotel. He owns the hotel. Fine. And then the following morning he said, meet me at the airport.

Meet me at So-and-so Airlines, his airline. We arrive in Turkey. There’s a parade of Mercedes waiting for him at the airport, and we go to the factory and the factories. Probably, if you could imagine, Selfridges 100 times bigger. Wow. In one estate where there would be spinning the yarn.

During the the weaving, the knitting, the dying, the finishing and everything in fabric format. I mean, I just thought, wow, never seen me like in my life. And this is an old man who walked into my office in London and he said to me, whatever you want is yours, so I’ll take you. So, so, so what happened was he said to me, I’m going to send you some fabric so you can sell it, okay?

A week later, I get 20 containers arrived at the office. He said, oh, so just take it when you sell it. Then he says, come back in a few weeks time. He says, see this building? I’m going to build this building. You could make your garments there. Built me a factory. Yeah. It took me in like a son.

Yeah. And for 40 he died about 15. But we still with some. We’re still doing business with him. Our head offices on that site. And that was my break. Now, what happened after that? He’d given. He was a Turkish Cypriot from a Bulgarian village. He said, I gave these people.

A promise. I would open a factory there in Bulgaria. So we went there. They we looked at the letters. There was no government factory building. It was empty. So we rented the building and he said to me, now see all these people, they’re all Turkish descendants in Bulgaria. They can’t get work. I want you to give them employment, start the factory up.

And within six months we had 600 people working there. Sounds got quite a man, right? So. And then years later, I had a friend of mine who had a terminal in Batumi in Georgia, and they owned they owned a garment factory for the government again came to me to help me out. And then we went into Georgia. So there’s me employed lots and lots of people that all change now.

But but that’s part of my journey because I learned about production. I learned about design, distribution, highs and lows. But the thing you got to learn when I went to Bulgaria, there was no food there. They had no food. All they had there was red wine and it was scraps. So whatever. I went there, I would take bags full of food to eat for the rest of the week and give to the people that were working with me.

We then introduced for the first time, lunch given to the to the workers because they didn’t have enough money to live. And I mean, I mean, the salaries in those days were like 10 pounds a month. So I’ve seen it all. You’d have seen people who worked hard for their money. And that taught me a lot that talked about being committed, being on a plane, being on a travel, just like you guys are here today.

You’re not here today because you want to see me year to day because you’re committed to your business. You know you want to do better. You want to learn, you know, and that’s really important having that commitment. Give it up for yourselves. Right. And I think I hear so much in that story, a thing is, first of all, when I met you downstairs, first time we met.

And you’re so friendly, such a nice fella. And I say, got a couple of the VIP later. Yeah, but you just you you want to go and build relationships and be a nice guy. And I think that’s a really nice thing. I think when you’ve been in business for 55 years and the one thing you want to say, never burn your bridges with anybody, you know, I fall out with people all day long.

That’s because they’re trying to rip me off. Because, you know, that’s one thing. But. But I think in business, you always got to think of a way. If I was in this position, what would I do? You know. So I’m now this is my 73rd year. This year I don’t look 7375 today. I know in a position where I want to give back, you know, that’s me.

And I do a lot of mentoring in London. People come to me advice for. And that’s what I enjoy helping people where I can. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the through that story of you taking the opportunity, somebody comes in, first of all, building relationships, which is critical in business, when you’ve got the opportunity, you’re getting on the plane.

You could have come up with every reason to not do that. Every it’s so easy, isn’t it, to to not take the opportunity. But when you take the opportunity, you open the door. And then what I also love about the story is the vision. Like I’m a big believer of you can accomplish what you’ve seen, but it’s very difficult if you haven’t seen it.

It’s a frame of reference. I was talking to everybody, like on the first day, about having a frame of reference about what’s possible, and when you do go and you see someone and they’re doing this and you go, wow, well, maybe you shouldn’t be afraid of this, right? I’ll do another story. If you’ve got plenty of time, we’ve got plenty of time.

Tell you another story. Which is. Which is in my career is always in the back of my mind. So when I was buying the brand ghost from the administrator.

We had a licensing agreement that we would give Procter and Gamble the license for them to sell ghost perfume. You probably know ghost ghost perfume. So I bid to by the brand goes for clothing and the perfume and everything. And I brought before I signed the deal, I’d go to Geneva and speak to Procter and Gamble and make sure that the relationship would continue after I signed.

Yeah. No, this was on the on the huge thing. No problem. Of course we want to continue the license. And the administrator said, right on Friday we’re going to sign the agreement. And great. An hour before we signed the agreement, I get a call from the administrator, got some not so great news for you. We can sell you the fashion business, but we can’t send you the license for the perfume.

I said, why? Unfortunately, we sold it to somebody else already.

So reluctantly. Not really. Like I bought the fashion business, so I had to do away with the license. And the licensing was bringing in 3 or 400 grand a year.

So about a month later, I get a phone call from Procter and Gamble, who bought who went behind my back and took. They bought the rights to the perfume. And what the mistake that they made legally was. They didn’t buy the perfume IP.

They bought the cosmetics, not the perfume. So they said to me, look, there’s been an error. Can we, can we adjust it? So I said to them, sorry. Said, look, we’ll pay your legal fees. I said, really? I don’t think so. A month goes by, they come along and said, oh, via, via somebody and said, look, we’ll give you 100 grand for your inconvenience.

I said, no, I don’t think so. Then they called me up another month later, the coffee shop, and said, we understand the position. If we went legal, we probably win this and we give you 300 grand said no. So I said to them, what turnover do you do? They said 30, 40 million, 20. Whatever it was. I said, so you’re willing to go to court and take a 5050 chance that you might lose?

Oh, two months go by and I get a phone call from somebody from the States, from a head office in Cincinnati. They are now, maybe I might have signed an NDA, but who cares? So can we meet? Can we meet in Geneva? Can we not? Procter and gamble. Can we meet in Geneva in a hotel? This is one of those sort of hard selling executives and said, sure.

So I said he said, well, let’s have dinner at 8:00 in the in the restaurant, in this beautiful hotel. I think it was cost a thousand a night in the hotel or something like that. Crazy. So I arrived half an hour early and I ordered a 2,000 pound bottle of wine.

It’s true story. So I put the wine there before he arrived. And when he arrived, I said to the, Will you open it now? Said, like so. He took the wine like a little baby and said, sir. And I said, you probably don’t get one in America. You know. So I said, it’s only 2000, 2000, whatever it was.

So just to set the tone right, you know. So he went along and he said, look, we need to do this deal. I’m here from America to see what we can do. And I said, really? I said, first of all, you guys are not honorable. That’s the prime reason why what we’ve got here, if you’re honorable, you just want to happened.

And if I knew now what I knew, I could have gone for a lot more. So I said. I said to him, look. And we had dinner. Very charming man. And every time I went off track, he came back on track. So I said, look, it’s 11:00. I’ve got a early flight to 11 tomorrow or whatever it was.

I’m going to be here, down here for a breakfast at 7:00. 8:00? It was. And I said, the price is 2 million pounds. You have agreed if you if you agree, be there for breakfast. If not, thank you very much. So we’re both parties companies. So I got there 7:45. He was there 730. So we sat down and he said to me, look, you know, he sure that that’s the figure.

I said, however, if you were in this way where I had some tax advice, it could be tax free to the company. I take 1.9, 1.8. So we ended up agreeing at 1.8. That’s a story that just goes to show that, again, you know, some misfortune at the beginning, but that misfortune turned out to be a fortunate event.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So so although I then found out that they sold the business to somebody else for a lot of money. So if I’d known that from day one, I’d have asked for a lot more. However, that’s a story that was always in the back of my, you know, everyone’s got a story in their business career, and that’s one story where a big conglomerate, you know, when when did something which I thought was very unethical and the end up paying the price.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, really, really interesting story for sure when it when it comes to buying businesses and you look at buying a business because you’ve done this obviously multiple different times. What’s like the first three things that you would look at if you were going to go and buy a business or the three numbers that you would look at, how do you.

Well, I think first of all, you say, why are you doing it? Okay. Why? The second thing is, what is the business? You’ve got to understand what is the business and what’s their competition? Why? Why are they not successful? What is it that making that business not succeed? Is it to bigger overhead design, quality, service pricing? And today is very easy.

Within ten minutes you can get all that off the internet, most of it of an industry. And I and I think that recently I made a bid for Claire’s who now all closed down. Yeah. And that was a good business. Now where did they go wrong? They were everywhere. Correct. Yeah. And but when I looked at the numbers, I looked at the average retail store.

80% of them were taking no more than ten grand a week, he said. Why? Because the average basket value was low. So when somebody went in there and they were spending 10 or 15 pounds, if you want to take 1,000 pounds, you need 100 customers a day. And if you’re paying minimum wage, you’re paying the rent, you’re paying the rates, you’re paying the insurance, you paid electricity, you’re going to take X amount of day just to cover the costs.

So lesson number one, if you’ve got a very low basket value product, remember how do you increase your basket value. Is it free for two. Is it bundle buyers. Is it all sorts of things? I’m launching a business. They’re the sort of challenges. So you’ve got to look at that. What is. So if I’m by the business I ask all the simple questions.

Why do they go wrong? What levers can I pull to turn it around? What synergies can I do with overhead to bring them into my business to cut the overhead? So all the questions that anybody would do, you know, and a lot of cases, it’s common sense. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Logical thinking you know.

So so I look at businesses all the time and in most cases I can tell you that’s bus. That’s a great business. Why is it failing? Because they had a great designer and the design is gone or they had a great product. There’s more competition. You know, I think today you’ve got to be really agile. Yeah. Is there any sort of business out there that you admire at the moment?

You look at a model or or someone that you’re seeing emerging that you think, oh, I like that. Yeah. Apple. Yeah.

But the ticket prices are good in there, right? They got that. Now all I’m saying is if you look at your own business and you say, right, who’s got businesses that sell put up below 20 pounds, you’ve got there. What’s your.

Yeah, but they don’t work, you know that. Yeah. We have.

Well, I’ll tell you why. I’ve got a two brush brand and my my dentist, Professor Lynch. He’s the number one dentist. He was one of the top $100 in the world. And the problem is, unless you got sufficient, what’s the chemical? That. So they left the stains up rather than bleaching the teeth. Right, right, right. Yeah. Anyway.

Okay, so you’ve got a product below 20 pounds. So therefore you need to do multiple bundles. Right. But you add something else in there. Maybe my chief brush or something.

Yeah. But that’s what I’m saying. So how do you, how do you get that basket value up. And then that applies to any business you know. Does anybody else have a similar problem? I have products in my hair salon Product Wales at the time for tech. Right. Sometimes it’s hard for me to sell the shampoos because I can get them elsewhere.

So I struggled to build a product bundle. Well, first of all, they come to you to have a head on. So that’s the that’s the first thing. So if the hair that you’ve done is beautiful, you’ve got to say I’m using this product. That’s how it looks that way, you know. And maybe you need to get them to sample it first.

Once they use it then they’ll come back and buy more. But but your bundle, you shouldn’t be relying on your product. It’s your it’s your services that comes first and that goes on top rather the other way around. Nobody’s going to come to you for a shampoo. If they’re coming for a haircut, they come for a haircut first.

Then the shampoo is an extra set add on. True. So don’t rely on people coming to you unless they bought it once. They’re coming back for repeats.

Before we move on. Anybody else got a question like that one at the back? Hi a coffee? Oh, it’s tough business. 4 or 5 pounds? 6 pounds basket value. Yeah. So it’s kind of it’s a smaller basket price. So I’ve increased the price of my coffee and I really try and upsell the cake. And I’d say day to day it’s I don’t sell sandwiches or like meals.

So my basket price is lower. So I really rely on events. So who’s your average. Where are you based? Who is your average customer? I’m based in Manchester and Altrincham, so I’m based in affluent area. So people are willing to spend like 4 pounds, 6 pound on an iced coffee. Yeah. I think what you need to do is to have a unique selling point.

So coffee martini. Yes. Or coffee match either something that’s going to say we’re going to go there because we’re going to get this much the coffee because you can get a coffee anywhere now. Yeah. So you need to brainstorm, get get your get your creative ideas and create product right where people will come to you, maybe have a happy hour, everything.

Maybe coffee where you got a drinking license, right. We’ll get one and then maybe put it, maybe alcohol inside the coffees and let people taste different things. Do some experimental up the value. Okay. Thank you. That’s really helpful. Good ideas there. Lovely.

It’s interesting. We had a conversation about that. We talked about different business models and you know, AV, which is really, really important when it comes to the traits of a business owners. Lots of different businesses in this room. And we’re going to dive into a few questions in a moment. We’ve got some lined up. But when it comes to the traits, what for?

You are the traits of an entrepreneur. You see lots of people walk into dragons. Then when you look at some of that walks into dragons, then you think, I’m going to invest in that person, or I want to work with that person. What are you looking for from a traits perspective? What are you really zone into? Look, I think the most important thing for me is honesty.

That comes number one. You’ve got to trust somebody. And I’ve made a few investments where there have been amazing businesses, but they’ve been untrustworthy. That’s point one. Point two is, is the passion that person’s got towards their business. You can have a business that’s not doing well. Got a great idea, but it’s not doing well. But you’re passionate about it.

You think I’m going to back that entrepreneur because they’re passionate? Yeah. So that is really, really important. And the other thing is, is is a determination, the dedication, the time and the vision. Where do they want to be. And that’s really important. And how do you get there and what differentiates them their product or their services against anybody else.

What is it that’s going to make them successful. You know a lot of them think, oh, come into the den, raise some money, I need it for marketing. But they’ve spent two underground blowing up marketing didn’t work. Yeah. You know, sometimes, you know, if you’ve got a business, you need marketing. You got to load. Better to give it away for free and get people in.

Let him try the product rather than give it to meta. You know, it’s cheaper than giving it to meta. Paying X grand a month on marketing and getting not getting your money back. Gotta get people consuming 100% in the den. Obviously we got to that you you get the opportunity to go on the den. How did that come about?

What was a funny thing is I was approached by a PR company who said, I hear that BBC are looking for new dragons. It’s about ten, 11 years ago now, 12 years ago. And I went for an audition and that was it. And I got a phone call telling me what I come up to Manchester to Media City, where BBC are to meet the producer.

So I went to see him and he said, let’s go for lunch. He’s a restaurant. The only people in there at that time of the day. And he said, you’re you’re probably wondering why you’re here. I said, well, it occurred to me why I’m here. He said, because I want you for my show. I said, and how your dates fixed for dinner, though I have to come back to you anyway.

Kind of. Long story short, I did another audition in a in a real den and that was it. And I became a dragon. And it was there with two new other dragons. At the time, it was Sarah Willingham and Nick Jenkins. The three of us were all three new dragons. Yeah, yeah. And you built Sarah, obviously a very, very close to Sarah.

And she. She loves you. She thinks you she said you had a great journey. Funnily enough, when adds aura as well, she said me and two car. She said he used to help me. He, he used to say your news are I’m going to help I did help. Mentors are a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She, she said that you helped her a lot and really took her through that journey.

Well I think it’s very, so when you’re, when you’re a new entrepreneur, you go under. Then as a dragon, it’s quite daunting. And there’s certain and certain things that, that likes Peter likes, you know, just fill them in. Exactly. Smooth ride.

Oh for sure. Well, and by the way. Peter did up to me. So does Peter’s always there. Pete, Peter and I are very close, so he’s always. And I think he’s he’s the dragon that he does it for the show, not for himself. Yeah. That’s really important that, you know, he he’s he’s been there for 20 years. Whatever he does, he does for the show.

And what’s been in the den. What do you think. Has there been has there been a deal that you’ve just loved or what’s what’s been the biggest moment from that, that ten years there that’s been great for you? Do you think as an individual like either a great deal or great relationship or something that’s really come out of all of that will tell you, I want to talk about any investments, but I’ll talk about what I’ve got out of it.

Yeah. So there there was 11 years ago, very naive about sustainability. Gluten free recycle restated, you name it. And the knowledge that I’ve gained through other industries. I was a fashion brand man. Manufacturing, you know. But what the Dennis helped me is expand my horizon to say that my knowledge can expand to other industries. Same principles, same values, same way of thinking.

And that’s what the den has done for me. It’s I can go into any business, spend a day there and come out of it and say, this is what this business should do. And that’s that’s probably what one day when I give up a drag and said it will come shortly because I’m at an age now, I want to pass the baton on to somebody younger.

Eventually I’d like to do what? Who is it? So Harvey Jones did a show called The Troubleshooter, knows that he went into companies that were in trouble, and he had advised him to how to turn it. That’s what I like to do a show on. Yeah, yeah, because I could go into a business, look at the numbers, look at the and within a few days tell you what needs to be done.

What’s the framework that you run through in your mind. Do you see it as a as a framework. I don’t even product or insight is right. Do you have it in. What are the things that you would look at if we were going to go and turn a business around? Maybe we’ll do that show together and I’ll do the marketing and sales.

Well, what do you want to what do you want to look at when you look at the business for you? It’s like everything you look at the management first. Who is the management? Is it a family business? Is it political because of it? You know, is there a rival between the family? Is that why it’s not working? Then you’re going to say, what sector is it in?

How does it rate with the best in its class? Is it the product? Is it the quality? Is it the all those things and say, right, is it the overhead? Is it that they’re inherited a building that’s too expensive? They’ve got staff that have been there for too long, they’re overpaid and under worked. You know, I mean for me in my office by the way, so you know, is people ask to work from home.

I say, well, when I start working from home, you can, but I’m in the office five days a week, you know, so, so I think I think we’re going to be a good fit for this show together to.

So I think a lot of it is winning the respect and the trust of your employees. You know, you never win. If you’re a hard boss, you never win. You never win. Are you a hard boss? I’ve got a member of my team here. Where is she? Am I a hard boss? Hard?

And I’m a fair boss. Yeah, I am demanding in my own way, but I get things done in a in a way where I don’t need to be hard, you know? And perhaps I’m disciplining myself, and that sets a standard, and I wouldn’t do anything that I would expect them to do. Yeah, I’m hands on. And I say to them all, I can, whatever you guys do here, I can do better.

However, they don’t want me. So that’s why you got a job, you know? Yeah. So. So, like, we have a beach and every Monday in the horse and we’ve got a marketing team, we’ve got a product team, we’ve got a creative team, we’ve got the whole team. And I always say, listen, none of you here is this the part from me?

But I can do all your jobs.

Yeah. Really pretty. I’ll, I’ll use that one. So we’re going to go to some audience questions in just one moment. But the last question I wanted to ask you obviously tons of experience in in so many different things. What’s a business lesson that you’ve had that could only come from experience? What’s one thing that you think you’ve learned that you know, that you wouldn’t read in a book that someone couldn’t tell you just you’ve had to experience?

What do you think is something? Well, there’s a few things, really. I mean, doing your due diligence is really important. That was part of my career when I started with the public companies. That’s really important, but that applies in anything. It could be the smallest little thing you’re doing. You’re giving credit to somebody, right? They all sound Dory, do your due diligence.

Yeah. I mean, one of my businesses, there’s a lot of business with QVC. QVC. The American has gone broke. Yeah, yeah. So now.

With you on the UK business. Yep. Yeah. Who would have thought QVC would go crazy, isn’t it? Yeah. So I think doing your due diligence and whatever you do is really important, you know, down, down to the guys. And the other thing is, is always challenge.

Every invoice you have. You look at your invoices, you challenge, I’m paying AB 10 pounds to get water. That’s because we will use AB. Get a couple of other quotes. You be surprised when when people know that you’ve got other quotes, they shouldn’t come back with better prices. Never accept one. Quote banks. The banks are the biggest pariahs, the biggest loan sharks, pawnbrokers going.

And I think and I’m always a great whenever I see bank directors, I tell them that you don’t give small business a chance. You’re pawnbrokers. You want their houses as collateral, you know, and that is terrible. I lost my house. When I say I lost it, the bank didn’t foreclose. I gave it back. I sold it, gave him the proceeds.

Lloyds. I’m still Lloyds. But what I’m saying, I hear it today. I never, never, never give a personal guarantee to a bank if you can avoid it. How many of you here have given personal guarantees?

Go. Go to the bank and say to consumers, I should take it off, said, you said your pawnbrokers. Now go. Yeah. Negotiate. Yeah. Tell them for me. I think it’s disgraceful that they. But the one thing I do say is you’ve got enough faith in your business that you do that, but why should they fix go wrong. We had we had Covid.

We had you know, and I’d hate to see people lose their homes. And we had a situation. That girl came on Dragon’s Den. Oh, I mortgaged my house to do this. I said, oh, no, you know, never do that. So if you have got a personal guarantee in any format, look at it, go back to and renegotiate. Ask yourself why.

You know, another little hint. One of my investments came to me and said, we need to raise more money. I said, yeah, this is our cash flow. So I said, okay, who’s your free biggest suppliers? A, B and C okay, what’s your terms? 30 days. Tell him go back to what, 90 days. Oh the one do that. Go and ask.

They ended up giving 60 days. That cash flow changed. Didn’t they need to raise any money. They got funded by the supplier. Now I’m not saying happens in every supplier, but if you’ve got a good relationship with a supplier you’ve been with a long, long time, you can go back and say, look, look, Henry, or whatever. I’ve been paying you 30 days regularly.

I’m looking to expand the bit with the more business I need 60 days because I’m giving 60 days credits, so those little things can really help. You not need a bank overdraft, maybe help you with cash flow. You know, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, you know. And I think sometimes we’re all afraid of unfortunately, today there’s no personalized banks.

You don’t talk to individuals anymore, you know. But I think the banks have now got localized managers to deal with. I think you could have befriend that relationship and explain get out of your get out of your personal guarantees, push your terms out, use your cash flow properly. Look at your overhead. You know, I think that’s brilliant. Vice.

Give it

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