150 Ultimate Business Secrets: From beer and chocolate to lingerie - exclusive tips for success from Britain's elite entrepreneurs

By Dan Matthews

'150 Ultimate Business Secrets' is a distillation of the experience and wisdom of successful businesspeople into a concise, easy-to-follow set of rules that makes it easy for you to access top tips and insider secrets that lead the way toward business success.
Britain's elite entrepreneurs reveal how they started, what helped them develop while others failed and, hard work aside, what special thing or things made their creation transform from a hopeful, tentative start-up into a flourishing and admired business. There is plenty of practical business advice that you can put into action to get your business moving.
Rules are included on the following topics: starting a business, customers and competitors, family business, luck, leadership... And lots more!
Pick up '150 Ultimate Business Secrets' now and take the first step to putting your business on the road to success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harriman House
• Release date: May 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857193223

Book preview

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Starting a business

Make sacrifices for your first clients

Adrian Moorhouse, Lane4 (HR)

When Adrian Moorhouse first founded Lane4 with a sports psychologist and a salesman, he lacked a business plan and, as an unrecognised business, had to fight for his early clients. His first customer was a British airport in need of a management-training programme.

After five presentations the buyers were still not convinced they should take a chance on Lane4, so Moorhouse offered them a performance-related price structure. First clients are always the hardest, and offering unusual incentives is a good way of getting them to choose your business.

We asked for their worst people, the people they thought could never change, and we promised to motivate them. We asked for half the money upfront and then the other half if they felt we did a good job. It went really well, even when they gave us people who didn’t want to do any learning. It was scary but we got results.

Online is not easier than bricks and mortar

Sarah Beeny, Property Ladder, Tepilo.com

It’s a common misconception that online businesses are easier to start and grow than bricks and mortar ones. They are actually very similar, except that instead of a physical shop you have a website – which, by the way, can be just as expensive to run.

Sarah Beeny, creator of two dotcoms, found that out the hard way. Instead of launching her first website MySingleFriend.com and seeing it take off immediately, she found herself phoning friends and begging them to upload their details to the site.

"Dotcoms are a lot harder than you think. You need a fantastic website; I’m really proud of Tepilo – I didn’t build it so I can boast about it. What I didn’t realise with MySingleFriend is that you have to constantly update it to keep it relevant or it will come crashing down. Don’t expect to build a site and just leave it there.

MySingleFriend is really popular and it’s successful, which is so exciting. But I have to say it was slow at the start; I had an image of it taking off really quickly and everyone using it, which is why I’m a lot more relaxed with Tepilo.

Research web-development companies thoroughly

Syed Ahmed, The Apprentice

Syed Ahmed had a nightmare with developers when he created a website for his first business, IT People. So much so that he founded a completely separate business, Get Launched, to help entrepreneurs avoid the same trauma.

I created Get Launched because of the pain of setting up a business when you don’t have all the contacts. In the course of having my website developed, I quickly learned that what other people need is a painless, one-stop shop. After we had it all in place our company flew pretty quickly.

Get a motto

Ajaz Ahmed, AKQA (marketing)

AKQA founder Ajaz Ahmed says that when he started his business he lacked the up-to-date equipment the firm is famous for today. He believes this was made up for by the founders’ commitment to its founding principles: innovation, service, quality and thought.

From the outset the group agreed they would represent these values in everything they did. Although these qualities were never written down, or even articulated explicitly to clients, they have acted as guiding principles to this day and reflect the firm’s continued commitment to quality.

Our business needed to represent those four principles without us making a big song and dance about it. Those values are why AKQA evolved from a scrappy start-up to a large independent agency.

Make sure you are ready to trade

Anthony Ganjou, Curb (marketing)

When Anthony Ganjou founded Curb, a creative advertising agency that utilises the natural environment in its work, he waited a full eight months before pitching to prospective clients. He thought it vital that the business first build a full-service offering before showing advertisers what it could do.

"We help advertisers convey their message in a striking way that is natural, yet stands out from the environment, be that sand sculptures, crop circles or ‘sea tagging’. I needed to be able to offer a range of these media to clients from the word go because I wanted Curb to look like an established business straightaway.

Our employees were putting the supply chain together, because we didn’t want to start without being able to deliver everything that we do. We wanted to work with the big boys from the word go and this preparation meant that we could.

Steal your first customers

Brad Burton, 4Networking

Like many people who start businesses, Brad Burton knew that his first customers would come from rival organisations. Unlike many start-ups, however, he went after them in brazen style, making it abundantly clear who he was and why he was stalking business-networking meetings.

In a flurry of guerrilla marketing Burton leafleted and canvassed local business people, convincing many of them to leave their networking groups and join the embryonic 4Networking for its first meeting. Having secured 72 attendees Burton never looked back.

"I handed envelopes to people. Inside it said, ‘Good Morning?’ and then listed the reasons why they should come over to us instead.

I admit I just basically spammed people because I had no money or resources. But it was very smart spam that looked like it was written just for you. People were talking about me – good and bad – but those who hated me four years ago are all over 4N now.

If you want to plant a tree, plant a tree!

David Gold, Ann Summers

David Gold believes it’s never too late to start a business. Older people have more life experience and are in many ways less likely to commit basic business errors, he says. Plus they have every chance of seeing the business mature.

"When I was 35 years of age I wanted to plant some trees at the bottom of the garden because beyond us there was going to be a development. My wife said to me, ‘You’re not planting trees, they’ll take forever to grow’.

I thought, ‘Sod it, I’m gonna plant some trees’. So I planted half a dozen at the back of the house. She died a few years ago and after the funeral I looked out of the window and there was a row of magnificent trees and they looked stunning. So I say this to you: plant the bloody trees.

There is no magic formula for start-ups

Deborah Meaden, Dragons’ Den

As an investor and mentor to a string of up-and-coming entrepreneurs, Deborah Meaden has unearthed some common misunderstandings held by people starting businesses. The most widespread, she says, is the belief in a universal formula for business success.

People regularly ask her for the ‘secret’ to becoming a wealthy entrepreneur, and she explains that it doesn’t exist. For Meaden, an idea with potential, hard work and good judgement are the fundamental building blocks to building a sustainable enterprise.

"I get the feeling that when people ask me how to become successful they want me to say A, B, C, D, bingo! If only it were that easy. While you can’t draw up the template for a perfect entrepreneur, there are definitely some common traits.

"People hope for a mystical answer, but actually I don’t think business is that complicated. It’s hard work, you have to have good judgement and be on the ball all the time, you’ve got to be effective too, and I don’t actually believe that everyone has it in them.

It’s part of this pop culture, I get young people telling me ‘I want to be a millionaire’. Being a millionaire is not a career; it’s an outcome if you’re clever and work hard. It’s the result, not the actual thing you do. I ask them ‘How are you going to do it?’ And they reply that they don’t know.

Get cosy with your market

Doug Richard, Dragons’ Den

For Doug Richard, the most important thing people forget when they start a business is market research. Entrepreneurs must know that their product or service will be in demand; but too many people trust a gut feeling instead of getting out there and testing the market thoroughly.

"I’m forever telling people with start-ups to make something people want. And people say ‘of course’, but when I ask, ‘How do you know?’, then frequently they don’t know, they believe. They haven’t talked to prospective customers and they haven’t measured the size of the need the customer has that they’re replacing.

They haven’t worked through the logic of the proposition in adequate detail to persuade me there’s enough room for a business to exist. They’re all caught up in the excitement of having spotted a gap. Sometimes gaps exist because they should. So that first question should take up a lot of your time.

Grab all opportunities

Kanya King, MOBO Awards

A chance encounter with a high-powered media executive gave Kanya King the leg-up she needed to get her MOBO Awards a television audience. But the meeting was a blessing and a curse, as she was given just six weeks to put the inaugural show together. King is not one to shrink from a challenge, however, and she took her chance.

King’s advice to other start-ups is to grab opportunities when they arise, however remote the likelihood that they will come good and no matter how much work is involved. The fact that MOBO exists is testament to her dedication and perseverance.

I always believe that you should campaign for opportunities and when you get them you have to grab them. That’s what we did. In six weeks we had to assemble a production crew, get a venue, and find available artists that were going to support us; it was an incredible effort. It was a tiny team but we were very passionate and we believed in it.

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