Business starts local, so I’m happy to spend time helping out local businesses where I can. Fingal chamber of commerce graciously invited me to speak at their ‘Behind the Business Event’ as part of Local Enterprise week 2024. I received the potential questions in advance so I’ve spent time thinking about the answers in advance so that I can add some value to the people attending and perhaps you.
Company overview: Please give us a brief introduction of your company and your role? What is your mission? What are products or services? Who are your target audience?
During this discussion, so that you can get a broad range of information, I’ll refer to my current company, How to Company (HTC) and my previous company Water2buy (W2B) and if relevant, my other businesses I had before them. My current company HTC is a research company and it’s main goal is to provide a vehicle for me to study the things that interest me. The thing that has stood out the most is a project I call Navigator. It’s mission is to produce stories that guide and serve, stories based on the experiences I’ve had over the last 20 years. A lot of those experiences came from building W2B from a local business to a global business and ending that with an exit. My target audience is you, business owners, leaders managers anybody on a mission, anyone with a purpose they are trying to fulfil.
Starting a business: What inspired you to start your own business? What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when starting your business in Ireland? What resources or support systems did you find helpful when starting your business?
Business is a world within the world, like a game, it’s challenging, dynamic, exciting, depressing and somehow from a young age I seemed to perceive that, and it seemed more interesting than imagining myself in a Job doing the same thing every day. I thought I’d jump in, be smarter than everyone else, collect the profit and retire young, by 27 I’d be on an island somewhere. In reality, it took about 3 times as long and I’m still on this Island (Ireland). There’s no challenge in starting a business, you’re either going to take that step or not and I don’t think it’s something you should be encouraged to do, it may seem strange to say, but having gone through a few of them the odds are very much stacked against you, the chances of failure are enormous. So if you’re challenged by the start it’s only going to get harder! In terms of resources and support, an important thing to have is someone else. I’d say that working with a co-founder, which I’ve done twice now, is an advantage. It’s very hard to find anyone who will understand exactly what you are going through and a co-founder is the one person who will be valuable because they have skin in the game, so they are going to be great when you need to work things out. Having one is not a guarantee of success it’s just an important resource for when things get complicated.
Business strategy and navigating the business landscape: How do you differentiate yourself from competitors and what sets your business apart in the market? What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are looking to succeed in business? What trends are you seeing in the business landscape, and how are you adapting to them?
In Water2buy we won the race, metaphorically speaking, because we were different. The difference we created was in the way an existing market was being served. Water filtration was a niche business with expensive equipment and a degree of expertise was required to install the product, in short getting filtered water was a bit complicated. So all we did was reduce the cost of the product by fulfilling it online and training the DIY savvy customer to install it themselves. Now the customer had a choice. Literally us or them. Every entrepreneur wishing to succeed needs to understand that. You need to create an obvious alternative that is you. Once we understood our purpose we made a one liner mission. “Water filtration made easy”. We made it our tag line and put it under the logo. It communicated clearly to the customer what we were about and internally we used that to make every decision. If someone said they wanted to do something, change the website, change the product, change a customer service policy. The question asked was does that make it easier? If it did then go do it! The obvious trend in business at the moment is the integration of AI. AI will be at least as disruptive as the Internet, mobile and social media, but the general consensus seems to be that it’s going to have a bigger impact that all of those combined. I’m adopting by embracing, I use AI as a tool in my business. I call it the anything tool. I use it for generating images that complement my posts, from those posts I get it to write derivative work, like suggesting titles. It’s also amazing at replying to a mundane letter from the bank! It seems AI will be the new software interface, the new way that we interact with computers, if that fact alone is disagreeable with you then it’s going to be an uncomfortable ride! Where it goes nobody knows, but it’s already creating change.
Building a successful team: What do you look for when hiring employees, and how do you ensure that you’re building a team that’s a good fit for your company? What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced when building a team, and how have you overcome them? How do you foster a culture of innovation and collaboration within your company?
Team is something it took me a long time to get right. I was – and maybe still am – horrible at hiring. But I did get team somewhat right in the end. I’m in the middle of writing a full chapter of the Navigator book on team so it’s something that I’ve spent a lot of time studying. There’s many parts to a successful team, but if you want to start getting it right, then the fundamental is that the team starts with the leader. The reason I was getting team wrong was because I had not learned how to be a good leader yet. A great example of this is Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool FC manager) All you have to do is listen to how his team describe him ‘A father figure’. The leader must be clear on the mission and the leader must hire a team that all believe in the mission. If you as the leader know your mission, then you decide on how you would like to achieve that mission, that’s the culture you create. You can have a battering ram of money hungry mercenaries, or a family of team members dedicated to the cause or anything in between. But if you don’t know what culture you are creating then you’ll get both, generate conflict and end up as a HR department rather than a leader. I got this right by putting in a lot of work of planning out what I wanted the team to do and how I wanted them to do it – the system. What did I want them to develop, what did I want them to say to the customer, even how I wanted them to communicate with me and their team mates. Then I put a lot of work into communicating this to each one of them individually. Then I put a lot of work in training each one of them on the system, then I let them off and gave them full autonomy to manage themselves within the system. The results was night and day. I ended up with happy employees, that created great solutions, were fulfilled by their work and they seemed to actually enjoy talking to me! Those people incidentally were all remote in India and I only met them in person once or twice, so it’s not about proximity.
Growing your business: What strategies have you used to grow your business, and how have they worked for you? What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced when scaling your business, and how have you overcome them? What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are looking to take their business to the next level?
You can grow your business by opening in more location and adding more products but the easiest way to grow your business is to increase your conversion rate. The easiest way to increase your conversion rate is by creating raving fans. The easiest way to create raving fans is to give them a great experience. Just do whatever it takes to make their experience with you great – remember its Us or Them, the customer has a choice. If they choose you, you must give them an experience that’s exceptional. That alone separates you from the crowd. Then ask them to publicly declare their experience with a 5 star review. You must ask them, we made it part of our process to ask them to review us and over time we built up thousands and thousands of reviews. That single strategy is better than any other growth strategy I’ve ever used.
There’s benefit from this strategy that will aid your need to scale. When you get it wrong the customer will be only too happy to give you a 1 star review and publicly lambaste you. At the beginning we were indigent, but then we realised that the reviews under 4 star told us everything we needed to change in our company. So we collected them and combined them and fixed all the problems. That had a compounding effect, it made the raving fans into beetle mania fans and the 3 stars into 5 stars. There was no issue with scaling that.
A lot of marketing will tell you about how great a company is, how they care about the environment, how they back brave but it’s all just hot air. Permanently fixing all the problems the customers told us about in the reviews 1-3 star reviews took us to the next level. We did not need to add in the lies and fluffy stuff. The changes we made were simple, they were innovative, those are the real decisions that will grow your business.
Balancing work and personal life: How do you balance running a business with other aspects of your life, such as family and friends? What strategies have you used to manage stress and maintain work-life balance? How do you prioritise your time, and what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs who are struggling to balance work and personal life?
When I first started in business it was just me, I enjoyed working all night, I would literally work all night some nights but I was in my 20s had loads of energy and no family. In my 30s I had less energy, a bigger business, a wife, a young family and a mortgage so the game was very different. There’s a couple of things I had to do, I had to make sure the bills were always paid at home so I had to get really good at budgeting I had to give me and my family stability and security. The second thing was to be home every day at 6pm. I decided that with my wife and I’m grateful that I made that decision. I told the voices in my head that if I could not make it happen in 8 hours per day then I was probably wasting 7 of them. Those are the basics, a firewall between your family and your business. Later I embarked on a journey of self improvement through exercise, meditation, diet and filling my mind with great books. Now in the 4th decade of my life I’ve doubled down on that stuff. It has become very important to me to learn and master calmness. I study and practice a lot around being present, in the moment, it takes a lot of practice to make yourself not to panic, to just be calm, to sit, to be bored on purpose, to be uncomfortable with financial decisions, to have awkward conversations. These things are all human traits that are already part of us we just blocked them out, or more likely drowned them out with all the noise in the world. If you’re struggling I promise you adding some exercise will help. Any exercise, walking, running, swimming just do it commit to it for a while and your state will change, when you feel that change discuss your problem with someone you trust, your wife, husband, friend, a co-founder or business partner comes in handy there. Personally, exercise is the single most effective magic bullet I’ve found for positive mental health. I chose running initially, then switched to swimming, now I walk. You do not need to do it every day, you do not need to run a marathon, you do not need to compete, you don’t need a gym membership, you don’t need to get fast, you do not need to enter the Olympics. Those things often put people off so forget them, keep it simple just get out and try some walking and see what happens. I would say that all success in business and life starts here.
Call to action: Where can we find out more (website or social media handles) and contact you (email address or LinkedIn)?
As we draw our conversation to a close, I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the chance to engage with you and for your open ears and open mind. My journey within HTC is driven by a passion to share narratives that not only enlighten but also empower. Through my own experiences, I’ve gleaned insights that I’m eager to pass on. It’s my belief that true wisdom comes from living through the stories we share, and it is this conviction that has led me to compile my learnings into something I call Navigator. If any part of my journey strikes a chord with you, I’m confident Navigator will offer you value.
Connecting and continuing this conversation is something I look forward to. You can easily find me on LinkedIn by searching my name or by scanning the QR code on my business card. Moreover, if you’re seeking guidance, whether it’s for personal growth or professional development, I invite you to schedule a complimentary one-on-one session with me through my website. For those in need of business insights or considering engaging my services you’ll find the navigator for hire page on my website.
Thank you once again for your time and attention. I am here to assist, to guide, and to serve as a beacon on your path to success. Let’s navigate the future together.
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