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Blue Dog Jewellery - The apprentice, inspirational men and women? You decide!

'King of the world!' The Apprentice and Sir Alan do austerity

Catch up with Anna Pickard's live blog of The Apprentice

Poll: Who will win The Apprentice?

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• 
• • Nancy Banks-Smith
  • The Guardian, Thursday 26 March 2009
  • Article history

Sir Alan Sugar and the 2009 Apprentice candidates . Photograph: Talkback Thames/BBC

When the new series of The Apprentice began on BBC1 yesterday there was one man missing from the sharp-suited shortlist. "Matey", as Sir Alan put it, "bottled it." Matey is Adam Freeman, who is alive and chipper and living in Essex. He pulled out at the last moment because he said he was another Sir Alan. They are both Jewish, both left school at 16 and both live in Chigwell. "We would be like two peas from the same pod. I would have won it and it would have been hell." Then again, Adam runs a loans website and is probably doing excellent business at the moment.

Among the others are an arthritic ex-footballer - the appropriately named Rocky - Mona, a Tanzanian beauty queen, and Noorul, an aristocratic teacher ("I talk posh and I look posh.")

This year business hit the buffers and there is blood on the boardroom floor. Phillip, for instance, may say "Business is the new rock 'n' roll and I'm Elvis Presley" but he is really a Geordie estate agent and can easily spare 12 weeks away from work. Sensitive to public sensibilities, the producers promised to try and bring out - and I quote - the funny and compassionate side of Sugar. The Sir Alan with a song in his heart. Sugar the Musical. Sir Alan did claim last night to know the words of Candle in the Wind but didn't offer to sing.

The apprentices' tasks were also geared to a cold climate. Sir Alan ("I dirtied my hands and you will be dirtying your hands also") told them to go out and clean something: "Cars, windows, houses, toilets, I don't care what it is." No one showed any inclination to clean loos. Cars, preferably limousines, were the universal choice, with a side bet on shining shoes at St Pancras station. Here Majid, who has the sort of beard you are not supposed to smile at in case you are sued, was waylaid by a short but vocal bloke in a baseball cap. "Four pahnd! It's a joke!" "Really?" said Majid, lowering his megaphone. "Get with it!" said the vocal bloke, who needed no megaphone. "I'm an old army man. I'll clean me own in two minutes!"

Meanwhile, back at the car lot, both teams were getting it in the neck for their sloppy sluicing. And, in the case of Kate ("it's a great mistake to see me as a dumb blonde"), for not knowing how a pressure washer works. "Never before in the history of car washing have so few cars been washed by so many people in such a long time," said Margaret, one of Sir Alan's fire dogs.

Which brings us to what Nick, the other fire dog, calls "the spanking in the boardroom". I am not sure Sir Alan has got the hang of grim austerity and quiet decorum. He sent the winning team off, rejoicing, to their digs ("eleven thousand square feet of luxury penthouse"), where barmen performed a dervish dance with cocktail shakers to appreciative whooping. It sounded like a City wine bar at the height of the boom. "King of the world!" yelled one apprentice.

The losing team turned on each other in time-honoured fashion. I cannot with a straight face repeat what Mona, the beauty queen, said about Debra, who was once voted Mouth of the Year. Debra called Anita a puppet or, possibly, a muppet. Anita, a lawyer, said: "I'm intelligent, articulate, eloquent. I'm the complete package. I've got the rainbow of skills that no one else will have." ... And was the first to be fired.

Whisked away by taxi, she said mildly: "I just think Sir Alan doesn't like lawyers." And, as a parting shot, that he'd be sorry. As Sir Alan, who puts great faith in what his gut tells him, nearly always chooses the wrong apprentice, she could be right.

Blue Dog Jewellery - How do you start your day?

I found this great tip on Alex Mandossian's blog for starting out each day with a daily dose of inspiration from TED TALKS.  Have a look at Alex's inspiring blog too.  I for one will now be starting every day with TED TALKS from now on.

WWW.ALEXMANDOSSIAN.COM

A Great Way To Start Your Day

Almost every entrepreneur I know begins doing business with a daily ritual.

Many of my colleagues read of the local newspaper.  Others watch the morning news on CNN.  And many others simply close their eyes and meditate for about 20 minutes.

I have no idea what you do or if you even have a daily ritual, but today I want to “part the curtain” on what I believe is the single most important activity I do to start my day.

It’s a simple 20-minute business ritual that inspires and motivates me to face any business challenge head-on and helps me to generate new ideas and innovations with little effort.

My Morning Ritual: At about 7:30am (Pacific Time) , I grab my PC mouse, fire-up my browser and punch-in the URL to a very special website where I can watch, listen and learn from the world’s most celebrated thought leaders.

With a few clicks of my mouse, I’ve got free instant access to speeches delivered by amazing presenters ranging from former U.S. President, Bill Clinton to Nobel laureates such as James D. Watson, Murray Gell-Mann, and Al Gore.

As I click around, I can also access speeches delivered by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and even best-selling authors like Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell and Barry Schwartz.

Click here to visit that very special website I’m talking about…

It’s not Google.  It’s not Yahoo.  And it’s not even Facebook or Twitter.  It’s the TED Talks List site and I consider it to be a “virtual paradise” for anyone interested in personal growth or human potential.

What is TED? “TED” stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” and it is an annual conference that defines its mission as “ideas worth spreading”. The lectures are typically limited to about 20 minutes and are called TED Talks.

TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, and has been held annually since 1990. Wurman left after the 2002 conference and event is now hosted by Chris Anderson.

TED Conferences are by invitation only.  If you’re fortunate enough to get invited, the annual membership fee is about $6K, which includes attendance of the conference, club mailings, networking tools and conference DVDs.

I haven’t yet attended a TED Conference, but one of my lifetime goals is to be invited to speak on stage.

Until that remarkable day comes, I will continue to experience my daily ritual watching one 20-minute dose of the most courageous, inspiring, fascinating and jaw-dropping talks on earth.

Here are four of my favorites:

Click here to view a courageous speech by Bill Gates.

Click here to view an inspiring speech by Newton Aduaka.

Click here to view a fascinating speech by Vilayanur Ramachandran.

Click here to view a jaw-dropping speech by Carolyn Porco.

What To Do Now: At this moment, you have free instant access to over 370 TED Talks for your online viewing. I encourage you to make TED Talks a part of your daily business ritual, like I do.

These presentations take about 20 minutes out of your day, but what you’ll discover and learn may last you a lifetime.

(As of January 2009, TED Talks were viewed over 90 million times by more than 15 million people).

Here is a link to the first inspiring video I watched today:

 

 

 

 

Blue Dog Jewellery - does size really matter?

This amusing story in today's Guardian demonstrates the lengths some people will go to in order to get themselves noticed on Google Earth.  What have you tried recently to get yourself noticed?

Teenager's 60ft painting of penis on parents' roof spotted in space

When ancient Britons drew male genitalia on chalk hillsides, little did they know people would ape their customs millennia later

 

A house, near Hungerford, has had a penis painted on its roof. Photograph: KNS News

When I was at school there was a craze for scrawling penis graffiti on the chairs. Hapless teachers would look around the class to work out what all the sniggering was about, only to find a cartoon cock and balls between their legs. Now this classroom humour seems to have spread to outer space.

Teenager Rory McInnes painted a giant phallus on the roof of his parents' West Berkshire mansion, apparently after watching a programme about Google Earth.

The BBC delicately describes it as a "comedy painting", saying it was there for a whole year before his parents found out.

It is not the first time the stunt has been tried. In 2006 the Sun reported that "pranksters drew a willy on the roof of a top school" in Teesside that went ­unnoticed until it appeared on Google Earth.

Similarly for the benefit of Google Earth, pupils drew a 6m penis in weedkiller on school playing fields in Southampton in 2007.

Then there's the Cerne Abbas giant … but that's another story. (See below)

Cerne Abbas Giant

A huge outline sculpted into the chalk hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas representing a naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant. Public perceptions are wide-ranging, is he smutty, humorous or offensive? Certainly he has been used to advertise products as diverse as condoms, jeans and bicycles. Many couples today believe him to be a unique aid to fertility. One of the Trust’s most racy remnants of our distant pagan past or a 17th-century political caricature? The Cerne Abbas figure has conventionally been viewed as a great symbol of ancient spirituality. A mound below the giant’s left hand may be the sculpted remnant of a severed head which he once clutched – a rather grisly if common ancient Celtic religious symbol. Alternatively, the Roman hero Hercules was often depicted naked with a club in his right hand and a lion skin draped over his left shoulder. Scientific tests have suggested that there might once have been something draped over the giant’s left side, but long grassed over. The problem with all these theories is that despite an abundant archive of local medieval documents at Cerne Abbey, there is no written reference to the giant before 1694. In 1774 the Rev. John Hutchins claimed he was told that the giant was ‘a modern thing’ cut by Lord Holles. Denzil Holles who owned Giant Hill from 1642 to 1666 was a fierce critic of Oliver Cromwell. Could the Cerne Abbas Giant seek to satirise Cromwell's stern puritanical rule? People will continue to speculate about the origins of the giant, but a new scientific technique, Optical Luminescence, may yet offer a concrete answer. This has already been used to date the Uffington White Horse as 3,000 years old. Did you know? During the Second World War, the giant was disguised to prevent the Germans from using him as an aerial landmark. Since then he has always been visible, receiving regular grass trimming and a full re-chalking every 25 years. Getting there: The village of Cerne Abbas is eight miles north of Dorchester on the A352 Sherbourne road. Posted by Shona Lockhart, 25th March 2009 www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery listens to a Dragon's advice on running a business in a tough climate

May 31, 2008

James Caan's how to minimise risk

In the first of a five-part series, the television dragon explains how to do business in a tough climate

James Caan is the newest dragon on the BBC television show Dragons’ Den. He is the chief executive of private-equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw and has been building and selling businesses since 1985 in various sectors, including publishing, HR, recruitment, software and franchising. A graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Programme, he has since won several awards for his entrepreneurship.

My business success has been built on recognising the importance of people. Since launching the executive recruitment firm Alexander Mann in 1985 I have invested in people businesses and inherently placed a high value on my staff. This is the cornerstone of how I now operate Hamilton Bradshaw, my private-equity investment company, and in developing the businesses in which I invest through the BBC television show Dragons’ Den.

In the highly competitive business world it makes good sense to maximise the probability of success by enabling employees to be ambassadors of the brand. However, with the ongoing advent of technology, too many companies increasingly focus on procedures and processes rather than the human factor.

On a trip to Nasa, former US president Bill Clinton met a man with a broom. During their conversation he asked the man what he did at Nasa. He replied: “I take people to the moon.” He knew that he worked in a team where every function was valued as being important to the overall performance of the organisation and Clinton had certainly never walked on cleaner floors.

 

James Caan: How to minimise risk part 1

In the first of a five-part series, the television dragon explains how to do business in a tough climate

Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, is a striking example of a leader who exudes the inclusive journey; the shop floor is an important ingredient in the overall strategy of the business, and the company has thrived because of it. When management brings all components of the business into harmony they will tend to be successful by default.

How do you get people to engage with the whole ethos of the business? Most organisations emphasise the values of their leaders, but what are the values of the component parts? The key is to listen to the voices from the various departments and understand the values of the people working in them.

An interesting example is one acquisition I made last year where revenues exceeded £180m. I increased profitability by 107% over 12 months despite difficult market conditions by implementing a strategy developed using feedback from customer-facing employees. This proved to me that the whole of a business is worth more than the sum of the parts. I invariably invite an employee from the acquired company to each board meeting. First, in this way this person feels significantly involved at the highest level and is likely to tell everyone. Second, and most important, these presentations usually offer up some gems of useful information. I continue to use this technique across all my business interests.

Regrettably, if people have a great idea, in most firms today their first impulse is to leave and join a rival or set up in competition themselves. In 90% of these cases the idea will relate to the everyday operation of the organisation, and the first port of call should ideally be the company itself. It is so important for business leaders to establish a level of communication that ensures retention of creative staff and not let this intellectual property go out of the door. To lose them in today’s competitive market risks launching a dangerous competitor.

When I owned Alexander Mann I was approached by a very smart employee. She had come up with an idea, way ahead of its time, that would change the direction of the recruitment industry. The market was transaction-led, which resulted in a potential employer using the services of a variety of recruitment companies to fill vacancies within the different departments of their organisation.

This woman thought that employers would prefer to use one main supplier to manage the supply chain. For example, a leading technology company was using the services of 50 different suppliers with 50 different processes that required a large in-house HR department to manage. The idea was that this company, and all companies, should focus on their core business and let a recruitment firm centralise the entire supply process.

The passion of this individual was overwhelming, so I listened, supported her idea and encouraged her to set up a new division. By using expertise and technology to apply the necessary efficiencies to develop an attractive proposition, we got the technology firm using Alexander Mann for all its recruitment needs — a move that also had a huge impact on our competition. This division is generating revenues in excess of £380m today. It is a great example of the effectiveness of encouraging intrapreneurship rather than entrepreneurship in your organisation. If I hadn’t, the very idea would certainly have precipitated an important competitor, instead of an asset.

As well as getting good value from employees it is equally important to value them and create an environment that nurtures camaraderie. This is best achieved by having fun together. At Alexander Mann I started the AM Sound Band and justified my belief that in any organisation with hundreds of people, finding four with karaoke fever, drum or guitar yearnings, is not too far a stretch. The AM Sound Band subsequently played at our conferences and fostered a sense of belonging, company-wide.

It was a huge success, in no small part thanks to one band member who was adept at changing the words to well- known songs. Imagine the impact at a sales meeting when the lyrics to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, “Mama, I’ve just killed a man” is replaced by “Jimmy, I’ve just placed a man.” It was highly appropriate and had the audience in fits of laughter. No amount of money can buy that sense of team spirit. With a little research, similar opportunities will present themselves in most organisations and the team will grow from the experience.

June 8, 2008

Part 2

James Caan's how to minimise risk: imaginative promotion

In the second of our five-part series, the television dragon urges firms to analyse the market and be imaginative in promoting themselves

James Caan is the newest dragon on the BBC television show Dragons’ Den. He is the chief executive of private-equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw and has been building and selling businesses since 1985 in various sectors, including publishing, HR, recruitment, software and franchising. A graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Programme, he has since won several awards for his entrepreneurship.

Ten years ago, businesses would have commissioned expensive advertising campaigns incorporating any or all of print, radio or TV media. But nowadays this whole concept has changed. Why print brochures that are expensive to produce and distribute when the internet has transformed the way we can promote our businesses? With customers no longer randomly looking for a product or service, the internet offers a great opportunity to develop a targeted route to your market.

With the ever-increasing amount of websites, firms need to focus on the content, functionality and positioning of their web presence. Just as a successful high-street retailer will regularly update its shop window to increase foot fall, a website must be dynamic if it is to showcase a business effectively. The potential for new customers on the internet is enormous, with 2.7 billion searches each month on Google alone.

As people become more dependent on the internet, this audience will not go away and should be addressed accordingly. However, it is not sensible to rely on just one method of promotion. To catch all potential customers it is important to adopt a creative approach by using a mix of the internet, telesales and direct marketing.

 

A question often asked in the Dragons’ Den is “Has the product actually been sent to your target market?” Too often the negative response indicates that people overcomplicate their marketing strategy and don’t simply identify the customer and put the product into their hand.

If, when selling to an organisation, you haven’t had a reply, don’t assume that it’s because the buyer is too busy. Try to find out why by asking “What has to be done for this to fit your requirements?” The feedback will improve your marketing strategy. Priced at £10, your product might have been rejected, but by looking at production costs and reducing the price to £5 it might become the product the buyer has been looking for all year.

The key is not to be obsessive or possessive about your idea but to be flexible. For example, I introduced the concept of Rec2Rec (sourcing recruitment consultants for recruitment agencies) to a sceptical market. Nobody wanted the service. However, by asking the right questions I identified the presentation that addressed their needs. Instead of giving up I listened to the market and created a huge revenue stream for my company.

This leads me to the human factor in promotion. If you employ a sales force to reach your market, how do you attract, remunerate and motivate them? In one of my early acquisitions a member of that firm’s sales team told me our commissions were not competitive. I learnt that, although we paid the same industry basic salary, our top rate of commission was 25%, whereas others paid 40% on fee income bands that were structured like a ratchet. What was significant was the focus on the 40% and not the ratchet.

I questioned why we, too, could not pay 40%, with the company keeping 60% of the higher fee income secured. We changed our rate and overnight became more competitive in the market with a highly motivated sales force. Staff productivity and profit margins increased along with their commissions without increasing the cost base.

In addition to benefiting from available advertising channels and a more motivated sales force, look for “savvy” marketing techniques. I believe that the two most impressive examples at a global level are Microsoft and Intel.

Microsoft is the market leader in its sector as a result of the way it presents its products. Microsoft’s competitors sold individual software packages, so when we bought a computer we had to buy different types of software. Microsoft doesn’t sell individual components. When you buy a Microsoft package such as Windows, the individual components and updates are free.

Rather than product quality, Microsoft’s success is due to the clever marketing and packaging of their “free” products. This makes competitors look expensive and in effect locks them out of the market.

Intel realised that its product could be replicated and possibly made cheaper by anybody, so it presented its microchip not as a commodity, but as a value-add that epitomises the concept of a commodity. When we buy a car how many of us have any idea of what manufacturers’ components are in the engine? That the Intel chip has become a premium product is almost a ridiculous idea. Yet through collaborating with Microsoft and IBM advertising campaigns, Intel has communicated to consumers that if they were to buy a computer without an Intel chip it would be an inferior product - how smart this is.

The chip maker agreed to contribute to the advertising campaigns of some of the world’s top technology companies -– which were both current and potential customers - and pay them not with a cheque on day one but as a rebate on volume sales that these companies placed with Intel stimulated by the mass global advertising campaigns they ran. Intel’s success is therefore not just about an advertising campaign but also about its collaboration agreements that enables it to ride on the back of its customers’ success.

Essentially, these examples demonstrate that taking a simple idea and turning it into a global brand within a competitive environment make it necessary to be creative with your marketing strategy - the rewards will then surely follow.

June 15, 2008

 

 

Part 3

 

James Caan's how to minimise risk: seizing opportunites

In the third of a five part series the television dragon says that there are bargains to be found during a downturn

In today’s economic environment there is no such thing as isolation. Events in another sector on another continent could affect your business.

For example, the credit crisis spawned by the sub-prime housing market in America had an immediate effect on US liquidity and a critical impact on both the cost and supply of funds, and then spread across the Atlantic to Britain.

After the $950 billion (£485 billion) write-down in America and despite the Bank of England’s attempt to ease the liquidity situation in Britain, there is much less money for doing deals and fewer investors able to do them.

 With a rise in Libor, the interest rate banks charge each other for loans to ensure their own liquidity, British banks are paying more for their money. Needing to cover their own balance-sheet deficits or provisions, they are charging higher margins to borrowers and trying to attract savings, not lend.

This can be seen in the property sector, which for the past few years has been regarded as an excellent business opportunity. Last year, 85%-90% LTV (loan to value) was readily available from most commercial banks. Today, LTVs are lower, typically 65%-70%, which requires a much higher equity component.

For example, last year, 85% LTV plus £1.5m equity would have bought a £10m property. Now, to buy the same property with a 65% LTV, the equity requirement has more than doubled to £3.5m.

With fewer deals taking place, the price of property is being pushed downwards. So there are opportunities in a falling market, and this especially applies to those who are liquid, able to act quickly and apply their cash.

In such circumstances consider syndicating the equity requirement of a deal to two or three co-investors to secure the opportunity with a lower loan while also spreading the risk. Lower LTVs will also ensure you get better margins from banks.

With depressed growth forecasts causing property and company valuations to decline, buyers today will have an advantage when there is an upturn in the market.

This principle also works with employment. With my background in recruitment, I am aware that the best people are available before a market becomes buoyant. If a leading professional-services company is releasing 10% of its workforce, this is a good time to employ highly talented people who weren’t available 10 months ago.

In all areas of business it is just a case of prising out interesting opportunities presented by the market. For instance, a leading private bank is currently consolidating its property portfolio and centralising some of its operations. As a result, it has recently vacated premises in Cavendish Square, London. I have been looking for prestigious headquarters for my company, Hamilton Bradshaw and, lo and behold, a perfect opportunity presents itself at a competitive price.

Fortunately, this opportunity coincided with a position of good liquidity following the sale of a number of assets last year before the credit crunch. Was this foresight or luck?

In any situation, when I have sold assets it has been when the valuation is at an attractive level that provides a good return.

My experience in a rising market has been to take the profit on the table, having made a fair return, and not gamble on the value increasing further.

In general this has meant that I have always sold my assets at or near the top of the market; understanding this cycle led me to sell my main business, the executive-recruitment firm Alexander Mann, in 1999 at its peak.

The lesson I have learnt is to recognise when I have made a reasonable and fair return on my investment, to sell leaving something on the table for the next guy, and move on swiftly to another opportunity. This attitude denotes the difference between an entrepreneur and a gambler.

There is also another attribute of the successful entrepreneur that will assist in weathering a downturn in the market – self belief.

In the late 1980s I was on a high, with Alexander Mann placing candidates in record numbers. In 1991 the recession hit hard and, instead of recruiting, my clients were all making people redundant. This was not something I had ever experienced and I had to evaluate my options – observing the masses and doing the opposite.

In the face of huge competition, I had built a successful business in recruitment. I knew the recruitment industry but little else.

With competitors going under every week I was determined to ride out the recession and reap the benefits of being in a good position when the market recovered. With the support of a reduced workforce, offering reduced fees, taking reduced commissions and working harder than ever before, Alexander Mann was perfectly placed when the recession eventually passed over.

History shows there is a continuous cycle of ups and downs in the economy. So this is a good time to test your business skills and evaluate risks that apply to you, draw on your strengths, rely on your instincts and have confidence in yourself and your team.

However, if you are looking to borrow to make an acquisition, buy a property or implement an invoice-discounting system, be aware that in a falling market the cost of capital will be higher than in recent years.

Consider the timing of your transactions – it might be better to wait until the credit crisis has settled and banks are in a better position to lend.

In the meantime, if you are in a business with high receivables, avoid being a provider of free credit and make sure you are collecting it. Remember: cash is king.

Part 4

James Caan's how to minimise risk: exploiting technology

In the fourth of a five part series the television dragon says you can find much more efficient ways of working

 

Dragons Den James Caan, chief executive of Hamilton Bradshaw

I regard the human resource in business as being vital to success. However, this does not mean that all else is secondary. Technology is opening up an ever-broader range of options, creating the right environment in which to increase productivity, reduce overheads and maintain profitability in an increasingly competitive market.

Some options won’t suit some businesses, but it is important nonetheless to embrace new technology to improve performance. Areas to consider might be the introduction of flexible working, outsourcing or simply better time management – all made possible by improved IT.

If you employ 50 to 100 staff, consider the savings that could be made by introducing flexible working for 5%-10% of your employees. In return for providing them with a laptop and broadband connection you will reduce the cost of housing them in the building and the associated running costs. With advanced communication systems, an employee can be physically relocated but certainly not isolated in any way from the day-to-day operation of the business.

 

This level of flexibility might give you access to a different spectrum of employees, such as those who don’t wish to commute, or mothers returning to work. Flexible working might also increase productivity by allowing people to focus on specific projects, by improving time management and by generally raising staff morale through a better work-life balance.

Outsourcing is a prime example of a technologically driven option to improve the overall productivity of your business. Least-cost routing means that an employee in India, Pakistan or the Philippines can be called at local rates on a 0207 prefixed number – Lahore or London? In reality, does it matter?

I have used Greenwichbell, an outsourcing recruitment specialist, to fill 10 positions in Pakistan for one of the businesses in which I have invested. Each person is paid £850 a month with no further rent, IT, phone or stationery costs.

Now, compare this with the cost of an employee on the average salary in Britain, including apportioned overheads at about £3,500 per month. The cost-saving benefit is easy to calculate as £31,800 per year for each outsourced employee – and I have 10 of them.

Whatever the perception of outsourcing, the cost savings are considerable and hugely attractive to global companies such as Dell and GE, which outsource 10,000 and 18,000 jobs, respectively, to southern Asia.

However, I am not advocating the relocation of your whole operation. Rather, that you identify any components of your business that may effectively be outsourced and reap the benefits.

In addition to reducing costs by flexible working and outsourcing possibilities, technology should be used to improve time management throughout your business. Being able to remotely access e-mails on the move is an example.

What is the first thing we all do when we arrive at the office in the morning? We start by wading through our e-mails. The cost of providing an employee with a Blackberry should be related to the most efficient use of his time. If an employee on the average salary commutes by train every day for an hour each way and is able to read and send e-mails during the journey, that equates to 40 hours a month or about £500 of extra productivity against the typical Blackberry cost of £15 a month. It is difficult to ignore such savings.

As an investor in numerous businesses, I am able to use technology to increase the cost-effective opportunities. To help one recent acquisition secure customers all over the country, I established 10 virtual offices in leading cities across the land.

Historically, I would have had to take on property, staff and significant running costs in 10 locations to present the market with the same company profile.

Today the use of virtual office facilities – a prestigious address with a mail-forwarding service and exclusive telephone number with call/message forwarding provided by a dedicated team – has created an immediate national presence without high overheads.

When customers call to arrange a meeting they can simply be diverted to a sales representative’s mobile phone, irrespective of location. A meeting is then set up at the appropriate virtual office.

Using this technology to present a national – or even global – operation to your customer base will cost as little as £100 a month for each virtual office.

Compare this with the costs and time invested in running your “physical” offices, where the only extra value gained is the ability to interact with other employees – all other functions can now be serviced through technology.

Technology can also provide you with a huge shop window. We are all more likely to enter a shop with an attractively dressed window, yet websites are too often not maintained to the same standards. Your website needs to be continually updated to keep it fresh, interesting and competitive.

Technology will also improve customer service and reduce response times, with stock checks and order processing at the customer’s location, rather than confirmations having to be sent back to a central office for processing.

There are challenging times ahead that will put pressure on profitability. We should always be looking for ways to cut UK costs through the use of technological tools, and today there are many possibilities for increasing productivity and reducing operational costs.

Think creatively and consider your options, because as revenue streams fall so too must your unproductive overheads.

Part 5

In the last of the series, the television dragon says success is sweeter if you give something back

TODAY in Britain it is pretty cool to be an entrepreneur. Programmes such as The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den regularly attract more than 5m viewers. The number of men and women opting to run their own businesses is increasing, and the rewards of following your own vision can be seen in the lifestyles of those who become extremely wealthy through their own endeavours - which in turn inspires the next apparently limitless generation of aspiring entrepreneurs.

Not everyone is programmed to be an entrepreneur, however, and there is certainly more to it than a strong desire to make money. Whatever your starting point, no businessman or woman is an island capable of building a successful company alone.

Turning your dream into reality inevitably means creating a strong team, engaging them with your vision for the business and developing an environment that fosters the concept of ‘intrepreneurship’ - encouraging a creative approach to problem solving within a company and retaining valuable intellectual property.

 Because you are at the centre of the organisation it is vital that staff are able to tell you about any issues and ideas they might have. Too many businesses fail because the leader stamps his or her personality and authority on the whole operation rather than listening to people working in the component parts of the organisation.

At a time when the highly competitive global market is depressed, it is even more crucial to listen to them and, especially, your customer-facing staff.

If your working environment promotes the sharing of good ideas and early identification of potential threats then the probability of success is increased and the risks to your business reduced. To achieve this it is important to be visible - so talk to people. This simple interaction boosts confidence, which in turn helps staff take important strategic decisions. Instead of being at the heart of your business in an “ivory tower”, share the heart and passion of your vision with your employees.

So, while everyone cannot be an entrepreneur and not every entrepreneur will be successful, let’s postulate that the correct skills have been employed, the huge effort made and the risks overcome, and you have “made it”. The rewards can be fabulous. Okay, you’ve earned it, are entitled to love it and, indeed, people will expect you to have the trappings of success – but is that it?

For all the successful entrepreneurs that I know there is definitely more to it. Without exception, each of these dynamic people is an entrepreneur at heart with a desire to make a significant difference - in business, in their communities, in their environment and, in fact, in almost anything they can. Their successful journeys have not just been about profiteering but have become focused on what they can give back - and by this I don’t mean simply outbidding each other at charity auctions without the ability to influence and maximise the benefits derived from their donations.

A recent survey revealed that more people would now like to work for the Red Cross than the Virgin brand. There is a growing groundswell of sympathy for those around the world who need help as a consequence of economic circumstances or disaster, either natural or man-made. By looking for long-term projects that their organisation can fund, the successful entrepreneur can give a great deal back to a community - valuable work that can be shared with their employees.

To me there is definitely more satisfaction to be gained from giving than from receiving, so I have just such a project that is a lifelong commitment. In response to the need to educate boys and girls in rural Pakistan and to try to break the cycle of poverty that traps so many, I have built and staffed a school for 428 pupils. Each of these pupils needs books, uniforms, shoes, food, milk - the list goes on. For me this is the “real deal” - the title of my forthcoming biography, incidentally - and all my media earnings help fund this school, my passion project.

The important point is that my employees at Hamilton Bradshaw have embarked on this endeavour with me. Together we built and now staff a primary school and supply it with everything the pupils need. We also provide transport for teachers and pupils wherever necessary, and we are now building a secondary school.

When an employee of Hamilton Bradshaw visits the school for a week, the pupils, as well as the employee, benefit from the experience. As a consequence, my staff are very highly motivated by the survival and success of the school - which in turn creates a strong focus for my business that is, like all businesses, run for profit.

And so we come back to profit and the starting point of most entrepreneurs’ journeys. My mantra when looking to invest profits in a business is: “People, people, people”. While the dynamics of the business - the operating systems, the product or service and even the location - can be changed, you cannot fundamentally change people. In effect, my entrepreneurial aspiration is to invest in and nurture people.

I think this philosophy works. Being an entrepreneur at heart, I haven’t retired on past successes but have now developed a number of profitable businesses, created employment for many people and shared this good fortune with those who most need our help.

If your employees are fully behind your vision and have joined you on your journey you will have minimised the risk of not reaching your destination.

And if you can achieve this, you will not just be at the heart of a successful organisation - you will truly be an entrepreneur with heart.

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 20th March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery looks at this year's candidates for The Apprentice

All fired up: 15 ruthless self-promoters who want a job with Sir Alan Sugar

Pressure results in early casualty before fifth series of The Apprentice begins

• Tim Lusher
• The Guardian, Wednesday 18 March 2009
• Article history

Sir Alan Sugar. Photograph: Talkback Thames/BBC

One is a trainee stockbroker from Belfast who thinks making money is better than sex. One is a marketing consultant who describes herself as a "rough, tough cream puff from New York". Another is a science teacher from Rochdale who wants to become a millionaire property developer. And they're all ready to "step up to the plate" and "give it 110%" to win a job with Sir Alan Sugar.

As the BBC yesterday unveiled the 15 candidates - "Britain's brightest business talents" - who are about to do battle in the fifth series of The Apprentice, one thing was clear: on the evidence of the first episode this year's lineup is well crewed with the kind of entertaining blowhards that have made the show's previous four seasons compulsive viewing and a huge ratings hit.

Among the eight women and seven men pitched against each other are a former Tanzanian beauty queen [Mona Lewis, who leads the women in their first task] and a man from Derby who got sacked from his paper round as a teenager [Howard Ebison, who manages the men].

But the series, which begins on BBC1 next Wednesday, opens with the revelation that one candidate has already fired himself on the eve of filming - or "bottled it", as Sir Alan puts it. The unnamed contestant reportedly had second thoughts about being apart from his family for 12 weeks. "Pressure - that's what business is all about," warns Sir Alan, in one of his familiar boardroom briefings - or "spankings", as his sidekick Nick Hewer calls them.

"Are you tough enough to put up with it? Because matey wasn't."

The rest of this year's crop excels at dubious self-promotion, as delighted viewers have come to expect. "I am outstanding - it's a given," says business strategist Anita Shah. "I'm the complete package. I have the rainbow of skills people want."

Kate Walsh, a licensing development manager and Heather Mills lookalike, says: "It's a big mistake to see me as a dumb blonde."

Ruthlessness, as ever, is the badge of honour for many of the hopefuls in competition for the job and six-figure salary that awaits the winner. "You don't need to make friends on the way up when you are not going back down," says estate agent Phillip Taylor.

Sir Alan, aka SAS, doesn't have much time for all this hot air, of course. "I know the words to Candle in the Wind, but it doesn't make me Elton John," he says. He is "as hard to play as a Stradivarius. You lot are as easy to play as bongo drums."

He mercifully lets them return to their luxury penthouse to consider this with just one more tortuous metaphor scorching their ears: "I'm looking for a diamond, and remember - a diamond started life as a lump of coal that came good under extreme pressure."

Last year Lee McQueen won the final, having entertained and exasperated the nation in almost equal measure with his "reverse pterodactyl" impressions and unending cry: "That's what I'm talking about."

This year's winner? It's impossible to call a likely contender amid the unfamiliar blur of stripy ties, shouty male bonding, frosted lipgloss and frostier looks.

But judging by their shambolic performances in the first task, which involves setting up a cleaning business on a budget of £200, most of them don't mind getting their hands dirty - and that is always a good sign in a potential Apprentice champ.

This year's contestants

1 Debra Barr, 24, senior sales consultant, lives in Surrey. Awarded "mouth of the year" at her office Christmas party. Rarely closes it in the first episode.

2 Noorul Choudhury, 33, science teacher, lives in Rochdale. "I talk posh and I look posh." Believes Argos should be banned from selling jewellery.

3 Lorraine Tighe, 36, accounts manager, lives in Kent. Left school at 16, mother of two. "I've fought against all the odds," she says. The plucky grafter?

4 Yasmina Siadatan, 27, restaurateur, lives in London. Runs marathons, describes herself as "dominating yet adaptable" - a first on The Apprentice.

5 Kate Walsh, 27, licensing development manager, lives in Hampshire. Says she models her business style on Sex and the City's Samantha.

6 Kimberly Davis, 33, marketing consultant, lives in London. Bronx-born, ran a lemonade stand aged five, played flute at Carnegie Hall.

7 Phillip Taylor, 29, estate agent, lives in County Durham. Describes himself as confident, charming and a control freak. Classic Apprentice material.

8 Howard Ebison, 24, retail business manager, lives in Derby. Award-winning dancer, manages 10 pubs. Manages the men in the first task.

9 Rocky Andrews, 21, sandwich chain owner, lives in North Yorkshire. Already earns more than the salary Sir Alan is offering, running 15 shops.

10 Paula Jones, 29, human resource consultant, lives in Walsall. Loves fashion and interior design, was a championship shooter for army cadets.

11 Majid Nagra, 28, business development manager, lives in Coventry. Runs car hire business and works with charities.

12 Anita Shah, 35, business strategist, lives in Birmingham. Cricket fanatic, qualified lawyer and "humanitarian with a Bridget Jones alter ego".

13 Ben Clarke, 22, trainee stockbroker, lives in Belfast. Cites Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner as his business hero. Admits he can be "cocky".

14 James McQuillan, 32, senior commercial manager, lives in Surrey. Former child chess champion, admits to "foot in mouth syndrome".

15 Mona Lewis, 28, senior financial manager, lives in Kent. Born in Karachi, former beauty queen. Volunteers to lead the women in their first task.

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 18th March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery looks at the social enterprises helped by Comic Relief

February 10, 2009

Comic Relief for needy social enterprises

Once the fun of Red Nose Day is over, the serious business of distributing the millions of pounds raised gets underway

Nick Wyke

Behind all the fun of Comic Relief is the serious business of allocating funds to up to 60 social enterprises across the UK.

For the past 11 years Peter Argall, Comic Relief’s UK grants manager, has played a key role in this rigorous process “of interrogation and accountability”.

Although social enterprises are effectively businesses run for the benefit of communities, Argall has to ensure that Comic Relief’s broad aims of tackling poverty and social injustice are at the forefront of his team’s decision making.

The poverty of a starving child in Africa is blindingly obvious but, says Argall, “for some people it can be harder to understand the poverty of experience and expectation, and economic poverty in our own country because of the welfare system.”

Through a series of mostly small grants (up to £5,000 over three years) and a dozen or so larger grants (up to £120,000 over three years) Comic Relief strives “to enable and encourage people in communities who have identified a problem to overcome a lack of resources or services and find the confidence to improve things,” Argall says.

Since a review in 2005, social enterprises have been increasingly included in Comic Relief’s remit alongside, charities, traditional community groups or self-help services.

“Charities are very good,” says Argall, “but (social enterprises) SEs have the capacity to grow social capital and can be more sustainable in the long run. They have real value, especially as the economy weakens.”

He cites two examples where SEs have made a real difference “further down the food chain” - Class One Kids in Gateshead, which recycles school uniforms in the community, and the North Glasgow Community Food Initiative, which encourages low-income participants to grow their own food and share healthy ingredients.

“We want to increase the skills base of the funded company, from its budgeting to its training, but at the same time we want them to provide tangible benefits for communities in need,” Argall says.

Those fortunate enough to receive grants have to agree to meet a range of outcomes, which are then monitored closely. These include providing workshops or conferences “to support local people with local problems”.

“We have a strong commitment to empower local people,” says Argall. “The idea is to teach people how to fish rather than hand them the fish on a plate.”

At a time when local authority and health authority grants are particularly hard to come by, Greig Sandilands, project manager at the North Glasgow Community Food Initiative (www.ngcfi.org.uk), says the Comic Relief funding underpins his 80-strong team of volunteers who sell fruit and vegetables and host cookery classes in low income communities.

“We’re hoping that our social enterprise will allow us to create a market garden so we can operate on a larger scale, offering a vegetable box scheme and classes to teach asylum seekers and those at risk of being homeless how to cook simple, healthy meals on a budget,” says Sandilands.

At Sound Minds (www.soundminds.co.uk), a London-based emerging social enterprise that supports musicians, artists and workshop leaders to access session employment within a mental health programme, any surplus profit is ploughed back into the scheme. “In the past year they’ve helped 31 people into paid employment, who might have been stigmatised elsewhere because of their mental health difficulties,” says Argall.

Paul Brewer, chief executive of Sound Minds, says: “The funding has helped us to open doors in the music industry and market acts.

“A lot of these people are very talented but haven’t been in work for a long time. It’s a boost for their self-esteem once they’ve performed to an appreciative audience.”

Brewer mentions a former member of the group Aswad who played his first gig in many years at the Lambeth Country Show last summer. The last time the reggae star had played on that stage had been in a Rock Against Racism concert alongside Elvis Costello in 1978.

“When the crowds see these people back on stage they realise that they have something to offer,” says Brewer.

This year’s Red Nose Day is on Friday 13 March. For more information visit www.rednoseday.com

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 14th March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery - looks at Duncan Bannatyne, Dragon's Den tycoon

February 15, 2009

Duncan Bannatyne: He breathes fire on his own family

The Dragons’ Den tycoon likes to be the boss: he is feuding with two brothers and a clause in his children’s trust funds forbids them to smoke

Duncan Bannatyne

Ed Caesar

Who needs enemies when you have siblings like Duncan Bannatyne’s? Relations between the “nasty dragon” from the BBC’s Dragons’ Den and two of his younger brothers, Bill and Sandy, have degenerated to such a spectacular extent that they’ve added their names to an “I Hate Duncan Bannatyne” page on Facebook. To be precise, they were among the first on it. The group has now been taken down. For connoisseurs of feuds, this is the best show in town.

“It’s true I don’t get on with them,” sighs the businessman. He’s in the chairman’s office of his Darlington headquarters (named, with characteristic bombast, Powerhouse). Behind his tan he seems agitated. He is not smiling his Colgate smile. He couldn’t be further, in fact, from the snappy, snarling businessman he is on telly, cutting dead the dreams of off-duty accountants and their helicopter armchairs and reversible cat litter trays, alongside his fellow dragons Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones, Theo Paphitis and James Caan. (With a fortune estimated, by himself, at £310m, Bannatyne is by far the wealthiest of them.)

Ostensibly, the feud started at a party three years ago: “It was my wife’s 40th birthday. All the drink was free. I invited all my family. They came and they started a fight. They smuggled out whisky bottles under their coat at the end of the night.”

So this is all about hospitality and hurt feelings? Or something that Bannatyne arguably knows more about: money?

“One of my brothers said, ‘Why doesn’t he give us a million pounds, then we’d be happy’,” he continues. “But they wouldn’t be happy. The rest of my family support me. They feel the same. I think, actually, their problem is they hate themselves. They hate their lives. It’s not just me they hate - they hate everyone. The world. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve got other things to think about. I love my life.”

Well, there’s plenty to love. When Bannatyne threw his 60th birthday party recently, the boxer Joe Calzaghe, interior designer Kelly Hoppen and racing driver David Coulthard were among the guests (Bill and Sandy were not). Chesney Hawkes was the entertainment. “That song”, says Bannatyne, referring to Hawkes’s 1991 hit The One and Only, “is my song.”

He’s right. Through a mixture of barmy egocentricity and determination - not to mention a spectacular lack of self-awareness that has no doubt jet-powered his small-screen career - Bannatyne has come a long way from his poor upbringing as the second of seven children in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire. After an abortive career in the navy - he was dishonourably discharged for threatening to throw an officer overboard - he started an ice-cream van business that made him a success and a nursing home business that made him a millionaire. Bannatyne’s gyms put him in the top rank of British entrepreneurs.

Then Dragons’ Den made him a celebrity. He saw Noel Gallagher meeting Tony Blair at Downing Street in 1997 and wondered why he wasn’t there: “I thought, I’m a successful entrepreneur, creating jobs - why should rock stars be invited and not me? I wanted a profile. So I got a PR man. And then Dragons’ Den came up.”

Now somewhere between Donald Trump and Len Goodman of Strictly Come Dancing, Bannatyne gets “invited to Chequers”, he says, where he has the opportunity to lecture his friend the prime minister on economic theory. For example: “We need to stop the banks lending to each other.” Isn’t one of the economy’s main problems that inter-bank lending has all but collapsed? “No, no, no. The system would be much better if they stopped lending to each other. They’re just sending the same pot of money around and around and every time someone takes commission out of it. I don’t see why they do it . . . Supermarkets don’t lend fruit and veg to each other.”

He also has strong views on smoking: “I’d like everyone to stop. It’s disgusting. I think it should be law that you can’t smoke in a car with a child. Also, you shouldn’t be able to smoke on the streets.” Where would you be allowed to smoke? “Nowhere, really. In your own house if you wanted.”

Most of his policies begin at home. Bannatyne has six children, four by his first wife and two by his second. (This second marriage briefly hit the rocks when Bannatyne took a sabbatical to date “a newsreader and a model” - he insists his playboy days are behind him.) His children have a clause in their trust funds forbidding them to smoke. One of his daughters had her £400-a-month allowance cut off because he “smelt smoke in her bedroom”.

“That was a long time ago,” says Bannatyne, who clearly sees no problem controlling his family with money. “And it only lasted a couple of months. It’s not a big trust fund anyway. I don’t want to leave a lot of money to my children. When I die, the majority’s going to go to charity.”

It’s sweet that he likes giving back - but nothing happens in Bannatyne’s world unless it happens to him. When he encounters Romanian refugees, he sets up an orphanage. When he visits Ethiopia as a trustee of Comic Relief, he becomes an evangelist for the cause. Last week he was rehearsing a Comic Relief dance special with his fellow dragons Jones and Meaden, despite being “tone deaf, with no sense of rhythm”. Many of his views about the economy seem to come from a personal standpoint. Asked what he would do about the number of unemployed graduates, he responds that his two older daughters are all right because they are both employed, “although maybe not in the jobs they want”.

While this solipsism is doubtless the secret of his success, there are moments when the blinkers are so huge that you wonder that he can see at all. He confides that he’d love to expand his business, but can’t: “There are a couple of great deals out there but I can’t do anything about it because raising the money is so difficult at the moment ... I don’t want Bank A to lend to Bank B to lend to Bank C. I want them to lend to me!”

Never mind the worldwide economic crisis. Gordon, pal, are you listening?

Duncan Bannatyne is a trustee of Comic Relief. Red Nose Day is on Friday, March 13

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 13th March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery - a social entrepreneur in Africa

January 19, 2009

Social enterprise delivers medical supplies to Africa

Through its waste not, want not, attitude Healthcare Link aims to help Zimbabwean clinics provide a better medical service

 

 

Charles Takawira, founder of Healthcare Link

 

 

 

An ill-equipped operating theatre in Zimbabwe

 

 

 

 

Recyled NHS equipment being used in a Zimbabwean clinic to create a makeshift oxygen mask

 

 

Emily Ford

The recent outbreak of cholera was the latest painful episode in Zimbabwe's steadily unfolding tragedy. With the collapse of the country's health and sanitation systems, the easily treatable water-borne disease spread rapidly, killing at least 2,200 people, according to the World Health Organisation.

Healthcare in the country, once among the most prosperous in Africa, is declining fast. Nurses and doctors are leaving their jobs at oversubscribed hospitals because they are not being paid. There is little manufacturing capacity left to make equipment and, thanks to hyperinflation, profiteering is rife, and when scarce medical supplies finally do reach the embattled country they are often too costly for healthcare institutions to purchase.

The catastrophic sight of a nation in freefall has appalled the world, but for Charles Takawira, a 27-year-old Zimbabwean social entrepreneur who came to the UK 12 years ago, it strikes a personal chord. Growing up in Harare, poverty was “always something that I had been attuned to and wanted to do something about,” he says.

He initially planned to work in healthcare in the UK, and began a course in adult nursing at City University in London. Then, in his early twenties, he lost both of his parents to HIV/Aids.

After a period of feeling unable to do anything, the loss gave Takawira a renewed sense of purpose, he said. “It changed my whole view in terms of society and making a difference. It became my calling, so to speak, to help Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole.”

Working in St Barts Hospital in London as a student, Takawira became aware of large quantities of surplus NHS materials available and was startled by the amount of second-hand stock that was thrown away. Strict standards in the UK mean that equipment is taken out of the system after a certain period of time, although much of it is still useable. “A lot of equipment and stock was just being thrown away,” Takawira said.

Two years ago, he went back to Zimbabwe on a placement from City. “It was on that visit that I realised the need on the ground,” he said. “The shortage of medical supplies across the board was the main challenge. There are still dedicated staff [working in hospitals] but they don’t have any money.”

With the help of several fellow students and friends, Takawira began collecting surplus equipment such as catheters and bandages and storing them in his uncle’s garage. He then started sending them back to Zimbabwe and nearby Malawi, on personal visits and later in containers. “Each time someone was going back we would ask them to take something with them,” he says.

The fledgling project, now named Healthcare Link, is still in a pilot stage and will be officially launched in February as a fully functioning social enterprise. So far Takawira, together with about 1,000 volunteers and supported by several companies and Salisbury NHS Trust, has exported 80 pallets of supplies including beds, wheelchairs, X-ray readers and incubators.

Hospitals and healthcare institutions receiving the equipment pay a handling charge which covers the cost of transportation and delivery. Institutions that cannot afford to pay can receive a full subsidy, and Healthcare Link works with them until they are able to contribute.

Takawira aims to make Healthcare Link a sustainable social enterprise, capable of delivering regular supplies of surplus stock to hospitals in the developing world and soon hopes to be able to offer Europe-based Zimbabwean doctors the chance to return to set up their own clinics using decommissioned equipment from NHS hospitals.

As well as managing Healthcare Link, Takawira is developing his business skills through studying social enterprise at the School for Social Entrepreneurs in London (SSE), courtesy of a grant from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the accounting firm, as part of its scheme to support young social entrepreneurs.

He says that the SSE course is helping too – “It is a challenge sometimes without the formal background” – particularly in learning how to scale up the project. “Having the help of PwC and SSE has opened a lot of doors in engaging companies and potential partners,” he says.

In his soft-spoken yet determinedly ambitious way, Takawira says he is confident, that having already had an enthusiastic response from a handful of hospitals and NHS trusts, he will be able to secure the backing “of the British healthcare industry as a whole.” He also hopes that companies that offer relevant services, such as logistics providers, will contribute support to the project in kind and is also in contact with a related organisation that delivers surplus pharmaceutical supplies to African countries.

The urgency of Zimbabwe’s plight is plainly apparent. Takawira, despite his remarkable achievements so far, cannot seem to move fast enough. “Many people are surviving on 68 pence per day. Those who need healthcare most are not getting it,” he says.

www.healthcarelink.org

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 2nd March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery - Social Entrepreneurs and the power of chocolate

November 14, 2008

Care for producers: I should cocoa

Hotel Chocolat founder Angus Thirlwell believes that profit-making and social motives are growing ever closer together

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily Ford

Willy Wonka would be green with envy. Each month the 100,000 members of Hotel Chocolat Tasting Club receive a selection of newly invented chocolates direct from the laboratory, complete with recipes. It’s one face of a hugely successful UK enterprise that in 15 years has grown from a mail order catalogue to one of the leading chocolate retailers in the country.

Hotel Chocolat began when Angus Thirlwell, MD and founder, met Peter Harris, his business partner, two decades ago, while working for a computer manufacturer in Cambridge. Both were closet entrepreneurs, Thirlwell says. “We were always trying to hatch ideas.” Their first start-up was Mint Marketing, a “nichest of niche” company that sold branded peppermints to corporate clients instead of the usual pens or diaries. The idea took off and after three years clients were demanding to know what other products they offered. Chocolate was a logical move, he says.

“We fell in love with chocolate, but we knew that if we were going to go into the market we would have to do something different,” Thirlwell explains. While there were plenty of mail order flower sellers, confectionary was an unexploited market. Three years after Mint Marketing started, their mail order ‘Chocograms’ were born.

Harris and Thirlwell have a habit of starting things from scratch. “The business was grown through a series of reinventions,” Thirlwell says. In 2003 came the ultimate incarnation: Hotel Chocolat, with a flagship store in High Street Kensington in London. “We wanted to set up a world beating brand to link the products together,” explains Thirlwell. It had taken 10 years. “We wanted a space where you could feel the brand – chocolate is such a tactile product.”

Commercially it made sense: only 50 per cent of Britons shop online, and purchases tend to be pre-meditated. Opening a shop enabled the company to exploit the impulse market: products range in price from £1.75 to £950 for a five-year membership to the Tasting Club.

Broadening the brand required a change of name. “When you start you have to have a name that describes what you do because you don’t have a huge marketing budget,” he says. The thinking brought together Hotel, ‘a metaphorical place to escape to in your mind, slightly naughty” and Chocolat – French simply because it sounds more romantic, Thirlwell says. “Say it. Sho-ko-lar” he purrs. “It’s got a much more sensuous sound.” It was not an immediately popular decision. “When I told people the new name their jaws dropped and I thought ‘what have we done?’ But it caught on.”

Any enterprise endures failures. Thirlwell recalls “an awful lot” of things that haven’t worked. Many have been chocolate recipes, “our business in microcosm,” he says. A thyme flavoured chocolate received the lowest ever ratings (“people accused us of trying to feed them engine oil”). Then there were the exploding chocolates. "Very fresh, fruit-based products can be unstable. We learned lessons from that,” he says.

Hotel Chocolat was founded as a pure enterprise. It is not charitably led, Thirlwell says emphatically. But in the 21st century, profit-making and social motives have grown far closer. Chocolate is a highly political product that still conjures images of exploitation and poverty for corporate gain. The entrepreneurs were "obsessed" with the idea of growing and producing their own chocolate and considered signing up to Fairtrade, which ensures farmers receive a fair portion of profits. After looking into it, they decided they wanted to be more involved.

Their first stop was Ghana, the biggest chocolate producing country in the world. Cocoa is a difficult crop, Thirlwell explains. If farmers fail to replenish their seedlings, it can take 3-5 years before new beans reach maturity. So Hotel Chocolat set up satellite nurseries around the plantations, charging farmers slightly over the odds for the seedlings to enable it to keep going as a safety net for others. There are now 15 nurseries around the country.

Next came St Lucia in the Carribean, home to some of the world’s rarest, most connoisseur-worthy cocoa beans. Cocoa crops were in decline on the island, regarded as secondary to the easier-to-grow bananas, while unemployment in the agricultural sector was high. They purchased a run down cocoa estate and incentivised farmers to grow cocoa by offering 30 per cent above market price and payment within a week. “If we weren’t the retailer as well as the manufacturer there’s no way we’d be able to promise that,” Thirlwell said.

They were also blessed with a “hugely supportive” customer base. “We knew our customers loved the taste of cocoa from St Lucia - we’ve brought them along with us,” Thirlwell said. The company promises to buy every bean from the famers on its estate, providing they meet a certain quality standard. “For us it’s good business because we need more beans from St Lucia and it’s a win for cocoa farmers because we’ve created a market that didn’t exist before, and customers get to taste really rare cocoa that nobody has tasted before.” Banana farmers are now switching to cocoa and the estate has created hundreds of jobs.

It could have all turned out very differently. One of Harris and Thirlwell’s first ideas was a lobster drive-through. Hotel Lobster doesn’t sound quite the same, but Thirlwell stands by the idea. “I still think it could have worked,” he says, smiling.

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 2nd March 2009

www.bluedogjewellery.com

Blue Dog Jewellery - Suzie Orbach interviewed about male beauty hang ups

From The Times

January 24, 2009

‘Beauty terror’ driving young men to abuse steroids

Richard Ford and Lucy Bannerman

Fat, it used to be said, was a feminist issue. But that was before the birth of the metrosexual, and his modern nemesis – the “moob”.

Now, drug specialists are reporting an alarming rise in the number of body-conscious young men who are turning to the illegal use of anabolic steroids to improve their physique. Meanwhile, the number of men seeking breast reduction surgery to correct so-called “man boobs” is expected to hit a record high in a new report to be released on Monday.

They are the ugly symptoms of a new “beauty terror” gripping Western society, argues Susie Orbach, the writer whose theories on women and food made her a feminist icon 30 years ago. In an interview with The Times Magazine, the author of Fat is a Feminist Issue warns that, far from being a condition affecting only a few, as it did when she first wrote about it, “body distress” is now universal.

“Since I wrote Fat is a Feminist Issue, the problems I sought to describe have mushroomed. Eating problems and body distress now constitute an ordinary part of everyday life for many people and many families,” she told The Times.

 

“I am pained and disquieted by the homogeneous visual culture promoted by industries that depend on the breeding of body insecurity and which then create a beauty terror in so many people.

“There is a crisis about the body itself.” This time, however, both sexes are being traumatised by what they see in the mirror, with more young men turning to cosmetic surgery, and anabolic steroids to boost their body confidence.

New figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons are expected to show that the number of men opting for breast-reduction procedures last year rose by nearly half. The figure has already increased tenfold from only 22 operations in 2003, to 224 in 2007.

Meanwhile, the Government’s official advisers on drugs have noted that anabolic steroids, long favoured by athletes and bodybuilders, are becoming popular among nontraditional drug-users keen to improve their physique.

Les Iverson, the chairman of the technical committee of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, told a meeting late last year: “There is a much wider use in the community of anabolic steroids by young men for cosmetic reasons and by security guards who feel the need to be big and strong to do their job.”

Anabolic steroids, taken in tablet or injected in liquid form, are prescription-only drugs but it is not illegal to possess them. However, possession with intent to supply is illegal, carrying a maximum 14-year jail term or unlimited fine.

But users are able to get round controls on the drug by buying them from internet sites, obtaining them from friends or buying them overseas.

Latest estimates from the British Crime Survey suggest that 179,000 people aged 16-59 have used anabolic steroids but Professor Iverson told the committee that the figure might be more than 200,000.

Mike Linnell, of the Lifeline drugs charity in Manchester, said that needle-exchange projects are reporting rising numbers of men injecting steroids for cosmetic reasons. “What we have seen over the last two years is a growth in people who are not drug-users in the traditional sense. They are coming in because they used anabolic steroids because they wanted to look good. It is all about image, about looking good. This is now right across the board.”

Ironically, the side-effects of abusing steroids, which include acne, the growth of breasts, shrinkage of the testicles and erection problems, are potentially devastating for young men with a fixation about the body beautiful.

Posted by Shona Lockhart, 29th January 2009

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