Trading on legacy - what will you and your brand leave behind?
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on August 12. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
I desperately try to live by the phrase: “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”
Whatever way you look at it, you’re not here for a long time - not at all.
I have come to realise that what makes life so special is knowing. Being aware of what makes your time a “good time” - not just pandering to what others think should be your “good time” as a reflection of their desires.
Two things make up my good time:
1) Creating things: yes, I do love work
2) Laughter, and good times with the ones I love.
Even if we make it to 80 with good healthy years of living, it’s a blink in time.
Especially compared to how many years have gone before us and will go after us.
This is why, to me, legacy is one of the forms of ego I can allow.
I believe that living to leave a good legacy to the world is ego at its finest.
This week, it’s a week with loved ones over creation, hopefully enjoying each other’s company. That’s subject to one giant caveat, as my significant other and I make it through the airport without a divorce. That’s the Olympic medal you want to win, my friends.
I’m a man who travels the world every year for work, with tremendous success.
When I travel with family, the difference is night and day compared to travelling alone or with Chudders - who I make my content with.
He's really rather become the walnut to my coffee cake. We travel together that well. It’s actually enjoyable, it’s fun and - dare I say it - relaxing.
Travelling with the family brings out a new personality in me and my wife that I didn’t know existed. That said, if we make it through Mordor, we enjoy ourselves like a couple of seagulls outside a fish and chip shop.
By the time you get this, I’ll have my trotters up in Puerto Pollensa with mi familia. We’re meeting up with some chums too, as Essex takes on this Spanish favourite.
At dinner one night in Puerto Pollensa, our daughter decided to become Casper...
I’m actually feeling pretty good about work at the moment.
I know this will be fleeting. Life has a knack of serving you storms just as the sun comes out.
But bask in it when it does. Basking in sunshine in the mind always makes for a good break.
I hate going away if we’re not trading like gangbusters
Entrepreneurs are the rare folk that get this. Holidays can be painful for us lot, if work isn’t on point. Getting away when there’s a fire that needs putting out is just the worst.
You know the mental drill we go through: if a big job is on, a sticky HR issue, a deal going through - or the worst, cash is tight.
That all being said, if you do have bambinos, you have ten years where they like you and want to be with you. Very quickly, they become their own people with fewer hug requests and independence growing by the day.
My boy of seven is now better at maths than me. True success is your older kids wanting to still spend time with you when it's no longer your choice.
Whilst on holiday, I try to switch off and be present, but I am who I am.
I do check the emails and my phone is on. I hate that I’m addicted to it.
For those around me, they’ll know I try my best to relax. The trouble is, my brain will still work.
On holibobs, my brain has capacity to be in turbo mode.
As day-to-day thinking and brain power has been left at home. Especially as things are going well, I know I will be going into a fantasy land of what more I can create in the future.
Even a relaxing brain has its idiosyncrasies when not in entrepreneurial la la land. You’ll know the gig, gang, you’re my people.
Here’s what we think about when were away:
What ideas can I implement from my travels here?
I’ll have a guess on the P&L of the hotel we’re staying at... (do you?)
What’s the labour cost of this joint?
Are the restaurants actually make any money? (Most don’t back in the UK)
I’ll take pictures of pretty sites and inspiration—not for Instagram like everyone else but to steal the idea and implement it as my own triumph.
Sending the above in WhatsApp groups to pester teams back at home to play the notes in our orchestra at this level. They must hate the conductor they chose to play for at times.
I’ll google if they have business rates and what level of VAT they pay in the country I am in.
Google the property prices. “Should we buy here?” (Why do we do this?!)
That’s me and, probably, you. Everyone else turns off. They’ll relax and enjoy themselves.
But if you’re like me and have been given the title of D.B.P. (Designated Bill Payer), it’s just how you work.
People like us need to make a pound note. Family wants some, the taxman wants some, the bank wants some, work wants some, investments want some, and - heaven forbid - you want some too.
You’re the person that picks up every tab, so you’ll always be looking to weave new baskets of cash flow for your many baskets of dependants you collect along the way.
"You are not your customer"
A lovely friend who worked for me a few years back, Lyssa, told me this little phrase. It’ll serve your business well.
She’s gone on to some fancy CEO role with her brain. She deserved it - I was heartbroken and cried when she left.
I became very close to Lyssa and her ability to get stuff done. Lyssa’s skill was in marketing, but her superpower was in thinking like customers.
Philip Miller, another entrepreneur I admire who owns a theme park and some, knows more about the customer than possibly any other entrepreneur I have spent time with.
He gets pricing architecture - i.e. what to charge customers - as perfectly as a seasoned pilot with 10,000 hours of flying time.
For the last four years, I have been harnessing this superpower to put myself in the customer’s shoes.
This is how you get true longevity and stay in the game.
Customers do love new and fancy aesthetics. They buy on innovation, but it doesn’t make them stay long term. It merely gets them the first time.
What they like long term is good value for money and convenience, sprinkled with innovation.
No matter what they earn, they’ll always like offers and to be surprised with treats they didn’t expect, or you thinking for them before they ask or know they'd like it; Steve Jobs super power was the latter.
This can be as simple as opening a door for them, good parking, good stock, fast delivery, and someone who answers the phone and gets back to you - or, my personal recent favourite we did, earplugs in our hotel rooms.
You’d think we’d left gold bars for our customers. Yes, they can take them home. We did a survey - this was a thing even Just Stop Oil said we didn’t need to recycle.
Remember this about your customers gang, most of the marketplace won’t have your income; they’ll be just about getting by.
That’s most people.
They won’t be designated bill payers with multiple baskets of income and stress on your level.
They use time to save money - you use money to save time.
I tend to find business owners forget this in the high trading when they’re in the metaphorical summer of business doing well, then are brought back to earth when the marketplace tells them with lower than expected sales.
Then, WALLOP! They’re in a winter of discontent.
When customers feel the pinch, like the current trading landscape, they turn away and only spend with offers and value for money presented to them.
A theme park can rip people off due to the infrequency of future transactions from their customers.
Don’t believe you can welcome these types of margins through your door. Their customers won’t go back for at least a year or more, giving their short-lived customers enough time to forget they could buy the weekly shop for that round of ice creams on a day out.
You want to achieve repeat customers - it’s the way to lead a brilliant life with no stress. It’s the way to always trade in the metaphorical summer with predictable cashflow on constant —ask Costco, they've mastered it.
I made a whole video on the Costco business model, you can watch it here.
Theme parks trade like gangbusters for one month; then it’s like trying to sell turkeys in January.
If things are not going well, try the trick of putting yourselves into your customers’ shoes.
The median average household income is about £38k after benefits and taxes. Everyone is after a piece of that pie.
Even if people earn more, they have usually committed that extra income, those school fees, access to debt, and car finance payments all come marching home every month.
I remember discussing with someone who worked for the Bank of England that people earning £60k a year have more disposable income than those on £100k.
Higher earners saddle themselves up with commitments and thus have less to spend.
It’s all interesting stuff. Remember, “you are not your customer”. That will serve you well.
Hate the thought of this? Then niche down to where the money is and remember you’ll have a smaller market share, but don’t flit back to commodity pricing when it’s tough.
You’ll never see Rolex do that, and it’s very tempting to do if you are lucky to have a brand that's never been lured into discounting.
Rolex could flood the market and let everyone buy. They could lower prices.
I’m sure they’d have a bumper year on the back of a legacy of controlled brilliance, but long term, they’d be dead.
I bought one because it was easier to get dinner with the king. Period.
What Rolex have done so well is sell with value for money. That's why I bought one.
I felt like I was investing, knowing it was going to be worth more.
See what I mean. No matter the income or the price, deep down, we all want value for money.
So many lessons, not enough Mondays.
To your continued success,
P.S. Our biggest event of the year is less than 2 weeks away. Limited tickets available. Secure yours now.