Brand Over Coffee Podcast— Transcript
Investment, Trends and What It Takes to Thrive Post-Pandemic
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Brand over coffee conversations is with different experts and inspiring individuals. They may be different in what they do but they all share one thing in common they all create, develop and nurture brands. These conversations will highlight, not only their expertise but also their experiences, and I hope these could help answer some of your questions and inspire you to build your own brands and take your businesses to greater heights. My name is Andrea Ferri, founder of the Creative Brand Studio, and your host for this podcast. In this episode let’s talk about investment trends and what it takes to help ensure your business thrive post-pandemic, and I’m really excited to be hearing the thoughts of my guest on these topics today. Fergus Hay is a CEO with a proven track record in commercial transformation, product innovation and growth, and he has lived and worked all over New York, Chicago, Hong Kong and Singapore, leading different agencies and businesses. Now based in London Fergus is the founder and CEO of the marketing and fundraising advisory firm Elysian Fields. Hi Fergus how are you so nice to catch up with you again.
Fergus Hay
Great to see you, even on this snow-covered day, at least we can keep warm over a podcast talking about the things that really matter.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yes yes yes yeah so okay let’s get started. So I did mention that you currently lead Elysian Fields, can you tell us more about the company and what you have been busy with.
Fergus Hay
Yeah sure, so Elysian Fields is an advisory firm that works with venture-backed startups normally in series A to Series B level. And we try to help them achieve their growth targets, so most of the businesses at this stage have made big commitments to investors. And in terms of building traction and getting customers. So in order to do that, there are many levers that you need to pull be it from your commercial model to your marketing plan to your brand to your media and channel planning, but also to building a sales team and building an anti sales culture. So we work with companies to put all of those pillars in place and gear them up to delivering on their promises to their investors. We also help people with fundraising
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Very interesting. What a totally different world from what you were doing back in your advertising life.
Fergus Hay
While you say that, but the French have a saying that’s “plus sa change”, which everything changes, but nothing changes. And in a way that the discipline for any tech startup or any tech business or for growth is the same discipline of call marketing practice, you’re still trying to find customers, find the right ones, persuade them that you are distinctive and you have a product that is worth paying for then engage them in a relationship that generates money over time. So actually the core discipline is the same, what’s different is the kind of product you’re working with and the landscape and I think that’s where the industry has got a really great opportunity to work with the companies, growing really, really fast.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Okay, I’m sure we will talk more about that later, but to begin with, because right now you’re in the investment space right, so let’s get straight to it. When checking out the potential investment, what are the most important considerations for an investor?
Fergus Hay
Well, you know, every investor will have their own investment thesis. And often it is quite personal, and when you get to really really seed and early-stage companies, it really does depend on the founding team, but I’ve found that there are a series of kind of key elements that any entrepreneur needs to be ticking off in order to have a successful fundraiser. That is, they really got to show that they’ve got the right people in their company. So that is a diverse mix of the management team who’ve got experiences for both corporate and startup world, and within that is of course the values of enthusiasm and hunger and passion and obsessiveness. They’ve got to show that they’ve got a product that solves a problem that people want. So in that product, it’s got to be genuinely making a difference and disrupting a market, providing a solution to a problem that customers have that isn’t currently being addressed. They’ve got to show that they’ve got traction. So traction means, have you got some customers who are currently using your product and are they willing to pay for it. And really what you’re looking for there is not lots and lots of customers, but customers, preferably known ones who are coming in and using the product, and sticking with it. That’s traction and that’s really really important. Then fourthly, you’ve got sales, can you show that you can build growth, and normally that means, have you got an acquisition model where you can identify your ideal customer and you can acquire them at a sensible price and then get them into your sales channel and convert them into a paying customer in a way that can be repeated and isn’t too expensive. And then finally, you look at their finances, like, has the company deployed capital in a sensible way. Is it being used to create value, has there been a lot of waste, have they missed targets. Those are kind of five broad points that any real investor will look at an uprising company, but really at the heart of it, is do you believe that this founding team identified a market opportunity, and they’ve got a product that you think is going to make a difference and do you back them to deliver on their promises.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
So ultimately these are still branding principles, right.
Fergus Hay
Well, I mean, it’s interesting when you look at branding. Branding at its heart is persuasion. It’s persuading someone to believe in what you are, whether you’re a can of Coke in a supermarket. Why is a can of Coke more credible than a can of Pepsi? They are the same size, they are the same price, they’re in the same format, and they pretty much taste the same, which I know is religious to those two different companies, but they are pretty much the same. But yeah you are either a Coke person, or you’re a Pepsi person. And the reason that is is that those brands have occupied that part of your mind that has built an emotional relationship with you, they persuaded you to use that product. And that's exactly the same, with a fundraising exercise. Now in fundraising, you have to persuade people that you’ve got something that is worth investigating and spending time with because at the heart of it, and this is the brutal truth, most products are commodities in the way that Pepsi and Coke are commodities, even in the technology space, it is very very rare that you find something that is dramatically different to everyone else. So then you’ve got to wrap it up into a package. Is it your route to market is it the product is it your brand is it your narrative is it your team. All of that is a test of persuasion to investors and stakeholders customers, employees.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah, that actually was leading to my next question. How important is branding for an investor to consider investing in a company or a startup.
Fergus Hay
I think probably, it depends on the category. So, if you are launching a beta free enterprise, piece of technology. Then, you know, branding isn’t conventionally something that has been valued in that space, although it should. It’s interesting that the greatest b2b software sales company in IBM was probably one of the strongest brands in the world, no one gets fired for pointing IBM that is branding in itself. But if you are launching a vegan cheese, then a lot of the value in the company is the brand. But you know, let’s think about what is, what is a brand. A brand is about being distinctive and in any investment case of any business you are looking for a business that will be distinctive, will it stand out. So an investor may not sit there and have a calculation for the value of the brand, but they will take it into account is, is this business going to be distinctive in the category that we’re in, because most likely they’re going to be a small player, beginning with fewer resources and the odds are stacked against them. But do they have a package that enables them to separate themselves from the competition and stand out, and the brand is part of that along with a bunch of other things.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah, yeah absolutely agree. I was part of a startup, a couple of years ago and one of the things that I really noticed is this fixation to perfect that technology, you know, be ready with the MVP, impress the investors, etc. And this kind of like concept or notion that a brand is only like the design of the landing page, or say beautiful social media content, or having a logo having a tagline, but I guess for the two of us and for people who are working in branding and in marketing, you know, the real essence of a brand is really making sure that you are differentiated right in the market, knowing the consumer inside out, but in this consumer at the centre of everything, making sure that everything in the company is aligned with the brand that you’re trying to create, and all these, just from my point of view at the time in the startup space, it seems like it was taking a backseat. Everyone is just fixated on perfecting the technology without really considering, is this really going to be important or relevant for my end-user.
Fergus Hay
That is understandable in a way, with this you have to look at the origination of these companies so let’s take, Unilever. Unilever has always been a consumer good, business, and it’s rooted in consumer research, and as you know, when you work with Unilever or for Unilever, everything is rooted in science. That is the origination of that company. But take modern tech businesses were engineering businesses. The founders tend to be brilliantly smart engineers, and what they’re doing is they’re solving a problem by creating a product, and that is their absolute focus and they’re brilliant at it, amazing these products are changing the world as we know it, but they’re not rooted in the culture of always validating it with the end-user and end customer. And that’s where these worlds we need to combine, because the bottom line is, their world is littered with clever technology, but never was, had a product-market fit what we mean by product-market fit is within the market, who is your ideal customer. And for the ideal customer, what problem are you addressing. And what is your solution going to do that is going to persuade that customer to change from a current habit to a new habit that when you can repeat it over time and you can show with volume that you’ve got product-market fit, that’s when a technology becomes commercialized, and that’s when marketing plays a really really powerful role in the discipline of building a technology business and at Elysian Fields, we find we spend a lot of our time in this space, working with brilliant engineers, then really zeroing in on the ideal customer, the problem to be solved and what are they willing to pay for for that. Then how do you take it to market? When you get the alchemy of those two things, brilliant engineering and a customer-focused marketing program, then you can build a business that has got true value and of course, you only need to look at unicorns in the world see the ones that have done that
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Do you have any examples Fergus, of say startups with great branding or have focused on building their brand.
Fergus Hay
Well you know I often get asked this, and I would, I’m going to give you a macro picture first and then I’m going to pick one startup which, which we were involved in so so it’s slightly you know, slightly vested interest. The macro picture I think is that you take two unicorn Tech brands, Airbnb and Uber. Now Uber, never, in my opinion, invested in a brand, an emotional brand that persuades consumers to stay with them. They invested in a logo, and they very, very determinedly put themselves out as a utility. We solve a problem because we can get you to transport cashless on demand for cheaper than your current price. So that is a very utility-focused organization and the company felt with that in mind, as a consumer. Now they rode an amazing wave didn’t they, they disrupted the market, they took over the world, they had a culture inside them called fast and fearsome, they will enter markets fast and fierce. In order to build enough consumers so that when the government wanted to let legislate against them there was too much support for them, really interesting. Now, when they were successful, that was great, but then they had some problems. They had boardroom politics, they had sexual discrimination and rumours and issues, they had security issues around consumers and the cars, particularly in South Asia, and then people started coming off the Uber platform, people started going, looking at competitors like Grab in Asia or Drive or whatnot. And they wobbled, and the problem is the consumers had nothing to hold on to. There was nothing about that brand that they were emotionally attached to so when they were question marks about it, they were quite happy to select alternatives. Now let’s look at Airbnb. Airbnb has faced way more issues than Uber have ever faced. They have had people’s family homes trashed, they’ve had parties in them, they’ve had orgies in them, they’ve had meth dens created in people’s garages, they’ve had things stolen from them or other people’s family houses burned down. They’ve had films made in people’s families houses that they were not comfortable with. So much has happened on the Airbnb platform they’re so personal to people’s homes. Yet, the brand and the company has only ever progressed and why is that, that’s because Airbnb from the outset had a mission and a purpose, values and a brand. They said we’re about inclusion, we’re about local communities coming together to give each other experiences stay with someone, have the experiences of that culture and live in their home and they build an entire inclusion brand about that, and I think kudos, goes to the founders of course but also to Jonathan Milton Hall who was my client at Coca Cola, who was the CMO there and built this incredible, incredible brand so that they could rise out of it so that’s two examples of macro Tech brands one that didn’t build a brand and one did build a brand, and you only have to look at the reputation and the performance on the, on the listings soon Coming with Airbnb, to see how they are dramatically moving. Now I’m gonna give you one example on a more regional level. There is a brilliant business called builder.ai, the founder of that is a guy called Sachin Dev Duggal, who’s a brilliant entrepreneur and a friend. And Sachin built this business called builder.ai, and when I describe it to you, it sounds, dry, it is a bespoke software development on-demand business, enabling people to build technology apps and websites without any prior technical knowledge. That is, in itself, not the most riveting pitch in the world but what Sachin did really well, and we worked with him to help him do that in a previous agency, is he identified an ideal customer. We built a personality for the brand that really stands out. We built a brand, a visual brand around it. We had a character, and we had an ethos and we really punched it out. And so Sachin to great credit he carried that through every part of the business from their trade shows, to their communications to their website, everything was clearly a different gravy to the rest of the category. And because of that they’ve had great this distinction and they build great traction and you know they’ve got great investors and a great product and a great business so that’s an example of a technology startup that has done really really well by incorporating a strong brand.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Interesting how you mentioned actually like let's just call it like the hard assets of branding, and let’s say the soft assets of branding so a lot of businesses, fall into this trap of yes I need to have my hard assets in place, so I need to have my logo I need to have my tagline I need to have my social media accounts and they actually forget the quote on quote soft assets, which are equally important right. So it’s your culture, it’s your ambition, it’s your mission, it’s what you stand for, your values as a company, and I think your examples if you really want to succeed, you need to have both in place right. You need to have your identity in place, so it’s your brand personality but at the same time also what you really stand for as a brand should be out there for your consumers to really start this relationship with you and choose you over and over, right.
Fergus Hay
Well, you’re so right. And the way I would look at that is I’d separate it into two buckets. You’ve got the tactics. What are the individual things the mechanics of marketing that you need to have, and deploy in order to build your consumer base? That’s the social media channel marketing it’s what we do on LinkedIn, it’s how does our acquisition funnel works, what’s our paid media strategy. Those are really important, tactics, but without the brand, those tactics are quite wasteful, actually, because you don’t get the multiplier effect when you go and target potential b to b customers on LinkedIn, if you just talk about your product, and you don’t have a distinctive brand that cuts through with a different message, then you don’t get a proper ROI. But if you have a really good brand that is identifiable and distinct, and that persuades you, then you will get a better response rate so the ROI is better. In order to have that better brand, the way that we kind of look at it with, with the startups, you say, what is your credibility as a company. Because actually if you’re raising money, and you’re trying to persuade consumers or customers to try your product that they’ve never heard of before, with a brand that they don’t know and to persuade them to leave a brand that they’re already using that they do know that might just be doing an okay job. What are you going to do to persuade them to leave IBM to try, for example? And that really comes down to your credibility.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah absolutely. Okay so, branding and investment. Now, let’s talk about the realities of today, especially for businesses. So we both know we all know, it has really been challenging for everyone you know with all the lockdowns, anxious consumers uncertainties. So a lot of businesses are really struggling. Fergus, what do you think should a business consider or do in order to survive this pandemic.
Fergus Hay
Yeah, I mean, it’s a tough question. But I can only give my view and my opinion. The World Economic Forum, it’s got lots of better answers. What I know is that economies are driven by consumption. So at the very base level, what you and I and your listeners, decide to spend our personal money on today when we leave the house, if we can leave the house or at all on our phone, drives your company. And I would always argue that you have to look at consumption trends and patterns to understand what the future of your business looks like. And again, this comes back to the discipline of marketing and really knowing your target audience and understanding where the value is going to come from. And so the first thing I started doing when COVID started kicking in, after I panicked and, you know, stored lots of baked beans and stuff like that. I started looking at how people’s behaviours are changing, and you can do that anecdotally just by observing, but then you can also start to absorb some research and this is what I noticed. I noticed that there was a massive acceleration of technology adoption, we’ve all seen that ourselves and people wanted to still consume, but faster, and in a more convenient way, and they very quickly unpicked the traditional behaviours that we’ve all been used to. And they’re really obvious examples of that, you previously have always gone to your local doctor, and you would have known that doctor, and that doctor would have looked after your parents probably, and there’s a familiarity and if you’d have queued up, it would have probably taken me a week to get an appointment but that’s what you do. But now, no one’s going to doctors. The doctors are actually calling you at home. But most likely you’re going on to the telemedicine apps like Babylon, and getting a GP for 25 pounds for a 15-minute phone consultation. So there you can see a really good example of how the base need hasn’t changed, we need medical service, but the delivery of that service has changed, and then you can extrapolate that really really quickly. Look at the exercise market you know Peloton was doing great anyway, but really has gone through the roof and apps on-demand and in-home exercises have sold while gyms have plummeted. And then you can look at the content and entertainment space, you know, we’ve seen the collapse of the cinemas and it’s very sad with our part society, but you’ve seen the incredible rise in adoption of the content streaming platforms, and you know even with Disney Plus’s arrival, we all thought that that would be maybe a market share game but actually, it’s not a whole category. And then you look at pharmaceuticals and there are so many examples where based on consumption behavioural changes, you can see where are the areas for great growth. So what do I see I think businesses fall into three categories. I think there are businesses that panic and are inert, they’re not doing anything and it’s really really sad to see, I think those businesses will not be around in the near future and you can see that. Then you have the businesses that are trying to adapt fast, and they’re adapting their current processes. So they might be a restaurant that is now trying to deliver food to your home, or they might be a retailer that is suddenly opening up an eCommerce site. And that might be 1% of their revenues, and I think those businesses are great that they’re embracing new routes to market because that’s what we’re really talking about, but it’s kind of adjacent innovation. But then you’ve got the businesses who have slapped e-commerce and digital channel delivery of their products and services right at the heart of their business model. Those are the businesses that are going to really thrive, and it’s no mistake that you are seeing in Europe the enormous amount of venture capital being placed in European tech at the moment because people can see that this is the rise of businesses that are tech-enabled, understand their customer, and they’ve got a seamless route to market, that is not relying on the conventional ways of consumption, and I think that applies to both the consumer space but also to the b2b space, and that’s why I think actually we’re entering an incredible era of creativity and innovation where we’ll see sadly businesses fall on the battlefield, but we’ll see great new businesses built on new principles and new values and using new technology that will shorten the gap between customers and brands to give them richer experiences and for that, I’m really excited.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
So it’s really all about having this awareness on what people are really doing right, how consumers are evolving and being there at the right moment to capture this transition so to speak, and being in the know on what the trends are would really help. So, what do you think area say the main trends that we could be looking out for.
Fergus Hay
I think that they won’t be very surprising, I would absolutely look at businesses that have got really strong eCommerce platforms. In fact, it’s quite interesting, you know there’s lots of celebration of Jeff Bezos at the moment, and he is the Western world’s greatest entrepreneur of the post-war era. And, you know, in many ways he embodies the values of great entrepreneurship. He was charismatic, he had a long term vision, he was determined, frequently innovating, never sitting still always looking for big customers, brilliant. You could also argue that Amazon has suffocated entrepreneurialism. Because if you’re a small to medium enterprise, and need to reset, you have no choice not to go on Amazon, conventionally. And while Amazon will give you access to volume, it takes away value, because you lose so much on the commission’s, on the delivery costs, on the returns, on the fulfilment, and really I think in a way it’s a swap for SMEs. So I think will be really interesting, and you’re already seeing it, is entrepreneurs who are building their own direct consumer platforms. They’re saying you know, we know about Shopify we know about Amazon we know about all the Magento platforms that we’ve got to plug in with, but actually, we’ve got to control our own destiny. So if I’m going to be a razor company, I could sell my razor blades on Amazon or I can be Harry’s, and set up my own direct consumer eCommerce platform. And that’s why Harry’s has done so so spectacularly well, and I think you’re gonna see more and more of beauty businesses, healthcare, businesses, and fashion businesses, who start to realize that if they don’t own their own direct consumer eCommerce platform, then they’re really going to not become in charge of their own destiny and that’s a very dangerous place to be. So, there are many many trends that we’ll see in the future but I would really argue to look carefully, at your own route to market, how is your route to market gonna differentiate from your competitors. I think owning your own direct consumer spaces will.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Okay so, easier said than done for a lot of businesses right, they would be like okay Fergus D to C, you know, I can easily put up a Shopify shop but then if no one really would go to my Shopify shop, what’s the point. So what would be your tips for these businesses that are thinking of, yes I want to do D to C because I’m done with all these big eCommerce giants, taking 25, 30% commission right, so what would be your biggest tip maybe for a business that wants to start their DTC effort?
Fergus Hay
You know, one of the things that I ask people very quickly is, what do you want personally. What is it that you personally want, is it that you want a business that you have influence over and gives you a good lifestyle. And that’s 99% of the business by the way, right, super commendable. Or, are you trying to dominate a market and be the next whatever NC or whatever? Because it’s quite important to think like that because you’ve got to understand how much risk do you want to take. Because if you want a lifestyle business, then it’s probably you don’t want to take much risk, and you want to have a really good business with products that you’re really proud of, and or services that you’re really proud of, and really happy customers, that gives you a good personal economy, personal wealth creation that enables you to live. And that’s great, in which case I think is not a bad place to be. If you want to build real scale and real value, then you need to take the risk, and in which case, a direct to consumer play is capital intensive right because you’ve got to market to the consumers, you want to acquire them but once you’ve acquired them you put them on your database and then you can use proper customer value migration program to really build that value over time but you’ve got to rewind. And that means you got to take risks, so you’ve got to raise money, you’ve got to put it in, and you’ve got to really hope that your customer engagement and relations really secure them. So I think it does depend on what your personal motivations are, and I’m not sure enough people are honest with themselves about what that does.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
It’s actually interesting that you mentioned that because we’re helping an up and coming brand in Asia it’s a beauty brand, so initially they were like okay, Andrea, we want to launch the brand, and we want to be in Lazada, and Shopee and Asian platforms. And then I told them, okay, so you will be spending a lot of money on advertising and then you will push people to actually buy from these purchasing retailers, right. So when I told them the DTC option, the owner was really like, after a day she was like, okay I’m making the decision, I’m taking the risk I want to own the brand, and I want to do the DTC. Absolutely correct, it has to be a personal decision of the owner right, okay, I’m willing to make the investment, take the risk because, yes, it’s harder to do it on your own, right, and expensive, correct, correct, correct. So okay, Fergus, last two questions, because I know that have been kidnapping you for too long now. So, we actually want to ask a question posed by one of our listeners, so Eric from Germany is asking, what attitudes or skills investors look for in young entrepreneurs or founders,
Fergus Hay
Tenacity, they really want to see. There are many people with brilliant ideas. There are many people who have brilliant ideas, but they’re really looking in the eyes of young founders and saying how far are going to go. Because you are going to hit headwinds all the time and it’s such a cliche but they just want to see ferocious tenacity. And I would add one thing to that and you know I’m not an investor, right you know I work with some great funds and have met some amazing people. But I would add one other thing and I would say, I really want to see strategic discipline. And you know we working with fantastic entrepreneurs at the moment out of Israel, and who are really validated they listen to their last business and they’re going again, and we’re doing working from the ground up with them on their commercial model and their value propositions and product etc. What I love about these guys because they are so strategically disciplined. Many people will go on assumptions, I assume X I’m gonna make y, and then they build the entire business on assumptions, and then they run into the investors and some investors will be persuaded by the assumptions. But the thing is you have to challenge those assumptions, and the guys out of Tel Aviv that we’re working with today have challenged nine or 10 of the assumptions or the hypotheses that we’ve developed, with a whole series of validations with end consumers or customers. A whole series of revalidation, validate that assumption, validate that hypothesis. So you really get down to the most distilled crystallized product proposition customer problem and market, a market element that you’re resolving. And I don’t think there’s enough of that. So investors always say that they look at the tenacity, and I think underneath that what they also are looking at is the strategic discipline, do the work, validate your hypotheses and assumptions, make it incredibly rigorous. At Elysian Fields, we often get asked to help people pitch for their series, and in the end, they’re pitching we’re not pitching. You know it’s on them to do it, but we have methodologies and models that help them get to a robust case, but what we always say to them, is your series A pitch, or your investors seed angel, series A is an iceberg. You may only have 15 slides, but underneath each slide, there’s got to be really significant strategic rigour, evidence, and data to validate everything. Because then the investors are going to go there. And if you’re not strong on that you haven’t got a hope in hell, so it’s not about the sexy 15 slides, you can get someone to design you 15 slides. The depth behind it, and that and that’s what I think is really, really important.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah, I was just nodding the whole time, especially when you mentioned tenacity, I mean I always say it’s so easy to say you want to be an entrepreneur but this day one is a decision you have to make every freaking single day, right, a roller coaster ride.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Two things, number one, your past training really really help. I remember when I was young, starting in my career, money, of course, would be an important factor but it was not a deal-breaker for me, what was most important was that I was always doing, let’s just say hard accounts, getting the best training, you know, working with great and sometimes difficult bosses, because that helps in the training. You know, because right now I can, like, even with my eyes closed, I can like I don’t know, just pop out presentations and it just, it just becomes more efficient, let’s just say right. And the second one is to always have your eyes on the prize, and always look at the big picture. Because it’s not a bed of roses every day, you know, some people would say, Oh yeah it’s so nice to be your own boss, but that also means that at three in the morning, while everyone is asleep you’re still up working, right. So you have that focus, and you say okay I’m doing this because this is my purpose, this is my goal, this is the reason why I do what I do, then it makes it much easier.
Fergus Hay
Yeah, I totally get that. I think that’s totally right and you know, if you go back to your first question, what do investors look for in entrepreneurs, and I gave you five metrics, the first one is people. And it’s really is about, what have those people done in their careers to date. You know, that’s really important, that diverse mix. You know you’ve got great big corporate experience, right, and so if I match, great big corporate experience with a second-time entrepreneur or someone who’s grown up in an entrepreneurial company you know that’s good alchemy, isn’t it? So, you know that’s why the people piece is important.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah, yeah, and also like working with good people, that’s one of the filters that I have. You know, yes the expertise is a given. but I want to work with just really innately good people, you know, so that’s the hardest thing. Like, day in and day out, and if I have to get on a Zoom call and I’m dreading to talk to this person, whether it’s a partner or a client, then what’s the point right.
Fergus Hay
There’s a good book called Radical Candor, which really kind of gets through that quite quickly and we’ve all worked in environments that are not conducive to good output, and I’ve had experience with that, and that is reductive. So review and deploy a philosophy of radical candour, where you say to the major, actually I’m really sorry I’m just not enjoying the dynamic we have. So either we change it up, or we cut our losses. And I think that is a sign of tenacity as well to know which way to go at which point, because you know I’ve seen great businesses be ruined by poor teams, so that’s a real shame.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
Yeah. Okay so Fergus as we end, my last question, as an entrepreneur, and you know the CEO of your own company, now what has been the most important lesson you’ve learned so far that maybe you know could help inspire our audience today,
Fergus Hay
That’s a really great question. I’m going to use a metaphor that someone else told me about, and I think it’s great. The diagnosis is that entrepreneurs are relentlessly anxious, always moving, always moving, and trying to nail things down and move on. Someone said to me once, I think this is a great experience and I have adopted this, which is, imagine that your entrepreneurial journey is like an archaeological dig. And as you start digging, you might discover a little artefact, you’re like wow, that artefact that is the tale of an Eagle. It's the talon of an eagle is the assumption, and you brush it away and you dig around it and you brush away, and you go, oh it’s not the talent of an eagle, it’s the tooth of a tiger, it’s the tooth of a tiger. Then you keep digging and you keep brushing and you realize it’s not the tooth of a tiger, it’s the claw of a dinosaur, and it’s a massive dinosaur within eternal size and lessons to learn from, but you would have only known that if you had scraped away at the archaeological dig and taken the time, and challenged your assumptions and explored it before leaping to a conclusion. That’s definitely the journey that I’ve been on, and it’s definitely what I now help entrepreneurs do, which is before you leap into a decision, because that decision will cost you in the future. Really make sure you’ve looked at all the assumptions around it and clean and brushed away all the dust, until you understand, what do you really get in front of you, because it’s not the talon of an eagle, it’s actually the tooth of a dinosaur. And that is, the one thing I would share.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
So keep digging. Okay great so as we end, I also just want to share my takeaway from this conversation, so a strong brand as we’ve discussed plays a huge part in building credibility and relationship I guess with customers right, so making it so much easier to close business deals, sell to new and also repeat customers who choose you over and over versus all the many other options in the market. So aside from working and making sure your business could sustain itself through challenging times, including surviving the pandemic, building your brand also helps in driving sales, and this could help attract potential investors, yes of course these investors view the company as a whole, before making any decision, but ultimately what they really want is to ensure that they are making a sound investment. And having your brand in place plays a critical role in helping convince them. So on that note Fergus, thank you, thank you so much that was such a wonderful conversation.
Fergus Hay
My pleasure I enjoyed it a huge amount, and if anyone’s got any follow-ups, you can publish my email address.
Andrea Arañador-Ferri
That I will do, yes. So, yes, please stay safe and healthy in the UK, all bundled up.
