Richard Harpin

She launched a pop career. It took off.

She launched a fashion brand. It nearly didn’t. Then it did.

Today, Victoria Beckham has built one of Britain’s most admired luxury businesses, a combined fashion and beauty brand valued by investors at $130 million a few years ago and now undoubtedly worth a lot more.

What stood out to me in her new Netflix documentary wasn’t the fame or the glamour. It was her grit.

She’s reinvented herself more times than most people change jobs. From pop star to entrepreneur. From fashion designer to beauty innovator.

From a highly managed, public figure to a self-disciplined, more private business leader.

It wasn’t smooth sailing. Her early collections were mocked. The business ran up losses. Many wrote her off.

But she stayed the course, learned, and kept improving.

Because success isn’t about one big breakthrough. It’s about persistence when others give up.

Victoria earned credibility the hard way:
✅ Surrounding herself with experts better than her.
✅ Focusing on quality over hype.
✅ Expanding into beauty, fragrance and skincare at the right time and learning into customer demand.

Now her beauty brand is thriving, two decades after she first took the leap into business.

That’s a lesson for every entrepreneur. Keep evolving. Use criticism as fuel. Build strength through setbacks.

Reinvention isn’t failure. It’s how you build lasting success.

I've directly managed hundreds of people over the last 30+ years.

These traits made a small percentage stand out:

The people with these traits always go on to do brilliant things.

And I still remember them decades later.

These are the 8 traits I look for when hiring at any level:

1. Persistence

This is the backbone of performance. 
Plenty work hard. Few keep going when it's brutal.

2. Curiosity

The best people ask "why?" again and again. 
Curiosity is the spark that drives growth.

3. Ownership

They take responsibility and deliver without excuses. 
These are the people who build businesses, whatever the external issues.

4. Commercial Awareness

High performers know the numbers. 
They care about profit, not just revenue.

5. Resilience

Business is a rollercoaster. 
The best bounce back fast and keep morale high.

6. Bias for Action

They don't overthink. 
They make decisions, test ideas, and learn by doing.

7. Low Ego

The moment ego takes over, the team loses. 
High performers listen, share credit, and admit when they're wrong.

8. Hunger to Grow

They're never satisfied with "good enough." 
They want to push themselves and the business further.

After 3 decades in business, I've learned that you can teach skills...

But you can't teach character.

These traits separate the people who deliver from the people who only talk about delivering.

If you've got these 8, you'll succeed anywhere.

If you're hiring, look for these first. 
Everything else can be trained.

I'd like to hear what traits you would add to this list. 
Leave a comment below with your input.

And if you want to go deeper into what makes a great team, 
I break it down in my book, How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps.

You can order it on Amazon here:  
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

Or find it here on Audible: 
https://adbl.co/3ImkbaP

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When I started as a founder, I didn't listen much.

I thought I knew it all.

But soon enough, I learned.

The best founders have one thing in common:
They never stop learning.

And not just from mentors or advisors.

They read books, they process their setbacks, and they have hobbies.

But most importantly, they learn from their own teams. 

In How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps, I talk about how important it is to hone your character.

And for me, curiosity has been one of the most valuable traits in my entire career.

It’s what kept me evolving while building HomeServe, and it's what I look for in every founder I back through Growth Partner.

The best leaders I know don't pretend to know everything.

They just ask better questions and really listen to the answers. 

You can build a curiosity-driven mindset into your leadership by following these steps:

✅ Have one learning conversation each week
↳ Sit down with someone in your team, especially those outside your senior circle.

✅ Reflect regularly
↳ Ask what they learned this week, what worked, and what didn't. 

✅ Read across disciplines
↳ Great ideas don’t just come from business books. It's important to diversify sources of information.

✅ Encourage challenge
↳ If nobody disagrees with you, you might need to rethink who is on your team.

✅ Treat feedback as fuel
↳ Ask for it frequently, from people at all levels, and use it to improve.

If your ambition is to build something great, you can’t ask your team to keep evolving if you’ve stopped.

That’s why curiosity matters so much.

It sets the tone, the culture, and the pace of growth.

If you're committed to learning (and scaling), my new book How to Build a Billion in 9 Steps is a great place to start.

You can order it here 👇
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

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When I was 6, I was breeding and selling rabbits.

By 13, I was selling conkers in plastic bags at school.

You don’t have to fit in to succeed.

I've found that the opposite is usually true.

You could say that I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

Age 6: Breeding and selling rabbits.
Age 11: Performing magic at kids’ parties.
Age 13: Selling conkers in plastic bags at school.

Later, I ran a mail-order fly-tying material business to fund my first house deposit.

I wasn't a student who sat still. Far from it.  

As a schoolboy in Newcastle, I was that kid shaking the horse chestnut tree, stuffing his pockets, and running to the bank to pay in the conker money.

My mother at a school parents evening after hearing how bad I was at chemistry,  
Said to my chemistry teacher, “He’ll be a millionaire before you.”

I wasn’t a hedgehog with one uniform focus.

I was a fox, always curious, always trying something different...

And that’s what really allowed me to persist as an entrepreneur.

You see, entrepreneurship can be very challenging in the early days.

You don’t follow a linear path.
You don’t have the support of a company or team. 
You face judgment that other professions don't deal with.

But none of that matters if you're curious and willing to work hard. 

I leaned into that childhood passion for creating and selling on my own and used it to keep going. 

Of course, I learned to be a hedgehog later.

As CEO of HomeServe, I had to slow down, take my time, and learn to say no to too many opportunities that complicated our way forward. 

But I'm glad I had that energy and curiosity when I was younger.

Being different didn’t hold me back; it pushed me forward.

So if you’ve ever felt out of place, stick with it.

That will be your competitive advantage later in life.

Leave a comment below if you agree.

Being a CEO isn't smooth sailing.

In fact, it can be quite brutal.

We often see the success stories, the exits, and the headlines.

But we don't usually see the sleepless nights, the tough decisions, or the weight of carrying livelihoods on your shoulders.

After 30 years of building HomeServe to a £4.1 billion exit, I've learned that CEO success comes from embracing uncomfortable realities.

Here are 20 harsh truths about the job:

(See the carousel to read the lessons in full)

1. You are probably a bottleneck
↳ Step up and out of the day-to-day, or you'll hold back your own company.

2. Cash is king
↳ Revenue can hide problems. Cash never does.

3. You'll make painful pivots as CEO
↳ Being CEO means making brutal decisions fast.

4. Scaling is harder than starting
↳ Starting is relatively easy. Scaling is rare.

5. You won't please everyone
↳ Leadership is about respect, not popularity.

6. Culture isn't what you say
↳ What you tolerate becomes your culture.

7. The CEO seat is lonely
↳ Join a peer group to learn from other founders and CEOs.

8. Investors aren't just about money
↳ Choose investors who can provide the right help and support.

9. Don't get bored with growth. 
↳ Keeping it going is what makes billions.

10. You'll need a coach and mentor. 
↳ Even the best CEOs need these.

11. Focus on your strengths. 
↳ Hire people to do the things you're not good at.

12. You can't do it all yourself
↳ Build teams that think for themselves.

13. Recurring beats one-offs
↳ Subscriptions made my business.

14. International expansion is risky 
↳ Go global with locals.

15. Small failures fuel growth
↳ Failures aren't detours; they're the path forward.

16. Everyone watches you
↳ Your mood is a leadership tool. Use it wisely.

17. You'll hire badly
↳ The wrong hire costs more than you think, particularly if you don't change them quickly.

18. You need to be a hedgehog, not a fox
↳ Focus builds billion-pound businesses.

19. Yesterday's wins don't count
↳ Keep moving, or your business will stall.

20. Britain needs bigger companies
↳ Backing scale-ups is the best way to grow Britain.

The CEO role will test you in ways you never imagined.

It will push you beyond your limits and force you to confront truths about yourself and your business that are uncomfortable but necessary.

If you want more on hard-earned lessons from building and scaling a billion-pound business,

My bestselling book "How To Make A Billion In 9 Steps" is available from Amazon and Audible.

It's a practical guide based on decades of real experience.

You can order your copy here: 
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

Or find it on Audible here: 
https://adbl.co/3ImkbaP

♻️ Repost for other founders and CEOs in your network. 
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Revenue might impress.

But EBITDA tells the real story.

When I’m looking at businesses to invest in, one of the first numbers I ask for is EBITDA.

It's the metric I use to know if a business is scalable.

Surprisingly, it’s one of the most misunderstood metrics among founders.

So here’s a clear breakdown of what it means, where most go wrong, and why it matters for anyone building a billion-pound business.

What is EBITDA?

E – Earnings
B – Before
I – Interest
T – Taxes
D – Depreciation
A – Amortisation

EBITDA is your operating profit before financial and accounting adjustments.

It shows the strength of your business engine, stripping out the effect of debt, tax, and capital investments.

It provides:

✅ Clarity
↳ It strips away tax and financing noise to reveal true profit performance.

✅ Comparability
↳ It helps investors benchmark you across industries and business models.

✅ Confidence
↳ A strong EBITDA signals scalable profitability, not just sales.

The EBITDA Formula looks like this:

From Net Profit:
EBITDA = Net Profit + Interest + Taxes + Depreciation + Amortisation

From Revenue:
EBITDA = Revenue – Operating Expenses (excluding interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation)

5 Common Misconceptions

🚫 It’s not cash flow
↳ You can’t pay staff or suppliers with EBITDA.

🚫 It ignores capital spending
↳ Big investments still matter and eat into cash.

🚫 Debt is hidden
↳ EBITDA removes interest payments, but lenders won’t.

🚫 Add-backs can mislead
↳ Overusing one-offs distorts the real picture.

🚫 It’s not the full story
↳ It’s just one piece of your financial puzzle.

How it stacks up:

- EBITDA: Core operating profit.
- Net Income: What’s left after everything.
- Enterprise Value (EV): What your whole company is worth to a buyer.

Founders who scale to £10m tend to obsess over revenue.

But founders who reach £1bn understand EBITDA.

And the most successful ones track it without forgetting the fundamentals, like culture and customer experience.

My new book, How to Build a Billion in 9 Steps, has even more advice for founders just like this.

It's a blueprint for building businesses based on 40+ years of entrepreneurial experience.

You can order the book on Amazon here 👇
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

Are you currently tracking this metric? 
Share where you are in your journey down below.

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Are you paying full attention to this post?

Maybe you are also listening to music. Maybe you are also glancing at a second screen like a mobile, or tablet.

Distraction is a big problem in modern business meetings.

But meetings deserve your full attention. Unless you are comfortable disrespecting other people’s time.

I’ve been somewhere that has a great antidote to this phenomenon – it might surprise you:

10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence in the UK. I’ve been invited there a few times as a business leader.

It has a rack in the entrance hall where you must switch off and leave your mobile phones. This is for security reasons, but I can tell you it makes for more focused meetings.

Unfortunately, that is not the norm.

Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb has called out this distraction as a “huge problem” in the workplace. In fact, he labelled it as a “major societal problem”, while admitting he’s guilty of it too.

He’s not the only leader to spot this modern malaise.

“It’s disrespectful and wastes time,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said of people who glance at screens in meetings. “If you have an iPad in front of me and it looks like you’re reading your email or getting notifications, I tell you to close the damn thing.”I’ve noticed people’s attention wander in meetings too.

As a leader, I use the Four Quadrant Time Management model, also known as the Eisenhower Matrix. It teaches you to prioritise your tasks according to a grid based around importance and urgency.

Looking at your phone is almost always not urgent, nor important.

But it is a big distraction during meetings and disrespectful to others. Especially the person speaking.

Meetings are often open to ridicule and disrespect. But like it or not they are the engines of business.

Meetings are the way we collaborate, which is the essence of teamwork and the secret to business growth.

I'm 61.

This is what I'd tell my 20-year-old self:

I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. 

Some costly, some painful, some both.

If I'd known these 8 lessons earlier, I could have avoided all that.

If you're building something now, save this list:

1. Be endlessly curious.

Ask questions. Visit stores. Talk to customers. 
Read everything you can get your hands on. 
Most people stop learning after school. Don't be one of them.

2. Don't rush.

I was impatient in my 20s. I wanted everything yesterday. 
The truth is, big achievements take time. 
You learn more from the journey than the result.

3. Find a coach and mentor early.

Real people who've built something, failed, and tried again. 
Listen carefully, take notes, and then go make your own mistakes too.

4. Get back up fast.

You'll get things wrong. What matters is how quickly you recover. 
Persistence beats perfection every time.

5. Choose your circle wisely.

The people around you will shape your mindset, habits, and ambition. 
Spend time with people who make you want to be better. 
Walk away from those who drain your energy.

6. Look after yourself.

It's easy to think long hours mean progress. 
But when you're tired, you make poor decisions. 
Sleep properly. Eat real food. Move your body every day.

7. Focus is underrated.

In your 20s, it's tempting to chase every idea. 
Being a fox, not a hedgehog. 
Pick something worth doing and stick with it long enough to get good.

8. Enjoy the ride.

You don't need to wait until you've "made it" to feel proud. 
Make time for family, fun, and a pint with friends. 
That's what you'll remember later.

Take it from me: building something meaningful takes decades, not years.

The decisions you make in your 20s compound over time.

- The habits you build. 
- The people you surround yourself with. 
- The curiosity you maintain.

I wish someone had told me these things when I was starting out.

I might have reached that billion-pound exit in 15 years, not 30.

If you have a lesson to add to the list, leave a comment down below. 
I'd love to hear what you would tell your 20-year-old self.

I go deeper into these lessons and many more in How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps.
It's based on real experience from 40 years of entrepreneurship.

You can order your copy here: 
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

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Is there a place for kindness in business?

The winners in business are often the most ruthless and aggressive. That’s the lesson from so many TV show and movies.

It’s dog-eat-dog.
Winner takes all.
Kill or be killed.
Only the strongest survive.
That’s the capitalist model and it’s cut-throat.

Think of the film Wall Street in the 1980s, or indeed The Wolf of Wall Street more recently.

But what I’ve realised in more than four decades in business is actually the opposite.

I believe kindness and generosity are the great unlocks in business.

The breakthroughs don’t come when you quash a rival. They come when you find a natural ally you can collaborate with and grow together.

Your personal career break doesn’t come when you talk down a colleague. It comes when you help someone with no other motive than being kind – and later they become the person who gives you a promotion.

Business isn’t a constant war of aggression, however compelling that might look on our screens.

I found these principles to be true, time and time again while building HomeServe from scratch into a multi-billion-pound company.

For example, if you want to have a good relationship with suppliers, don’t negotiate your first deal in a way that will alienate them in the future, just to get a slightly better per centage. I made plenty of mistakes running HomeServe, but when we got bigger I never forgot what it felt like to be small. I never exploited our size to extract unfair terms from our subcontractors carrying out repairs, or from insurance underwriters. Long partnerships with companies like Axa, AmTrust and Aviva are testament to that approach.

Being kind to your employees is also part of a healthy company culture. That’s why I’m especially proud of the Alumni Club at HomeServe. It's a way for former employees to keep in touch. Members include Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, Edward Fitzmaurice, who went on to be a co owner and CEO of Hastings Direct, and Leonard Lvovich, the co-founder of Synergym España. Even after they leave, people still feel like they belong. Hopefully this is because of the way they were treated as leaders in HomeServe - with respect and kindness in a fair manner.

Business in general, over time, rewards people who have good motivations, can look beyond their self-interest and are willing to help others.

So don’t believe what you see in the movies.

If it's working for your competitor...

Turn it into your biggest advantage.

We're taught at school that copying is bad.

In business, it's brilliant.

When I started HomeServe, I didn't invent plumbing insurance cover.

I looked at Sutton & East Surrey Water, copied their model, and pivoted it into something broader and better.

I learned that competitor success is market validation.

- It proves demand exists. 
- It shows customers are willing to pay. 
- It gives you a proven model to improve upon.

I'm a big believer in second-mover advantage.

Let someone else take the risk of proving the concept. 
Then you come in, add value, and scale it properly.

That's exactly what we did at HomeServe.

British Gas had the market sewn up with boiler cover. 
But their service was variable. 

They could afford to be mediocre because they had scale.

We saw the gap: 

- Better customer service. 
- Faster response times. 
- Focusing on fixing the problem first time.

We copied their model and made it work harder for the customer.

The same principle applies to every business I've invested in through Growth Partner.

Synergen copied the Pure Gym model and took it to Spain. 
They added local influencers, fingerprint entry, and live-streamed classes to supplement in gym trainers.

Passenger Clothing looked at Patagonia. 
They added even more focus on sustainability and ethical sourcing.

Don't sit there disheartened because someone else has already done it or is doing it better.

Use their success as free market research.

Look at what's working, study their messaging, understand their gaps...

Then position yourself as the better choice in their blind spot.

Copy and pivot. Test and learn.
Then go big when you've proven the model.

That's how you turn competitor success into your advantage.

If you're currently trying to improve an idea, share it below. 
I'd like to see how you're approaching it.

If you are honest, had you heard of Nvidia five years ago?

Today, they've become the first company in history worth $5tn.

In the short term, that’s because of hopes that it will be able to crack the vast market of China, thanks to political manoeuvres taking place.

But of course, in the long term, this valuation rests on the power of artificial intelligence – and CEO Jensen Huang’s vision.

He co-founded the company in 1993 and it’s a remarkable feat that he’s remained at the helm for more than three decades.

His vision and smart decisions have helped him steer the company from a chipmaker that specialised in processing graphics for computer games, to a behemoth powering the AI revolution.

He has championed what he calls a “fail forward” strategy. He has taken bets on new technology, even when manufacturing at scale.

This philosophy underpinned the development of Nvidia’s second-generation chips in the late 1990s. The company got ahead of rivals and woo-ed Microsoft, who chose Huang’s company as its first graphic chip supplier for the original Xbox console.

Huang’s smart decision-making is now paying huge dividends.

He exemplifies many of the values I outline in my book ‘How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps’.

- Evolution, not Revolution. Although he took calculated risks with his product to beat rivals, over the arc of time you can see how Nvidia slowly evolved its product, listening carefully to customers about their needs.

- Hone your character. I love the way that he’s cultivated his own personality in the often bland world of corporate leadership. His trademark leather jacket signals this approach.
 
It’s worth remembering this.

Nvidia only became a trillion-dollar valued company in 2023.

It only became a $4tn company four months ago.

That tells us something about the acceleration of AI – and our economy’s appetite for advanced semiconductors and data centres.

The UK has created 163 unicorn companies to date.

Each one had a strategy that matched their vision.

If you're aiming to build a billion-pound business, your strategy must reflect that level of thinking.

Far too often, founders stop at the surface-level decisions.

They don’t align the mission, vision, and actions that drive long-term growth.

That's why this infographic is really helpful.

It breaks down strategy into three simple but powerful layers:

✅ Purpose
↳ Why do we exist? What matters to us?
This is where your mission, values, and vision come to life and keep your team aligned.

✅ Strategy
↳ How will we get there?
This is the bridge between aspiration and execution, covering plans, focus areas, and enabling tools.

✅ Execution
↳ What will we do next, and how will we track it?
This is where actions, targets, and KPIs create real results.

I’ve seen too many businesses stall because they ignore this process.

But every billion-pound business I've backed or built has done the opposite.

They've had a crystal-clear mission, a strong strategy, and consistent execution.

And more importantly, they believed it was possible to build something big.
That belief needs to show up in every step of the funnel. 

If you’re building a business with serious potential,
My book How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps will help refine your strategy.

You can order the book here 👇
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

What’s one part of your strategy that you’re currently refining?
I’d like to hear how you’re approaching growth. ⬇️

♻️ Repost if you believe Britain needs more billion-pound businesses.
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We burned through half a million pounds in our first year of HomeServe.  
This one thing turned it around:

Our emergency plumbing business was losing up to £50,000 a month.

And we burned through nearly all of our cash in under a year.

It was 1994, and the 23 people working for us thought they were about to lose their jobs.

But one thing completely turned us around.

Out of desperation more than cleverness, we found a "product-market fit."

With our final £10,000, we sent out a thousand direct mailshots testing a plumbing insurance scheme I'd copied from a little water company in Surrey.

38 people sent in their cheque for £50.
That's a 3.8% response rate.

I got on my office desk in front of those 23 people and said: 
"Yes, we've made it!"

And we had. That moment changed everything from survival to success.

Here's what I learnt about product-market fit:

When you have it, customers don't just use your product, they believe in it.

✅ They renew year after year. 
✅ They tell others about it. 
✅ They trust you when things go wrong.

At HomeServe, our retention rates held at 82% even during the financial crisis.

People worried about big repair bills or not finding a good tradesman.

Our cover gave them peace of mind.

That's product-market fit in action.

Here's how to know if you've found it:
(See the graphic below for an example from Homeserve)

➡️ Look at retention rates.
↳ If customers keep coming back, renewing, reordering, you've got something that sticks. 
↳ High churn means you're solving the wrong problem.

➡️ Watch for referrals.
↳ Are customers recommending you without being asked? That's powerful evidence.

➡️ Test your pricing.
↳ Discounting isn't proof, but paying full value is. 
↳ We charged £50 when we could have settled for £40.

➡️ Listen to feedback.
↳ Sit in focus groups like I did with that Surrey water company. 
↳ Their customers said: "We love the product, but why doesn't it cover plumbing and drains too?"

➡️ Be ready to pivot.
↳ Our first model, emergency plumbing repairs, was losing money. 
↳ We pivoted to insurance. Same problem, different solution.

If you don't have product-market fit yet, don't rush to scale.

I've seen too many entrepreneurs raise money and burn through it because they haven't found the right model.

Instead, double down on listening. Test small and learn fast.

Product-market fit allows you to scale with confidence. 
Without it, you might be burning through cash faster than you can replenish it.

Share your thoughts on product-market fit below. 
If it's been a struggle, let's work it out.

And for more lessons on building and scaling your business, 
My book How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps has real guidance from over 40 years of experience.

You can order your copy here: 
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

♻️ Repost for other founders and CEOs in your network. 
And for more lessons for building and scaling businesses,  
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Building a business can be lonely.

I know that feeling — I spent over 30 years doing it.

That’s why I started the Business Leader Growth Workshops.

They’re for founders and CEOs running businesses turning over between £3 million and £100 million, employing 15 or more people.

Because in my experience, the best learning doesn’t come from textbooks — it comes from being around people who’ve been where you are, and gone further.

The workshops are free.

If you’re ready to scale faster and learn alongside other ambitious founders, sign up here:
🔗 https://lnkd.in/e5wQ6JGS

And if you know a founder who’d benefit — pass it on.

The world’s richest man has been set a challenge.

He’ll have to meet it if he wants to become... even richer.

Tesla’s shareholders have approved a remuneration deal for founder Elon Musk that could be worth $1tn (£760bn).

The clock is now set. Musk now has 10 years to reach highly ambitious targets. It will take a remarkable effort, similar to that which elevated the company in its opening decade.

"What we're about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book," Musk said.

Who knows the plot of that book? Musk is like an author writing our real-life science fiction future. It may be a story about self-driving Robotaxis. Or he may switch gears and focus on his Optimus robots.

In the age of AI, there are new possibilities for these mechanical inventions to become a key part of our day-to-day lives.

I suppose the business question is this, though. Is it ever justifiable for shareholders to commit such a vast amount of money to secure the services of one particular leader?

For the first 8 years at HomeServe, I was flying blind.

I didn't know what was driving success.

I had the revenue figures, and it was clear that we were growing.

But I didn't have clarity on what was behind that growth.

Was it the direct mail flyers? Our customer service? 
Or perhaps the water company partnerships?

Not knowing meant I couldn't make informed decisions about where to invest.

It wasn't until we started tracking the right metrics that we were able to get a better picture of where we were headed.

We went from guessing to knowing, and from reacting to planning.

It was the difference between hoping things would work out and actually knowing they would.

These are the three types of metrics every business owner needs to understand:

OKRs: Objectives & Key Results

- Define company goals and how to measure them. 
- Build accountability and momentum. 
- Create focus and ownership.

KPIs: Key Performance Indicators

- Track how your business is performing day to day. 
- Identify metrics that define success.
- Spot problems early and adjust fast.

CSFs: Critical Success Factors

- Define what truly drives success. 
- Brings clarity and focus to your strategy.
- Ensures energy is spent on what truly matters.

In short, all three must work together:

CSFs: Define what must go right.
OKRs: Turn ambition into measurable action.
KPIs: Track if you’re on course.

In my experience, the businesses that scale past £100 million are the ones that know their numbers.

They're measuring, adjusting, and improving constantly.

If you can't explain your CSFs, OKRs, and KPIs in two minutes, you don't know your business well enough.

Ignore these metrics, and you'll be leading without direction.

Get these right, and you'll be able to set and reach the right goals faster. 

I'd like to know how you approach these metrics for your business. 
Drop a comment down below with your thoughts.

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Taylor Swift has done it again.
 
She has smashed records with her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.
 
The latest data shows that she’s sold more than 4 million units (this includes everything from streams to vinyl). It’s the best opening week for an artist since data tracking began more than three decades ago.
 
I’m not surprised.
 
Along with tens of thousands of other people, I watched Taylor Swift perform live during her Eras tour when it hit the UK last year.
 
I was struck during the marathon of songs not just by the consistent quality of the material, but the sheer variety.
 
It reminded me that even though her line of work could hardly be more different to mine (pop music and home insurance through Homeserve, OK I admit hers is more compelling!), we had embraced an idea in common.
 
Step 7 in my book ‘How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps’, is ‘Evolution not Revolution’.
 
Swift has slowly evolved her style of music over time, continually challenging herself and putting herself outside her comfort zone.
 
Her musical output covers everything from jangly country music to bombastic pop anthems with synthesisers, to quieter, more reflective, guitar ballads.
 
She’s reinvented herself continually. I’m sure it’s kept her interested. It’s certainly kept her fans, like me, interested.
 
Swift teaches us that success takes years of consistent reinvention and a commitment to challenging yourself.
 
That’s why her fans will love her “forever and ever”.

Most businesses prioritise revenue.

The best ones start with their brand.

This is something Chris Donnelly and I both believe in.

I met Chris last year when he hosted me on the Secret Leaders podcast.

Since then, he's built an 8-figure cohort business, 
And launched a successful agency...
 
All to help top entrepreneurs stand out in crowded markets.

We’ve spoken a lot since then, and we still agree on this:  
Every billion-pound business is also a billion-pound brand.

That means so much more than a logo or a clever tagline.

A real brand establishes trust, has a clear identity 
And maintains consistency across the entire customer experience.

That doesn't always mean creating something flashy or digital.

This is something we learned while scaling Checkatrade.

The most authentic strategy for our brand wasn't a large digital campaign.

It was a physical A4 leaflet, tailored for each postcode, 
Sent to 16 million homes, 6 times a year.

It drove calls to trades on tracked telephone numbers and masses.

That’s an approach I call Bricks, Clicks and Paper, and this was paper to clicks. 

This is how you can deliver an omnichannel brand experience across:

✅ Physical stores
✅ Digital channels
✅ Printed deliverables

The goal is to make your brand as present and consistent as possible, 
So your customers return to your products without thinking twice.

It makes the experience feel seamless in-store, on your website, 
Or even while opening a letter.

This is not about pushing your product harder, 
It's about establishing long-term clarity, values, and trust.

Which piece is your brand currently missing? 
I'd like to read your strategies in the comments.

I want to meet with other founders as much as I can.

Because every time I speak to them, I learn something new.

One of the things I enjoy most is running our free Growth Workshops for entrepreneurs and CEOs.

I hold these workshops regularly in an effort to inspire and teach through business stories and real lessons.

But here's the thing, it's not just me teaching them. 
They're learning from each other in these roundtable discussions.

That's the real power of collective wisdom.

When you're surrounded by people who've achieved what you want to achieve, it changes the course of your business.

✅ You stop making the same mistakes. 
✅ You see solutions faster. 
✅ You think bigger.

In my experience, the best learning happens when you're in a room with people who are ahead of you on the journey.

That's why I created these Growth Workshops through Business Leader.

They are for founders and CEOs who are already turning over a minimum of £3m and up to £100m and employing 15 or more people.

People who understand the challenges of scaling beyond the startup phase.

We cover the 9 steps to building a billion-pound business. 
But more importantly, you'll learn from other entrepreneurs who are tackling the same problems you face.

Because after 30 years building HomeServe I've learned that the fastest way to scale isn't working harder.

It's learning from people who've done it before, and implementing the steps that work.

You can attend the workshop for free, if you meet the criteria.

We keep it intimate, focused, and valuable.

No time wasters and no tyre kickers. 

Just serious entrepreneurs helping each other grow faster.

If you meet the criteria and want to join us, sign up here 👇
https://lnkd.in/e5wQ6JGS

Tag an entrepreneur or founder in the comments that might be interested.

The small, jagged-toothed creature from China is hard to ignore.

Labubu has captured imaginations worldwide and become a serious business.
 
Pop Mart, the company behind it, has seen sales rise by 250% in the past quarter alone.

Much of that surge has been fuelled by one smart idea — miniature Labubus.
Smaller figures. Lower prices. Wider reach.

In America, sales are up more than 1000%.
 
This success builds on years of expansion that have already made Pop Mart one of China’s most valuable retailers.

The company shows what happens when a business evolves its product offering, rather than undertake a complete revolution. It refined what worked instead of starting again.

That is the essence of step 7, ‘Evolution not Revolution’, in my book ‘How to make a Billion in 9 Steps’.
 
Step 7 teaches that the best companies grow by improving what customers already love. Pop Mart has done exactly that.
 
The strongest businesses keep a bias for action, testing, learning and adapting.

They stay nimble, listening to customers and refining with discipline.
 
Labubu began as a craze. Handled with care, it could become a long-term brand.

That is the power of evolution.

I've invested £120 million into 13 businesses through Growth Partner.

Here are 25 lessons from 30 years of building, scaling, and investing:

I made plenty of mistakes on the road to exiting HomeServe for £4.1 billion.

And each time I did, I learned a new lesson that made me a better entrepreneur.

This is for anyone building something ambitious right now:

1. Copy and pivot. Second mover advantage beats being first with an unproven model.

2. If you think you should fire someone, don't wait. Do it today.

3. Build yourself before you build the business.

4. Build an omnichannel strategy where bricks, clicks, and paper work together.

5. You'll work harder than you've ever worked.

6. Work on the business, not in it.

7. Locals buy from locals. Make sure to hire local when you go global.

8. Use direct mail because others have stopped. So now you get a bigger share of the doormat.

9. Test before you invest. (We lost £50,000 a month at first because I skipped this.)

10. Grow by evolving your business not revolutionising it. 

11. Create a "not-to-do" list and stick to it.

12. Be a hedgehog, not a fox, when scaling to a billion.

13. Character beats strategy every time.

14. Never stop learning. I'm still reading books at 61.

15. Have the difficult conversations you've been avoiding.

16. Prove demand before you scale.

17. Don't give away too much equity too early.

18. Cash is king. You can't eat net worth.

19. Step up and hire your replacement before it's too late.

20. There's no excuse for poor due diligence.

21. Get the economics right from the start.

22. The UK needs to focus more on scale-ups and start-ups.

23. Customer feedback is your goldmine.

24. Hire for persistence, courage, and integrity, not just skills.

25. Find a coach and a mentor early to guide you.

Building a billion-pound business isn't terribly complex.

But it does require learning from mistakes and staying focused despite setbacks.

That's how you persist long after others have quit.

If you want to share your favourite lesson or add one to the list, 
Leave a comment down below.

Leadership matters and the stock market knows this.
 
Almost £2bn was added to the value of Diageo on the London Stock Exchange this week after a key announcement was made.
 
Sir David Lewis will become the drink giant’s next CEO.
 
It’s best known for its brands Guinness, Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker.
 
There was certainly headroom for Diageo’s stock to recover. It had fallen by 30% since the start of the year to a decade low, over doubts about leadership and succession plans.
 
Like the stock market, I like this appointment too. Lewis's value lies in his experience. The 60-year-old is credited with turning around Tesco’s fortunes.
 
There’s a phrase that I live by in business which I picked up in my early years working at Procter & Gamble.
 
“Has done. Can do. Will do.”
 
It’s a simple mantra, but an effective one. Lewis turned around the Tesco supermarket chain between 2014 and 2020. Prior to that he had been president of global personal care at Unilever. He inherited in Tesco a company that had just revealed a loss of £6.4bn, the biggest-ever suffered by a UK retailer, after a period of overexpansion and an accounting scandal. 
 
He launched a cost cutting exercise that slowly improved the company’s position, as it took on cut-price rivals like Aldi and Lidl. When he announced his departure in 2019 operating profit at Tesco was at £1.4bn.
 
Second or third time bosses are often the very best. People like Octopus Energy’s Greg Jackson is another example, who is on his third chief executive role and has built the UK’s largest household energy supplier. (He previously worked at HomeServe).
 
I admit. It’s not the only way to do things. Sometimes an internal promotion to CEO is the way to go; it maintains the workplace culture you’ve built up and also incentivises other colleagues who see what’s possible for them too. It fosters ambition. 
 
Or occasionally you can spot a promising leader ‘on the rise’ at a smaller company, who remains unproven at CEO level. But that is a riskier bet. 
 
I do think that a publicly listed company has a duty to shareholders to de-risk succession by finding a proven candidate who’s flourished before at CEO level. The role brings unique pressures and responsibilities.
 
Lewis takes the helm in January so let’s see what the market makes of his actual performance over the year ahead.
 
I have a feeling its early optimism is just the start of things to come.

In the words of Johnnie Walker, keep walking…

Micromanaging doesn't work. Neither does overtrusting your team. 

Most leaders get this wrong.

They either get too involved in things or they step back so far that nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing.

I've been guilty of both.

When I was building HomeServe, I'd swing between two extremes.

Some weeks, I'd be in every decision, questioning every choice.

Other weeks, I'd disappear completely and assume everyone knew what to do.

Neither one worked. 
Overtrusting sounds good in theory.

You give people freedom, trust them to deliver, and step out of their way.

But this only leaves your team guessing what to do and stalls their progress.

I wasn't giving them the structure they needed to succeed.  
On the other side, micromanaging kills autonomy and motivation.

I realised I was a rubbish chief exec after eight years because I couldn't get this balance right.

I had too many ideas, was overly involved, and did not trust the right people.

That's when I hired Jonathan King to run HomeServe UK.

He needed clear direction on what success looked like, then space to deliver it his way.

The sweet spot is empowerment with accountability:

✅ Set clear goals and defined roles

Everyone knows what they're responsible for and what success looks like.

✅ Give people room to decide

Don't tell them how to do their job. Tell them what the outcome needs to be, then let them figure it out.

✅ Check in regularly, but not constantly

Schedule weekly updates, not hourly surprise check-ins. Daily interference is just disruption.

✅ Be available when needed

If they're making a mistake that will cost the business, step in. Otherwise, stay out of their way.

✅ Keep accountability high

Freedom doesn't mean no consequences. People need to know they own the results.

✅ Focus on outcomes, not process

I don't care how you get there, as long as you get there and it's done properly.

In my experience, the best leaders have mastered this balance.

They're not too hands-off or too hands-on. They're just ready.

- They've trained their people well. 
- They've set clear expectations. 
- Then they've stepped back and let them work.

And when something's going wrong, they step in fast.

Trust without oversight leads to chaos. 
Control without freedom leads to stagnation.

The middle ground is where great businesses get built.

If you've struggled to find this middle ground, leave a comment below. 
I'd be interested to read your perspective.

Order my book, How To Make A Billion In 9 Steps here:
https://lnkd.in/eRYDKXdT

♻️ Repost to help leaders in your network. 
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