BSS1 – The Winner Takes It All, Worst way to start a business

RUSSELL: You gotta feel sorry for Jakob, he is not thinking clearly it seems

MIKE: Maybe, perhaps he sees something special in Zelda.  But, before we dive into the characters and what we can learn from the Zeros, we should introduce ourselves.

RUSSELL: Probably a good idea. Well, I’m Russell Cosway and..

MIKE: I’m Mike Saville and we are from Gydeline.  We want to make businesses more attractive… EPICally attractive.  By EPICally, we mean more attractive to Employees, Partners, Investors and Customers

RUSSELL: And for some organisations, more attractive to Buyers too.  And when we say attractive we’re not necessarily talking about external beauty which marketeers, web designers and brand promoters create

MIKE: We’re more interested in the inner beauty of businesses.  We use advisory and software services to improve, grow, become successful and on the way make them compliant

RUSSELL: Groan… Not compliance – yawn!

MIKE: And there’s the problem… How do you make compliance less boring?

RUSSELL: You create a podcast that’s interesting, entertaining and informative

MIKE: Yep… And here we are – episode one, The Winner Takes It All

RUSSELL: Nice segway

MIKE: Thanks

RUSSELL: So, let’s explain what we’re going to do.  Each episode will start with a fly on the wall insight into whats going on the life of Zelda Zero, her father Nero and Jakob Oakstock, along with a bevvy of other characters

MIKE: There will be, inevitably, things to be learn from their escapades, mistakes and innovations and we’ll be spending a little time after the drama to discuss those between ourselves and with expert guests from other companies.

RUSSELL: That’s probably a good point to invite anyone that has a hankering to be a guest expert to get in touch.  If you know stuff about business, there is a good chance that Zelda and the others will stumble into it at some point and we could call on you to share your thoughts on related matters.

MIKE: In the coming weeks we will be covering starting a business and the practicalities, finance, marketing, websites, logos and data protection, to name a few of the subjects.

RUSSELL: So if you would like to come and have a chat, drop us a line at hello@gydeline.com and we’ll try and get you involved

MIKE: So that’s set the scene a little, perhaps now we should get back and discuss the first episode.  What are your initial thoughts on Zelda?

RUSSELL: Confident and forthright that’s for sure.  However, not great at reading people and a naive view of what it takes to start a business

MIKE: Yes, but don’t we all start business a little unprepared

RUSSELL: True, and you learn all the time.  But she has had a business man for father… What do you think on Nero?

MIKE: Well, obviously successful.   He can even afford to keep Carlos as his familys live in chef and life-coach.

RUSSELL: Hmmm!

MIKE: Not sure if betting on his daughters failure is the most caring or loving thing to do.  He could be lining her up for tough lessons professionally and personally.

RUSSELL: Jakob has to answer to that accusation too.  As a friend, he definitely holds a torch for Zelda but she is unaware of his motivations

MIKE: Yes, and that all lines up to be the worst way to start a business and clouds your decision making.  What is a good reason to start a business?

RUSSELL: Well, having a real tangible solution you seeking to deliver to the marketplace would be a good start.  She seems to be, “oh I’m going to start a business”.  I think here initial thought was to take over her fathers business – and that was a pre-made business.  But obviously being thrown the gauntlet and manipulated into coming up with something else, she really doesn’t have anything, but having a good sound product, probably an idea of what customers and what interest in the market there is are key elements of starting a business.  Can anyone start a business?

MIKE: Interesting question.  So anybody can but there’s so many elements around the passion, the motivation, the skills and experience. You might have the apptitude for picking things up that all goes to impact whether you’ll be a successful business owner or not. History is littered with those people that have had many, many failures before eventually becoming successful.  

So it’s certainly a learning process and the learning process is something you can do through experience or maybe it’s something that others can help you with.  So thinking about  coaching or mentoring, what do we think about Jacob as a coach and a mentor?

RUSSELL: Obviously he’s got a background of being naturally rich, which doesn’t necessarily give him a good background to being a coach or mentor. However, we get the feeling that he’s probably helped a number of business in the past.  I think that’s a good point to discuss the difference between a coach and a mentor.  So often you hear those two phrases rammed together as if they are interchangeable as such.  The difference is, a coach is somebody who uses skills a techniques to get the best out of somebody and help them to develop themselves.  I think of football coaches; you don’t see footballs coach that are top class international players themselves

MIKE: Yes, you don’t need to be able to do it yourself to coach someone else to do a skill or a thing

RUSSELL: Exactly. So coaching is a group of techniques more than anything married with being good at getting the best out of people.  Mentoring has a difference aspect.  Although there’s coaching in it potentially, mentoring is about having the experience and knowledge to be able to advice people on good course of action and where things fail and where things succeed.  Usually through experience.  If Jakob is any good it will be because he’s run businesses that have been successful possibly some that have failed.

MIKE: It’s also about pointing people in the right direction and shortcutting some of that learning for them.

RUSSELL: Yes, absolutely

MIKE: So, between the two of them, Jakob or Nero as the best mentor?

RUSSELL: I think mentoring your daughter would be tough.  Clearly, he’s not got the highest respect for his daughter capabilities

MIKE: Just as tough as mentoring someone you like the look of?

RUSSELL: No!  There is a severe danger… well his rose tinted glasses have already got him into a bet that could lose him his DB5.  So, I’m not saying it can’t work mentoring a family member and hopefully you’d want to pass down that fatherly advice.  Unfortunately, what he’s done now is put himself in a position where he can’t mentor he daughter, he potentially succeeds in losing half his business. So, family members are potentially a good source of information, if they’ve run a business or done this kind of thing.  But they may not have the separation you need in a mentor to give the hard advice.  So there are a number of other issues mentioned in this episode…

MIKE: Yes, some stuff got scooted over like the unfair dismissal comment made by Nero, that’s something we’ll have to cover in the future

RUSSELL: Nero as well.  They mentioned retirement age and him getting older… A discussion on agism could be good subject too

MIKE: An investment, angel investments and whether being romantically involved is a good basis for investment;  Not the best reason for giving money to a business. There is a problem with having a bottom pit of money; does that make you lean, carefull and keeping an eye on costs. That doesn’t always help you realise your vision in the best way.

RUSSELL: Vision!  We’ve got to have a session on vision and values

MIKE: We’re not short of subjects that’s for sure.

RUSSELL: Hopefully we’ve whet the appetite for the next episode

MIKE: Let’s hope so.  Next time Jakob and Zelda have a moment of inspiration and we’ll get to discuss about some of the basics that need consideration when starting a venture

RUSSELL: Mama Mia!

MIKE: And that’s the title of Episode 2

RUSSELL: I know, that’s why I said it

MIKE: Oh ok… Great.  It only leaves us to thank a few people in getting this podcast off the ground.

RUSSELL: We must mention Harriet Teagle, she’s our artist in (digital) residence who created our album art and put a face to each of the characters who you can see on our Blue Sky Stinking page

MIKE: Hold on… We haven’t explained the name.

RUSSELL: We wrote an article on that – we’ll put a link to that on the episode page

MIKE: Good. We’ll also have a link to Camhayle Theatre Group who audibly brought the charaters to life

RUSSELL: You mean they’re not real people

MIKE: Yikes, could you imagine that!

RUSSELL: And worth saying at that point, that any similarity of the characters to anyone you know is purely coinidental and doesn’t mean they said or did any of the things we portray… Although we have based the stories on real life events.  So maybe they did!

MIKE: Thanks for that!  And finally we thank you listening to the end of episode 1.  Please comment, like, share and join in.  That’s how we’ll keep this podcast going and growing.  We’d love to hear what you think of the characters.  We’d love to know what you think about the scenarios they’ve got themselves in.  We’d love to hear about your ideas about where they go in the future.

RUSSELL: We’ll look forward to seeing you in the next Episode… Mama Mia

MIKE: You had to say it again didn’t you