understood by us both . It also is important to have fun together because within senior roles , it can be very stressful .” |
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Grover : “ Clearly it isn ’ t always the case and I know cases of CFs who have not had strong relationships with the CEO which generally doesn ’ t end well , I ’ ve just been lucky and have worked with some fantastic CEOs and MDs .” |
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Swann agrees : “ I ’ ve always had a really good relationship with the VP / President . I think if you get on it definitely really helps . Ultimately , you ’ ve got to respect each other , trust each other as you are in it together , and you ’ re there to drive the business forward . “ I think communication is everything , you may not agree on everything and you ’ ve got to feel like you can you can challenge each other it ’ s healthy to have different opinions on things and be able to have constructive and often difficult discussions .” I think back to what Grover was saying about being excited about the future . There ’ s going to be launches and some speculative investments , how do you reconcile this with the natural caution that goes with your role ?
Swann : “ I think the big changes have been over the last year where we ’ ve had to act really differently . We ’ ve looked at new launches and some acquisitions , but I think you have to really be careful about committing
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costs up front without solid revenue milestones . So , as Ben mentioned cash is everything . You ’ ve really got to be careful with your cash flow so while you ’ re trying to explore new ideas , you ’ re trying to do them a bit on a shoestring until you know that it really is something that you can take forward .”
Swann continues : “ There ’ s quite a morbid sounding name , ‘ pre-mortem ’ which is when you ’ ve got an idea and as you ’ re thinking about how to develop the idea , you have a hypothetical discussion around , let ’ s just assume it went horribly wrong , what went wrong , and what could we have done better . Another way to do it is to put yourself in the future and say that went really well .”
Grover gives some insight in how Easyfairs operate : “ It was really quite frightening I remember the first launch that we did when I moved to Easyfairs , Mat Benyon
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called me into his office and said he ’ s got an idea . He then brought the event director into the meeting and five days later we launched the show . From idea to concept to launch in five days . In my time UBM we never would have done that it would have been quite a long-winded process and in the end , we probably wouldn ’ t have done it anyway .”
Simm : “ One of our mantras is to think big and small , because creating an encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit in a business , regardless of its size is really , really important .”
FRUSTRATED FOOTBALL AGENTS , RESTAURANT OWNERS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS
There is a famous Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin plays an
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accountant that secretly wanted to be a lion tamer , two careers that are obviously very different in their attitude to risk . I ask my three guests If they were not accountants what do you think you would have done ?
Swann : “ I love food and anything to do with that really interests me so the owner of a Michelin star restaurant would be right up my street .”
Grover : “ I always fancy being a football agent , my brother played professionally for Fulham , and I always fancied getting rich off the back of someone else ’ s talent ”
Simm : “ I can definitely see Ben as an agent . my subject at university was psychology and I have always been interested in what makes people tick so I think I would have been a psychologist .”
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June — 45 |