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Where is your favourite holiday destination?
I am more than happy with a week in North Wales in the summer
or a weekend in autumn, doing activities and meeting people.
I am no good at sitting on a sun lounger and having travelled
with work, I am quite happy to not get on a plane.
Sea dog or sea sick?
A bit of both. My first work experience job was to work on a
ship going from Scotland to Europe with a Spanish crew. As 6th
generation of a shipping family I was mortified to be seasick
most of my time at sea – I blamed the Spanish food! However,
I do enjoy sailing small sailboats when I can, but haven’t been
offshore since my work experience!
Where do you like to eat out? If so where?
Again, I am rather dull on my likes - I can say that I am plain
and simple. I am happy with a burger and chips, with a roast or
a steak being a treat. Leila, my wife, is a foodie so this does cause
a bit of trouble – I charm her with a carvery! She has to go for
exotic food with someone else (unless it’s with meat & two veg).
What’s your guilty pleasure?
No guilt – just chocolate. Cola, chocolate and I am buzzing!
Pet hate – waste. I can’t stand waste, be it space, time, wasting
paper, anything. I love recycling and take home rubbish to
recycle.
Looking to the future, what is important to you and what else
would you like to achieve?
The thing that is important to me is making people happy and
doing things that can achieve that. So when I have made money I
have put it into a Charitable Trust, which I use to support people
to help them achieve their worthy cause. There are so many
people working so hard to improve things, such as Ema at Neo
Café, who works tirelessly to feed Wirral children in poverty,
Kevin Allen (aka Banana man), who helps feed starving orphans
in South Africa and of course the staff and volunteers at both
Birkenhead Youth Club and the Hive. There are too many good
causes to support them all, so I help where I can personally see
the difference. A fine example is this month (Sunday 14th May)
when the Oxton Secret Gardens, which attracts thousands of
visitors to see over 20 gardens and donates the income to local
charities. It is run by volunteers and I do my small bit by driving
the minibus from the free car park to the village - everyone has
time and so everyone can donate in their own small way.
What would your one piece of business wisdom be?
Assuming you have a product that will sell, then it’s all about
managing the people. In every business that I have turned
around, I have done it with the same people and just refocused
them accordingly. Make sure that you have each area of the
business covered (sales, finance, operations, product knowledge/
technical/quality) because if one of these areas is poor the
business will probably fail at some stage. Maximise people’s
strengths and minimise their weaknesses - I know my own
weaknesses so I minimise them by asking the right people the
right questions. Keep your staff informed and explain decisions,
otherwise they will be become disengaged and assume the worst
– the easiest time to motivate people and get them pulling in the
same direction is when you are in trouble. Sink or swim.
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