Really rather proud of my brother Nick and his wife Chrissie… Recently they were awarded lifetime achievement awards by ECMOD, a UK association of Ecommerce Retailers.
They both run hugely successful businesses.
Nick founded Charles Tyrwhitt from his University room back in the mid 1980’s and Chrissie founded the White Company around 10 years later in the mid 1990’s.
They are both in their 40’s so it seems rather odd to me that they would get a lifetime achievement award so young… Perhaps it should just be an achievement award… Just imagine what they will have accomplished by their 80s!
Probably the most important lessons from these speeches are the importance of focus and the importance of having a great team of people who are better than you.
Hope you enjoy them and please do let me know what you think in the comments below.
Justin, I absolutely loved watching your brother Nick and his wife describe their journey to success. It is a lesson for all people in business, whether they have just started or have been struggling for years to realise that achievement is an unselfish facet of life. Nobody achieves a worthwhile goal without the help and recognition of others.
Look at how you unselfishly recognise your Brother's success and how he, in turn, recognised the efforts and abilities of his team. Sharing the load, giving a willing hand to help others… it is the hallmark of a quality service, a quality business and quality people such as your brother AND YOURSELF!.
I remember when I bought one of your products and you suggested to me that for 100% efectiveness I would need a newer version of WordPress. You not only gave the advice but you actually updated my website accordingly and installed the whole thing without the slightest hint of your efforts. These are the things that make the difference in business and in life as a whole. I'd like to say my "Thank-you" publically and inform your readers that they will notice the differences in your service compared with that of many other businesses. Maybe, Justin, your service strengths run in your family? Without knowing your parents, I will bet that they have influenced you and your brother in such a way that they will not seek the credit for your success but will be there in its foundation.
My final point; I believe that you have been skipping around the globe recently to attend, amongst other events, Frank Kern's session about optimising your performance in customer relations and marketing for increased profits? For what it's worth, I think you don't need to change your basic approach, just apply metrics to your important indicators and keep up the monitoring and updating of performance. That's a focus we could all do with… focus… focus …focus on people service and crucial metrics.
Thanks Harry, Glad you enjoyed the speeches. I certainly thought they were full of valuable lessons.
Nick has a saying that I think he got from someone else that a business is built or lost in exactly the same way, one customer at a time. It seems to me to be a valuable maxim to run your business by.
Thanks for your kind words about our service. Incidentally I have so much to thank my parents for that I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. Suffice it to say that I feel truly lucky with my family.
Also thanks for the comments on our basic approach. There is definitely a lot of space to improve and you are definitely right that we and indeed many other businesses need to focus on the crucial metrics. As my business develops we are trying to keep on the right track!