Holly Tucker MBE
Holly Tucker is one of the UK’s most respected entrepreneurs. She is the founder of Holly & Co, UK Ambassador to Small Creative Businesses and co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com.
Holly’s purpose and passion is to mentor and support other small businesses and now during the Covid-19 outbreak she has launched SME:SOS, a free resource to empower small businesses and provide all the help they need in these uncertain times.
TRANSCRIPT
HOLLY: Thank you so much for having me and how interesting that we're going to connect, but we're, we're, we're all in different areas of the country.
JAKE: So just to make it clear for people, I'm in deepest darkest Norfolk, Holly's in West London …
DAMIAN: … and I'm in God’s own country of Manchester.
JAKE: Ah, I knew it, I knew it. You couldn’t go through the conversation about the North of England without some positive reference to Manchester. I know you love that place. Um, Holly, let's ask you first of all a question that we cover with a lot of people, which is what is, in your mind, what is a high performance life?
HOLLY: To start with, I've never thought of myself of having a high performance life because, um, when you love what you do, um, and it's almost everything that you are, personally and professionally, you don't really look at it in that way. You know, I think what's made me possibly unique is the fact that I have that balance and I have that understanding that at any point in time, you know, anything could be taken away from me. I have the imposter syndrome like so many, um, women do. And so in a way, being always thought that I'm going to slightly be caught out, I suppose just drives me.
JAKE: So is it the imposter syndrome that drives you on, or is it the fact that you love what you're doing? Where does the, where's the biggest motivating factor coming from? Because there are going to be thousands of people listening to this now who all have a dream, all want to do something, but for whatever reason they prevaricate and they don't, they don't take that first step. And I always say the action is what leads to motivation. So for you, what drives the action?
HOLLY: Well, I would absolutely agree that it's the energy and the movement and action that is critical here. I've just turned 43, started Not on the High Street when I was 28, and I think what drove me at 28 when I started Not on the High Street, not only did I have a three month old baby, so there were some practicalities about, you know, what drove me. Um, we were building a marketplace, um, which no one had even heard of the word marketplace. The only other marketplaces out there were Amazon and eBay. We were absolutely naive and naivety is fantastic when you start up a business because if you knew what we were actually trying to do, you would never have started it. I always liken starting a business, and business folk tend to not um, agree with me here in the analogy, but I liken it to being a parent. And so when I had my first born business, just like a child, there was no way that that was going anywhere but up, you know, I was never going to let it down. I knew that if I did more it would succeed. And so I just drove myself. Take myself from 28 to sort of 40, and I realised on my 40th I wanted to sort of be efficient with my days and my life. So I've worked out how many days I had on the planet and it was 29,000 days, you know, this was the average between men and women in the UK. Um, I then, you know, that sounds good until you then work out how many days you have left. And I realised I had, um, 14,000 days left on my 40th birthday. I plan to work till I'm 90 and then I'm going to retire, drink wine, eccentric glasses, lots of jewellery. But until that point, for me, I feel like I've now got an amount of time that's counting down, every hour, every minute I should, it should, count. But it also should fill my soul. And I've started to become better at sort of understanding that I have to live within my passion every day. Um, so there were sort of two moments in my life. One was that sort of entrepreneurial drive where you don't have choice and now you're in, if you are mother lion, you know, you fixate and you drive. And I think that's incredibly powerful. And then in this sort of period since my forties, um, it's really an understanding, an appreciation of every single day that we have on this planet and we have our health.
DAMIAN: Holly, Holly, can I, can I take you back to that age of 28 when you first decided to set up a business, though? Because I'm intrigued about that period of time. Because I feel that we're often, er, miss sold from a lot of entrepreneurs that tell us that you should feel the fear and do it anyway and you should just jump into the deep end. But I know that a lot of listeners will feel the fear and that will often cause them to hesitate or to stop. So what advice would you give to people that do balance that risk, and think, you know I've got a young family, or I've got a mortgage, I've got responsibilities. What advice would you give to them that do feel that fear and are just hesitating?
HOLLY: Well, I've spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs on my podcast, and it was very interesting. Like some of them have spoken about how they really advise people to be young and go for it. So if you have an idea and you're young and you don't have a family yet and you don't have a mortgage yet and you don't have those responsibilities, you know, you are in a far better situation to, you know, go for it, fail, pick yourself up, go and move into a smaller flat, whatever it takes. At 28 I was still young, but I had a partner and a young child. And I suppose at that point one of the things that I did do was I did work a day job while setting it up. So I did, you know, I can't stand the phrase, but I did side hustle. So I, I was basically right, right at the beginning. And to be honest with you, it didn't last long because the moment you took on the beast of trying to build Not on the High Street, you know, you are 20 hours a day building it. But I think that that's a great piece of advice for people who do fear that they've taken on some obligations now, you know. They have responsibilities. Because as much as I'm in a hurry, and I am, I, I've also spoken to entrepreneurs who are, they speak about slow and steady wins the race. You know, and actually maybe it's because I'm getting older, but it's true. You know? And so in a way, if you can bootstrap it and side hustle, build up some cushion so that you can actually feel that, that not that fear because there's nothing like money fears to paralyse you. If you build something fantastic and a brand that's emotionally going to connect with a fantastic product or service, you will gain customers, you know. It will happen for you.
DAMIAN: This imposter syndrome then that you mentioned, um, what will be the moment where you finally accept that you are talented, you are driven, you are hugely successful in your own right?
HOLLY: It's an interesting one. You know, as a woman, in business, um, you know, you're often asked to go and sit on panels and talk about things that just affect women. And um, and I do feel that it is quite a female, uh, feeling - the imposter syndrome - and I speak about it a lot with my community. I recognise that I have imposter syndrome, you know, I recognise it. And what I'm trying to now do is turn that around and I don't think it's going anywhere for the foreseeable future. You know, I, I don't think some of these things that we feel are necessarily always negative. It's the way that we've maybe been told to feel about them. The imposter syndrome stops you getting carried away with your ego. If I didn't have imposter syndrome, it would mean that I would not double, triple, quadruple check everything that I write. You know, everything that I go and do, I research and prepare. And so I actually call it a blessing. I sort of a super strength because not only do I think it's going to keep me grounded, but it's also going to always make sure that I'm the best version that I can be.
DAMIAN: So one of the entrepreneurs that we've interviewed on the podcast, Holly, has been a young social media entrepreneur called Steven Bartlett. And he'd spoken about this idea of, um, he'd overcome a similar sort of imposter syndrome by looking for evidence to build his beliefs. So the more evidence he got, the more he would start to believe in himself. Now, given the success that Jake outlined at the start of this that you've had and the difference that you've made to so many lives, do you ever stop and reflect on where you've come from, and does that help build belief in yourself?
HOLLY: I honestly don't think I ever do. I look back at this time and, um maybe in my seventies, you know, and say, well, you've done a good job. Um, because I think I'm always so much in the future. And when I, um, talk about imposter syndrome, you know, I'm not fearful. So I go in and try new things. I'm not scared about falling over. I'm not scared about failing. So maybe that's why the imposter syndrome keeps coming into my life because I'm driving myself forward. Just downstairs today, something happened at Not on the High Street and my husband came and gave me a big kiss and just said, you know, I'm proud of you. And I sort of looked at him bemused, you know, and I said, Oh, um, did you do, you know, did you buy the sweetener?, or whatever I said, and then I went upstairs again and it doesn't really register. All I know is a lot of good is happening and uh, and, and a lot of people are being supported. Um, and people are happy with what I create and I am happy. I'm deeply happy. And I think that's what I'm focused on.
JAKE: It's very interesting I think when you talk about that. You know, from a personal perspective for me, when people go, Oh, you're a guy from a little village in Norfolk that’s ended up on the television, must feel brilliant, must feel incredible. I haven't had a thrill as good as when I got a job on children's BBC in 2001 and I bought a second hand, MGF from an old man who lived in Colchester, for £9,250. And the moment that he turned the light on in the garage, when I got the train to his house and I had this banker's draft, he turned the light on in the garage, and you know, those old strip lights to go flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. As it was flicking on it off and I was getting a tiny glimpse of this British racing green MGF, oh the thrill! And I've never, despite everything that's happened since then, I've never, I've never had that, that, that moment. So I asked you, Holly, the single greatest thrill in your career, is it something that happened a week ago or a month ago, during this period of incredible success, or is it something right at the very start of the journey?
HOLLY: It's interesting what you're talking about there because I don't believe in mentors. I believe in, you know, people sort of come into your life, certainly for me in my business career, they sort of happened to be there. I remember someone at a point in time where, um, I was able to take a bit of money out of the business and - a very small amount - and I do remember that he told me what you taste now is the sweetest it will ever be. You just only have to go all the way to, you know, what people say about billionaires being the most unhappy people and then come all the way, right crashing down to where I am. And, and you know, it's really worth noting that. Because I think for all entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs, money is in no way a driver. So I think that that's something certainly I've held onto. And I actually think bootstrapping is possibly the best place an entrepreneur can be in. Because I think an entrepreneur's most happiest place is when they're creatively having to think outside of money. You know, money can really dent an entrepreneur's, um, capabilities and skill. And just going back to what you asked, sort of, that moment in time, there have been these little moments, um, certainly, you know, I raised four rounds of VC funding, um, when the business was going through hard times, you know, raising money, no brokers, you know. I’m a dyslexic girl with just a few ‘A’ levels, with an ‘E’ in Business Studies, and I was around a table with 15 Harvard men. Do you know what I mean? And I did well. But I would say to you my last week's achievements, how I've got a team that is willing to work 14 hour days at a drop of a hat, um, what the content, the brand, uh, SME: SOS that we've been able to pull around, I think 24 hours it took us. So I'm proud of that. That's, you know, I feel like I'm at my pinnacle almost each week rather than thinking I sort of banked the great success yet.
DAMIAN: Some of the achievements that you've mentioned there are incredible, and I know that you're so passionate about helping small and medium sized businesses and being a voice in the SME:SOS that you're launching is, is a real testament to that. You know, you've got the MBE, you, you've had real success. So for somebody that is in that bootstrapping stage, how do you stop yourself sort of losing touch with those real life challenges?
HOLLY: That's a really good question. You know, for me, relationships, when you look at my personality, relationships are one of the highest forms of valuation I would have for myself. I would say that I can connect with people. I am very empathetic and I also, I've been told, you know, I've never lost my grounding, however much success I've had, and this is not me in any way saying, well, what a great job, Holly, you are, you know, you've done. But I haven't, because actually the happiest times are where you are bootstrapping. The happiest times are, you know, I’m learning that the simplest things in life are the best. And so I feel like I can communicate in a way that's honest and vulnerable and open, and I think people tap into that. I also think it helps when you are building something to be in the shoes of the community that you are talking to. So yes, I have Not on the High Street - fantastic. You know, it's going to go over 900 million that we pumped into the economy, um, over the last 14 years. It’s just turned 14. I know that because my son has just turned 15, so they're basically the same age. But right now I'm in Holly & Co, and we have tiny marketing budgets and we have a tiny team that is, you know, doing what a team of 40 would do normally in a bigger office. But there's only seven or eight of us. And that is why I feel that I can communicate because I'm back in the shoes of the startup. Yes, I've had, Not on the High Street, but I'm just doing it all again. And hopefully that's where I can empathise and where they connect with me.
JAKE: One of the things we talk about often on this podcast, Holly, is fault versus responsibility, and the fact that lots of people hide behind fault for not achieving what they want. Oh, it's, I can't do that because this happened to me or that happened to me. Quite often things do happen that are not our fault. Let's take SME:SOS, right? And all these small businesses across the UK. Um, I have a production company, we’re just down the road from, from you in Kew. And we've had some really difficult conversations because we're small and we are only a few years old and we certainly have to, we've gone from feeling we’re healthy to feeling we’re xxx healthy. Now, it's not our fault that Corona virus has happened, but I still believe it's our responsibility to deal with what's going on at the moment. And I think it's always a strong message for people that there will always be moments in your life that are not your fault, but no matter how bad those moments are, it's still your responsibility to find your own way through, isn't it?
HOLLY: Oh yes, I mean even fault and responsibility hasn't even ever even occurred to me. It's not in my language. No is not something to say to me. Um, I was talking to someone who said that they were confused. I don't understand anyone that says that they're confused because why wouldn't you ask? I don't really understand when people blame, because actually in that, um, there must be opportunity. I don't actually honestly hand on heart ever see anything as an insurmountable problem. Yes. Okay. So with Holly & Co, we need to look at the PNL. We need to cut out tons of revenue. We are going to not do what we thought we were going to do. That sort of was the 10th thing I did. The first thing I did within 24 hours was say, how are we going to help? How are we going to use this as an opportunity to get our message, which by the way was always helping small businesses and now they need it, 24 hours guys, we're going to build a brand, and I'm going to do a live video 24 hours on from this moment in time. Here's the list of things we've got to do. Do it, and we recorded our first video. We then went out to people who that we spoke to and said, you know what? We're going out there. We've got great traction. Would you like to be involved too? Everyone's budgets are absolutely tiny, but they have supported us. We didn't build it with money in mind. We never built it in any way thinking that, but the point is is that the opportunity was there to amplify the help that we gave, and that optimism, that sort of opportunity, that's the adventure that we could go on, absolutely overtook any thought of looking at failure. There are no excuses. You know, you don't get a golden star for an excuse. You don't get anything. If you are an entrepreneur you are made for these moments in time. You know, that entrepreneurial spirit, you're born as a fighter.
DAMIAN: Can I ask you a bit of a personal question here then, Holly? Because I would say that anecdotally one of the biggest obstacles I often find is that when you have an entrepreneur that doesn't get complete backing from, whether it's a partner or a parent, if you're a little bit younger, and often the reasons that they offer come from a place of love - if they don't want you to fail, they always get hurt, they don't want to see you upset. But it's often the biggest obstacle behind entrepreneurs going to flourish. So if you don't mind me asking about your relationship with your husband that is, comes from that more pessimistic point of view. How did you get him to buy into your dream of Not on the High Street and Holly, and then SME:SOS?
HOLLY: Harry was three months old, um, when the Not on the High Street dream started from the kitchen table, and, um, not only was he that character, but I, I was a Mum of a three month old, and we had very little income coming in. He worked in the public sector and, um, I was working in freelance magazine sales, you know, so I actually think as much as he is very pessimistic, he does adore me, and that's always been the thing. We've just celebrated 18 years and actually he asked me to marry him last week. So that was a lovely thing. Um, but yeah…
JAKE: God, congratulations, I hope you said yes.
HOLLY: I did. It's taken 18 years, but you know, it's all right. That's good. And it was lovely, and my son who's 15 got asked to be best man and it was just a wonderful, beautiful moment. But I would say that right at the beginning of our relationship, he did believe in me. And um, then I would say the road of an entrepreneur is not an easy one when it comes to loved ones. We have gone on that relationship roller coaster. There were a lot of lows, because the pressure of an entrepreneur is so personal, especially when you've got the entire household income on your shoulders. Certainly within three, four years I was a sole breadwinner, and I've always been. It is an incredible pressure and I feel that you really, really have to get them to come on board. So there would be ways that I would speak to him, ways I would give information. Now it wasn't managing him. But I do think entrepreneurs have to realise that, you know, the journey that we choose is not for everyone. Hopefully you've got their support but you've got to help them come for the ride, you know. The risk I would take is not the same level of risk he would take. And it, and it can bring out massive fear in those around you. And for a very long time, when I was younger, I didn't realise it was fear. I believed that it was someone stopping me in my tracks. You know, trying to put a road block in there. And after a 10 hour day, you know, you really need it like a hole in the head. So I feel that, that, that's one of the things I've certainly learned, you know. Over 18 years we've learned how to communicate about business, and what I would do. And er, I don't necessarily bring everything home.
DAMIAN: So how much of that, Holly, would you advise now for, in SME:SOS? How much of those skills would you advise SME owners to adopt and implement during this unusual period of time?
HOLLY: Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult. Right now I'm dealing with a lot of businesses who are now going through not just the normal roller coaster of an entrepreneurial world. They're dealing with the proper proper stuff. They have one month's worth of cash left in the bank. You know, what are we going to do? And now this is where I would say absolutely you need to share that. Because when you're dealing with the real life and death moments, which I have certainly dealt with, but right now I would advise people to definitely share that problem because this is where it can get very tricky, you know, um, mental health, um, if you feel like you're trying to keep something alive in your own, you know, in your own home office and no one else knows, you know, you have to reach out to people. And I do feel that there is a lot of support out there. I mean, certainly I'm giving support from that emotional side and trying to demystify what the government is saying and all these sorts of things. And there is quite a bit of help out there that people can gain. Um, because as I said, there's nothing worse than the cash stress.
JAKE: I think it's important to talk about this sort of stuff as well. Because often when we have conversations with high achieving, high-performance individuals, we talk about the great stuff. And I think sometimes maybe people are listening at home thinking I've love to be an entrepreneur. I feel like I could be the next Holly Tucker, but she obviously finds it so easy. She obviously has no barriers or known issues to deal with. I'm not that person. Never, it won't happen to me. So how do you deal with periods where you're not fine? Because it's not true to say you're always fine, is it?
HOLLY: No, um. I'm not always fine. I'm a good coach for myself, and I think some people have that skill. I'm the Duracell bunny of many, um, sort of in a, in, uh, the right sense of the word there. You know I prop a lot of people up. People like my sunshine and then when they feel like they're in the shade, it doesn't go down very well. So I know that I need to be, and want to be, my character. I'm certainly very grounded in that, um, money is not plentiful and it's not, um, to a point where I'm sort of sitting on Necker Island and you know, it's all, everything is perfect. and in a way, again, that sort of keeps me at my happiest. You know, I, I do think that there is something about striving and building that always gets me into the best frame of mind.
JAKE: If I said, here's nine billion pounds, and no more battles, no more entrepreneurship, no more fights, no more failings, no more successes, just the 9 billion pounds - go and spend it, what would you take? That, the money or, or the place are now?
HOLLY: If I was allowed to, I, I don't, I'd ask, okay if I take a few million? And give you back the rest? Um, but really hand on heart, I would give that money back. I, you know, there were points in my career where I was, um, the, you know, not only founded the business, but then it grew and you know, from the days where I told the first businesses that joined Not on the High Street, um, don't be ridiculous, we're going to turn over a million. We're not that type of business, you know, and then you start hitting, these are the sales going through Not on the High Street. And now we're into, you know, well past 150, 200 million a year. And so, you know, at those points in time, um, CEO, I was chair woman, I was, you know, um, the chair woman of all these VCs and gosh, I was becoming a she-man, quite honestly. Yes, there would be that holiday that, you know, somehow I was allowed to go and take, because for me to be out the business for two weeks was a complete nightmare. And yes, you would fly in business class and yes, you’d go and stay in absolutely beautiful hotels. I had those moments, I have to say I had those moments. But the thing that happened was I realised that I was living this sort of executive life and I was not being the true Holly hurricane. I wasn't my creative self. So what I did is I would change those things around and now I take family adventures. So we set a budget and we set that budget, and we'll go out to Africa and we will spend two weeks in Africa touring around or we’ll go to Borneo and we'll tour around Borneo and we will bootstrap it a bit, you know, because that adventure - me, you know, lying under the stars with my son, eating a hot dog, well, it beats anything, and you don't need the money to create that. And that is also why I advise a lot of the businesses that I do advise: look at the end goal. If you want to go and have an Island, if you want to have a car, if you want to have the huge house, you want to go do that, well then the options you need to take from step are a list of options that might, maybe turning right. But if you want to have a business where you can involve your family, have you know, wonderful moments and milestones, but you plan to work because work is what grounds you and makes you have purpose in your life, until you're 70. Well then turn left. And I don't think people ask themselves about the destination they're looking to get to, not as a business, you know, not how much money I want to make. But personally,
DAMIAN: Holly, can I ask that, I mean, listening to you is incredibly energetic and that was one of the phrases that resonates with the Holly Hurricane nickname, but it also sounds exhausting as well. So what do you do to switch off to replenish your batteries?
HOLLY: What I do is I, um, connect. My house is very much a shrine to Not on the High Street and small businesses. I believe in quality of amount of time with my son rather than quantity. I was never a Mum that could play on the floor and do trains, but I am a Mum that can help him build his first business called Sugar Boy. And so we'll hang out, and we'll um, draw and we’ll design his new packaging. And I will be with my family and my friends. So in a way I don't have work life balance. I just have the bricks that I built in my life. And that could be nine o'clock at night. It could be 10 o'clock in the morning. Um, you know, there isn’t this distinction where I need to sort of turn off because I love what I do.
JAKE: It's the Shakespeare quote, isn’t it? Make your passion your job, and you never need to work another day in your life. I also think that, you know, sometimes we get obsessed with saying, oh, you have to have a work life balance. You have to have time out. You know, we're all very individual and maybe the truth is that you get such a thrill, as you said, from, from what you do that you don't need to go and lay on a beach. Yeah. It's, we’re all, we're all different. I don't think that we should frown on people that are like, well I just love working and I want to work all the time. That's kind of okay, isn't it? Because it sounds to me like when you're with your son, partly you are kind of secretly working. Cos xxx a business, you're doing what you love. You're living your passion, right?
HOLLY: [laughs] Even if I'm in the hairdresser, you know, I'll be sitting here with my highlights done and I'm always designing the new hairdresser he should start, or there was a moment I was in, um, South Africa and I was in the remotest place, I can tell you. We had driven eight hours. We’d taken a plane out of Cape town and then we'd driven eight hours, and I just been taking turtles into the sea that were hatching, and all this sort of stuff. Literally you could see no one. And my son was just stung with a scorpion. I'm talking in the middle of nowhere. And someone recognised me and, and said, oh you're not Holly from Not on the High Street? And I said, oh yes, I am. She, she said, well, now I've got you, at the moment, I'm just wondering… I spent the next two hours, you know, drinking cocktails, but designing a business. And I truly believe it's not work. It is my life. It is my full life. I'm living my fullest life. No one has work life balance, you know. I don't believe they have work life balance if they're truly happy and have a purpose as a whole.
JAKE: You see the messages from you, Holly, are coming through loud and clear that you know, you could have that pride of ownership, you don't need to work for anybody else. Um, you could do something that really means something. You can live your passion. But I think it's also really important to point out that ar, I think when I was growing up, there was no option, I don't believe, of being an entrepreneur. You went to see the careers person at school, and they told you a job you could do, and, as I explained to you before we started the podcast, my parents would have been delighted if I'd have ended up on a, on a management trainee scheme with a, you know, a big retail business or something because that's the job for life. I think now all young people think I could be an entrepreneur. But I think it's really important to point out that it isn't for everyone and it isn't easy and it isn't guaranteed money in your pocket, nine to five, switch off at 5pm, have your weekends to yourself, go drinking with your mates on a Friday. That's the key, isn't it?
HOLLY: Yeah. I mean there's so much positivity about this journey, but there is an absolute reality. You have to want the life that I've just said, a full life within your business and within your world, personal world that merges as one. And there is no real distinction because you know, I, and I've been interviewed quite a bit and people sort of saying, well now, you've made it or you know, you, you have these moments where I can have weekends where I don't work or all these sorts of things. You know, there is a real reality when you build businesses out of your purpose of, of yourself, it is every waking hour. You're on call always. The businesses I know to be successful and the entrepreneurs and founders I really respect who have built businesses over 20, 30 years, some of the biggest brands that we know in the UK, they still work like I'm working. I was talking to a hotelier, um, uh, Robin who owns the Pig Hotels, and he still sleeps in every single bedroom of every single hotel that they create. It's that obsession with detail. He's still there choosing the next chandelier for the next place that they're going to do. And they go to some antiques fairs because that's the pleasure he gets out of the business he's created, along with having thousands of employees and all these sorts of things. But I love that and it's a real example, and he's been doing it 20, 30 years. He still does that. This guy could, we could all think, you know, he's made it, he's done. So many people I know will never sell their businesses. You know, they might get investment and take some money out, but ultimately, you know, us entrepreneurs are a bit lost. You know, it's not many people talk about the other side, you know, if it is you, and you brought it up, and it is your DNA, it is very hard to sort of take the founder out.
JAKE: That leads me on to talking about people around you, Holly. Because it's great that you've got the energy and that you're the founder and it's your business and you feel a sense of ownership. How do you find people to come along for the ride with you? And I'm talking about people in your business from the very top that you sit alongside to people that are coming in at the entry level but still have the buy in to your beliefs. What are those, what we call them non negotiable behaviours. What are yours?
HOLLY: Well, right at the beginning of Not on the High Street when, you know, you can forget it we had any money for recruitment agencies or anything like that. Number one was all the family and friends, and friends of family and their cousins. Um, because they were the people who would work tirelessly for not much money and believed in you. But as we moved on, one of the great things that we found when starting those early days of Not on the High Street was we would recruit our customers. So we would send out, and these are the days before social media, we would send out emails to our customers and just let them know of the roles that we were looking for. And it was incredible because when you buy into a brand or a person or a founder, that that sort of storytelling element just travels. And so we were finding that our story of hiring was traveling up and down the country and we were finding amazing people. As time then went on and you become a bigger business, et cetera, et cetera. And there's less time to sort of, recruiting creative ways and you're needing to bring in, you know, 50 people over two months and all these sorts of things, there certainly was always an idea where I would say to people, so Not on the High Street and also Holly & Co, these are businesses that you need to believe in as if you were working in the charity sector. This community needs to matter to you outside of working here. Can you show me evidence of that? So many people would come in, you know. The worst cases would never have even bought a product. And I, I, that was a five minute interview. And then some people would delve into how their parents used to have businesses and how they were brought up respecting the hard work of small businesses. And so their belief, their purpose, their values were already embedded in my missions outside of myself. That is a non negotiable. And also another thing would be hard work. Cause I work incredibly hard and one of the things I've found over time is you need people who want to work in an entrepreneurial business, who can move with the times and who are adaptable. And so many people think that they are, they want to be. But my goodness, when you start, you know, revving and pushing your foot on that accelerator, you can tell there's a lot of people who can't keep up. It's a quite hard thing to look for in that interview process. You can only really see it. I always say I wish I could actually date people and have a relationship with them before we married. And actually work together. Um, because you know, you, you, you can only really tell, can't you after six months, can they really handle it?
DAMIAN: I've had a great interview, um, once, about somebody that had worked for Walt Disney, Holly, that said that one of the ways that he would recruit was that he’d er, he'd invite people to come for dinner with them and he’d look closely to see whether they put salt and pepper on their food before they tasted it. Cause that indicated to him whether they were closed minded or whether they were prepared to at least be open enough to try the dish before they decided to flavour it. You can't date them for six months before you bring them into your world. So what’s the one thing you’d be looking for when you meet them when they turn up? What's the one thing that you'd say “make somebody” a Not on the High Street member of your tribe?
HOLLY: I would say it's the going above and beyond. Um, the people in my team now have literally blown me away from the second I've met them. They would have prepared the presentation I haven't even asked them to prepare before. They come and open up a suitcase full of small business products that they've bought and they want to tell me a story. That's how they're going to conduct the interview. People that come to me and say, you know what, I know you're really busy, and I want to work for you, so let me just take this interview on. Let me tell you about me. And in a creative way, that is what gets me. So I would say that that is the one thing, the people who have blown me away are the people who have the, almost the knowledge of myself that I will want to be interested in them. I want to be excited about them. And so then they instinctively know that, and prepare themselves before meeting me.
JAKE: Really interesting. Look, Holly, I think we've, we've got to the point where we always finish with some quick fire questions. I know we've covered this slightly, but I would love you to give us just the list of three, your three non-negotiable behaviours for success.
HOLLY: I think one is an absolute, um, understanding of how lucky we are to have every single day on this planet healthy. Um, and so that they are very grounded with gratitude. Two would be, um, a value which is about the sort of small business industry and creative industry. And how what I say is it brings colour to grey. And without these people, without this community, um, we would be living in the most, a world that we couldn't even perceive right now. Um, and it's why I really believe that this group of people need to be supported and cheer leaded. And a third would be a grounded purpose, um, which led them to work tirelessly and nothing is too much, um, that they're always coming from that sort of “no is not the answer”. Um, and they're sort of entrepreneurial in their own thinking.
DAMIAN: So what advice would you give to a teenage Holly that was starting out?
HOLLY: A teenage Holly was very, very insecure even though she went and got her first job in an advertising agency, age 17 on the same day that she gained her ‘A’ level results - two A's and the classic D, or was it an E in business studies. And she was very, very desperate to get out there. And she did, she celebrated her 17th birthday in an office in publicists, Baker street, you know. And she, and she was out in the world. I don't think she realised that she was going to be okay. And so she just tirelessly tried to please people, um, wanted to be liked and would work too hard sometimes to the detriment of everything else. And so for me, I would just let her know that I am enough and um, and that everything I dreamt of is going to come true. But actually I don't need to live such a tormented mental life, you know, in my mind, on the journey.
JAKE: How important is legacy to you?
HOLLY: Legacy is really important actually to me. I didn't, obviously when you build something Not on the High Street, you're not thinking about legacy day one. You're thinking about baked beans and whether you can afford them. And then as time goes on, you know, you realise, well I might be doing something right here, but legacy is incredibly important. I want to finish up at 90 and I want to look back and I want to think in some way I contributed, I properly contributed to culture. I probably contributed to lives of very good people. And at that point, um, I think I'll potentially look back at my life and smell the roses.
JAKE: Oh, and by the way, you don't think you live a high performance life. But you, you absolutely do. And this is interesting cause all the sports people we speak to, Holly, feel they live a high performance life. The non-sports entrepreneurs and business people always start by saying, Oh well I don't think I need a high performance life.
HOLLY: Oh how interesting. Well I've got two, two sort of mottoes. Um, one is a funny one? Um, when I realised you are only as great as your team, you know. You're the cheerleader, or you're the Pied Piper and you're that person that can solve and put, take blockers out the way for other people. And really your team is the asset. Is, if you're a sports person, it's the racing car. Do you know what I mean? It is, you just sit in it and drive. Um, so my funny motto in life is it's better to have a hole than an asshole, which basically means that when you're an entrepreneur in a small business, you just can't handle it anymore. So you're just going to hire someone. And I'm telling you now, however big your business is, the bigger the business and the higher that person is up there “Get the wrong person and it will take your business back one year”. The second would be, is purpose. Purpose is the fuel for entrepreneurs, and it's what I believe is going to be the fuel for all successful businesses moving into a more caring and conscious consumer. And so I think it's imperative that purpose is the driving force, um, within yourself and within your business.
JAKE: Holly, thank you so much for taking the time to chat to us. It has been so interesting. And for all the young and maybe not young entrepreneurs that are listening to this, to finish by talking about purpose I think is such an important thing because there will be people listening to this that feel they have purpose, but perhaps they also feel that now isn't the right time. And I think I just really want to make a quick mention of the fact that it will always feel like it's not the right time, won’t it? And that if anyone is listening to this and they really want to do it...
HOLLY: There's never a perfect time. Just like having children, you know. There's no space in the diary to have a kid. Um, you know, so you just gotta go for it. You know, when you start a business, what does that actually mean? Right now if you're listening to this podcast and you've got that idea, congratulations. Because you've started right now. It's just the mindset. It's not the business card or the team or the premises or the equipment. It's the mindset that you're going to do this.