BBC Radio 4 is running a series of discussions about Women in Business with leading business entrepeneurs commenting on various topics. Having seen Michelle Mone of MJM International (lingerie business) speak at Lancaster University it was no surprise that in this interview she attributes success to having determination, passion, a fire in your belly and the ability to take risks. Having left school at 15 due to family pressures and therefore not completing her education I see a familiar pattern with successful business people I've come into contact with.
Michelle's co-interviewee Carol Savage of My Dish (an online internet business) attributes her business nous to something that wasn't planned and she fell into while on maternity leave. Business she says is common sense and learning by experience. Carol did undertake an MBA in Business once in business and again this is something which we tend to find, entrepeneurs underpinning their personal experience later in life in order to challenge and confirm they way they have become successful.
One thing both agree on is to employ people that are better than yourself for areas that are not within your own expertise, we certainly agree with this advice and aim to create an environment where our team want to work with us. For the whole debate listen here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt4gv#p00g3ldm
Cath Kidston (designer and entrepeneur)explains that her family thought she'd never come to anything after an irratic education.
ReplyDeleteThese days her business has a turnover of more than £50 million, 50 stores and employs 650 full time staff. "I really felt, from very, very early on, I was onto something with the notion of what I was doing," she says. "I remember feeling I'd really overstepped the mark when I opened my second shop - thinking, that's probably going a stage too far."
"I'm just a cog in the wheel these days"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b010lyy4
Kate Peacock