On Tuesday night I was very happy to part of the audience for the Evening Standard Business Connections #ESBC event – entitled ‘James Caan – Thirty Years in Business’ at the Emmanuel Centre, Westminster. My luck did not end there because as a member of the team promoting the event I got to meet the man himself before proceedings started and a place on the front row to tweet live for ESBC. If you look carefully at the photo you’ll see me on the front row with my laptop open. It was an amazing and inspirational night and the packed audience went away excited and uplifted. What had they learned from James? I have captured many of his key points in the tweets that I posted on the night repeated here for your convenience.
On being proactive rather talking about recession…
‘It’s what you can do for yourself’
‘Last year we started 493,000 businesses in the UK.’
On learning from your mistakes…
‘James Caan is telling the story of his purchase of Benjys and the importance of knowing when to quit.’
‘Entrepreneurs need to have the ability to fail gracefully’
On entrepreneurship…
‘Entrepreneurship is about the journey, not the destination.’
On cashflow…
‘Payment terms are part of the sales process.If you can’t pay on 14 days we cannot do business with you.’
‘I teach young people ‘cash accounting’ rather than accrual accounting.’
On Start Up Loans & helping others…
‘We are starting 100 businesses a week with young people with ideas – we give them the money they need.’
Q – Why all the focus on young entrepreneurs? What about older people? A- ‘December 5th – the age limit will be extended up to 30 for the loans.’
‘180,000 have downloaded James Caan’s free Business Secrets app. ‘
On equity…
‘Don’t be afraid to give away equity…100% of nothing is nothing.’
I hope this has given you a taste of the evening. The next event is in February and the presenter is Michael Acton Smith aka ‘Mr Moshi Monsters’ – you can book your place –
We hope you have found this information inspirational.
Best regards,
Mike Pitt – Founder & CEO of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd
Follow us on Social Media
