I have heard Simon Woodroffe speak on many occasions and everytime I see him take to the stage I learn something new. At the ‘KPI’ day I was frantically writing down notes as his presentation provided so much value and was rich in content. It was also nice to learn a bit more about Simon’s journey and the highs and lows that he has experienced along the way.

Simon started his professional career by becoming a stage designer for rock shows and Live Aid after leaving school at the age of 16. With wanting more out of life Simon purchased the Tony Robins DVD box set (worth £200 at the time) to find another path in life. After completing the course he found himself completely motivated and decided to make a tape for his walkman with all his goals on and decided to go for a run. At the time Simon could usually run no more than a mile but on this day with his goals playing over and over again Simon ran the whole way around Hyde Park. The feeling of achievement was so powerful that it nearly brought Simon to tears and taught him that you can do anything as it’s all in the power of the mind.

With his drive to succeed Simon decided it was time to kick start his business idea of a revolving sushi bar (originally with girls in black PVC miniskirts) without any start-up capital. Conveyorbelt Japanese food has been going since the 1960’s but had never made the migration to Europe. Simon Woodroffe started YO! Sushi in 1997 and despite its popularity he was heavily in debt. Woodroffe went to his largest supplier and asked them for extended terms to pay off his debt and sat down with the CEO with a belief and some ignorance in terms of the seriousness of this meeting. He said that he had large corporate sponsors backing the restaurant such as BA and Sony but in fact they had only ever donated a very small amount. Simon jokes that he had put their company logo in the shop window as stickers to give him some credibility and it worked as he did manage to get the money needed and make the deal with the supply chain. Over the moon Simon decided that he was going to go out and have a few drinks to celebrate. On his way home and slightly worse for wear he decided to go to a ATM machine and see if the money had gone in to is account. He queued up in an orderly fashion waited his turn. Once he had got to the front and with a small queue still behind him Simon typed in all his details and waited for his bank balance to appear, when it did, with all the zeros and more money than Simon had ever seen in his life he turned to the guy behind and said ‘cop a look at this, if someone ever tells you that money does not make you happy then they are lying”.

Simon Woodroffe went on to open many other YO!Sushi chains and even appeared as a ‘Dragon’ in series one of Dragons’ Den. He has now launched a number of hotels under the Yo!Hotel Brand and received an OBE on 17 June 2006.

I like Simon’s openness, honesty and wiliness to share his story. He is real and inspirational and proves that stepping far enough out of your comfort zone where you are forced to swim can pay off in big ways. As well as learning about Simons Journey I also picked up some great business tips.

My top 10 tips from Simon Woodroffe

  1. Do something you are passionate about
  2. Make sure you surround yourself with ‘like minded’ people. You learn more from those around you
  3. You will get alot of rejection when in business so make sure you go out and ‘hit the rejection target’ as this will not only build character but it will also provide you will more opportunities and increased likelihood of reward.
  4. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. You really need to understand the customer experience to be successful. People that fail to take themselves out of the mix often miss things and end up disconnected from their audience.
  5. You need to create the WOW factor, make people start talking about you by being different
  6. Figure out what you are good at then spend 90% of your time doing it.
  7. Being able to let go of the ‘power’ in your business is the hardest thing but will be the making of your business if you chose and trust the right person.
  8. There is never a good time to start a business, it’s only right when you’re ready
  9. You have to just believe all is going to be OK. At the end of the day you still have family and friends
  10. People buy from people not only that they like but who believe in themselves

Simon put alot of his success down to having a great imagination and believes his lack of education where he could not see the process meant he took more risks. Fear can actually be a very good diver and the emotion of starting a business for most serial entrepreneurs is addictive.

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