Rob Moore talks with Simon Arora, the entrepreneurial mastermind behind B&M's UK growth. From where it all started, to building a multi-billion-pound retail empire, Simon shares his knowledge and experience on business strategy, family dynamics, and personal growth. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs, offering a rare glimpse into the mind of a retail disruptor who transformed the UK discount sector.
Simon Arora REVEALS:
- How he changed discount shopping in UK retail
- Why productivity and efficiency were key to B&M’s shopping success
- The importance of maintaining a "paranoid" mindset in business
- The key to work-life balance
- Why cash is king
- Why CEOs have to trust employees more
- The challenges of international expansion
- What he learnt from his failures
- The role of luck in anyone’s success
BEST MOMENTS
"Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Cash is reality."
"My character flaw is that every transaction or opportunity didn't go right... is seared in the mind 10 times more vividly than the successes."
"I like to think that I respected my colleagues' work-life balance. I was never a believer in people having to work long hours... I'd rather you just get the work done in the 40-hour week, but just be really productive."
"The higher the monkey climbs a tree, the more you see of its backside."
"We did a series of transactions in the three, four years after 2008, the each time step changed the size of our business. And we double down in that period of good fortune where all these opportunities were coming at us rather than taking our foot off the gas."
"As we grew B&M, we decided that we were going to spend none of our turnover on advertising. We built a business from 20 shops to five billion of revenue with no advertising budget."
"I personally negotiated something like 17 million square feet of UK retail selling space. 750 large stores at the risk of sounding immodest. No individuals ever done that in UK retail."
"The entrepreneurs that really make a difference and create great organszations are the ones that optimise their success. That periods of good look, they double down, they take full advantage of it rather than thinking, well, this is fine."
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ABOUT THE HOST
Rob Moore is an author of 9 business books, 5 UK bestsellers, holds 3 world records for public speaking, entrepreneur, property investor, and property educator. Author of the global bestseller “Life Leverage” Host of UK’s No.1 business podcast “The Disruptive Entrepreneur”
“If you don't risk anything, you risk everything”
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