From Jaguars to Safaris. How to retire with a travel franchise.

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Welcome to the Silver Fox Entrepreneurs Howlers. Stories of entrepreneurship told by mature men who have started businesses later on in life. My name is Jim James and I'm your host. I'm speaking with Bob Grace, who's the former CEO of Jaguar Land Rover in China, the retired family Uber driver and now a franchise holder of Hay's travel business. Bob talks with me and shares about the actual cost of becoming a franchisee business in China and his mother's reaction to his being awarded an obe. Stay with me and enjoy our conversation.

Bob Grace, welcome to the Den. You and I knew each other sort of through China really, and our involvement in automotive. Please share with us you know about yourself, your history and where you are now.

Well, Jim, I'm. I'm 58 years of age. I live in Stratford Haven in the Midlands. I'm married to a lady from Argentina called Veronica and we've got five kids from nine years through to 16 years of age. I left school at 16 with pretty much nothing in terms of qualifications, but then joined what was Land Rover in my mid twenties in their customer service organization. And then over the course of 30 odd years with the different owners of that company. I traveled around the world, lived in multiple locations from Central and South America across to China and then more laterally into Germany. Throughout that whole period I've lived, lived with my family, they've been on the journey with me and the jobs have predominantly been sales and marketing oriented.

Tell us, you know you left China recently, came back to the UK and then ended your time at jlr. Can you tell us about the transition? Natural retirement. You're a bit early for retirement maybe. What was the reason for coming back and for stepping out?

I mean, the main reason for coming back to the UK was I've got an elderly mother who was not in the greatest of health and felt that having spent quite a chunk of my life overseas, it was only fair to my mum to spend that bit of extra time closer to her as she struggles with latter stage of life. The transition back to Europe and then more laterally to the UK was amazingly easy, to be honest with you. The kids took it in their stride. They adapted to the new environments both in Germany and here in the uk. I guess the biggest shock really is the weather. Great British weather that we all enjoy. Ha ha. Takes a bit of getting used to, particularly when you've got a Latin wife who loves.

Yeah, the cabana. We've also found since moving back from China, the girls can't believe just how wet England is, especially this winter has been pretty crazy.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And then you came back with jlr, but you're no longer with jlr. Just share with us, you know, what happened as a transition then.

You know, when you're a young lad, you dream about the future and you dream about at some point maybe getting married and having kids. But one of the other items that was on my wish list was to be in a situation where by the time I got to 55, I'd like to be financially stable enough to have a choice on what I do. And fortuitously, having joined jlr in the mid-1980s, I had a final salary pension scheme which is worth its weight in gold. And when I got to 55, I started to ask myself some questions in terms of what else did I want to do with my life? I've got a young family and to keep it simple, I talked to my financial advisor and he put some numbers on the table and said, do you realize how simple a choice you've got in front of yourself? You earn this, you've got this pension, you've got these investments. Make a choice in your life. Life's too short. And that's exactly what I did. I went home and discussed it with my wife. I made a choice that said, actually, after 33 years of corporate life, it was time to go and do something else. And I amicably separated with JLR and then decided to take a year off.

And what did you do with the year off then, Bob? Because you had, I think, five years in China, right? And for that you also were awarded an obe? Most deservedly. So what did you do when you came back in terms of with your year off?

It's amazing actually. One of the things that I discuss with colleagues who've done similar things or friends who've done similar things is there's no hours left in the day. You're just so busy doing a plethora of things, whether it's looking after the family, looking after the garden, playing a bit of golf, going to the gym, doing stuff that just fills the day. I never found myself ever bored or twiddling my thumbs, wondering what to do for the next hour or the next few hours. And actually I was kind of getting quite comfortable in doing nothing in inverted comments.

Well and well deserved. After 33 years in corporate life, pretty demanding. And you really pioneered and grew JLR massively in China. So a well deserved break. And then what was the, the reason for, if you like giving up, being not bored? I mean, plainly we're enjoying life and didn't need to get back to work. So why decide to start a business at this age?

I'd always dreamt of what it would be like to be your own boss with your own business. And to be frank, one of the things that inhibited me doing it was the pension package. I didn't want to jump out and risk my pension package because I knew that it was like golden handcuffs. Now that I've made a decision to exit and had sorted out the pension dynamics, I tripped over an opportunity, really by chance, I'm on the subscription list of the National Exhibition center where they do all the concerts and exhibitions and so on. And genuinely, one day I got an email telling me about an upcoming exhibition for franchises and it just caught my eye. I started to read about it and there was a list of potential franchises options and one of the last ones, because they were all in alphabetical order, was tourism. And I clicked on tourism, thinking, well, there'll be nothing in here. And I came across a franchise for a company called Not Just Travel. And that's the company that I ended up buying into a franchise which is part of Hayes Travel Group, the people that just bought all the Thomas Cook stores out of administration. And, you know, I'm two months in, nine weeks in, actually, to be very specific.

Oh, really?

Just quite recent, Enjoying the journey so far.

And tell us what, in terms of the process, evaluating becoming a franchisee, which is quite a change from, you know, running an automotive business in China, what were some of the reasons you decided to go for a franchise and opt for that and what was your criteria for choosing this one?

The issues that I really considered was I wanted to be in an industry that was offering a service. I wanted to be able to work from home, I wanted to do something that interested me. I wanted a franchise that allowed me the flexibility to work the hours that I want to work. I'm not at anybody else's beck and call. And the attractiveness of this Not Just Travel franchise was it ticked a number of boxes in terms of I like traveling. I've traveled massively. I've been to nearly 70 countries, I've lived in five different countries for, you know, nearly 15 years of my life. It's got such a wide variety of travel opportunities, from the simple, you know, theatre break in London through to globetrotting and everything in between. I found it just a, you know, an interesting opportunity to be able to help people on a one by one basis and put a smile on their face.

Yeah, lovely. And then in terms of if you don't mind, can we talk a little bit about what does it cost? Because what do you get for the money? Because I read that In America some 55, 60% of all businesses that people start later on in life are either franchisees or acquiring an existing company, as opposed to starting from scratch. So.

They'Ve got a number of packages. They've got packages start with initial investment of about £10,000 for the franchise, up to about £30,000 for the franchise. That's just a bite into the franchise itself. I chose their elite package, which is about £15,000. And then on top of that you've clearly got to account for the hardware that you need to buy, setting up your office, etc. So probably all in. I've spent low 20s in terms of investment in the business thus far and for that I get access to the parent company systems. So the parent company's Haze Travel, so I've got all of their systems on my PC here at home and I can book with all of their suppliers and it's literally hundreds of suppliers that are available to me. I can take payments online through their systems. They give me a ready made website which now has just been updated to include a live booking portal within that website. So customers can actually choose to talk to me or they can choose to go online through my portal and book holidays themselves direct. They offer quite extensive training. I've done a week ahead office in November, I'm going to Cyprus for another week's training in about six or eight weeks time.

God, I hate the training. Can you nominate where the training takes place?

Well, you can choose, yeah, you can choose a number of locations and the one I'm doing is called Millionaires Retreats. So it's in a five star resort, giving you the chance to be trained but also to experience the type of holiday that you're trying to sell to clients as well at the same time. Right, that's really valuable as well as talk. The talk, yeah.

That's fantastic. And in terms of the sort of sense of being a team or being part, do you feel like you're one person sitting in your home office with all this infrastructure or do you kind of have like the normal. If you work in a big companies, you know better than I do, you know, teams and departments and some sort of sense of being colleagues with other people?

Yeah, sure. I mean a couple of things I'd say would be one, certainly for the first year you get a coach who's a more experienced travel consultant, the same as me, but she's been doing it for three or four years. So Rain's my travel coach. I can call her whenever. We spoke about half an hour ago. We spoke late last night. We've got a Facebook portal which is used by all the travel consultants. So a bit like phone a friend with who Wants to Be a Millionaire? A strange, obscure inquiry. You can just go onto the Facebook page, post your question, and you'll get quite a few responses pretty quickly because clearly there are people out there that have done this job for a lot longer than I've done it, and they're more than happy to share their experiences. And then you've got a head office team based down in Portmouth who are also very accessible, very willing to help. So does it feel like a family? Yeah, absolutely. I don't feel like I'm lonely, Bob, sitting in a nice place in Stratford and Avon. I do feel that I've got a, you know, a whole team that's very easy to access.

That sounds like an amazing, amazing way to start a business, really. And in terms of payback, ROI, you mentioned this figure, about 15,000. What would you expect in terms of sort of a return on investment or a payback for that initial investment?

Okay. My first target is they set you a financial threshold for your first fiscal, sorry, first calendar year. And if you hit that financial target in the first year, they give you a franchise feedback.

No.

So, you know, so that wasn't the major. You know, that wasn't the prime reason for wanting to take this franchise. But clearly, you know, if we say we're not motivated by money, I think we lie to ourselves. Yeah, but that one time is there. So, you know, in terms of revenues this year, I mean, if I, if I do in the order of half a million revenue in my first year, I'll be very happy.

And in terms of. On a practical side, if you've got your own business and you're billing your own clients and you're logging into Xero or wherever, getting the cash in your own bank. How's that working, Bob? Do they. Everyone pays? Because you mentioned before about it's backed by abta. They pay you monthly or do you bill the clients?

No, no, no. Everything's. Everything's processed through head office. So the head office payment system is used to accept the MasterCard, Visa card, American Express card. They process it all. They then issue all of the invoices to the customer, the end customer, and then I get monthly commission statements and I get monthly payments, and then the commission is very much linked to when the person travels. So if I'm booking somebody who wants to travel, say November 2020, then my commission will be paid X weeks before November 20th.

And in terms of the kind of habits that you're now adopting, because when people start businesses, there's all sorts of requirements for initiative and self discipline and self motivation. Can you maybe share for yourself? Obviously, being very successful in the corporate world, how are you finding it different or the same now that you're running your own business as a franchise?

It's interesting, one of my daughters said to me the other night, dad, why are you working so much? You don't spend any time with us. And maybe I'm missing a little bit of a trick here. That working from home was supposed to mean that I did spend a bit more time with the family. But I'm in this startup phase and I'm quite eager to put 100% effort into it to get it off the ground. I can find myself getting sucked into spending far too much time on social media. I've got a Facebook page. I paste a lot of offers onto my Facebook page and respond to the inputs that I get from customers. I spend a lot of time developing issues for my website. Clearly I spend a lot of time searching for holidays for customers. One area where you can get really addicted is social media. You know, the different platforms, Facebook. Most guys of our sort of age dabble with Facebook. I mean, for me, before I started this business, I was just looking at it as a new source. Now I'm very proactive on it in terms of creating my own business Facebook page. It's very, very easy to use. I was on a Facebook course two days ago learning how to get more from it because it's a very, very smart platform and most of us just dabble with it, really. We just touch the surface of it. The same with Instagram. My kids laugh at me with Instagram. I got an Instagram message just before Christmas and I was away from the home and I couldn't find in Instagram how to find the message. I didn't even know Instagram did message. And I sort of phoned my 13 year old and say, hey, Sebastian, how do I find the message? You silly old man, you do this, this, this. And sure enough, I did it and the message popped up on the screen. So it's a bit of a learning, a learning journey. I'm also spending a lot of time going to networking meetings. I've joined the local BNI network, British network, International Business Network International. Sorry to, you know, to reach out and have more contact with other small businesses and get referrals and try and build up my customer base from that. Been on Instagram course and I'm going on a Facebook and Google course in the next couple of weeks as well.

So. It sounds like you're really having a lot of fun, to be honest.

Sure. It's my baby, you know, it's my little business and it's never going to make me a multimillionaire, but it might do. It could make me a nice steady income. It's low risk and if tomorrow I wake up and say, hey, I've had enough of this, I end up writing off 20 grand, which isn't an insignificant amount of money, but it's not also the end of the world.

Yeah, yeah. And would you say it sounds like so far there's always been a textbook case of managing one's sort of career and transition, which is amazing and inspirational. Are there any things that you'd say that have not gone quite according to plan? But what, What? Are there any things that have come up that have been unintended or that have thrown you a bit of a shocker or a.

So far, the only thing that I would answer on that would be that I'm very conscious that I'm spending too much time at the desk and I need to get out to the gym, I need to get out and play golf, I need to get out and walk the dog and I need to make the life balance, the work life balance, closer to where it was when I wasn't working, rather than being closer to when I was in corporate life. And I'm kind of feeling like I'm falling into the trap of behaving like I'm in corporate life when actually I'm in total control of my own destiny here. I can spend the hours I want to spend and I just need to give myself a kick in the backside to say, hey, go and take the dog for a walk. Make sure you get up a little earlier and go to the gym for an hour just to keep that side of dynamics healthy.

And are you in terms of sort of health and relationships you mentioned about, you know, you've got an Argentinian wife and the five kids. How have they sort of responded to the transition? I mean, presumably they'd love for you to have taken the year off and made it semi permanent until they've all gone away. How share any sort of tools or conversations that you've had?

My 13 year old lad, I mentioned him a minute ago. He's an Instagram king. So I created a contract for him to be my social media director as a bit of a joke. But he likes to now help me with Instagram and Facebook. He's kind of given me a lot of verbal help but not a lot of physical help at the moment. But every day when they come in from school. How many bookings did you do today, dad? Where did the people go to? And I'm now they're out helping me deliver leaflets and brochures and this sort of stuff. They're excited that Dad's doing some real work again. He's not just being the lazy old man at home. Whilst they're all out.

I asked my 12 year old this morning if she fancied working me on podcast editing and she said, you know, but I already get pocket money, so how much are you going to pay me?

I offered my kid 10% of my commission to help me on social media. And what does that really mean, dad? And how do you promise me that you're going to pay it to me?

Yes, they're getting savvy nicely. So has there been a change in the sort of culture at home then, do you think, now that you're self employed compared to corporate life?

Yeah, I think they are more conscious now about the noise levels in the background, that if I'm on the phone talking to a customer, they can't just burst into the study and start hitting me with a thousand questions and screaming, shouting outside the door and stuff like that. So, you know, it's not, you know, they're kids and kids make a lot of noise so I have to occasionally give them a little bit of a prompt and a reminder. But it's a learning journey. It's a learning journey, yeah.

And in terms of the sort of business, and you mentioned about other people sort of in our age, I'm 52. Have many of your sort of cohorts on the golf course or bni, do you find many people are stepping out into their own businesses now or are you kind of a bit of a pioneer in your, in your peer group?

Yeah, I think in my, in my, you know, reasonably close peer group, most of them are still enjoying the freedom. I'm probably the only one that's taken a break and then gone back in and bitten the bullet and done something himself. Maybe that's just because I've, you know, lived in corporate life and maybe they haven't experienced the same corporate pressures that I saw and maybe they also don't have the financial wherewithal to be able to take a risk and invest 20 grand or so.

Right, so they're still working, are they? In terms of.

Some are still working, but some have decided to take their pensions, invest it with a financial advisor and enjoy playing more golf than I'm currently able to play.

Right, right. Obviously. Well, you're driven, obviously, or else you wouldn't have accomplished what you did in China. Should we just talk a little bit about what you were doing before in China and maybe also talk about a trip to the palace? What would be two or three things you learned from your time in China, Bob? Because obviously you were there for five years, built jlr. Any insights you'd like to share?

I think without it being another hour in the podcast, I'd say, firstly, you've got to have a plan. You've got to have some idea of what it is you're trying to achieve in China. You've got to build some strong relationships with some trusted Chinese people and they need to be trusted partners in China. You've got to have some balls about you to go for it. Because it's a hell of a roller coaster of a journey. China, it can eat you as well as feed you. You need to have your wits about you. You need to be very cognizant of your own integrity and make sure that you look after your own personal integrity, because there's many opportunities for your integrity to go out of the window. You've also kind of got to recognize that you're, you know, in the business I was in, it was like hanging onto the tail of a tiger. The tiger was running faster and faster. And you've got to find a way of hitting the pause button and getting out of the business for a period of time to give yourself a chance to take stock, recharge your batteries. Because you hear lots of examples of people who do big jobs in China getting burnt out. The machine just consumes you, the target, because it's just an order of magnitude of business that probably most people wouldn't ever believe until they actually experience it themselves.

Yeah, I found it running China experts.

Who'Ve got this many of you, they fly in for 48 hours, 72 hours, they run around, they get lots of PowerPoint presentations, and then they leave thinking, oh, yeah, I know China. But actually, as you know yourself, you've got to understand the culture, you've got to understand the history, you've got to understand Guangxi and the way business is done in China. And you've got to keep your nose clean and do the job to the best of your ability within a legal framework.

Yeah. And I found after 13 years there that the pace would suck you up and you really, really had to keep an idea and a balance of what you could manage as an insatiable appetite for almost everything. China.

I mean, in that connection, I've recently joined as a partner with a company called Asiability. It's a consulting firm that's specializing in helping British SMEs find access routes into China, but on the reverse also helping Chinese companies build relationships here into the uk, doing coaching, mentoring, helping develop strategies in both directions.

That's fantastic that you're going to continue so bringing that skill set. How will you reconcile that with the travel then? Because then do you end up with these kind of legacy experience and networks and then your newborn excitement? How do you think you might balance those two things out?

I think at the moment it's still a bit of a journey, if I'm honest. I mean, I haven't got every T crossed and every I dotted. I've agreed to get involved in a couple of coaching projects. I'm yet to see how they pan out, to be honest with you. And you know, I'm not going to let the travel business fall by the wayside. That's my core nine to five. But I will bite off some of the coaching opportunities as I see them interesting for me and as I see that I can add some value to them.

So, Bob, can I just ask you, as a result of your endeavors in China, I remember you've built a lot of community outreach work as well for JLR in China. I remember seeing that in China, daily adverts, for example, and you were awarded an OBE. Maybe just give us a 30 second. What was that like? As one of the few people that will have been to the palace to.

Collect, it was a shock really. I mean, I was in the car on the way home one night in Shanghai with my, with my driver and I get a call from the British Ambassador in Beijing to say, hey, got some nice news for you. You know, the Queen's going to bestow this honor upon you. And I was completely gobsmacked. I had no idea the nice bit about it, I guess. Well, the first nice bit about it was actually that that week my mum was in China visiting us for a few days holiday. So as I got home I was able to clearly tell my wife, but then I was also able to go and tell my mum face to face.

Yeah, that's pretty special, isn't it?

And probably I Was proud about it. It was kind of on steroids. By the time I told my mom, she was like, blown away by the whole thing.

Yeah, of course.

Must be for a more elderly person. It's probably more impactful. And I guess the other bit with my mum, which kind of almost brought me to tears really, was when I finally got the details of going to Windsor Castle to get it. You're allowed to take three people. And I said to my mum, I want to take you, my wife and my oldest kid. And she said to me, no, no, no, no, you need to take your second eldest kid as well as the first kid, because I'm at the end of my life. Your daughter's at a formative age, she'll get more impact from it. I'd love to be there, she said, but, hey, use the opportunity to expose your daughter to that environment rather than wasting it on an old lady, which kind of I found incredibly humbling, you know, and the experience, yeah, it was a fantastic day out, you know, to meet the Queen and to enjoy all of that pomp and ceremony. It'll sit there in the memory bank for a long time. In some ways, I get a little bit embarrassed about it. You know, I don't normally talk about it overtly, I don't really use it that overtly. But sure, me and my wife and the kids and my mum are very proud that whoever it was determined that I've done something special that could deserve that kind of an award.

Bob, congratulations on such a graceful return to the uk. If our listeners would like to hear more about you, get in touch. Where can they find you?

Yeah, I'm based in Stratford on Avon. My web address is bob grace.notjustravel.com and I'm more than happy to receive people on there. Or they can send me an email@bob gracetjusttravel.com or they can give me a call on 01, 789-867211. I'm able to offer a full range of travel services, from business trips through leisure trips, weekends away, Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, the Fury boxing in America and anything in between. More than happy to offer help to any of the Silver Foxes.

Great. Then maybe find a way to offer the Middle special discount or an extra cup of tea at the airport. Bob, thank you. I watched you and we work sort of in parallel in China and you've accomplished great, great things there and you're doing the same here. So thank you for sharing your time today and sharing information and a great inspirational story.

Thank you Jim. Enjoyed it.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Silver Fox Entrepreneurs. How us we're aiming to share information and inspiration for mature men with enterprise. Now, if you like the show, please rate it as it really helps and share it with other people that you think will find it useful too. My name is Jim James and I look forward to being your host for our next show coming up soon. Subscribe so that you don't miss the next Howler.