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

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 Hayes Travel Business. Bob talks with me and shares about the actual costs 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 58 years of age. I live in Stratford-upon-Avon in the Midlands. I'm married to a lady from Argentina called Veronica, and we've got 5 kids from 9 years through to 16 years of age. Um, I left school at 16 with pretty much nothing in terms of qualifications, um, but then joined, uh, what was Land Rover in, in my mid— in my mid-20s, um, in their customer service organization. And then over, 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 latterly into Germany. Throughout that whole period, I've 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 left China recently, came back to the UK, and then ended your time at JLR. Tell us about the transition. Natural retirement, a bit early for retirement maybe. What was the reason for coming back and for stepping out?

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 mom to spend that bit of extra time closer to her as she struggles with her latter stage of life. The transition back to Europe and then more latterly 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, the great British weather that we all enjoy.

Haha.

Takes a bit of getting used to, particularly when you've got a Latin wife. Who loves?

Yeah, yeah. The cabana. We we've also found since moving back from China that 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 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 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 realise 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. You know, 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. I amicably separated with JLR, and then decided to take a year off.

What did you do with the year off then, Bob? Because you had, I think, 5 years in China. For that, you also were awarded an OBE, most deservedly. What did you do when you came back in terms of with your year off?

It's amazing, actually. You know, 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. Actually, I was getting quite comfortable in doing nothing, in inverted commas.

Well, and well-deserved after 33 years in corporate life, pretty demanding. You really pioneered and grew JLR massively in China, so a well-deserved break. Then what was the The reason for, if you like, giving up being not bored? I mean, plainly, you were 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'd 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 Centre where they do all the concerts and exhibitions and so on. And genuinely one day I got one— an email telling me about an upcoming exhibition for franchises.

Right.

And it just caught my eye. I started to read about it and there was a list of potential franchise 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 Haste Travel Group, the people that just bought all the Thomas Cook stores out of administration. And, you know, I'm 2 months in, 9 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, that 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 travelling, I've traveled massively. I've been to nearly 70 countries. I've lived in 5 different countries for, you know, nearly 15 years of my life. Um, it's got such a wide variety of travel opportunities from the simple, you know, theater break in London through to globetrotting and everything in between.

Right.

Um, I found it, 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 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 what can you—

They've got a number of packages. They've got packages to start With initial investment of about £10,000 for the franchise, up to about £30,000 for the franchise. That's just to buy into the franchise itself. I chose their Elite package, which is about £15,000.

Right.

And then on top of that, you've clearly got to account for the hardware that you need to buy, setting up your office, et cetera. 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's systems. So the parent company is Hayes Travel. And so I've got all of their systems on my PC here at home.

Wow.

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 at head office in November. I'm going to Cyprus for another week's training in about 6 or 8 weeks' time.

Yeah, I've got to hate the training. Can you nominate where the training takes place?

Well, you can choose. Yeah, you can choose. They put it on in a number of locations. And the one I'm doing is called Millionaires Retreat. So it's, you know, 5-star resorts 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, you know.

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 company, you know better than I do, you know, teams and departments and, and some sort of sense of, of being colleagues with other people.

Yeah, sure. I mean, a couple of things I'd say would be one, uh, 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, for 3 or 4 years. So Rain's my, uh, travel, travel coach. Uh, 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.

Yeah, yeah.

You've got 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 Bournemouth, 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 house in Stratford-upon-Avon. I do feel that I've got a, you know, a whole team that's very easy to work with.

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 fee back.

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 target is, is there. So, you know, in terms of, in terms of revenues this year, I mean, if I, if I do, uh, in the order of half a million revenue in my first year, I'll, I'll be very happy.

And in terms of, um, 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, you're 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 Abtra and so on. Do they pay you monthly or do you bill the clients?

No, no, no. 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, you know, 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, you know, kind of initiative and self-discipline and self-motivation. How 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, you know, one of my daughters said to me the other night, Dad, why are you working so much? You know, you don't spend any time with us. And maybe, 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.

Yeah.

But I'm in this startup phase and I'm quite eager to, you know, put 100% effort into it to get it off the ground. You know, I can find myself getting sucked into spending far too much time on social media. I mean, I've got a Facebook page and 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. But one area where you can get really addicted is social media, you know, the different platforms. Facebook, you know, 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 news source. Now I'm very proactive on it in terms of creating my own business Facebook page.

Yep.

It's very, very easy to use. You know, I was on a Facebook course 2 days ago learning how to get more from it because, you know, it's a very, very smart platform.

Yep.

And most of us just dabble with it really. We just, you know, touch the surface of it. The same with Instagram. You know, my kids laugh at me with Instagram. You know, 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 messaging. And I sort of phoned my 13-year-old and say, hey, Seb, How do I find the message? Ah, 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 journey. You know, 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.

Yeah.

And get referrals and try and build up my customer base from that. I've been on an 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.

Sure, it's my baby, you know, it's my little business. And, you know, 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. And would you say— it sounds like so far, it's almost been a textbook case of managing one's career and transition, which is amazing and inspirational. Are there any things that you'd say that have not gone quite according to plan, Bob? What— are there any things that, um, have come up that have been unintended or that have thrown you a bit of a shocker? Or so far, all really—

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.

Yeah.

I just need to keep giving myself a kick in the backside to say, hey, go and take the dog for a walk, make sure you get up a little bit earlier and go to the gym for an hour, just to keep that side of dynamics healthy.

And are you, in terms of health and relationships, you mentioned about you've got an Argentinian wife and the 5 kids, how have they responded to the transition? Presumably, they'd love for you to have taken the year off and made it semi-permanent until they've all gone away. Share any tools or conversations that you've had over the weeks.

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, you know, as a bit of a joke. But he likes to now help me with, uh, with Instagram and Facebook. You know, he's kind of given me a lot of, you know, verbal, 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? You know, and I'm now, you know, they're out helping me deliver leaflets and brochures and, and this sort of stuff.

Okay.

So they're excited that Dad's doing, you know, 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 with me on podcast editing. And she said, 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 yeah, but what does that really mean, Dad? And how do you promise me that you're going to pay it to me?

And Yes, they're getting savvy, 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, you know, hitting me with 1,000 questions and screaming and shouting outside the door and stuff like that. So 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 business that you mentioned about other people in our age, I'm 52. Have many of your cohorts on the golf course or at 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 peer group?

Yeah, I think 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—

No, no, no.

I mean, a mixture. 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. But you obviously— well, you were 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 2 or 3 things you learned from your time in China, Bob? Because obviously, you were there for 5 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 know, 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. Um, you've got to have some balls about you to go for it because it is, uh, it's a hell of a roller coaster of a journey, China. It can eat you as well as, as well as feed you, and, uh, You know, 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.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you've also kind of got to, got to recognize that you're, you know, in the business I was in, it was like hanging on to the tail of a tiger. Uh, the tiger was running faster and faster, um, 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 you hear lots of examples of people who who do big jobs in China getting burnt out. The machine just consumes you. You know the target age 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.

Lots of China experts who've got they've got this veneer view. They fly in for 48 hours, 72 hours. They 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 know you've got to understand the culture. You've got to understand the history. You've got to understand Guanxi and the way business is done in China, and you've got to keep your nose clean and do the do the job to the best of your ability within within a legal framework.

You know? Yeah, yeah. And I found after 13 years there that the pace. Would would suck you up, and and yeah, you really really had to keep an idea and a balance of where what you could what you could manage. It has an insatiable appetite for almost everything in China.

I mean, in that in that in that connection, I've recently joined as a partner with a company called Asia Asiability. It's a consulting firm that's specializing in 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, 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 Uh, excitement. How do you think you might balance those 2 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 the— um, I haven't got every T crossed and every I dotted. Um, I've, I've agreed to get involved in, uh, in a couple of coaching projects. I'm yet to see how they, how they pan out, to be honest with you. And, you know, um, I'm not going to let the travel business fall by the wayside. That's, that's my, my core, you know, 9 to 5. 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. So just 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 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, or 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, you know, whilst I was proud about it, it was kind of, you know, on steroids by the time I told my mum. She was like, you know, blown away by the whole thing.

Yeah, of course, must be.

You know, 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 3 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 in here.

Wow.

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—

Wow.

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. Um, somewhat— 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. Um, but sure, me and, uh, and my wife and the kids and my mum are very proud that, uh, the— whoever it was determined that, uh, I've done something special that could deserve that kind of an award.

Bob, congratulations on such a graceful return to the UK. Um, 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 bobgrace.notjusttravel.com, and I'm more than happy to receive people on there, or they can send me an email at bob.grace@notjusttravel.com. Or they can give me a call on 01789 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 you'll find a way to offer a little special discount or an extra cup of tea at the airport. Bob, thank you. I watched you and we worked 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 Entrepreneur's Howl. 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.