Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Sir Richard Harpin: How He Turned £50K Into a £4 Billion Business | EP170

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Sir Richard Harpin put £50,000 of his life savings into a business that nearly collapsed—twice. That company eventually became HomeServe, serving millions of customers globally before being sold for more than £4 billion. In this episode, Richard joins Ilana to share the lessons behind that extraordinary journey, from finding the business model that saved HomeServe with his final £10,000 to learning how to scale internationally, hire leaders better than himself, and stay focused when entrepreneurs are naturally drawn to the next big idea. Richard also shares lessons from his book, How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps, including why copying a proven model can be smarter than inventing something new, why every entrepreneur needs a “not-to-do” list, and the two mistakes he sees holding ambitious founders back. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:30 From £50K to a £4 Billion Exit 03:49 Richard’s First Business at Age Five 05:47 What Working at Procter & Gamble Taught Him 07:40 The Problem That Inspired HomeServe 08:37 Losing His Life Savings & Nearly Going Broke 10:12 Why Richard Refused to Give Up 11:19 Finding an Investor When the Business Was Struggling 12:40 The Final £10K That Changed Everything 15:14 Perseverance vs. Knowing When to Quit 16:26 Hiring His Replacement to Scale the Business 17:24 Taking HomeServe International 20:08 Evolution, Not Revolution 23:06 Why Direct Mail Still Works 24:59 Why You Need a “Not-to-Do” List 26:08 How Founders Can Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome 27:46 How Far Is Too Far From Your Core Business? 29:29 Scaling HomeServe Into a Global Business 32:14 Knighthood & Helping the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs 35:10 The Nine Steps Richard Wishes He Knew Earlier 37:42 Why Entrepreneurs Need Both a Coach and a Mentor 39:30 Stop Fixing Your Weaknesses—Build Around Your Strengths 40:52 What Holds High Achievers Back 42:52 Why Founders Need the Courage to Hire Expensive Talent 44:08 When to Bring in an Investor 45:44 You Don’t Need an Original Business Idea 46:26 Why Buying a Business May Be Smarter Than Starting One 47:35 Did Richard Ever Buy the Helicopter? About Sir Richard Harpin Sir Richard Harpin is the co-founder of HomeServe, the international home repairs and improvements business he helped grow from a struggling startup into a global company serving millions of customers. HomeServe was ultimately acquired in a deal valuing the company at more than £4 billion. Today, Richard focuses on helping the next generation of entrepreneurs build and scale successful businesses. He is also the author of How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps, where he shares the lessons he wishes he had known at the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. 📲 Connect with Ilana: Facebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/IlanaGolanLeapAcademy LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilanagolan/ Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/ilanagolanleap Website ▶️ https://www.leapacademy.com/

This was my last shot, this was my life stream, and I got to find a way to make it work. We will put our life savings into the business, which was 50,000 pounds, and we're in business. But the problem was, the model didn't work. Our life savings literally go down the drain in the space of six months.

There was a knock on the office door. Christmas 1992, the bailiffs had arrived, arrived to take away our office furniture and our computers. We hadn't paid our sales tax bill. But what was clear is we'd run out of money. What was really hard for you? The losses increased.

Eventually, we were down to our last 10,000 pounds. They're always looking for the next opportunity, and we need to be hedgehogs. What gives you the motivation to continue when things are really, really hard? I truly believe that anybody can build a billion dollar business. I'm a great believer in setting big, hairy, audacious goals, having an exciting plan, and then pushing everybody to get there. There are nine things that I know now that I truly wish I'd known at the start of my entrepreneurial journey. If I had, I think as a team, we could have got there in 15 years, not 30.

Hey, I have a favor to ask. I decided not to put any ads on the show because I don't want to vouch for things or products that I don't really, really believe in. But in order for us to continue to bring these amazing guests, all I'm asking is, if that's okay, just click that like, subscribe, download button. Those mean to us more than you can think.

So is that a good deal? Let's dive in. How does? Someone put 50,000 pounds, and to start his company, it almost collapses, and he managed to turn it around and sell it for over 4 billion pounds. Now, today I get to speak with Sir Richard Harpet, the co-founder of Homerserve, which he scaled to serving millions of customers globally. He sold it for over 4 billion pounds and was knighted, which we'll talk about. So cool. And we will talk about his book, How to Make Billion in Nine Steps,

makes it sound so easy and also dive into some of the darker moments of entrepreneurship. First of all, I'm so excited, Richard, or Sir Richard. Just call me Richard. I thought that getting my knighthood and being called a sir would at least help me to get a better table in a London restaurant. And then I realized that they make a surcharge. So we forget the table then. I love that. And so do just call me, Richard.

Well, it's so fun to have you here. And I'll just do a quick reminder to our listeners. Before we dive in, remember, go to Leap Academy with Ilanogelan YouTube channel and put your questions there either on an episode or any episode that you want. on anything about your career, whether you're aiming to land the next role or build businesses or expand your portfolio career, because at the end of the conversation, I'll answer a question. In this case, I found a beautiful question from Leah who asked, how can you get your first $10,000 if you never been a founder, but you're really broke?

And we're going to distill that exactly so that we're going to help you, Leah. So for everybody, stay tuned and share this one, everybody that needs to hear this today. Richard, thank you for being here. And you're going to have to take me back in time because your itch to entrepreneurship actually started in a pretty young age. So take me back to childhood and then we'll kind of talk about some fun gigs that you had along the journey. Richard, take us there.

My experience of wanting to become an entrepreneur was age five years old. My father put me on his shoulders and we looked over the wall of the big house at the end of the cul-de-sac in the north of England where I was born, and watch the famous industrialist Lord Hansen Landis helicopter on his parents lawn to have Sunday lunch. And I said, I want one of those. And my dad that was in the civil service said, well, you better run your own business and that's how to make money.

So I started breeding rabbits age five, then running a rabbit kennels. then I became a children's magician, age nine, set up a mail order fly-tying material business. Pre the internet when I was 13 years old, that business pivoted to, instead of selling the fishing flies, converted the fishing flies into hookers' earrings. So they were my first early businesses,

but I was always looking for the, the big idea. This is incredible. And again, when I heard all of these, it was just like off the charts. And I'm sure you brought a lot of that hustle into the world that we're going to talk about soon. But you also joined some bigger companies, right?

Like Prokker & Gamble and, like, share first of all, why. And what did you learn from being also part of these bigger organizations, if you will? Yeah, I still haven't found. the big opportunity and I went and studied a economics degree at university in the UK, then ended up joining Procter & Gamble in Marketing. And that was some great experience of running a whole company because running a brand and mine was a fairy liquid, the washing up liquid in the UK for washing dishes,

then learned how to run a whole business from the manufacturing to the marketing to the pricing and great experience for one day running your own business. A lot of Procter & Gamble people go on and become successful chief executives. And in fact, in the UK, the average age that somebody sets up a business is 42 years old. My big opportunity came along when I was in my late 20s, but there is a benefit for people to go and learn from a few other companies first, work out what the idea is going to be, and eventually my model was a copy of a successful existing model, which was AAA for the home. I love that. And you do talk a lot about modeling. So we will talk about that. And again,

And so you, as you were in Prokker & Gamble, I think you were renting apartments or buying apartments. So take me there a little bit and that taught you a lot. So take me there and how did you start homeserve and why? Yeah, I wasn't content with just working at Procter & Gamble. I wanted to keep my entrepreneurial hand in. The big opportunity at the time in the north of England where Procter & Gamble were based was a shortage of young professional shared accommodation. So with the business partner who was also at Potter & Gamble,

we bought 10 houses, refurbished them, let them buy the individual room, and do you know what the biggest problem was? Always on a Friday evening. The phone would ring and it would be at least one of the tenants saying we've got water pouring out of a heating pipe or there's a block drain in the backyard or the boiler or furnaces broken down and you could not get a plumber in Newcastle upon Tyne on a Friday night. They were all out drinking.

So we said that's the business opportunity. We'll hire a couple of plumbers. We will put our life savings into the business, which was £50,000. pounds and we're in business but the problem was the model didn't work the cost of the yellow pages advertising to generate the work was really high and people only have a plumbing emergency every five years we saw our life savings literally go down the drain in the space of six months there was a not called the office door, Christmas 1992, the bailiffs had arrived to take away our office furniture and our computers.

We hadn't paid our sales tax bill. We managed to persuade them that we'd agree a repayment plan. We rapidly borrowed money from friends and family, and we managed to keep the business going. Yeah, so take me there for a second, right? Because that could get really, really scary. And for some people, Richard, this is enough to say, you know what, this is not for me. I'm going to go the safe route. Instead, you said, you know what, I still believe that this is a problem and I still believe that I need to figure out a better way to fix it. And you still go and lend money. So what goes in your head? that I'd run five businesses already by the age of 20, that this was my final opportunity, my life's dream was to be a successful entrepreneur,

and so I had to stick with this. And entrepreneurs, I think, are resilient, and I needed to find a way through. But what was clear is we'd run out of money, we needed to find an investor and we needed to find the right business model. So tell me there. So you need to, because again, our listeners are listening. They need exactly.

Some of them need an investor, but their business might not be doing really well, right? Like it's easy to take an investment when, you know, you're doubling and tripling every year, but it's a lot harder when you're going belly rub. So how did you find investor? and also you had a really interesting way to negotiate that. So I want to go there for a second. Yeah, we thought there was a good link between a high-quality plumbing service and water utilities.

In the UK at the time, they were being privatized. So we went around 15 water companies and said, we've got a great business, do you want to invest? And they all said, no. with one small exception, a little water company north of Birmingham, and they said we'll put in half a million pounds, but we want 52% of the equity. And we were desperate.

I would never recommend that you sell half of your business in the early days, but we got the money. It was a big relief. And I thought, great, we can never. grow the business faster, but every month the business grew, every month we lost more money because we hadn't got the right model. And I want to take you there because I think you also did, so you gave them half of the company at this point.

Did you need to also pay them somehow or you still had a lot of money going down the drain? So what happened there? Yeah, the business grew bigger and it, uh, and it, uh, and the losses increased, and eventually we were down to our last 10,000 pounds, and somebody called me and said, there's a little water company in Surrey, and they've developed a product a bit like the AAA for the home. It covers plumbing emergencies for an annual fee. I went and talked to some of the customers that have joined up, copied the model,

and I'm a great believer that copying is good despite what we were told about not copying homework at school. So with the final £10,000 before the business ran out of money for a second time, we did a mail shot, branded under the Water Company brand name, plumbing insurance cover for £50 a year. 38 customers out of the thousand

sent in the cheque for 50 pounds, a 3.8% take-up from direct mail. That was a fantastic take-up. I got on my office desk in front of the 23 people in the business that all thought the business was about to close down and said, yes, we've made it. And literally, that was the magic model. The business made three quarters of a million pounds profit the following year.

We signed up every UK water company on an affinity branded model where we paid them a commission. We use their brand name and we owned the customers. We did the marketing and we employed the plumbers. That was the magic model. I will still go deeper there for a second because of two things. One is your ability to decide, I'm basically. broke almost the second time, right? Now I still need to continue and decide to persevere. So two things. First of all, when do you decide to persevere versus, okay, this is a bad idea. Let me give up.

One, but also what gives you the motivation to continue when things are really, really hard? I know you've done it before, but it's still different at this magnitude of money, if you will. This was my last shot. This was my life stream. And I got to find a way to make it work. That was just your mantra. Like you just force yourself to get back on and do it, even though it's hard, basically.

And that makes a difference between an employee and an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur will keep going, keep copying somebody else's model, testing, learning, pivoting, and eventually we'll find the right model. That is the founders phase. Entrepreneurs are good at finding the magic model. They are less good at then scaling the business. And I want to talk about that because you do talk a lot about scaling, especially you talk about scaling in the UK, etc. So first of all, why, what do you feel needed to change as far as leadership in order to scale?

Let's go there first. I'd recruited a business development director into HomeServe UK. He did a great job. After a year, I thought, do you know what? I think you'd make a better chief exec of HomeServe UK than me, called him into my office and promoted him. and that then meant I could work on the business rather than in the business. And it gave me the opportunity to say, I wonder whether the Home Serb model would work in a foreign country.

And first of all, we looked at France. Right. And I think you talk a little bit about why France and not U.S. or something. So tell us a little bit about. how you thought about it. Yeah, today I would recommend that the first country that you do outside of your home country would be somewhere close by, ideally somewhere not too big, where you can work out what's the right model to be successful in another country.

We chose France because it was close to the UK, but also because the water company that owned 52% of home serve was General de Zo, the big French water company. And even though they owned 30% of South staffs, it still took a year to do a deal with them. It was a joint venture in France. We listened to them and they said, you've got to change your model for France. The way you did it in the UK won't work. So we did change the model. We didn't use the Water Company brand.

We did newspaper advertising and poster advertising not direct mail. And after a year of trying, the business hadn't worked. Just before we gave up and said, we'll go back and just be a UK business again. we went right back to the original model that worked in the UK using the water company brand in this case Jean-Aldezzo doing direct mail marketing and guess what? It works. So a big learning and model is

don't change your model when you go into a different country. Adapt it only with the minimal number of changes because if you think one day your business might be in 20 different countries and if it was 25% different at each of those countries, recipe for complexity and potential disaster. So stay true to your business model. If you need to change it too much, maybe you've picked the wrong country

and you should rethink and go to a country where your exact model will, work there. And I love this tip and you'll talk a little bit about your nine steps to build a billion dollar, but you do talk a lot about reinvention, evolving, adapting. What does it look like in different stages of a business, do you think? I'm a big believer in evolution, not revolution, small improvements. So what did that look like in We went from offering plumbing cover to covering electrical wiring to covering the boiler or furnace. So those were additional products that we could cross-sell to our existing customer base.

We grew internationally across a number of countries, but doing it in an order one at a time rather than trying to open in multiple territories all at the same time. time. I did things that were two steps removed from what we were doing, like getting into furniture warranties for retailers, like getting into emergency repairs for home insurers, doing the damage following escape of water or damage following a home break-in, and they were two steps removed from what we were doing and ultimately weren't successful. Wow. And it's actually funny that you basically say that, you know,

even just the way you market door to door, et cetera, like this still works, which is, I think in the era of everything, a digital, email, text, whatever, and you're basically saying the old model is actually still alive and kicking, if I'm understanding correctly. Absolutely. my step number four is bricks and clicks and paper and if you if everybody listening casts a mind back 10 years to their door mat at home and think about how much direct mail was on the

doormat and then how much there is today and it is significantly less so therefore those companies that are still doing direct mail get a higher percentage. share of the doormat, more likely that that direct mail will make it to the coffee table or the kitchen table will get opened and that the customer will buy. So we're in a digital marketing world, but the new junk mail is our inboxes, our emails, and direct mail works as well today as it did 10 years ago, principally because many companies have started. doing it. What do you think is some of the things that were hardest for you to adapt as a leader,

as an individual? What was really hard for you? The hardest thing was staying really, really focused. We had a fantastic home assistance model marketed through big utility companies across 10 international countries, including America. And I got distracted. Entrepreneurs are foxes. They're always looking for the next opportunity

and we need to be hedgehogs. Really focused on a simple business model. If anybody comes along and suggests a new idea. Exactly. Yeah. Anybody suggests, say, another idea, we put our prickles up, we ignore the idea and we keep going

in a methodical direction. So every business needs a hedgehog strategy, which is a 20-word sentence saying, what are we passionate about? That will normally be our purpose. What can we be the best at? How are we going to be better than our competitors? And what's our economic engine?

How are we going to make money? Put together an answer to those three questions in one sentence of no more than 20 words. Make sure that everybody in your business knows that statement. And if they're doing anything that doesn't fit with that simple hedgehog strategy, they need to stop doing it. And stop doing it means have a not-to-do list. That's so good.

Yeah. Yeah, emphasize that because we all have a to-do list, like you said, right? Yeah. We all have a to-do list because business is about getting stuff done and we all need a way of keeping track of that. But more important than a to-do list is having a list of stuff that we need to stop doing so that we get a real focus and do a small number of things better and faster. Now, I want to say, like, I think Richard, for me this, when I listened to you the first time, when I read this, this to me was probably one of the biggest takeaways because I, as a founder, and I think a lot of our listeners, we see all the technology, everything. There's so many shiny

objects everywhere, and there's the shiny object syndrome. Like, you want to run to all directions, and the grass always looks greener on the other side. And you need to kind of cut back and say, you know, is this really what I need to focus on? How do you get more intentional and strategic about it without feel the fear of missing out. How do you do it? Every entrepreneur needs a hedgehog. There's got to be somebody in their organization that says, stop doing that. Let's focus. Let's do less stuff better. That role could be a new chief exec that's got experiences coming into the business for the first time. That could be the CFO or the CFO. that's running the day-to-day operation.

Entrepreneurs are good, and they shouldn't leave the business, but they should focus on the stuff that they're good at. That might be product development, that might be business development, but have somebody that's running the day-to-day that keeps it simple and just executes on that model. And I love that, Richard.

And it's actually funny because we had Sir Richard Branson on the show a while ago. And by the way, those listening, go check it out, amazing show as well. But he is very much about schooet, let's do it, right? And it's all about like, let's run. But then I can see where the balance is needed,

right? Because if you only screw it, let's do it, you're just going to create chaos in the organization. So how do you find that balance? And when do you listen to the COO or CFO, etc? When do you say, you know what, as the founder, I think we're going to experiment more because things are running really fast now. Like, we're going to need to adapt if you, otherwise we're going to become less relevant. How do you balance these things?

You should only do things that are very, very close to the core. We need to pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment and share this episode with every single person who may be inspired by this because this information can truly change your life and theirs. Now, I want to check in with you. Yes, you. Are you driven, but maybe feeling stuck in your career or a fraction of who you know you could be? Do you secretly feel you should have been further along in your income, influence, or impact? Do you ever wonder how to create not just a paycheck, but the life you want was a paycheck, the thought leadership, the legacy, the freedom? Because that was me, and that's exactly why I created the Leap Academy program, which already changed thousands of careers

and lives. Look, getting intentional and strategic with your career is now more important than ever. The skills for success have changed. AQ, adaptability, reinventing, and leaping are today the most important skills for the future of work. Building portfolio careers, multiple streams of income and ventures are no longer a nice to have. It's a must have, but no one is teaching this except for us in Leap Academy. So if you want more from your career in life, go to leapacademy.com slash training. Check out this completely free training about ways to fast-track your career, and you'll even be able to book a completely free strategy call with my team. That's leapacademy.com slash training. That will add value but will not distract from the business model.

anything that is two steps removed from what you're currently doing is a step too far and could end up jeopardizing your whole business. Remember what everybody said when Steve Jobs unfortunately died in 2011. We're really worried that with Steve gone that Apple are not going to come up with a revolutionary new product and they didn't. AirPods, Apple Watchers, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Cloud Services, those are evolutions, not revolutions. When Steve died, Apple was worth over $350 billion. Today it's worth around $4 trillion, and that's been achieved through evolution, not revolution. That's so powerful. like totally a mantra.

So you're building and exiting this 4.1 billion pounds company. First of all, is there something that we should learn as founders when we scale something to these magnitudes? What are some of the biggest takeaways from that? And also you have a beautiful book that, you know, you just wrote. And I want to kind of lead into that because you wrote some amazing tip. there. My magic model is hiring my replacement so that I could focus on international development, then hiring eight really good chief execs that were locals to their own country, that we gave them the home serve model and they made it successful there. We brought in

proven chief execs from other markets, so there wasn't really a home-serve model. There wasn't really a home assistance market, so they were doing something that was around membership and subscription. They joined HomeServe, took the model and made it work in their country, because in America, HomeServe was only successful when we hired an American chief exec, even though we had a great Brit that was originally running America, Americans buy from Americans. So my magic model was having great chief execs running each of. the territory businesses. And that's incredible.

Like, how much did you need to be involved initially when you wanted to spread into these regions? Like how much as a founder you had to roll up your sleeves and take a kind of more of the front seat? A lot. And the key to that was hiring my replacement in the UK, which freed up my time so that I didn't need to worry that the UK was going to slow down. it kept growing, delivering great customer service,

meant that I could focus on international, deciding which country to go to, in which order, establishing the model, hiring the local chief execs, and then overseeing how they grew their businesses. Got, I got it. So,

and that, that to me is fascinating. I mean, I come from a country, Israel, that we have a similar things because one, something grows enough, we need to bring somebody into the world of the U.S.

And I usually was the person that was shipped into the U.S. to start the operations here. So I was just really curious how this worked for you, and that's fascinating. So you sold the company. You have some incredible passions, but I want to also talk about the knighthood, because that's really cool. So first of all, talk to us a little bit about what is it? How does it work? And what does it feel like?

And then we'll talk a little bit about how you help founders now. Yeah, it was a great honor to get my knighthood. It was announced in the New Year's honors list by the king. And I will go to Wintercastle in June for my investiture. the key bit and some of my chief execs, it helps open more doors. It gives me more credibility in business. And my key now is to help other entrepreneurs, not just in the UK, but in America, where Home Service has been the most successful, to be able to help those entrepreneurs

to make fewer mistakes than I made, to grow the businesses more quickly. And there are nine things that I know now that I truly wish I'd known at the start of my entrepreneurial journey in HomeServe. If I had, I think as a team, we could have got there in 15 years, not 30. So those are how to make a billion in nine steps.

I tested out those steps with other entrepreneurs here in the UK that had built a business like me worth over a billion pounds and they said those are exactly the right nine steps so to any entrepreneur out there, particularly those that have proven out the business model, they're now embarking on a scale-up journey and they want to grow their business successfully into a billion dollar or a billion pound operation, please do follow my nine steps.

So let's talk for a second, maybe just give them a teaser of the nine steps. I mean, one of them we talked about the copy and, you know, make it better. We talked a little bit about, you know, when to take an investment. So we already talk a little bit about it. We both massively believe in getting help. And so talk to us a little bit about some of the biggest things that you feel like we need to mention around the book. Before we get people to go get your book, but what should they know? Yeah, one of the easiest is get some coachment.

What do I mean by that? get a paid business coach and get a free mentor. And I went and I trained as a business coach and qualified at INCIAD, the French business school, back in 2023. And only then did I really understand the difference between what a business coach does and what a mentor does. The coach is about helping you think through an individual. issue or opportunity, helping you to come up with a range of options that you consider,

but the coach will never tell you what to do. They are the facilitator. The mentor is the person that has done it before. They've got the grey hairs and the business experience. They can take what the business coaches come up with, of the options that you could follow to sort out your problem or opportunity and they will give you advice. But that advice will be show but never tell and the power of mentoring, I was very late in getting a mentor. The mentor I eventually managed to get to help me was Nigel Morris, the British co-founder

of Capital One. And he helped me crack a mentor. He said, you shouldn't be in Miami. You should be in the northeast coast, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., five-hour time difference to the UK. You won't be able to hire great Americans in Miami. And he was right. They either wanted to go to the beach or smoke dope. And that is not how you build a great American business.

So, and I love that. And I wish I knew what coaching does. I think I didn't even appreciate it enough back in the days. I should have. And I actually think that it made me a better leader to even understand what is coaching. Do you feel that that's a pretty important skill? Do you feel like it changes the way you mentor right now once you know this? Yeah, the magic model is an experienced business person that's made all the mistakes like me

that have taken the time to go and train as a business. business coach and then you can combine the two. But equally, if you're an entrepreneur, I would say pay for a business coach, talk to a few and find the one that is the right fit. You don't need them forever. You might only need them for three or four coaching sessions. Then go and find a mentor that has got some industry experience that can help you. We all want. worry that why would somebody that's been really successful give me a bit of their free time and help? And the answer is because most successful business people have had a mentor, so they want to give something back. So don't be afraid to knock down somebody's door,

to ask them and to persist, and eventually you'll find the right mentor. And that can be really, really valuable. Without Nigel Morris's help, it could have taken us many more years before as a Brit, we conquered America by being in the right place and hiring an American to be our chief exec there. Nice. That's incredible. And the other thing that you talk about is honing your character and kind of how do you focus on what you're great at and hire the rest. How do you believe in finding what that looks like and how do you get very intentional strategic but also honest about it. Stop being miserable about performance reviews. Everybody focuses on all of the weaknesses. They don't celebrate their strengths and I only had a couple of strengths and many weaknesses

but when I figured out the magic model is to only focus on your few strengths and hire people to do the things that you're not good at, that I wasn't good at, and they will be better at, then that's the magic model. Yeah, and I'm a big believer in finding that zone of genius, so I think we speak a lot of the same language. Where do founders knowingly cap their own growth? you feel like founders are thinking too small or not being successful enough? Like, where do you think

that is? Yeah, I think it's really difficult for them because first time entrepreneurs have not been through and done it before, so you don't know what you don't know. And we can be naturally cautious in some areas. We can be too bullish in other areas. And I just wish there'd been my book available 30 years ago when I set out. The book that I did read, which helped me on my journey, was Good to Great by Jim Collins, the second best business book that's ever been written. And of course, I wrote my book to help many entrepreneurs out there on scaling the business, following my nine steps.

and I truly believe that anybody can build a billion dollar business. Wow, that is very inspiring. So first of all, where did they find the book? Where did they find you? Let's start with that to make sure that they go and get it. Yeah, the book is coming out in the US next year, so they could pre-order it at Barnes & Noble. It is available right now on audible or on any of,

of the on Spotify, any of the orderable type book platforms, or to be able to order it through Amazon UK. It's how to make a billion in nine steps. And again, the tips there are phenomenal and tons of examples and stories from yourself and how you guys scaled, et cetera. maybe take me a couple more questions.

What do you most like high achievers misunderstand about reaching the next level? Like what do you think is, again, we have a lot of people trying to reinvent themselves. It always looks really easy for other people. It's always really, really hard. I think we underestimate how hard it can get. What do you think are some of the things that are not allowing people to get to the next phase? to their best version of themselves? I think the two big things would be not thinking big enough.

I'm a great believer in setting big, hairy, audacious goals, and having an exciting plan and then pushing everybody to get there. And then secondly, it would be about having the courage to hire some expensive people in the C-suite team, making sure that you've got a great finance director or CFO, great marketing director or CMO, great operations person, and they're going to do the job really well, particularly if they've come out of a successful medium-sized company with the right cultural fit that has done it before that can help your particular business to scale.

So just one follow up on this. Like, how are you not afraid of the finances? So if you're not sitting in a venture-backed, raise millions and millions of dollars, how are you not afraid of the implication of hiring somebody so expensive? I think the key bid is at the right time, get an investor. and that's not just about the money, but it's getting somebody that can provide help and advice,

but not try and run the company. And getting a buffer of investment before you scale helps you to think bigger, to think about, could I fund international development, can I hire some really good but expensive people? And also, as on to, entrepreneurs, we worry about it all going wrong. And I nearly ran out of money twice as we know. So it is good to be able to take a bit of money off the table, pay off debts, pay off your mortgage,

and know that if it did all go wrong, you and your family are not going to be out on the street and homeless. And if you've done that, I think then you can take a bit more risk and press the accelerate button and go even faster. That's such a great, great, great, great tip. Now, this is Richard. This is so, so amazing. And then maybe last famous words for people who are listening, they want more for themselves, they want more from their career.

What should they do? what would you what would you recommend to tell them except for getting your book what else for anybody that's not yet in business on their on their own that is employed then that's great take your experience of working for other companies and take the plunge but don't think that you need a unique idea we hear many people say well i had a business idea, but then I found out somebody'd already done it, I would say, that's great. If somebody's already done it, then it works. All you need to do is copy their model and make it a bit better and then think bigger.

My other bit of advice would be you don't necessarily need to start a business. You could go and buy a business. many owners will be looking to retire, find a business that you're interested in that's for sale, and go and acquire it. If it's making money, then you can probably get a bit of bank debt, put in a small amount of your money or friends and family money, and ask the seller for a loan. they might be prepared to fund your purchase of the business over two or three years.

That would certainly reduce the risks of going into business as a startup. Right, because then you see that the business already works and brings the money. So you have the validation, you have the market fit. Now the only question is how big can you make it, right? So did you eventually buy the helicopter or no? Yeah, I'm on my third helicopter. I bought the first one in the year 2000, 26 years ago. I trained as a helicopter pilot so that I could fly it myself,

be it that I promised my family that I'd always fly it with a commercial pilot sitting next to me. So that makes for safer flying. Oh, yeah, I think I would vouch for that. But, yeah, I was in the Air Force. so I highly respect that. But Richard, thank you. That was phenomenal.

Thanks for being on the show. My pleasure, Alana. Great to talk. Where else can they reach you except for the book? Yeah, at richard harping.com or go to an organization I run in the UK that we will be taking to America in the next 18 months, which is businessleader.com.

or can follow me on LinkedIn or on Instagram. Phenomenal. Richard, thank you and congratulations on all the success. That's phenomenal. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, Alana. Thanks for all the questions. Great to be speaking.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed this show and how to build a billion dollar company. But right now, we are going to focus on Leah's beautiful questions. So if you have a question, remember, go to Leap Academy with Ilana Golan, the YouTube channel. You can search for it really, really easily. Put any questions you have on any one of the episodes. It doesn't matter, we will find it because we'll have it in our notification. So anything related to your career, to leadership, to executive level, to start businesses, we will have an answer for you.

And right now we want to focus on the beautiful question from Leah of how do you get your first $10,000 if you've never been a founder, but you are really, really broke. And Leah, first of all, my heart goes to you. I'm sorry you're going through some rough time, but here I'm going to paint exactly how to make your first $10,000. And for anybody else, if you need this, or somebody else that you know needs this, please go share it so that we can create a bigger change in the world and make it easier for as many people as possible. So in order to make your first $10,000, The first thing you need to do is package your knowledge, package your expertise in a way that makes you a category one, makes you somebody that is so unique that you can sell yourself, your expertise, your knowledge, your connection to either solve an individual problem or to solve a company's problem.

So once you package yourself and really think about what makes you unique, what makes me different, what in what areas, in my life have I achieved a lot? Where did I get awards? Where did people come to me and say, oh my God, that was incredible. Where do people already intrigued by you? Because guess what? I bet people are already reaching out to you.

Texting, phone calls, whatever. They're already reaching out to you for help. What is it? Where are people already reaching out for you? Maybe you know how to find the cheapest things, you know, ever. Maybe you know how to find deals. Maybe you know how to fly, I don't know, with points. Maybe you know, like, people know different things.

The question is, what is it that you know and how do you package it into your story? After that, what you want to do is decide who you are going to sell it to, individuals or companies. Companies take a little longer sometimes to actually create a deal, et cetera, et cetera. It takes a little longer to mature and to create, you know, that and to get into the decision makers. So if you can sell to individuals and you can help individuals with significant a problem that they have, especially if you felt that pain, if you felt the problem, you have a significant way of talking to that problem and to help somebody. So what I want to then do, and think about who is that audience.

Now, sometimes we make a mistake of trying to make it too generic because we're afraid of narrowing down. The more you are narrow, the more you're a category of one. Because if you're going to help all the leaders in the world, guess what? You're together with millions in the people pile. If you're going to help specifically leaders who, I don't know, are moms and they right now need to get back to the work environment. Or you help tennis players who, you know, need to get back on track. Or you help, you know, like you need to like something very. very, very specific. And the more specific it is, the better you can create a category one from your

experience. So find who that audience is. Where do they hang out? Where do they read? What do they look like? Do they, are they are Instagram and LinkedIn? Are they on TikTok and their YouTube? Like, where are they? Of course they're going to be in all over. Pick one. Okay. And make sure you start having a little bit of that authority of why you can talk about what it is that you're about to help them with. And usually the best way to do that is to share a personal story, a vulnerable piece of the story of where you've been, how you solved it to yourself, and why you have a place of authority to help others do exactly the same. Now, even if right now, you're not even going to be that expensive, even if you just start putting the number, I don't know, like, you're going to help

them for $1,000 to, you know, to go from their pain to where. they want to go and you have a very specific formula of helping them do this. Now, how do you find that formula very easily? Pretend like you're sitting with your ideal audience and for coffee. What do you help them with? How do you talk to them? Usually there's going to be a few steps that you're going to make. So for us, when we help driven professionals reinvent leap their careers, we're very, very specific. They have to be driven. If somebody's never been driven in any time in their life, they're not going to work well for Leap Academy. Right? So I, I have a very specific type of professional that we hope.

It's always mid to late stage career in our case. And we have very specific formula. I want you to think about your formula, right? Our formula is I need them to get the clarity of what it is. We have a very engineered process to go through that clarity and understand what's next for them. Then we talk about how do you tell that story. Then we show you how to build that brand, then how to open the right doors so that not only that you can find those opportunities,

but also the right opportunities will come your way. What is your formula? I want you to literally write down your audience. What do you help them do? And then I want you to write the pain, the dream, and what is your formula to get them from the pain to the dream? Pick a number that is going to be the price right now. Eventually, you can go upwards towards higher price tags,

but right now you just need the evidence. You just need the confidence. You just need to know that you can do this. Go help people. You're going to change lives. You're going to get as much evidence as possible, but you also get your first 10K. Now, I can't wait to see you in the chat.

I want to see you in the comments on YouTube. I want you to tell me, Leah, if you made that first $10,000. So I'm going to be rooting for you, but also let me know if you have follow-up questions. We might answer and we might have a full series just to get your first clients in the door. So hope you enjoyed this. Go share it with whoever needs to see it.

And I will see you on the next episode of the Leap Academy with Ilanaguland show. Hey, I hope you enjoyed the conversation on the Leap Academy with Yiselaan Golan podcast. How powerful was this? Look, if someone in your life needs to hear this today, please share it with them. Let's make somebody smile today. We are on the mission to help 10 million people reinvent, leap their career, become their best version of themselves, tap into the hidden market and create not just a paycheck, but the life they want with the paycheck. So just do a quick share or like, subscribe, download.

They help us more than you think. See you next week.