The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 44 - Ben Francis: Knowing This Will Accelerate Your Business

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Ben Francis is the genius behind Gymshark, the $1.5 billion fitness business. With success at 19, Ben had a vision, he had an idea and he had the passion. He wanted to create a truly iconic brand to help inspire people around the world. Ben leant into his strengths, and in this clip he advises those who want to become entrepreneurs to do the same. Leaning into those passions, along with hard work and smart work, will inevitably lead you to different opportunities. Fitness is Ben’s passion, it drives him everyday and in this clip, he encourages you to follow yours. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/4pR1CteGvnb Ben: https://www.instagram.com/benfrancis/ https://twitter.com/BenFrancis1992?s=20 Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I know that there's going to be a lot of young entrepreneurs watching this. And I know that they typically ask me the same question. So I want to ask you just a lot of young entrepreneurs watching this. And I know that they typically ask me the same questions. So I want to ask you just a couple of them before we wrap. One of them I get a lot is, you know, there'll be someone listening to this.

They've not got any money. They want to start a business. They don't have an idea, but they want to start a business. What would you say to them? If you don't have an idea or money. Yeah. But they want to be an entrepreneur. I get this a lot so the first thing for me would be to find out what you're truly truly passionate about

because for me when i started gymshark i made two fitness apps beforehand i made two fitness apps both failed miserably i made a little fitness social network failed miserably a little fitness sort of forum that failed miserably and then then Gymshark was, I wanted to be involved in the industry more than anything. I wanted to be involved in fitness because it changed my life. It was the thing that got me from being a D student to an A student. Literally, that was the thing that changed my life. The discipline. Yeah, the discipline that I learned, the structure, the fact that if I was tired on a Monday,

the gym doesn't care. Go in and lift. It doesn't matter. And most importantly, that if January 1, I joined the gym and I lift five days a week, every single week by December 25, whatever, I am better than I was a year ago. Those lessons to me were massive because previously I didn't really realize that. And I do this thing in school where I would be like, I'd work, try really hard and I get a bad grade. And then there'd be another thing that I wouldn't try out and I get a really good grade. And I just, it didn't, do you know what I mean? It didn't add up to me. So for me, I was in love with the industry and fitness was and is my passion. And that's carried me through some of the difficult times because I remember the difference it's made to my life. And it's this inherent passion that drives me every

day. So if you've got no ideal money, just lean into that community, whatever it is, it might be boxing, it might be golf, it might be videography, it might be motorcycles or bicycles or whatever, lean into it. Because inevitably, there will be an opportunity, especially now because of this new social media world that we live in. There's a massive, there's so much room for people to create brands. So yeah, I would just lean into whatever your passion is. It's so true because you can waste a ton of time procrastinating and falling into indecision by trying to guess.

And as you said there, I read that Gymshark was actually like the seventh Apple website you created. So you like leaned into the industry, did this process of like failure and exploration and stumbled across the winner, right? And you have to fail. If you're a young entrepreneur,

just do not be afraid to fail. Just all names out of boxes, ideas out of boxes aside, the likelihood of an individual starting a business and that one being the one that strikes gold is ridiculously low. What we've got to remember is you could start 30 businesses and you are still more likely to fail than you are succeed. So just honestly, just keep trying and keep trying and don't be afraid to fail. I think that's so, so, so important. And everyone I've met, by the way, from the people that run businesses that are 10 times bigger than Gymshark to every entrepreneur

that I've met, every business person, every successful person in sport, in business, whatever, whether they've started a business or not, every single one of them has failed time and time and time again. And I think then people look at the final product and just assume that they've just, they were either this incredible human who had, was born this way or, and it is just never, never, ever the case. More often than not, all the most successful people I've ever met are all winging it. They're all literally just working incredibly hard and they're just giving it their best shot. Can I ask you one more on this point? I think that was a superb answer as well because it's just incredibly true. The other question I'd get a lot

from young entrepreneurs is something like, you know, they're in a job at the moment and they've got an idea. So this is an example where they've got a business idea that they want to pursue, but they're just, you know, they've heard you say that,

they want to pursue it, but there's something holding them back. And they're, you know, I know you get this a lot as well. There's probably most conversations. What do you say that they want to pursue it, but there's something holding them back. And they're, you know, I know you get this a lot as well. It's probably most conversations. What do you say to those people? Oh, I think if it's your passion, then I think you should jump in.

The other thing I would say, and this is, I think this is a dangerous thing. I do see people online go in, quit your job, jump in, go and do something. And it's a bit like, personally, I'm sat there thinking, no, don't quit your job, it's fine. Like, I worked at Pizza Hut for whatever, I can't remember what the amount was.

It was four or five pounds an hour. And Gymshark was doing hundreds of thousands in revenue. The utility of having a job whilst running the business is huge. One, because you can earn money to survive. So you don't need to remove, you know, you don't need to remove money from the business. So two, you can then reinvest all the profits that you can make in that business. If you just, and two, by the way, if business number one fails, you've still got your job, you try number two, number three, number four. And I think whatever it is, find your passion. I genuinely don't think it's a good idea just to

jump out of your job just on a whim. There are some people, you'll hear about the one in a million that succeeds and congratulations, more power to you. I'm super happy for those people. But you don't hear about the 99% that ended up quitting their job and it didn't go as well as what they would like

and then they ended up having to go back and find a new job. So use that job as a superpower, as stability and invest the money you earn from that job in the business and just keep trying, trying, trying. And hard work, where does that fit? What's the importance of it? Because there's a narrative I talk about a lot in this podcast that hard work is maybe a little bit, the narrative you see online from the hustle porn style is a little bit toxic. But would you be sat here without hard work? Oh, definitely not. No, it's that combination of hard work alone

is definitely not enough. You have to work hard, but you also have to work smart. There were periods where we were finding out ways to manipulate Google in a way that got Gymshark to the top, which gave us huge revenue for next to no cost, right? That was smart work. But there were days when we would work 12 14 16 hours sewing and printing t-shirts every single day there are days like that now where I just we just work and work and work to

get the job done so exclusively hard work won't solve your problems you definitely have to work smart but I've never met anyone who was genuinely successful that wasn't hardworking.