S7: Selling your business to your employees to safeguard its future with Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford
Conversations of Inspiration
Holly Tucker MBE
5.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2020
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Riverford was one of the first businesses to reach the market with an organic online food model and led the way in identifying a new conscious consumer in the UK. But life as a young boy, growing up on a farm and highly dyslexic, meant that his formative school years did not guarantee him an easy transition into the business world.
Holly and Guy explore how understanding yourself, and your own mind and reactions, is the key to becoming a good leader - a lesson Guy learned later in life and is searingly honest about in this interview.
Guy’s philosophy is that good business is common sense, and that we must call on the government, now to make a fundamental change - a sentiment perhaps more apt than ever before. He also explains how selling his business to his employees, not only changed his life for the better but also created a huge positive change for the business too.
Enjoying listening to these unfiltered chats? It's worth following Holly Tucker MBE and Holly & Co on Instagram, and subscribing to our weekly newsletter on our website, where Holly downloads her thoughts, and exclusively shares small business finds and topical, 'ungoogleable' business advice.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode comes to you amongst an unprecedented lockdown of the UK. |
| 0:04.6 | It's surreal and it is unnerving, but what I have noticed out of all of this |
| 0:10.0 | is the power of community and coming together. |
| 0:13.8 | We're also acutely aware of the vital role that farming plays in our lives and so it is |
| 0:19.8 | rather apt that my guess this week is Guy Singh Watson, founder of Riverford. |
| 0:25.2 | I recorded this conversation with Guy in the heart of Soho a couple of weeks ago |
| 0:30.3 | and it was a conversation fueled by guys rallying cry for governments to sit up and make real |
| 0:37.0 | change to support small businesses and our high street. |
| 0:41.0 | Little did we know what the weeks ahead would hold for us all. |
| 0:45.2 | This episode also marks the end of Series 7 and will be taking a break before returning |
| 0:50.6 | with Series 8. |
| 0:52.2 | But don't worry, shortly I will be coming back here with a |
| 0:56.0 | special series so keep your eyes on my Instagram to hear it more. I'm Holly Tucker and welcome to conversations of inspiration. |
| 1:09.7 | I'm the founder of Not on the High Street and Holly and Co. and I'm the UK Ambassador of Creative Small Businesses. |
| 1:16.0 | I believe that having a business doing what you love is the key to a happy fulfilled life and my dream is to help everybody start theirs. |
| 1:26.0 | So I've reached out to all my favourite small businesses, acclaimed entrepreneurs and those |
| 1:30.9 | who just simply inspire me and ask them to share theirs. |
| 1:35.0 | With thanks to our sponsor NetWest who have helped bring this free podcast to life. |
| 1:40.0 | Here are my conversations of inspiration. |
| 1:43.0 | Bough your head and let your eyelids close on down where we're going. |
| 1:48.0 | You won't need to bring your frown. |
| 1:51.0 | Hi Guy, we are in Soho, a far cry from the farm. We were thinking, weren't we to try and get me |
... |
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