Read Online Be Careful What You Wish For by Simon Jordan - Free Book Online

alarm, and got reports electronically produced. Stores that were late got a phone call from their MD, and if they persisted they got a call from HR terminating the staff’s employment. One store, in a shopping centre in Uxbridge, got the shop next door to open the store for them and deactivate the alarm. So one morning I turned up, waited for them to arrive at 9.30 a.m. and sacked the entire staff on the spot. I wanted professionalism and excellence and I would damn well do what it took to get it.
    For two quarters we failed to hit the level of connections we had agreed to do with 121, and the last quarter we did 40,000 of the 50,000 required. This meant that 121 were reluctant to pay the third tranche of £750K. In fact, their finance department tried to reclaim some of the monies they had paid, but our increase in volume was still so significant that I managed to cajole the money out of them. I just kept spinning those plates!
    In the middle of 1999 Time Computers approached us about a concession deal. We settled on twenty concessions and jumped up to 150 stores. We had moved into London, opening three stores in key locations. It was the last time we were to use Ulrika Jonsson. She failed to turn up on time to open one of our stores and we missed the chance to gain some serious publicity. As a result I went ballistic and when she refused to meet her legal obligations we sued her (subsequently, due to ensuing events, incredibly this action was dropped). Later, when I purchased Crystal Palace, liberty-takers being paid and failing to honour performance obligations became the norm.
    Due to our size, it was becoming incredibly difficult to control what was sold in the manner I had so rigidly been able to in the past. I had eight terminals on my desk and each one monitored twenty stores. I watched sales figures religiously and when they weren’t to my liking, called meetings with the area managers and, shall we say, focused their minds in no uncertain terms. In an attempt to get figures up to an appropriate level I used all kinds of incentives, including the use of my Ferrari 355 Berlinetta to area managers with the best sales. Stephen Hargreaves, who managed our stores in the north-west, was the first winner. He drove thirty miles in the car and had an enormous crash – so much for incentives.
    By the last quarter of 1999 cash flow was beginning to become critical. Again, we needed a serious cash injection to keep the business afloat. By now we had a £3 million overdraft, which we had never used, but our forecasts predicted we would eat into it and require at least another £1 million on top imminently.
    My brainwave was to arrange another deal. This time the agreement was with Vodafone. We had nearly 300,000 live customers on Vodafone’s airtime and growing and were paid 3 per cent of their call spend, which roughly meant about 0.25p per customer per month, paid to us on a monthly basis. I convinced Vodafone to pay the next two years’ worth to us in one lump sum. Hey presto! £2.7 million, and the end of the cash flow crisis … for five minutes. How many plates was I spinning now? 121, Vodafone, cash flow, Andrew, stores opening …
    Speaking of Andrew, he was becoming impatient and again wanted to sell the business. So, after some deliberation, in a strategic move, I offered Andrew a figure for his share of the company upon completion of the sale of the business, and after careful consideration he accepted my offer.
    So on the eve of a new millennium, as everyone else was preparing for the beginning of a new era, I was preparing for the end of one. I had decided to put The PocketPhone Shop up for sale.
    In December 1999 we topped 50,000 connections. We had done in a month what had taken us the first two years to achieve. We were now the second biggest phone connector in the country and one of the fastest expanding businesses in the UK. The remarkable growth of this company in the space of just five years was almost