Bootstrapping Lascaris style – superb autobiography of entrepreneurship the hard way
Shortly after Nando's launched in the UK, it offered a free chicken to anyone who walked into a store with a brown Nando's bag over their head. The campaign ended when a young man tried to sue them – he'd been assaulted by an umbrella-wielding lady when passing her at an ATM. Unfortunately for our story, Reg Lascaris wasn't the one who thought up that advert. But he certainly instilled much of the spirit to the fearless Nando's approach to advertising. Lascaris, a bootstrapping businessman and free thinker shares many practical lessons about entrepreneurship in his superb new book. He came through to the CNBC Africa studio today to chat to us about it. – AH
ALEC HOGG: Reg Lascaris' book, Lessons from the boot of a car is aimed at entrepreneurs who need encouragement to get started. It offers sage advice, keeping them on the right path. The author is with us in the studio. Reg, I loved your book. I think anybody who's had a chance to read it will too. It is inspiring, particularly for start-ups.
REG LASCARIS: The whole idea was that it's a journey of my life, all the knocks I had, and what happened along the way. I thought I'd like to share that with everybody seeing that I'm getting to the stage where I'll maybe be moving on.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: What brought this about, Reg?
REG LASCARIS: It was a record of what I've done. When you start a business, it's not that easy. Where do you borrow the money? How do you fund it? What do you do? What skills do you have? It was a tough battle at the beginning, but eventually I managed to borrow some money from a friend and start the business. As it was very little money, we had to start the business out of my very second-hand Toyota Corolla because we couldn't invite people to our offices. We used to say: New philosophy, we come to you, you don't come to us. None of this fancy office stuff – we come to you. That's how we started and we slowly built the business (into Hunt Lascaris, SA's leading advertising group).
ALEC HOGG: Your family turned you down. They must have kicked themselves
REG LASCARIS: There wasn't any money to help. Anyway, it's been a really enjoyable ride and I hope I'm sharing some of the funny stories in the book as well as the lessons, because at the end of every chapter I try to write down what I learned.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: What are your top three key lessons learnt?
REG LASCARIS: There are quite a few but I think you have to be passionate about what you're doing.
You have to be a tough-minded optimist because in business, you're going to knock your head so many times.
You just have to keep going, I guess. In the end, it's not so much about a strategy, because strategies are very fixed things. It's about a compass. Every now and again, you have to change path, change direction. So don't write down a strategy, and think that's it, because we're living in a very fast-moving world. The other one is the big don't eat the small in business. It's the fast that eat the slow. You have to be nimble in this business. I have many other lessons as well, but these are a couple.
ALEC HOGG: It's a journey, not a destination.
REG LASCARIS: Exactly – ja, it is a journey.
ALEC HOGG: You had some lovely stories. It's one of those books, Gugu – and I know you haven't had a chance to read it because I have our copy – it's one of those books you could read in a weekend, because it really is that interesting. Reg, tell us about the Rolls Royce.
REG LASCARIS: Well, the benefactor who loaned us the money at the time said 'look, I'm going to invite you around for dinner one evening and I'm going to introduce you to my very rich friends who have many businesses. Maybe they're going to give you some business', so I said sure. When I rocked up he put me next to one of his key people and you know you start small talk in any conversation. The first question I asked him fearlessly is, 'what car do you drive?' He said 'I drive a Roller'. I said 'so do I' because I thought he meant a Corolla. He asked 'what colour is your roller' and I said 'my roller is bright yellow. It has a few dents, but its bright yellow'. He said ' you're kidding' and I said 'no'. It was like…why is he so excited about my Corolla? Anyway, eventually he came out to look at my car and burst out laughing. I have a few anecdotes and a few stories in the book, but its silly things like that.
ALEC HOGG: What happened to the car?
REG LASCARIS: It was traded in on another second-hand car, but the car was a bit better.
REG LASCARIS: BMW briefed us on a print ad, a small little quarter page ad because they were launching power steering in the new 3-Series. We went back, sat down, and thought 'power steering – that's a new thing', because it was, then. We thought 'how do you demonstrate power steering in a print ad?' and you can't, and we came up with this crazy idea of having a mouse on the steering wheel to show how light the steering wheel was. We had to train a hell of a lot of mice. Eventually we gave them all names and eventually we chose Fred Astaire. The one on the wheel was Fred Astaire. He was the best.
ALEC HOGG: Lovely stuff.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: Just on that, when you look at the advertising arena in South Africa at the moment, we know that certain advertising companies stand out – the likes of Nando's – for their creativity. Are we creative enough? Are we reaching an evolution perhaps with regard to creativity?
REG LASCARIS: I think we're very lucky because we started off with Nando's. Nando's was one of our first clients, and in the end it's not so much about what we do or how brave we are. It's about how brave the clients are. Robbie Brozin was a very brave man. He used to say 'frighten me', and we tried very hard, but I think we frightened him a few times. I think we have terrific creative people in this country and I think if you look at the Cannes Awards we're always in the top ten, and that's fighting far beyond our weight. I think we have a lot of talent. It's because of where we come from. We come from a very interesting society of many different ethnic people and many different nationalities. There's a type of spirit of creativity in this country, which is amazing.
ALEC HOGG: Did you follow Nando's overseas? Did you do the offshore advertising?
REG LASCARIS: No, but they took up the same position and everything, because the position funnily enough with Nando's was irreverence – just much everything. They do that in London, they do that all over the world now, and they used local people to do it. We didn't help them there.
ALEC HOGG: So nothing has changed from that side?
REG LASCARIS: No, it hasn't changed at all.
ALEC HOGG: Reg, it's interesting – you talk as an entrepreneur, but also somebody who knows about marketing. Often entrepreneurs are not good marketers. How do you get the two together?
REG LASCARIS: I think entrepreneurs actually are good marketers because a lot of it comes from the gut. Some of the best marketers I've come across are entrepreneurs: the likes of Robbie Brozin…many people I've met. It's instinct. I think entrepreneurs are maybe not that good with people along the way, because they've done it their way and they're not prepared to change. You have to evolve and you have to change. I think entrepreneurs are good marketers.
ALEC HOGG: That's interesting. So if an entrepreneur has an idea, he should not defer to the advertising agency. He should maybe try to push it through.
REG LASCARIS: No, I think he should work together with the advertising agency otherwise we wouldn't be in business. I think if you work together…entrepreneurs actually make good clients because they also listen, debate, and discuss. But in the end, they're brave.
ALEC HOGG: The ad industry itself – its business model going forward – that 16.5 percent…
REG LASCARIS: It's all gone. We're all on fee-based stuff and of course, the industry is changing. It's gone very digital and there's such a plethora of media everywhere, so it's harder to reach the consumer. The biggest change is that the consumer can talk back, and they can talk back fast. They can really make or break your brand, whereas before you would dish it out but you had no feedback. With Twitter and all these things, you're getting instant feedback so you know exactly where you stand.