In this brand new Issues series, we speak to entrepreneurs about the barriers they faced in business, and what kept them focussed on success. 

Up first is Shalom Lloyd, Founder of Naturally Tribal Skincare, a company whose goal it is to provide natural remedies to manage skin conditions like dry skin and eczema. Turning to her ancestral roots, she sources natural remedies using raw, 100% natural and sustainable ingredients from Africa. Naturally Tribal Skincare now employs local women in the Kingdom of Essan, Nigeria, with an ethos of ‘trade not aid’. 

Shalom is also Director at JE Oils, a Nigeria-based manufacturer of agriculturally derived oils, which delivers ethical and sustainable products locally, as well as to customers around the globe. In addition, she is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Emerging Markets Quality Trials (EMQT), an organisation focused on the inclusion of patients of African descent into clinical trials.

Driven by a desire to create a more sustainable, inclusive and diverse business landscape,  this is what motivates Shalom – in her own words. 

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Owning and operating a business is far from easy. I think I have always had that so-called ‘entrepreneurial spirit’, but what actually prepared me was working for other people; learning, absorbing and understanding what I would do differently if it was my own business.

I had to set my priorities and ask myself: What problem are you solving? Is there a market for it? Can you afford it? Do you know or have the right people?

Failure is the first step to success; multiple failures are multiple steps towards success and if there is a glass ceiling, as they say, then I put it there myself.

‘If you build it, they will come!”

I never intended to start a company. I’m a pharmacist, I’ve worked in drug development. So entering the beauty industry felt like a big leap. When my son was born covered in eczema, I blamed myself, thinking: is it the chemicals, or the IVF? I live in a world where science and nature collide. I believe in the power of medicines and chemicals, but I wanted to find a natural remedy for my child. 

Entering the beauty industry wasn’t necessarily something I planned to do. I was just a mum, but also a woman who had gone through four cycles of IVF and finally had my twins. After pumping myself with chemicals to conceive him, I wanted to find something natural to soothe his eczema. As a mother, you’re going through the internet joining focus groups, and you realise – oh my God – there’s so many people with this same issue, the same problem that could write the same concerning stories you have.

When I did find the solution, it would have been a crime not to share it. Naturally Tribal is a journey and the success we have achieved to date is definitely down to our values, our principles and our ethos to do what’s right. If you build it, they will come!

I also co-founded EMQT to advocate for racial diversity in clinical trials. Black people make up 17% of the world’s population, yet less than 3% of us are involved in clinical trials. When my father passed away from cancer, he lived in Africa. I wonder if he was involved in the clinical trial process, maybe he’d still be with me today. I’m always driven by trying to create a solution. 

When you are starting out, you don’t realise that people can make or break your business. They are your greatest assets and can be your biggest downfall. 

Overcoming barriers

There will always be barriers and obstacles throughout our life journey. My life experiences have not only nurtured the scientist in me, they have also given me confidence, determination, tenacity, the will to succeed, the ability to adapt, and an understanding that my success or failure is down to me.

When I was 16, I was fortunate enough to be given a full scholarship to study pharmacy in the former Soviet Union. I arrived in Moscow, and within 24 hours was on a train to a small town in the Ukraine – Vinnitsa, which became my home for my one year intensive Russian language programme. Six years after living and studying in a country to which I arrived without knowing anyone, or speaking a single word of Russian, I returned back home to the UK with a BSc and MSc in pharmacy. In addition to the language barrier, I faced challenges in the former Soviet Union being a Black woman.

However, my experience in Ukraine not only nurtured the scientist in me, it also gave me confidence. It gave me determination, tenacity, the will to succeed, the ability to adapt, and most importantly the understanding that my success, or my failure is down to me. In Africa, it’s still very much a man’s world. But we women are learning to stand up, and we need to shout out and be heard. And I love that we’re doing that professionally and with power. A woman building a factory and employing people in Africa is not something you see every day. 

I never embark on a journey expecting it to be easy. I go in knowing that there will always be things that get in the way. I am also very fortunate to be one of those people who sees opportunities in everything I do, believing that ‘failure’ is an option! Failure is the first step to success; multiple failures are multiple steps towards success and if there is a glass ceiling, as they say, then I put it there myself.

Reminding myself of my ‘why’ has always helped me to stay motivated and focussed.

Facing challenges

Finance was of course a big challenge when launching Naturally Tribal Skincare. I had to remortgage my home to start this business. It has been worth it, but cashflow is a killer!

Building the factory in Essan required investment and I am honoured to be working with investors who are also colleagues and friends. When you are starting out, you don’t realise that people can make or break your business. They are your greatest assets and can be your biggest downfall. 

Then there was the challenge of the industry itself! The beauty industry is so saturated, hence you have to be bringing something special, unique and innovative to the table. I have learned that I deserve my place at this table and never to sell myself or my products short.

Diversifying and advocating for fairness

The Shea industry supports and provides income to over 16 million women across the African continent, but around 8 million Shea trees are lost every year across West Africa. Our job is to do what we can to support that supply chain; we can’t just consume.

With the help and support of the leaders like the King of Essan, we’re taking baby steps towards putting Shea producing communities on the map. 

Staying motivated

Reminding myself of my ‘why’ has always helped me to stay motivated and focussed.  This so-called entrepreneurial journey is a lonely and hard one! However, it is really true what they say about doing what you love and loving what you do.

I have sacrificed time with my family, my children; I have invested way too much, and I have so many people relying on me – I cannot give up now. The confidence my family has in me keeps me going, and the fact that the businesses I am involved with impacts and touches lives every day keeps me focused. My focus is now to ensure that we are commercially viable and profitable!

How these businesses make me feel gets me through those times when I feel as though the odds are stacked up against me.

“Be genuine, surround yourself with a great team and remember that failure is always a possibility”

 

Follow your passion

My advice to budding entrepreneurs would be to do something you are passionate about – because the journey is tough! Never let a lack of finance stop you. Be genuine, surround yourself with a great team and remember that failure is always a possibility – and even a necessary step towards success.

When you start out, particularly in a sector you are somewhat unfamiliar with, there is a tendency to assume that everyone knows more than you do, which simply isn’t true. Always listen to your gut and have confidence in your product or service. 

Involving and working with the right people from the start would have saved me a lot of pain, too – but going through this process and journey has taught me some very valuable life lessons! If I could go back, I would tell myself: “It will be OK. Just take your time, don’t succumb to the pressure and surround yourself with the right people. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ and place more value on your time.”

Finally, know your numbers and know the value you bring. If you are going to do it, do it well and don’t cut corners!

Top five tips to succeed in business

1. Pursue something you’re passionate about. The business journey is tough, so you need to really care about the company you’re building. 

2. Always have confidence in your product or service. ‘Imposter syndrome’ can affect even the most confident people, but don’t assume the business world is full of people who know more than you do. 

3. Remind yourself of your ‘why’! This will help to motivate you and sharpen your focus when running your business seems overwhelming.

4. Surround yourself with the right people.  

5. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’. Your time is valuable and it’s up to you how you want to spend it – especially when you’re trying to build a business.

After the global banking crisis a decade ago, a Dutch social anthropologist called Joris Luyendijk conducted more than 200 anonymous interviews with senior figures in the City of London. He wanted to understand how the ‘Crash’ had happened and what we could learn from it.

His findings were revealed in a weekly column he wrote for The Guardian and wrapped up in a compelling book called Swimming With Sharks. The lessons he drew from these frank interviews, sometimes held late at night, often over a glass of wine, were alarming. Corroborating the perspectives of other industry commentators, they shone a bright light upon the cultural and systemic failings of this complex world of money that we all depend upon. 

Swimming with Sharks was published in 2015 but the problems it highlighted remain unresolved. I met up with Joris (during the day; no wine) to talk through nine key lessons that emerged from the project, which he explains in his own words.

1. The next big financial crash will begin with IT
2. Banks really are too big
3. There is no such thing as ‘the bank’
4. It’s all about the short term
5. Excessively complex products should be banned
6. Regulation doesn’t work
7. Banking is amoral
8. Liability should start at the top
9. If you want capitalism, you need the possibility of failure

“Funding for IT is often inadequate because the long-term investment required would undermine the banks’ need to deliver short-term profits to their shareholders”

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1. THE NEXT BIG FINANCIAL CRASH WILL BEGIN WITH IT

Of all the issues that people discussed with me over that two-year period, this was the one that was most widely embraced by those I met.

The UK’s largest banks did not grow slowly and organically; they grew in leaps and bounds by taking over other banks and financial institutions of varying sizes and complexity, spread all over the globe.

The IT systems for these rapidly expanding groups have had to be repeatedly patched and upgraded to keep pace with these developments and the changing nature of technology. However, funding for IT is often inadequate because the long-term investment required would undermine the need that banks have to deliver short-term profits to their shareholders.

The vast majority of people I spoke to agreed that the precariousness and opacity of their systems make the big banks fundamentally vulnerable. And there are plenty of people ready to exploit that vulnerability – recreational hackers, terrorists, even disgruntled ex-employees.

2. BANKS REALLY ARE TOO BIG

Banks in the UK and beyond have grown to such a size that it’s impossible for the people at the top to know what it is really going on. An auditing accountant told me: “As a CEO you can’t understand every single algorithm your bank uses, every product they trade. CEOs get someone telling them: ‘Don’t worry, it’s under control’.”

Those high up know just enough to get by but not enough to know what to do in an emergency.

3. THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ‘THE BANK’

One banker told me: “We need to get rid of the idea of ‘the bank’. That term implies a unity of action and purpose, as if there’s an all-encompassing view driving that bank. There is no such thing. What we have is a collection of individuals in positions of power.”

The social anthropologist and journalist Gillian Tett demonstrated this in her book Fool’s Gold. People in banking tend to work in silos, a practice that hinders the exchange of crucial information. Banks are a collection of clusters of activity. Sometimes these clusters work in isolation to others, and sometimes in conflict with each other.

“Without job security, you have no loyalty and no continuity”

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4. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SHORT TERM

Another banker said to me: “In my career I have almost never seen anyone trying to build something. There are just cycles of new guys coming in. They put forward a plan promising to make money in three to four years. The pressure is huge, and the easiest way is to take more risk.”

The bonus culture drives short-term gain at the expense of long-term sustainability. The requirement to deliver value to shareholders does the same. And crucially, there is very little job security in some areas of banking. Without job security, you have no loyalty and no continuity.

5. EXCESSIVELY COMPLEX PRODUCTS SHOULD BE BANNED

How many stories have we heard about mis-selling and excessively complex products? Why are banks not subject to the same sort of controls as food or cars or medicine? There are all kinds of synthetic foods that we don’t allow because we don’t know what they could lead to but in finance we seem to treat the market like a lab rat. We just throw these things in there and only when they explode do we lose them.

Complexity shields people from critical scrutiny, and it gets really dangerous when you combine it with zero loyalty and the profit motive.

Some people like the fact that there is a shift away from traders in banks being the old-school ballsy, wheeler-dealer types towards more geeky types who understand the maths, the data and the technology. But the problem with the maths is that fewer and fewer people do actually understand it.

6. REGULATION DOESN’T WORK

People working for the regulators don’t get paid anything like as much as most of the people they are trying to regulate – and the banks hoover the best ones up anyway. They are always trying to play catch-up and introducing more red tape doesn’t help because it just makes it more difficult for disruptive fintech start-ups to provide competition.

“Part of the problem is a lack of education from school upwards”

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Then there are the ‘Big Four’ auditors; KPMG, Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Why would they rock the boat during the auditing process when the banks are such valuable sources of revenue to them? You could say the same about the ‘Magic Circle’ law firms.

Of course, there are always the internal risk auditors within the banks themselves who may be very hard working and well intentioned. However, given the issues of clusters and complexity outlined above, it is often too easy for some within the banks to outfox them.

And then there are us – the customers. Most of us know very little about banking, so part of the problem is a lack of education from school upwards.

7. BANKING IS AMORAL

While banks might claim to encourage cultural values with an element of morality, the banking world in general takes an amoral position. The priority is to make money for clients, for shareholders and for the bankers themselves, particularly those in senior positions. Value judgements about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ don’t come into it. And for many people I spoke to, this made perfect sense – morality complicates a system that is built on logic and process.

“There is no law on earth that offers a perfect fit with reality … this will always be a problem until banks embrace a moral framework for employees”

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Of course, amorality also absolves people of their moral responsibility and is very popular with competitive people. And mathematicians love it because you can play lots of arithmetical games around shareholder value – but stakeholder value is much more difficult to measure.

Unfortunately, though, there is no law on earth that offers a perfect fit with reality, especially where activities such as banking cross jurisdictions and technology platforms. There will always be loopholes to be exploited, and people who are financially motivated to take advantage. And this will always be a problem until banks seriously embrace a moral framework for their employees to work within.

8. LIABILITY SHOULD START AT THE TOP

A lot of people suffered when the banks collapsed – including hundreds of thousands of people within the banks who lost their jobs or endured significant stigma for creating something that was entirely beyond their control.

It might have been different if the people at the very top of the banks had expected significant punishment for creating economic and social mayhem.

9. IF YOU WANT CAPITALISM, YOU NEED THE POSSIBILITY OF FAILURE

People say that banking is a capitalist, free-market system but it’s not. Once you reach a certain size as a bank, you can’t fail – the State won’t let you. That’s not a free market.

It’s also extremely difficult to start a new bank – most niches are dominated by three or four large brands.

And while there are plenty of people in banks who are paid to take significant risks, they are not the ones bearing the risks – that comes down to the bondholders, the shareholders and the taxpayers.

One banker said to me: “Banking today is like playing Russian roulette with someone else’s head.”

 

Once upon a time, you’d have been unlikely to spot a tattoo anywhere away from the harbour. British society would have been as lacking in ethnic diversity as it was devoid of non-binary gender roles, divorcees, stubble, bicycle helmets and locked front doors. Five-figure salaries with benefits would have been almost unheard of. You’d have had one pair of shoes and not many more television channels. Smoking would have been emulated and even encouraged.

Suffice it to say, and like it or not, there are very real moral, cultural and ethical differences between generations in our society today. What’s more, with five clearly defined generations now cohabiting and co-working, these differences have never been more apparent.

Yet we’re far from perfect in accommodating these differences, and furthest when it comes to that most maligned of generations: millennials. Remember when, back in 2017, the Australian property tycoon Tim Gurner took a pot shot at millennials, claiming they’d be further up the property ladder if they stopped brunching on smashed avocado on toast and lattes? Granted, Gurner’s comments didn’t make him popular, but they undoubtedly resonated with some members of previous generations in agreement that millennials can be more prone to laziness and a sense of entitlement. As a millennial myself, even I’m averse to the term.

Construction mogul Tim Gurner is upfront about Australia’s housing problem -he says his generation needs to stop whinging & start saving. pic.twitter.com/bysx3Jler5

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) May 14, 2017

At the very least, our general awareness of differences between generations is a welcome development, especially in the 21^st-century workplace. Until now, the generational approach towards managing workforces has been one-size-fits-all, like-it-or-lump-it. Managers were frequently set in their ways, and if they grated with other generations, the reaction was invariable: buy in or bye-bye.

Thankfully, management styles are changing to reflect modern preoccupations with equality and inclusivity. What isn’t being considered, though – at least not to the same extent – is how millennials approach money.

MANY MILLENNIALS FEEL STUCK

According to Investopedia, economic studies of those who were unemployed during the recession in the early 1980s in the US revealed that they were still financially behind schedule after two decades. Is that to say that millennials, having lived through the global banking crisis of 2008 onwards, are destined to suffer an even worse fate?

Millennial career coach Alice Stapleton certainly senses a good deal of frustration: “People are feeling that they should be further ahead than they are. Many had expectations of where they would be by the age of 30 – owning houses and cars, being married and having children – but they’re not there yet.” In some cases, they’re not even close. The proportion of renters in the UK has doubled in the last two decades. Many are facing the prospect of renting for life.

On top of the recession, millennials are facing a tide of challenges unique to their generation. Because of employment competition, they’re staying in education a lot longer. Because of work experience requirements, they’re delaying their entry to salaried employment. And because their parents are living longer, their inheritances are being used to pay for care.

All of this has shaped an approach towards money unique to the millennial generation, which Alice believes is defined by the prioritising of short-term experiences – on the one hand fuelled by a millennials needing to meet outgoings such as rent and student loans on a month-to-month basis, and on the other an increasing awareness of life’s finitude.

“Picture the scene post-War,” says Alice. “The focus was on long-term strategy about stability, security, provision and accountability, making sure that we and our families are OK for the rest of our lives because God forbid something like that happened again, and that mentality spilled down into the parents of millennials. Today, as long as the main concern is meeting outgoings, it’s all about the short term.

“When it comes to spending and investing, millennials want to know that their money is producing some sort of social and environmental good”

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“Also, it’s maybe because of new communications channels, but we seem to be more aware that life is really quite short. We hear about the good and the bad – from new opportunities to terrible accidents – and we become determined to make the most of our time on this earth.”

This isn’t to say, of course, that the only thing on millennial minds is enjoying the here and now; they’re also focused on fixing the here and now. “When it comes to spending and investing, millennials want to know that their money is producing some sort of social and environmental good,” says Alice. “I’ve worked with people who have very little money but are still willing to crowdfund or donate to something that they feel has particular value or which aligns with their values.”

THEY HAVE A DESIRE TO WORK FOR GOOD

Millennials tend to apply the same philosophy towards spending and investing as they do work – which is to say they look for work that gives them a sense of purpose and meaning.

“The whole idea of a job for life now sounds a bit stale,” says Alice. “Our access to information constantly reveals new opportunities and their accessibility to us. When millennials travel up the hierarchy at work, it’s less about long-term financial goals and more about self-actualisation. I think very few people are happy being small cogs. Millennials want there to be a point to our work. They want to see the impact of what they’re doing, that there’s a result to it and that they’ve actually helped someone or something as a result of their work.”

“Working for a corporate giant whose operations can be conceived as detrimental to the environment or society would be obvious cause for conflict for a millennial.”

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It’s perhaps not going too far to suggest that for millennials, this matters more than money. More than ever, our identities are tied up with what we do; it’s the first thing people ask us. To be able to show, through our work, that our lives are about more than working 9–5 can be massively rewarding in itself.

Of course, we can’t pretend that ours is a world in which every job is an opportunity to reverse climate change, end poverty or further justice. On the contrary, there’s an obvious conflict in many cases between what millennials allegedly seek in their work and the very nature of the work they find themselves in.

“By and large, the millennial generation is a very socially responsible generation,” commented Alice. “They’re driving the climate change agenda, and a host of other environmental and social agendas. Working for a corporate giant whose operations can be conceived as detrimental to the environment or society would be obvious cause for conflict for a millennial.”

IT’S BETTER TO SHOW THAN TELL

Worryingly, 7 out of 10 millennials define financial stability as just being able to pay off their bills each month. Fortunately, savvy employers are addressing the challenge head on by offering employees financial education. Financial education can be understood in the round as an individual aspect of employee financial wellbeing. It sits alongside pay, benefits and rewards.

“We should be getting individuals to start thinking about what happens if their whole generation doesn’t have pensions or can’t afford their own care.”

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“It’s great news that employers are willing to share that responsibility,” says Alice. “If we want to avoid a massive pension and social care crisis further down the line, then helping millennial employees to start thinking in the long-term too is bound to be positive.” And if that wasn’t reason enough, employers have an added benefit to offering financial education: there’s a direct correlation between employee financial wellbeing and work performance. That matters, particularly when 54% of millennials say that merely thinking about money makes them stressed, according to Edelman’s ‘Millennials with Money’.

Beyond financial education, what should employers be doing to accommodate the financial opinions of millennials? Well for a start, Alice reckons, they should be moving away from telling millennials what to do and start showing them the social implications of financial habits – playing to their apparent strengths, as it were.

“Yes, we’ve got a bit of a nanny state mentality, but we should be getting individuals to start thinking about what happens if their whole generation doesn’t have pensions or can’t afford their own care because they’ve been too focused on the short term and internalising their financial goals. If we as employers can really tap into that, we would be motivating the millennial generation to think about their future.”

The same applies to the way in which businesses should be positioning themselves to their employees, and many are doing it remarkably well. From energy majors to retail giants, businesses can no longer afford to treat corporate sustainability reporting as something tacked on to the end of a year’s profit hunting; it’s an integral part of business and of attracting and retaining the best talent, built around the extraction of opportunities for all employees – millennials included – to impact the world and the people in it.

WE’RE ALL MILLENNIALS AT HEART

Unfortunately, and despite the apparent desire for millennials to make social and environmental impacts, it remains a sad state of affairs that so many of us still define ourselves and our worth through material things.

“Social media hasn’t helped on that front,” says Alice. “You think your world’s good and you’re quite happily trundling along with your own goals and priorities, and then you go on Facebook or Instagram and you start believing you should be doing what everyone else is doing and have everything that they have. The same is true of reality TV.”

“When you think about it, a lot of people actually revert to millennial priorities when they retire”

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And yet, wasn’t the same also true during the 1950s? They might not have had Facebook or Instagram or reality TV, but they did have fashion magazines, beauty pageants – their own generational equivalents. Perhaps the one common denominator across all generations when it comes to money is the fact that, as humans, we’re aspiring beings – and there’s little wrong with that.

“The important thing to recognise,” says Alice, “is the fact that there are differences between generations, and in particular different priorities. That doesn’t mean that one is right and the other is wrong. Yes, there are longer-term concerns for people today, but if we’ve learned anything about our world in recent years it’s how adaptable and changeable our world is. Respect should be given to the way the millennial generation is choosing to live life, in the here and now, because times are changing.”

Just because we’ve always been told that we should be buying a house doesn’t mean that renting is the wrong way to go. Just because we’ve always been told that a job is for life doesn’t mean that we can’t do work that isn’t meaningful to us. “When you think about it, a lot of people actually revert to millennial priorities when they retire,” says Alice. “They start travelling, doing out-of-the-ordinary activities and volunteering, because so often they’ve spent so many years doing something that wasn’t them. Surely that’s proof that millennials are doing something right.”

Every May, Keith Skeoch and four friends he has known since the age of seven meet up in the Lake District. In their twenties, they would spend the trip mountaineering, carousing in the local pubs and sleeping it off in their tents. Now that they’re in their sixties, their wives join them in comfortable rented accommodation and they combine hearty dinners with fell-walking.

Keith has loved the hills all his life. Growing up in Guisborough, Yorkshire, he was able to walk from his front door as a teenager and go rock-climbing in the moors. “It seems unbelievable now that a 13-year-old kid could go off with his mates and do that,” he smiles. “No supervision and no one worrying.”

But while Keith now owns a property in the Lammermuir Hills, south of Edinburgh, physical peaks aren’t the only thing he has climbed over the decades. Although his schoolboy friends and his wife help to keep his feet on the (sometimes undulating) ground, Keith is a member of that elite club of people who have climbed to the top in one of the UK’s best known financial institutions. 

A trained economist, he toyed with a career in academia and gave the Civil Service a spin before realising that the intellectual challenge of navigating financial markets, combined with research and building client relationships, was a mix that really excited him. Indeed, it proved such a thrill that he was often reluctant to accept the job offers and promotions that followed, fearful that he was leaving behind the parts of his work he loved most. Furthermore, early in his career at James Capel, whilst building up the company’s overseas investment team, he would likely have mocked the idea that he would ever relocate from London to Edinburgh.

However, having now been Chief Executive Officer of Standard Life Aberdeen for four years, and steering it through its merger with Aberdeen Asset Management, he appears to relish his role more than ever – and sees the extensive travel as a bonus. With appropriately blunt Yorkshire logic, he adds that, if he no longer relished “being around very interesting people”, he would simply stop doing it. 

This summer, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview Keith in front of a live audience at a Scottish Business Network event held at the offices of Aberdeen Standard Investments in London. Keith doesn’t do interviews very often, so this was a rare and fascinating opportunity to get inside the mind of a top-tier CEO. And he didn’t disappoint – relaxed, open, insightful about the sector and possessed of an impish sense of humour, we sat back and enjoyed hearing the story of his career to date. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. 

 

In November 1870, two weather-beaten men entered the Bank of California in San Francisco seeking to make a deposit. Their names were Philip Arnold and John Slack. Arnold, a Kentuckian, a Mexican War veteran and a Gold Rush ‘Forty-Niner’, had spent the intervening years working in mining operations in the West. Less was known about Slack other than that he was the cousin of Arnold.

The men’s deposit was a small quantity of rough diamonds, which they claimed to have discovered ‘in great store’ in the desert. Upon being given receipt of the deposit, nothing more was said and the men took their leave. But in an age of rampant speculation and post-Civil War optimism, Arnold and Slack’s modest deposit – still more the location of its discovery – was never going to remain a secret for very long in San Francisco. Soon, the Founder and President of the Bank of California, W.C. Ralston, was courting the pair in a bid to encourage them to enter negotiations and ultimately part with their rights.

Though initially coy, Arnold and Slack eventually agreed to a preliminary inspection of the field. Ralston, who by this point had partnered with two prominent California businessmen, George D. Roberts and William M. Lent, was permitted to select two inspectors who would make the trip blindfolded and satisfy themselves with the nature of the field. This they did, and quickly returned with a report that is said to have sent Ralston and his associates wild. More diamonds were found, and the genuineness of the field confirmed.

At this point, Arnold and Slack agreed to visit the field alone and return with approximately $2 million worth of diamonds as a guarantee of good faith. They came back with a buckskin package full of rough diamonds, which they estimated to be worth $1 million. They said they had lost an identical package making a river crossing, but the remaining package and their allegation that they had struck a spot enormously rich in diamonds (and other precious stones besides) while out in the field was more than sufficient to satisfy Ralston and his associates. By now, and according to Asbury Harpending, a financier and adventurer who later became General Manager of the enterprise, Ralston’s description of the field ‘made Sinbad look like a novice’. At a low estimate, Ralston valued it at $50 million – over a billion dollars in today’s money.

 

THE HOAX IS REVEALED

 

In October 1872, almost two years after Arnold and Slack presented themselves at the Bank of California, Clarence King, a geologist and mining engineer in the service of the United States government, visited the field, which was now by rights owned by the San Francisco and New York Mining and Commercial Company. A German prospector accompanied him, and ‘every now and then pocket[ed] a sparkler that he valued at a small fortune’.

It was one of these so-called sparklers that ironically led to the collapse of the San Francisco and New York Mining and Commercial Company. King and his German associate found a half-cut diamond; that is to say, one that bore the marks of the lapidary’s art. ‘Look here, Mr King,’ the German supposedly said. ‘This is the bulliest field as never was. It not only produces diamonds but cuts them moreover also!’ Soon the pair had found several other half-cut specimens.

Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires are found under wildly different geological conditions, certainly not in the same field. This, according to Harpending, was ‘a fact that ought to have made a goat do some responsible thinking’.

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One can only begin to guess what went through the minds of the men behind the San Francisco and New York Mining and Commercial Company when they received King’s telegram denouncing the field as ‘fraudulent and plainly salted’, and stating that a ‘wholesale fraud’ had been committed. And as if the half-cut diamonds weren’t evidence enough, King ventured to inform them that the ant hills upon which stones were found were clearly handmade; that stones were found down holes clearly poked with instruments; and that stones were found clearly lodged into gaps in rock formations. Perhaps King’s most enlightening revelation was his assertion that diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires are found under wildly different geological conditions, certainly not in the same field. This, according to Harpending, was ‘a fact that ought to have made a goat do some responsible thinking’.

So what of Henry Janin? It appears that even the mining engineer ‘without peer in the United States, and maybe even the world,’ wasn’t infallible. Harpending notes that it was Tiffany’s valuation of the diamonds that disarmed Janin, and that Janin more than once admitted his mission in visiting the field was merely to verify its true extent. As for Tiffany’s valuation itself, Harpending considers it hard to comprehend, ‘unless regarded in connection with another fact – that valuing cut stones and valuing stones in the rough are wildly different matters.’ While Tiffany was indeed an expert in the former, it’s doubtful whether a single real expert evaluator of rough diamonds was to be found in the United States at the time. And at a time when the entire civilized world had its eyes on the promised find, Tiffany had his reputation to uphold. 

And then there were Arnold and Slack, the purported locators of the field. Their original deposit in the Bank of California consisted of rough diamonds and other gems they had procured during their years of prospecting. It had ‘[sunk] the hook deep’, according to an article in Smithsonian, and the incremental payoffs the pair had received are believed to have been used to fund three separate trips to Europe to purchase cheap rough diamonds with which they salted the field. One dealer in London later told the press that a ‘rather rough-looking American appeared at his place of business and asked to be shown what they had in the way of undergrade or rather refuse diamonds. He was shown a large stock of South African stones […] handsome enough, but of very small commercial value.’ Arnold – for it was almost certainly him – apparently pawed the stones over without the least regard for size or quality, before asking indifferently, ‘How much for the lot?’ It’s reckoned that about $35,000 was invested in the salting claims, leaving Arnold with an estimated $600,000 profit.

How much, if any, of this money made it into Slack’s pocket is not certain. The last time he was seen by any member of the party was when he agreed to remain at the field following Janin’s survey. He was assumed to have either fled the country or died soon afterwards, although there is evidence that he moved to New Mexico where he became an undertaker. Arnold, for his part, moved to Kentucky where he purchased a house and some 500 acres of land, and placed the lot in his wife’s name. Private detectives located him, and a grand jury in San Francisco indicted him for fraud, but it’s suspected that the duped investors quashed the indictment to avoid further negative publicity. He eventually agreed an out-of-court settlement with Lent to the tune of $150,000 – ‘his only acknowledgement, though tacit, that he had planted any diamonds,’ according to Smithsonian. In 1873, Arnold became a banker. His prosperity was short lived; he died of pneumonia whilst recovering from shotgun blast to the shoulder during a quarrel in 1878.

Despite Ralston and his associates having ultimately made good on the debts to investors, the banker’s body was pulled from the San Francisco Bay in 1875 in an apparent suicide.

 

Winning the lottery, striking oil, and inheriting a lump sum. All seem like the answer to life’s greatest problems. However, does cash in the bank guarantee a happy, fulfilled life?

A 2010 Princeton study revealed that while money does buy happiness, the happiness of the individual plateaus at a specific point. Researchers found that up to $75,000, annual income closely correlates with emotional well-being. However, beyond this point, more income doesn’t generate more happiness. The study asserted that an American earning $575,000 per year isn’t likely to be any happier than one making $75,000 per year. Researchers also found that once the basic survival needs are met, food, shelter and amenities, money begins to have a lesser impact on overall happiness. Below are six millionaires who prove a surplus of wealth does not equate to a surplus of happiness.

 

JESSICA ALBA’S (DIS)HONEST COMPANY

In 2011 Jessica Alba launched an all-natural cleaning and cosmetics range. The products were later found to contain chemicals that they themselves had put on a banned list. Despite Alba’s denial, the company’s reputation suffered heavily. Outsourcing production and distribution without thorough research can result in other companies sullying your own reputation. Your brand is only as strong as the weakest link in your supply chain.

KFC SWEARS IT’S SORRY

Remember what we said about staying true to your company name? Well in 2018 the famous fried chicken fast food chain chicken KFC ran out of (you guessed it) chicken. Marketing can be the very glue that holds you together and gets you out of those sticky situations. KFC rebutted the problem the best way they knew how: by laughing at themselves and creating the campaign, ‘The chicken did cross the road, just not to our stores.’ The campaign was accompanied by a full-page ‘apology’ in two national newspapers and featured an empty KFC bucket branded ‘FCK’.

There were a few disgruntled twitter customers who had to fall back on Burger King instead that week. The police were also compelled to issue a statement to say this was not a police matter but KFC managed to walk away with their brand intact.

DOVE SCRUBS UP BADLY – AGAIN

When bringing a new soap to the market, don’t show a black model transforming into a white model to showcase the cleaning qualities of your product – especially when your brand was built on the notion of empowering women, breaking stereotypes and busting beauty standards. To make matters worse, this wasn’t the first time they’d found themselves in hot water over presentation of race in their ads. Being a repeat offender makes rebuilding trust a much harder task. Once may look like a bug, but multiple strikes starts to look like a feature.

TWITTER EMPLOYEE TAKES HUMP, DUMPS TRUMP

Picture this. It’s your final day of work in the office and this is the very last time you will ever see the people sitting beside you. You get a familiar email that there has been misconduct on an account and so, with a click of your mouse, you suspend it before popping on your jacket and clock out for the last time. Now imagine that where you work is Twitter, and that account was none other than Donald Trump’s. The suspension lasted a mere 11 minutes but it certainly ruffled feathers. Named a ‘rogue’ by Trump himself (and a hero by others), the ex-Twitter employee has since admitted that it was a ‘mistake’.

AIRBNB BARGES INTO A CRISIS

Marketing is all about timing. What might seem like a good campaign may not suit the social climate of that time. Airbnb found this out the hard way when launching an email showcasing floating houses quoting ‘Stay above water’ at the same time that Hurricane Harvey was destroying Houston. The company has had a hard time building trust over the years and frequently finds itself at odds with city administrations – a fact that is only overcome by the admittedly strong customer experience it offers. Nevertheless, it seems particularly vulnerable to this type of misstep.

AINT NO PARTY LIKE #SUSANALBUMPARTY

Susan Boyle won over many Brits’ hearts in her X Factor hay day. To celebrate her newfound success and new album, she launched the Twitter hashtag campaign #susanalbumparty. We doubt sales suffered noticeably but Susan’s own level of trust in her social media managers may have.

HEINZ MEANZ…

Heinz’s tomato ketchup is a staple in many a fridge around the world, but an unsuspecting German customer got a fright when he scanned a QR code on his bottle of ketchup and was redirected to a pornography website. The domain to which the code pointed had lapsed and been re-bought by an  adult website company. Heinz were left red-faced and scrambling to limit the damage. Meanwhile the adult site in question didn’t hesitate to capitalise on the opportunity by publicly offering the the customer free membership.

 

I’ve got carotene-induced night vision, curly hair as a result of eating crusts and a phobia of pulling faces in case the wind should suddenly change. What am I?

I am a child who has implicitly trusted my parents.

It’s just as well that as we grow up we eventually learn the reality behind the lies we are told as children – and their inherent whiteness. But what if the implicit trust we exhibited back then actually lasted into adulthood? Surely we’d trust taxi drivers to take the most efficient routes, baggage handlers to treat our suitcases with care and sellers of second-hand items to act in good faith. We’d trust utility providers to give us the best deals, car manufacturers to be honest about their emissions and banks to look after our savings. We’d even accept all news as truth, willingly consent to apparently legitimate data use and have unwavering faith in the promises our politicians make. Just imagine.

Perhaps, deep down, we never entirely lose touch with our naïve inclination to trust anyone and anything. As children, we are fed white lies for our own good, and trust in them because we know no better. As adults, we routinely put our trust on the line even when we know better. The taxi driver has a bad rating but still gets your custom. The bank is taking risks on your behalf but still gets your investment. The politician has made contradictory claims but still gets your vote. We are, contrary to classic economic theory, utterly irrational beings.

WHAT IS TRUST, AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The reality is that trust – or at least some base level of trust – is necessary for economic growth. If we were required to litigate during every single transaction or decision we ever made, the entire system would quickly come to a screeching halt. Trust is a lubricant of social interaction, and we use it to get things done.

Nowhere is the need more apparent than in the sharing economy – which is often, and appropriately, referred to as the trust economy. We sleep in the beds of strangers, ride in the cars of people we’ve never met and lend money to people on the other side of the world using new-fangled digital currencies that we might not fully understand. For many, this economy is the future. It’s how we’ll work, how we’ll travel and how we’ll live.

And yet, for a phenomenon regarded as a potential tenet of the future, we know surprisingly little about trust. It’s too messy, too subjective for accurate measurement. Besides, with an estimated value of £190 billion, isn’t the trust economy doing just fine for itself, without the need for a proper qualitative analysis of trust itself?

“Cracks are showing in the ‘promised’ trust economy. And why? The reason is simple: we can’t be trusted.”

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The devil is in the detail. In fact, it’s sometimes in the mainstream media. Uber has been plagued by sexual assault claims levelled against its drivers. Money launderers have capitalised on the semi-anonymous and decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies since they were introduced. Even a simple, well-meaning venture such as dockless bicycle sharing has resulted in piles of discarded bicycles littering city streets. In other words, cracks are showing in the ‘promised’ trust economy. And why? The reason is simple: we can’t be trusted.

A paradox, then. We have a tendency to trust people and yet we ourselves aren’t always worthy of trust. Rachel Botsman, the author of the book The Rise Of Collaborative Consumption told the publication Fast Company that we’re experiencing ‘a seismic shift from individual getting and spending towards a rediscovery of collective good’. The Independent, however, reported that we’re not actually hardwired to care about this collective good; rather, what we care about is maximising our own resources.

“We want a cheap holiday and are willing to throw caution to the wind. While we’re away, we don’t want our apartment to sit empty when we could be using it to foot the bill of said holiday. We want a car to pick us up and take us home. Getting a cheap ride is more important that knowing that our driver is safe, reliable and honest.”

Can this be true? Are we really primarily driven – like good little rational beings – by maximising our own resources after all?

MEASURING TRUST

I decided to take matters into my own hands and run an internal experiment known as the ‘trust game’. One player – referred to as the ‘trustor’ – is given a set amount of money and the opportunity to either invest or not invest in an project, which is administered by the other player, who is referred to as the ‘trustee’. Any investment made by the trustee is trebled. However, the trustee controls the proceeds of the investment. He or she can either share them with the trustor or keep them.

The amount of investment observed in the game is a measure of the amount of trust exhibited by trustors. The amount of investment proceeds given back to trustors is a measure of the amount of trustworthiness exhibited by trustees.

Under this interpretation, the outcome predicted by economics, which assumes absolute rationality, is grim. The investor, foreseeing that the allocator would keep the entire proceeds of any investment, would refuse to invest in the first place. Yet this never happened; all three trustors chose to invest, putting paid to the idea that we are entirely rational when it comes to money.

It should be noted that this experiment was conducted in anything but test conditions. Chocolate coins instead of cash, familiar subjects entirely suspicious of the whole affair and far too little data to return anything truly meaningful. If any conclusion can be drawn, it is that some people exhibit trust more freely than others – not exactly a socioeconomic revelation.

The mechanics of the experiment reveal considerably more. While economics would predict a no-investment scenario, the most beneficial outcome for both parties looks different. Were a trustor to invest the total amount of money – which would then be trebled – and the investor to then pay out half of that, both trustor and trustee win in equilibrium.

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CONCLUSION

Because of its (growing) importance in driving economic growth, social scientists have spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to understand trust. The beauty of the trust game is its laying bare of the fact that, where there is trust there can be deeper, more efficient and more beneficial social interaction.

“We’re entering the era of ‘trust marketing’, where the act of building relationships is of paramount importance to brands.”

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Trust, then – whether between families, neighbours, colleagues, business partners or countries, is one of our most valuable commodities – but in order to harness its full potential we need to learn how to properly build it. Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be publishing a series of features centred on the theme of trust in relation to marketing and communications. We’ll be getting to grips with blockchain, taking a look at how trust can be built on the inside of a business and how the mainstream media got it so wrong. We’ll also be considering how a decade ago, UK banks possessed a level of trust that most brands today could only dream of – and whether that trust can ever be fully regained. As recently noted by Marketing Week, consumer trust in social media platforms and advertising is at an all-time low. More than ever, audiences are craving transparency, authenticity and credibility from brands. Trust needs to be revitalised in marketing – as it does in a great deal more industries – not just because it’s at a low ebb but because the future will depend on it. We’re entering the era of ‘trust marketing’, where the act of building relationships is of paramount importance to brands.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn how content can increase trust, you’re in the right place. If you’ve got a project you think would benefit from the White Light approach, drop us a line and tell us all about it.

So what exactly is content marketing? It’s the sharing of creative, editorially led content that nurtures positive interaction between a brand and its audience.

Satisfied? Probably not. Even content marketers have to revert to and review definitions from time to time. Bear with us, though, for the following questions and answers will fully colour our definition, explaining the what, why and how of content marketing.

CONTENTS

1. What is ‘content’?
2. Are there different types of content?
3. How does content marketing differ from traditional marketing?
4. Can I do content on a shoestring budget?
5. Can content marketing boost SEO?
6. Does content marketing drive sales?
7. Can ROI be measured?
8. When will I start seeing results?
9. Isn’t my industry too boring for this?
10. How do I start producing content?
11. Does content marketing work in B2B scenarios?
12. What is a content marketing strategy?

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WHAT IS ‘CONTENT’?

Content is simply information – the things brands tell their customers, their employees or their stakeholders. Content marketing is concerned with presenting that information to these audiences in timely, meaningful, compelling and measurable ways.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTENT?

Content marketing isn’t just a case of publishing blog posts – infographics, magazines, podcasts, email newsletters and video all come into play. Here are another 105 different types of content for starters.

HOW DOES CONTENT MARKETING DIFFER FROM TRADITIONAL MARKETING?

Whereas traditional marketing is about ‘selling’ to potential customers, content marketing is about helping them, and thus nurturing a positive interaction (see the first question).

The best way to demonstrate this is with an example:

BUT I’M ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET…

Whereas traditional marketing could be focused on quantity, content marketing is a matter of quality and timeliness. The very best content is meticulously researched and planned in accordance with a schedule, and should be reusable across multiple platforms to maximise efficiency.

CAN CONTENT MARKETING BOOST SEO?

Absolutely – SEO is a major aspect of content marketing. Savvy content marketers know what constitutes good SEO practice so that content can be both created and distributed in such a way as to maximise the chances of it being found and engaged with online.

DOES CONTENT MARKETING DRIVE SALES?

Yes, but not in the same way as traditional marketing. Content marketers rely on different types of content to target people at different stages along the customer funnel. For example, a company might attract potential customers with keywords and social media activity; get them to start considering becoming paying customers through a website and blog posts; fully convert them with case studies and calls-to-action; and retain them with regular email campaigns and customised promotions.

CAN CONTENT MARKETING ROI BE MEASURED?

Content marketing is a results game. The most agile content marketers rely on data analytics to inform content creation and development, in order to prove return on investment.

Helpful content is never boring for those who need it

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WHEN WILL I START SEEING RESULTS?

Content marketing isn’t an off-the-shelf solution. It’s a long-term commitment made by a business to a) understand their customers’ content needs and b) meet those needs. The best campaigns take time to implement, are measured constantly and are always changing.

ISN’T MY INDUSTRY TOO BORING FOR THIS?

If you’ve got customers then your industry can’t be boring. Remember what we said about content marketing being all about helping customers? Helpful content is never boring for those who need it. If someone is looking for information on how to clean an oven and you can provide it, then you’re onto a winner.

HOW DO I START CONTENT MARKETING?

This really depends on your business and, more importantly, your business’s aims. Again, content marketing isn’t an off-the-shelf solution; those in the know will take time to audit current marketing efforts, decide what formats will work best and develop full strategies.

DOES CONTENT MARKETING WORK WITH B2B?

Certainly – in fact, some of the best content marketing campaigns out there are for B2B. Content for this type of strategy tends to be highly specialised and often niche, but that doesn’t make it any less pertinent to its audience when done well.

WHAT IS A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY?

A considerable number of companies attempt to do content marketing without getting a content strategy in place. Content marketing is part of a company’s broader marketing strategy, and as such it needs a strategy of its own in order to work. This strategy should analyse the ways in which content can be utilised across customer journeys and different functions within a business.

If you’d like a taster of our thinking, we’d be very happy to provide you with a free content audit. The audit would look at your current content marketing strategy and how it’s being delivered, offering ideas for making it more effective. If you’re interested simply contact Eric Campbell.

“I had my first anxiety attack at night, waking me up from my sleep. It was an incredibly all-consuming feeling and I felt a sudden lack of control in my body. My heart was racing against my chest, I was sweating and I couldn’t breathe properly. I didn’t understand what was going on.”

Very few friends and family were aware of what Tania was going through at the time. Outwardly, she was a young, successful entrepreneur running a fast-growing international dance festival. But within a year of setting up her business, she was experiencing signs of burnout and depression, which later developed into anxiety attacks.

“It was incredibly scary. To start with, I didn’t understand the symptoms because I hadn’t experienced anything like it before,” she says. “The second time it happened I was out during the day in central London in a very crowded spot – probably one of the worst places you can be when an attack comes on. I was having a lovely day with my fiancé and there was no reason to feel anxious. Yet, in the background, I had so many things running through my mind and mounting pressures in my business which felt incredibly challenging. I started to realise my worries were manifesting in physical and psychological ways, and starting to disrupt my daily life.”

“I put pressure on myself to do things ‘perfectly’ and wanted to look like I ‘had it all together’. As the leader of a business, you put yourself in quite a vulnerable position”

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The attacks continued sporadically throughout the following year. As she opened up and talked about it more with close loved ones, she recognised the various symptoms of anxiety and learnt how to overcome these symptoms through having a support system, NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) coaching and finding a healthy business–life balance. This system also inspired her to become a trained Business NLP Practitioner, so she could provide quality coaching for others. It has taken a great deal of effort and commitment for Tania to get to where she is now, a position where she feels in control of managing her mental health and wellbeing, while empowering others to achieve the same.

A PROBLEM SHARED

Tania is far from alone. The World Health Organization estimates that mental health disorders account for the equivalent of more than 50 million years of work lost annually around the world, and more than $1 trillion a year is lost to the global economy in productivity. In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive calculates that during 2016/17 526,000 people suffered work-related stress, anxiety and depression (either new or long-standing) and the number of sick notes issued by GPs for stress-related conditions rose by 70,000 to 573,000 between 2015/16 and 2016/17. What led Tania to experience burnout? “I was working all the hours I could, which was incredibly unhealthy, and there was a strong lack of balance in my life. I didn’t create time and space to do other things I enjoy and to rest and recuperate,” she says.

“I put pressure on myself to do things ‘perfectly’ and wanted to look like I ‘had it all together’. As the leader of a business, you put yourself in quite a vulnerable position. I was so invested in every aspect of its development yet I wasn’t delegating effectively – therefore putting more pressure on my shoulders. My business was events-based, so I was organising and managing large teams of people, working with international artists and building new partnerships, as well as working with various suppliers. I think a lot of my personal struggles came down to my resilience and how I dealt with challenging situations. I’m sensitive to people’s feelings, which can be a real strength – but if you end up falling into a people-pleasing attitude in business, you can end up losing perspective and not protect your emotions enough. I learnt this the hard way, but at the same time, it taught me so much about myself and even highlighted other strengths that I didn’t know I had.”

CALMER NOW

These personal lessons did not go to waste. Realising just how prevalent the issue of mental health and wellbeing was, particularly among entrepreneurs, Tania found more clients coming to her for mentoring and opening up about having panic attacks and depression.

Tania says: “I noticed this was more common than I realised in the entrepreneur world, so I decided to do some more research. I conducted a survey for entrepreneurs in the UK and abroad to find out how business owners today were managing the demands of running a business. Of those who took part, the majority admitted to experiencing anxiety on their journey and felt overwhelmed; they also said they would like to seek support through events and programmes and they weren’t aware of another company dedicated to supporting the wellbeing of entrepreneurs. This is where I really saw a gap in the market to support and empower entrepreneurs to access their strengths and manage feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.”

This inspired Tania to form a new business, Calmer, a platform that supports entrepreneurs with managing their mental health and wellbeing while running a business. They offer mentoring programmes, workshops, and events in partnership with YADA Events, to encourage like-minded people to connect and build long-term supportive relationships. “We work with entrepreneurs and their teams to help them handle whatever comes their way with strength, knowledge and resilience, with their wellbeing at the heart of what they do. Reflecting on the three-step management model in my book, This Is Calmer, our training is centred on managing your wellbeing, your business and your relationships effectively, so you can thrive. To me, managing those three aspects have been crucial to my success today. I believe it’s about nurturing both your inner success and reaching personal milestones, as well as your outer success that everyone sees.”

It’s not just entrepreneurs who can find themselves overwhelmed by their work. Tania says many people in high-pressure roles, especially those that are target-driven, can find themselves struggling. For some, this pressure is only increased by the blurring of boundaries between work and home life. For those in the throes of work-related anxiety, Tania offers these simple suggestions: take a number of short breaks throughout the day, practise slow breathing exercises to help you connect to the moment and centre yourself, take time to do things you enjoy to lift your spirits and reach out to others when you need support.

“A key aspect of our training at Calmer is to normalise talking about any struggles you are going through. We help you navigate challenges you’re facing through exploring choice and different perspectives, empowering you to embrace your full potential,” says Tania.

For more advice on coping with stress and panic attacks, visit mind.org.uk.