• HUNGRY Feast
  • Posts
  • please don't tell anyone this secret - slow is smooth. smooth is fast.

please don't tell anyone this secret - slow is smooth. smooth is fast.

Author

Dan Pope
May 26, 2023

Six eyes. Small and beady like wounded raisins, searched along the beach.

Faces puffy and swollen like pregnant pigeons. Deep wrinkles wormed across their faces like World War Two trenches.

They ambled, stumbled, scurried across the creamy-eerie grey beach.

Empty. Barren. Desolate.

The Wild Ocean danced, a voluptuous blue and green vortex.

Waves, like clotted-cream white Sea Horses, rose from The Blue Soup charged towards the shore and thrashed against the tar-black jagged cliffs. Effervescently evaporated into nothingness.

In the distance was the horse cart. Shining. Glistening. Hope?

Closer.

Hope?

We made it. Mum, Jake and I.

This wasn’t just hungover. This was M&S hangover. Mean & Stinking. Mighty & Serious.

The horse cart was Lucy’s - a delicious little joint flinging out a bacchanal of bacon baps. I filled my baps with a Sausage, Bacon and Egg Baps. Brrrrrrrrraaaaapppp

I’ve just been on VACAY - a week down in Cornwall. Padstow Pudding. Sand Dunes n’ Sandals, Crusty-toes.

Cold larger. Small boozer.

In every pub, the front of house was a Gastro-Gareth-but-call-me-Gav, smokes rollies, think’s he in Stereophonics and, obvs, has a weird fetish for leather bangels from River Island.

Anyhoo, t’was a great trip…

Here’s the SECRET.

Starter: Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.

London. LinkedIn. Work. Podcast. Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.

Everything’s been so fucking fast recently. Too fast.

Cornwall is slow. Very slooooooowwwww.

A quote, I love hurtled home. Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.

Since leaving the comfy bosom of my job last September, I’ve been running. running down a dream. running from my demons. Haven’t stopped.

Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.

Slowing down allows you to assess your system. Smooth systems, win. Always.

As a Challenger brand we don’t have big budgets. Huge teams.

We must be smoother and more nimble than the big girls and boys.

The smooth system WINS. Always.

Smooth Systems = punch above your weight and move faster, than competition.

Smooth Systems = be the Speedboat not the Ship Liner.

Ask yourself these questions to slow down and smooth out your system to speed up.

🍐 What would this look like if it were easy?

🍐 What 20% of my time drives 80% of the value?

🍐 What inane pointless things are slowing us down?

🍐 What 4 tasks can we cut this week?

🍐 If we could only do ONE thing this week, what would it be?

Be ruthless. Slow down. Smooth out. Speed up.

Ohh!! and smoothing out the system will never FEEL FUN, it’ll feel laborious and boring - but it’s SO SO worth doing.

Main Course: STOP putting your sales team on sales courses.

In April 2022, I ate at Paul Ainsworth’s infamous restaurant, No. 6 in Padstow.

Last year, I wrote the below piece on LinkedIn: Why Food and Drink founders must stop putting sales teams on sales courses

What’s ABSOLUTELY-MAD-CUZ after about a gazillion needy emails, I managed to bag an interview Paul . By far the most nervous I’ve ever been.

The post from April 2022 is below.

Sales courses are over-priced, soul-sapping crap.

"WHAT A DAY TEAM! - we’re off the De Vere Hotel in Bracknell !!”

“We’re gunna play a massive game of Hares and Hounds in the car park”

#TeamBondage #EasyTigerIt’sOnlyanAwayDay

“Joel, Kev, get your Chelsea boots ON LADS- we’re off to Zizzi’s for Peronis and Pasta Bakes”

Sales trainers peddle risible processes.

  • “A.B.C - Always be closing"

or

  • “Ask open ended questions”

or

  • “If you’re not getting an answer, use the double edged, wonky sword close”

Last week, I went on the BEST SALES COURSE OF MY LIFE.

Dining at Paul Ainsworth's No. 6, Padstow.

WHY??

1. WE MAKE IT HAPPEN. WE MAKE IT HAPPEN TOGETHER.

I sat by the kitchen (see piccy), on the wall was a sign saying: “We Make It Happen. We Make It Happen Together”

Challenger sales teams are NOT corporate sales teams. Everyone for themselves and individual commission structure is TOXICALLY OUTDATED.

We make it happen, together.

2. PERSIST POLITELY AND PATIENTILY

"Always Be Closing” - what a load of absolute senile naffness that i

Imagine a waiter asking you, half way through your starters -

“Can you order the mains now please? "Can we settle the bill please?”

You’d have an indignant taste in your mouth.

When sending buyers samples or decks or follow ups - give them BREATHING SPACE - life is hard and busy, deploy empathy.

3. FACTS TELL. STORIES SELL.

Stories + Energy + Conviction = Influence.

My waiter was the BEST story teller with palpable passion oozing as he described dishes.

Humans are emotional beings not monotonous robots.

Challenger sales teams are actually great story tellers.

4. SETTING>SERVICE> FOOD.

The OG don, Anthony Bourdain once interview Marco Pierre White.

Marco said, “A great restaurant runs in this order, Setting >Service >Food”

Most think it’s Food> Service > Setting.

Corporates think like big restaurant chains.

Challenger brands MUST THINK like indie restaurants.

Product is everything, but so is a unique SETTING (packaging).

And SERVICE (tone of voice, the little surprises) is everything.

The best part?

Sales course = +£1000 p/employee.

Michelin star meal + £200 p/ employee.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL I SAVING DOROTHY!!!!

this was orgasmically delicious

Dessert - How BIG are your dreams?

Down in Cornwall. I reflected deeply on my dreams.

Every guest on the pod has HUGE Dreams.

🍎 Dreams give you Life - Louise Avery, LA Kombucha.

This video made me dream bigger. I hope it does for you, too.

Elvis’s career was down the pan.

Several crappy films coupled with crappy songs. He’d become a pudding of pallid and passé.

Then. 1968 he comes out swinging with this this BELTER

Look it’s Friday. The sun is shining. I deeply implore you to stuff ya Airpods in ya ears and put this fucker on FULL WHACK.

Dream big. Bigger than you’ve ever imagined. Bigger than you thought possible.

Before you crack on with your FRIYAY…Youtube is NOW LIVE

So gassed. Hungry YouTube is NOW live. Been an ABSOLUTE palava, but so many asked for the full videos. Please bare wiv for other videos got a DENCH backlog to work through.

Still Hungry?

Course you are.

No worries at all.

Gorge and stuff-ya-face with more delicious episodes, here