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Unsexy Business

How 12 Entrepreneurs in ordinary businesses achieved extraordinary success and how you can too

By Jamie Waller

Paperback £14.99 / $20.99
eBook £11.49 / $15.99
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Unsexy Business

How 12 Entrepreneurs in ordinary businesses achieved extraordinary success and how you can too

By Jamie Waller

Jacket text

Forget the hype and the sexy headlines, this is where you’ll make your fortune.

In this revealing new book Jamie Waller, entrepreneur and self-made multimillionaire, shows how you don’t need to come up with some amazing new invention or app, or raise millions, to be a business success. What you need is hard work and determination. And you need to be looking for a business idea that is pretty unsexy if you really want to make it big.

We’re talking about businesses that collect debts, sell sofas or ship goods – real, solid businesses that you probably use all the time. They won’t grab the headlines, but they can make you very, very rich. And that’s what makes unsexy so attractive.

These are ordinary businesses made extraordinary by the people behind them and their commitment to taking their businesses to the top.

Jamie has spoken to 11 amazing entrepreneurs who have created just this type of business and in face-to-face interviews he uncovers the secrets to their successes and gets firsthand accounts of their compelling, and sometimes dramatic, business stories.

Jamie also tells his own inspirational story, of how he took his debt collection business from nothing to £33 million, facing stabbings and having a gun pointed at him along the way.

Discover how you too can make it really big by ignoring the glitz and glamour and building your own unsexy business.

Unsexy Business features:

Mike Clare, Dreams | Matt Storey, M&M Supplies | Lara Morgan, Pacific Direct | Reginald Larry-Cole, Buy2Let Cars | Rami Ranger, Sun Mark | Thomas Delgado, WeBuyCarsToday.com | Harry Clarke, RingGo | Kate Lester, Diamond Logistics | Nick Broom, PVL | Charlie Mullins, Pimlico Plumbers | Martyn Dawes, Coffee Nation

“A real insight into what it takes to make your fortune in business”
Duncan Bannatyne

“Unsexy Business is brilliant. I read every word, took pages of notes and felt inspired to ingest what I learned and apply it into my life. Jamie Waller has assembled an amazing group of entrepreneurs who share their roller coaster stories of how they made it and how you can do the same.”
Michael Heppell, Best Selling Author, Speaker and Coach

“What Jamie and the business leaders in this book have achieved is incredible and a real inspiration to the next generation of entrepreneurs”
Ian Collins, LBC Radio Presenter 

“This collection of stories is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit, that with hard work and determination, people can achieve the extraordinary. Read this book to learn how great businesses and ubiquitous brands were established against all odds”.
Lord Karan Bilimoria, entrepreneur and Founder of Cobra Beer 

“A fantastic book which will inspire many people to start a business and also give huge insights into what will make it a success . A must read book for every potential entrepreneur.”
Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, former CEO of Mitie Group PLC

“Jamie has told his own remarkable story and that of a dozen others in order to distil lessons from everyday businesses that we take for granted. While we get drawn like moths to a flame of the so called Unicorn businesses or other businesses that make the headlines, this book pulls out lessons that are personal as well as practical from entrepreneurs who have made fortunes quietly by meeting our needs.”
Shailendra Vyakarnam; Director of Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University.

“A really thought provoking and interesting angle on business success, a book we should all read! it’s impossible not to learn something from this book – great insight.”
Sarah Willingham, BBC Dragon and Entrepreneur

About the author

Jamie Waller is a British entrepreneur, philanthropist and investor. Jamie was born in Bethnal Green, East London and grew up as part of the Hackney charity for disadvantaged children, The Imps. He left school at 16 with no qualifications and made his first million by the age of 22. In 2016 and 2017, Jamie sold businesses that were valued at over £40m. Jamie now holds a mixture of controlling and non-controlling equity stakes in many UK-based businesses and has a large UK residential and commercial property portfolio. In 2018 Jamie was announced as the Cranfield Business School Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year.

http://www.jamiewaller.co.uk

Media coverage

From Small Business.co.uk:

Unsexy but inspiringAs it is entitled Unsexy Business – How 12 Entrepreneurs in Ordinary Business achieved Extraordinary Success and how you can too one can pretty much know what to expect from Jamie Waller’s book. Waller built a successful debt collection business – starting with £25k in 2001 and reaching turnover of £1m in the… Read more »

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From Management Today:

When did we become so obsessed with how ‘sexy’ a business venture is? We seem to be in a perpetual state of chasing the next big, exciting, innovative idea that will change the world. Yet while I encourage people to take a chance and build a new business, it’s important to be selective about the… Read more »

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From CEO Today:

Jamie Waller, author of Unsexy Business, started with nothing and worked non-stop from the age of 16 to build an incredibly successful debt collection agency taking more than £40 million in collections per year, including a contract with Transport for London.

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From Evening Standard:

Waller grew up in the East End, left school with no qualifications and started a bailiffs business, JBW, in 2004. It had 170 staff and £40 million revenues when he pocketed £33 million by selling to Japan’s Outsourcing Inc last year. After staying up all night sealing the deal, then phoning his biggest clients, Waller… Read more »

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From Mail Online:

Businessman Jamie Waller, author of ‘Unsexy Business’ gives his views on this year’s crop of Apprentice hopefuls. In some research I did for the book, I discovered that cleaning was considered to be the most unsexy business of all. Yet, according to the British Cleaning Council, the sector is worth £24billion to the British economy.… Read more »

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From The Sun:

Unsexy Business author Jamie Waller, who polled 2,000 Brits, said unglamorous jobs could pay well…

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From Yorkshire Evening Post:

This research comes as entrepreneur Jamie has just launched his first book, Unsexy Business. Jamie has collaborated with the best of British entrepreneurial spirit to inspire people to stop focusing on how glamorous a job sounds and think about the fortunes that can be made in the unsexiest of careers. Jamie said: “I want others… Read more »

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From ShortList:

Check out Lara’s business success story in Unsexy Business by Jamie Waller, out now.

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From Virgin In Focus:

Jamie Waller, founder of JBW, a debt collection service, was born in Bethnal Green. He was part of The Imps, a Hackney charity for disadvantaged children. He left school at 16 with no qualifications and started his first business, a window-cleaning round, which he sold for £6,000 soon after. He continued to start, build up,… Read more »

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Contents

Introduction

1. Employee to entrepreneur: Jamie Waller - Wisehill
2. Get your hands dirty and start small: Mike Clare, Dreams
3. Turn pennies into pounds: Matt Storey, M&M Supplies
4. Stop emailing and pick up the phone: Lara Morgan, Pacific Direct
5. Never take no for an answer: Reginald Larry-Cole, Buy2Let Cars
6. Your customer is your best teacher: Rami Ranger, Sun Mark
7. Don't innovate, replicate: Thomas Delgado, WeBuyCarsToday.com
8. Find the thing you were made to do: Harry Clarke, RingGo
9. Play the long game: Kate Lester, Diamond Logistics
10. A niche businesses in a niche industry: Nick Broom, PVL
11. Find ten ways to be better: Charlie Mullins, Pimlico Plumbers
12. Coming from America: Martyn Dawes, Coffee Nation
13. Change an industry and you can change your fortune: Jamie Waller, JBW

Conclusion



Published: 12/09/2018
Edition: 1st
Pages: 254
Formats: paperback - ISBN 9780857197139
ebook - ISBN 9780857197146
hardback - ISBN
audio - ISBN 0000000000014
Media enquiries

If you’d like to get in touch with the author for interview or comment, or you’d like a review copy of this book, please contact us at pr@harriman-house.com or call +44 (0)1730 233870.

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