英伦广角 2009-05-31 金融危机造就经济书籍热

We’ve had a good ten years we've been very lucky.

And now you are writing books, first of all...

 

Oh I see, yes, well  that too, that too. Well obviously our main business is making smoothies. But we’ve had such an incredible experience over the last ten years of setting up the business, and we had no experience of having done it ourselves before. And I'd love for other people to have that experience too. So we put everything that we've learned in a book to help, encourage people to start their own businesses.

 

So you think that's why people are reaching for business books from the bookshelves in a time of recession, because they want to learn how to make money themselves, or do you think they’re trying to make sense of where everything’s gone wrong?

 

Well, I think it's both, isn’t it? But there is something so exciting about entrepreneurship, and the reality is in a down market, there is still great opportunities, and this could be the time, I mean if you’ve always had that thought about wanting to set up your own business, maybe now it's the time to go for it.

 

But then, books like this are often sold as a 'magic formula', ‘make yourself as rich as me’, kind of thing, but there is no silver bullet, is there? There is no obvious formula that people can follow.

 

I think the formula is an awful lot of hard work, a great amount of persistence¹. You’ve gotta make some smart decisions and then you’ve gotta get really lucky. And we kind of put that in our book about the fact that there will be some big decisions you need to get right. You’ve absolutely gotta keep going, banging your head against the brick wall.

 

Oh, yes, it's interesting coz you talked about how you couldn't get any funding from the banks or from venture capitalists. There was such an email that you sent out to your friends, saying 'do you know anyone rich?' that pulled in someone to back you.

 

Exactly, we had thrown in the towel basically, I mean, Innocent is a business that literally² was not gonna happen for so many different reasons. It’s only coz we kept going and trying and trying and trying, and then got lucky right at the eleventh hour that we managed to get the business up and running.

And you've been resolutely³ ethical⁴ all the way along, but, do you think other businesses will think, well that’s a good marketing⁵ ploy⁶, I’ll follow that kind of ploy, to try and get ahead in these more troubled times.  

 

Well, we've done things the way we've done them, because we believe in them. We give 10% of our profits to charity, coz' it is something that we want to do, and we are committed to just make ethically⁷ sourced, uh, fruit smoothies and things like that. I think if you're faking it, consumers these days are absolutely incredibly smart and they’ll get down(省略to the bottom it) and they won't stand that. So if you don't care about it, then I'd say don't do it. There's certainly different strategies.

 

In that case people can see through things. You see, people were worried that you’ve now got a tie-up with Coca-Cola.

Well, actually the great thing about that investment is, it’s allowing us to do exactly what Innocent said, we had to do, which is to make natural healthy food and drinks, sustainably sourced ingredients, then the money to charity.

 

You got the money, but it does not compromise your brand at all.

No, that of course is the great thing. It absolutely allows us to do more of what we've always promised to be about. You know all the money that’s been raised goes into the business. We're using it to get more of the healthy drinks as more people and places(truncated).
 

1 persistence   

n.坚持，持续，存留

参考例句：

• The persistence of a cough in his daughter puzzled him.他女儿持续的咳嗽把他难住了。
• He achieved success through dogged persistence.他靠着坚持不懈取得了成功。

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 resolutely   

adj.坚决地，果断地

参考例句：

• He resolutely adhered to what he had said at the meeting. 他坚持他在会上所说的话。
• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。

4 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

5 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

6 ploy   

n.花招，手段

参考例句：

• I think this is just a government ploy to deceive the public.我认为这只是政府欺骗公众的手段。
• Christmas should be a time of excitement and wonder,not a cynical marketing ploy.圣诞节应该是兴奋和美妙的时刻，而不该是一种肆无忌惮的营销策略。

7 ethically   

adv.在伦理上，道德上

参考例句：

• Ethically , we have nothing to be ashamed about . 从伦理上说，我们没有什么好羞愧的。
• Describe the appropriate action to take in an ethically ambiguous situation. 描述适当行为采取在一个道德地模棱两可的情况。