Mike Joubert - Moving from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
In this episode, I chat with Mike Joubert who has had a thirty-year corporate career working with brands across the world. After moving from corporate to entrepreneurship, Mike started and sold his own successful business in 2009. From there, with the love of developing companies and people, he has spent his time investing in businesses in South Africa.
From overcoming the fear of moving abroad, having the courage to turn curiosity into experimentation in the corporate companies, and starting his own business with amazing success, Mike has a wealth of business experience.
Combatting the fear of Starting Something and growing from it
During his early career, twice Mike was offered the chance to move abroad to head up teams in Amsterdam and the United Kingdom and twice he turned the opportunity down. He pegged the reason down to one thing: He was too nervous to leave his family and support and step out into the unknown. The people he knew and loved were based in South Africa, and he was concerned about the move from comfort. When the third chance to move and work overseas came from Levi’s, he couldn’t say no.
“I had the same doubts, but I thought that I was not going to get a fourth chance. I made the leap, and you know what, it turned out spectacularly. Not only was it a great opportunity and added some real value to the business but as a human being, I just grew.”
With no network, no perception, and no support, a person has to start afresh when making the move to another country. It’s a leap that is more common than expected when starting something, but it grows a person unbelievably quickly when the stakes are that much higher.
Money is money - it’s not about how much, it’s about what you do with it
At the time, the marketing budget for Levi’s for Europe was massive (as in, $94 million dollars massive). On reflection, Mike said that working with such an enormous budget and the perceived pressure of it taught him two things:
“The importance of being able to lead with both instinct and skill and secondly, whether you are working with R1 or R1 million, money is money. It’s not the quantum of the money that makes sense, it’s what you do with it.”
Experimenting takes courage but the results are proof in the pudding
Mike describes how he took some time to understand the variables in the corporate culture in Europe before making big decisions. Out of three major disruptive decisions he made, two worked out fantastically and one fell flat.
The leadership of innovation and disruptive thinking took some time for the European business minds to adjust to, but as soon as the results started coming in, the more innovation and experiment-thinking was accepted.
Young startups often compare themselves to an established competitor and try and follow. Mike’s experience with Levi’s shows that thinking happens at a high level too. The big guys are as clueless as startups. It often takes going back to the nugget of original thinking to get back to the point of success, not swaying to external factors.
“Once you believe in something, you need to consistently bang that drum. Don’t kowtow, don’t bend. With entrepreneurship, though, you are essentially your own master.”
As an entrepreneur, it’s up to you to build the business the way you want to and to put the work in to not follow the competitors and the crowds.
The mindset in mentorship & power of consistent messaging
Mike, with the insight of his own relationship with his own mentor Dr Anton Rupert, describes the difference between sponsorship and mentorship as this:
“A sponsor I would see as someone who believes in you and backs you, either financially or through open stores and takes his or her network to open doors. But a mentorship is a much more intimate relationship. As a mentor, you provide context and variables so that the mentee can take the information and make decisions themselves.”
One of the most important things from his time with Dr Rupert is not necessarily what was said in their conversations which lasted hours, but how he made him feel. Mike explained that one of the most important things he learnt was how consistent he was in his messages. It wasn’t about saying the same thing again and again, but having a consistent idea and threading it through all aspects of life and conversation.