The Mayflower & An Adventure that Never Grows Old

I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.

And this month I learned that lesson all over again.

Mount Bonnell Advisors, my business that moves entrepreneurs from Europe - mostly Germany so far - to the United States, was doing just nicely, thank you.

However, a dinner conversation a while back in a London restaurant contained the following comment: “You’re based in London, so why not focus more on UK businesses?”

While the world appeared to end as a virus none of us had ever heard arrived and then seemed to paralysis all before it, that comment stayed with me for the months that followed.

There’s an old saying from the days of battles long ago, when you don’t know what to do: ADVANCE!

As in war, so in business.

And this time I decided to do the very opposite that one should do in a pandemic. While businesses large and small the world over were sheltering in place bewildered by the challenge of Covid-19, I decided to advance.

“Why not focus more on the UK?” That comment had begun to haunt me; now it began to inspire.

Some money – not much, but enough – changed hands to target the British market with an online internet campaign extolling the virtues of Mount Bonnell Advisors and the promise of a new business frontier. The campaign was along the same lines deployed successfully in earlier German campaigns. But the UK was largely new territory and, given the current economic climate there, it was audacious.

The online campaign was threefold:

1. Every entrepreneur I have worked with has one regret: “Why didn’t I do this earlier! Why didn’t I expand my business to the US market sooner? What stopped me from accessing a market of 330 million Americans?”
2. “Okay, so what are the risks for me and my business moving to the United States? Talk to me about taxes, talk to me about red tape, talk to me about Visas. Tell me about these things but also talk to me about marketing, about branding, location. And then speak to me of profits.”
3. ?Mount Bonnell Advisors will make you a promise. Work with us and we’ll have your business up and running trading in the United States in four weeks. Yes, your business will be making money in just one month, and that’s in US dollars. Now, tell me, how does that feel?

As the Western world and its industrial output ground to a halt and as the American economy stuttered, this seemed to be a campaign that was shooting at the stars but one that might just as easily crash land before making its target.

But, in this life, either you make your “luck” or you sit waiting to be handed it by someone else.

The ads started to run.

Even I can’t quite comprehend what happened next, not yet anyway. Mere weeks later the ads began paying dividends. While there was no doubt that my German online campaign was tried, tested and successful in securing many clients, the fledgling UK aimed campaign, pound for pound, proved 5 times more successful.

Yes, you read that right: 5 times more successful.

In fact, after the ads launched the phones never stopped ringing. British based businesses as diverse as the peoples who inhabit these islands started lining up for the greatest business adventure imaginable, namely, expansion into the United States of America.

But there was something else, something wholly unexpected. Now remember I’ve been helping European entrepreneurs successfully cross the Atlantic for years. But even I was taken aback by the enthusiasm these latest British-based hopefuls possessed. They were eager for the challenge. They also shared the Mount Bonnell vision of the trans-Atlantic business dream, only this American Dream is available to everyone.

None of these new clients - yes, they all become clients - are na?ve. Sure they know the challenges ahead, sure they know the current difficulties the US economy face, and, yes, they know the world is slowly emerging from lockdown. Did it dent their passion to make it Stateside - not one bit.

The whole thing reminds me of a film or novel, probably Karl May inspired, whereby the German adventurers sail the Atlantic and then cross the continental United States before panning for gold in a stream somewhere in the Californian mountains. One day on finding a bright shinning nugget they look at each other before looking back at the mountain to wonder: how much more gold is here?

So my fledgling experiments in on line promotion to the UK has left me with a question, but not the one I had anticipated. I thought after a few months I would have to work out how to tweak the campaign so as to run it more effectively. Instead, I’m sitting here with a glass of champagne wondering how many other British clients are out there? How many more Brits are just waiting for someone to point the way to the States? Someone who needs to simply say to them, no, this is not crazy; furthermore, this is not just possible but imperative for your business growth.  

I saw before me an image of Mt. Bonnell Advisors like the Mayflower of old. Four hundred years ago this month, it set sail from London with an intrepid bunch. The rest we know. Well, it looks like we’re setting sail once more with a shipload of British adventurers.

And, as I began to raise my glass, the phone started ringing again.