Meet James Yuille who is Managing Director of Top Sales International

We are on the quest to interview business owners over the age of 60. This week we chat to James Yuille who is managing director of Top Sales International on the Gold Coast. Can you tell me a little bit about your business and what you do?

 I have been in sales and marketing all my working life and today we specialise in helping businesses gain and retain more customers using the power of Google’s AdWords platform.

What motivates you to keep working after 60?

An over-active brain that caves stimulation. Retirement is for employees anyway, and I’m not an employee. I have no idea what I’d do with my time if I retired either!

What do you like most about having your own business?

Doing what I enjoy with people I enjoy and having the right to say no.

What have been some of the struggles you have faced with running your own business?

Managing growth and cash flow; getting system right.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learnt in life?

Attitude and the way you think about things is fundamental. From the way you think, act, respond; how you eat, your health, what you believe; the mind is powerful yet most people feed it rubbish.

In business, demand is everything. You can be the best damn whatever you do but if you can’t sell it; if nobody wants it, you’re unemployed. So many people start businesses based on passion or interest and don’t make money because they didn’t consider if there was demand. You need very deep pockets to create it, if it isn’t there, and even if it is, building the infrastructure to meet can be hugely expensive. Look at Amazon, Facebook, Uber; it took them years to make profits.

What advice would you give to the younger generation?

I have two sons 30 and under; they don’t listen to me so I’m no authority on advice to that generation but to those in between, I would echo author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephan Covey’s thoughts, “Begin with the end in mind” which means to have defined outcomes and exit plans for everything.

If you could jump into a time machine what era would you visit and why?

History fascinates me. There are so many options; the late 1950’s so I could see and understand more about the time I grew up. Ancient Egypt or the ancient Inca era so I could see how they built the Pyramids and Macho Pichu. To travel with Cook or Columbus and see what they saw for the first time as Europeans visiting new lands. To the late part of the 19th Century to watch the grand age of steam trains.

Anything else you would like to add?

Everything old is new again.

We have almost completed a full circle from pre Industrial revolution when most businesses were home-based. The Industrial revolution spawned schools and mass employment, the need to do as one is told and to work to the clock.

The Corporate world developed from that, along with the need to commute; the need for massive transport infrastructure and today, with high speed internet and (almost) cost-free communication, we’re seeing business decentralise and people working collaboratively and from home.