We like to take a look at some of the perhaps less obvious facets of the sport from time to time and recently the opportunity arose to open the door to the thinking process behind becoming a motorsport sponsor after Triple Eight Motorsport PR James Warnette introduced the DSC Ed to Justin Urquhart Stewart of Seven Investment Management, the firm a new addition to the motorsport family having recently partnered with Triple Eight Racing and their British GT campaign.
My natural environment nowadays is the press room or the racing paddock with my days of central London office blocks a now rapidly fading professional memory.
So it was with more than a little trepidation that I found myself sitting waiting in a smartly furnished office to see not a racing driver, or a team owner, but rather a familiar face from my media career, a man better known for red braces than red flags, and for hot financial views rather than hot lap times!
Now if you’re anything at all like me the thought of spending an hour or so discussing finance will bring a faint shudder, but this wasn’t about my (remarkably modest) portfolio it was rather more about the man at the helm of the company whose offices I was in the process of damaging the value of their stocks (of biscuits!).
As with just about everyone, in every field of business, who is at the top of their game ‘the boss’ swept in with confidence, a familiar face to news junkies like myself, Justin Urquhart Stewart, is a regular media commentator on financial markets and personal finances but more importantly for this meeting is the Co-founder of one of the newest additions to the ‘family’ of motorsport sponsors Seven Investment Management (7IM).
Justin was, of course recognisable from not only the familiar face but also those trademark red braces. As with many busy men he was working to the clock, this meeting next in the diary from another session at Broadcasting House with the BBC News Channel.
And again as with many people he shifted easily from an on-camera discussion of the latest phase of the Greek debt crisis to motorsport, Justin a veritable sponge for information, topping up the octane count of what became clear was already a petrolhead.
His first love though isn’t The Le Mans 24 Hours, or the Indy 500, instead it’s his pride and joy, an immaculate Morris 1000 Traveller (just like the concours version pictured below)!
And that’s before we get onto the bikes… serious motor bikes, ones he once raced himself. (So he likely doesn’t always tick the ‘low risk’ box in business choices!)
Small talk over though, it’s time to get down to business, and to drill in to 7IM’s plans with their new motorsport involvement.
Why have you got involved with motorsport?
Justin: We were looking at sports marketing as a way to raise awareness of our brand and having taken a close look at various sports, we felt sportscar racing had a number of key elements that fit with our brand and more specifically how we work.
The races are spread around the UK and are also increasing internationally, which reflects our regional client base of family businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals.
Why sportscar racing in particular?
Justin :When you are looking for a horse to back, or in this case horsepower, you look for an environment that feels right. I suppose my comfort levels with this part of the sport are high because the processes involved seem very familiar.
Sportscar racing, more than many other forms of motorsport is based on strategy, process and teamwork so in a funny way it feels really quite similar to our business and fits with the key tenets of 7IM.
There are so many other levels too though to the enjoyment of this sport, and again there are parallels to our business. The technology involved here is space race stuff, power, grip, safety, and, I have to say a big surprise to me, efficiency. There are very clever people looking to do some very hard sums and come up with a competitive edge. Honestly that’s a very familiar feeling to my day job, and that’s almost entirely results led too!
We’ve been to see the cars being rebuilt and again there’s a huge amount of teamwork involved, and almost surgical precision. That precision builds in reliability that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and we use technology in a similar way. Predicting, checking, benchmarking, using the specialist knowledge of a pretty large team to come to the very best conclusions.
Technology has fundamentally changed the way we manage money and how we work with clients, it’s changing the world! I know it takes 700 hours to build a GT3 car from scratch, you’d be amazed at how long it takes to run a portfolio, we have 13 brains in one team to do this, our very own ‘pit’ crew if you like!
In your view, what are the key skills needed to be successful?
Justin: In business? We have to develop good and lasting relationships, and provide good advice and deliver on our promises for the investments that people trust us with.
There are definitely parallels here with modern GT racing. It’s a crowded and highly competitive environment with large sums being spent and success dependent on getting advice, strategy, risk management and teamwork 100% right. Whether the motivation for success is fiscal, or sporting, very often the real excitement is the process of getting there!
Is it the blue chip brands involved, or the high tech they use that is of most appeal?
Justin: Anyone that takes an interest in the cars, and the racing is, of course interested in the huge variety of astonishing cars on the grid.
Triple Eight’s BMWs are fantastic looking, and sounding things, and to get to see them racing wheel to wheel with Ferraris, McLarens, Aston Martins, Mercedes and Porches is just amazing.
OK then, there are plenty of parallels, but why an investment manager, and why 7IM?
Justin: There’s probably never been a more sensible time to get an expert opinion of, and expert management of, your financial interests.
We try to do it differently to most, we want to understand the people we work with as fully as possible, find out what they need, and beyond that what their aspirations are.
To put it into racing terms. Do you want to go all out to win from the front, do you enjoy the odd lunge up the inside into a risky corner, or are you happy to drive fast enough for a points finish? There are so many possibilities and we’re fully aware that we are part of an industry that has a poor reputation for explaining things well. It’s probably in that regard that we see ourselves as mould-breakers.
We try to talk to our customers, and more to the point to encourage them to talk to us. Then we try to consistently deliver what we promise them we can achieve.
We’re interested in long-term relationships with customers, and we’re prepared to invest our time in achieving that. Trust, and personal relationships and understanding are absolutely everything in this business.
We aim to grow the business, play to the strengths of all of our team and try as best we possibly can to adopt a personal touch. That might sound a little ‘lame’ but honestly we find we get better results, and enjoy the process of business more, in doing it that way.
Sportscar and GT racing is growing quickly too but it hasn’t grown too quickly to lose a very personal feel both to those directly involved and to many that choose to follow it closely. Again that’s a series of qualities that feel very worthwhile in building and maintaining relationships.
Transferring backing into business needs any company to understand the audience, to approach and communicate appropriately. We plan to spend plenty of time looking both at what we can bring to the relationship with Triple Eight, and what we can do to tell our own story to what we hope and expect will be a mutually interested audience.
How do you find the longer races?
Justin: It’s interesting, longer races have got the appeal of watching a strategy emerge, they have some rhythm. You can immerse yourself in it, or dip in and out. I rather like the variety.
It allows too a social aspect during those races, you can keep some focus on the race but enjoy the company of the others watching and enjoying the action, enjoy watching the crew go about their business, and yes it does give you the opportunity to talk about other things. There’s genuine interest amongst other racegoers about the stories of those enjoying a day out alongside them and yes, the environment there is very conducive to meeting up with clients or prospective clients.
How accessible are you finding the sport?
Justin: I think one of the things that surprised me most when we were introduced to this part of the sport was the openness of the whole thing.
Real trouble is taken to allow everyone access that simply isn’t there in very many sports.
You can meet the drivers, talk to the teams, walk around the paddock and get very close to the action. It’s no surprise that in a world where more and more access is restricted and expensive that a simple one-stop shop to enjoying a major sporting event is grabbing an audience, in particular a family audience, and that’s a rare thing outside of a shopping centre these days!
From everything I’ve observed, that has built up loyalty and trust and again that is an atmosphere and an environment that we are interested in.
The key is making sure that we talk appropriately to people. We are interested in growing our clientele but whilst we think we have services that would be of interest to new customers, and we think this sport has a very interesting demographic, it would be ridiculous and wrong to wade in with a hard sell.
That’s not our style at all. We’re interested in people who are interested in us, and in our approach and much of that is done in a low key way.
That’s not the way that many of our colleagues in the investment world operate but it has always worked for us in growing a happy and loyal clientele. Those customers have always been amongst our best salespeople, personal recommendations are always a privilege to receive.
We’ll be working as the relationship builds with Triple Eight to find the best and most appropriate ways to tell our story as well as looking forward to supporting the team.
And with that, a broad smile and a firm handshake, he was off, onto a drivetime radio slot on another issue of the day. It may, at the moment be a sticker on the side of the Triple Eight BMW, but 7IM have got the GT racing bug, and they see real potential in what all can see is a growing marketplace, with a growing audience.
GG
