Former-Pro Tennis Player & CEO of Voly, Ian Flanagan on Topping Tennis Rankings & Transforming Yacht Accountancy #29
With a Youth Olympics gold medal to his name, Ian Flanagan’s drive and motivation is indisputable, and as his bespoke accounting software solution Voly prepares to expand industries from yachting to music, his business acumen is equally apparent.
Ian, a Welsh former-professional Tennis player with incredible international sporting experiences as one of the world’s best, joins Lee Cooper on episode 29 of Extrology to discuss transitioning his determined mindset into a budding business venture.
We hear how Ian’s built business relationships that are more akin to friendships, why you should avoid rushing and chasing short-term money, and the invaluable lessons learned from a round of golf with Michael Jordan...
Lee and IAN discuss:
The influences and idols behind Ian’s fantastic tennis career
Career highlights from the Stella Artois Championships at Queens and the Youth Olympics
Finding inspiration for Voly and building the right team to fulfil its potential
Building strong, meaningful relationships with clients
Employing Michael Jordan’s approach to embracing losses
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Ian Flanagan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-flanagan-76384316a/
https://www.instagram.com/ianf1982/
Voly: https://www.linkedin.com/company/voly-ltd/
https://www.instagram.com/voly_yacht_accounting/
Voly Music: https://www.linkedin.com/company/voly-music/
https://www.instagram.com/volymusicofficial/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“The story I hear from Mum and Dad is that Annabel Croft threw a ball to me and apparently I hit it back first time. I hit a few more back, and then a local lady called Margaret Lewis, who's an unbelievable lady who even then would have been probably 60-70 years old, held a little short tennis school/camp after school. She then spoke to mum and said ‘He’s clearly got an eye for the ball, can we interest you in bringing him?’. I went down to my first short tennis class and then literally the rest is history.” - 5:10 - Ian Flanagan
“I was one of the top in the world from the age of 12 to 15/16 on-and-off with all the usual suspects that you would have seen on the tour: Roddick, Federer, Lleyton Hewitt. All those guys were playing. In the Youth Olympic final we beat Justin Hannon who went on to win 7 Grand Slams. So I was #1 in Britain, certainly, and then one of the top in the world.” - 7:25 - Ian Flanagan
“John Hicks was my tennis coach from the age of 12, on and off for my career at different stages. He was just a real inspiration. He'd probably be the one outside of my mum and dad that always gave me belief. People always said about John that he never really helped you with technique but he made you feel a million dollars.” - 10:25 - Ian Flanagan
“The travelling was amazing. I've played tennis in 67 or 68 different countries and to be lucky enough to be 13-15 years old and go to Spain and Russia and Bulgaria and the States and to do all that would be a highlight, even though it's not so much an achievement. But yeah the pinnacle would be probably what most people know me for, is I qualified for the Stella Artois Championships in 2004” - 16:00 - Ian Flanagan
“Through having an investment in an FX place, we were trading FX for some super yachts, and it triggered home that the boats are like small and mid-cap businesses. Some of the biggest boats are spending a lot of money on their budgets as you can imagine when you see them float around the world and they've got crew etc. I remember a captain asking us to create an accounting solution, because there was no real accounting solution that was specific to yachting.” - 23:00 - Ian Flanagan
“Go and build relationships, because if the product does let you down at some stage - which it does in tech, because tech is tech - it’s much easier to solve when he's phoning you up saying, ‘Hey, mate, there's a problem’ rather than finding a member of your team and you’re a supplier rather than a friend. So I made a real effort to build relationships fast, and that's what I think got us to where we are today.” - 27:05 - Ian Flanagan
“We’ve just launched Voly Music, and there's a whole bunch of untapped verticals we believe our product would work in. We may tread our foot in the door of those verticals and be wrong, but I think there's certainly a lot of scope for the product to expand. But at the moment, there's one clear path of the business, and that's to focus on yachting and continue to improve because we're very lucky with the client we've got, and we want to keep them, so that that remains our focus, but we're scratching the surface of where we can be.” - 35:10 - Ian Flanagan
“If we did lose a client, you've got to learn from it and try not to make that mistake again. If you made a mistake five or six times, then you’ve got a problem, right? If you made a mistake once or twice and you learn from it, then that should be the sign of the fact you're improving as both a person but also as a business.” - 40:30 - Ian Flanagan
“I think I got too involved in the rat race of needing to make money fast, and grow things quickly. Actually you realise that, whether you start your business career at 19 or at 35, there's plenty of time to do it, so think long term.” - 45:10 - Ian Flanagan
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