We were delighted to welcome Chris Black, MD of Leeds based Sound & Leisure, to Connect Over A Cuppa in Harrogate for the November session.

After meeting Chris several times, we always leave inspired by his honest and open approach to running a business. He is not afraid to tell you how the business has grown, their challenges and also his mistakes.

This honesty is a real leveller, as it reminds everyone that good business is a mixture of hard work, luck, risk, confidence, planning, curiosity, leadership and consistency. Plus of course knowing your customer and taking time out to review what you do.

For those of you that don’t know, Sound & Leisure make jukeboxes. This simple phrase however does them a dis-service. They make some of the world’s best jukeboxes. Hand crafted with a meticulous attention to detail, they ship products throughout the world, and are sought after by royalty, musicians, and music fans alike. With price points ranging from c £10,000 to £000,000’s, they’re certainly a high value product.

However, as companies grow, we often forget to take time out of the business: to see what’s happening outside, and to take a look back inside: what is working well, what needs to change, and what do we need to stop doing.

We might be too ‘busy,’ or we’re making so much money that we believe nothing will change.

However, if there’s one guarantee in business… it’s change. That change might be with your competitors, your markets, legislation that is for or against your products/services, or simply that your customers now want something different.

How we anticipate and respond to this change is something that Sound & Leisure have been particularly good at.

The growth, death and rebirth of vinyl, CD Rom, streaming, the decline of the traditional pub, how and where we now consume music, plus of course Brexit and Covid are just some of the changes experienced by Chris and his team.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing in business. If only we had or hadn’t made that decision, then today it would be very different. The odds are though that the decision at the time was far more nuanced, with many other factors coming into play, that we have simply forgotten about.

But the ability to see that decision, good or bad, as just a step on the journey… and not the journey itself is a lesson that stands out from Sound & Leisure.

The business hasn’t been afraid to step away from a core business when it needed to, or step into radically different products or markets, observing that a decision made in the face of research and gut feel, is better than a steadfast belief that nothing will change, or change is a hallmark of failure.

Over themes that emerged in the session was that of leadership: an acceptance that we don’t have all the answers, but collectively we probably do. The freedom to fail and ask your team ‘how can we do this better?’

We’ve organised for some super interesting speakers to attend Connect Over A Cuppa in 2023 and 2024, and we can’t wait for 2025. Similar to what we do when we’re working with our private clients, we want to empower more companies to overcome challenges, seize new opportunities and achieve sustainable growth.

Connect Events are free to attend for companies based in North Yorkshire, and every month we have a themed event that inspires and challenges delegates, and gives them the chance to meet other like minded companies… to collaborate, learn and share experiences.