VAT dropping from 20% to 5%.
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on May 25th. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
People say “the harder you work, the luckier you get”. But I prefer this:
When opportunity meets those who are well prepared, fireworks happen.
Lady Luck wanders into our lives every now and then.
A chance meeting.
A change in government policy.
The contract you always wanted.
The deal of deals.
Or my favourite, someone believing in you enough to take a punt.
This week, I’ve felt luckier than I have in a year.
I was the beneficiary of government policy luck and I NEVER saw it coming.
This week, my now mate - Rachel Reeves announced a VAT reduction for visitor attractions and soft play businesses.
Hello… that’s me.
VAT dropping from 20% to 5%.
Should be the whole of hospitality and there’s good measure for that being the case!
I was literally about to put all my prices up.
Scrap that.
My customers are going to benefit, but so are we as a business through increased footfall and being able to claim everything back at 20%.
Truthfully, it was needed.
I’ve been really down in the dumps about our leisure business recently. I love the sector, but the model was becoming unbelievably difficult.
We’ve been battered by high energy costs and turnover taxes compared to just 24 months ago. That’s where governments can either kill you or make you. Policy really can make a difference.
We’ve been in a constant state of fight mode, or as I prefer to call it, hunt mode.
I’ve been hunting for customers, cash and savings.
That’s not a pleasant place to be after 25 years of running businesses.
One thing I KNOW is this:
To win in business, you need a mixture of hunting and farming mentality. Too much hunting and you become exhausted and fed up.
You start thinking only about today instead of ten years from now.
That got me thinking about something I’ve observed over decades in business.
The “Hunter vs Farmer” philosophy.
It’s one of the simplest ways to explain why some businesses grow quickly but stay chaotic, while others become stable and profitable but never truly scale.
The best businesses learn how to combine both.
The “Hunter vs Farmer” philosophy in business describes two very different approaches to growth, leadership, sales and wealth creation.
Neither is automatically better.
The real money is usually made when both work together properly.
The Hunter:
The hunter is driven by pursuit.
They:
Chase opportunities
Start things quickly
Take risks
Love deals, sales and momentum
Get energy from winning
Thrive in uncertainty
Hate routine and maintenance
Hunters are often:
Entrepreneurs
Rainmakers
Startup founders
Dealmakers
Visionaries
Top salespeople
A hunter’s mindset is always: “What’s next? How do we grow faster?”.
Hunters create:
New revenue
New ideas
New markets
Big leaps forward
Excitement and momentum
But hunters often struggle with:
Systems
Consistency
Team management
Operational discipline
Margin control
Follow-through
Hunters can build £10 million businesses that feel chaotic.
They often create lots of turnover but far less profit than expected because they keep chasing the next thing.
The farmer is driven by cultivation, they:
Build systems
Improve efficiency
Focus on retention
Protect margins
Create consistency
Think long-term
Value stability and predictability
Farmers are often:
Operators
Managers
COOs
Finance-led leaders
Process-driven entrepreneurs
A farmer’s mindset is: “How do we make this sustainable and efficient?”.
Farmers create:
Profit
Scalability
Strong culture
Reliable systems
Customer loyalty
Long-term enterprise value
But farmers often struggle with:
Innovation
Aggressive growth
Speed
Risk-taking
Sales energy
Farmers can run highly profitable businesses that never truly scale because they optimise instead of expand.
So here’s the real question… Who Makes More Money?
The answer changes depending on the stage of business.
Early Stage: Hunters Usually Win
At the beginning:
Sales matter more than systems
Speed matters more than perfection
Momentum matters more than process
A great hunter can go from £0 to £1 million very quickly.
Most businesses die because nobody hunted.
No customers.
No marketing.
No deals.
No energy.
So in startup mode, hunters often create wealth faster.
Scaling Stage: Farmers Usually Win
Once the business has traction:
Waste kills profit
Poor systems break teams
Bad processes create chaos
Customer retention matters
Margins matter
This is where farmers become extremely valuable.
A farmer can:
Increase profit without increasing revenue
Build management structures
Reduce churn
Improve cash flow
Create operational leverage
A hunter might build a £5 million turnover business making 5% net profit.
A farmer might turn that same company into:
Higher margins
Better systems
Predictable growth
Much greater valuation
The Real Secret: The Biggest Businesses Need Both
The truly elite companies combine:
Hunter energy
Farmer discipline
One side creates demand. The other side fulfils consistently.
This is why many great companies have:
A visionary founder
An operational integrator
Examples:
Sales founder + COO
Entrepreneur + systems operator
Visionary + implementer
That balance is incredibly powerful.
Or as we always say: E + M =S.
Entrepreneurship + Management = Success
Many entrepreneurs stay hunters forever.
The business grows bigger, but not better.
Real wealth usually comes when:
The hunter creates momentum
The farmer builds infrastructure
The hunter returns selectively for strategic growth
The highest-earning people are often:
Hunter-minded visionaries
With farmer-built systems
That combination creates:
Revenue
Profit
Scale
Exit value
Freedom
Because a business dependent only on hunting usually collapses when the hunter stops hunting.
But a farm keeps producing.
So maybe luck does matter.
But luck on its own rarely changes lives.
The real magic happens when opportunity arrives and finds somebody prepared enough to take advantage of it.
That’s when fireworks happen.
Recently a friend of mine drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. It’s what he would have wanted.
To your continued success,
James
