BOOK OF THE MONTH

One Christmas, many years ago, I was flown to Stockholm to watch a major European artist’s Christmas concert.  One of our biggest suppliers, a much-loved friend of the company, was considering promoting the star in London and I was weighing up the relative merits (and costs) of The Royal Albert Hall versus the Theatre Royal Drury Lane as potential venues for a couple of weekend gigs. The show in Sweden was great, the star was really nice and eager to work with us, but when I got back to London his manager called me up. Yes, the star was still keen to grow his UK fan base, and was still happy to waive his usual fee, but now he wanted us to pay the expenses for him, his musicians and crew.  Which was still a great deal, based on my extremely conservative assessment of the potential profits involved.  As I was about to explain the prospective promoter... 

But I didn’t get that far.

“Stop there, David. Call his manager back and tell her to shut the thing down.”

“But there’s still…”

“I don’t want to hear it, thanks. I was interested in one thing, and now that’s changed. When a deal changes, I walk.”

“Right.”

The ‘promoter’ was Gary Beckwith, author of the recently released How to Make Millions More in Business,* who, with his wife Rita (joined later by their children Lucy and Matthew) grew a one-boat business delivering soft drinks to Thames river traffic into the colossal ‘City Cruises,’ sightseeing fleet serving millions of visitors to London, York and Poole Harbour every year.

One major turning point in the City Cruises story was London’s millennium celebrations. The organisers were very keen for the Thames to be a major transport hub for visitors to what was then The Millenium Dome (now The O2) and major players like British Airways and Virgin were even keener to win the tender. So no-one was more surprised than Gary and Rita when they learned that theirs was the winning bid. “Oh yes, the others have got the money,” the organisers explained.  “But you’ve got the passion.  And the contract.”

 But as this book is very quick to point out, in business, passion is not enough.  In fact, it can be downright dangerous, as Gary makes clear in his introduction: 

‘If anyone could get behind the wheel and speed up the M1 without needing to prove their competence, think of the carnage it would cause… Well what if the M1 was the economy, and the vehicle was your business?  If you have little-to-no understanding of cash-flow, budgets, tax liabilities, health and safety, diversity and inclusion, processes and infrastructure, then at the very least, you’re clogging up the road.  But at worst? Think of the damage you could do.’

In “How to Make More Millions in Business,” Gary uses practical illustrations from his own career to point out the pitfalls (and potentially fatal perils) of running a business, and the means, and, most importantly, the mindset, needed to overcome them.

It is clear from page one that Gary himself has never stopped learning, and I defy anyone, from budding entrepreneurs, to newly-minted MBAs, to seven-figure C-Suites of Multinational conglomerates, not to advance their understanding of their businesses from Gary’s brilliantly distilled and hard-won wisdom. Each chapter covers a fundamental aspect of business life, such ranging from HR to financial management, from scaling up to succession planning and selling up, with key points picked out as ‘Rules Of Thumb,’ including:

(recruitment and retention)

“Every duty requiring attention must be in somebody’s job description.”

“Never hire alone.”

“Never employ in your own image.”

(staffing and innovation)

“Psychometric testing turns personalities into teamwork.”

“If you need 500 people, hire 512 instead.”

“If you don’t innovate, the market will do it for you.”

But it’s the stories that Gary weaves around each subject that makes them stick in your mind, and the humour with which they’re woven.  And that can be hugely important when learning anything, as one recent paper pointed out:

'When used strategically, humour can foster interest, improve memory retention and promote positive learning dynamics.'**

And nobody deploys humour better than this particular author.

So if a future government should ever bring in a business equivalent of the Driving Test, as Gary advocates, How to Make More Millions in Business won’t only help you get a solid pass, you might just find yourself up on the business-equivalent of the F1 podium in a Moët-soaked McLaren race-suit.

DT

29^th January, 2026

Author Gary Beckwith with wife and business partner, Rita Beckwith OBE

*How to Make More Millions iBusiness: https://www.garybeckwith.com

(The first book in the series, How to Make A Million in Business was published in 2022)

**Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2025