By Dougal Shaw
Business reporter.
The caption is media.
Peter Done is a self-made billionaire.
Peter Done talks about his journey from a deprived childhood in the north of England to becoming a self-made billionaire for our business advice series CEO Secrets. He co-founded the betting chain Betfred with his brother Fred in the late 1960s, and later took the helm of the HR firm Peninsula.
Peter Done has a memory of being shoved in the face with a pillow.
Fred was the culprit for four years. He shared a bed with him in the two-up, two-down home he lived in with his family. The sisters slept in the same room.
Done junior says that he has claustrophobia from the pillow. He was bigger than me.
The key to his success in life was his relationship with his brother. The siblings found a way out of poverty by building up an empire of betting shops, and they are a regular fixture on the Sunday Times Rich List.
The image is from Peter Done.
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Peter Done only knew of one person who went on to university.
The Done brothers left school without qualifications.
They were employed in a chain of betting shops. These establishments were popular in poor areas. They were legalised in the UK in 1961. There were concerns about the social impact and the morality of gambling.
Done was managing a betting shop even though he couldn't enter.
He was valued by the owner for his skills at math. He looked after the books, crunching the numbers.
British Pathe is the image source.
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High Street betting shops were legal in the early 1960s.
If you were a teenager in the late sixties, these were intimidating places to work. They were dominated by men and the décor was similar to a prison. On a Saturday when people spilled in from the pubs, things could turn violent.
"You couldn't show weakness because these guys would know you were easy to deal with," he says.
Peter and Done had their own shop when Peter was 21 years old. Peter Done had saved up a deposit to buy a house with his new wife, and they bought it from a retired bookmaker.
He was happy to take this risk because he already had six years of experience in the business, and he always believed he could run a better shop than his bosses.
British Pathe is the image source.
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In the 1960s and 1970s, betting establishments had very little décor.
He values what he learned at 21.
Done says that the key thing is customer service.
We used to call our customers 'Sir', but in the past that didn't happen.
The bookmaker used to throw the money at the person if they had a big win, but we would say, 'here's your money, enjoy it!'
They were shocked. The bookmaker always wins over time.
The shops of bookmakers looked like "hovels" to the brothers.
We had carpets.
The formula worked and the brothers bought more shops, with the first few run by their sisters cementing the family business. They had more than 70 Betfred shops.
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There is a shop in Manchester.
Peter Done left the betting world because of an incident during this steady expansion. The brothers had to settle a case with an employee at the new shop they were taking over.
They were bruised by the process. They invested in a new business that covered legal fees on a subscription basis.
Peter Done has been the CEO of Peninsula for 35 years. Its headquarters are a shiny glass skyscraper and can be seen north of Victoria station.
He grew up in Ordsall and his office overlooks it. Over the years, Peninsula has grown and now has more than 3000 employees and serves more than 100,000 companies around the world.
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The office of the Peninsula group is north of Victoria station.
The company's client base has grown by more than 12% as businesses around the world scrambled to update their HR and safety policies, whether it's about working from home, social distancing or vaccination rules. His career gamble appears to have paid off.
The brothers had to make a decision in the mid- 80's, though the business's future appeared to be promising, and the odds of success weren't clear. Who would run it?
Peter Done said that the decision about who should leave Betfred was made in a gambler's style.
"Fred said let's toss a coin, I won it, and he said 'you go', before I could say anything," he says with a smile.
Peter Done left the running of Betfred to his brother, but he is still a major shareholder.
The image is from the same source.
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Fred Done was Peter's older brother.
Was the departure about stepping out of the shadow of his older brother, Fred, actually part of the business? Is it about taking a bet on himself?
"From the beginning, when he put the pillow over my head, I could stick up for myself," says Done, quickly.
He grew up in a deprived area, so was it a desire to leave behind the stigma of gambling, which affects many communities?
Done says that wasn't the case. "Betting gets a bad name, but the majority of people who go in a betting shop do it for fun and do it within their pocket."
Done explained that he preferred the odds in the world of HR insurance and that he enjoyed the challenge of scaling a new business.
He still uses the lessons he learned as a teenager in the betting shops even though his place of work is vastly different. The multi-level offices at Peninsula are like a typical call-centre with banks of people chatting on headsets. The walls are covered with motivational slogans and everything is bright and shiny. There are carpets.
"It's all about renewal and recurring income," says Done, when it comes to the odds of the business's success. The clients signing up to Peninsula are just like the people who bet in a 1960s betting shop. If someone comes back, the quality of service is important. It's cheaper to keep a customer than to change them.
Done has learned in the past few years that good service at scale is only achieved if you treat your employees well and reward those who give good service.
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The shop floor of Peninsula is a world away from the betting shops where Done learned his core business skills.
One of the rewards of his business success is being able to mix with people from Manchester United, a team he has supported since he was a child. He and his brother are regulars at the stadium, mingling with senior figures from the club both past and present.
Sir Alex Ferguson gave a close friend some advice when they shared a drink on a holiday a few years ago, he said: " keep control and make decisions, even if they are wrong." Not to make a decision is the worst thing.
Peter Done feels that his time in business has followed those precepts because his family has kept control of all the businesses they have created. Even if it was justified by the flip of a coin, he still stands by the defining one of his career.
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