A conversation with entrepreneur Scott Murray from CRU Holdings, a collection of different businesses with some in the hospitality and the travel sectors. The one thing they all have in common, however, is the quality they deliver, each and every time.
“We review each business on a weekly basis so we can see where things are maybe falling off or where things are performing strongly. And we’ll quite quickly react and put a plan in place to try and bolster that, or if it’s something that’s performed particularly well, we’ll replicate that across other sites or other businesses.”— Scott Murray, CRU Holdings
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: We believe that people are at the heart of good business, so we’d like to hear a bit more about you yourself. Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey. How did you end up where you are just now?
Scott: I had my first business when I was 15 and then started another business and then from there it kind of grew to where we are today.
Drew: But is there a person in your career that’s influenced you in terms of helping you to get where you are today?
Scott: I wouldn’t say there’s a single person. There are different people in different areas of different industries and different businesses. And there are certain traits in these people that you look at and maybe aspire to be more like them in that way. So, I wouldn’t say there’s one particular person, but there probably have been people throughout my journey, whom I’ve taken a positive influence from.
Drew: Do you have a process of having long-term goals for what you want to follow, or do you find you just seize opportunities as they come along? Or is it a bit of both, as I might suspect?
Scott: A bit of both — I always said I wanted to be in a position where I could retire when I hit 45. I don’t think I’ll ever retire, but I want to be financially secure by the time I’m 45. And at that point, my goal and my plan really is to start trying to help other people in business and I can spend the next 20 years doing that sort of thing without having to worry about money coming in.
Drew: You have quite a number of businesses, how many businesses do you currently have in your portfolio, not including the ones you’ve helped with other people?
Scott: We’ve got 12 companies at the moment.
Drew: How do you balance the different demands from all those businesses?
Scott: I think being able to jump from one to the other really suits my personality because I couldn’t do one thing for longer than a set level of time. If I had to do the same thing every day it just wouldn’t work. So, the idea of having all these businesses and you can go in on Monday, there might be a problem over here that you can help fix and then maybe something — an opportunity over here.
Drew: What are the values and principles that flow through all your businesses?
Scott: We did an exercise about five years ago where we asked what we stand for as a business. And we came up with the core values. People are one of the big ones, whether it’s customers, suppliers, or our own teams. We need to make sure that they’re respected and valued. We’ve got innovation at the heart. So, we always want to make sure we’re a step ahead. We don’t want to do things the way everyone else does. And we always want to have our own take and quality. We’ll always provide the best quality we can. And profit, obviously, for a business we must provide the profit, but it’s important that we reinvest in our teams and our properties and things like that as well.
Listen to the full Podcast to learn more about CRU Holdings and how Murray Travel has expanded dramatically since Covid, the theory behind their innovative pubs, the ethos regarding their customers making them the focal point of the business, and the continuing look out for new opportunities.