Building a Business from Trust, and why it is so important to me.

Yesterday marked a significant moment for our journey at building a new business in the middle of the cruise retail industry. We achieved our MLC 1.4 accreditation. Now, this may sound no particularly sexy or exciting, but it represents a very significant point in our journey to build ourselves up to the best possible standard. It represents a moment that validates the trust that is so important to us. Our audit, conducted by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency is an intense scrutiny of all our business processes to ensure that we deliver at all stages supporting seafarers who place their trust in us to get them started in the cruise industry. From handling personal data, to offering opportunity; From support through the onboarding process to readiness for the unexpected, we have made a number of commitments and checks to ensure we are able to be fully trusted.

For me, from the very start it has been the foundation of building the business. The first thing I wrote on a piece of paper when thinking of this business idea were 3 words. These 3 words guide me, and guide the principles of the business. If you go and look at our company values, you will see it clearly written and it will remain the 3 words which guide this business through it's evolution and growth.

'Trust is Everything'.

Without really realising it, across my retail career it has been the principle that has really driven me. If you look at teams that I have led, to be trusted and to be trusting are something that I can say I did consistently to the best of my ability.

But, my experience during the pandemic really taught me this more than anything else in my career and made me see it with a level of self-awareness, probably for the first time. When my team was unable to work, and we were unable to get any of them back onboard earning money again, when my suppliers were looking for any level of understanding when everywhere else had simply shut down and switched off, the only thing that I felt that I could give was trust. Trust in the process, trust in the relationships, trust in being transparent and most of all, trust in me. I learnt quickly that the most important thing I could do was not to promise the unpromisable, or be like an ostrich and put my head in the sand. But instead was to be clear, understanding and consistent in communicating and supporting my team. Leadership at moments like this is guided by your instincts and your behaviours, and for me, I quickly realized that trust was truly my guiding principle. In the end, we carried our team forward, and managed to bring back such a number of great managers, specialists and sales associates back onboard, simply because of trust.

So, fast forward a few years later, when I decided to start my own business. What guided me once again was trust. The first thing I did was to get on a plane and ask Robi to trust me with this idea and this concept. For the first months, I relied hugely on this principle to get us going and make the necessary start. I asked partners and operators to trust us when we had no results, no examples and no actual outcomes. I asked shoppies across the world to join the Academy and trust us to support them. I asked friends to trust that I wasn't completely crazy in doing this.

Trust is everything.

Now, with our trust having been audited, verified and approved by the Maritime & Coastuard Agency, we are able to talk about this in a longer-term perspective as the foundation for the next stage of our journey. As we grow into new onboard revenue categories such as art, beverage and photo - our foundation will remain totally rooted into the core principle of trust.

Thank you for trusting in us, and thank you so much for being part of the Cruise Retail Academy community!

Adrian