Success top hacs from Chiara Bedini, an epic-family-business owner
[Music] so hi i am here with uh dear chiara yara bedini which you might think that she's italian but she's actually not she tell us a few things about you well i am italian but i'm also english i was born in italy but from an english mother and a father who had his grandmother who was scotland scottish so i am a very um good mixture of anglo-saxon and latin which explains the perfect accent okay okay so i i am elena and uh we are going to talk today about uh a nice entrepreneur that i like uh chiara chiara is one of the owners of the famous i would say tea room babingtons next to the spanish steps in rome one of my favorite favorite places one of the of the places that i always visit when i come to rome and there are a lot of things that i highly admire and um i really wanted to kyara to tell us a few things about how you have managed there to go through all these challenges of the previous times and of these times and to share with us a few of your uh let's say tips secrets okay so can you tell us a few things about babington how how old is it for example okay so babingtons was opened in rome by two english ladies one of which was my great-grandmother in 1893 so 128 years ago and it was a tea rooms and a reading room opened for the english who were in rome especially in this area which is was called the british ghetto so the piazza di espana was where all the english businesses were the insurances the doctors the bookshops the libraries the cafes so when my great-grandmother and her friend came over they decided that there was no place to drink tea which of course in england was a great thing so they decided to open the tea rooms and it was just the two of them at the end of the century so two female entrepreneurs in in rome a very coffee oriented city at the end of the 1800s and we have ever since been a a tea rooms but also a representative of the english culture in rome so um we have as as part of the center of rome and part of piazza di espana uh we have we the tearooms has been a testimony silent because we've sort of um we've we've had people from all over the world but also all the various um movements which actually uh were going on in rome from well the first and the second world war so we had the the partisans in one room sorry you mean that it kept to be open and operative during the wars it was open and operative during both wars although england was the enemy um for some time all the other businesses all the other english businesses which were around here in the in the meantime closed down but here no because we have the gerax in the first room with their wives and they just loved taking tea and here in the back room we had the partisans so after that we had chinechita and we had hollywood on the tiber and all the actors from the united states and england would come here because they just loved this place and then we had the politicians for the italians and then we had the writers and fellini and and poets and i mean everybody has been through babingtons um and babington's has sort of been the you know the living silent testimony of the life of rome especially rome since it opened 120 years eight years ago up till today you know i didn't know all this history behind it but i could i could feel it i could see it this is what made me come back again and again and again and this is what made me ask to talk to you and um interview you because um i don't know it wears it if you understand what i'm saying it is obvious that it has a very strong identity very strong identity so we have been through very challenging times okay can you tell us some of the biggest challenges that you went through yes well this this covid um is a big challenge for us uh because we do not want to surrender we have a very strong identity and we are very very [Music] attached to it we we believe that we are not going to close even when we did have to close we were online and we were keeping our conversation with our clients all the time uh because the the thing that is at the bottom of the line is that we we really uh are a place for our clients to come and relax so the image is that we're not closing we're fine it has been very difficult you keep alive you keep we keep alive and it has been very difficult because um of the we've had to be extremely flexible and we've managed to do this thanks to our staff which has been incredible and staff is at the core of every business so when you have staff which is with you and believes in what you're doing and feels part of what you're doing it's a lot easier a lot easier and they also convey this to clients so it's it's a teamwork but the other big big challenge in the past was actually working with family because when i first started about 30 years ago to work in the family business i came from my own business i had um i was organizing events and congresses and communications and so to interrupt you you have also written a book right yes i've written a book about the recipes and we also had a friend of mine write a book about the story of babington's for 125th anniversary but when i started working i was considered you know the nephi the cousin and niece i wasn't considered as a professional and that was very very hard because and uh female and the female okay because we have to speak the truth here so you were both family and female so true it was very difficult uh but i had my great-grandmother and her partner on my side because they were two ladies who opened the business alone in in in rome many many years before i started working here so it is a it is a family business it is a female business although at the moment i'm working also with my cousin rory who is um very very good with the staff for example i mean now we've divided our our um interests and our responsibilities so now we work a lot better because it's clear who's going who's doing what but that was a very big challenge and i think um although it was very difficult at the time today we managed to we managed to manage the kovids in a very constructive way because once you understand where the difficulties are you can turn them into into positive constructive instruments i truly believe that uh when you there is a difficulty and yes please take some time to to have a sip of this wonderful day that you serve us i i strongly believe that when there is a difficulty somewhere this is where there is space for expansion i truly believe that both in our lives and in our businesses so if you have the mindset to see now where is the space for expansion in this problem uh instead of saying how uh why did this have to happen to me and how unlikely am i okay because these are two different choices how to deal with an event if you say that i am facing this difficulty i don't like what i'm going through right now i want to change it how can i expand through that this changes the whole thing and it gives space for solutions right yes definitely you have to be you have to be you you have to know what you were saying i mean you you have to work on yourself but for example with the um with with the relationship with the family uh it was um as you say we had to we had to decide we could either keep you know keep not being um aligned exactly and keep disagreeing and not growing or use that sort of disagreeing on many things as a constructive way of coming out with the solution which was the solution which fitted both of us um and also uh for example as you were saying now that we're going through kovid we have decided to launch our teas in england so we're going back to our roots and there again uh uh probably we wouldn't have had that that stimulus that pus push to do this right now if it weren't for covid so there again it's it's finding solutions in a difficult situation but difficult situations are there to teach us to grow and as you say in our lives as in our businesses so we are really are very excited about this new adventure in the uk but also very proud because we've managed or we're you know we're we're pulling the business forwards in such a difficult moment of the history of the world um before we go on to the next question i would like you to have some tea first what are you having by the way i'm drinking a pour which is a fermented tea it's not oxidized like most teas it's a fermented tea and it's a very very healthy i mean tea is always healthy but this is particularly healthy there is something in your tape that i keep saying to my people that it brings me to the now moment i cannot think of anything else when i drink your tea it brings me it connects them to the flavor to the taste this is amazing it really is um so going back to the differences that we may face with our personnel or with our family if we run a family business what i keep on saying is that the best musical pieces don't come out from only one instrument but they come out for many different instruments in harmony so the key here is how to harmonize all the different instruments so as to get a very nice masterpiece of music i truly believe that uh did you get any experts help when you went through the challenges in your business yes we did we had a person come from england and he gave us a big big help in understanding why we couldn't move on um and then understanding what i wanted and what rory wanted my partner and cousin and making sure our responsibilities were going towards the same objective but they were actually in different areas and that helped a lot and then of course you have to work on yourself you have to look at yourself and understand where you can do better where and it you know it is he's my cousin and there's a love at the base of that verse love because i'm uh we are family and we're a very united family so that helped as well but you have to sort of do a step back and look at the situation and understand what was going on and what was wrong and and and then with your objective and with your responsibilities work towards and we still now i mean we're never agreeing on practically anything but in the end the result as you say is a music which has harmony and which is a beautiful music also we've in in the years as i was saying the staff is really really fundamental in our business because we have clients we we talk to and we serve and we we make sure they have a a really special experience when they come to our team rooms um so it and and other people have been helping for example our designer our designer who has done a great job in in putting into our packaging and our communication and our everything in here putting england and italy and these you know these two incredible cultures together to create this unique babington's brand because it is unique it's something which was never in england it is unique i can guarantee that it's it's it it's never been in england because it's not a franchise from england um and it was funded by two very very clever english ladies in the center of rome and that's the uniqueness and the tea is our core but it's not just the tea it's the experience of drinking exactly in piazza di espana the teas are amazing because i've done a great job on teas pat pat because i'm the tea lady so we have amazing teas which tell different stories about the babington's experience we have amazing food because in the years we've added savory and cakes and scones and the the recipes are very very faithful to our roots and also the ingredients the research of the ingredients is is is obsessive i mean we make sure that our ingredients are the best you are actually answering my next question which would be how what is the thing that made it so special what are the core values you run your place with and you talk to me about your stuff that helps you a lot and also about the way you deliver your services that uh you are actually working and they are very you're working on your recipes and they are very clean and you stay on your recipes and that you are very um i would say like an inspector towards your ingredients you search for the best ingredients um one thing i would like to ask you is did you get any help uh you told me that you got a help when you needed your uh to do sort things out with uh your family member that you run the business with i guess a coach or a business driver what did you get a business business consultant yes yes um he he works with potential um in in each person present in the in the in the business and did you get any help for uh recruiting your personnel uh not really no uh because that well it um it's actually very basic uh we we put an ad in the various um papers we have here and then we just interview interview interview and then we see lots of people uh now we're not but before we had a director now she's she's at home um and she would sort of do the first interview and then rory and i would see it and it it's a lot to do with the human it's not to do with what they've been doing up till that moment it's much more to do with their way their perspective the energy because then once you come in here it's a little world this is the babingtons is a little world it's a bubble um and either you fit or you don't fit i'm afraid and lots of people did not fit and instead lots of people do fit um and then we just work together with them and we give them our vision and we talk to them about what our vision of the business is and what are um how would you say our base of our business our values are yes exactly and and then we teach them you know if they're in the tea rooms they will be taught how to lay the table but that's the last that's the last thing so you actually hire character and train skill right yes yes they have to know english of course if they want to work in the tea rooms but not if they're working in the kitchen of course the chef the pastry chef and the chef in the kitchen will have to talk to them to see if they have a little bit of experience but actually because we don't work with starred chefs we don't have that problem so yes um before we close i would like to ask you if you had if you would give some advice to small or medium entrepreneurs that would like to to scale up to become unique to [Music] what advice would you give to those people to stay faithful to their to their vision it's very easy to follow um [Music] to follow the the fashion or the you know or when where the money is going yes um but you get lost you get lost so i think the most important thing is staying faithful and being very transparent and clear in what you're offering whatever business it could even be i don't know um wheels for a car or whatever but you have to stay faithful to what your vision is to what your idea of what your business you want your business to be um because that makes it clear to other clients i agree what you're selling otherwise you're just in the you know in the mix one of the yes one of the many yeah so it's very very important to keep faithful to to your to your to your vision and for us it was in a way easier because we come from three generations so we don't want to let go of the history but on the other hand we had to contemporize the the business because otherwise we we were old simply old so our um our work was to which is not easy was to actually contemporize the business uh maintaining the history and maintaining that what the three generations before us had maintained um so it's a bit different from if you're starting a business but at the at the at the bottom of the line it's being faithful to yourself and to your roots and to your vision and to your core i fully agree and quality yes exactly working constantly on quality yes i fully fully fully agree do you have a a website where they can find you is there any shop there is an e-shop but where we're designing a new one which will be a lot more contemporary and a lot more uh on brand than the one we have at the moment which is i'm afraid say a bit old okay so um you know one of my dreams uh one of my one of the parts of my vision for next year is to be to actually bring my coaches some of my coaches in rome and they are going to definitely come to babington so i'm going to definitely bring them here so as a closing i would like to ask you what is the best thing that they should order if i mean if one comes let's say once what shouldn't he miss that's a difficult one i know because everything is good i know i agree i think probably the first thing they should do is have the tea experience so you would have the tire with the sandwiches the finger sandwiches and the scones with the butter and the jam and and then choose one of our blends but i can't say which blend you can no i agree i agree i don't have a favorite blend i have lots of favorite teas favorite blends for each day for each time of the day for each mood so that they're gonna have to choose okay okay but uh yes you will be here and you will you will guide us i will be here unless you come when i'm in greece of course and this was my last question i heard that you are coming to grace so you have been to greece i studied greek in school and i have been to greece many times and i come to greece every year now because it's just my favorite place to come in the summer wonderful with with the dolomites with the dolomites really yes i go to the dolomites and i go to greece every year in which part of the dolomites oh okay i will be going to the dolomites this year too yes i will tell you later so um i was planning this interview to be something for my students for my the people that did the gerdos my business coaching program but i think i will have it uploaded and available for everybody because i believe that now with kovid or after covering period let's say people have been seriously injured and not only financially but also psychologically they have been injured and right before italy closes last year i was in the spanish steps and i had a breakfast here and we had breakfast here on sunday and on monday italy closed and i remember how heavy the atmosphere was it was really heavy it was like war it was like coming you know it was like before the war and we have been through that now we in a way we are leaving this behind one way or the other and people should go back to their vision grasp on that and start taking it from there so i would like to thank you very very much for your time you came here earlier for me before the the tea room opens i i highly appreciate it and uh last thing from you no thank you um it's it's a great opportunity and to speak about this business our family business in in the in these terms we have a great history uh but it it is um a great opportunity to actually speak about the values and what it makes to to make a business successful and let's hope we're out of this challenge and ready for the next one and we're waiting for the fifth generation to come up and take over excellent thank you very very much thank you thank you
2021-08-07 12:01
