Member Article

From garden shed to Number 10….why the East London chilli sauce kid is helping other businesses grow.

At first glance successful businessman and entrepreneur Kuldip Singh Sahota seems an unlikely business coach. Kooks as he is better known is the man behind the massive growth of the East End owned family business Mr Singhs Sauce, so why would he want to coach other businesses? However, that journey has taught him lessons and he has decided to share that knowledge with others. As part of the Business Growth Agency founded by Parag Prasad, Kooks is now helping other businesses with their growth.

Kooks grew up with his brothers and Mum and Dad in East London. Mr Singh senior is described by Kooks as a bit of a ‘Del Boy’ figure, always coming up with a scheme to make them their fortune. It was during another of Mr Singh seniors get rich quick schemes that Kooks decided to step in. “Dad came home with a load of glass bottles and told the family that his homemade chilli sauce, Mr Singh’s Sauce was going to make us rich. We’d heard it all before and were skeptical. The sauce was brilliant, it was a delicious family recipe, we ate it all the time but making us millions was just not something we thought the sauce could do. However, I decided to try and give this sauce a chance of working for us. I took out a credit card and spent £900 on entering the BBC Good Food trade show in 2010. That bought us a stall. I had no idea if it work and no way to pay the money back.”

It did work. They sold out of the sauce, Kooks paid his credit card off. Then Waitrose and Tesco came knocking wanting to stock it. It went crazy for the Singhs. Mr Singhs sauce and primarily Kooks steering the ship saw the family actually make their fortune. Their garden shed business then saw the family invited to number 10. But not all was as it seems and behind the scenes Kooks was working 24/7. His relationship with his wife was suffering as he was rarely around. He famously went onto social media in an Elon Musk kind of way to post that he was still in the office at 11 at night ‘hustling’. “I just didn’t know any other way to be. I thought the harder you worked the more successful you were. I was on the path to burning out. I started to hate being involved in Mr Singhs Sauce. Then I met Parag Prasad CEO of the business growth agency. I had never considered using a business coach. Why would I? I had built a successful business. What could a business coach possibly tell me that I didn’t already know?”

Kooks said that Parag started putting things in place quickly. Kooks started to put plans in place to remove himself from the daily grind of the business and is now able to spend quality time each week with his twins and wife as well as starting another business. “I know this sounds cliche but Parag has changed my life. Simple things like diary blocking and spending money hiring people to do the jobs I struggle with in the business has changed my life. I have totally changed how I view hiring people and spending money and as a result I have built another business alongside my sauce business. I have joined Parag’s coaching team and now help other leaders and entrepreneurs realise a better way of working.”

Parag says: “When I first met Kooks - he was totally burnt out. Family relationships were frayed and he hated the world of business. He was really skeptical about working with a business coach but I always feel the results speak for themselves though. We worked hard on building out his team. I helped him work out where there were gaps in his knowledge within the business and how they were holding him back and together we hired people who could do those things for him. We paid close attention to blocking out time in his diary each week to go to the gym or have a coffee in the park with his wife. Slowly Kooks started to enjoy being a business owner and entrepreneur again. Working with Kooks I realised that his business journey and what he’d learnt could be useful in helping others. I am so thrilled he is now part of The Business Growth Agency.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lucy Hood .