:00:00. > :00:13.And now The Bottom Line with Evan Davis.
:00:14. > :00:17.You have some new clothes, new furniture, the basics of life sorted
:00:18. > :00:23.out. What you spend your cash on our? Possibly, a new you. Whether
:00:24. > :00:29.you want to be happier, richer, thinner, plenty of help is
:00:30. > :00:32.available. DVDs, books or even surgery. The market economy has made
:00:33. > :00:39.a consumer business art of self-improvement. Some say that
:00:40. > :00:46.these businesses exploit that sense of inadequacy. We will speak to
:00:47. > :00:50.three providers in that sector. Each week influential business leaders
:00:51. > :01:02.gather in London for the BBC Radio 4 programme The Bottom Line.
:01:03. > :01:08.Let us start as we take a few minutes to meet each of my three
:01:09. > :01:26.guests. First John Ryan, founder and Chairman of
:01:27. > :01:34.Make Yourself Amazing. Toll is a bit about your business. I sold my
:01:35. > :01:39.earlier business and had to stay out of the industry for four years and
:01:40. > :01:49.then I decided to come back to start with a good friend of mine Make
:01:50. > :01:55.Yourself Amazing. Tell me what the three most popular surgeries are?
:01:56. > :02:01.The most popular is breast augmentation closely followed by my
:02:02. > :02:04.perception. That is the removal of that using ultrasound which
:02:05. > :02:08.liquefies the fat and then it is sucked out. It is very interesting
:02:09. > :02:15.to watch because you see these big contenders filling up with yellow
:02:16. > :02:21.substance. Patients love it because it has just come from their stomach
:02:22. > :02:27.or backside or were ever they needed it's taken from. It is not designed
:02:28. > :02:33.for very fat people. It is designed with people with a BMI less than 30.
:02:34. > :02:39.Is there anything you cannot do? One of the things that people ask --
:02:40. > :02:51.what do people ask you to do that you refuse? Lots of people ask us if
:02:52. > :02:56.they can lengthen their appendages. Male organs. We would not go near
:02:57. > :03:00.that because it cannot be done. I have been in the business for 35
:03:01. > :03:17.years also and I have never seen it successfully done. City next to him
:03:18. > :03:29.Carole Tonkinson a publisher with Harper NonFiction. What is the most
:03:30. > :03:35.popular type of you published? It is men are from Mars women are from
:03:36. > :03:50.Venus. How many has its salt? 50 million copies. Tell us about the
:03:51. > :03:59.scale and breadth of this sector. There have been a riot range. -- a
:04:00. > :04:07.wider range. The first book was Samuel Smiles, and educational
:04:08. > :04:12.reform who published a book in 1859 called Self Help. This goes back
:04:13. > :04:20.further than people realise. It goes back to the Stoics and Marcus are
:04:21. > :04:25.really is. You have said that psychology books are quite big and
:04:26. > :04:33.important. I think of it as being about dieting, is that not correct?
:04:34. > :04:40.Diets are only half as big as popular psychology. In the UK it is
:04:41. > :04:49.about $50 million per year. Books are fundamentally about
:04:50. > :04:55.transformation on the inside. The psychology books, we have books in
:04:56. > :05:00.the bestseller lists. Do people read the books that they buy? We do not
:05:01. > :05:05.do a lot of marketing in book publishing. We are a low margin
:05:06. > :05:07.business and it is all word-of-mouth. You do not bother
:05:08. > :05:14.telling people about the book unless you have read it and it has an
:05:15. > :05:21.impact on you. That is how it works. The entire market in the UK for this
:05:22. > :05:31.category of book is $50 million. Pounds. That does not sound very
:05:32. > :05:38.much. It is about 10% of the book market but self-help is a worldwide
:05:39. > :05:44.category is the biggest. The UK, I am sure you know, is very resistant
:05:45. > :05:50.to self-help and self-improvement. Very cynical at first. Less so now
:05:51. > :06:10.in America where these routes have flourished. Jon Congdon President
:06:11. > :06:15.and Co-Founder Beachbody.com. That name is probably less familiar than
:06:16. > :06:22.some others. You have used your own product, right? Yes I have used main
:06:23. > :06:28.products. Is a fantastically marketed workout programmes. We
:06:29. > :06:41.primarily launch our brands on television. We have a variety of
:06:42. > :06:46.programmes. Insanity is quite extreme. We convince people to go
:06:47. > :06:51.out and kick your own but is how you do it. They are inspirational but
:06:52. > :06:56.some people do not want to stop the place we have easier versions. You
:06:57. > :07:04.have a few time-limited programmes. 60 days, 90 days. Over that time you
:07:05. > :07:09.hopefully transform yourself. If we can give people bite sized goals
:07:10. > :07:13.they will do something. If we say workout rehired in perpetuity, it
:07:14. > :07:22.not very attractive. How big is a business? $700 million in revenue
:07:23. > :07:27.annually. That is unbelievable. It has been quite amazing. There is a
:07:28. > :07:32.real appetite for figuring out how to run your life, eating right,
:07:33. > :07:38.exercising. Mostly it is people that want to lose weight quickly. That is
:07:39. > :07:42.why we have these timebased programmes. We have ever been in the
:07:43. > :07:49.UK for three years. That we ask all of you - do your products work? Here
:07:50. > :07:55.is a good metric prejudging that. What proportion of customers say
:07:56. > :08:04.that they are glad they bought that product? I do not know whether you
:08:05. > :08:11.do that research. You are quite close your customers, John Ryan. I
:08:12. > :08:18.speak to a lot of them. What do they say? The most popular, highly
:08:19. > :08:26.satisfied group are breast reductions. People who have a breast
:08:27. > :08:32.reduction are almost 100% happy. Breast augmentation is, very high.
:08:33. > :08:42.Like a suction, very high. Nose jobs are very difficult. When you have a
:08:43. > :08:46.nose job it changes your face. It is very difficult for the surgeon to
:08:47. > :08:52.visualise exactly what the patient wants and then to achieve it in
:08:53. > :09:00.surgery. The one with the most revisions is rhinoplasty. What
:09:01. > :09:02.proportion are we talking about? Downright failures because they
:09:03. > :09:13.would have to come back for a correction. Carroll, what about your
:09:14. > :09:20.books? We do some but Amazon have the instant reviews. The ability to
:09:21. > :09:27.share, we can see that people are sharing or liking it on Facebook.
:09:28. > :09:38.John, you don't get to meet your customers so much? We have a direct
:09:39. > :09:41.relationships so we are 121. With follow-up very accurately. You know
:09:42. > :09:49.whether they come out looking like on the video? We openly admit that
:09:50. > :09:54.our number-1 goal is to get more people to use them. We can market to
:09:55. > :09:59.somebody, we can inspire somebody, we can send that programme to them.
:10:00. > :10:02.But when it arrives, all of their intentions were pure, but it is this
:10:03. > :10:07.box of work sitting inside their living room. Then they have to crack
:10:08. > :10:14.it open and start. Everything we do is designed to get them to use the
:10:15. > :10:19.programme. What percentage to not even open at? I think it is more
:10:20. > :10:26.than you would think between five and 10% cannot bring themselves to
:10:27. > :10:33.go there. How many get to the end of the 60 days? We did a survey of
:10:34. > :10:38.consumers and this is consumers who answered, so it may not be purely
:10:39. > :10:41.scientific. We found that about 30% of those who answered say that they
:10:42. > :10:45.got to the end of the programme what were pointed the programme that they
:10:46. > :10:50.considered complete for them. It is not mean that they did every single
:10:51. > :10:55.day, but it is pretty good. I used to think it was much lower than
:10:56. > :10:59.that. We are better than most because we concentrate on it but it
:11:00. > :11:03.is a problem because you have to do it. Just like they buy the book and
:11:04. > :11:07.intends to improve their life in they read the opening and it seems
:11:08. > :11:12.to make sense and they put it down and it takes work and it is scary.
:11:13. > :11:19.Are your products scientifically respectable? To what extent have
:11:20. > :11:30.what one might call serious people, academics who have done controlled
:11:31. > :11:37.experiments, valued your products? Cosmetic surgery, the books, or the
:11:38. > :11:44.workouts. Some, yes. Mindfulness is a big trend now, on the cover of
:11:45. > :11:54.Time magazine, there have been many scientific studies to show that it
:11:55. > :12:02.lowers cortisol, your stress levels. CBT, a lot of GPs are prescribing
:12:03. > :12:10.books because those techniques work. There is a certain proportion where
:12:11. > :12:17.the users grow. What about the videos, the DVD is? This sector is
:12:18. > :12:23.very highly watched, people are looking at what you are saying. We
:12:24. > :12:29.stand by our products 100%. There is a big disclaimer at every DVD
:12:30. > :12:36.because not everybody should be jumping into it right away. John
:12:37. > :12:42.Ryan, your staff are qualified surgeons presumably? They are all
:12:43. > :12:49.specialists. My job is to make sure that get the right surgeons in my
:12:50. > :12:55.business. Cosmetic surgery is very highly regulated from when I
:12:56. > :13:01.started. We have the Quality Care Commission. Reports: the Internet
:13:02. > :13:07.and people can see them. We have our own forum so people can talk to
:13:08. > :13:10.people who have had treatments. We have had an interesting discussion
:13:11. > :13:15.about the degree to which these products work and some work and
:13:16. > :13:19.others don't. Is there something about the whole industry, the dark
:13:20. > :13:26.side of it, it plays to people 's fears and insecurities and the wrong
:13:27. > :13:31.sense of inadequacy? This is about motivation. Our products give people
:13:32. > :13:36.either confidence or motivation for the ones who want it. When you have
:13:37. > :13:41.that in a motivation, all of these things will work. If you do not have
:13:42. > :13:48.the motivation then it will not work. It is the difference between a
:13:49. > :13:52.positive person who will get the most out of everything while a
:13:53. > :13:55.negative person, and a matter how good the operational book or
:13:56. > :13:58.programme, will not get the most out of it because they either will not
:13:59. > :14:15.open it will think it is not me. there is a dark side to self-help.
:14:16. > :14:17.There was a great book where the author was made to feel guilty when
:14:18. > :14:21.she got breast cancer because she wasn't thinking thoughts that were
:14:22. > :14:26.positive enough. Out was why she was sick. Some people take the idea of
:14:27. > :14:30.creating around reality to an extreme. That is important to
:14:31. > :14:37.acknowledge. The books that we publish an suggesting that. It is
:14:38. > :14:43.our job to be aspirational because people get stuck in a rut. You never
:14:44. > :14:47.feel, Jon Congdon, that it plays to people's appeal of inadequacy?
:14:48. > :14:51.People think that they are good-looking? The industry runs the
:14:52. > :14:58.risk. People purchase our products out of vanity. They then get healthy
:14:59. > :15:04.and realise that the end result was the better living result. We must
:15:05. > :15:07.talk about weight loss and inches lost because the average consumer is
:15:08. > :15:10.into thinking that they have to get healthy, they think about their
:15:11. > :15:18.looks. There is that element in the commercial. Absolutely. To a defence
:15:19. > :15:23.of the sector is that a byproduct of selling something to your hope is
:15:24. > :15:27.that even if we don't satisfy that hope, you come out of it better than
:15:28. > :15:32.you would have been otherwise. Remak hope is about living a better life
:15:33. > :15:38.and that is the hope which can be delivered. They want to look like
:15:39. > :15:42.the guy in the video who is bigger and better and better looking. They
:15:43. > :15:45.might. They might want to be somewhere between where they are
:15:46. > :15:49.back guy and figured that that is good enough. With books, you have
:15:50. > :15:54.that outward ideal in the same way. It is more individual our solution.
:15:55. > :16:00.I feel that that is not such an issue without -- with us. There are
:16:01. > :16:05.books saying get rich quick or lose fat quick. They promise much more
:16:06. > :16:10.than they could possibly deliver. We have the body book I Cameron Diaz,
:16:11. > :16:15.about loving your amazing body. The premise is not that your body needs
:16:16. > :16:18.to become better, the premise is that you already are. It is about
:16:19. > :16:25.appreciating your health and what you can do. A lot of the best
:16:26. > :16:30.selling books that we sell are about making girls confident, not about
:16:31. > :16:36.changing something about them. It is about making them appreciate what
:16:37. > :16:39.they have. The customers, the really important question is whether they
:16:40. > :16:42.have the right frame of mind for the products which you sell. You
:16:43. > :16:46.wouldn't want to do cosmic surgery on someone who was body dysmorphic
:16:47. > :16:51.and didn't have anything wrong with them, would you? Would you turn them
:16:52. > :16:58.away if they came to you? We turn a lot of people away. Because they had
:16:59. > :17:06.a BMI that is too high and our obese and they want to be made into a size
:17:07. > :17:11.ten. It is unrealistic. We turn away Peter Kirk -- people with a picture
:17:12. > :17:15.of a film star and say that they want to look like them. Some people
:17:16. > :17:19.have a problem. They have had it for years and want to fix it. Somebody
:17:20. > :17:24.has a big nose or sticking out years or a flat chest and it bothers
:17:25. > :17:28.them, why shouldn't they get it fixed? What age are the people who
:17:29. > :17:32.purchase your services, cosmetics are too has a special issues about
:17:33. > :17:41.age, what is the youngest you go on? No one under 18. I always say
:17:42. > :17:54.that boobs are the 20s, wiper is in the 30s, facial work 40s and the lot
:17:55. > :18:00.in the 50s. LAUGHTER. A summary of the life cycle. For us, the average
:18:01. > :18:05.is 41. It is interesting. If you break down the categories, parenting
:18:06. > :18:13.is 25 -40, business tends to be more male, a bit younger. Late 20s, 30s.
:18:14. > :18:20.Popular psychology is about 41 with an average age. We run the gamut. It
:18:21. > :18:26.is well spread. The largest groups are in the 30s rather than 20s and
:18:27. > :18:30.40s. We had 50s, 60s, 70s, people want to lose weight. Are a positive
:18:31. > :18:35.people less likely to use your products? If I'm a positive person,
:18:36. > :18:40.I don't feel like I need as much cosmetics change or I am happy with
:18:41. > :18:46.myself. Every 18 months, someone buys a book. They may identify
:18:47. > :18:51.themselves as a self improver. It's a hobby. There are more damaging and
:18:52. > :18:57.dangerous hobbies. It is how some people want to live. A hobby or an
:18:58. > :19:01.addiction? The products are under a tenner. They are free at the
:19:02. > :19:08.library. We aren't exploiting dependency situations. Addiction is
:19:09. > :19:17.too strong a word. I mean a kind of... Hooked on the way to make
:19:18. > :19:22.themselves better. We all run the risk that someone can become
:19:23. > :19:28.obsessed. Let's talk about the marketing and advertising. Jon
:19:29. > :19:33.Congdon, you have this interesting distribution body which I would like
:19:34. > :19:36.you to explain in more detail. You basically use that users of the
:19:37. > :19:43.product as agents who then sell and promote. It is a US -based business.
:19:44. > :19:47.We have them in Canada as well. We aren't in the UK yet. What they can
:19:48. > :19:52.do on the ground is obviously far more intimate and personal then we
:19:53. > :19:57.can do by sending an e-mail saying that you should be an day 30, how is
:19:58. > :20:04.it going? It can sound a little bit like Big Brother or parental. They
:20:05. > :20:08.are trained? Know and they are designed to be. We have customer
:20:09. > :20:11.support and frequently asked questions so that we can answer
:20:12. > :20:13.questions or direct and if asked questions so that we can answer
:20:14. > :20:16.questions or directed to fitness advisers. We will talk about other
:20:17. > :20:20.marketing in a moment but back to Carol's point that quite a lot of
:20:21. > :20:27.the marketing is through personal content. It goes from to E Tootsie.
:20:28. > :20:38.That makes it less likely that you will go... -- A to B to C. They are
:20:39. > :20:44.incentivised. Publishing has no such budgets. We wish that we could
:20:45. > :20:50.incentivise our bob -- power readers. It is social communities
:20:51. > :20:54.all feature coverage, magazines... How do you market cosmetics surgery?
:20:55. > :21:00.We would love to market it through the forum. Also through
:21:01. > :21:06.recommendations. We also is used the Internet a lot. The television for
:21:07. > :21:13.branding but we use the Internet, mainly. Celeb Richie endorsement? We
:21:14. > :21:19.have a television programme, the only way is Essex and I think that
:21:20. > :21:26.she became -- you became involved with some of the popular television
:21:27. > :21:33.programmes? -- you you use celebrity endorsement? Ella Mackle used to use
:21:34. > :21:37.it but less so now. British Association wasn't happy with the
:21:38. > :21:47.way that was presented. They thought that we were trivialising. We
:21:48. > :21:52.weren't. We now use normal people. They were worried about younger
:21:53. > :21:58.girls being particularly influenced by their heroes. I want to get the
:21:59. > :22:01.hang of the business model. It will be different for you in the cosmetic
:22:02. > :22:06.surgery field because it is so personal but the other two of view,
:22:07. > :22:11.the upfront costs are low and it is about distribution, isn't it? Once
:22:12. > :22:16.you've made one DVD, you are better off selling 1 million then... It
:22:17. > :22:21.costs less to sell 1 million? The economics... We hope that economics
:22:22. > :22:29.and marketing will have mass appeal so people will buy it. Jon Congdon,
:22:30. > :22:34.you have a few products. We have 25 different fitness programmes. There
:22:35. > :22:40.are only three or five that are on television at a given time. We
:22:41. > :22:45.purchase a lot of media for them. You have a longer tail. We do. Huge
:22:46. > :22:54.numbers of books. Thousands. 65 first formats a year now. More than
:22:55. > :22:56.one week. That includes cookery and sport and the same bolt's
:22:57. > :23:08.autobiography and not just self-help. -- Usain Bolt.
:23:09. > :23:13.Is it profitable? It is very labour intensive. It isn't like selling
:23:14. > :23:17.DVDs or books. Every patient has a lot of consultations and medical
:23:18. > :23:24.questionnaires, medical tests. It is a business which makes muggy but we
:23:25. > :23:28.aren't the get rich quick business. For us, the e-book revolution is
:23:29. > :23:33.perfect for self-help because a lot of people are still ashamed to
:23:34. > :23:39.purchase a book if they have a particular challenge. They are able
:23:40. > :23:49.to do that now from their device or tablet. Decent margins but not
:23:50. > :23:53.fantastic. Your business must be enormously profitable. $700 million
:23:54. > :24:00.per year? How do you make a profit? Percentage of revenue? Not amazing.
:24:01. > :24:07.We spend a lot of time investing in technology. At the end of the day it
:24:08. > :24:11.is in some crazy 30% or 40% profit numbers, unfortunately. At this
:24:12. > :24:26.point, an end to the proceedings. Let me thank my guests. John Ryan.
:24:27. > :24:32.Jon Congdon. And Carole Tonkinson. My thanks to you and my thanks to
:24:33. > :24:35.you for listening. I will be back next week. They forget that
:24:36. > :24:43.downloads are available. Details are on the website and you can listen to
:24:44. > :24:52.it on BBC Radio 4. We also like to get your e-mails. Drop us a line.
:24:53. > :25:03.Meteorologists refer to the start of March is the start of spring. The
:25:04. > :25:08.weather takes no notice of me to religious and that is why we are
:25:09. > :25:09.going to a chilly start. Patchy frost