part0004

Looking back to when I first started running my own business in 2000, the one thing I now wish I had was a mentor. Someone who’d sit down, spend some time with me and dish out some straight-talking, no-nonsense advice. Someone who had started out in business, just like I was about to, and could tell me, ‘This is what we found, this is what happened to us, these are the pitfalls, this is what you might want to look out for.’ It could be anything from how to avoid common mistakes, to knowing how to recruit the right people, understanding the accounting basics, managing operations, marketing and sales and, ultimately, how to scale up without the need for expensive venture capital or private equity. I wasn’t trying to be the next Bill Gates, I just wanted to be in control of my life and to feel like I was winning. When I took my first solo steps, I was blind as blind can be and I simply hoped for the best. After all, I was following my dream to somehow, someday, run a successful business that I could be proud of and also make a decent living from.

Today, I can hold my head up high and say I’ve achieved that aim, but I learned it the hard way and I’ve taken my fair share of knocks in the process. If I’d had a mentor at the start, I would’ve had a better idea of how to avoid some of the obstacles I’ve encountered. Of course, there’s a mountain of excellent self-help books available that cover every conceivable aspect of business know-how but, in my opinion, that’s also part of the problem. What if you’re simply stuck and want to find a way of growing your business, be that making brass tacks, some high-tech gadget or simply expanding your local fish-and-chip shop? Growing and scaling up your business doesn’t need to be the next unicorn idea, although plenty of books show you how you can change the world if you have that one earth-shattering vision. What if you’re not the next Uber, Airbnb, eBay, ASOS or Richard Branson in the making? Instead, you’re a down-to-earth business owner or start-up with a solid product or service, yours is an SME (small- to medium-sized enterprise) with a handful of employees, and the time is right to go to the next stage. Except you’re not looking for investors to take your shares and control away, you don’t want to study for a business degree, and you really don’t want to plough your way through the plethora of well-intentioned books (after all, you have a business to run). Don’t get me wrong, much of that content is amazing, but there’s probably only half a chapter in each that will benefit you, while the remainder may be too advanced/specialist in relation to business maturity, or simply irrelevant to your needs. For my part, I’ve always learned most when I’ve listened to others who have been on the journey ahead of me and heard what their experiences have been.

This is the primary reason why I wanted to write this book. I wanted to share my practical experience of building a business from scratch, growing it, selling it, building another, scaling it, and now continuing to thrive. I’m not offering you highbrow theoretical solutions – this is a practical, warts-and-all book based on my own learning. What you’ll get is a no-bullshit guide where I can share the pitfalls, what the real wins are and all the things you didn’t know you needed to look out for. It doesn’t matter that your business looks nothing like my own – the principles are the same for any micro-business or SME. Therefore, if you’re feeling stuck and need some solid, reliable, practical guidance that works, you’re in good hands. Even though I can’t physically be in the same room as you, I’d like you to regard this book as your first mentor. Just like the one I wish I had had all those years back.

If I’m honest, at that time the odds were stacked against me. I didn’t like school or do particularly well there, and I’ve since learned, after my son was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), that I also suffered from this condition as a kid. I left school at fifteen and went to sea to work on the Arctic trawlers, right up into the North Cape of Norway, Bear Island and Spitsbergen. Those were long, tough days (and nights) but I learned how to work, and what work meant. I must have gained a liking for the sea because I then joined the Royal Navy for five years and travelled the world. While on deployment in the South Atlantic I first saw the film Wall Street on our Saturday night ‘film night’ event. For whatever reason, something inside me clicked and the film resonated deep within me. I realised that I wanted to be in business (probably not with Gordon Gekko’s business ethics, thankfully) and while still on board ship, I began studying for a Higher National Diploma (HND) in business and finance by distance learning. I did my private study after coming off a twelve-hour watch and sat at a table with the ship rolling this way and that, trying to understand marketing, balance sheets and contract law. Back on dry land I passed the HND, left the Navy and worked my way through dead-end admin jobs until I met my future business partners in a small firm in Wakefield.

Today, I’m happy to say we own our second business, where we enable organisations to realise the huge opportunities that commercial drones bring to their operations. We learned business the hard way, without any mentors or fancy words in fancy business books. Yet this business grew 140% within a twelve-month period and continues to grow apace to the extent that I’m confident we’ll make the Fast Track 100 next year (as we did with our previous business, so the pressure’s on). We ran our first business for eighteen years and it was sold to a PLC in January 2019 for an eight-figure sum. We achieved all this from humble beginnings in a way that didn’t involve any private equity or venture capital (brilliant routes to follow for many emerging businesses, but that’s not our experience), and our growth path could just as well apply to your business too. Just like you, we had dreams of success, of being able to build businesses that we could eventually scale up from a couple of employees to something more substantial, possibly with ambitions to enter the international marketplace. The nature of such ambitions doesn’t matter here; it’s following a vision and attaining the success you want to achieve that matters. It’s knowing how to overcome the barriers that keep getting in your way, be they financial, institutional, psychological and, dare I say, emotional. I’d wager that many small business owners not born with a silver spoon in their mouths or never expecting to be the next Elon Musk harbour a variety of self-limiting beliefs that keep them stuck where they are. Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with being ‘ordinary’. I’m rightly proud of my roots in Wakefield and no matter what I might believe in, one thing I do know has served me well is my willingness to put in some hard graft, no matter what the task in hand might be. Just like you do with your own business right now. You still have dreams and aspirations for the future, you still want to leave some kind of legacy, and even though your business might not be the next world-dominating unicorn, that should not hold you back. So, what if yours is a fish-and-chip shop by the seaside? Knowing how to go for it can make all the difference, and yours could be the best in town, on the coast, or even in the country for that matter. There’s still a small fortune to be made and doing so will give you a huge sense of personal satisfaction. It’s not just about the money: it’s also about following your vision.

Too often, one of the biggest barriers to our success is having that kind of dream but believing we need to redefine ourselves as a result. And yet, you don’t have to redefine yourself by anyone else’s standards in the hope your business will become the Uber of fish-and-chip shops, or of springs or bolts. Of course, radical disruptors such as Uber have played a huge part in shaping how businesses run and operate. You could be forgiven for thinking that your business can’t compete with the likes of these giants. I disagree. In terms of your own impact, it’s amazingly possible to disrupt in so many different ways across any industry, no matter the size and ambition of the business. When it’s been done a million times before, simply taking a slightly different approach can set one business apart from the rest. You might think, ‘That’s not disrupting’, but if you grew a reputation for providing the best customer service ever in your sector, it would blow your customers (and competition) away. As a result, your reputation would continue to grow and – hey presto – you’ve become the disruptor who’s known the length and the breadth of the country.

Much of that will be down to you. Don’t forget, your individuality is actually one of your biggest assets ; always be humble enough to learn and never lose your drive and vision. Do what you want to do, because if you read every business book, take every form of advice and spend hours listening to every podcast, you can quickly lose direction, followed by confidence, and end up believing you’re doing everything wrong. It’s no bad thing to hold onto the fact that you don’t know everything and can’t be everything to everybody. It’s true what they say: ‘Serve everybody, and you serve nobody.’ There’s no sentiment from the market.

My aim, therefore, is that by the time you finish reading this book you’ll have regained confidence in yourself, your vision and your business. I’ll share my experiences candidly, including the ups and downs and everything that I’ve learned (and by the way, I’m still learning) about setting up a business, finding the right people to work with, dealing with the money, reaching out to customers and converting leads into sales. I’ll only ever be straight with you and I won’t beat about the bush. I won’t shy away from the hard facts, because I believe that honesty is a liberator.