The Alternative Board | Read Ed Reid

Counsel of the North

Posted on January 24, 2020 by edreidyork

Another week, another raft of stories about unicorns – companies that didn’t exist a few years ago and are now worth a billion dollars.

(And Duolingo is one of them! Seriously, whatever happened to four years’ hard work at university?)

We do not – as yet – have a unicorn among the members of TAB UK. What we do have is a lot of members who’ve been in business for a lot of years. And that’s the point I want to make this week.

Open the business pages and it’s the unicorns – the Duolingos and Starling Banks of this world – that grab the headlines. That’s understandable: companies and entrepreneurs who go from zero to hero sell newspapers and generate clicks.

‘I thought I could do it better. I thought I owed it to myself to find out. I’m not in it for the short term.’ Those three sentences are not a news story. And yet they’re the story behind so many members of TAB – not just in the UK, but around the world.

In my last post I mentioned the one TAB board I still run, which has now passed its 7^th anniversary. The members of that Board illustrate my point perfectly. Why did they start their businesses? Not for money, but because they owed it to themselves. They had to find out if they could do it better.

They accepted they were in it for the long haul. They did not have the fashionable business maxim – start it, scale it, sell it – anywhere near their to-do list.

Part of that long haul is meeting challenges. And as Wednesday morning brought the boss of Lloyds warning of the importance of mental health issues, let’s spare a thought for the support the entrepreneur needs.

Entrepreneurs face mental and physical challenges. They need stamina – and they need support.

Yes, you started your business for all the right reasons. Yes, you accepted you were in it for the long haul – but nothing prepares you for being responsible for 20 mortgages. Nothing prepares you for telling Bill that the company has outgrown him. And nothing prepares you for the physical and emotional stress of running a business: of being the person who makes the final decision every time.

That’s why I think TAB UK is so important. When I’m talking to a potential new member it’s very easy to outline the ‘obvious’ benefits of TAB – accountability, peer support, experienced entrepreneurs to bounce ideas off.

It’s much more difficult to explain those ‘hidden’ benefits – the support, empathy and understanding that are there when you really need them. I’m breaking no confidences when I say that every single member of my original Board has drawn on that support over the last seven years.

And now to wider matters…

My blog post on January 10^th was the first of the year, and the first of a new decade. I made a simple point: the pace of change over the next ten years is only going to accelerate.

So it obviously makes sense to discuss the events of 1472.

That was the year Edward IV set up the Council of the North: its aim was simple – to improve government control and economic prosperity and benefit all of Northern England.

The Council was based in Yorkshire, first at Sheriff Hutton Castle, then at Sandal Castle and finally at King’s Manor in York. Henry VIII re-established the Council after the Reformation (when the North was identified with Roman Catholicism) and it was only abolished in the run-up to the Civil War.

Could Boris I now be following in Edward IV’s footsteps? Much was made in the election campaign of the Conservatives’ commitment to spread opportunity and investment evenly throughout the UK. But was it just warm words, designed to make the ‘red wall’ crumble, or would we see some positive action?

“Absolutely fine,” a friend said to me. “But let’s see the evidence. What they need to do is persuade Amazon or Google or Facebook to move their HQ out of London. Hartlepool maybe…”

Well, it may not be Amazon, Google or Facebook and it may not be Hartlepool. But as I started writing this post (on Sunday evening) there was a story in the Sunday Times: ‘Boris Johnson sends the House of Lords up North.’ York is the rumoured destination, with the city apparently having moved ahead of Birmingham in the race.

What a coup that would be – and a clear signal that the Government really does intend to make good on its promises.

Whether the House of Lords moves to York or not it reinforces my original point. The next decade will be one of rapid change. With technological change and a workforce with a new set of demands, it will present entrepreneurs with new and ever more complex challenges.

And that’s before we factor in Brexit…

This is my last post before the UK leaves the EU. Whichever way you voted, the negotiations with the EU – now not due to begin until March – will bring yet more uncertainty. We’re all going to face challenges we’ve never faced before: a support network like TAB UK is going to be essential for long-term success.

…And talking of challenges, I’d better do it now. Time to book a table for lunch. Before it’s full of overweight blokes in ermine…

Polls, Publishing and Plans for Next Year

Posted on December 13, 2019 by edreidyork

What was it Jane Austen said? “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man who has to publish a blog on Friday 13^th does not want a General Election on Thursday 12^th…”

Something like that – but you have to press publish at a certain time. And, very clearly, you can’t press publish without commenting on the result of the Election. But when do you start writing? When you see the BBC exit poll? When the first result comes in from Newcastle?

Or do you decide that the polls are going to be right for once, and get your introduction written on Tuesday afternoon?

In the event, I did a bit of all three – and then hastily revised my estimate of the Conservative majority as the BBC exit poll and the early results confirmed a very clear win for Boris Johnson. While the final numbers are not yet in, it looks as though we are on course for a Conservative majority of 70-80 seats.

Dodging the scrutiny of Andrew Neil appears to have done Boris no harm at all. Not having a policy on the most important issue to face the country in the last 70 years unquestionably did Jeremy Corbyn a great deal of harm – as anyone who runs a business could have told him. You are the leader. Your job is to lead, not sit on the fence.

Labour recorded its lowest number of seats since 1935, as large sections of the ‘red wall’ turned blue. ‘Workington Man’ – this election’s version of the mythical ‘Worcester woman’ – has swung decisively behind Boris Johnson and his simple, endlessly-repeated mantra: ‘Get Brexit Done.’

So, sometime around mid-afternoon today, Boris Johnson will emerge from 10 Downing Street and tell us his plans. With all 635 Conservative candidates having pledged to back his deal with the EU, we’ll be leaving the European Union on or before January 31^st. Negotiations on a future trade deal will follow, and Sajid Javid will present a Budget some time in February.

Well, I didn’t want to leave the EU, but neither did I – or any business owner I know – want to be locked in a spiral of never-ending uncertainty. We may not have the certainty I wanted, but at least we have somecertainty. There will not be another referendum this year: neither will there be another referendum on Scottish independence.

And the next General Election won’t be until 2024 – and even then, there’s only a 50% chance of it coinciding with ‘blog Friday.’ You can relax, Ed…

…And look back on what has been a great year for TAB UK. There are now more than 50 people working with and for TAB UK. That was a significant milestone to reach and – as I have said many times – it’s a privilege to work with every single one of them.

Our franchisees cover the UK from Rick in the South West to Helen, Chris and Jonathan in Aberdeen. Yes, there are still some gaps on the map – but we’ll fill them.

The head office team has also grown this year – and let me use this last blog of the year to thank them all for everything they’ve done in the last 12 months. A special word, though, to Lydia and Tracey who joined this year. They’ve fitted in seamlessly and are already making a great contribution to TAB.

There was also a personal highlight for me this year. I still run one TAB board, and this month it turns seven years old. That’s more than 80 meetings with the same small group of people. Over the seven years their businesses have grown (so have one or two waistlines…) and I hope TAB has played its part in helping to preserve the sanity of the relevant MDs. Last time I checked none of them was an alcoholic. Well, not confirmed…

Looking ahead to 2020

So what of the coming year? 2020 sounds like an auspicious year, and there are two TAB developments I’m particularly excited about.

First of all there’s TAB Connect, a global platform connecting all our 4,000 members worldwide. It’s live now, and 2020 is the year when it will really come to life, allowing a TAB member in North Yorkshire to connect with a TAB member in North Carolina. If you want to use a shorthand term, it’s LinkedIn just for TAB members – but it’s a lot more than that and I’m certain that it will lead not just to sharing ideas and expertise, but to business partnerships that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible.

Closer to home, 2020 will see TAB UK roll out StratPro. This will allow us to work with the owners of bigger companies and those companies’ directors and senior managers, to ensure decisions made at the top flow down through the company as efficiently and as effectively as possible. It’s a really exciting initiative, and I’ll write a specific blog post on it early in the New Year.

2020 will be an interesting year on a personal level as well. Around this time next year Dan, my eldest son, will be home from his first term at university. How did that happen? It’s only two months since I held his hand and took him into the reception class…

But it has happened, the time has passed and – hopefully – I’ve put it to good use. I couldn’t, though, have done it without a lot of help. To everyone who has been part of my journey this year – thank you. Have a wonderful Christmas, may 2020 bring everything you would wish for and the blog will be back – no doubt vowing to do more exercise – on Friday 10^th January.

There’s a Reason it’s a ‘Challenge…’

Posted on July 24, 2019 by edreidyork

Before I put my walking boots on and re-visit the TAB UK Three Peaks Challenge – and ‘challenge’ was the right word – let me make a comment about our new Prime Minister.

Boris Johnson has won, he’s kissed the Queen’s hand and he’s appointed a cabinet. And – as we all know – he has promised to deliver Brexit ‘do or die’ by October 31^st, just three months from now. In some ways – despite how I voted in the Referendum and despite how I still feel about the EU – I welcome that. We simply could not keep deferring the decision. Whether it is politics or business you have to take decisions, and I’m sure Boris will do that.

But I just worry what those decisions will be. He’s not Donald Trump, but he does seem to have Trump’s inclination to shoot from the hip.

I am, though, pleased to see that his Cabinet contains a mix of Leave and Remain supporters. I may not agree with his first ‘D’ – deliver Brexit – but the need to ‘Unite’ can’t be disputed. But I worry it’s too late. I’ve seen it described as the ‘footballisation’ of politics. It’s an ugly word but you instinctively know what it means. You can support Liverpool or Everton, Rangers or Celtic. There is no middle ground, and I worry that’s the way our politics – and maybe even our society – is moving.

The problem is, business likes the middle ground. It likes certainty and predictability – and right this minute our body politic is delivering exactly the opposite.

The Three Peaks Challenge

And so to the bottom of Ben Nevis, which is where the TAB UK team – plus Simon, our guide – stood at 8:30 on the morning of Sunday July 7^th.

Our team of five was attempting the National Three Peaks – part personal challenge, part tribute and fundraising in memory of TAB UK founder, Paul Dickinson.

The Three Peaks Challenge is to walk the highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales – in theory within 24 hours. Like us, most people start at Ben Nevis, drive down to Scafell Pike in the Lakes, and then on to Snowdon. The total walking distance is 23 miles, the total climb 10,052 feet and the driving distance – not to be sniffed at – is 462 miles.

We set off up Ben Nevis – and the team very quickly split into two groups. That was fine: we’d known it was going to happen.

We knew we had different abilities within the group. The months of training we’d done had made this very clear and everyone was comfortable with it. We accepted each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and we knew we weren’t going to walk up Ben Nevis as a group of five. Anyone who’s done any walking knows that walking slower than your natural pace is just as tiring as someone forcing you to walk faster than you’d normally go.

So we accepted that there’d be times some of us would push on, and there’d be times we’d stop to re-group.

“Wait at the hot tub,” Simon said.

Mags and I looked at each other. Hot tub? If there was one thing you could guarantee not to find on Ben Nevis, it was a hot tub. But there it was – a perfect circle of stones, looking for all the world like a medieval hot tub.

As we waited there we very quickly got cold. We went behind the hot tub to shelter from the wind and have a cup of tea. We sat down – and realised that we were surrounded by pink toilet paper. It was clear what one group of walkers had done on the ‘last stop before the summit.’ Mags and I decided to brave the cold…

We waited there for the rest of the group to arrive. If there was one thing we were going to do, it was reach the summit together. And that’s what we did, looking out at the quite stunning view from 4,413 feet. “There are just 15 days a year when the view is like this,” Simon said. “Someone up there likes you.”

Or – sadly – maybe not. One of our group had seriously strained her groin on the walk up. We’d barely started the descent and someone else fell, sustaining heavy bruising.

But we all made it down the mountain and by four in the afternoon we were back at the bottom. That in itself was a real achievement. I have nothing but admiration for all the members of our group: for the two who were injured, and came down without ever complaining, it goes a long way beyond admiration.

Gretna Green Services

And then it was in the cars and off to Scafell Pike. We’d arranged to meet up at Gretna Green services to eat. But, as we were driving down the A74, another metaphorical wheel fell off.

Mags had to stop her car. Simon was violently sick. “Think it’s just car sickness” our guide muttered.

It very clearly wasn’t ‘just car sickness.’ He sat in the service station, put his arm on the table, his head on his arm and groaned.

Meanwhile our two walking wounded were clearly badly wounded and – after 200 miles in a car – very stiff and very tired.

Mags and I looked at each other. We needed to talk. We had an obligation to everyone who had supported us. But we had another obligation – to take care of our team. And this was not a decision that could be kicked endlessly down the road.

We had a five minute conversation standing next to a fruit machine in a service station (quite possibly exactly how Brexit will eventually be sorted out…) and decided there was only one logical decision we could make. With two of the team injured and our guide throwing up more frequently than a child who’s eaten too much at a party, we called the challenge off.

We clearly have a moral duty to our sponsors and supporters who were, to a man, totally supportive and understanding when we told them the news. So we’ll return to Scafell Pike on Sunday September 8^thand finish the last two peaks.

There’s also a personal itch to scratch. Could some of us have done it in 24 hours? We’ll find out one day in 2020…

Calling it off wasn’t the decision we wanted to take. Our families were slightly surprised when we turned up in the middle of the night. But there was no other choice. With two of the team injured and a guide who was still ill 24 hours later, it was the only decision we could make.

It would be easy to see our attempt at the National Three Peaks as a failure. You know what? I think it was exactly the opposite.

No, we didn’t achieve what we set out to achieve. But we faced adversity together. We came through it. We learned things about each other we’d never have learned in a lifetime of meetings. We found reserves of stamina – and courage – we never knew we had.

We’re better people for Ben Nevis, and we’re a stronger group. And we will return…

[…And the blog will return on Monday August 12^th: I’m on holiday on Friday 9^th, so I’ll be back on the Monday morning.]

Is it Time to Abandon the Office?

Posted on February 22, 2019 by edreidyork

Last week found me in Berlin. I was meeting my TAB colleagues from Europe and the two top guys from TAB in the US.

As you can imagine, we occasionally strayed into politics – on both sides of the Atlantic – and it is fair to say there were interesting, and differing, views. But there was also a combined goodwill to make progress and to make things work – which absolutely transcended any differences. We may need to invite a few politicians to some TAB meetings…

We now meet twice a year: we’ve been doing this for three years and the more we get to know each other, the more the dynamic improves. As the group expands, so it takes in more backgrounds and cultures – but it’s fascinating to see how TAB, and the very simple concept of peer support, transcends those cultures.

But as I flew home my overwhelming impressions was of the progress we’d made at meetings that weren’t meetings. The amount of progress we’d made over drinks, dinner and simple conversations as we walked around Berlin was simply amazing. And it is a lesson that we can all use – and benefit from – in our businesses.

It has been a long-running theme of this blog that if you want to think differently you need to be somewhere different: that if you simply sit at your desk you will always think in the same way you’ve always thought. To use the well-worn cliché, thinking outside the box is impossible if you are sitting in the box.

Is that just my personal preference, or is there any evidence for it?

Before I answer that, let me take a step back. How much time do we spend in meetings? According to one article I read when I was researching this post, 11m (yes, million) meetings are held every day in the US. On average, people attend 62 meetings a month, with over 15% of a company’s collective time spent in organisational meetings.

There is no way to verify the accuracy of those figures – except that based on my experience in the corporate world, they feel right.

The figures are quite staggering. How much productive time, or how much of a country’s GDP, is lost to meetings doesn’t bear thinking about it.

But meetings are inevitable – and so we need to get the maximum from them. And that’s why I think you should meet ‘off-site’ as often as you can.

There are any number of tips for making sure that off-site meetings are successful. The key one for me is to be clear about what you are trying the achieve. Yes, obviously visit the venue beforehand (not always a given…) but more importantly than that, know why you are going there.

What is the purpose of our twice a year TAB meetings? To learn from each other, to share ideas that are working, to solve common problems and to look at the business from a different angle. And to ask the questions that we don’t have time to ask in the other 50 weeks of the year.

And as I’ve said above, the more time my colleagues and I spend out of the ‘office’ – or the hotel meeting room – the more productive we are. And that is true for every organisation I have ever worked in.

Why is that?

When people meet off-site – possibly because they have made an effort to get there, possibly because of a different setting – they are more focused. Remember to keep changing the venue though. ‘Off-site’ does not mean the same hotel on the fourth Friday of every month. Familiarity may breed contempt, but it also breeds the same way of thinking and expecting the same result from a meeting.

I’ve already touched on it with my outside/inside the box comment, but there is no question that people are more creative away from the office. The same room, the same chair – after all, we are creatures of habit – and the same view promotes the same way of thinking. A new venue changes all that.

There’s more camaraderie outside the office or a formal meeting venue. It’s not for nothing that team building exercises are held away from the office. By definition when I am meeting my TAB colleagues in Europe I am out of my own office, but the difference between having a meeting in a ‘hotel board room’ and a restaurant or bar – or simply when you are walking to a venue – is almost impossible to measure.

And there’s one final point, which struck me as I drove home from the airport. There’s an interesting parallel here with being a parent. If I want to have an in-depth conversation with Dan or Rory, the best solution is to go for a walk or for a drive. If we’re sitting facing each other, the barriers go up. I’m not saying there are barriers with my TAB colleagues – exactly the opposite – but it is still interesting how different thoughts, ideas and initiatives develop when you’re not face to face.

Which brings me full circle… There are a couple of people meeting in Brussels about now who don’t seem to see eye-to-eye. Perhaps they should go for a walk…

By Ed Reid, TAB UK

It’s not just TAB: The Reason Why Franchises Work

Posted on February 8, 2019 by edreidyork

TAB: A History

The Alternative Board was founded in Missouri in 1990. As with so many successful businesses, the rationale behind it was the answer to a simple question.

Why can’t owners of a small business benefit from the same advice that’s available to big businesses?

TAB founder Allen Fishman knew how much he’d gained from the advice of a board of directors throughout his business career. But where did the owner of a small business go for that advice?

The traditional answer was his bank manager, his accountant or his solicitor – but, however well meaning, they all had their own axe to grind. And what did the bank manager really know about the pressures of running a business? Secure in his job and with a comfortable pension to look forward to, could he ever know what it felt like to tell your wife that the house was on the line…

The all too apparent answer was ‘no.’ The only people who really understood what it was like to run a small business were the owners of other small businesses. They were the ones who understood what it was to put your family’s security at risk, to realise you needed to fire someone whose mortgage depended on you – and to face the loneliness that being an entrepreneur can bring.

And so The Alternative Board was born. From the very beginning it operated on a franchise model, although – in relative terms – it was very late to the party.

Why are Franchises Successful?

According to Wiki the word ‘franchise’ comes from the French franc, meaning to be free. Well, if you’ve been trapped in the corporate world, that will seem entirely appropriate. While the boom in franchising started after the Second World War, its history goes right back to the middle ages, when landowners created what might be termed ‘franchise arrangements’ with tax collectors, allowing them to keep a percentage of the taxes they collected. There’s an idea for Philip Hammond to consider as he mulls over his Spring Statement…

Why has the idea of the franchise proved such an enduring success? For me, the biggest factor is that you know the idea works. Yes, you’re spending some money to buy into the franchise, but you’re buying an idea that has been proven to work. It’s no surprise that the percentage of successful franchise start-ups far exceeds that of the go-it-alone start-ups, by a ratio of about 9:1.

We all know the names of the most successful franchise operations: McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway, by location now the biggest franchise in the world. In business terms the biggest company is a name you might not have heard of: H&R Block, a tax preparation company operating in the US, Australia and India which has around 12,000 offices.

But in terms of business coaching there is one clear world leader, and that leader is The Alternative Board which, 29 years after Allen Fishman founded the company, now operates in 20 countries with more than 400 franchisees. Between them those franchisees have experience of more than 300 industries and have helped more than 15,000 businesses with a combined turnover of more than $11bn.

But the most telling stat for me is that the average member of a TAB board has been a member for more than 4½ years.

I think that is a remarkable figure. Simply put, it demonstrates that TAB delivers results. Owners of SMEs are not known for placidly tolerating ideas that are not working: you simply don’t stick with something for 4½ years if it isn’t delivering results.

And the key reason why TAB works so well in 2019 is exactly the reason why it worked so well in 1990. The owner of a small business still cannot access the advice, experience and expertise that is open to someone running a larger business – unless he surrounds himself with his peers.

Looking Forward

That is why I am so excited about the future – not just in the UK, but for my TAB colleagues around the world. But obviously my focus is on TAB UK: as I wrote at the end of last year, ‘my vision is to see us helping 1,000 business owners – and thereby benefiting around 25,000 employees and roughly 100,000 people in their families.’

And there’s even more good news. Despite the current uncertainty in the UK, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. In fact, it’s alive and well everywhere. Generation Z is apparently going to be the most entrepreneurial generation ever. I cannot wait…

The Importance of Cyber-Security for Your Business

Posted on January 11, 2019 by edreidyork

The strength of TAB UK: Defence and Attack

Good morning – and welcome to 2019. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, that you have returned to work refreshed, re-focused and reinvigorated and, if it is not too late, a very Happy New Year to anyone I’ve not yet spoken to.

I’m writing this on Thursday, or – as it almost certainly should be labelled – Black Thursday. Ford are planning to slash thousands of jobs, Jaguar Land-Rover are going to make 5,000 people redundant and – in the least surprising headline of the year – Debenhams and M&S have reported poor trading figures for Christmas. The high street, apparently, had its ‘worst Christmas for a decade.’

In search of a rather more uplifting message to start the year, let’s leave the UK and head off to sunnier climes. Specifically, to Las Vegas which this week is hosting CES2019. CES stands for Consumer Electronics Show and this year (as it always does) it features some astonishing products: the Breadbot (a fresh loaf of bread every six minutes), the Foldimate (anyone with teenage children should simply watch the video and place an order) and a ‘smart toilet’ that talks to you.

Given that the smart toilet talks to you via the Alexa app and Alexa does have a previous reputation for broadcasting your conversations to your friends, I think we might pass on that one…

But much as I love fresh bread and the idea of my boys’ clothes being folded automatically, it is a rather more serious tech development that I’d like to talk about this morning.

The importance of a cyber-defence

A perennial theme of this blog has been the pace of technological developments. In 2019 they look set to go at an even faster pace – and while freshly baked bread and freshly pressed clothes might be something to look forward to, there are some rather more serious developments on the horizon…

One of the things writing and researching the blog has increasingly given me is an interest in tech and trends – and I’m delighted that former LastMinute CEO Helen Webb will be talking about ‘megatrends’ at our TAB Conference in May. So over Christmas – at least when Maison Reid was finally cleaned up after our ever-expanding Christmas Eve party – I read a lot of articles more or less entitled ‘Predictions for 2019.’

There was one prediction that struck me very forcibly – that 2019 could be the year when a piece of malware or ransomware takes down a FT-SE100 company.

Two years ago we were all worrying about the NotPetya ransomware attack, which caused millions of pounds worth of damage to countries and companies around the world. Two years on and you can be sure that the viruses, ransomware and the AI behind them are more sophisticated and more dangerous. So much so that security firm Gemalto made this prediction: that ‘an AI orchestrated attack will take down a FT-SE 100 company.’ This will apparently see a new generation of malware infect an organisation’s systems, gather information (presumably on customers, bank accounts and products) and then let loose a series of attacks that will ‘take down the company from the inside out.’

How will companies counter these AI attacks? With AI of their own. We are heading towards a world where it will not be man vs. machine, but machine vs. machine.

…Which, of course, is fine if you are a FT-SE100 companies with a ‘defence’ budget of millions. But no-one sitting around a TAB boardroom table is the boss of a FT-SE100 company. We are owners and directors of SMEs acutely conscious that if it can happen to the big boys, it can happen to us.

“Come with me if you want to live!”

That’s one of the reasons I see 2019 as a year when TAB UK will be more important than ever. Increasingly the problems brought to the TAB table will be about technology and the threats we might face: that they’ll be about defending your business as much as they’ll be about developing your business.

Fortunately TAB gives you the chance to learn from not only the six or seven other people around your table, it also gives you the chance to learn from every member in the UK. Rest assured that any advice and guidance on protecting our businesses will be swiftly and widely disseminated.

Right now it is difficult not to read the news and be depressed: the Brexit shambles, the continuing US/China trade war and – most crucially – no transfer budget at St James’ Park…

And yet I have never been more optimistic about a coming year. As I wrote in December, I am privileged to work with some hugely talented, hard-working and dedicated people. Working together through TAB, I am certain that we’ll all have a year to remember…

By Ed Reid, TAB UK Managing Director

Your Goals for 2019: But What if you Achieve Them?

Posted on November 30, 2018 by edreidyork

It’s a safe bet that a significant proportion of the people reading this blog have a word document – or a note on their phone or a page in their journal – with a very simple, three word title.

Goals for 2019.

We’re all ambitious: setting goals and targets comes naturally to us. But this morning I want to ask a question that isn’t often asked: why do so many people feel a sense of anti-climax when they finally achieve their goals? Why – for some people – does achieving a long sought-after goal lead not to elation, but to the exact opposite?

Let me give you a very simple example. A large number of women are depressed after their marriage. Not because of who they married (looks up, glances across the kitchen table) but because of an inevitable sense of anti-climax and a feeling of ‘what now?’ According to a report in the Washington Post, 12% of women admitted to being ‘blue brides.’

Similarly there are any number of anecdotal tales from sport. The momentary elation of winning the gold medal, followed by ‘now what?’ – and quite possibly the realisation that suddenly you’re back at square one. That four years from now you’ll need to prove yourself again. And there’ll be younger, hungrier pretenders to your crown.

There is no reason to suppose that business is any different. Yes, we all have goals for next year and, for most of us, those goals are a staging post on the road to the eventual destination.

But the statistics dictate that someone reading this post will reach that destination next year. They’ll sell the business they’ve built or they’ll reach a turnover or profit level they once considered impossible.

If that’s you, will you go off into the sunset punching the air? Or will you feel a sense of anti-climax and ‘now what do I do?’

Rest assured that you will be a long way from the only person to be suffering from ‘post event blues’ or the ‘arrival fallacy.’ (No, The Arrival Fallacy isn’t a thriller by Robert Ludlum: the theory is that as you get near to your goal you start to anticipate it, and therefore to discount it.)

Personal Goals

OK, time to make it personal. TAB UK is my life’s work. One day someone else is going to be the MD of TAB UK and I have no idea how I’ll feel about that. It will – absolutely – be one of the moments when I would have sought out Paul Dickinson’s wise counsel.

I have shared this with many people, but let me share it with everyone. What’s my long term goal for TAB UK? My vision is to see us helping 1,000 business owners – and thereby benefiting around 25,000 employees and roughly 100,000 people in their families.

That is a really compelling vision for me and obviously my goals for the coming year represent steps along the way.

Would – at some stage – 900 members of TAB UK be a success? In financial terms, yes. Would it satisfy me psychologically? No, I don’t think so. Both Mags and I want to reach the 1,000 member goal – and, with the support of everyone in the TAB family, we’re determined to get there.

So will I feel ‘post-event blues’ or the ‘arrival fallacy’ when we reach 1,000 members? I don’t think so – but I have no way of telling. What I do know is that there will have to be something after that. It may not be to benefit me directly – but I think I will always need to have a goal in sight.

And that, of course, is the textbook way to beat the ‘post event blues:’ to make sure you immediately move on to something else.

I suspect, though, that human nature doesn’t work like that. It dictates that we do pause when we reach the summit, both literally and figuratively. And that is both right and understandable – you’ve worked to get there, you’re entitled to enjoy the view.

And if you find that the euphoria isn’t what you’ve expected then you won’t be alone. Success, as the old saying goes, is a journey as much as it’s a destination. And that’s what all of us at TAB UK are committed to – your success on the journey. You, and the other 999 business owners that are on the journey with you…

It’s Time to take Two Steps Back…

Posted on October 19, 2018 by edreidyork

This is the last blog post I’ll write before the Chancellor of the Exchequer – Spreadsheet Phil – stands up to deliver his Budget speech on Monday October 29^th.

As always there will be plenty of warm words: ‘fairness,’ ‘opportunity,’ ‘safety net’ and – if the Prime Minister’s speech at the Conservative Conference was any indication – the beginning of the ‘end of austerity.’ No matter that the Institute for Fiscal Studies says it will cost £19bn– inevitably meaning higher taxes and higher spending.

I am a little frustrated (my entry for the Understatement of the Year Award) when it comes to the incompetence and lack of business acumen of our elected politicians. Virgin were allowed to walk away from the East Coast franchise but have just shared a £52m dividend from the West Coast franchise. Tell me, please, which ‘high flyer’ negotiated that particular arrangement.

As the saying goes, ‘give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’ But goodness me, it is difficult at the moment.

Back to the Budget, and another word you will need on your Philip Hammond bingo card is ‘productivity.’ It was a favourite of George Osborne’s as he regularly bemoaned the UK’s poor productivity and his successor will no doubt make the same point. UK productivity – essentially, a country’s GDP divided by the total productive hours – has not improved for ten years. It is still at the levels it was before the financial crisis.

How can that be? Compared to other countries in the G7, the UK’s productivity is poor. The ‘productivity gap’ – the amount we lag behind the other major industrialised countries – is consistently around 16% in ‘output per hour worked.’ If you measure productivity in ‘output per worker’ terms then the gap is even higher – rising to 16.6%. And where the productivity on other G7 countries has improved since the economic downturn, the UK’s has not.

That is hard to understand. The UK is home to some of the most innovative companies not just in Europe, but in the world. And virtually every business in the TAB UK family – even if they are not at the leading edge of innovation – is simply too busy to worry about any productivity gap.

So why the problem?

Writing in City AM, Tej Parikh, senior economist at the Institute of Directors, suggests that we should all ‘think like a small businessto solve the productivity puzzle.’ That rather than looking to do ‘the same with less’ businesses should instead look to do ‘more with the same.’

In many ways that goes right to the heart of what we’re trying to do with TAB UK. I have been writing this blog for a long time but one of the earliest – and now one of the most perennial – themes has been the need for business owners to work ‘on’ their business as much as they work ‘in’ their business.

It is by no means a new idea – Michael Gerber first wrote about the e-myth in the mid-80s and my battered copy of The E-Myth Revisitedwas published in 1995 – but the principle of working on your business is as important today as it has ever been. Perhaps more important.

Despite the fact that the world is demonstrably changing at an ever-faster pace, people remain resistant to change. It’s human nature (especially as you get older, according to my sons…)

Right now people are also taking the labour market into account. UK unemployment has just come down by another 47,000 in the three months to August and there is a real shortage of talented people. So if a small business has some of those talented people, it is understandable that business owners are reluctant to disturb the status quo.

But as the last post on Uber showed, sooner or later all our status quos will be disturbed. We either manage change ourselves or some outside agent takes it out of our control.

There is, of course, a second part to the quote I used above. ‘Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change – and the courage to change the things I can.’

Change takes time and it takes work. Initially it will almost certainly feel like two steps back – and the three steps forward may seem a long way off. But now, more than ever, we need the courage to change those things we can change. Let’s see if the Chancellor has that courage a week on Monday…

The Seven Ages of the Entrepreneur

Posted on September 20, 2018 by edreidyork

I like a nice drop o’ Shakespeare…

Macbeth’s my favourite, but as far as speeches go, I’m drawn to As You Like It, and Jaques’ speech to Duke Senior, which many of you will know…

All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts/His acts being seven ages.

This idea of the world as a stage wasn’t new, even in the 16^thCentury. Shakespeare borrowed it from the Greek dramatists, who no doubt borrowed it from someone even earlier.

Neither was the idea of ‘seven ages’ new: in Shakespeare’s case, infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, the justice, the lean and slippered pantaloon and – finally – sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Which, of course, raises a simple question for me, and for any man:which age am I at?

Am I a soldier, still ‘seeking my reputation, even in the canon’s mouth?’ Or am I now the justice? In fair round belly with good capon lined/With eyes severe and beard of formal cut/Full of wise saws and modern instances.

Perhaps more to the point, what age am I as an entrepreneur?

There are, I think, seven ages of the entrepreneur, just as Shakespeare had seven ages of man. Let’s see if we can define them – although, sorry, I won’t be doing it in iambic pentameters…

Pushing your breakfast round the plate

My story of the first age of the entrepreneur is well-known now. If it’s characterised by one word, that word was ‘frustration.’

‘There has to be a better way.’ ‘What am I doing in Milton Keynes when my son is in the nativity play?’

The first age of the entrepreneur is the age when you decideto be an entrepreneur: when you make the decision that – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer – you are going to be in charge of your own destiny.

“Doesn’t Daddy have a job any more?”

And running through all those seven ages is a common thread: your family, the people you love, the people you are doing it for. Ultimately – as I intimated last week – ‘family’ comes to mean a lot more than immediate family. I’m very, very conscious now that my family – the people for whom I feel a responsibility – is far wider than the three people in South Milford, but when you start your journey, you musttake your immediate family with you.

Your partner will need to come to terms with the fact that – for now at least – her security has gone. She may suddenly be the main breadwinner. And you’ll need to explain to your children that yes, Daddy doeshave a job – ‘and the reason I’m working in the spare room, sweetheart, is that nothing is more important than collecting you from school.’

A man and a lad

I remember this from years ago – before I became a ‘coach’ and I was just giving advice to a friend. “There was me an’ a lad,” he said. “And I was doing alright. Now there’s me an’ seven lads and an office manager and I’m not making any more money.”

This is a key age for the entrepreneur. It’s the age where you learn two valuable lessons: businesses progress in steps, not straight lines and – much more importantly – you can’t go back. If the first age is characterised by ‘frustration’ the third age of the entrepreneur is characterised by ‘unemployable.’ You wake up one morning and realise that you’ve changed too much. You cannot go back to your old, corporate world. As you turn round, the bridge is burning brightly.

The man who couldn’t play frisbee any more

The title of this age is taken from one of my favourite blog posts. Just as you wake up one morning and realise that you can’t go back, so you wake up and realise that you’re no longer ‘one of the lads.’ You’re the leader, your job is to lead and – sooner or later – that means difficult decisions, quite possibly affecting someone’s career, family and mortgage. That’s when the loneliness of the entrepreneur hits home – and it’s when The Alternative Board appears on your radar. When you realise that the only person who truly understands is another successful entrepreneur.

Make Good Art

If ‘The Man who Couldn’t Play Frisbee’ was one of my favourite blogs this one – blog post no. 99 – possibly still ranks as my absolute favourite. The title came from a commencement address which writer Neil Gaimangave to Philadelphia’s University of the Arts in 2012.

His message was simple: ‘make good art.’ Whatever you do, that is your art – and you should do it to the very best of your ability. And that’s where you are as an entrepreneur. Your business is established, you’ve accepted that you can’t play frisbee any more – your children even believe you have a proper job again! And every day, you are striving for excellence. Whatever your business does – from web to widgets – you ‘make good art’ and you do it consistently and remorselessly.

Building something serious

Remember those steps? Businesses progress not in a straight line but in a series of steps? ‘Good art’ may now consist of a lot of time with solicitors, bankers and accountants.

But one morning you wake up and realise that you havetaken another step. Maybe your profits or your turnover have hit a level you once considered impossible: maybe your staff levels have done the same. Either way, you’re no longer just a business, you’re part of the community – maybe part of the regional or national business community. Which means that suddenly there are demands on your time which start to take you away from the business, and – although you don’t realise it immediately – prepare you for the final age of the entrepreneur.

Giving Back

That little girl who wondered if ‘Daddy still had a proper job?’ Well, she’s all grown up now and – despite your best efforts – you can no longer convince yourself you’re 39…

It’s time to sell the business, pass it on to the team you’ve built or maybe even stand aside for your son or daughter. But that doesn’t mean your time as an entrepreneur is at an end. Far from it: and this is one of the key lessons I learned from Paul.

When an entrepreneur sells his business, very often he gets a new lease of life. Because there’s a new generation of entrepreneurs who need coaching, guiding and mentoring. There are challenges and opportunities in your local community. The entrepreneur’s age of giving back can be the best age of them all…

So where am I? Unquestionably I’m ‘building something serious.’ If TAB York took me through the first five ages of the entrepreneur, TAB UK is the sixth (and yes, complete with bankers, solicitors and accountants…)

And – together with the extended ‘family’ I talked about earlier – we are unquestionably building something very serious.

So let me end exactly where I began, with Shakespeare. ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ said Macbeth, again using the stage as a metaphor for life.

Macbeth ends the speech with ‘signifying nothing.’ But for TAB UK, ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ signifies a verybright future. I couldn’t be more excited about our plans for the years ahead and I couldn’t be more excited about the people I’m privileged to work with every day.

A Question of Trust

Posted on September 6, 2018 by edreidyork

Two weeks ago I was heading to Denver, for the annual TAB conference.

The plane was circling Denver International, I could see the Mile High Stadium in the distance and I was feeling reflective.

It was 9 years since I’d first flown to Denver. I’d come as someone who’d just bought the TAB franchise for York. I’d pushed my breakfast round my plate in the service station, told myself there had to be a better way, looked at a hundred different businesses and opted for TAB.

“Are you sure?” my wife had said, looking at our newly increased mortgage and feeling the serious pressure to keep working.

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”

But let me be honest. During that initial training in Denver I had some doubts. Would sceptical businessmen in the UK really pay for peer to peer coaching? And I’d bought the York franchise – surrounded myself with hard-bitten Tykes, people with a reputation for being careful wi’ t’ brass…

To use a well-worn cliché, the rest is history. Building TAB York was hard work, but it was simply the most rewarding experience of my business life. And I am now privileged to be in the same position with TAB UK.

This was my second conference as the MD of TAB UK. Looking back to last year, here’s what I wrote about the 2017 Conference:

The long flight took me to Denver, for TAB’s annual conference – as many of you know, one of my favourite weeks of the year. It was great to meet so many old friends and (as always with TAB) make plenty of new ones. The best part of it for me? It was simply going back to basics. After the whirlwind of becoming the MD of TAB UK – after spending so many hours with solicitors, bankers and accountants – it was wonderful to be reminded of the simple truth of why we do what we do.

And later in the post…

TAB is now in 16 countries and is becoming a truly international organisation. The latest country to launch is India.

Well, that needs updating for a start. TAB is now active in 19 countries and we duly had our ‘national CEOs’ meeting – which prompted an obvious question at the start of our two days together. ‘Is 19 too many for a meaningful meeting, especially as an increasing number of people don’t have English as a first language?’

The answer – which was obvious in the first few minutes – was an emphatic ‘no.’ The reason was simple – and in many ways that reason was the main message I took away from Denver this year.

Summed up in one word it was ‘trust.’

Trust is simply at the heart of what TAB is, what it stands for and the benefits it delivers to everyone in the ‘family.’ (Yes, another cliché but with TAB it just happens to be true.)

The annual conference means a lot of old friends for me – of course trust exists with them. It’s like the very best relationship with someone you’ve known all your life. You may only see them for three days out of 365 but instantly you pick up the conversation where you left it a year ago.

But this year there were a lot of new friends as well, especially those who’d made the significant decision to buy the franchise for a whole country. And what struck me was how immediate the trust was with them.

The atmosphere for our two days CEO meeting was unbelievably positive. We shared, we co-operated, we exchanged ideas and we trusted each other implicitly. Language barriers? They simply melted away.

So when I talked about ‘back to basics’ last year, what I was really talking about was trust – just about the most basic, and essential, human currency.

It’s the willingness to sit round a table with half a dozen other people and tell them the most detailed information about your business and – in many cases – to open up to them in a way you haven’t opened up to your professional advisers, your bank manager or even your partner.

I’ll confess it now: that was another worry of mine all those years ago. Would one Board meeting be much like the last one? Were there a finite number of business problems to solve? Would a Board – would I – eventually go stale?

I know now that nothing could be further from the truth. I’m renewed on a weekly basis as I meet with the TAB franchisees in the UK and continue my work with individual TAB members. And once a year I get a double-espresso shot of renewal in Denver – this year from the most important business commodity there will ever be.