business

Ed in the Hot Seat

Posted on by edreidyork


As I mentioned last week, it’s now a year since The Alternative Board (York) was born. Over the past 12 months it’s been my role to ask questions – sometimes awkward, but hopefully always helpful. But this week the tables are turned. One of my Board members is a freelance writer & journalist – for once, I’m answering the questions.

So, Ed, there you were, safe and warm, wrapped in the corporate blanket – why did you decide to run your own business?

There were three reasons really. I looked at friends I’d met on my MBA course who’d left the corporate world to start on their own. I admired them, and I suppose I became slightly envious that they had much more control over their lives than I did. And I wanted to test myself – and running your own business these days is about as big a test as there is. I didn’t want to have any regrets either. I didn’t want to look back and think, ‘If only…’ And then you reach a stage where you think, ‘Well, if I don’t do it now.’

So it was a work/life balance decision?

Probably 50%. The rest was wanting to test myself. When I was at Nestle my friends knew me as “Ed that we don’t see very often.” Then I moved to a printing company and suddenly I was in the North East every day of the week. I didn’t want to be the guy with a great job but no friends, someone who never saw his wife and children. That’s not what life’s about.

When you decided to work for yourself, what sort of job did you see yourself doing?

To begin with I wasn’t sure – although I knew it would be some sort of consulting work

Was it love at first sight with TAB?

Pretty much. When I met the people involved in running the UK side they struck me as being extremely credible and capable. And just as importantly, nice people to work with. The other thing was that when I saw the TAB concept I immediately “got it.” I knew it was a business I could be really passionate about, that I could believe in. That factor was absolutely crucial for me

So 12 months down the line, do you believe in it just as much?

 No – a lot more

How did Dav react to all this?

She’s been fantastically supportive. I mean obviously she had worries about security. Two children, a mortgage, commitments – but at the same time she knew I wasn’t satisfied.

And what about your boys? What do they think Dad does?

Well, Rory’s five so he doesn’t have a clue. Dan’s eight and he thinks I drink coffee and talk to people. He’s got this idea that I help people at work. Hopefully he’s right!

Twelve months in, what’s surprised you most about running your own business?

 No question. When you’re working for yourself the lows are lower, the highs are higher. When I was working for Nestle I’d think “yep, I’ve had a pretty good day.” But never once did I dance round my office.

So a year from now – and five years from now – where do you see TAB York?

A year from now it will be more of the same, although hopefully by then I’ll have been able to bring someone in to help me. Still working hard, still building up my good name. Five years on? I’d like to think the business model will be running very smoothly – we’ll be focused on really adding significant value to members’ businesses by then and I’d like to think several members will have made giant strides forward.

What’s been the best thing about the past year?

Well, there are four boards up and running now – that’s great. What’s even better is that I’m working with some truly remarkable people. They’re forward looking, positive, motivated, amusing – and all in the face of the worst recession we’ve had in living memory. And I’d like to think there are a few board members where TAB has really made a difference – put them in control of their businesses, not the other way round.

And the worst?

Oh, without a doubt it’s when someone doesn’t join a board and I just know they’d get so much benefit from it. That’s not just missing a sales number – it’s far more important than that. It’s someone being short-sighted about their own business. That upsets me – it’s really frustrating.

Last question. Have you ever turned into Lord Sugar and told a board member, “You’re fired…”

No – but there have been some I haven’t pursued, including a few who would have signed up. I just didn’t think they were right, and I’ll never take someone on just for the sake of the numbers. If they’re not the right person, if they won’t contribute and gel with the other board members I’m not going to do it. I’ll never dilute the quality of a board.

Thanks, Ed. Back to the normal blog next week?

Absolutely. Seeing as England are about to thrash Australia I thought I’d look at the role of the captain in sport – and see how it compares to running a business…

The Power of Words

Posted on by edreidyork


It was about a year ago. I must have been ill because I was watching Oprah. Proper flu, obviously, because that’s what it takes to reduce a man to daytime TV. “You know,” Oprah smirked, “I always say luck is when opportunity and preparation meet.” If I’d been well enough I’d have thrown something at the telly. It drives me mad when celebs trot out something that’s been around so long that it’s not even a cliché any more – and then pass it off as their own.

And yet here I am a year on, looking at a list of motivational quotations, and there’s good old ‘Luck equals opportunity + preparation.’ Credited to Oprah. ‘Bah, humbug’, as I believe Katie Price so famously said.

Enough, Ed. You’re turning bitter in your old age. But business quotations have been much on my mind. I was listening to a speech the other day and it was utterly memorable. The speaker’s approach was simple. Google the words ‘best business quotes,’ throw in a few ‘ands’ and ‘buts,’ season with a dash of ‘in conclusion,’ read it out and voila – job done.

“There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM.” Gosh, I haven’t heard that one before. Well, not more than three thousand times. Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’ve been in sales too long. So this is an appeal to you. Please restore my faith and send me what you think are the best business and motivational quotes.

I’ve listed some of my favourites below. Ones that I think still have relevance and meaning today – when the pace of change seems to be faster everyday. And yet the first one is from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Could anything be more pertinent to business today?

And as parent, here’s one that I particularly like: it’s George Bernard Shaw – not quite a cutting edge teenage icon, but eight or ten years from now I may need to pin this on a bedroom wall. “Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.”

Here are a few more. But please, add your own – I hope there are hundreds that I haven’t come across. Let’s run this over the next month or so – and then just before Christmas I’ll publish a list of the best ones – something to carry us all forward into 2011 on a wave of enthusiasm.

I’ve started with one from Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi (oh, please. He won the Nobel Prize in 1937). “A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.” Wonder when he met Oprah?

Here are the rest of my favourites:

–       Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers

–       You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. Christopher Columbus

–       Many of life’s failures are people who had not realised how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison

–       The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Stephen Covey

–       More often in life, we end up regretting the chances in life that we had, but didn’t take, than those chances that we took and wished we hadn’t. Anon

–       Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games. Babe Ruth

–       The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are a few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. Nolan Bushnell

–       One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. One who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. Chinese Proverb

–       Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling. Anita Roddick

–       I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. Jim Rohn

–       I found every single successful person I’ve ever spoken to had a turning point. The turning point was when they made a clear, specific, unequivocal decision that they were not going to live like this any more; they were going to achieve success. Some people make that decision at 15 and some people make it at 50. And most people never make it at all. Brian Tracy

Finally, one that sums up my Alternative Board philosophy. Jim Rohn again: “You cannot succeed by yourself. It’s hard to find a rich hermit.”

Over to you…

Meet The Board

Posted on by edreidyork


Thursday September 23rd. The first meeting of a new Alternative Board. Five complete strangers in a room. Effectively I’m saying to each one of them, “Here are four people you’ve never met before. Shake hands, make two minutes of meaningless small talk over a cup of weak coffee and then tell them the innermost secrets of your business.”

For me, this is what being a TAB facilitator is all about. This is crossing the white line at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. This is the most worrying moment of my job – and by some stretch, it’s the most exciting as well.

Have these people anything in common? Will they gel? Above all, will there be some magic? Will 1+1+1+1+1 equal a lot more than 5?

Obviously, the group isn’t entirely random. I know all the board members, and in my best impression of Simon Cowell putting a boy band together, I think it’ll work. I’m not going to put two people on a board who might not get on: I’m certainly not to have two competing businesses on the same board. And yes, there’s a self-selecting element as well. If the potential members weren’t prepared to contribute, they wouldn’t be here.

But like every blind date, there’s a risk. Will the new board’s discussions sit safely on the surface, skirting round the issues they really care about? Or will it go deeper? Because if it doesn’t, they’re going to waste the next three hours.  

As the facilitator, the answer is ‘you don’t know.’ In football-commentator-speak, “it’s a big ask.” Please tell these people you’ve just met what really concerns you about your business, tell them where you want the business to go – or tell them (and this takes some courage) that you don’t have a clue where it’s going.

So the meeting kicked off – with a very slick presentation. A couple of members looked dismayed, on the grounds that they hadn’t prepared anything and were going to ad-lib. Not to worry, they were fine. We went through the necessary introductions and overviews, and then we came to the main event: challenges and opportunities. This is the central point of any TAB meeting. What problems or challenges are you currently facing in your business? What opportunities have suddenly opened up?

Board members have to describe these, ask the other members for advice – and then keep quiet. There’s always a time limit – usually it’s about thirty minutes per member – but it’s always shorter at the first meeting. So as we sat round the table last Thursday everyone was faced with summarising their position and getting feedback in ten minutes.

But remember what George Bernard Shaw once said, “I’m sorry this is such a long letter, I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” Sometimes less is more. Only having ten minutes forced the board members to cut right to the heart of their business. They had to make the best use of the time available. And then they had to listen, effectively. (A seriously underrated skill in business.)

Judging by the comments and the e-mails afterwards, the meeting was a success. And hopefully there’ll be some positive results. We’ve three more meetings planned before Christmas. I’m looking forward to someone standing up in December and saying: ‘Before I tell you about this month’s challenge, something good has happened. And it wouldn’t have happened without the help you four have given me.’

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know…