Work/Life

The Entrepreneur’s Journey: Taking the First Steps

Posted on by edreidyork


So you’ve done it. You’ve pushed your breakfast round the plate, wondered why you weren’t with your family and said, ‘That’s it. There has to be a better way.’

And a few days later you’ve burned your bridges – or at least written a letter which can be boiled down to two words: ‘I resign.’

Child Climbing Steps

You’ve committed yourself to the entrepreneur’s journey. Now you need to take the first steps: you need to write a business plan and you need to raise some money.

The chances are that you’d already ‘written’ a business plan before you wrote your resignation letter. I’ve seen potential entrepreneurs – for now, still employed – with business plans at every stage of completion: from neatly bound, carefully worded documents complete with a three year cash flow forecast – to four lines on the back of the proverbial envelope.

For some people the lead up to the resignation letter is calculated and carefully worked out. For others – as it was for me – it’s the moment when that gnawing sense of unease suddenly crystallises. When there really does ‘have to be something better than this – and it has to be now.’

Most of us know the basics of a good business plan – but I am always conscious that this blog is also being read by people who haven’t yet been tempted to tell the MD what they really think… So let me recap the essential details of a business plan:

· What are you going to do? Simply put, what’s the business about?

· What are your goals and objectives?

· Why are you the person to make it work?

· What’s the market? And what’s your marketing plan?

· Who are your competitors? What makes you different?

· If you’re designing and/or developing a product, what are your plans for that?

· Operations and management: how will the business function on a day to day basis?

· How much money do you need? If you’re investing money in the business, where is that coming from? And if you’re borrowing money, how are you going to pay it back?

· And lastly some numbers – projected profit and loss and cash flow forecasts

Those are the basics – but this is The Alternative Board. We’re about a lot more than the basics. We’re about keeping your work/life balance well and truly balanced. About the business working for you, not – as the vast majority of entrepreneurs find – you

working for the business. So your business plan needs to contain something else – something you need to get right from the outset.

Your business plan needs to contain two commitments – to yourself and to your family. To yourself a commitment that you’ll take time off, that you’ll make the time to keep fit – mentally and physically – and that you’ll invest time and money in self-improvement. Because if you don’t grow, your business cannot grow.

Secondly, a commitment to the people you love. That you’ll be there for them. That you won’t have your body at home and your soul back at the office. However high up the mountain you climb, the view is a lot better if you’re sharing it with someone.

I also like to see a business plan contain a statement of values: this is what we believe in, these are the ethics that underpin the business. Your business needs to be profitable: it needs to be one you’re proud of as well.

And now let me backtrack to the business plan. Because there at the bottom is the thorny question of finance. How much money do you need to start the business? Where is it going to come from and – if you’re borrowing the money – what are you going to use for security? Despite the increasing popularity of new initiatives like Funding Circle, Kickstarter campaigns and venture capital investors, the bank is still far and away the most popular option – and the bank will ask for security. Personal guarantees are never far away for the owners of most SMEs and in many cases, neither is your house.

This is the moment when the price of building your business really hits home. This is the moment when you say to your husband/wife/partner, ‘The house is on the line. The bank want some security and, I’m sorry, that means the house.’

That’s a difficult moment for your relationship. The house you bought together, where you’re raising your family: the house you have plans for… Suddenly there’s the spectre of someone else holding the keys: of a letter arriving from the bank politely inviting you to move out. However much someone loves you, that’s a difficult moment. It’s the moment you realise it’s not just you that will be paying the price.

Which is why that line in the business plan is so important. Time with your family. Yes, you’re building a business – but making sure you don’t miss the Nativity Play is every bit as important. Fortunately, you’re among friends: everyone at TAB UK is committed to making sure you’re sitting proudly in the front row.

If it Ain’t Broke…

Posted on by edreidyork


You’re the one who had the idea.

You’re the one who persuaded the bank. Convinced your wife to put your house on the line.

You’re the one who went in early. Stayed late. Made sacrifices.

You’re the one who took the difficult decisions. Sat down with Bill and explained – as gently as you could – that his future wasn’t with the business.

You’re the one whose energy, drive, commitment – and sometimes your sheer force of will – has taken the company to where it is now.

And now, Sir or Madam, I am telling you to do nothing. Play golf. Have another day at York races. Walk the Pilgrim Way.

“What?” you splutter. “That’s ridiculous advice. I need to be there. Hands-on, constantly fine-tuning the business, ever-present.”

images

No, you don’t. Let me explain…

Several times over the last few years I’ve had conversations with entrepreneurs along these lines: “I’ve got nothing to do, Ed. Everything’s under control. I could walk out for a day. For a week, a month even. Things would still run smoothly.”

Are the entrepreneurs happy about that? No, they see it as a sign of failure.

But it’s not failure. It’s exactly the opposite: a sign of success.

I’ve written about this before, but if you haven’t built a business you can walk away from then you haven’t built a business. Because one day you’re going to sell the business and if it is entirely dependent on you – if you are the business – then you have nothing to sell.

Entrepreneurs are driven, passionate, committed people. They love working and they love working hard. Secretly, they’re never happier than when they have to set the alarm for 4:30.

But businesses are constantly evolving. No business goes upwards in a straight line. There are always steps and plateaus. And one of those plateaus might suddenly see you with nothing to do. Trust me, it won’t last. Every time an entrepreneur has said, “Ed, I’ve nothing to do,” it’s been followed one, three or six months later by, “Ed, I’ve never been busier.”

In the short term, though, the hiatus can be a real problem for the entrepreneur. They’re conditioned to see doing nothing – not constantly running at 100mph, not being there all the time – as a sign of failure.

They start to feel guilty, start to think they’ve missed something. And sooner or later they start to make changes for the sake of making changes.

Tap ‘entrepreneur doing nothing’ into Google and the search engine doesn’t believe you. By the third listing it has defaulted to the norm: ‘Why nothing less than 100% can ever be enough.’

Once you’ve built your business to a certain size, your job changes. It’s another topic I’ve covered previously – and I’ll be writing about it again next week – but your job is no longer to work in your business, it is to work on your business. Clients and customers still need to see you, but they do not need to see you behind the counter – or whatever you equivalent of a counter is.

Working on your business means a lot more thinking time and a lot less ‘doing’ time. Initially, it can be a difficult transition – but let me repeat: resist the urge to meddle, to look for problems where none exist.

And if you do find yourself with nothing to do, remember it’s not a sign that your business is broken. It is not a reason for you to feel guilty. It’s a sign of success. So enjoy it. Take time off and re-charge your batteries. Spend time with your family. Give something back to your local community. You deserve the break – and don’t worry: you’ll soon be smiling quietly to yourself and re-setting the alarm clock…

Work/Life Balance: It’s Not Just You…

Posted on by edreidyork


Let me introduce Helena Morrissey, non-executive chair of Newton Investment Managers and campaigner for greater gender diversity in the boardroom. Oh, and mother of nine children…

Someone sent me the link. ‘What does this say about work/life balance, Ed?’ she wittily added.

I won’t tell you what I thought. Nine children and a city career? Despite the fact that husband Richard is a full-time, stay-at-home Dad, Helena Morrissey still describes herself as “chief laundry lady, story-reader, times-table-tester, cake-maker, present-buyer, holiday and party organiser.”

That’s an impressive list by anyone’s standards – although I’m obviously disappointed to see she’s not coaching rugby as well…

tips-work-life-balance

Work/life balance – the underlying and perennial theme of this blog – was much in the news over the festive period and, with due deference to Ms Morrissey, the stories largely focused on men. In particular the BBC featured this article – with nearly half of working fathers saying they’d like a less stressful job if it meant more time caring for their children. Even more significantly, a third of working fathers would be prepared to take a pay cut in return for more time with their children.

We’re entrepreneurs: we choose to do what we do. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t stressful and – as I wrote last week – the problems and uncertainties the entrepreneur faces every day would overwhelm the vast majority of managers.

Why do we do what we do? I’d say that for most of us there are two principal reasons:

  • Providing the very best we can for our families
  • And providing for our own drive and ego: we have to do what we know we’re capable of doing: we don’t ever want to look back and think ‘if only’

But balancing those two aims is one of the hardest jobs you’ll ever do. ‘Providing the very best’ doesn’t just mean material things, it also means time. Quality time doesn’t have to mean the zoo, the swimming pool or a football match: one of the most important lessons I ever learned was that to a small child quality time with Dad is just time with Dad.

“I missed my children growing up” is one of the saddest sentences in the English language and it’s one that too many men are still saying. It’s emphatically not something I ever want to hear around a TAB table.

But as employers, ‘work/life balance’ runs deeper for us. Because we have a duty not only to ourselves, but to members of our team as well. Running your own business brings tremendous pressures – but it also brings control over your own diary. When you’re employed and your boss says, “You need to be in Aberdeen next Thursday,” then you’ll be in Aberdeen, whether it’s sports day or the nativity play. If you run the company, you do at least have the option of thinking, ‘When do I want to be in Aberdeen?’

Not everyone wants to start their own business: but everyone wants to spend time with the children. Entrepreneurs need to be aware of that – and realise that their businesses will benefit as result.

There are now any number of studies showing the benefits of flexible working, for both the employer and the employee: put simply, people who work flexibly are happier and more productive. As technology advances – ‘Alexa, run through the cash flow figures will you?’ – flexible and remote working is going to be on a par with working in the office. Embrace it. Recent results from a Vodafone survey – with 8,000 global employers – saw 83% of respondents say that flexible working had boosted productivity, with SMEs the main beneficiaries.

As businesses fight to recruit and retain key staff, flexible working is going to become as important as someone’s pay packet – and it offers everyone running a business a tremendous opportunity. You can help your team with their work/life balance, improve the quality of their life – and boost your bottom line at the same time.

Quick! Have Another Holiday

Posted on by edreidyork


If you can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it…

Regular readers know that quotation from Kipling is one of my favourites. Written in 1895 and first published in 1910, If is parental advice to the poet’s son, John. I’m sure Kipling didn’t mean it, but those three lines are also some of the best business advice around. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of productive work you will undoubtedly succeed, my son.

So why am I going to use this week’s post to recommend that you fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of lying on the beach?

Vacation Home

“Damn it, Ed, most of us have just come back from holiday. September to December: four months of solid work is what’s needed now. All targets achieved, everything in place for an even more successful 2016.”

Yes, you’re right. But just make sure that you have a break between now and December – and that ‘everything in place for 2016’ includes holidays.

…Because there is more and more evidence that going without holidays is seriously bad for you.

  • People who don’t take proper holidays have a substantially higher risk of heart disease
  • A British/Finnish survey linked long hours to a much higher incidence of depression
  • Swedish research found that taking regular holidays and short breaks boosts creativity and cognitive reasoning

It’s another of those cases where a quick internet search throws up more results than you can handle – but here’s the original article in Quartz that triggered this post.

There’s a link here with last week’s post about staying in control. It’s tempting to think that the office can’t function without you and that the only way to stay in control is to stay in the office. There are two simple answers to that point: firstly if the office can’t function without you then you haven’t built a business and, secondly, you and I both know that the longer you stay in the office without a break the less you’re in control.

If you want to see the law of diminishing returns at work in your business, cancel your holidays and work through the weekends.

Maybe we should ‘do the math’ as my American colleagues would say. If you work 40 weeks of the year and work 40 hours at maximum efficiency you’ll have 1,600 productive hours in the year. Work 50 hours for 50 weeks at 60% efficiency and you’ll have 1,500 productive hours – and every chance of visiting A&E sooner than you should.

The longer I’m in business – and the more I work with people running businesses – the more I think holidays and breaks are vital. It’s about working efficiently and productively. None of us are in the hours business: we’re all in the results business.

And you can’t produce the results if you’re stale, tired, depressed – or in a hospital bed.

Let me finish with what I think are two key points:

Record your time – or do something to check that you really are being productive. I still remember the shock when I first used Toggl and realised how much time I was wasting. I think the maths above is perfectly valid: but it’s only valid if you really are working productively.

Secondly, don’t waste your holidays, breaks and weekends. ‘Work hard, play hard’ is a dreadful cliché, but I do believe in ‘work productively, play productively.’ The holidays/breaks that leave me really refreshed are the ones where I’ve done something specific or learned something new. Maybe it’s my age (or maybe it’s having children!) but lying on the beach doesn’t do it for me any more.

With that I’ll leave you to enjoy a productive weekend – hopefully in every sense of the word…

You Can’t Do a Full Day’s Work in December

Posted on by edreidyork


One of the recurring themes running through the blog this year has been the line from Rudyard Kipling’s If:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run

I’ve always tried to do that. And I’ve quoted my very first sales manager a few times as well: Just do a full day’s work every day, Ed, and you’ll be ahead of 95% of the people out there.

So you might think that Fridays occasionally drive me to distraction, as people don’t bother replying to e-mails and don’t return phone calls: as the slide to knocking off early starts around lunchtime and rapidly accelerates through the afternoon.

Yes, they do.

You might further assume that if Fridays drive me to distraction, December must have me reaching for the tranquilisers; after all, I sent someone a perfectly reasonable e-mail on December 2nd:

Thanks for getting in touch. Yes, could well be interested, but snowed under this week. Can I get back to you after Tuesday of next week?

His answer came back on December 3rd.

Hey, no problem! Let’s catch up in the New Year. I’ve put a date in my diary for the week commencing the 5th.

Delaying something until New Year on December 3rd? When there are still fourteen working days to go? That can’t be the way to do business. Fourteen working days is around 7% of the year. No wonder there’s a budget deficit – and cue irate letters to the editor all round.

Actually, no. I was fine with that. December is not a normal month – your priorities in December have to be different.

Today is December 12th – and one of my Board members is having her fourth Christmas lunch of the week (photo of her 3rd –  TAB board lunch with me – here). Followed by her office party this evening.

Whoever you’re involved with – your own business, trade associations, local organisations, charities – they’re all going to invite you to eat turkey. You probably can’t say ‘no’ and you definitely can’t go back to your office and be 100% efficient afterwards.

So you need to judge December differently. As I’ve said many times, no-one ever does 100% of what they want to get done – so if you only get 80% done, you need to make sure it’s the right 80%. And in December ‘the right 80%’ consists of reflection, having some fun, saying ‘thank you’ and making sure you’re fresh and ready to go on January 2nd or 5th – or whenever you come back from skiing. These are far more important priorities at this time of year than chasing every possible appointment.

When you get a moment between the dinners and lunches, take stock and ask yourself a few questions. I like these four:

  • What have we done right this year?
  • What have we done wrong or badly?
  • What have we realised we can do that we didn’t think we could do?
  • And what new markets have we stumbled across?

December is also a time to say ‘thank you’ and to reflect on the year’s highlights – and I’ll be back next week to do exactly that. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

And so to bed… But for how long?

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The stories are now legend. She would have a whisky and go to bed around two. By six she was wide awake again, arguing on the phone with Gorbachev.

Of course, I’m talking about Margaret Thatcher, the woman who famously managed on three or four hours sleep a night. Yes, the stories may have been embellished to add to the ‘iron lady’ image but it’s well documented that Mrs T. managed with an amount of sleep that would see most of us wiped out after three days.

Hugely successful American businesswoman Martha Stewart claims to need a similarly low amount of sleep, whilst Isaac Newton is reputed to have slept for two hours a night and worked for the other twenty-two. Meanwhile Barack Obama is apparently a-bed by 1:00, before the White House press secretary brings him a cuppa and the crisis report at 7:00.

Away from making a fortune, watching apples fall and ruling the free world, I go to bed around 11:00 and I’m up by 6:00 or, occasionally, 6:30. I’m fine with that – seven hours seems to get me through the week effectively and (hopefully) efficiently. But then I need to crash out for one day at the weekend, sleeping for maybe nine or ten hours as my body – and my brain – recover.

And according to the latest research it’s letting your brain recover that’s important. While you’re asleep your brain cells apparently shrink, opening up gaps between the neurons so that fluid can ‘wash your brain clean.’

When you’re running your own business it’s tempting to try and manage on less sleep – especially when you’ve deadlines to meet. It’s equally tempting to work longer hours and sacrifice your weekends. Don’t. Work/life balance is important and work/sleep balance counts every bit as much.

The effects of sleep deprivation are well documented. Doctors make more mistakes after long shifts. Sleep deprived drivers are as dangerous as drivers who’ve been drinking. And without enough sleep we’re all likely to make bad business decisions as our ability to concentrate decreases.

As always, the best advice is simple. Do what works for you. We all have certain times of day when we’re at our best and we all have amounts of sleep that work for us. Your Granny’s wisdom: ‘an hour before midnight is worth two after’ may no longer apply – and with the global 24/7 economy, ‘early to bed, early to rise, makes a man happy, wealthy and wise’ doesn’t seem quite so sound either. It’s always early morning somewhere: I could roll out of bed at 11:00 and still impress my TAB colleagues in Denver.

So find out what works for you and structure your day round it. One of my friends is a certified lunatic who regularly e-mails me at 5am. But then he freely admits that he’s ready for bed at nine. By the same token I receive some remarkably lucid e-mails sent at midnight. And later…

I’ve heard the argument a few times that the self-employed/owners of SMEs are ‘morning’ people – and go to bed earlier than the general average. I’m not so sure that’s right. I wonder if there really is an ‘entrepreneur’s body clock?’

Without giving away too many of your more intimate secrets this is one where I’d really like to hear your views and opinions – and what works for you. But for me, there’s five minutes of Jools Holland on the Sky planner and then it’s bed.

Have a great weekend – and sleep well…

Why you won’t be frightened to go home next year

Posted on by edreidyork


I remember having a conversation with a senior manager at British Steel – one of the handful of conversations you have in your life that you always remember. He was looking a little depressed…

“Teenagers, Ed. Taxi and a cash dispenser, that’s all I am. I try and impart a bit of wisdom – they think I’m an idiot.”

I made some sort of non-committal noise and wondered if maybe the children communicated with his wife.

“How would I know? We haven’t spoken for about three months. I might as well move my bed into the office. To tell you the truth, I’m only happy when I’m at work. Domestic bliss? You can keep it…”

At the time Dav and I had been living together for six weeks. Domestic bliss? Too right…

And yet as I’ve grown older and worked in several large companies I’ve seen the same pattern over and over again. Perhaps not expressed quite as forcibly as my old manager, but there nevertheless. People coming into the office earlier and earlier; starting to arrange meetings at 6pm so they’re forced to stay late; grabbing any excuse to be away overnight.

In Christopher Hitchens’ excellent book Hitch-22 he quotes his father, a retired naval commander, as saying “The war was the only time when I really felt I knew what I was doing.” Swap ‘work’ for ‘war’ and the gist of that sentence seems to be true for all too many people.

Work is the place where they feel fulfilled, happy and safe – whereas home is a foreign country. I see so many business owners working longer and longer hours, mistakenly thinking that the only way to beat the recession is to throw more hours at it. You have to provide for your family? Of course you do – but that means providing time as well as money. A bigger pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is all very fine – but not at the expense of watching your children’s football or ballet. And especially if the effort of providing the pot of gold means you’re not there to share it.

So let’s do something about that, shall we? Let me throw down a challenge – not just to the members of my TAB boards – but everyone who reads the blog. (And yes, the challenge includes my TAB colleagues.)

TAB is about getting what you want from your business and your life. It’s about remembering the importance of your Work/Life Balance. It’s about recognising – as I wrote this time last year – that there’s not much point climbing to the top of the mountain if there’s no-one with you to share the view.

This is when we’re all making plans and setting goals for next year. So my challenge is simple: your list of goals for 2013 must contain at least as many home/family life goals as it contains work ones.

After all the latest Government survey seems to prove that money is a long way from being the sole determinant of happiness. And I’m conscious that as some of my TAB boards start to mature we need to widen the focus away from the sales targets and the bottom line to look at the broader picture. So I’ll be asking all my board members to have goals for 2013 that reflect what they want from business and – just as importantly – what they want from life.

As Bill Clinton might have said, “It’s the work/life balance, stupid.”

I Don’t Want to Win

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It’s good to be back – and I have to tell you, I missed the blog. This was the longest break since the blog began and somehow Fridays weren’t quite the same…

If you don’t mind, I’m going to hark back to the Olympics, because there was a discussion in the BBC studio on the final Saturday of the Games that I’ve been thinking about for the past two weeks. It goes right to the heart of my thinking, and right to the heart of everything that TAB is about.

It’s the final of the Women’s 800m final. South African athlete Caster Semenya comes from a long way back to take second place. “A poorly judged race,” says Steve Cram. “She left it too late.”

One of the pundits takes a slightly different view. “I just wonder,” muses Colin Jackson, “With everything that’s gone on in her life, did she prefer to finish second?”

Michael Johnson almost explodes. Gold medal winner, world record holder, he simply can’t conceive of anyone wanting to finish second.

John Inverdale asks Jackson to elaborate. “Absolutely,” he replies. “In my time in athletics I knew plenty of athletes who had it all. Who could have won gold, but they settled for silver.”

Inverdale is astonished: but then Denise Lewis chimes in. “Winning brings pressure,” she says. “It’s high profile. Publicity. The demand to do it again.”

Those discussions in the athletics studio were one of the highlights of the Games for me. Full marks to Inverdale for taking the discussions into sometimes-murky waters. And full marks to the BBC for letting him.

The parallels between business and sport are well documented – and ‘what an Olympic gold medallist can teach you about business success’ has become a well-worn path. If one of us isn’t eating rubber chicken and listening to Jess Ennis in the next six months I’ll be astonished…

But maybe there’s another parallel here: maybe there’s an interesting parallel with the athletes Colin Jackson knows – the ones who were prepared to settle for second place.

Do I know people in business who’ve achieved less than they’re capable of? Absolutely. Do I know people who could have been the MD of a PLC or run their own businesses and made a fortune? Yes – how long do you want the list to be?

Do these people think of themselves as failures? Are they unhappy? Almost without exception, no.

There’s an old saying, ‘Take what you want from life – and pay for it.’ While I was in France with my family and while I was in Denver without them, I realised how much they mean to me – and how precious the time with my boys is. Not long now and Dan will be a teenager: Rory is growing up fast. Dav and I are already noticing that we have more time on our own than we used to, and that’s only going to increase.

So yes, I’m determined to make TAB York a huge success and I’m determined to help you all build your business – but there’s something else that I’m determined to help you get right, and that’s your work/life balance.

That’s not to say I’ll sit idly by in a 1:1 while you say, “I think I’ll miss all my targets this month, Ed.” But it is to say that ‘take my children camping’ is every bit as valid a target as ‘double our sales of widgets.’

So yes – I know plenty of people in business who didn’t achieve as much as they could have done. By the same token, I know plenty of people who have achieved every bit of material and corporate success they ever wanted. But in far too many cases it’s come at too great a price. All too often they’ve reached the summit – only to look down on the wreckage of their family life.

Business is great – but on its own, it’s not enough. By all means climb the mountain – and decide how high you want to go. But take the people you love with you. And if I can help, I will.

Ed Reid and the Philosopher’s Tome

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Good morning – and Happy New Year. I hope you had a truly splendid Christmas – and a less than savage hangover when you woke up on Sunday morning.

And to start the New Year…a bit of philosophy.

This is now a mature blog. You’re reading post no. 79 – so the blog is no longer a child trying to find its feet. It’s not a pimply teenager trying to sort out what it believes in. The blog is a reflection of my values and beliefs. So what are they? And more importantly, what does that mean for you? What will I be trying to help you achieve in 2012?

First and foremost, my philosophy – and that of the entire Alternative Board organisation – is that your business is there to provide you with what you want out of life. And like all good planning, it flows backwards: it’s the second of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits – ‘begin with the end in mind.’

• What life do you want to live?
• What stage does your business need to reach to provide you with that life?
• Where are you now?
• So what needs to happen?

Being in business at any time – never mind the current mire that we’re all wading through – is difficult. So you need to be rewarded for running a business and damn it, you are entitled to be rewarded!

I also believe that you should enjoy being an entrepreneur: however weighed down you might feel by the latest diktats from health & safety or compliance, believe me – there are millions of people out there who would swap places with you in an instant.

Third point – and this has been a recurring theme ever since I started the blog – whatever needs to happen, only one person is going to make it happen. And we all know who that is.

But the good news is, it’s within your power. There is not a person sitting round an Alternative Board table; there is no-one reading this blog who doesn’t have the talent and the capacity to make 2012 a truly memorable year. As I’ve said many times, you can spend the next New Year’s Eve thinking could’ve-should’ve-would’ve…or you can open the champagne, kiss the ones you love and look back on a fantastic year. To borrow the best advertising slogan of all time, ‘Just do it.’

…And remember that you’re in it for the long haul. As I wrote a few weeks ago – we’re in a privileged position. No-one is going to come along and tell us it’s time to retire: that whether we’ve achieved our goals or not, the game’s over. So I believe you should plan your business and make your decisions based on being around for a long time.

Hand in hand with that goes ethics. The first business book I ever read was Up the Organization by Bob Townsend and I still remember one of the quotations: “apart from playing poker on a Friday night, don’t lie and don’t try to fool people.”

Maybe I’m just a bit old-fashioned but it seems to me there’s a right and wrong way of doing things, and when I finally do decide to retire, I want to know that I’ve done it the right way.

One of my fundamental reasons for that is simple: I’m a role model for my children. And no, they don’t have a clue what goes on at work – but I do, and how can I look my kids in the eye if I’m not behaving ethically? Which brings me back to my first point, and to the reason most of us do what we do.

Your business is there to give you the lifestyle you want: for me, and for virtually every one of my Board members and colleagues as well, an integral part of that comes back to my work/life balance. As someone said to me last year: “I’m absolutely determined that my business is going to be a success. And I’m just as determined that I’ll be there on Sports Day.”

A fine sentiment to start the New Year. Let’s do it…

Ed in the Hot Seat

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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…