The Blog of an Entrepreneur

It had to happen and I’m not at all surprised, ITV have removed Tycoon from its prime time slot on Tuesday nights and moved it to 10pm on a Monday night (more here). Perhaps we are all getting fed up with all the naff reality TV shows which are filling the air waves at the moment? I remember Eamon Holmes saying once on GMTV, where will reality TV go next? 2 people in an airplane with no fuel and 1 parachute? I share his view, reality TV is getting out of hand and becoming nothing for than a farce. I enjoy watching Dragons Den, The Apprentice is also fun to watch, but anyone can see that these programs do not show real true Entrepreneurs or ground breaking business ideas (the odd exception noted). After all, a true successful Entrepreneur wont give up half their business for only a few grand in investment, nor would put themselves through the embarrasement of a TV show to get a job! As far as I am concerned an interview is a 2-way conversation.
Don’t get me wrong, appearing on Dragon’s Den should not be under valued, just think of the prime time exposure doing so can give your business and product, many Entrepreneur’s have done just that. Ling, owner of LingsCars did just that herself and I know she is doing very well from it…and she did not accept the dragon’s offer of investment. She has maximised her exposure with publicity and joining in debates about her appearance on many forums on the Internet (UKBF included).

I was spending some time talking with some fellow members of a business peer group that I am a member of this evening. We got talking about what every business owner strives to achieve, a business that can survive without the business owner. Where you have a team working in your business for you so that you can work on your business, and this I’m glad to say is what I have achieved in Quick Formations. It isn’t without it’s consequences though, because one thing that came out of the meeting is that it does mean that occasionally I get bored. There isn’t that much to challenge me, so now I need to find something that does and I intend to find that within Quick.

This doesn’t take anything away from the importance of still working your business towards that position, getting it running without the need for you. So I thought I would share some points about how I have achieved this, and they are not recket science.

• Trust your staff to make their own decisions (and mistakes). If they make a mistake it is because you haven’t trained them effectively. As a business owner you learnt from your mistakes, allow others to do the same, let them find their own feet but with some guidance and support.
• Invest in time and training for your staff. It may seem like you are spending time you don’t have training, but a day spent training saves months in the long run. Put everything to one side to focus on the training.
• Reward your staff, don’t take them for granted. Your business will only be as strong as your team, so respect them and treat them like you would like to be treated yourself.
• You have to empower a manager to take control, someone you invest more time and effort into, someone who can make decisions on your behalf. Realise that they will not always make the same decisions you will, but realise that is not necessarily a bad thing.
• Don’t surround yourself with “Yes” people.

Unfortunately not all business owners see it this way. Some people refuse to trust their staff, refuse to properly train their staff, believing that by keeping their staff in the dark gives the business owner some form of power. Unfortunately what they are actually doing is trapping themselves within their business.

I’ve been taking part in a discussion on UKBF about the new Tycoon reality TV show by Peter Jones.
In basic terms the show is about a celebrity Entrepreneur who hand picks 6 wannabe business Tycoons who have a business idea. He then gives them all £10,000 each to get their idea started, and then mentors them and drip feeds them extra money if they can justify to him why they need it. On the face of it the show should be fantastic viewing and a brilliant opportunity for the participants. Especially as the winner takes all, and I mean not just a successful business but also all the profits made by any of the other participants.
Unfortunately I see a few flaws in the show so far. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh considering I’ve only seen the first episode, so shouldn’t really judge, but I’m going to anyway…
Firstly, the participants are not even remotely Entrepreneurial. If these are the best of the applicants who applied to take part in the show then we have problems because I wouldn’t employ these people for basic office admin let alone invest money into them! If Peter Jones played a part in selecting these people then I have to question his people judgement skills.
Secondly, every single idea that each of these people have is appalling. Really bad, flawed and nothing unique or expandable. Are these the best ideas that all the applicants could come up with?
Thirdly, and I hope this is just selectively editing for TV, but Peter’s people management style leaves a lot to be desired. His mentoring is a far stretch from what I call mentoring … “Change this, do that, now get out of my office” doesn’t really teach people anything. There is no education and no guidance there at all. He then does something good and take people outside when you need to slate them, and then almost brings the “silly kid” to tears by slating him in front of the others. Now I know this has to make good TV, but I dont find watching a wannabe TV celeb almost bringing a kid to tears entertaining.
One thing that did stick out to me was the chair positions in his office. When I speak to my staff on a level, I sit next to them and we talk. When I’m interviewing or giving appraisals I sit at a desk with them in front of me with myself and the staff member “at” the desk. Peter sat right behind his desk and positions the participants chair a good few feet from his desk, so they were sat intimidatingly out in the open. This is the actions of a boss who wants to belittle and intimidate his staff, a bully. If you work for someone who does this I’d suggest finding yourself another job within a boss who cares about his staff.
Peter may have done this on the instruction of the producers to make good TV, and I hope that is the case because a friend of mine who has met Peter in persons says he’s actually quite a nice guy. He just isn’t endearing himself to me so far in his new show.

Let’s hope that the show improves, the editing improves to stop Peter looking like an abrassive bully, and they get some good candidates with some proper business ideas which may actually work!

I was reading the blog of Dan Martin, the new Chairman and face of UKBF. He wrote quite an interesting article on celebrity entrepreneurs, and whether this celebrity stardom of many key Entrepreneurs is a good or a bad thing. The key example he mentions is Victoria Beckham, and what good does she have to offer to the business world, really?
I have been approached recently by someone asking if I wanted to be involved in a business venture that relies on a successful Entrepreneurs wish to be recognised and well known for their achievements. Then when I thought about it, he’s right. I looked around the lecture circuit, public speakers and various networking events, and various business books. I thought about blogging, why did I start a blog? Why do I give public talks? I thought about this even more when a new well known member joined UKBF, Chris Kaday. The previous Managing Director of Commodore, he runs his own blog, gives talks and mentors. I’ve lost count of how many autobiographies there are for Entrepreneurs.

I can’t help but realise that many successful Entrepreneurs do look for recognition for their achievements, and I have to be honest and include myself.
I titled this post as An Entrepreneurs Ego to raise the question, is this really all about their ego though or is it something deeper? This reminded me of a thread I replied to on another forum over 3 years ago, and this is basically what I believe. It is not about their ego, but in the majority of cases Entrepreneurs are driven to succeed because they want to better their lives from what they had before, and in doing so they look for the recognition for their achievements from those around them.
“Look at me now, I’ve proved you all wrong” - are they saying this to old school teacher? To family and friends, or are they saying it to themselves? Is it a wanting to prove to themselves that they can be a success, or is it a wanting to prove to others. I’m sure there are examples of both, but I would hazzard a guess that the majority want to prove to themselves.

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What the hell, why not start my blog off with a nice and controversial post :).

I was playing golf with a client on Thursday, and one of the topics of discussion we had on the course was about our families and that his second child is due in a couple of months. My wife and I were also talking this weekend about her role in life, where she fits into our family and what her purpose is. I need to explain to those who don’t know that her mum died very suddenly, very recently, so generally she is finding things very difficult. She did the Race for Life last week which gave her something to focus on, a purpose, but now that is past she currently doesn’t have much to take her mind away from her loss. Despite everything else personal with this conversation, later on I did wonder about other Stay at Home mothers in comparison to Career Women, and even what I think of the difference. What about Back to Work mothers? This is a whole can of worms which I think are just ripe to be opened.

My wife used to run her own business, she owned a specialist expensive gift shop in partnership with her mum, selling basically rather expensive teddy bear’s and doll’s. I thought that was great and I enjoyed my wife having her own business. We shared thoughts and ideas for each others businesses.

Now I’m quite a traditional guy, and I can’t help but believe that when a child is born unless there is a significant reason why the mum shouldn’t stay at home with the child then they should. I realise this is very taboo in this day and age, and I know quite a few women who go out to work very soon after the give birth. In fact my brother’s wife did just that. I’m just very lucky that wife shares the same belief as me otherwise we would have had some very interesting discussions 5 years ago. But is there a right or wrong? My clients wife actually earned a higher salary than him before their first child, so I would have expected him to become the house husband and her to go back out to work, but instead it was the other way round. My brother didn’t earn enough to support the family so she had to go back out to work. Sometimes it is not possible to have what some may think is the perfect situation, what is the perfect situation?

This leads me back to the conversation with my wife. I do understand that her greiving will be affecting her thoughts, but I am sure that many women in the world feel what she is feeling. Do they all feel that their job is unimportant, unpaid skivvy, a constant uphill battle always running around tidying up the mess left by others (can sometimes feel like that in the office!). Perhaps feeling their role is not as important as the bread winners.

I explained to my wife that we both have an important role in our family. Yes I may be the bread winner as the expression goes but I only bring in the materialistic things, I pay for the TV, the electricity, all the things we can still survive without. Worst case scenario is that we could still have a family together living in a tent in a field with none of what I do for the family and still be a family. She looks after the hub of our family, the emotional aspects, she makes our home a home. She remembers the birthdays, makes the childrens dinners, she is the single biggest influence on our children and will determine what ethics and responsabilities our children will grow up with. She see’s more of them than I do, so this comment does stand to reason. It is really her that has the most important role in our family, it is her that is the glue that gells us all together, that holds the family together. She makes the home.

So is this the woman’s place? A home maker, a mother?

What about women who want a career? There are hundreds of organisations setup just to give women a chance in business, and I know a lot of women who have great careers. Do I think any less of them because they want a career and not be a mother? Of course not! Despite what may be interpreted from my comments above, I may be traditional but I’m not sexist. I agree with opening the door for a lady and I’d never let a my wife pay for a meal at a restaurant, but I’d never choose a man for a management position over a woman just based on their sex. In fact I actually think women make better people managers than men. There still is an issue that business owners need to take into account when employing women though, and no sexual discrimination act can hide this fact. There is a very strong possability that any woman who works for an organisation is probably going to take a year or so off work to raise a child, or two, or more. When this happens the company has to keep the job open for that person to return, and more often than not they get a phone call at the eleventh hour saying “I’m not coming back”. So after a year of paying their wages for maternity leave and not employing a replacement, they then have to recruit a replacement. It is easy to understand why some people will look at a (young) woman less favourably than a man for a senior position in their company when considering the future of the company.

Is this bad planning on that company’s part though? Should companies be allowed to plan for the highly inevitable that younger women will leave to start a family and then have the option to walk back into their same role a year later? Is it practical for small companies to do this? Probably not because a year is a very long time in business, but the law says they must so they must.

So where does this leave women, what is the women’s place? Personally I agree that women should have an opportunity to have a career and to get as far in business as they can until the time they wish to start a family with their partner. When that time happens it is their decision whether they wish to return to work and have their child looked after by someone else (nursery, family, nanny, etc). At that point I’m lucky my wife shares the same ideology as me and that we can afford for my wife to be a stay at home mum, but not everyone can. I dont think women should be frowned upon for returning to work and having their children looked after by someone else. For the businesses I also don’t feel it is fair on small businesses that the government expects them to hold the same job open for the women to walk back into her original position, but if they can then great. If they can’t then they simply can’t. When the women either returns to work, whether after the children are raised or before, then again she should have every same opportunity as the man. However there is no avoiding that bit in the middle, women are the only sex that can carry and give birth to children, they will almost always leave to have a family. So women are not the same as men, each sex has its own strengths and weaknesses and there is no getting away from that.