And What You Achieve Most business owners spend a large proportion of their time surrounded by people they lead. Employees. Customers. Suppliers. All important, but all looking to the owner for direction. Which means something is often missing. Challenge. Not criticism. Not negativity. But genuine, constructive challenge from people who Read more
But Your Business Doesn’t Need to Be The human mind has a built-in bias towards negativity. From an evolutionary perspective, that made perfect sense. For most of human history, survival depended on spotting threats quickly. The person who noticed what might go wrong — the rustle in the bushes, the Read more
Words have power I often hear things that sound good on the surface and yet are often counterproductive and I hear them far more often than you might think. A couple of examples are “affordable” and we are or we are seeking “nice people.” Both sound reasonable. Both feel positive. Read more
It Will Eventually Run Your Life Most people start a business for a good reason and it’s never to work harder or longer than they ever did before. Often, it’s some form of freedom. Freedom to make their own decisions.Freedom to build something of value.Freedom to earn well and live Read more
Most business owners want their business to improve. They want better margins.Better customers.Stronger teams.Less pressure. But there is a point most people try very hard to avoid. Acceptance. Not acceptance in the sense of giving up.Acceptance in the sense of recognising something uncomfortable: Your business runs the way it runs Read more
Most business owners I meet have accepted a quiet belief. Long hours are normal.Firefighting is part of the job.Carrying it all is just what leadership looks like. It’s almost seen as proof you care that you need people to see how hard you work to prove you are worthy of Read more
Below £5m? The Constraint Isn’t Your Market. I work with scientific manufacturing, general manufacturing, joinery and cabinetmaking, property development, hot tub retail, HVAC engineers, classic car restoration, aerospace, training organisations and engineering firms. Different sectors. Different products. Different technical challenges. Same problems. Lack of clarity.Wrong customers.Margin pressure.Operational inefficiency.Owner dependency.Inconsistent leadership. Read more
You Have a Design Problem. When I sit with business owners in the £1m–£5m range, I tend to hear variations of the same frustrations. They sound different on the surface, but they usually fall into five broad areas. And they all share one missing ingredient. Design. The first is a Read more
Most business owners don’t wake up one day and decide to build a stressful business. It happens gradually. What started as being involved becomes being relied upon.What started as oversight becomes control.What started as pride becomes pressure. And before you realise it, the business still runs — but only because Read more
Most business owners don’t ignore problems. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. When something isn’t working properly, they lean in. They stay closer. They work harder. They take more on themselves until they’re sure it’s fixed. That instinct is understandable — and early on, it often works. The problem is Read more