Power 50 Publication - Flipbook - Page 25
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going to be and don’t be put off by the
fact that there is a lot of competition.
There is a lot of work out there, so if you
have something to offer and you have
identified what it is, it’s just about going for
it.”
An impressive number of our Power 50 have set up their own businesses. While there are
many benefits to taking this pathway, not least being master of your own destiny, it can be
hugely challenging both professionally and personally, not to mention lonely at times.
Caroline’s other main advice is hiring
people with complementary skills. “The
natural thing to do when you build a
business is to hire people like you, but
what you need is people with different
skills that complement yours. It’s a
learning curve to realise that you need a
mix of people with different mindsets to
grow effectively as a team. Also, you need
to make sure you focus your role where
your strengths lie, be that client services,
sales and marketing or the financial side
of the business.”
Starting out
Managing growth
Many people who set up their own businesses start out down the freelance or consultant
route and grow from there. Founder of Taylor Bennett Partners, Christine Bennett started
out on her own in 1993, after the IT company she was working for ceased trading. “I thought
to myself that I don’t want other people to be in control of my destiny. I wanted to take
charge, and that’s what made me set up my own business to start with.”
Having some idea of how big you want to
grow and knowing how to manage that
growth is essential to running a successful
business. There are many ways to grow a
business, from gradual organic growth to
aggressive growth, seeking external
investment, and even selling to a bigger
agency – it’s about finding the pace that
suits both you as a leader and your team.
SETTING UP
YOUR OWN AGENCY
She started out as a self-employed marketing and events consultant working for mainly IT
clients, and it grew from there. “I didn’t set out to run my own business, but as I got more
and more work, it was obvious I needed help. Initially I thought that if I could get three days’
work a week, that would be great. I ended up working more like six or seven days a week,
and as I got more and more work, it was obvious I needed help. My husband joined me
after about two years, and we became a partnership and grew from there.”
Christine’s main advice to anyone looking to start out is to make sure you have a support
system in place. “Running your own business takes a huge amount of time. Therefore, you
need to have the support and understanding of your family. I have missed out on things in
my children’s lives like birthdays, but I had their support, and I had the support of my
husband. If you are on your own without a partner – I would advise finding a mentor who
can help you, as you do need someone to sound off and talk things through with.”
Jennifer Davidson, founder of Sleek Events, is a great advocate of coaching and mentoring.
She set up her agency in 2015, while working as a freelancer delivering events for Amazon
Web Services, a division of the global retail giant that provides cloud computing platforms.
“They wanted to recruit me as a permanent member of staff and for me to find an agency
to work with, so I decided to set up on my own and am still working with them now,” she
explains.
“I think a lot of people underestimate how much hard work it is running your own business.
You need to be entrepreneurial, and it takes a lot of hard graft. You are not going to know
everything from day one, and it’s okay not to know everything. If something doesn’t work
out, it’s not the end of the world, you can always fix it.”
Jennifer admits that it can be lonely as a business owner but says that’s where the
mentors and coaches help. “Surround yourself with people who challenge you. I have been
a mentee on the Fast Forward 15 programme and done the Goldman Sachs programme,
and I have a good senior leadership team around me to advise and challenge me too.”
‘What makes you think you can run an agency at your age?’
Not all advice is helpful, of course. When Caroline Lumgair-Wiseman, who launched her
luxury events agency Eventful in 2002 aged just 24, she remembers an older lady in the
industry asking her ‘what makes you think you can run an agency at your age?’ “I never
forgot that, but it just spurred me on. I went straight into working in luxury hotels at 18 so by
that point I had gained quite a bit of experience and felt very capable. It didn’t matter to
me what age I was,” she says, adding that for that one negative comment, there have
been hundreds of encouraging and supportive ones over the past 20 years.
She had also done her homework and knew exactly what her USP was, which is something
she advises anyone planning to launch their own business to do. “It might sound obvious,
but make sure you have researched the market as well as you can. I identified a gap in the
market. At the time I didn’t feel there were that many agencies offering a highly personalised venue finding and event management service,” she says. “Find what your niche is
Taylor Bennett Partners, which currently
has 15 employees and four partners, has
taken the more gradual and organic
approach to growth. “I won’t take on work
if I don’t have the resources to deliver,”
explains Christine. “We could probably
have grown faster, but we are very strong
on customer service, and I think if you
grow too fast you can lose that, and your
client retention suffers.” She adds that the
business grew in several stages, the first
big growth push being around 12 years
ago when her eldest son, who was a 3D
designer joined the business and they
brought creative services in-house, and
the second when one of their clients
Omniture was bought by Adobe and the
account grew.
Sleek, on the other hand, has grown at an
incredibly fast pace. “From when I first
started the business, we saw tremendous
results - year on year growth has been
substantial for Sleek, with year one
turnover of £1.1 million to year four turnover
of £7.6 million - all from organic, word of
mouth growth,” says Jennifer. In 2019, the
agency was ranked 19th in the Times
Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100 league table,
which ranks Britain's 100 private companies with the fastest-growing sales over
their latest three years.
“We are incredibly fast-paced at Sleek. We
are up against some big agencies out
there, so if we don’t differentiate ourselves,
we are toast. The fast pace doesn’t suit
everyone and finding people that can
keep up with the speed that we operate
can be a challenge,” she says. “We are
back to 21 full timers and in the process of
growing our client base, so expect to
