For yesterday’s Enterprise Gateway, I was joined by Paul Smalley. Since 2004, Paul has been the Managing Director of Paper Mountain Solutions Ltd – my company’s‘engine room’. I always find it more of a challenge to interview people I know well, but it’s also fun – and I think Paul enjoyed it more than he was expecting to!
I billed the show as being about ‘a brand new venture to help brand new ventures’, because Paul wasn’t actually in the studio to promote PMS. He was there to talk about his new company – Startup Revolution – which grew out of the experience he and his wife, Joy, have gained from running their business for the last seven years.
Paper Mountain works mainly with established businesses, relieving them of the aspects of enterprise that most of us find a real bind – but Paul and Joy are mad enough to enjoy! – things like the books, VAT returns, the production of management information etc. Through their growing team, they also look after clients’ phone-calls, post and so on. In fact, these days it’s an all-round front- and back-office support service.
A couple of years ago, they started thinking about how they might be able to help people in the very early stages of business – either at the startup stage, or when the business is beginning to grow.
If you’ve been there you’ll know that At startup, there’s so much to think about – everything from logos to websites, from Companies House forms to business plans. Then as the clients/customers start to flow faster, so does the stream of paperwork – just at the moment when there’s less and less time to deal with it!
In 2009, though, PMS didn’t have the setup to offer that kind of help, so the idea was shelved – until earlier this year, when it came up in a conversation Paul was having with a bank. The bank loved the idea but said ‘It would take at least eighteen months/two years to bring that to the table – then you might be too late to catch the current startup wave’. ‘That was like a red rag to a bull,’ Paul told me yesterday, ‘so we sat down and started planning it seriously.’
In the last six months, they’ve partnered up with Isight media, who bring design creativity and technical expertise on the marketing front to the table, and they’ve put a workflow management system in place, which allows them to organize and manage the flow of work through the office and also allows the client to keep track online.
So yesterday saw the official launch of the idea which was supposed to take ‘at least eighteen months’ to pull together.
What did we close the show with? Marc Bolan, ‘Children of the Revolution’ – obviously!
So why ‘rhinos on the radio’?
Well, as you’ll know if you listen to the programme or drop in here every now and then, I’m very interested in what makes a successful entrepreneur – what we really need. In light of Paul’s experience and his own new enterprise, I asked him the question. His answer? ‘You’ve got to be able to take the knocks – you need a skin like a rhino!’ He’s got a point…
On next week’s show, I’m welcoming back Loretta Fletcher of Bella Vois. When she was last on, she was talking about naturally beautiful nails and spray tans. This time, she’s telling me the inspirational story of how she turned a problem into potential to create her business in the first place. Catch it at 3PM Thursday on 97.8 FM in the Basildon & East Thurrock area, or online at gateway978.com
Actually, I’m on air from 1 til 4 next Thursday. My colleague, Alsion H, is away, so I’m doing the whole show – always good fun.
Feedback: A painful noise? Or music to your ears?
A couple of years ago, I did a presentation under this title. It was all about the similarities I’d spoted between two apparently completely different kinds of feedback – the horrible, high-pitched whistling noise you get in a studio, or with a PA system, when the mic is too close to a speaker or a pair of headphones and the sound circles around between the two, and negative comments from customers.
I hadn’t thought of it in ages – until yesterday.
I’m currently adapting a series of training courses I normally deliver personally, into downloadable packages. If you’ve never done that, it isn’t as easy as it looks. When I’m face to face with a client or group of clients, although I follow the same basic process each time, their questions and feedback play a significant role in deciding what we focus on and how I deliver the information.. The online version has to include everything and be user-friendly for everyone who wants to use it.
As I’m too close to the subject and the material to judge whether I’m hitting either of those objectives, I’ve asked a small group of people to road-test the course as I develop it. Yesterday saw the first major milestone, when I sent them the first draft of the first module.
To be honest, I was quite surprised how nervous I was – it was almost as bad as when I hit the ‘Send’ button and emailed out the very first draft of the book!
A few hours later, I was sitting in the radio studio, interviewing Caroline Thomas of Sales Scene and Louise Innes of Dotty Hippo Design, about the Thurrock Network Group and their ‘Thurrock’s Den’ project at this weekend’s T-Fest. If you’re in the area, go and check out their stand – there’s a great prize on offer for the best videoed business pitch, courtesy of the Park Inn Thurrock, Sales Scene and Dotty Hippo Design.
The interview went really well – both girls know their stuff inside out and are passionate about their subject – but through the whole thing, I could hear the familiar high howl of feedback in my headphones – OUCH! There was nothing obviously wrong and as we were live on air, there wasn’t much I could do by way of investigation – so I just had to grin and bear it – and solve it at the earliest opportunity (before the poor listener ran as far from the radio as possible, holding their ears!)
So what’s the connection between those two events? Well, as I said at the beginning, audio feedback happens when a mic gets too close to an output source. It’s a nasty noise – it can actually hurt if it’s loud enough – but it does alert you pretty quickly to the fact that there’s a problem which will, if it’s left unchecked, drive listeners away. It’s usually quite easily fixed, by putting distance between the two bits of kit which are annoying each other.
In business, we often fight shy of getting too close to our customers, in case we hear something that hurts, don’t we? I’m twitching at the moment, waiting for my test-drivers to come back to me. I’d love them to tell me my first efforts are wonderful and I should just keep doing what I’m doing – but realistically, I know they’re far more likely to offer constructive criticism. Some of it might even sting a bit – but at least it’ll tell me where the issues are at this early stage and I’ll be able to fix them before the product hits the market – and prospective paying customers vote with their hard-earned!
We tend to see complaints etc as problems – but shouldn’t we actually see them as opportunities to improve? Rather than being painful noises (avoided by putting a distance between us and the critic), shouldn’t they be music to our ears? I’m certainly trying to see them that way at the moment!