Celebrating 10 Years in Business!

Today marks my 10 year anniversary in business. The past decade has been a wonderful journey filled with every conceivable challenge, and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

Many significant changes have occurred to my business during the past 10 years, and that is what I love about it – the ability to re-invent on a regular basis to ensure I add continued value to my clients. As I reflect on this, I have the following thoughts:

• How I moved from offering ‘commodities’ to ‘processes’. This is a huge change, reflected in the types of projects I undertake now. I now see a project to achieve certification to a management system standard as a commodity, but winning a bid or a tender worth £1m through the adoption of standards and systems is a process.
• How I used to work with small businesses in the locality, to only working with businesses with whom:

1. I share values with
2. I have a relationship with
3. Are successful and are working at increasing their successes
4. We can agree project objectives and value

• Realising that I am in the relationship business (not consulting)
• Ignoring advice that I should market when quiet, and to expect ‘peaks and troughs’. What nonsense! I market every day, and I would be worried if I had a quiet period (unless I planned it of course).
• Stopping attending every networking event under the sun, and focusing on developing brand, value, and intellectual property.
• Ceasing to charge my clients by the day (the un-ethical ‘day-rate’) and charging equitable compensation doe the value I provide.

The next 10 years are going to be fantastic. I have a clear value proposition and truly enjoy helping my clients improve their condition.

Thank you for following my blog. I really appreciate those of you who interact by leaving comments here and contacting me by phone, email, Twitter and on my Facebook Page. Bring on the next decade!