Growing Your Business, Tips, Ideas, Energy

My life has been about growing businesses. I started small with a bucket and a sponge in the posh roads where people had a drive to park their cars. As a family we did not own a car, but they did and they had money to pay me to wash them at nights and weekends. It was good business, 50p a car and as I expanded I would employ other kids at school who were younger than me to wash then for 30p. I started when I was 9 years old and it seemed the most natural thing to do. Carol singing was a good top up at christmas. If it snowed I would clear your path or entry and eventually I invested in an allotment at the end of our road for ￡2 per year rental. I would grow crops for the family to eat and crops to grow at the local corner shop. It was only a few years ago that I realised that my Mum was most probably the only person who was going into the shop and buying my feeble webb flat lettuce. But I thought I was cracking eggs with a big stick. Look out Caldwells fruit and veg, I was on my way. A paper round followed at 13 and I was allowed to expand my round to delivering the Liverpool Echo to shops in my home town for cash. Disaster struck when the council built flats on my allotment  and so I took to working at the Marine Lake for Giff the local boat man. I would toil there every weekend and loved scrapping barnacles off, hiring out motor and rowing boats and teaching sailing to posh kids with proper oilskins. 

After a period of unemployment when I left school I was lucky to be given a job in the health service, working out wages and salaries for hospital staff. The women in this office endowed me with an appreciation of how the paperwork in an office flowed, how to order hot buttered toast and the intricacies of Coronation Street. By the age of 18 I was working in a local restaurant and realised that I much enjoyed the night work compared to the red tape of my office days. Much to the horror of my parents I left the civil service and joined the ranks of the night and food trade. By 23 years old I opened up my own restaurant, it was brilliant. We opened at the right place, right time. I lacked so many management and leadership skills but I was having a ball and delighting customers. Seating 66 we would service an average of 300 people a night, I was in heaven. So much so that I opened a coffeeshop and bakery, a wholesale butchers and a wholesale fruit and Veg business. Then I almost lost my mind when I opened florist. Life was good. I had learned the art of delegation which was great, except it was upwards. My staff of 400 would pass me all the stuff they hated doing and I was delighted to be the knight in shining armour.

After nine years I sold the businesses, bored I had taken on the role of a local councillor, a samaritan volunteer and vice chairman of the Town Twinning Association. As a volunteer I sat on the board of the local Training and Enterprise Council. After my businesses were sold, I took a temp job selling NVQs to SMEs in Merseyside. I loved it, helping businesses grow and passing on my ideas and innovations. Within a year I was appointed Deputy CEO/Operations Director and I was given 450 staff and ￡65 million a year to invest into Merseyside skills, education, regeneration and enterprise. Again I was I was in heaven.

After seven years and a change of government I went back to self employment and I have worked for the last 16 years as a chairman, consultant, non executive director for companies who are looking to grow profitably. I have had a ball. I have taken a company from ￡3m a year in 1999 to ￡180m  this year and sold it. Always working with 8-12 companies at a time I have worked with some great people, some great teams and we have grown companies, against the odds, with some hairy days and some huge huge wins. Since 2004 I have spent 22 days a month outside of the UK delivering growth consultancy in 85 countries around the world and opening 25 + new businesses in 15 countries. 

Now back in the UK, I am thrilled to be working with some real giants in the world of Small Business Growth, they think, eat, sleep SME Growth, and I have been able to add in what I have learnt in India, Australia, USA, Pakistan, France, Germany, Israel, palestine, Poland, South Africa, Kuwait, Romania, Spain etc etc etc.  

I want to take this to the next level, I want to build a huge repository of knowledge, information, experts, insights, data, tips, hints and benchmarking. So I have today launched a Linkedin Group called Business Growth Tips. Please sign up, please post your thoughts, fears and questions, tell us about your best practice, worst decisions, nightmare and lessons learnt. I want to turn it into our book, our TV show and our movie channel on YouTube. I know a fraction of what collectively we all know. I want to hone it down, make it available for all and build bigger businesses more quickly to provide excitement, great jobs and wealth.

Please sign up today and share your thoughts, this is our group not mine.

copyright? Roy Newey 2015