If We Can, You Can

Author:

Sheila Stokes-White

Business:

Strategic Solutions Ltd

Published:

12/11/2008 11:39:00

I was a bad fit in a bureaucracy and am something of a rebel so had to work very hard to get promotion in a corporate environment.

I feel about a hundred times freer now that I’ve got my own business. I don’t have to abide by rules and protocols that served no purpose

I often went home stressed and with a headache because building consensus is slow hard work. If I do anything now in my own business, I do it for a reason and I know it will achieve a result.

I think that the only reason that held my business back was myself; my own psychology. The ability to do it was always in me, but I’ve had to remind myself of that sometimes. It’s not just if I can, you can, it’s if you believe you can, you definitely can.

I set up an organisation development company which helps other businesses to improve themselves, clearing blocks to progress and developing leadership. Our key strengths are to bring clarity and focus, energy and enthusiasm
.
Before I took the plunge I qualified and worked as a probation officer for many years, finally becoming a Chief Officer where my role included the development of a training and development portfolio for the whole organisation. I then went to work for a national consultancy before returning to the North East to develop an initiative to address the escalating levels of crime in the region in the early 90s. There was a lot of European interest and I made many presentations for the Council of Europe about what were the key elements of the partnership.

It was all really exciting and interesting, but after 5 years it was established and had reached the point where it had became more maintenance than development, which was far less appealing to me. You do reach points in your life where you have an opportunity, and I saw this as mine, to leave on a high and develop something new and creative of my own without the constraints inevitable in the corporate environment.

I couldn’t have done it without help though. I tried Business Link, but found that they weren’t offering a sophisticated enough product for the kind of organisation I was creating.

I had business advice and consultancy at the start which helped to identify key strengths. The opportunity to talk really helps. It enables you to realise what direction you fancy moving into, and which things are not going to work for you.

When you’re starting out, I would definitely recommend seeking out as much help as possible - there will be times when you desperately need it. When I began my business I got confirmation that I was in the right ball park.

I knew that the biggest challenges businesses face involve human resources and change management and often noticed that I could see ways to improve these when I visited organisations. So I knew there was a market for organisation development and strategic
Consulting.

My first big contract was a national one so I knew I could compete on a national level, My key selling point was myself.

The first stage was to go and see people, talk to them about their perceptions of the problems and issues they faced. I then identified some broad ideas which would form the basis of our work and would be tailor made for each client. We offer interventions for business improvement and growth with programmes which can last from six to twelve months. This allows time to build up a good relationship with the customer, and keep track of things that are happening in their often turbulent world

I still needed to work on areas where I was weak For me, that was marketing, PR and communications. I had to learn that what was in my head isn’t necessarily what other people know. You have to find a way of articulating that experience to other people so that they can use it for their own benefit.

But promoting the company, producing materials, I’d never done any of that before, and it’s been a real learning curve. When it came to writing content for the website, it was like trying to write the Encyclopaedia Britannica! My advice: get the experts in! but choose them carefully.

In my previous jobs I’d always administrative help and could call on all the services that you associate with a large organisation such as HR, law and finance. Now, I was suddenly faced with doing all of that myself, and it demands a hell of a lot of your time. As a creative person and it gave me very little time for any creative ideas to come through. However you do need to get to grips with the operations and how you will ensure they are managed.

My partner is a full time senior academic. He is the finance director and company secretary. That has been a lifeline as he is also a great strategic thinker. Our finances our tightly managed - if an invoice comes in I know it’s going to get paid and we send our invoices out very punctually.

I make mistakes all the time. Probably the biggest has been underestimating the value of my company. I now find the time to pause and think about this on a regular basis.

I’ve also underestimated the importance of networking. I did quite a bit of it, but didn’t see it for what it was; I just thought it was just talking to people. But networking is often how people do business. I think a lot of people could be more successful if they networked more because of the skills you can learn and acquire.

I had not thought big enough for my business. I’ve always had a business that was about more than just profitability. It was about providing a quality service that would help people. But what’s wrong with growing that into a significant and uniqueorganisation

I often didn’t ask for expert advice when I should have done, but I just felt I was too bogged down. I should have looked at the things I was not good at and said, I’ll just buy a bit of help. This is what I do now.

At the beginning, It’s really important to have someone to talk to, a mentor or a coach who says, ‘What I see is…’ It’s enormously helpful to have someone else’s perspective, and probably the most vital thing if you’ve had a bad day and start to think is this all a terrible idea. They’ll say no, carry on.

If you’re considering setting up your own business, you do need to be sure it’s what you want, and the changes in your life that that’s going to bring about. But then again, there’s no safe place in full time employment today anyway, so why not bite the bullet?

You need to have stickabilty as well. You need to be able to think, this is what I want to do in my life, and I’m going to make it work. If your first idea doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter, just try something else, or adjust it slightly to make it more successful.

Don’t give up and don’t lie there thinking you can’t do this anymore. I reckon just about anyone could set up their own company; all you need is resilience and the determination to succeed.