back to business
(First published - March 18th 2016)
I never wanted to run my own business to be quite honest.
I set up my own business because I got stitched up by a scorned MD after my first full time role.
In 2005/06, while working for a telemarketing company in my first full-time role, earning a plethora of money for someone else, I was offered a job by one of our clients. The client had asked me if I'd consider coming on board with them and running a team of 12 staff in a sales department...
I didn't have any kind of contract at my telemarketing company, no NDA, nothing, so I thought it would just be a case of handing in notice (though no contracted notice was agreed) and moving on to a new adventure...
Unfortunately for me, when I was offered the role, I asked a couple of the other guys I worked with if they wanted to come with me and they thought it sounded great. Then I got a call from the sales manager one day asking if he could come, and as I thought he was a great guy I said I'd make a few calls to find out, he then ran back to the MD and she started pulling in everyone on a 1-2-1 basis to scare them out of leaving...
She then called me and told me that she'd called the new company and told them I had a contract and that she'd sue the pants off them if they employed me, sure enough when I checked on this, she'd done just that and no amount of convincing made them believe otherwise... She tried to get me to come back but to be honest I don't suffer fools gladly and if you're dishonest as far as I'm concerned you can go and jump... Life's too short...
So, I found a job working as a consultant, set myself up as self employed and off I went!
Within 30 days I was Head of Inside Sales for a Business Intelligence company centred out of Germany and I was flying back and forth training their incumbent teams and notching sales up for the UK MD out of and office in Surrey.
That was the beginning...
I didn't really have many fears back then, I'd been through some ropey relationships and was never really sure what to do with myself on that side of the coin, but I certainly wasn't feeling the really nasty bits...
The nasty bits came later.
At the moment my biggest anxieties probably surround people who are dishonest or don't pay on time... I think it's because when I meet new people I'm really open and honest about the fact that we're looking to work with like minded businesses, but I think that this generally leads to people trying to take advantage, as you may have seen in my recent blog 'Show me the money...'
I don't know what it is that makes me anxious about this, others don't tend to feel the same, they seem to be able to go with the flow, but it's probably because I don't earn what I feel comfortable with at the moment and I feel like because I'm re-investing everything I have in trying to maintain fast growth within my businesses, that my partner Anna shields most of the burden sometimes... That really grates on me, though one of the businesses we run together pays for most of our lifestyle, I still want my primary day to day business to yield more fruit and give us more of a comfortable run...
Unfortunately an image of affluence will get you the business, but if you drop guard people get wary and think there's a reason not to invest in your services, so you're always chasing your tail...
In writing this blog I want to do two things, I want to try and find solutions to some of these day to day issues and I want to find others with the same issues, that will definitely give me some semblance of calm.
In addition I've just been asked by fairly big player in the mental health space, to devise with him a programme for SME's to understand more about how they can better support staff within their business who may suffer from anxieties, depression, or other mental health disorders. So I'm soon to be running around the country giving motivational talks and training surrounding this area...
What would be good is to hear from businesses, small, medium, large, or from people within businesses, CEO's, Board Directors etc. to understand more about what they'd like to see in terms of answers...
We're in an era right now where mental health is becoming very much the forefront of everyone's thinking and it's OK to ask questions... I am happy to consult with people or give advice on what to look for in people and it would be good to get a gauge for what concerns are out there in the business ether, that people want to see a response to...
You can contact me direct via email to thomas@team-tops.co.uk which is probable my most memorable email address and let me know your thoughts, in the mean time I will keep you abreast of new things happening around the UK and Internationally surrounding mental health in business...
My blog will remain eclectic, because it's as much about touching the individual and helping people in business, so it's important to understand that there will be an equal measure of business and personal topics, because mental health is something very personal, and frankly no one wants to talk about it, so it makes it more important that I put it down...
Don't try and muddle through alone, reach out...
