Why You Can't Grow Your Business Alone w/ Alison Warner

Have you ever advised somebody not to grow further?

Yes, maybe not ever, but frequently I've said to people, we need to get the house in order first before we do any marketing, because otherwise you're just inviting more people to potentially have a bad experience.

So if you were not like a good salesperson, your business would not be a good salesperson. That's what I mean.

That's right.

That's how it kind of shows up in your business.

Yeah, and if you're not a good leader of people, if you're a micromanager, Yeah, that will show up in your business. But that is something I think that can be learned.

This is Field Record Podcast. I'm your host, Tulloch Priest, and today I'm joined again by Alison Warner, founder of Evolve and Grow Coaching. Alison works directly with trades, helping them go from feeling stuck to running a business that actually works. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

If you didn't catch our last episode, Alison's got a strong track record working with tradespeople, often fixing Hidden Issues. Today's episode is all about scaling a business and turning it into something that looks after you. In a sentence or two, why should people care about this conversation?

So the short answer is, I guess, it depends on who's listening. They're listening to this and they have an aspiration to grow a business, then, you know, there's two ways, I guess, of getting there. You can try and figure it out yourself and you may or may not get there, but probably will encounter quite a lot of stress along the way, or you can have somebody help and guide you and you'll get there quicker with far less stress.

So it's all about just speed of execution, say.

Yeah, learning, you know, if you think of it in terms of, say, a sports person, they would always have a coach, wouldn't they? They wouldn't try and do it on their own. So that can apply equally well to business.

Yeah, for ourselves, we've always had a business coach. So we've had business coaches over the last, what, 15 years? And it's helped us, you know, hugely.

Yeah, same here. I've always been in mentoring groups actually and worked with a business coach in that way. But absolutely, yeah, same with me. There's no way my business would be where it is now or probably in the form it's in now had I not invested in that.

So what kind of things would you kind of think about, Dawn? Like when you talk about scaling a business, what would you actually say is scaling the business? Or like how do you kind of define that?

First thing that comes to mind, I mean, it obviously implies growth, it is about growth, isn't it? But it's about making sure you've got the right foundations and structure in place to enable it to grow sustainably and to remain at that level. So, if you'd liken it to, say, building a house, you want to make sure those foundations are really strong and everything's in the right place so the house doesn't fall down. It's exactly the same with with a business. It's about making sure it's got the right people in place, that you've got the right systems, the right tools in place to make sure that you would be alerted to a problem, for example, before it's too late. That all sounds quite negative, doesn't it? But it's, yeah, it's making sure that it's solid.

Yeah, and then it's obviously you have that kind of, that risk kind of factor, but you've also got the, you get more work, you improve your marketing, you know, you hire more people, have have it all kind of working together.

Yeah.

For the customers that you've kind of worked with, or clients, what kind of growth have you seen and what, what's the, what does the actual journey look like?

So, I mean, I've had, I've had several.

Have you taken any from like a sole trader up to—

I'm thinking, yeah, I'm just thinking the best one to give you. So yes, probably actually, I mean, it was the company that led me into specialising in construction and trades, so, and I still work with them today, so it's an air conditioning company It's in the book, so Jacques is happy for me to talk about it. Just spoke to him this morning, actually. And he came to me back in 2014. It was just him and a subcontractor, and they were turning over around £68,000 a year. Jacques is a, what we call a dealmaker on the personality profiling tool we use. Dealmakers are excellent at looking after the customers, going out and winning the work, and he was winning a lot of it. But he had none of what we would call the steel energy on the back end of the business to deal with invoicing, quotes, chasing payments, all of the admin related with the business. Had no visibility of his figures either, and so when I said to him, you need to get some help on the admin side, he was quite reluctant because he didn't think he could afford it. And so he said, okay, I'll do it for 3 weeks to clear the backlog and then we'll be okay.

So What was the actual driver? Like, what actually, what was the pain point that actually said, okay, I need some help here?

He was always very open to having help, actually. So he didn't need convincing. I think the pain point, there were several. His wife at the time was employed full-time as an accountant. So she was very much on the numbers side, but they were spending all of their evenings and weekends putting quotes together and dealing with the running of the business. So they had no free time. So yeah, considerable pain and stress. So he said, okay, I'll get somebody in for 3 weeks and then, and then we'll be fine. So I thought, well, all I need is for him to take that next step. So he did that. And of course that person then quickly became full-time. And then I think he could start to see, oh, okay, this is fine. It's not draining my bank account. If anything, my bank account's growing. And he grew really quickly. I think he went to about £400,000 within 9 months. So it, you know, I'm always quite concerned sometimes when businesses grow that quickly because it can be a bit too too quick. You know, I've had another construction firm that went from £250,000 to £750,000 again under a year, and it can be, it can be quite painful.

It breaks quite a few kind of—

Yeah, because it all comes down to can you recruit the right people, can you put the right systems in place. There's a lot to learn and encompass in that time. So anyway, he today is— it's a much, much bigger business. It's turning over in the millions, got an office team in place, he's got a team of 10 engineers. It's So yeah, it's a very, very different business, but we're now, what, 11 years down the track. And there's definitely been pain points along the way, but it's really the common denominator are the right people and the right systems and making sure people are using those systems and having visibility of the figures.

When you kind of look back on that journey, because you went along with him, what kind of— are there kind of like highlights or kind of like places that he kind of got stuck or, you know, and how did you kind of help through them?

So the biggest one is that willingness to let go, and coupled with running it as an MD as opposed to a sole trader. So I'll give you an example what I mean by that. So we put in a quoting system, but he still very much wanted to be involved in having the quotes run by him, as opposed to trusting, no, the right system's in place, the right methodology's in place, just trust the team to get on with it. What has really made the difference is the recruitment recently of an office manager who's fantastic and fantastic at managing people and is quite a strong character and one that this client really respects. And so that's what's made the difference and enabled him to step back.

So she or he built the trust. Yeah, because it's kind of tricky, like if you, if he's always been involved with the quotes and if obviously if you get the quotes wrong, it has a big impact. So you need to step back, but then you also need to trust.

Trust, yeah. Yeah. And to be fair to him, you know, sometimes he had stepped back and the person had quoted too much or too little. So I get it. I think with this recent, fairly recent appointment of the office manager, he's a similar kind of personality type to the client. And so he's somebody that likes to get on and do, and that matches the client's personality type. So he's willing to let go. Yeah.

Would you kind of class this as kind of willing to let go and it's part of that only I can do the kind of job or I can only do it.

Very much.

Is it quite a common thing that you see?

It is. I think it depends on the personality of the business owner and the strength of the person that they've got in place. There's so many different things involved, isn't there? Because sometimes it's, being blunt, it's not willing to pay the right amount to recruit the right level of talent. So there's a, it all goes back to that in some cases. So I can't possibly pay that, my business can't afford it without saying, okay, if you can pay 10K more, you'll get a much better, not guaranteed obviously, but you're more likely to get a better quality of person who will save you so much more than what you're currently losing by all of these mistakes. So it's different with each individual.

It's hard to quantify that though. Like if you say an extra 10K here, which is a fixed known cost and you're comparing it with a possible 'we could get this return on it.' You have to do the numbers on the problems.

So for example, if it's lots of return visits that are happening, you can on the back of a fag packet kind of work out, okay, so if we have on average this number of return visits a month, that's going to cost us roughly X amount in labour.

In other words, there's labour, there's lost opportunity, they could have actually been done.

Exactly, exactly. I mean, the other one, and I I did this at Starbucks actually when I was in charge of resourcing, equating turnover to cost. So you can, you can estimate how much it costs to recruit and train a new person. So you've got the agency fees and then, you know, probably at least a month before they're productive in role. So you can put a number to that.

Yeah.

And if you're turning your team 50%, well, you can do a calculation and go, is it fair to say that's how much this is costing you in turnover, this is how much it's costing you in return visits, your time, you can put a figure to it and then go 10K extra in salary. And then people are, oh right, okay, okay.

So yeah, you just need to kind of— but it takes a bit of knowledge to actually work your way through these, you know, thinking about, you know, what, what's the actual true cost, um, of these kind of things. And what other kind of, um, things that people kind of get stuck on? Yeah, stuck on in terms of, um, you know, the things that are kind of blocking the company moving forward. Like we're talking about, we're essentially talking about the personal growth of the business leader. So you have that idea of that the business leader is a lid. So the business leader is a lid, which means the business are essentially a reflection of themselves.

Absolutely right, of themselves. That's right. I've heard that before. Your business is a mirror of you. I mean, it all comes down to—

Before we move on, just a clarity around that. So if you are not like a good salesperson, your business would not be a good salesman. That's what I mean.

That's right.

That's how it kind of shows up in your business.

Yeah, and if you're not a good leader of people, if you're a micromanager, yeah, that will show up in your business. But that is something I think that can be learned. I do think there are some people that are just natural leaders and take to it very quickly, and others need a bit more.

I think it's like any other skill set, you can learn it. Yeah, you're good at this. But yeah, this move from like a transactional leadership to —yeah, you know, a kind of stepping back and— yes, empowering.

Yeah, empowering is quite a big challenge. It is, it is, yeah.

Can you kind of think of any other kind of big things that kind of like hold people back from scaling or growing their business?

I would probably say financially, so if the business is in such a mess that they're making a huge loss and there's a huge amount of debt in the business, that can be very challenging to get it back on track and then continue to grow it. So sometimes that is about getting external funding. So you just don't have the resources to actually—

Yeah, haven't got the resources to build.

Yeah, if they've got themselves in a bit of a mess, then that's not uncommon. So sometimes it is about getting external funding, which, you know, you have to be careful about because there's no point just throwing— you've got to fix the underlying problem first. There's no point throwing money at something without fixing the problem because it'll just eat that money up and they'll be in an even worse situation. Situation. But let's say it's because they're not quoting correctly, then this is where financial forecasting can come in because you can then make predictions based on what's gone before and say, okay, if you now start quoting to make 30% gross profit, this is what the trajectory is going to look like, this is what your cash flow will look like over the next year, and so I predict in 6 months you'll be here and in 12 months you'll be here, and then that can be the right decision then to go and get external funding.

You'd want to confirm it a little bit before you— Yeah, yeah. Otherwise you've just got numbers on a spreadsheet. Yes, yes. Any other kind of like personal kind of beliefs or something within the leaders that kind of, you know, stop a business growing?

I think probably around recruitment of people. So sometimes I encounter people say, well, it's just impossible to get good people in this industry. You know, people nowadays are XYZ, but often I find it's because they've never run a recruitment campaign, so how they've recruited in the past is, you know, their next-door neighbour's son happens to be available who's done a bit of XYZ in the past and they're a nice chap and, you know, they have a chat with them and, and obviously being a little bit facetious here, but they don't do a proper campaign, but you know, how would they know how to do that? It goes back to what I was saying in a previous podcast around, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So if you do a proper recruitment campaign with a proper job advert and you advertise and then, and you stick at it, because nowadays it doesn't mean to say you'll fix it within 2 weeks. You might have to wait 6 weeks or 8 weeks to find Prince.

I think recruitment's funny though, because you kind of, like you, let's say you put the ad in, you've got say 5 people, and then I think there is a danger that you choose the best one of those 5. So if you don't you don't know, if you haven't hired for that role before, you don't know what the standard should be. So what you're measuring against is you just choose the best of the group as opposed to—

as opposed to what you really need.

Yeah, that's a good point. Um, yeah, so, but it's, it's challenging because if you haven't really hired for that role before and you don't have like a clear, these are the expectations, this is what we want, um, all of the— you don't have that kind of—

yeah, that's what we put in. So that's where we start, is with a proper job description, proper job advertisement, so that we know what we're looking for, both in terms of technical skill and attitude and behaviour. Yeah, the cultural side. And it's often the latter bit that—

Yeah. Well, you can teach the skills, but the cultural side is— In most cases, yeah.

Can be challenging, let's say. Yeah, exactly. So to change somebody's attitude is far, far harder.

Just like an example of that would be like, if they know it already or they're unwilling to learn, —then you will have a challenge.

Yeah, or if they're just unreliable and they find it difficult to get up for work on time and to turn up and all of that. Yeah, that's going to be pretty challenging. So somebody said to me the other day, I can't remember who the quote's from, but I thought, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Hire slowly, fire quick.

Well, let's talk about firing because that is very, yeah, it's, you know, this challenging and people delay. Like they kind of, you know, even from our own experience, you have someone and they're kind of going okay and they're kind of bumping their bottom and then they do an okay day and you're kind of thinking, but it's difficult to know, like, when should you actually say, okay, this is, this needs to stop. So it's about the standards again.

It is. And again, that's something else that we include in our programmes is those habits, if you like, to implement. So for example, monthly one-to-ones, which might sound really corporate, but it doesn't have to be. Even if you're just sat with that person in the cafe once a month for a coffee or breakfast, that can literally pay dividends. And that shouldn't be— it can include work in progress, but it shouldn't really be focused on just work in progress. It's more about that person as an individual. What's going well at the moment? What could be better? Those are your two opening questions for so many different things. And listen. So it's not about you waxing lyrical around what it is you need to see. Ask them. And people generally, if you've built trust in that relationship, you know, they will tell you. And you can— because it's so easy to make assumptions, isn't it? You know, that person's a bit off, or their performance has dipped,, and you can make all sorts of assumptions in your mind about why that might be. You don't really know until you sit down with somebody and say, look, I've noticed, you know, what's going on. And just your tone, you know, and how you ask that question. So if I sit with you and say, um, you know, so I've noticed, um, you know, so what's happening here? It's quite aggressive. But if I'm like, yeah, I've just noticed— curiosity. And again, the words that you use, you know, what could be better, not what's— what needs fixing, what's not right at the moment.

That in Just about the tone and stuff. I think it's quite important to do it quickly. Yes. Like it— because if you wait and that frustration builds up in you, like, "He's late," or "She's late. She's late again. I bet you she's late tomorrow." You need to speak straight away. Yeah, absolutely. In the instance. Because if you— yeah, if you wait— don't wait for the monthly one-to-one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Because you will— you'll be frustrated, it'll come across, they'll take it personally, be defensive, and, you know, it will go off track. That's right. It does. That's right.

Yeah. But most people, a lot of people, you know, as human beings, we don't like— we see it in our minds as being conflict and we avoid it. We do, but if you—

I don't know how it works, but if you deal with it straight away— Absolutely. It, yeah—

Well, I think—

You avoid it, but you get more of it.

That's it. That's it. And it's— you've got to— sometimes you've just got to feel the fear and do it anyway. Brain, just force yourself to do it because it's never probably as bad as what you imagine. Yeah. And, and if you're just asking a question in, in a nice calm tone and listening, what a lot of people will do is they'll ask a question and then they'll try and help and they'll jump in and say, you know, "So I noticed you've come in late," or "Why have you, why have you come in late?" Yeah, so "why" promotes defensiveness in the brain. So we're going to avoid using "why" and replace it for "what reason" or "I've noticed" or "I'm just curious." this, something like that, and then just not saying anything. Just stay with the silence because, you know, you might think you're helping and it might feel uncomfortable to stay with the silence, but that's when you, yeah, that's when you get the real reason as to what, well, hopefully as to what's going on.

And you kind of mentioned that you ask, ask with curiosity. So that intent behind your in-question is really important. Like if your intent is to punish them for being late or or the intent is, "I'm frustrated." Yes.

That will come through. Absolutely. Yeah.

But you, yeah, if you ask with curiosity, an honest curiosity. Yes. Yeah. So you need to put aside all of your worries. "I'm not getting paid. They're losing money. I'm paying this person." Which can be challenging to do.

And it will come down to that person's natural strengths as well as to how hard they find that. So we use another personality profiling tool called Strengths Scope, and there's a particular strength called emotional control. If you've got emotional control as a strength, that's very helpful for these sorts of situations because you're less likely to be showing that frustration. If you've got people strengths, then they also can be your friend in these situations because you're likely to be more empathetic.

It's definitely challenging being the leader, that's for sure. Yeah, with people. Um, anything else that's kind of, um, doesn't have to be like leader related, that kind of, that gets in the way of kind of like a fears or something that gets in the way of actually growing a business?

I guess, you know, knowing the right marketing for that business and that business owner. So for example, networking can be a great way of growing a business, but it might not suit the strengths of the business owner if they don't enjoy that type of activity, then I would say don't do it because, you know, it'll be like pushing water uphill. Yeah, it's not going to work.

I think it's also kind of, it's a unique kind of intersection between like who you're actually going for. Like if you're like, what's your actual market? Do you want to cater to more wealthy people? So you need to, there's certain kind of things you need to do that, or if it's more like letting agents, straightforward. But it's because the tradespeople are essentially geographically locked. You can only go travel so far in a day. Yes. Yes. It's a unique kind of— you need to think about your, your local market, who you want to serve, where they— where those people hang out, how— and it's—

that's right. And your brand, your whole brand, and what that says about you. That's right. Yeah. So I've got, um, and your pricing as well.

You're— because if you get your pricing wrong, that tells— when you look at your pricing, that links to the, the people that you serve. Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So I've got somebody on the team, Joy, who does branding and that whole image piece and she's brilliant at it.

Does she kind of tie the market research and put all of these kind of inputs together?

Yeah, so she works on, you know, who is it and builds an avatar for who is it you're trying to attract and serve. So for example, one of my clients, they're a construction firm down in Kent, very, very good at what they do. They've actually been on Channel 4 a couple of times on on certain restoration projects that they've done, very talented, but their website just didn't reflect or take advantage. They weren't really telling the world about the fact they've been on TV a couple of times, you know. So Joy worked with them to change all of that and change their web presence. They also work with the social media company that I work with, and that has just, yeah, completely doubled their enquiries each month, but the right clients as well. They call them Nigel and Carol as avatars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that keeps them focused on who they're going after and the types of projects that they actually want. And it— yeah, it's worked really, really well.

Yeah, it just makes, you know, you're, you're set up for that type of client. They expect— you know what the expectations are. Yeah, everything just runs a lot smoother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything else that you think that could help somebody wanting to grow their or scale their business?

So we've kind of touched on it, but I think it's reiterating, don't try and do everything yourself and be the expert at different things. You know, I don't do my marketing, I don't do my social media. There's a reason for that, because it's not my skill set, and there's just no way on earth you can keep up with every element of your business in terms of— things are just changing and moving so damn quick nowadays. So surround yourself with people who are better than you at what you do.

I, I think it kind of comes down to you need to know, you know, what your time is worth. Yeah. And then, you know, in comparison, you know, how long would it take me to learn these things or whatever. Yes, yes. But, you know, if we're talking about like social media, you know, you won't be able to compete against somebody who's doing it full-time. Exactly, exactly. Um, yeah, but I, I think it's— I think when you're a sole trader, you do have to do everything, but then Slowly, baby steps.

Yeah, baby steps. So the first person, freelance subcontractor, slowly give the pieces out.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, once that's working, yeah, this is more efficient, you have more resources to do a bit more, you're on to the next step.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's just knowing that order and what to do, etc. Have you ever advised somebody not to grow further?

Yes, maybe not Um, ever, but frequently I've said to people, we need to get the house in order first before we do any marketing, because otherwise you're just inviting more people to potentially have a bad experience. So it's kind of, you need to steady the ship first, and by that I mean just calm everything down, get organisation in place, just do what you're dealing with currently, do that well. And then it's why, you know, on the Build and Grow Academy The modules are built in a certain order for a certain reason. So there are— it's vision, getting clear around where you're heading. Then it's the numbers, working out are you charging correctly. And then it's, uh, I think it's system or customer's, um, journey, people, systems, and then marketing and sales. So you build the foundations and then you attract more. So there's, there's that. I think probably as well asking somebody why they want to grow and what that would mean for their role.. So sometimes I've helped businesses grow, and then I've heard this frequently actually, and then the business owner says to me, so what am I doing? What's my role about?

A little bit late to kind of—

so yeah, and we might have, you know, the job spec. There's two people that come into mind at the moment. You know, we've got the job description in place, so it kind of articulates what the job's about, but it's that gap, helping them move into that role because they've always been in a role where they're doing and, you know, going back to the early days of being on the tools, you can build something, stand back and go, "That's what I did today.

I've earned my money." Okay, so they want to see it. Yeah. Yeah. Is this like a transition between, or they kind of equate to being busy to actually being productive?

Yeah, absolutely. And feeling like you've done a day's work. Yeah. Whereas the higher you go in an organisation, it becomes more about the quality of your thinking and your planning. And your decision-making and your strategy and filling your diary with the right activities that deliver that future vision, which is a lot slower a process.

I'm guessing it's also less kind of physical and—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, there's definitely two people that are coming to mind at the moment that are— we'll get there, they're growing, they're growing, but they're feeling a little bit out of their comfort zone at the moment. And, hmm, what's my role about? You know?

Yeah, that's a good kind of— good, good. I personally kind of think that, see, that businesses are, you know, it's a way of doing personal growth.

Very much, very much. Yeah, I did a team day with a client this week with the three directors, and that's what it was all about, their personal development.

I think you go through certain stages, like in the beginning you need, you need the tactics, they're just doing. Yeah, you need to do, do, do. But then, you know, as the companies grow So it does become more about the actual personal.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's why our programs are designed in exactly that way, actually. Our top program is for businesses that are a million plus, and it's predominantly, it's about their personal development as a leader. It's getting to know yourself better. This is why we use psychometrics, because they're just so helpful in identifying traits and strengths and self-awareness, isn't it? Just tweaking, you know, it's not about changing who you are, it's just maybe moving the dial a little bit. And then, you know, if you think of a clock face and you move the dial by a minute, you're on a different trajectory.

Yes. Yeah. No, it makes a big, big, big difference. Well, thank you very much for coming onto the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's Alison Warner from Evolve and Grow Coaching. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me.