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Engaging Hearts and Minds – with John Maguire of The Phoenix Car Company

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Wikipedia: Employee engagement, also called worker engagement, is a business management concept. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests.

So, employee engagement is a business management concept. It’s also a hot topic. But how does it translate into the real world of business?

John Maguire, MD of The Phoenix Car Company (once rated as the Fastest Growing Privately Owned Company in Scotland) not only embraces it, he practices it.

Keeping his employees engaged and motivated has been central to the company’s success since it launched in 1993, at the former site of Chrysler in Linwood, next to Glasgow Airport. Since then, the company has progressively grown to include 18 dealerships spread across Paisley, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Grangemouth and Stirling.

“People are your greatest asset”. It’s been said many a time before but, speaking at a special event in Glasgow, John made the cliché real.

“I have heard this many times before,” said Graham Steed, “But John made the cliché real and demonstrated the impact that engaging your staff fully can have.

“Also, the focus on attention to detail, constant professionalism and getting it right first time, every time.”

Graham, SEO Business Intelligence Division
 BiP Solutions, said John’s Phoenix story was “inspirational”.

“John’s presentation style, experience and down to earth attitude made the time go very quickly. Hearing about his vision for his company and how quickly he made it happen was inspirational.

“John demonstrated that the best leaders understand what the pulse of their business is, and stay in touch with the key drivers of it regardless of what else may be going on. His personal role in hiring staff was also very interesting and underlined the importance he places on having the right people in the organisation.”

Mike McCloskey of Rainbow Delivery said he took away 3 key tips from John’s talk; the first being to invest in your people to make them winners. “I take that as much as ‘time is money’,” said Mike.

“You need to make people feel like they are part of a business doing something good. Why? It lifts my thinking out of the grunge and focuses my mind on helping my team do the same.

“From now on we’ll be placing more emphasis on our ethos/mission ‘Delivering Peace of Mind’ and more fun and engagement in the wider community.”

Feedback

“Key tips for me – start new staff who are energetic and motivated to work for the company and not just for money. Take time to hire the best staff. Don’t settle for staff that ‘will do’. Create a company culture that everyone believes in.”

“Tips for me – acting as an agent for the consumer. What to look for in new employees; energy, enthusiasm, intensity and excitement.”

“John’s enthusiasm was contagious. It helped me remember that it’s about more than delivering parcels (i.e. what our “job” is). I also liked John’s attitude to investing in his people to “turn them into winners”. It reaffirmed my decision to get more involved and John’s version of Open Door policy ties right in with that!”

Company Turnaround – Transforming Your Business

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Change is the only constant in business, so having a contingency plan for diversification and reorganisation in place in difficult times is essential. But it’s about so much more than having a plan, good communication and strong leadership skills are essential to ensure your business moves forward without sacrificing your original goals.

We asked Margaret Lang and Iain MacRitchie to share their experiences and pearls of wisdom at this Focus Dinner. If you read these brief biogs, you’ll see why;

Margaret launched Intelligent Office in January 2001, since when the company has experienced sustained growth, in spite of the economic downturn. Under Margaret’s leadership, Intelligent Office’s turnover has grown to in excess of £13m, whilst staff numbers have grown by 73% in the past five years and currently provides business process outsourcing services at 40 locations across the UK with more than 500 staff supporting their clients.
Serial entrepreneur Iain is focused on investing and leading situations which require rapid change, growth or development. His marketing and brand development expertise, first gained from a Strathclyde University education has led him into multiple corporate leadership roles, mostly within Private Equity backed businesses. Iain has completed 12 major engagements in the last 8 years, returning just over £500m with an average 6-fold increase in company profits. His latest was after leading the £75m buy in of Maxinutrition (Maximuscle), he helped double sales and profits in 3 years, resulting in the sale of the company to Glaxo for £162m in 2011.

What was interesting in their experience is the fact that the principles employed in “turnaround” are exactly the same as those required when transforming a business from good to great. Turnaround is simply the same as transformation, a desire to make your business better.

Imagination is essential. You need to be able to think about what a business, or your business, could be and identify small steps to start to take it there from where it is currently. It’s about thinking practically, and making sure these small steps are done quickly; walk to jog to run to sprint.

Their advice was to create a business plan with practical milestones – not financial budgets, which should be separate – and to focus on what makes an impact. Seek short cuts to speed up the changes.

Three key tips;

• Believe you can – have courage in your beliefs and goals
• Think … PEOPLE
• You can change anything, given enough time

David Frame was at the Focus Dinner. He said it’s important to understand that transformation doesn’t need to take place as a result of heading for a cliff – it can be employed to a good business to try to make it great.

Good businesses easily suffer from becoming comfortable and start to lose the drive that got them to become good in the first place, and so to become great they need the same sort of approach as would be employed if it was heading for a cliff – a review of where it is and a clear plan to become better.

“People are so important to growth and transforming a business but I still struggle to make changes in this area,” said David, MD of Barum and Dewar. “I took away the importance of believing in yourself 100% – you won’t always be right but you will learn and make the next decision.

“And don’t be embarrassed to show passion…in business at least!”

Enlight Foundation – Giving Something Back

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Work hard, play hard, give something back. It’s the philosophy that Entrepreneurial Exchange members live by, and Enlight is the product of that philosophy.

Enlight is the Entrepreneurial Exchange’s charity, it supports non-profit organisations working with vulnerable young people under 25 in Scotland to enable them to achieve their full potential.

There are currently over 15,000 children in Scotland who are looked after by local authorities. Their futures are bleak;

• 42% leave care with no destination and become a NEET (not in employment, education or training) statistic
• 29% have been in trouble with the police in the last year
• 45% of 5-17 year olds were assessed as having a mental disorder – most often conduct related.
• 30% of young homeless people have been in care
• 1 in 7 are pregnant or already mothers
• 23% of adult prisoners have been in care
• Poor educational attainment – 25% don’t achieve even 1 Standard Grade at Foundation level

Mark’s story illustrates why Enlight’s work is so important.

You can help young people like Mark, by helping Enlight.

Enlight has developed a series of exciting and innovative opportunities to work with local authorities to make a step change in achieving better outcomes for these most vulnerable children. The focus is on improving educational attainment. By ensuring young people have the skills and confidence to contribute to, and be part of, the wider economy we give them the secure footing they need to change their lives and, over time, the lives of their own children.

But they need your support to deliver these programmes to the widest possible group of vulnerable young people.

Work hard, play hard, give something back – please give something back by donating here; Enlight Virgin Money Giving Page

Making Successful Acquisitions

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Why is it some acquisitions work while others fail to deliver? It comes down to planning and people, according to experts John Pirrie and Murray Strachan.

Both entrepreneurs have been involved in acquisitions, some of which worked successfully and others less so.

At a recent focus dinner, chaired by Alan Bonner of Pinnacle Telecom, Exchange members and speakers discussed the pros and cons of acquisition, and highlighted the strict attention to detail needed in the process to execute successfully.

But firstly, why would you acquire another business? Maybe for access to new customers or markets (commercial or geographical) or access to new products, technologies or services to sell into existing and new customers. Perhaps for brand enhancement – tapping into the profile and goodwill associated with the brand of the target – or to acquire high quality management and employees.

There could be synergistic savings or additional turnover and profit in the chosen markets or simply to avoid being acquired by the competition yourself – defensive acquisition.

Regardless of the reason for the acquisition, the process is crucially identical.

Murray Strachan

Murray Strachan


Murray (Strachan and Partners) has worked in the oil and gas sector for 27 years, lived, worked, bought and sold companies in more than 30 countries plus set up/closed down Joint Ventures and large projects. He spent five years working with execs and shareholders in various companies, investing, rightsizing, adding value and fundraising and is now back in a corporate strategic development role.

His extensive experience means he’s able to identify what causes more than 50% of acquisitions to fail;

The biggest reasons are poor implementation, poor communication and HR issues.

“Acquiring a business is highly time consuming, costly and distracting from running your business, and
opportunistic acquisitions have a poor history of delivering value to corporate purchasers,” says Murray.

“You should ask yourself ‘will this transaction increase the long term value of the business?’”

The other alternative is organic growth and/or acquiring (recruiting) some of the key management or players of the target instead.

Either way, you need to focus on fit issues and process issues:
• Fit issues – including size, strategic fit, diversification, previous acquisition experience of the acquirer, organisational fit (culture and personnel/administration practices), and the acquisition timing relative to market conditions/cycle
• Process Issues – including negotiation failures/mistakes, inadequate research and diligence, inadequate pre-planning, poor integration plan execution, price paid and form of consideration, poor communications and negative reaction by acquirer’s management and/or employees

“This can be overcome through thorough planning, effective communication, professional and diligent integration and sufficient monitoring within the critical first 100 days,” says Murray.

For Murray, the key acquisition phases are;
• Establishing the strategy and objectives
• Market research – identification, screening, and short listing potential targets
• “The approach”
• Information gathering – initial research and light diligence
• Structuring an offer – acquisition plan, valuation, funding, financial and non financial issues
• Concluding the transaction – full diligence, negotiation, then close the deal including Completion
• Transition of ownership & Integration – transition plan execution and review
• Stabilisation and performing
• Review – objectives, resultant outcomes and lessons learned

His final words of advice? Make sure you “over” communicate and don’t be scared to walk away.

John Pirrie has been in business for 34 years, setting up LCH Generators with his brother James in 1980. He build the fleet to 2500 generators by 2006, becoming the largest fleet in the U.K, serviced from five locations, with the company employing 200.

In part, that growth came from acquisitions; he made his first acquisition in 1995. It was, as he explains, a “very light legal agreement”.

In 2006 John set up Nevis Capital, a private equity firm with a track record of successfully growing businesses that need capital and management support. They invest across the industrial services sector with a specific focus on power.

Since then the company has done hundreds of deals, but the biggest issue throughout has been lack of management.

Says John: “It’s about communication at all levels about your plans and implementation of them.

”Remember, it is your deal. They are your documents – even with the best accountants and lawyers, it is only a job for them – so you need to focus on management, management, management.”

That is why big company deals like Hewlett Packard go wrong, explains John. And he cited the example of Caterpillar, a Chinese company worth $653 and written down by $580 because nobody counted the machines to check they were all present and accounted for.

Attendee Feedback

“My key tips from the evening – ‘It’s your deal’ – keep on top of every legal document – don’t trust the lawyers to do it right, it’s just their day job. Also, maybe ‘buy’ the people away from a target rather than buy the company. Employees in acquisition targets expect ‘a team parachuted in’, they expect to see some action going on, lack of it is disconcerting. Make sure there is a strategic fit.”

“Extensive due diligence is absolutely critical and don’t forget the HR issues.”

“Create a template for acquisitions and stick to it.”

“Key tip – It’s all about people.”

“Some good detail on the nitty gritty of acquisitions – what to insist on, valuations, people issues, non-compete. I will have more confidence in approaching acquisitions now.”

Speaker biogs

Making your Market Focus Dinner

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It is one thing to have a great product idea, and quite another to get it to market and sell it.

Ben Hounsell of TenBu Technologies, shared his experiences about the challenges, from setting up manufacture to getting retail partners on board. He talked openly and honestly about the many issues he faced when growing his company and the passion that has driven him to strive for success.

Many of the elements of Ben’s presentation resonated with Paul Grant of Mackays Marmalades and Preserves and he took time to explain how similar the steps to market entry are, whether it is a high technology product or a product targeted at a very mature category like traditional food.

Paul says:

1. Your product must be fit for both purpose and market.
2. You should research case studies of home and overseas markets.
3. You, the entrepreneur, must lead the early market entries
4. Optimise your networking opportunities by attending trade fairs, trade missions, and linking with Global Scots.
5. Selectively pick the best chance markets initially.
6. Market entry partners must have a competent English speaker
7. Market entry can be costly.
8. Free goods and sampling is a minimum requirement.
9. Market development/brand building are very costly so you should agree an annual plan with
each market partner.
10. Emailing is essential. A follow up phone call is even better. But a customer visit is the key!

Neil MacMartin took many valuable nuggets of advice from the evening’s discussions. For Neil, the most memorable pieces of advice were to “Cap your distributors, to put a minimum spend of each invoice into marketing your product”. And that you need to have your standard operating procedures and key performance indicators nailed before growing internationally.

“I will be changing the way I deal with approaching international distributors and manufactures now,” said Neil of Freeflow Global Ltd. “I will make sure they have a very high competency in English, especially the first 20 countries, and then will also make sure that I tie them in to re-spend on marketing and branding within their country. “

Feedback after the event was positive, and there are a number of quotes on the event page worth reading. But one attendee took time to share the key tips they learned that night:

1. It might be easy to get manufacturing done cheaply, however, it does not mean that it will be done efficiently. Efficiency needs to be worked on over time.
2. When you are dealing with companies abroad in either manufacturing or distribution, someone on their company board/ operations team has to have a full understanding of English.
3. In order to release full value from your products when entering into discussions with big multiple retailers you must know your lead times and, more importantly, they’d better be right!
4. Build your brand through big brands.
5. Case studies on international markets are a must read before going international, not just your home markets or markets you like to read about.
6. To win in globalisation of a company you have to win over your first markets.
7. America is the most expensive country in which to build a brand.
8. When selling internationally you should put a cap on each invoice sent to the country that states a % of the invoice goes towards marketing ie 10% of every invoice.
9. Get your overseas partners or distributors to invest significantly in their first order or, better still, invest in the company as this will then bind them into making your product/ market work.

Highlights from An Evening with Colin Robertson – part 1

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If you weren’t at An Evening with Colin Robertson, then you missed out on a quality event.

2012′s Entrepreneur of the Year Colin Robertson was on top form, his talk both entertaining and educational.

In part 2 of this blog we’ll share highlights from the evening through the eyes of some of the members who attended, but for now you can listen to Colin talk about de-risking Alexander Dennis Ltd, growth in products, sales and profits, customer retention, moving out of comfort zones, and hitting £1bn t/o in the not too distant future.

Trust us, this is one video you really want to watch.

Diary of an Entrepreneur – #3

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Been it, seen it, done it ...

Been it, seen it, done it …


Well, that’s it for another year. The Christmas party scars are starting to heal and James from stores has finally started to talk to people after his unfortunate “misdemeanour” at 3am with the boyfriend of Tracy in accounts, which resulted in an energetic display from 3 of Glasgow’s finest “night attendants” – what was wrong with the name “bouncer” anyway? (and on a similar point, why did “personnel” become “Human Resources”?).

As usual the staff left the office prior to the Christmas break with more acceleration than a greyhound on amphetamines and came back to work with as much enthusiasm as the PR director for the Lib-Dems. Looks like it’s my job to be team motivator and to try and whip up the enthusiasm. That’ll go down well no doubt – fortunately I’m used to being unpopular, however, as the emails start getting read I’m getting looks that I haven’t seen since I explained to my bank manager that I needed some form of “assistance” to deal with the divorce payments.

It would appear that the accountant has just worked out that our customers all had the same break as us and, surprise surprise, didn’t pay us during the holiday break. I’ve now seen 3 emails in the last 45 minutes all with the heading “credit control” and with more capitals in the opening paragraph than even I’m comfortable with. Clearly his forecasting hasn’t quite gone according to plan and he’s just working out that the first thing our customers will do on their return to work will not be to reach for the cheque book to pay us before everyone else. I make a note to myself to go and see him in a couple of hours time to try and calm him down before he puts 75% of our customers on credit alert and stops supplies to them.

Oh joy.

Any publicity is good publicity, so I’ve been told. Well, I’ve got one of the red tops holding on line 4 and I have to say that principle might work for certain Irish airlines, however I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work for me. The “friendly” journo is waiting for our quote in respect of one of our products which has just been revealed by the wonderful BBC as having been seen in use in a rather unfriendly country, whose policies on equality and fairness when compared to mine would put me in the leading role for a Nobel peace prize. I’m trying to get hold of my solicitor whilst said journo is on hold, but it seems to me that he’s currently doing one of the two things he’s always doing when I want him: lunch or court. How on earth he manages to bill me for the exorbitant fees when he can only have 45 minutes of daily available time I will never know.

Decide to speak to journo, who seems more friendly than I am comfortable with. He only wants a “quote” so he can keep his editor happy. He says the story will never run as it’s a busy day and this isn’t really on anyone’s radar. Funnily enough as he says these words, all I can think of is the translation- “nothing’s happening in the world and this is going to make page 1,3 & 4 with a follow on for the next 3 days as some MP wakes up to condemn capitalist manufacturers that just happen to pay taxes and employ people”.

Remind myself to have a harsh word with marketing and their memo about all products bearing our corporate branding to improve awareness of our company in the marketplace. Somehow, I can’t help but think today was just the day I didn’t really want everyone to know the full extent of our product usage. Start planning damage limitation, whilst at the same time thinking I might need to use another company vehicle home tonight, or even stay in a hotel just in case the red tops are camped outside the house door.

Sinking into the chair I start trying to leaf through the business cards trying to find the card for that PR firm I met at the last Exchange conference. I remember them saying they excelled in crisis management – well, this will be one to test their superhuman skills. Suddenly, have a thought though – just how did our equipment find its way halfway round the world in a country I only distantly remember from my 4th year geography lessons? Ask Tracy to do some digging (she’s only too happy for any excuse to stay away from James) whilst I start trying to explain to the PR company that we don’t manufacture products that would normally be found advertised in “Dictator’s Weekly” and that this has come as much of a shock to me as it appears to have come to my MP.

Finally, a breakthrough; Tracey triumphantly declares that the product we made was supplied to the UN. Never have I been so glad to discover that the UN clearly has had a shipment “diverted” and our goods clearly turned up where they shouldn’t be. That’ll be the product warranty invalidated then – no need to send out the service reminders this time.

Now, just need to email my solicitor to tell him not to start thinking billable thoughts about the problem and to break the news to James that we’re not swapping cars tonight after all…