Louis (Intro)
Hello, my name’s Louis, and you’re listening to Kakou Talk, a podcast about accessibility and community brought to you by Kakou Technologies. You’re currently listening to Episode 6 with our guest, Adrian Williamson. I hope you enjoy.
Louis
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the sixth episode of Kakou Talk. I’m sitting here with a very long-time friend of Kakou, and of Ann Fomukong-Boden, Adrian Williamson. How are you?
Adrian
Yeah. Hi, thank you very much. I’m good.
Louis
So, you know, as always, the most important thing we can do right away is for you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Adrian
Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, my name is Adrian Williamson. I’m the Innovation Support Project Manager for Chesterfield Borough Council. What that basically means is- longest job title ever-
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
But what it basically means is, I provide business support for businesses, which means I talk to them on a very regular basis, that’s my job. And my job really is to highlight the things that would potentially be worthwhile when thinking about- I don’t tell people what to do, what I do is I talk about the potential options they’ve got in terms of quite a lot of variety of different things. I deal with all sorts of sizes of business, micro ones from individual people, right up to businesses up to 250 people, across all the different sectors really. In some respects, my job is like a sort of problem-solving job. But part of it also is fun, because I’m dealing with so many different people across so many different sectors.
Louis
Sure.
Adrian
My role in this very much so is to make sure I ring fence everything as well, because obviously, obviously, if I spoke to everybody about what somebody was telling me that was intimate about their business, that would be a problem, they wouldn’t be able to trust me.
Louis
Yeah, there’s got to be a level of confidentiality in what you do?
Adrian
Yeah.
Louis
No crossing wires.
Adrian
No. I think the thing that’s really positive, from my point of view is that all the businesses that I deal with, even if I’m dealing with businesses in the same sector, and this does happen, they’re all different because the culture that they have, and the way they think about things is dictated by the people who run them. So even reasonably large businesses, the way that they run culturally, even though they have to run with the management structure, it’s still dictated by the way that that business was set up to start off with.
Louis
Oh, of course, yeah.
Adrian
But that’s great. Because it means when I go and see somebody, it’s not like a carbon copy of somebody else, and that their requirements will be slightly different, because they think about the world slightly differently.
Louis
I imagine with the larger businesses, you go there, it must be like an entirely different ecosystem. It must be like stepping into like, a different terrarium every time.
Adrian
Yeah, it is different. But the thing is, whenever I go and see somebody, I never quite know what I’m what it’s going to be like. I work on the principle that everybody as a fundamental reason, they want to have a chat with me. And my role really, is to try and find out a little bit more about that quite a lot more about them, what makes them tick, and then start thinking about how they do what they do. What makes it happen.
Louis
Yeah?
Adrian
Sometimes some people haven’t thought a lot about what they’re doing. They know it’s successful, and they’d like to do more, but they haven’t really perhaps analysed it a lot. That’s not everybody by any stretch of the imagination, but there are people who are like that, and you think well, actually talking to me is quite useful, because I then sort of help them think about the kinds of structure things they’re doing. Why does this work? Why does it not work?
Louis
So you mentioned there, every time you go somewhere new, you never really know what to expect.
Adrian
No.
Louis
So after doing this job for, you know, the time you’ve been doing it, have you learned to completely let go of all preconceptions or do you think there are still like, some safe bets, like, there are still little parts of the job where you’re a bit like ‘I kind of know what I’m getting into here’ or have you abandoned that?
Adrian
I think the thing is, I mean, sometimes people come to me with these specific requirements. So sometimes they’ll get- well, not with specific requirements- but the reason they want to talk to me about is some specific thing. So they might want funding, or they might think- one of the terms that somebody used with me relatively recently I quite like is they feel they’re ‘plateauing.’ And they can’t get beyond kind of a certain point. And it would be nice for them to do that. But they don’t quite know how, because often people are very close to what they’re doing. It’s almost like they’re so close to it in person, they can’t see the bigger picture. So that sometimes dictates a little bit about what to expect about them. But one of the things I’ve learned to do, which is which is sort of counterintuitive is I don’t tend to look at people’s websites much.
Louis
Oh, yeah?
Adrian
And the main reason for that is that websites aren’t necessarily a full rendition of what the business is.
Louis
Yes.
Adrian
Now, it might be a version of what the business was, say, two years ago, or it’s also sometimes a rendition of what people who have been told to do the website think the business is.
Louis
Yeah, it’s all marketing. It’s all to a degree, like, a good face facing out to the world.
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
It’s to be appealing. It’s not necessarily what the business is.
Adrian
Yes. And I think that that, I feel that to a certain extent that can lead the witness. It’s not that I don’t think websites are useful, and I certainly talk about websites. But I’m very much aware that if I look at a website, sometimes that can make me have certain expectations about the way that businesses certainly even things like, who the target market is. And that’s potentially a problem if you just tend to assume your target market is a business to consumer, B-to-C, market. And it turns out they’ve got a sizable amount of business to business… Well, actually, if you just come straight to the business consumer, you’re not trying to absorb the wider thing. So I like to find out from people and love to ask them the direct question, ‘but who your customers?’ That kind of thing, and how, where does mostly business come from all that kind of stuff. Because that gives me an idea, even if I’m not going into loads of detail to start off with, I’ve got like a shape.
Louis
Yeah, of course, you get down to the core of like, ‘what do you actually want to achieve?’ Like, what are you looking for? What have you been looking for?
Adrian
Yeah.
Louis
I think it’s good idea to like, not, like you said, not entirely forget websites and online presence-
Adrian
Yeah, it’s important.
Louis
But to let it take a backseat, because you cannot get the judgement- especially on the level of someone who is going in like very intimately working with the people who founded it-
Adrian
Absolutely.
Louis
You know, made policies, things like that.
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
It’s… there’s absolutely no way you can compare it, I imagine.
Adrian
No. And the thing is, there’s a difference sometimes internally, compared to the way people want to be seen externally anyway, even though it may have drifted, as we’re already saying. So from my point of view, when I first go into see people, I might be armed with the fact that I know that they’ve been quiet about, you know they were plateauing, or they wanted to, they feel that they could be a bit more organised, or whatever it happens to be. But I’m very much aware that from my perspective, I need to ask a lot more questions more widely. Because sometimes that what manifests as they think is the problem in one particular area, might not actually be a problem, it’s actually something that’s emanating from somewhere else.
Louis
Okay?
Adrian
It’s, again, it’s do with how sometimes people are very intimate and so close to something, it’s very difficult to see the bigger picture. A lot of the time, the way I work is I just say what- give people ideas about things that might be beneficial to them, and then let them see whether it’s something they want to integrate into their business ideas. The main reason for this is the key is so that people make decisions about what they want to do based on the way they feel it will work effectively for them. So it doesn’t matter how good an idea is, if they don’t feel that it would be something that would be appropriate for their business or it wouldn’t be a good fit with the way they, culturally for example, feel about the way they operate then that won’t work for them.
Louis
Yeah.
Adrian
So for me, I think the importance of what I have is about giving them different things that they could consider, different ways of doing things, different, sort of, concepts to work with. Not theoretical, but practical things. What could you do? And how would it work? And that’s one of the things that’s important to me. It’s not all about theory, I mean, a very small amount of it’s about theory, for me, it’s about what makes things work. Why do businesses work? What’s worked in the past, not necessarily just in your sector, but in other places? I don’t share people’s special ideas about doing things either. But there is a lot of advantages to work in across sectors, because certain sectors work in certain ways. And so, you talk to somebody else, and, well, actually, you could operate in a similar way to the way this sector generally operates- ‘this might be something.’
Louis
It’s almost like getting an understanding of a wide variety of structures.
Adrian
Yeah. Yeah, that there’s a lot of similarities between businesses, really, there’s lots, you know. Whether they’re larger ones, or smaller ones, they all have the things about how do they market? Who are their customers? What’s their risk associated with their customer base? How much does it cost for their materials? What about their suppliers? How do they market? How do they position themselves? Even though they can do a lot of things for how they want people to relate to them, their clients to relate to them? If it’s different client groups? How do they do that? All those kinds of things are very, very similar across different types of business. The scale is very different, yes, and the way it fully manifests itself is different.
Louis
So obviously, without going into- just a question I want to ask- without going into details, and obviously not going into names for the sake of confidentiality.
Adrian
Yeah.
Louis
What have you found to be one of the more surprising or unexpected parallels you’ve seen between sectors?
Adrian
I think that’s quite difficult because even though the sectors in terms of what they’re delivering are very different… the people that sit behind them are still people and the way they think about the way the business runs is kind of- I understand what you’re saying, I think, but I’ve never found anything very surprising from that point of view, I think the things that I’ve found which are surprising are sometimes I’ll see people and like, say they just do something but they’re not really aware of why it’s as successful as it is.
Louis
Okay?
Adrian
And then it’s almost like you have to go back, you have to help them to kind of get more detail and understand the detail of what it is which then it helps them go forward. Because then if you really understand where the levers are… it’s like doing something with having the levers locked away. (Laughs)
Louis
Yeah. (Laughs)
Adrian
But then if all of a sudden you go, ‘Oh, actually, you know, here are the levers’, here are things that potentially, you can play with these. These are things that can make a difference, then at that point, they can start perhaps moving forward again. But the thing from my point of view as well, is what I do works most successfully when I’m working with people who want to talk to me. I can’t make people work with me, if you see what I mean, they need to kind of be receptive.
Louis
Yeah, of course.
Adrian
But I’ve worked with a number of people for ages, really. I mean, I’ve worked with some people from around 2015, 2016. So I’ve been working with the same businesses for quite some time. So I suppose that emphasises something else we haven’t said, which is that my job is really to develop an ongoing relationship. It’s not like a one hit wonder, I don’t go and see somebody and then that’s it. I’m interested in exploring a little bit about the business, trying to give them some value added associated with a meeting that I have with them. And then when I come back to see them, it’s about well, what’s changed since we last spoke? How, what have you learned from them? Are there any of the things that we talked about that you’ve integrated into your thinking? Have you tried this? Have you tried that? That’s… that’s really positive.
Louis
That’s interesting. We were talking about confidentiality just then but it seems like the doctor metaphor might be really accurate then- going back for repeat check-ups, here are the improvements? Anything gotten worse? Have you addressed that?
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
Something you said that I thought was really interesting- and I guess I never really thought about it, because obviously I don’t do what you do so none of this is something I’ve really thought about (Laughs)- But the idea that like, sometimes when you go to help people with the things that they’re not sure what to do next, a lot of the benefit of- well, not benefit- but something that you can use to help them is identifying what went well, like, exactly why is it the good things happen?
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
To address things like, that maybe aren’t happening. I think that’s interesting.
Adrian
Yeah. Yes. Sometimes it’s asking people ‘what does good look like?’
Louis
Yeah.
Adrian
What does good look like? Well, sometimes people have never defined that. And also, sometimes when it’s difficult to go forward, sometimes it’s thinking about what’s the worst possible outcome, what would be the wrong way of doing it? Well, if you know the wrong way of doing it, then you know, it’s in the opposite direction of that. There are all sorts of different ways of kind of approaching the issue. A lot of it depends, though, very much on the person you’re talking to. The way I work really is I work with people, and then there might be larger businesses or smaller businesses, but the success I have is really working with people trying to help them kind of just move forward that little bit. And invariably, when I’m working with businesses for extended period of time, these small increments, they all add up, it’s a bit like, I always think it’s a bit like compound growth. That’s where you’ve got little increment, a little increment, little increment, you know, you pull them all together, that gives people an opportunity to improve things. And I always think I sort of sit metaphorically on the same side of the table as them if I if they do well, it’s not because I’ve spoken to them, that it is more because they’ve been successful, they’ve done something. But the other thing is that, aside from just saying, oh, it might be worthwhile thinking about this, have you thought about that? Have you considered thinking about this area differently? Some of it is also the fact that if I sit down in a meeting with somebody, all of a sudden they talk to me strategically, they’re talking to you about the business. And I always think it’s a bit like, it’s like a framing in a comic book, where people say things about their business, and they can see the speech bubble in front of them, they go, ‘Oh, I’m saying this, this is my business!’ But they won’t necessarily have had that conversation.
Louis
Well, I think that’s some, it’s the same with literature and the same as speaking out loud is- once it’s verbalised, like, once it’s out of your head, in the world, when it’s like, a written down step by step idea, it’s easier for people to kind of like, see the mistakes, the advantages.
Adrian
Yes. I agree with you completely. I think when an idea is in your head, it’s a bit like, children playing in the playground that’s got the ground is covered in cotton wool. And it’s the idea that, you know, ‘this is great. This is great. This is great!’ As soon as you get it out in the real world, you look at it critically and go, ‘well, would this really work? Where are the pitfalls?’ Yeah, yeah. But I think for my, the other thing I tend to find is that when I’m working with people, I’m generally quite an optimistic kind of person and I suppose I’m also problems as Problem Solver-y type person at heart.
Louis
I was about to say earlier on that you strike me as like a real problem solver, mediator type of guy.
Adrian
Kind of!
Louis
The way you’re talking about this, someone who’s like a people person, making them work with you. You’re about just kind of, almost like, just rewording what they’ve said to make them see the same sort things you’re seeing.
Adrian
Kind of, yeah.
Louis
Interesting. Would you say you’re a people person?
Adrian
I think so, yeah. I think the thing is, I’m a people person, but I’m also kind of quite analytic, quite analytical. And from that point of view, I think it means that if I gather information from people, if I’m talking to people, there are chances that I can find things, I can see things that might be worthwhile considering. So what people give me is what they probably feel is relatively bland information about the way that their business is, often because I’m seeing it fresh as opposed to seeing it something that’s always there every day is what people have, I can often see things in them that are potentially worthwhile looking at. So if you’ve got the opposite- so for example, if you were operating say, I don’t know, 75% of your capacity to generate business and you were quite comfortable, but really, you wanted to generate more revenue. But you haven’t necessarily done a lot with your digital footprint. Well, from my point of view, that would be one- okay, well, could there be a way that the digital footprint or developing a digital footprint or perhaps making yourself more visible in the local area might be important, it might be… Is networking worthwhile doing? Would it be worthwhile doing a little bit of networking? That’s a shortcut to building visibility, all that kind of stuff. So it’s to do with all aspects of business, really, I’m a sort of… I kind of cover lots of areas. But I’m not a specific expert in any one area short. So, for example, if you wanted a solicitor, I can’t do that, I’m not an accountant, I can’t do that. I’m not a marketeer but I know a lot about marketing, I know about a lot of things that can help people build a little bit more comfort and move forward with their business in a way that makes them… moving forward comfortably, rather than thinking that ‘oh, no, we have learned to change everything.’ No, no, no.
Louis
Yeah. It’s almost it’s less about, you’re not someone who’s there to like, suggest colossal restructuring of something that’s theirs. And you’ve said it yourself, you know, where are the levers? What is good? What does bad look like? It’s almost like you’re there just to organise thoughts. It’s like, you’re someone who understands, in a broad sense, the kind of ins and outs in the machinations of like working in a business at a high level. And you are someone who is able to give a second opinion, someone who is able to sort of, reorganise ideas, you know, take little parts together to say ‘look at them. What else could it be?’
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
I think it’s interesting that, that’s kind of the attitude you have with it. It’s not about colossal change. Because if you if it’s a business that’s functioning, it’s functioning.
Adrian
Yeah. I think the thing is, if somebody did need big changes, because everything had major problems with it, yeah, then I’m quite capable of being able to do it. It’s just the nature of the businesses that I tend to have contact with invariably are ones where they’re doing quite a lot of things well, sometimes they’re not doing all the things well. And that’s where they potentially are having a problem. In other words, that you know, they talk about the wishes they want to be. Well, okay, let’s have a look at what are doing well, let’s have a look at the way that you’re handling things. What does that mean? What can we discern from that? And then gathering more information and more information, and then trying to work out where there potentially might be a problem? There is no real answer. There’s… I often say there’s no golden orb of wonderfulness, the ‘Well, you do it like this, all your problems will be over.’
Louis
(Laughs) Yeah, there’s no way to ‘win.’
Adrian
No, there isn’t. The other thing is that the nature of success is something that’s dictated not just by the business, it’s dictated by the market of the business. Yeah. And that sometimes is affected by culture, sometimes affected by international finance. And there’s all sorts of reasons things change. It’s a moving target. So we’re a moving target all the time. And this is one of the reasons sometimes where say, for example, somebody does, I don’t know, they have a marketing plan, they have a particular idea about what they want to do, and they do this particular marketing plan, it doesn’t yield all they want. Well, it doesn’t mean that if you ran that same marketing plan in, I don’t know, 12 months time, 24 months time, it wouldn’t be successful. It might not be. But it’s the idea that the world changes. What people want changes. And the other thing, of course, is the nature of businesses ideas, it’s very, I mean, something varies quite a lot. So you’ve got people who are working in the knowledge economy, you’ve got people who are manufacturing, your people who work in hospitality, you’ve got people who are working in retail, your people, you know, there’s all sorts of different people working in all sorts of different areas, and the way they relate to their markets is always slightly different. But I must admit, because I’ve been doing it for quite some time. Now, I don’t get fazed quite so much by any type of business. Because I’ve realised that the most important thing is have a good conversation with people find out, find out what their problems are trying to see if you can fix what they perceive to be their problems, and try and offer them something that might be helpful to them. And then they might not want that.
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
I always say to people, if you think that I’m not adding any, you know, I’m not adding any value. I’m not, I’m not helping you while we’re having a chat, then that’s okay. Just tell me, I’ll pop off. But it doesn’t matter. I mean, from my perspective, it’s more about if people can see that I’m working to help them. And I’m genuinely in the moment with them trying to try to do that… one of the things about this job, especially if you do it properly, is you really do give a lot into the meetings that you have with people, you are really in it with the person, you’re trying to do as much as you can. So it is, you know, my meetings last, I suppose the shortest meeting lasts about an hour, the longest meeting I’ve ever had lasted about five hours, which was enormously long.
Louis
Gosh.
Adrian
But normally, often, often into the period of about two hours, or two and a half hours. And that’s, that’s quite a lot of concentrated effort. It might be a conversation. But all the time, I’m trying to identify things that might be worthwhile thinking about this is one of the reasons why when I go back to speak to people, we get the opportunity to sort of embellish a little bit more on some of the items that may have been raised in the previous meeting. So I write notes and send them out on email. Not you should do this, but these are some of the things we talked about. But also sometimes because things have changed between the two meetings. There are other things that come up. So this is why I’ve had relationships that go on for a long time with businesses because I can work with them over a period of time as always something new to talk about, another way of looking at something that potentially will help people. And I genuinely think my job is about helping people, which is great.
Louis
Yeah. I think it’s very obvious in what you’re saying. I was just thinking, as you were talking about that, that you are very clearly someone who sees this as like a job of helping people, not strictly just businesses, it’s being on same side of the table as them. It’s kind of empathising about what they’re trying to get out of what they’ve been doing some businesses, since they were children, they might have been involved with, you know. Something I want to ask, because you touched on it earlier that sometimes businesses are very subject to the market, they’re subject to either the way the world changes, being subject to new cycles, how difficult is it? Or if you’ve ever encountered this, to kind of go into a situation where like, you can tell it’s a little bit doomed, and it’s completely out of both your hands? Do you ever have a moment like that? Where you realised there were circumstances going on where it might be a little bit beyond saving?
Adrian
Sometimes you do get that situation where you’ve got… it really only happens where people are starting to almost, crying and shouting out for help where they feel there’s an emergency occurred. In other words, it’s a bit like people waving a like drowning, that kind of thing. Yeah. That’s probably putting a bit strongly but it’s the fact that once it gets to a certain point, it does get difficult to be able to get back to solid ground effectively. I always think when we when we get to a situation like that, it would have been nice if people, sort of, six months before or twelve months before thought, ‘well, there looks to be one or two issues that are that are prevalent at the moment, would it be worthwhile doing something else?’ It doesn’t have to be me, but the idea of sitting down with somebody who hasn’t got an axe to grind, in other words, it’s not family and friends. But the way they’ll go, they’ll often say, ‘whatever you do is brilliant’ or, alternatively, ‘I wouldn’t do that, it’s too risky.’ They’re the kind of two and you’re very lucky if you’ve got a family member or friend who can be who can act as a critical friend, a proper sounding board. So if you’ve got somebody like that, or if you’ve got something a professional person that you’re dealing with, or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just the idea of sort of having somebody else take a look at what you’re doing. So from my point of view, as I say, doesn’t really matter. People talk to me or don’t I think it’s more to do with the fact that I think people ought to talk to other people intend to find with larger businesses, sometimes they do employ consultants who will talk to them or employ coaches who will work with them anyway. So yeah, bigger corporates, not something more than the 250 probably employees, probably the bigger ones, they will. But when you’re a small business, you often can’t necessarily you don’t necessarily have the money available to be able to do that. But there are resources like myself, and I’m paid for by the D2N2 growth hub, or part funded by that and part funded by Chesterfield Borough Council. So what that means, ultimately, is that you get support without having to pay for it, which is why I’m which is why I’m quite busy. A lot of the time.
Louis
(Laughs) It was a it was a four month process to get a hold of you!
Adrian
(Laughs) I know! But we got together eventually, so it’s alright. (Laughs)
Louis
Oh yeah, sure, we’re having a great time. (Laughs) So I guess this is a very basic, perhaps slightly boring question but it’s something I’m interested in. How did you start in this line of work? How did you come into this?
Adrian
I used to work in financial services. I used to work for a company that was called Equity In Law a long time ago, I worked in insurance. So I was what used to be called an inspector, which would be that I would I was a technical salesperson really, who sold life insurance, pensions, investment type products for Equity In Law. Now over the years, that changed. At that point when I first started it was working with what became independent financial advisors, it was just changing, the whole thing was changing. As time went on, they, you know, they grew and they got acquired by other companies. And eventually it became Axis Of Life. So I was part of Axis Of Life. And by that point, I was working with people who were only selling Axis Of Life products. So what that means is, if they’re only selling that individual company’s products, who potentially is providing them with the equivalent of business support and financial services terms. So what that means is effectively, I was doing a sort of embryonic version of business support with people I was talking to, I was also responsible for checking the way that people were selling. So I’d sit in sales meetings and things like that. So in other words, they were they were working with clients, so I would sit with them and talk with them. So I’ve actually got experience in sales, which is not as common as you think, for people who operate in business support.
Louis
Oh, really?
Adrian
And, yeah, that in itself is quite difficult because of course, sales, whether you want to call it sales or not, ultimately, is the key thing. People effectively sell to people. It’s not the bad version of sales. It’s the version where people want to buy something from you when, but they want to buy something from you need to think about how it needs to be positioned and also even in conversation with people. How would you do that? So I think from my perspective, I’ve benefited quite a lot from that and it was an opportunity to, eventually I worked for I worked for other people in financial services terms. At one point, I was also a financial advisor. So I had been a financial advisor, but there was an opportunity to work for business link came up. And this is some time ago, when there used to be a contract across the whole of the UK. And I joined Business Link and realised I was reasonably good at it. I actually quite liked it.
Louis
It’s a good feeling, isn’t it.
Adrian
Yeah, and I think over the years, I’ve realised it is something that’s quite closely, I suppose intimately related to the way I am as a person. So you know when you find, you find that kind of job. And most people, hopefully, eventually will find that kind of job. Where you think ‘well, that’s kind of me and I’m quite good at it but I also quite like it.’ And I’m not ashamed to say I’m quite good at it, because I think I am quite good at it. But I think that it’s that’s more to do with the fact that people have said that they quite like what I’m doing (Laughs) rather than me saying ‘Oh yeah, I’m really good!’
Louis
Oh, yeah, I guess that’s the benefit of working in something that’s always like, you know, face to face one on one like, you don’t do your job alone. It’s always with other people. You kind of have like live constant, fairly reliable feedback. Like, ‘Am I actually helping?’ And obviously, you seem to be.
Adrian
Yeah, and if I’m feeling particularly needy, I’ll go, Was that helpful? Did you find that helpful?
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
Some days, depending on how I’m feeling, but yeah, I think the fact that I’ve worked with a number of people for quite a long period of time, and the fact that when I, when I do see people, quite often they, they want to have a bit more of a chat with me, and we will book another meeting, and then another meeting another meeting. It can be great, but it’s a that’s not the requirement, when people first start talking to me, it’s more, let’s, let’s have a chat. And that’s the other thing, I don’t really try and position it as a very big, big time formal meeting, unless it’s a larger business, and they wanted a formal chat, and I can do it I, you know, it doesn’t bother me. But I know that my, my experience shows that generally having a quite a nice intimate chat is worthwhile, you know, let’s have a cup of tea, let’s have a drink, or whatever it happens to be and then sit down and just talk around things. And it’s not really about gathering as much information as possible from businesses, certainly the first time it’s about gathering what you think is pertinent. And then if you’ve got the opportunity to have another chat and another, as we said already, it’s about sort of them gathering further information, embellishing that so that you understand more and more about the business and find more and more about it that might be worthwhile having to think about.
Louis
So with your experience in like sales and working as a financial advisor, and someone who, you know, a big point of the enjoyment that you seem to have in this job is really tangibly effectively helping people to help businesses along, do you find yourself that like, do you find yourself quite empathetic to all levels of the business? I would imagine so, you know, even if you’re speaking to someone who, you know, you’re speaking to a CEO, do you still very much have in mind every tier of the employee kind of going down that pyramid? Is that something that like, is on your mind?
Adrian
Yeah, yeah, I think I think about the structure of the business overall, I think the reality is that people see things from different levels, depending on whereabouts in the business that they are in. So to a certain extent, you’ve got to kind of understand it from that perspective, but also bring in these other things. Ultimately, especially these days, it’s very difficult to recruit. So if we’re, if we’re talking about, you know, the current times at the moment, you definitely need to keep your employees on board, because if you don’t keep your employees on board, you might well find it quite difficult to find replacements for them. Recruitment is a nightmare, currently, for across nearly every sector, there are very few sectors that are that aren’t influenced by this. So the idea that businesses themselves need to, they always really need to work in it in a way that keeps the clients happy, keeps the employees happy, and keeps the employees coming back and keeps the clients coming back and keeps their suppliers happy. So there’s all these things to do. And it’s easy to say, like at a very high level, which is what I’m saying there, because that’s really easy to say that the devil is in the detail. And that’s the thing. It’s like, what are you trying to do? How are you trying to do it? What we’re what we’re doing, and it’s the same? It’s the same for whichever sort of scale of business it is. It’s definitely what’s changed since last time, of the things we talked about last time. What did you think really worked for you? Were there elements that you think didn’t work quite so well? Or you didn’t think reflect? That’s fine. And then we’ll go forward. And we’ll see what might be worthwhile. It varies a lot, but I do I find it engaging, there’s a lot of work associated with it. The fun part of it, from my point of view is always talking to people to be honest. You can probably tell that I like talking to people. (Laughs)
Louis
Well, you’ve managed it for 29 minutes! (Laughs) It’s been engaging! You know, if I had a business I needed to save, I’m sure you’d be a joy to sit across from me. (Laughs)
Adrian
I mean, thing is, it’s about all different types of businesses, like I say. So it might be something where, you know, you think there’s potentially a problem, you need to fix it. Or it could be you think, well, I’ve got to a certain point, and let’s think about to get any further. It’s almost like I’ve got like a barrier ahead of me, I can’t do that. You want to go off in a different direction. How do I do that? It’s different. What do, you know, certain customers are not doing quite so well with or I’m being asked to do something differently. Is it useful just to talk to somebody else? And so there’s all sorts of really good reasons to have a chat. But yeah, I think like we said earlier, one of the key things is making sure that people want to engage with you. If they want to have a chat with you, I think part of this as well, I think I’ve said this to a number of people as I think sometimes some of the things I say are, there’s a nuance associated with it, you know, some things are arguably quite simple, you know, you’ve got it, you know, say 25% to 30% of your business goes through one customer. But what happens if that customer disappears? This is a standard thing, but sometimes things are far more subtle than that. So if you’ve got somebody who’s engaged with you, they’re going to listen to the subtle things, and they’re going to go, Yeah, I kind of understand what you’re trying to say. And then to try and think about the way to integrate it. Whereas if you’ve got somebody who’s not properly engaged with you, that subtlety? That’s kind of lost. Because they want some kind of proof. You know, ‘prove it!’
Louis
Is that kind of where you see like, the- the question I want to ask you really, and again, no details, no names, obviously confidentiality is important in what you do. When you talk to people at high levels of a business, and even though despite the business they represent that you want to help and you care about helping and being involved with this business, do you ever find that the human element comes into play? Have you ever had, like, a business that does experience a slight set back or a slight wobble or something while they’re having this ongoing relationship with you, do you ever find somebody who will just throw their toys out the pram? Have you ever had a relationship that you have with a business completely sour based just on the person you’re in contact with?
Adrian
Like, a being difficult to talk to, sort of thing?
Louis
Being difficult to talk to, lashing out, maybe laying blame on you?
Adrian
No, it doesn’t tend to happen, putting blame on me. I mean, sometimes there’s a cast of thousands and sometimes people go and sometimes when I’ve now dealt with people for a long time they’ll see me once and they might think they don’t want to speak to me again and that’s partly because they only potentially wanted one thing and they’re not necessarily prepared to be open about some of the other things that might be beneficial to them.
Louis
So they were looking for reassurance about one idea, not ideas.
Adrian
Perhaps. I mean sometimes people have a one thing they want and if they can’t get the one thing they want they might not necessarily want to talk to me again, so it doesn’t really phase me from that point of view. I’ve never had somebody get like, aggressive or anything like that ever, never really, I don’t think, not like that. People sometimes get like, ‘I’ve done this and I’ve done this and I can’t really work out what’s going on!’ But one the things that I bring is, because I’m a sounding board, I can actually ask them more questions about it and say like, ‘well, what does that mean? What do you think that means? What’s happened? What’s the detail of what’s happened? Then how does that fit against the other things that you’re trying to do? You set out and wanted to do this, it’s not ended quite how you wanted it to, so let’s examine it, let’s take a look at it, let’s see what you can salvage from this and what does that say about how you’re going to go forward with other things?’ One of the things I often say to people, I say it a lot, is that you should always do things on purpose. You should do it for a reason. Everything that you do, you do it for a reason. You should never get to a point where I go ‘Well why did you do that?’ and you go ‘Well, I don’t know, we’ve just always done it that way.’ That’s really bad!
Louis
Yeah, like, if you can’t tell us why you’re doing it that way still…
Adrian
Yes.
Louis
So when you come to something like that, is it about changing that or stopping that?
Adrian
No, it’s more to do with the fact that if it’s working well, we wouldn’t want to change it, but then if something changes and things don’t work quite so well you need to know the reason you did it because you might want to reverse that and choose a different way of doing it.
Louis
You got to know all the parts of the engine.
Adrian
Kind of, yeah. All the moving parts. This isn’t spending ages thinking all about your business at all, it’s about this idea of having awareness, yes. It’s like, I think sometimes people need to be sort of like a spider at the middle of a web. Where they can hear and feel things moving, they know what’s going on. It’s trying to make it so that whatever’s done is always done for a reason and that there’s a plan behind that, then if things do change then you can change the approach. And again, that sounds quite, ‘oh, you just do this and do that’, but you don’t, because I know it’s not that easy. But again, if you’ve got access to levers, if you understand where the control might lay and you can change where you are then it makes it a lot easier, whereas if you’re kind of relatively oblivious then that’ quite hard. And sometimes it takes talking to somebody else to say- not necessarily me- but talking to somebody who’s not in your business. And letting them help you to see the business in a slightly different light and perhaps the opportunities that you hadn’t picked out or perhaps see where there are little things you could perhaps tweak to do stuff.
Louis
Do you ever come across a business in your job that feels like a real puzzlebox? Like one where you can’t quite seem to figure it out? Do you ever go somewhere and you’re just very perplexed, like you almost feel a challenge in what you need to do?
Adrian
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it’s not necessarily what the people do, but it’s to do perhaps with their marketplace being slightly different. They might be doing something that other people are doing but they’re marketing it to other people, they might have a very different way of approaching their clients, or their clients might be very different, or their clients might be a very select group that react very differently to other things and this is one of the reasons why having a detailed conversation with people is important, because then you can identify the way that they’re relating to their clients.
Louis
Yeah.
Adrian
You know, how are they talking to them, how do they find new ones currently, where are these people coming from? It’s almost like auditing things, auditing the way people are interacting with you and saying ‘Do you know where these customers are coming from?’ You know, where are they coming from? Were they referred? Did they come from social media? Did they come from your website? Where did they come from? Did they come from shows you went to? These are all quite useful things because then you can do quantitative analysis of what you’ve done- that sounds quite grand, ‘quantitative analysis’ but you know, just crunch those numbers and see if that tells you something, what does it tell you about, does it tell you anything? There’s also relatively simple stuff, just helping people to see how things are and how things potentially could be and again, understanding that you can tweak something. If you change everything all at once that’s usually a bad thing because you don’t know what’s been positive and what’s been negative, so it’s often ‘what can you change?’ And how good are you at monitoring those changes?
Louis
The way you talk about this, it almost reminds me of how a therapist speaks, you know what I mean? It’s less about, you’re never gonna go in to see a therapist- in this instance, you- you’re never going to have an answer, like you said earlier, there’s no crystal ball, there’s no grand prize, there’s no one correct answer, they’re not gonna come to you and just have it solved, it’s about finding the right ways to provoke them into looking inward so they can identify the issues.
Adrian.
Yeah.
Louis
Knowing where the levers are, which plates are spinning, the moving parts.
Adrian
And like I say, the important thing is how they can integrate some of the things I’ve said into what they normally do rather than doing something I say, just doing that, it’s more like ‘Well we do things this way’ and it seems like a good idea for all the reasons he’s said. What I do is when I position something it’s not a good idea because it’s a good idea it’s more ‘this might work for you because this, this, this and this based on what you’ve said, therefore-‘ and that’s when they look at it and go ‘Well actually, yeah, this might be something I can integrate into what I’m doing’ or ‘well how can I do that? This is how we do things now, so what happens if I change it?’ So in other words it’s not fully taking everything I’ve got particularly, it’s more taking what I’ve got and thinking ‘Well, what’s my interpretation of that, how do I do it?’ The important thing for this as well is that ultimately people own their own businesses, you don’t want to tell people what to do. Why would I want to do that? Why would I think it was a positive thing as well if somebody just did what I told them to do? I don’t think that’s a positive thing at all because to be effectively in charge of a business you need to feel in charge of it, instead of me just telling you to do something. That’s not… I think that’s rather bad. (Laughs)
Louis
So much of what you do seem like just having an understanding of the human element, just understanding human behaviour, how they think, what conclusions they might naturally drift towards…
Adrian
Yeah, there is quite a lot of that. But there are also things about how the way the market works, in other words it’s understanding customers, isn’t it. Customer perception is actually really important. What you actually do is important but customer perception is also important, so those two things run alongside. And you think the perception of what you actually do is the same thing but that’s not necessarily the case, certainly at the point where you’re trying to engage somebody as a prospective client as opposed to an actual client. So it’s the way that they think about what you do, and the way you think about the way you promote yourself, how you can develop consistency.
Louis
Seems like a very… cerebral business.
Adrian
That’s an element of it. I think it’s got all these little bits and pieces, I mean to a certain extent, from my point of view, it makes it interesting.
Louis
It’s very holistic, everything being connected.
Adrian
Kinda! A little.
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
But as I say, lots of businesses do things really well but there’s little bits that can be tweaked. So it’s not about failure, having a chat with somebody, it’s actually a positive thing because what it does is it- like we said, it helps as a sounding board, it helps to find those little bits and pieces that might make a little bit of a difference and that little difference can make a bigger difference over time. One of the things I often say is that a lot of business is a numbers game. Say you had, what, a hundred, a thousand customers in a year, or a hundred customers in a year, it doesn’t matter, wouldn’t it be nice to have a hundred and one customers? A hundred and two customers? So… what would you do to have a hundred and two customers? I mean, if it didn’t cost you any money and you just had to change some of the things you did, well, what would you do? You probably would. So, when you’re looking at what you do there is that kind of thing. How can you improve things just that little bit? And each of those little improvements, again, it’s the compound growth thing isn’t it. So you get one extra customer, that’s one extra person who might potentially refer you to somebody else. That’s one extra customer who might have a series of requirements over a period of time you might latch on to. It depends on the nature of the business you do, because if you’re selling mars bars it’s not quite the same thing.
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
Not the same thing as an electronic solutions, or something.
Louis
Well I’m sure if someone was in the business of just selling mars bars they could still find some use in this conversation.
Adrian
(Laughs) Oh yeah they probably could, yeah. But the thing is the nature of the way that people sell and the nature of their customers make quite a bit of difference int terms of the way that you look at it, because obviously if somebody comes in and buys something then another person comes in and buys something then a lot of it is about how you promote your location. Why would people come in? Something I often say is, well, why choose me? Why would someone choose you over going to, say, another corner shop or why should someone choose you over another business to business place down there, why should they?
Louis
Yeah. It’s almost like putting yourself in the shoes of the customer, making them think, like- when addressing these changes and getting out of your head and getting out of the business- someone out on the street, what are they thinking about your business?
Adrian
Yeah. One of the things I often say is to try and look at things through a telescope. The danger is thinking ‘Well I’m here and I’ve got this and I do this.’ It’s like setting up your business as a market stall- it doesn’t have to be a market stall obviously- but you set yourself up on a market stall, it’s a bit like, ‘why is nobody coming?’ Well, they’re not coming because they’re not looking at it and going ‘wow! That’s attractive!’ They’re looking at it going ‘ehh…’
Louis
Yeah, ‘I haven’t heard about this one, let’s give it pass.’
Adrian
Yeah, yeah. Whereas if you design the way that the thing you do looks attractive to your customers, then they’re more likely to do something. But why should they choose you over somebody else who’s in the same sector… at the very basic level those things are quite important because it helps people understand starting points, you know. Because people go ‘marketing? Marketing, what’s that?’ Marketing is basically promotion; how do you promote your business.
Louis
It’s advertising.
Adrian
Well advertising is part of it, yes, but it’s the whole thing. But then people get tied up thinking ‘Oh I should do this, I should do that’ well, actually, start thinking about your customer and start thinking about what’s important to them. Why would they even give you a second look? Why would you look different to other people? Again, that sounds quite simple but when you think about it in relation to individual businesses then there’s a lot- I don’t know, that’s one of the reasons I find my job fun, really. I find it fun because it is trying to help people and you’re trying to work out different ways of doing things, how certain approaches work better than others. Sometimes they don’t work quite so well but that’s fine because you’re exploring and you’re helping people to move forward. And even if you get something that doesn’t work quite so well, what does that tell you? What does it tell you about your customers? What does it tell you about the type of product, or service or whatever you’ve got, what does it tell you? Is that helpful in terms of the next thing you do? Well, it probably is. It probably is.
Louis
Just to wind down this conversation now, the final question I want to ask you, and something that I’ve been- and please don’t take this personally- I think the last thing I was expecting from someone who works in the this field is someone who is very deeply empathetic and really wants to help people and this is a way of coming into their careers but finding them ways to move along. Because these careers can be instrumental in the lives of, maybe hundreds-
Adrian
Probably.
Louis
-hundreds. So what do you find, and I might be touching on things I already know the answer to, what do you find the most fulfilling part of your job?
Adrian
Um… I think from my point of view it’s when people say that the things that I’ve done for them have really been helpful, I mean that’s it, getting that type of feedback. I think it makes me feel like I’ve actually achieved something and sometimes they’ll do it in conversation and I really appreciate that and it’s just really nice, it makes me feel like I’ve properly connected to them and more than that I’ve made a difference to them that hasn’t had a proper impact on them. Also when people send me emails saying nice things, that always feels quite nice.
Louis
(Laughs)
Adrian
It always feels like I’ve gotten a, sort of, prize. (Laughs) The prize is that they said something nice. It’s sometimes… the other thing is sometimes where somebody does something, they make a little change, and that little change leads to more business or leads to improvement in certain aspects of the business and you’re just like… yes, that’s something we talked about and it did make a difference and you see that. That’s a really positive thing for me. It’s a proper manifestation of it. See, a lot of the really small things, they’re not necessarily as discernible as you know, something quite chunky, it’s an improvement but it won’t be something like a massive improvement but every so often there’ll be things where you think ‘Oh, that’s done something really, really good’ and I get quite excited about that. But overall, just that sort of feedback, the ‘You’ve helped me, you’ve made a big difference to the way we run our business’ I always reflect it back and say well, yeah, I’ve helped you but a lot of it is coming from you. I do bring new things to the table, it’s not just all reflection.
Louis
You show them the light. (Laughs)
Adrian
Sort of. I help them with the direction and sometimes it’s a problem solver-y thing, I can find different routes that haven’t been considered before just as a way of giving them alternatives even if they don’t choose that route, I think that can be quite helpful. But yes, it’s the feeling that I’ve actually made a difference to people and that they value it and it has also had an impact on what they’re doing.
Louis
It seems like you’ve found a very noble way of going about this business, a very fulfilling, empathetic reason to do what you do.
Adrian
Yeah, hopefully! I think it’s good to get up in the morning thinking you’re going to do the right sort of thing, that you’re trying to help people. You know, it’s not so much a vocational calling but I just sort of found something that I quite like doing.
Louis
You found your way.
Adrian
Kinda, yeah! Yeah.
Louis
I think that’s all anyone could really want, isn’t it? In anything.
Adrian
I think so, yeah. I think it’s quite difficult for people to find what their thing is and I think a lot of that is people not necessarily being fully aware of what they do actually like and what they don’t like and the activities they could actually do that they’re not, and I think that’s the thing. And sometimes that’s the hardest part, it’s like being true to yourself but in a work sense. (Laughs) Which is a really hard thing to do!
Louis
Being true to yourself in a very unique way. In a way they might not have thought about before.
Adrian
Maybe!
Louis
It’s been really good talking to you.
Adrian
Yeah, it’s been great.
Louis
Alright, from myself, Louis, at Kakou, and from Adrian Williamson- Goodbye. I’ll talk to you next time. (Laughs)
Adrian
(Laughs)
END
