Welcome to volume 2 of our business blog. Part one was actually written as a book over the period of a year, both chartering my experiences at the time and the cumulative lessons learnt of years at the coal face of small business.

Part two then is going to be much freer flowing and hap hazard; potentially more like a real blog. It’s going to be a collection of random thoughts all related somehow to the world of business. If the first part of the blog was a fine wine, then this is the cheese board. Don’t continue without tasting the wine first etc.

In case you haven’t already read part one of my blog, here’s a link back to the very start.

So let’s recap, at the end of part one I had just left the company I loved after being side lined for an older more experienced person.

Obviously to me this was ridiculous, but to an established business that had just been taken over it seemed logical to replace the young maverick with some seasoned hands.

I moved on to become a consultant and launched myself into my work starting new companies from scratch, whereas the company I left simply had to keep doing what I had done before, after all they had that all important magic juice; traction!

So how did we do?

Well the company I left, using my marketing campaigns and my staff, with considerably more resources has fallen somewhat from grace. The month I left they turned over £10 million, and as we stand their current turnover has dropped to £5.4 million per month. In addition their new sales added £14 million (annual) of contracts in the last month, a great sales figure but overall probably not the intended sales figures for a company that exited its management team in favour of people with better CVs.

In the 9 months since I left, I was commissioned to help start a competitor to the above, finished the project and handed it over to a new management team. The month I left, this brand new business turned over £9 million and added contracts worth an annual value of £56 million.

Upon reflection then I would argue that the decision to replace me was poorly placed, but on a personal level I couldn’t be happier. Obviously it’s sad to see my old baby flounder but that was through no sense my own fault, meanwhile I had a personal point to prove that I could start something from scratch and make it better than what had gone before which I feel I achieved even faster than I had expected.

Yet overall the ability to build something, lay my stamp on it and then move on to the next project was a revelation. No longer did I feel the harsh reality of being unwanted through no fault of my own or live in fear of being subject to office politics; my destiny was my own based squarely on something I knew I could generate, results.

Would I have let what happened play out any differently if I had the choice? No. Would I build a bond like that with someone else’s company again? No.

The future for me is projects and it turns out it suits me down to the ground.

Read our next blog post “A captain & a quartermaster“.