I started my career back in the early 1990s as a newspaper reporter and radio presenter… great fun. Then in 2005, I had an ‘entrepreneurial seizure’ and started my own business, a PR firm.
It was a disaster! Don’t get me wrong, it paid the mortgage. But the personal price was too high. 80 hour weeks; constant stress; and a strain on my personal relationships and friendships.
It was the birth of my daughter in 2010 that changed everything for the better. With just an hour’s warning, my wife went into labour and our daughter Samm was born 15 weeks’ premature. The Special Care Baby Unit doctors warned us she might not survive the night.
For three months after Samm’s birth, I focused on my family. I kept in contact with the business, but I wasn’t there, mentally or physically. Samm amazed the doctors with her progress, and today is a healthy 15-year-old.
Back to 2010. The day I returned to work after a 3 month break, I was dreading it. Would there be a viable business to return to? Or would it have taken a massive step backwards?
Actually, it was the complete opposite. My three staff had stepped up to the mark, and had replaced me! They were keeping the marketing going, selling to clients and delivering. And do you know what… the business was running more efficiently than when I had been there for 12 hours a day.
This led to a massive mindset shift for me. I started prioritising time working ON the business rather than IN it. Which quickly led to us dumping PR, pivoting the business model into specialist marketing, entering three niche healthcare sectors, and rapid growth in both turnover and net profit.
From 2010 to 2011 the business, renamed as Growth UK, grew its turnover by 47%. The year after it grew by 67%.
We reached seven figures turnover and six figures EBITDA. Then on the 24th March 2016 I sold Growth UK to a fast growing digital marketing agency for an undisclosed sum.
Today I help B2B business owners build something they’re actually proud of
I’m the founder of the MSP Marketing Edge, a marketing membership for Managed Service Providers, used by more than 700 MSPs across 30 countries. I host the world’s most listened-to MSP marketing podcast, I’ve written multiple books on marketing, and speak at some of the world’s biggest B2B growth events.
My three talk topics draw directly on everything I’ve lived: the marketing system that transforms a business, the mindset that lets you enjoy what you’ve built, and the connection between the two.
I live in a village just outside Milton Keynes with my daughter. I’m a keen runner, borderline obsessed with the MCU and Doctor Who. And I bring the same energy to a stage that I used to bring to a radio studio.