Exclusive: Toby Reid interview
Toby Reid is an entrepreneur with a successful track record of founding, growing and selling a business. At the end of 2007 he became the operations director of the Growth Investment Network (www.ginem.co.uk) - an initiative aimed at assisting East Midlands businesses to access funding and achieve growth. In an exclusive interview with the Pressman PR news blog he reflected on his time at Growth Investment Network and on the challenges facing business today…
Toby, you too
k on a three year role at the Growth Investment Network at the end of 2007 just as the credit crunch was beginning to bite. Has the role been more challenging than you expected?
No, not really. If anything, increasing pressure on companies’ cash flow and the difficulties associated with raising finance have made it easier for us to raise our profile and more important for us to do our job.
Is this a good time to be an entrepreneur?
Yes. That is not to say that it is a good time to be a business owner. Surviving and thriving in these times requires a company to be flexible, adaptable, lean and fast moving and a business owner must have tenacity and an eye to spot opportunities - of which there will be undoubtedly be many. True entrepreneurs and their companies possess these attributes and so will benefit. Those business owners that aren’t and don’t, won’t.
What would you say were the biggest challenges currently facing East Midlands businesses?
The most immediate and obvious one is the reduced availability of bank funding. That is not to say that banks aren’t lending, some are. But overall there is less money and more companies competing for it. Businesses need to anticipate these problems, appreciate that banks aren’t the only form of finance and they need to understand the full offering available in the region. Because of the competition they also need to understand what it takes to be best placed to successfully raise finance.
Longer term, I would say that a challenge facing the East Midlands as a region is how do you raise the ambition and aspirations of SME businesses within the region. SME’s that can take advantage of opportunities now and aren’t scared to get the finance they need to do so will have the chance to become major players in the region over the next few years. To do that, a lot of businesses have to raise their sights.
How important do you think PR and good publicity is for businesses?
Is it important. Yes. How important it is, I find difficult to quantify. I do believe that traditional forms of advertising are of little to no use to SME’s and therefore the attractiveness as PR as an alternative is increasing.
What do you think are the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make? How can these be avoided?
Focusing too much on their product and/or service at the cost of making sales. Most entrepreneurs sell first and then work out how to deliver it afterwards. Make sure you have a laser narrow focus on creating and driving revenue.
Growth Investment is launching new networks for B2B services and entrepreneurs. What is the thinking behind this move?
The main network at Growth Investment is made up of organizations that can either fund businesses or support them in the fund raising process. However, our events and other activities have attracted interest from a range of individuals and other firms, interested in growth and growing companies. They don’t fall into that ‘main network’ category so we have created 3 new associate networks to allow them to get involved and be profiled. See http://www.ginem.co.uk/home/members/members-associate-network.aspx
What other initiatives has Growth Investment got coming up?
Summer holiday for me, more networking for the network members and some exciting speakers at our autumn events.
You left a career in civil engineering to set up lifestyle company Heath Reid and People which you and your partners successfully sold in 2007. Are you concentrating solely on Growth Investment now? What’s next for Toby Reid?
No, Growth Investment is my main focus but I have other business interests outside of it. I also do a small amount of business development strategy work for SMEs.
Not sure what the long term future holds but I love working with and in early stage businesses and with other entrepreneurs so it will doubtless be in that area.