Softcat's Martin Hellawell shook hands with all his employees, while QuantIQ's Stuart Fenton listens to music most of the day. We caught up with this duo, as well as eight other channel entrepreneurs, to find out what idiosyncrasies they feel are - or were - crucial to the success of their businesses
‘You get huge visibility through LinkedIn'
Entrepreneur: Dan Scarfe
Credentials: UK founder of Microsoft partner New Signature
Quirk: Building a personal brand on social media
"Recently I've tried to engage with more of the content on LinkedIn. It's a great way to raise your profile. It's definitely having huge benefits for me personally. We have our own company page but I think having the actual founder of the company on LinkedIn and sharing their ideas and engaging with people brings huge visibility. I very often talk to people and they say ‘oh, I saw your thing on LinkedIn'.
"The [posts] that do well aren't necessarily wholly work-related. I had a gripe about BA about a month ago regarding how dreadful their customer service was, and it got more views and interactions than anything else. It's kind of business related, as it's about how these companies become more customer focused, and I didn't feel BA was particularly customer focused. In fact, I even had Virgin pop up and interact with me, and they're now red-carpeting me into Virgin. It's all about visibility and thought leadership, and if you're out there posting and commenting on things then you're seen as an expert."
Click onto the next page for Chess CEO David Pollock's quirks...
