The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘Every time I arrived at a Softcat office I shook everyone's hand'
Entrepreneur: Martin Hellawell
Credentials: Softcat CEO from 2006 to 2018 (and current non-executive chairman)
Quirks: Question conventional wisdom; shake all employees by the hand
"I'll give you one strategic and one tactical one - both have made a difference.
"I'm a great believer in reading and listening to everything that's going on in the industry and what the trends are.
"But I'm also a believer in often not listening to conventional wisdom and going in the opposite direction. Because the problem with conventional wisdom is everybody goes towards that same place and they leave behind another place that is less fashionable. That's often where the money is, because everyone is going in the opposite direction.
"So, listen to conventional wisdom, but often go the other way. That's definitely something that has served me well. When everyone was trying to get out of reselling, I very much - and I hate this phrase - doubled down on reselling; when everyone was trying to get into enterprise accounts, I very much went the opposite way into SMB accounts, and it served us well as you find less competition in those areas that are less fashionable but are required and the conventional wisdom is often overhyped.
"The second one is a combination of something I've always done myself and something I inherited from [Softcat founder] Peter Kelly. When I visited the Softcat branches, which I tried to do on a regular basis, every time I arrived in an office I went around and shook everyone's hands. Obviously we have a lot of people, so it takes a fair amount of time. I picked that up from working in France for quite a while. It's a normal thing for a businessperson in France to go around and shake everyone's hands. And it gave me time to say hello to people, make a personal contact with them, and pick up a vibe of what is happening in the office. I think that made me much more connected to those people.
"The thing I picked up from Peter Kelly, which I think [current Softcat CEO] Graeme [Watt] picked up from me, is we have a tradition that once a week in the head office the senior person goes around with a massive bucket of sweets - although now more healthy snacks have been added to our bucket. It's nothing to do with the sweets. It's just an icebreaker to talk to everyone in the organisation and have a personal connection. You learn an awful lot and create that personal connection. It takes a lot of time - two hours a week maybe - but it's well worth the investment."
Click onto the next page for Distology's Hayley Roberts' quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘If I look like I'm in a trance on a train, then I'm probably daydreaming'
Entrepreneur: Hayley Roberts
Credentials: CEO of cybersecurity distributor Distology: 2015 - present
Quirks: Dog walking, working with a business coach, daydreaming
"I get up early and take my dog for a walk before doing anything else every day. It sounds simple, but research suggests that doing an activity such as walking is more productive when trying to process or generate an idea or to get organised.
"I see a business coach every quarter. She runs a change management business, has a psychology degree and even a past career in stand-up comedy. She helps me process some of the crazy ideas and plans I have for the business by asking questions relating to the bigger picture of where I want the business to get to. By focusing on ultimate goals, the day-to-day, week-to-week operational activities seem easier to process.
"This may be an unpopular opinion, but as a business owner and entrepreneur I believe it is important to daydream. Daydreaming, whether you are on a train or plane or just staring out of the window, really helps with creativity. I am on long train journeys every week but I never work on trains, not just because I get train sick but because I enjoy my mind drifting to visualising what I want the business and my own personal satisfaction to look like. This helps me set my own mission statement and goals for the short and long term. So if I look like I am in a trance on a train then this is what I am doing!"
Click onto the next page for Columbus UK's Mary Hunter's quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘I treat staff like part of my extended family'
Entrepreneur: Mary Hunter
Credentials: MD of Microsoft Dynamics partner Columbus UK: 2002 - present
Quirks: Acting like a 'second mum' to team; bankrolling staff charity activities
"I'm very much a people person and I strongly believe that the value in my business is because of the success of the people.
"I treat them as part of my extended family and look out for them, whatever they need.
"We work hard and play hard to together.
"When they need me, they know they can count on me, whatever it is. Recently I had someone who was splitting up with his wife and he needed somewhere to stay so I sorted out accommodation for him for a couple of months (we have a Columbus house which we use for employees).
"I'll do anything for any of the team; if they have a personal problem, where I can help them I will do so because it's important that I look after them. A month ago, one of the team had some health issues in their family and they were adamant they weren't going to go and get checked out when there was clearly a hereditary risk. I wouldn't let them leave my office until they'd called the doctor and booked the appointment. Afterwards the guy thanked me for drilling into him how important it was.
"I'm like a second mum to them, and if they've got a critical problem I'll do whatever I can to make sure they're OK. As a business we've introduced various cash plans and health plans and check-ups, as without their health and mental wellbeing they're no good, so we make sure we are looking after that.
"We also do a lot of charity work together, like Coast to Coast. One of the guys had a heart attack last year so he's picked a heart foundation charity he wants to support, and we're rallying the team behind him. We do lots of smaller things in small groups for the charities as well. This year I said if they want to do something for charity, if they are in a small group of eight or more I would pay all their entry fees. From a health perspective doing something energetic is good for them, it's good for the teamwork and it's good for giving back to society."
Click onto the next page for QuantIQ's Stuart Fenton's quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
'I don't budget; it's an enormous waste of time'
Entrepreneur: Stuart Fenton
Credentials: CEO of Microsoft Dynamics partner QuantIQ: 2013 - present
Quirks: Listening to music all day, reading, forgoing budgeting
- "I read a great deal - business books, business theories, autobiographies of successful businesspeople, the news, industry research. I consume at least one book a week, usually on my commute. Books expand the mind and the horizon.
- "I look a long way ahead in my business plans - typically three years - and work backwards from there to implement tactical initiatives.
- "I use my diary extensively to make time for the initiatives, strategies or tasks that I have assigned myself or others.
- "I use a daily to-do list, creating it in the morning, and ticking off tasks through the day and try to clear it. For longer- term items, I use Microsoft Planner for me and my team and break activities into ‘sprints' of tasks/initiatives.
- "I communicate publicly with my team monthly on live-stream video to share our performance, progress against plans, etc.
- "I hire the best people I can find. Pay them well. Then I play to their strengths and work around their weaknesses as I expect them to work around mine (which are numerous).
- "I don't budget - it's an enormous waste of executive time. Large companies that I have worked in spend thousands of hours on budgeting - time which could be usefully spent elsewhere. So I set high-level financial goals, and perform a rolling 12-month forecast each month, adapting the model to the business and environment. Working with a fantastic team, we tend to make good, quick decisions.
- "I try to keep meetings short and only with a handful of people - so there is meaningful dialogue. I avoid too many meetings - giving people time to perform their tasks. I do hold one-to-one meetings monthly to assess people, progress, personal development and feedback. I need people to come to a meeting with some preparation and actively contribute.
- "I try to have fun at work.
- "I listen to music all day - when not in meetings."
Click onto the next page for HPE's Mitchell Feldman's quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘If I'm on cc, I don't read the email'
Entrepreneur: Mitchell Feldman
Credentials: Founder and CEO of Microsoft partner Cloudamour (which was acquired by RedPixie in 2015 before RedPixie was itself acquired by HPE in 2018). Currently holds WW marketing post at HPE.
Quirks: Ignoring emails that aren't explicitly for his attention, setting a destination for the business
"I've spent my whole career trying to make myself redundant. I've spent my life empowering people and creating processes so that the company was bigger than me, so I could be away from it and it continued to run. So much so that I got to fine-tune it to such a level that the day-to-day running of the business didn't need me at all.
"I did that to improve the value and efficiency of the business.
"The critical point was when my holidays weren't holidays. [That was when] I discovered that if I empowered all my staff to make decisions, I didn't need to be in front of every single email or decision, and that made it a better company. It created a better culture, more trust, less bureaucracy in the business, and people were more accountable for what they did. As a result we were a higher-performing team.
"My other habit which I'm religious with is if I'm on cc I don't read the email.
"As you get into a bigger company and get busier you can drown in emails, and a lot of people will habitually add me on cc as they think I need to know something, and I just don't have time. I was fighting my inbox so I took the decision that if I'm on cc I won't read the email. If you want it for me, make it for my attention.
"I was an email exemplar. What I mean by that is lots of people aren't very good with email; they will reply to an email that's an old subject about a different subject. So I was always very meticulous when I sent emails that the subject line was never cryptic or off piste. I want to speed read my emails, so just by having the subject line on point is incredibly helpful for me to become efficient.
"My one last point is that I always had a vision of what the future looked like. Having that positive visualisation helped me get to where I wanted to go. A lot of entrepreneurs are fighting each battle, but don't have an endgame or destination. I had a very clear vision of what my destination looked like and my constant world was looking at the delta between where I was and where I needed to be. That was the exit. The exit was to build a large, sustainable business that ran outside me being in it every day, had a great market reputation, was the go-to partner - all the stuff you'd expect. I had a very clear vision of what my tomorrow looked like."
Click onto the next page for former Lanway MD Andrew Henderson's quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘Understand what you want from life'
Entrepreneur: Andrew Henderson
Credentials: MD of Lanway 2013-2016 (acquired by Chess for an undisclosed sum in 2016)
Quirks: Setting a long-term personal goal and communicating your vision to staff
"When I took over as MD, the business was failing. We went from £15m to £14m to £13m, and when I became MD I managed to take it to £12m and it was barely profitable.
"That first year was hell. It was the worst year of my business life. I tell a story on-stage [today Henderson is a business coach]: It's 7 January 2013 and I'm sitting in the office with my head in hands. I have three options. One: get fired; two: leave a 16-year career; or three: check into hospital. I had burned out.
"But that was the very day we understood what the problem was and what the answers were. I had a vision for transforming the business, but one of the key things was I hadn't communicated the vision. No-one knew. I'd had 500 conversations with everyone in my head, but I'd not had any actual conversations with anyone. So the first one is to communicate the vision.
"The second thing was what we didn't have, which was a long-term goal or set of goals in the future. What I've learned from that period, and what I teach now, is about understanding what you want your life to be like in the future in three, five or 10 years, and how the business needs to perform to give you that work-life balance you want. Setting a goal or a couple of goals is really important. It's almost like starting at the end and working backwards: where do I want to be and where am I now? And when you understand those two things, the path to getting there seems a lot more straightforward.
"We transformed the atmosphere at work and started to create an aspirational business. Within that year we created a place where people wanted to work with us.
"I think business leaders suffer from a focus purely on growth. They set their goals for just 20 per cent growth, 25 per cent growth. They're on the hamster wheel. And because growth is perpetual it never stops, so it leads to staff, leaders and managers burning out because they never get to feel that sense of progress, achievement, or of moving to where they want to be."
Click onto the next page for New Siganture's Dan Scarfe's quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
'Charity makes us happy: We've raised almost £100,000 in the last 12 months'
Entrepreneur: David Pollock
Credentials: Founder and CEO of Chess: 1993 - present
Quirks: Getting staff to rate management every quarter; charity events such as skydives and obstacle races
"My number-one focus as chief executive is to bring the people with me and that's all about engaging my people.
"We hold monthly one-to-ones with our people, where we measure their energy, attitude, performance and knowledge. This allows us to constantly monitor the temperature of both our business and our people.
"Employee-wide surveys are filled in every quarter, where our people score strategic objectives out of five, allowing us to monitor and measure our performance and adjust accordingly to improve.
"We also carry out monthly ‘Stand Ups' where a senior director gives a short update to motivate and inspire our people to champion our modern business.
"A key differentiator when it comes to culture is playing our part within the wider community. We encourage our people to raise money for charity by taking part in events such as skydives, 10k runs, obstacle races, dress-up days, cake bakes etc. I believe that if you play your part in the wider community it makes you happier in and outside work. I am proud that Chess has collectively raised almost £100,000 for charity within the last 12 months.
"This culture and engagement strategy led to our inclusion in the Top 100 Companies to Work For list for 10 consecutive years, and we were voted number one in 2018."
Click onto the next page for UKFast founder Lawrence Jones' quirks...
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘If you can't look back every three months and see something different about your company, you're going backwards'
Entrepreneur: Peter Sweetbaum
Credentials: CEO of managed services provider IT Lab: 2014 - present
Quirks: Horizon scanning
"We have a formal board that looks at horizon scanning. Every three months we look at what's coming down the path in terms of evolution of technology so that we're well positioned to take advantage of it.
"Another thing I say to the company every three months at our quarterly meeting is, if we can't look back every three months and see something demonstrably different about the company, we're probably going backwards, particularly in our space. So we list the top 10 things about us that looks different over that three-month period and what we have done to progressively move the business forward. If we can't list 10 things, that's probably an issue.
"Also, I recognise that every single person in the organisation has a role to do. It's not about hierarchy; we're all in the same trench. And that's really important.
"We understand entirely that employees are coming here to help develop their career, so we need to look for ways to ensure they have the opportunity to do that. People don't stay in organisations for 10 years; they move on. We hire smart, ambitious people and smart, ambitious people inevitably want to progress. We understand and support that reality by recognising that we can give people the opportunity to genuinely get something out of the experience of being in IT Lab."
The unusual quirks of ten top channel entrepreneurs
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
‘The best way to get to know the team is in the mountains'
Entrepreneur: Lawrence Jones, MBE
Credentials: Founder and CEO of UKFast: 1999 - present
Quirks: Entire-company meetings every week; team-building in the mountains; treating meetings like trains leaving the station
"Firstly, spread the word.
"Every week we get the entire team together before 9am on a Monday morning in our auditorium. Our MD takes to the stage to share updates - this includes progress within the business; news announcements; new babies, engagements and life events; and usually a few funny pictures or videos from the team from the week before. It's also an opportunity for the team to ask questions about the business. While some of these meetings are quite serious, sharing news of the business's growth, we've also held some outside on the beach in the car park where the UKFast dogs compete for the UKFast Crufts crown. While this may seem like an odd way to start the business week, it's all about energy. If you start the week in good spirits, you're far more likely to continue the week in that vein.
"Secondly, get out of the office.
"You can only really get to know your team if you spend time with them out of the office. For me, the best way to get to know the team is in the mountains. For more than a decade we've taken teammates to the Welsh mountains for a few days, climbing Snowdon, building and sailing rafts across the lake, and cooking their own dinner as a team. It is the single most valuable thing you can do to build relationships in the team, to spot potential future managers and for everyone to get to know each other, regardless of whether they're in the senior management layer or an apprentice.
"Thirdly, I treat business meetings like trains leaving the station. There is nothing more disruptive to a meeting than people coming in late and the speaker having to repeat themselves. It disrupts the flow, the conversation, and can easily be used as a power play. I treat every single meeting I have like a train leaving the station: once the door is closed and the meeting has started, that's it. If you're late, you've missed it. Now we hardly ever have people who are late to meetings because they respect that principle.
"My final thing is to invest in training.
"There is no greater investment than that which you make into your team. There's no denying a skills chasm in the industry - there aren't enough technically skilled people to go around, it's that simple. So we've invested heavily in training and development - we offer onsite training for our apprenticeship (which we can offer to other businesses too) and technical qualifications on site such as Red Hat and LPIC. It's also an accredited CompTIA and PearsonVue centre. That means we can do all training and testing on site - it's easier, faster and so much more convenient for the team to upskill. With this facility we're able to hire based on whether someone is a great person, not just based on the skills they have. Skills can be taught, but attitude is ingrained."