Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Dave Stevinson
Managing director, QBS Software
I guess you learn more from failure than any success, so I would not change a thing. Notwithstanding that, my biggest mistake was acquiring and adding to my portfolio of tech companies a severely distressed distributor in the Midlands about five years ago. The problems that I had to deal with are not for print in a family publication, yet the whole thing cost me a number of years, over £2m in capital and many grey hairs. My advice to the CRN readers is: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Joey Hemingbrough
Sales and marketing director, SICL
The biggest and most costly mistake during my career was when I was a ‘green' sales executive. I had managed to secure a deal for a large hotel chain to refresh all the infrastructure in their rooms, including the TVs, in one of their signature hotels. I was so excited as at the time it was one of the largest deals I had ever managed to close. Twp hundred TVs arrived shortly before Christmas, ready for the work to be carried out in the new year after the busy festive period. We installed all the units and set up the back-end infrastructure to allow the centralised control of the channels in order to comply with the licensing the hotel had for TV and music. We entered the testing phase of the project and that's when I received a call from the engineer saying "Joey, I think we've received a faulty batch from the TV manufacturer as the control unit isn't seeing any of the connected TVs."
I had several ‘heated' conversations with the distributor who carried out checks on the TVs and insisted they weren't faulty and that I was now outside the RMA window. During my final conversation with the distributor I confirmed the part code with them of the units they had quoted (being special units specifically for the hospitality sector). That's when our account manager stated ‘no, you ordered part code…' I immediately checked the purchase order that I placed and realised with dread that when raising the order on the supplier I mistyped a digit in the part code on the purchase order for the supplier. It was just after the new year and I was stuck with 200 consumer TVs that I had paid normal price on during the January sales, as well as a disgruntled customer.
I was fortunate enough that the business I was working for at the time immediately ordered the correct units to appease the client, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to ‘shift' the incorrect units without incurring any loss to the business if I wanted to keep my job. I worked there for a further four years, and needless to say after that debacle I decided never to sell TV's again!
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Rob Tomlin
Vice President UK & Ireland Channel at Dell Technologies
Very early in my career in IT, I punched an order for 35 very expensive workstations…. Or so I thought. I actually added a zero, meaning we had an extra 315 workstations. Fortunately my manager saw some promise in me and gave me a second chance, but it was a very expensive lesson learnt!"
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Paul Lloyd
Owner, Sellerly
I led the team that won the SmithKline Beecham account. The business we won was a managed service contract for 3,000 users across all sites within the UK.
Much planning always goes into these types of contracts as it is essential to take over and then maintain a level of service to the users with a brand new team. Before the start, you get all the numbers regarding moves and changes, new installs etc. The numbers we were given proved to be totally inadequate and about 60 per cent of the actual numbers. At the end of the first three weeks of taking over, we were already four weeks behind. The CEO and team were called to a crisis meeting to review our lack of service. What I should have done at that time was suspend the service and then sort it out.
However, we ploughed on. We then lost the marketing director's laptop. We took it from him for repair and then we couldn't find it. We offered to replace it but the marketing director did not have a backup of the data (his fault, not ours). However, it transpired that all the product planning for the following year was on the laptop: prices and margins and plans for the marketing and promotion of every product. He eventually accepted a replacement and started rebuilding his work. Twelve weeks later I got a phone call and it transpired that we had swapped the original laptop with all the (confidential) data with a junior member of staff as a loaner. He had realised that it was the marketing director's laptop and phoned him to tell him what we had done. It's fair to say that I didn't need the phone to hear the shouting.
The moral is, when you are taking on a new customer, make sure that you take time and get the processes correct even if they do not want it. The customer is not always right.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Gary Matson
Director, channel sales EMEA, Pure Storage
My biggest mistake in business came down to delegation, or lack thereof. I found myself hesitant to give away tasks because I wanted everything to be of the highest quality, and I can be quite particular about the way things are done. This ultimately left me feeling stretched. In a high-growth business such as Pure, this mindset was never going to be sustainable.
As we continued to grow, and we took on an increasing amount of work, I realised a shift in approach was needed or I would never scale. Once you've worked hard to build a team of talented people who are experts in their field, you need to trust them. It was a process, but once I began delegating more, I saw a decrease in bottlenecks, and smoother day-to-day business for me and the team. It's a lesson most of us learn in our careers, and definitely a valuable one.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Sarah Shields
Vice President Dell Technologies Enterprise Channel, Europe
We've all had issues with mute buttons in our lives but one mistake I made was when I had just returned from maternity leave. We had an internal call with our European leadership team and at that time, if I remember correctly, I was the only woman in a team of about 20. At some point during the call my baby boy, who was probably about 10 months old, crawled into my office and I greeted him with a very dramatic (and loud) "Hello gorgeous". The call went quiet and I had that moment of slow-motion dread as I looked at my unmuted phone, realising there was no other voice that it could have been. My boss then asked me if that was how I greeted my husband every day! I was mortified.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Zoe Chatley
Associate partner, Wallace Hind
Way back in 2009 I had just started out canvassing the IT channel, and one of the first calls I made was to Tech Data at the time they were Computer 2000. As most people know, when you are a recruiter you are bottom of the pile when it comes to decision makers actually answering your calls and then when you do get through to someone you need to really nail your introduction to make the most of the call. So I call in, actually get through to someone in HR and completely fluff my introduction. I didn't give her my name or company, just a fumbled mess of why I was calling. It was awful. But my manager at the time had struggled to get through and book a meeting with them so I was determined to try again and literally 10 minutes later, I called again. Bearing in mind I hadn't given them my name, I felt I had a slight advantage and I really wanted to get one up on my manager!
This time I nailed it. I introduced myself as a specialist within the IT channel and talked about mapping candidates from their key competitors and offering competency-based interviews. Sure enough I secured the meeting, they loved my approach and were totally unaware of my awful call just 10 minutes beforehand… we actually went on to become their sole recruitment supplier for a number of years and today it is one of my biggest successes.
The point here is to not give up, learn from your mistakes and go again.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Todd McQuilkin
Founder, Air-IT
Without doubt the biggest mistake we made in our early years was investing in a PSA system that just didn't work. It set us back a couple of years on our journey towards "TPSA" - Total Professional Services Automation.
For any TSP/MSP that wants to remain competitive today, it's essential they have a PSA system at the heart of operations. And having a healthy "heart" that's functioning at its optimum level is critical to success.
It's vitally important to spend time fine-tuning your PSA and to be able to fully trust the data that you're using - that's when the magic happens. Make sure you choose the right 'commodity software' or add-ons to enhance its capabilities, and that it all works together seamlessly. If you do, the world is your oyster. Get this wrong and your business will struggle.
Big data drives our business now more than ever before. We need to be aware of company performance and trends, in real time, at the click of a button. And we need to be able to adapt quickly to any changes and market trends, all without disruption to operations. We also need to drive better efficiencies through best practice and standardisation.
Without TPSA you may survive but you'll never be best in class. All those years ago we had the time to get things right and learn from our mistakes. In today's fast-paced, highly competitive market, that's no longer the case - you need to get this right first time or you'll be left behind.
Nine channel bosses on their biggest business mistakes
From accidentally adding an extra zero in an order, to investing in failing companies, CRN A-listers including Sarah Shields, Gary Matson, Dave Stevinson and Chris Dunning spill the beans on their rookie errors on their journeys to the top of the industry
Chris Dunning
CEO, TechQuarters
My biggest mistake was leaving the world of IT in 2007 to join a property investment business, backed by a hedge fund that invested in London property, about two months before the credit crunch hit! TechQuarters was born two years after that!