We’ve just had our 7th birthday and what a year this one has been too. I am thoroughly enjoying it and feel we have made huge improvements in many areas over the last 12 months. Admittedly, 18 months ago I was feeling a bit burnt out by it all and enjoying it less however I recognised that this was my fault, I had created it, so I could create something new, something better. So I did.
That being said, business continues to be a challenge; I think it’s a paradox by saying “when business is tough, it’s difficult and when business is good, it’s difficult”. However if you love what you do, with people you love then you keep going as together you’re creating something great everyday.
My aim for Omega has always been to ensure that:
- Staff come for the money but stay for the experience.
- And, Clients come for the compliance but stay for the experience.
Every touchpoint with Omega should be a positive experience – for me, the team, the clients, our suppliers and the community.
Our culture is to ensure happiness and I believe we are at a great level these days. I’m not deluded to think that we or I, get it right all the time or that everyone will be high fiving each other every day like demented hippies who smell of pot-pourri however a great team bond holds us all together through the rough times and the smooth times.
I think working relationships are a lot like marriages, some work out and some don’t. I’ve been divorced twice so I should know! And even the good relationships can have some upset along the way. We of course have to nurture our relationships and make the team and our clients and suppliers feel loved. We don’t get this right every time but each time we don’t, we learn, we up our game and push forward. It is entirely possible to turn a negative into a positive. This is the cycle of growth and it will never stop.
Over the last 12 months, we have said goodbye to some staff, some that needed to get off the Omega bus for personal reasons and others, who it turned out, didn’t want to be or shouldn’t have been on the bus in the first place; they either didn’t like my driving style or they didn’t like the seat they were in.
I have also reviewed our clients over the last 12 months and made some bold decisions in walking away from some clients who, on face value, should have been our dream clients such as a national retail chain with nearly 1000 premises. After serving them for over 2 years, they were still very much price driven (ie cheap) but always expected a premium service which we are very much capable of and delivered to them but you have to be remunerated for it of course otherwise the relationship is not a fair exchange, it is not a win-win. So, sensing that they would never change and just at the point when we were given a £22,000 order, I decided to regain control, politely handed back the order and terminated the relationship so we could focus on our celebrity A-list clients and getting more of them.
Other clients were also terminated based on the 80/20 rule of where most of my headaches were coming from and where most profit was coming from. I can highly recommend having a good cleanse, it immediately gives you a sense of relief and clarity on the types of clients you want and the team you want around you.
Being 7 years old now, we have earned our right to be far more selective on who we employ, who we work for and the prices we charge for our service, our benefits, our value and our positive experience. I feel we have built a very strong recognisable brand now and I will protect it and it’s future. It is nice these days to have staff from other consultancies approaching me and likewise, new clients approaching me to work with us.
In other areas, we have continued to improve the business and take huge steps forward:
- Our ‘Omega Vault’ is very well received; this is our on-line asbestos records management tool which works on a simple traffic light system to show compliance. ALL our clients get a free Vault account which allows them to access their records from anywhere on any device. They can also email a copy of any report to a 3rd party site visitor. This system was built for us by a great developer which allows us the freedom to always refine and tweak it to improve.
- Our Survey data collection app allows our surveyors to gather all site data electronically which generates a detailed survey report very quickly. This has been a huge success to come away from pen & paper to a system which was built specifically for us by another great developer which again, allows us the freedom to refine and improve. The next phase of this system, which is in development, is to incorporate Analyst’s air sampling/clearance certificates into it to again, come away from our current hand-written carbon copy forms. This will tie in nicely with the pending revised Analyst’s Guidance HSG248 which should be published later this year.
We are also currently developing our very own CRM and Op’s management software which I am very excited to see this progress; we are on track for a live trial next month. Again, this system has been developed in-house to allow us to forever improve it and incorporate new modules into it such as timesheets and vehicle checks. The more we can automate and make more efficient means we can focus our attention where it should be – on the service and experience we deliver to our clients. It will also make the team’s jobs easier which again make their everyday’s easier.
An interesting development for me has been to become a Motivational Speaker; a role which wasn’t planned at all but naturally came my way when people started recognising a shift in my mindset and general happiness. I can put a lot of this down to me having had a ‘life coach’ in 2016 which was something I was initially very cynical about but was willing to try it as my old ginger head just needed some clarity. This process was amazing and transformed my thinking and levels of calmness, clarity, focus, purpose, positivity and being present.
Another development has been me getting into business coaching and mentoring, again not a planned move but something that naturally happened. The beauty of it is, I do not profess to be perfect or the definition of success, far from it, I still very much have work to do in both life and business but I have made huge progress. I can share my experiences, my good, my bad, my average, my thoughts, my stories etc and if this resonates and helps others make progress quicker than I did then job done. We all need help. And we all have a story which someone somewhere needs to hear. My story from being an unhappy, low self worth, anxiety ridden, binge-drinking idiot stuck in the corporate world, to a now sober, fit, confident and happy business owner seems to go down well. It’s all about change, recognising what you want then taking action to get it.
I am learning and improving every day; this allows me to be the best leader, the best manager, the best husband, father, friend, son, brother I can be; the best version of me each day. If this makes me a hippy then I’m good with that; you crack on with what makes you happy because I’ve got my own bus to drive and only the selected elite are welcome on it.
Peace out homies.
Gary
