Wow…..what a quarter!
Setting up a business is never easy, but doing it at the start of Lockdown – you must be crazy right? You write your business plan, do your SWOT Analysis and try to come up with a company name that is anything but the initials of you and your business partner with “engineering” tagged on the end. You think you have mitigated against every known risk, financial and otherwise, draw down on all your savings and finally send off that all important application to Companies House! Nothing out of the ordinary so far……..until you read the headline, “Boris announces national lock down!”
Then the fun and games start – something as simple as setting up the business current account……”we apologise but we are not accepting any new applications.” That’s OK, we can deal with that – Starling helped us to get over that hurdle. Then you pick up the phone to find that people are being furloughed and budgets are being cut, your first promised contract is scrapped without warning and you are left wondering which part of the business plan you must follow next!
Luckily, not everyone out there battens down the hatches and in-fact some great opportunities present themselves! Obviously some are cautious about spending but being cost effective is part of your USP, so it’s just a case of sharpening your pencil and moving the decimal to the left a bit! You sit anxiously waiting for that elusive first order, dealing with a few hang ups along the way but still continue tirelessly with your preparations to grow the business.
Well, here comes my first piece of advice; trust the process, trust the reasons why you embarked on this crazy journey and don’t let small set backs knock you off your course. Listen to the positive comments from those who want you to succeed and ignore the hearsay and noise from others.
Our targets were ambitious, but good preparation and planning has seen us achieve everything we wanted from our first quarter. We have a steady stream of work passing through the business, with a couple of very exciting projects we are working on and some very healthy leads. We have a shop floor bustling with equipment and we eagerly await our ISO9001:2015 Certificate following on from an intense 2 day quality audit. Our customer and supplier base is steadily building up and we are developing some very close working relationships with a number of carefully selected sub-contract engineers – everything we need to provide world class engineering and innovative solutions for critical applications.
The first quarter was interesting to say the least, but having got over that hurdle, we continue to look forward to the next stage of the company’s growth and the excitement that this brings. I must say a massive thank you to everybody that has helped us so far on our journey and long may our working relationships continue.
Stay safe everyone
