Chairman's Blog Archives - Page 17 of 31

CEO’s Blog – Is your workforce going ‘contactless’? BigChange is here to help

Posted on 24 March 2020 by Martin Port

Businesses across the globe are battling against the uncertainty created by COVID-19.

Whether your sales have slowed, supply chains disrupted, or you are overloaded with orders, we are all in uncharted territory.

The reality for most of us is that we have to find ways to keep trading while minimising contact with other people. We also have to monitor the health – both physical and mental – of our employees, customers and partners at this difficult time.

The good news is that BigChange’s platform can help your business to get through this outbreak – and even thrive. Our software was built to offer true resilience and future-proofing to businesses of all sizes.

How BigChange can help you today

BigChange’s software allows all your team members to work remotely, meeting the new self-isolation guidelines, and ensuring that tasks are easily and clearly allocated.

When work is completed, jobs are updated with all the required paperwork, images, and sign off from senior personnel. Our remote activity audits also offer peace of mind.

BigChange allows its customers to ensure employees are working safely through home office risk assessments, which determine whether desk setups are likely to cause RSI or back problems. It can even ensure that WiFi is securely set up to minimise the threat of cyber crime.

It will also communicate up-to-date official COVID-19 guidance as the situation evolves.

For some companies, face-to-face interaction is still vital. BigChange offers a triage risk assessment facility to determine which tasks must still be carried out in-person, and how to allocate resources safely.

Each job that is loaded onto the BigChange platform will have a dedicated risk assessment, ensuring the welfare of your teams and customers is paramount.

These assessments will:

Determine the health status of employees
Check that people that your staff are meeting have no COVID-19 symptoms and have not been exposed to the virus
Ensure a safe working environment
Remind employees of safe travel guidance during this time
Remind employees of the need to maintain a distance of at least two metres from others
Ensure that employees take hand-washing breaks and have access to those facilities without putting themselves at additional risk

I founded BigChange so that I could help business owners like you become more efficient and competitive, while empowering remote working and paperless processes. This is exactly what all companies need right now.

Get in touch if you have any questions about how BigChange can help your business. Stay safe out there.

CEO’s Blog – This is the time to innovate

Posted on 23 March 2020 by Martin Port

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented disruption to the way we work and live.

When events like these take place, it is tempting to batten down the hatches, shut up shop, and hope that the storm passes quickly.

I believe that is the wrong approach. I think this is the time to be bold, smart, and think of innovative solutions to the problems our businesses face. If, like me, you employ a lot of people, there is no excuse for doing nothing and waiting for redundancies to become unavoidable.

We need to work out how to help our customers through this difficult time. We must also figure out how to win new business, despite the constraints. We need to find novel ways to motivate our teams. And we must be considerate of customers and suppliers who are struggling.

I know it’s not easy. At BigChange, everyone will be working from home for the foreseeable future. That means we essentially have 160 separate offices in operation in 4 countries.

That is why I have introduced a daily catch-up call for each department, starting with a sales call at 9am. On each call, the first priority is mental health. We check in on everyone in the team to make sure they are coping. We make sure we talk about the successes of yesterday and praise hard work and ingenuity.

This daily contact and support is going to become even more crucial once the schools close today. Every working parent will need flexibility and understanding from employers.

We have also introduced a buy now, pay later scheme for both new and existing customers that buy more licences. We are allowing them to run BigChange for six months before we start charging. We hope that will help to alleviate some financial pressure in the short-term.

For customers who are concerned about the safety of employees at this time, and wish to track their engineers and workers out on the road, BigChange can track vehicles through its app – we don’t even need to come and fit a tracker. This may be useful if the rumoured lockdowns do take place.

Our priority is to help customers to keep trading. This is why we have updated our software with up-to-date COVID-19 guidance and risk assessments. This is essential for mobile workers.

Cashflow is going to be extremely important over the next few months, so I advise every business owner to keep a close eye on it. If you haven’t already, it’s time to make reductions from the ‘nice to have’s and focus on the business-critical expenses, such as paying suppliers.

I am not immune to the climate of fear out there but I refuse to panic, or let it destroy my business. Let’s get through this together.

CEO’s Blog – As entrepreneurs, we must endure, and help our communities

Posted on 13 March 2020 by Martin Port

One of the benefits of being 57 is that I have lived through many crises.

I remember the Black Monday crash of ’87, which wiped trillions off the share prices of some of the world’s biggest companies. Back then, I was working in a bakery business in New York. We received a check from Bloomingdale’s – the iconic department store – and it bounced. It was for about $300. We framed it to remind ourselves that no one is too big to fail.

I remember the horrific outbreak of mad cow disease in the late eighties, when more than 4m cows were culled to try and contain the infection. Britain’s roads ground to a halt as they tried to stop it spreading from county to county. There have been other health scares since then, from swine flu to bird flu.

Then there was the dotcom crash of 2000. I was in a telematics business that was part owned by GE. The value of the company nosedived almost overnight. In 2008, the financial crisis sent many businesses to the wall. I was running Masternaut, my last venture, which I later sold to French airport group Airport De Paris. I owed the bank £6m at the time, and it called in part of the debt. I managed to reduce headcount and keep the business afloat, driving the business forward against the odds. It was a terrible time. People were losing their livelihoods, their homes, and their self-belief. There were many suicides.

Today, we are faced with another challenge: the outbreak of coronavirus. The spread of the disease is worrying, as is its impact on the elderly and those with respiratory problems. Like all the challenges that have come before, we must work together to get through this.

As business people, we must be in charge of our own destiny. We need to make contingency plans. We need to motivate our teams through this crisis. We need to sell remotely, work from home, and virtualise our operations.

At BigChange, we are fortunate to be in a strong position. We have no borrowings, and have a good cash reserves that can see us through the coming months, whatever happens to the economy. Even if the government closes schools and shops, there will still be a need for basic services, from plumbing to the maintenance of our roads. We will continue to be the platform of choice for these businesses. Engineers can avoid the office and deliver these crucial services through BigChange.

For those businesses in hard-hit sectors such as travel, entertainment and retail, the time has come to dig deep, innovate, and figure out a survival strategy. Some may introduce employee ownership if they cannot pay wages, others may trade shares for valuable supplies, or agree more flexible terms with customers that will now struggle to pay.

This is the time to work together, be kind, and give back to our partners, customers and colleagues. Coronavirus is likely to hit this country hard. We are getting involved in local initiatives to help the elderly and, through my work as a Northern board member of Business in the Community, I’m helping other companies to mobilise in partnership with welfare organisations. Instead of battening down the hatches, we need to open our hearts, and think of others.

CEO’s Blog – We built a virtual office – here’s what I learned

Posted on 9 March 2020 by Martin Port

Ten years ago I began seeing stories about the ‘death of the office’. Teams will all work remotely from their smartphones by 2020, headlines said, and entrepreneurs will be able to start and run businesses from a boat in the Bahamas.

Of course, here we are in, in 2020, and the majority of businesses still operate an office, even if they have some people who work flexibly or remotely.

At BigChange, most of our people still work out of our office. When I speak to managers here, many of them still like having a fixed location where colleagues can come together. “It’s easier to spot problems before they become an issue when you’re around your colleagues every day,” explains my customer services director. “And an office is very useful when training new people, as they can shadow their more experienced colleagues and be easily monitored and mentored.”

So the office isn’t dead after all. However, there is a pressing need for all companies to be able to operate virtually.

I posted last week about the potential impact of coronavirus on UK companies. If this becomes the epidemic that we all fear, employees will have to work from home in order to “self quarantine”. There are other threats facing companies that do not embrace virtual working. What if your landlord suddenly closes your office building? What if there is a flood or a major leak and the office is compromised? Could you carry on as normal? With no disruption to customers or your service quality?

I learned a lot about potential business threats when BigChange went through the ISO9001 process. We had to make business continuity a priority, no matter what random threat or ‘act of god’ strikes the company. It was this process that helped us take the leap into becoming a truly virtually enabled business.

We are luckier than most because we are a technology company. All of our processes and services are virtual by definition. We use our own BigChange software to log and monitor jobs. All the calls that come through to us are handled by a voice-over-IP (VOIP) provider, so they are filtered through to the right person, who gets a pop-up on BigChange with the name of the caller.

However, it’s easy to appear virtual on paper but it’s another thing for a virtual office to work in practice. That is why BigChange runs a remote working test every three months. This ensures that colleagues are always prepared to work virtually, and exposes any weaknesses in our virtual structure.

For other business owners who want to try the test, here’s how it works:

You tell your team about the test the night before, when they are already home. This ensures they always have the correct work equipment with them. For us that’s a laptop, charger, and headset. They also have to check they have access to good wifi.

Before starting work, they fill out a risk assessment on BigChange, to confirm their home environment is fit for work.

They do their day’s work, and everything is handled just as it would be at the office, except that meetings take place virtually on Teams, and people need to be a bit more diligent about tagging the right colleagues on BigChange tickets (as they can’t just shout over their shoulder)

At the end of the day, there is another workflow, which asks how the process went, whether people felt hindered in their work, whether anything was more difficult as a result of working remotely.

We measure productivity after each test and, so far, it is at the exact same level at home and at the office. My colleagues report that they really enjoy working remotely, and have no issues using the technology, which is also really important.

We ran our last test on Friday, when every single member of the BigChange team worked from home. There were no issues, and everything passed off smoothly.

I am also working on solutions to some of the concerns raised by my managers. We need a virtual training programme, for example. And it may be necessary to have more regular check-in meetings on these “virtual days” to ensure that leaders feel connected to their teams.

We have proved that it’s entirely possible to take a traditional office-based business and run it with an entirely remote workforce.

Whether it’s the right move long-term will vary from business to business, but when it comes to business continuity, building virtual capability into your model is a no brainer.

CEO’s Blog – Don’t let coronavirus catch you out

Posted on 2 March 2020 by Martin Port

Bonjour, mes amies. I’m writing this blog from Paris. We now have 16 people based out here, and – despite Brexit – we are proving a hit with the French. Just this week BigChange won a six-figure contract – our largest deal in France so far.

However, this isn’t the best time to be travelling. When I was last in Paris, the general mood was positive. Now, nobody kisses on both cheeks any more. No one will even shake your hand. Everyone is wearing masks and the TV is full of news of coronavirus.

The climate of fear here is understandable. Neighbouring Italy has seen its death toll from the virus top 20 people. Schools in the north of the country are being closed as a precaution, and some towns are under full quarantine. Back in the UK, we’ve been insulated from the coronavirus fall-out – it doesn’t feel like an emergency. Our chief medical officers have only just raised the threat to the public from ‘low’ to ‘moderate’.

Being over here has given me a different perspective. It’s time for Britain’s employers to start planning for the impact of coronavirus, if you haven’t already. What will you do if people start falling ill? How will the business cope if goods from China are unavailable? Is your company policy fit to cope with this kind of emergency? What insurance do you have in place?

At BigChange, we are fortunate to be a software company. This means that everyone in the company can do their job from home if needs be. After my PA, Madeleine, returned from a trip to Cambodia and Australia, she worked remotely for two weeks, to make sure she hadn’t contracted the virus.

We may be a software company but we depend on hardware, which is made in – you guessed it – China. One of our suppliers has been badly hit by the coronavirus, and its factories have been closed and now reopened, luckily we have been stockpiling. We are also doing further contingency planning. After all, no matter where your supplier is based, the likelihood is that somewhere down the line, parts are being sourced from China.

We have also had to be careful about booking any international events. We were looking at taking a team out to Monaco with Nick Hamilton, the racing driver and BigChange ambassador, for the Grand Prix. That idea is on hold because we have no idea whether the event will go ahead, or if flights will be running at that time.

Perhaps the biggest risk we face is recession. We have already seen the coronavirus wipe millions off the share prices of some of the world’s biggest companies. It has hit global supply chains hard; China is the factory to the world. When it suffers, the profit warnings start rolling in. At BigChange, we are proceeding with caution. I am only making hires that are integral to the future of the business. I believe I can still execute on my growth plan for the year, but I’m looking to find efficiencies where I can through our technology using more automation.

We don’t know how badly coronavirus will hit the UK. Maybe we’ll be lucky, maybe not. But every employer needs to think how the business will cope if, like in Italy, schools are forced to close. How will that impact all the parents working at your company? Do you have any guidance for them? How many of your processes and tasks can you automate, in the event people fall ill?

Don’t let this virus catch your business unawares.

CEO’s Blog – Let’s be mindful of mental health

Posted on 24 February 2020 by Martin Port

Last weekend’s devastating events have forced all of us to stop and think about mental health.

The tragic loss of Caroline Flack and the appalling impact of Storm Dennis on families around the country have hit us all hard.

It has made me put mental health – mine, and that of my family and colleagues – at the top of my list of priorities. We never know what disaster may befall us. We never truly know what’s going on inside someone’s head. This means we must all act with kindness and compassion towards others, and try to educate ourselves about the best way to handle a mental health crisis.

When I came in last Monday, I was determined to be the best version of myself. When you run a fast-paced technology start-up, it’s easy to race around and have a myopic focus on getting the job done. I wanted to take the time to speak to my people, and to make sure every individual knows my door is always open if they need a chat.

At 9am on Mondays, I have a call with my sales team. It is usually pretty lively, fuelled by coffee and adrenaline. I admit to getting quite heated sometimes.

On this call, I promised myself I would stay calm. Who knows what people are really feeling? Who knows what might tip someone over the edge into depression or anxiety? I found myself speaking quietly, and motioning for others to lower their voices and be calm. It was a new experience and one I enjoyed.

At BigChange, we are committed to supporting those with mental health issues. We already offer access to a 24-hour counselling helpline as an employee benefit, and we pay for face-to-face therapy if required. We have switched to a 4.5-day workweek to give people more time with their families, more time to exercise, and more time for self-care. We are moving to a 4-day week in 2021.

We also recently appointed a new BigChange ambassador: Michelle Dewberry, winner of the second series of The BBC Apprentice. She is an incredible advocate for mental health awareness and has spoken to the team here about how she handled her own depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. We don’t want people to try and hide their mental health issues away, so having a vocal and charismatic ambassador championing this has been really powerful.

But I want to go even further.

Next Monday will be the first meeting of a new steering committee on mental health. People from all around the business will meet and share ideas, voice concerns, and talk about any pressures they face. We will take action on any issues we can fix.

We were also recently part of a mental health round-table, coming together with several other companies through Connect Yorkshire to talk best practice, and hear about each other’s initiatives. It’s amazing how much you can do at low or no cost, from creating mental health first-aiders in the business, to inviting organisations like Mind to come in and raise awareness across your company.

I’m not a specialist in mental health. Few people are. But that shouldn’t stop all of us from trying our best to be there for the people we care about, be they family, friends, or colleagues. It all starts with a willingness to change, and an open mind.

CEO’s Blog – A blog about the bog

Posted on 16 February 2020 by Martin Port

As an entrepreneur, you work tirelessly to create a business that wows your customers, boosts your colleagues and supports your partners.

I’m a perfectionist, and I’m always dreaming up new ways to improve our offering, and make life even better for the team.

But sometimes, there are things outside your control that interfere with your ability to be at your best.

Here at BigChange, I’ve done all I can to create a wonderful place to work. We have state-of-the-art coffee machines, an illustrator has created the artwork for our walls, we sit on Herman Miller chairs, and we have a chill-out space that everyone loves. We have introduced a 4.5-day work week for the whole team. We run motivational Mondays every month, bringing in top inspirational speakers, and put on loads of events each year to keep morale high.

But there is one thing that undermines all my efforts to have the perfect workplace: the loos.

We rent our offices and, under the terms of our contract, the landlord is responsible for maintaining certain common areas used by multiple tenants. The toilets fall under the landlord’s jurisdiction.

They are a disgrace.

These toilets haven’t been updated in 20 years. The tiling is old and worn. The sink leaks all over the floor, creating a major hazard. The cubicles are flimsy. The toilets themselves are cheap and nasty. The loo seats are always breaking, leaving a loo out of order – not a good thing when there are only two, plus a disabled toilet, and hundreds of people need to share the facility.

We have been in our new premises for a year and a half. I’ve lost count of the complaints lodged and tickets raised. All our pleas have gone unheard. This is despite the fact we pay a hefty service charge, which is supposed to go towards maintenance.

I believe that your toilets are as important – if not more important – than your office. They contribute to the overall impression of your company. Do you have a bright clean office? Great. Do you have clean and inviting loos? Even better. There is nothing worse than being subjected to a miserable WC.

I feel ashamed when visitors come and ask to use the facilities. They leave our clean and inviting office and have to step into a wet, dank nightmare.

The irony is that our landlord is a company called The Canal & River Trust. You would think that water and sewage would be a priority. This is the same company that owns the Toddbrook Reservoir in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire. The dam nearly collapsed last year and nearby residents were all evacuated. I guess we should count ourselves lucky we only have a leaky sink to contend with.

This week I was at a roundtable event where I met a man who is as passionate about toilets as I am. Chris Brown is the managing director of Aaztec Cubicles, which creates the most beautiful bathrooms on behalf of organisations across the UK – from swimming baths to government buildings. He kindly listened while I vented my frustrations about our toilet problem.

The worst thing about all this is: I shouldn’t be obsessing about the state of the office loos. I should be spending my time on more worthwhile issues. Fighting with my landlord is a waste of my time, and distracts me from my real job: growing and improving my business. So I’m going to try and put it out of my mind, for now. Or perhaps I’ll grab a sledgehammer and smash the toilette up.

Just kidding…

CEO’s Blog – Would you go to the ends of the earth for your customer?

Posted on 10 February 2020 by Martin Port

One topic that I return to again and again in this blog is the importance of going above and beyond for customers.

It’s the one thing that every company can do, that gives them an edge.

I am obsessed with customer service. Not just because it’s good for business but because I genuinely love my customers. I’ve never regretted a single second that I have spent making life a little easier for our users or talking about ways to improve.

I’d like to tell you a story about something that happened to me last week. It might sound like a shaggy dog tale but bear with me.

At BigChange, we use our Net Promoter Score (NPS) to understand whether we are truly bringing value to customers. It indicates a customer’s willingness to recommend your brand. Recently, we noticed one customer – who has been with BigChange for many years – had given us a neutral NPS score.

When I dug a little deeper, it turned out that they were still only using part of the system that they had signed up for over two years ago. They weren’t using all our new features and hadn’t been looking closely at the updates. This company had also taken on a new starter, who was now the main BigChange contact there. This new hire had given us the NPS score.

There was only one thing to do. I decided to go and meet him and find out how we could improve his experience of our system. The only hitch was that the company was based in Milford Haven in South West Wales.

I shan’t go into a long rant about the poor state of transport links in this part of the world – that is for another blog, about how improving the rail lines and roads would supercharge business growth in Wales. I set off at 5pm on Tuesday, naively thinking I would have a smooth journey.

I decided to get the train from Wakefield. I love to travel by train, as it gives me a chance to work. The closest I could get to my destination from here was Cardiff that evening. I have a railcard because of my hearing disability, so I got a good rate for a seat in first class. Nevertheless, the train was filthy on the Birmingham to Cardiff leg. The journey was so bumpy that it was hard to work. One particularly violent jolt sent my dinner – sushi and an entire pot of soy sauce – all over my suit. I was completely splattered.

I stayed overnight in Cardiff, as my meeting was the following morning in Milford Haven. The train from Cardiff to Swansea took an hour. From there, it was a two-hour train or a 1.5-hour taxi to Milford Haven. I was pushed for time so I flagged a cab. She told me it would cost me £150 to go 60 miles!

I negotiated her down to £100 and when we set off, she began driving at breakneck speed. When I told her to slow down, she said: “What do you expect for £100?”

She needed to stop to use a loo, so we pulled in at a truck stop. I bought us both a hot drink. She hit the gas so hard when we left that my tea ended up down my shirt.

I can’t imagine what the customer must have thought when I arrived, stained, shaken, and barely on time. He was so gracious and I found him to be extremely intelligent and knowledgeable; a real technology whizz. I spent five hours there and the session was extremely useful for me as well as him. I explained all the functionality that they hadn’t used yet, and he recommended some ways we could improve.

The Managing Director kindly dropped me at Carmarthen to get the train home. The only train I could get took three hours to get to Cardiff and then a two-hour train to Birmingham. By the time I got there, I had missed the last train home and had to stay over. I headed back the following morning, still in that dreadful suit.

You can read this story and think, ‘What a nightmare’. It’s true, that I feel like I have gone to the ends of the earth for this customer. But I mean it when I say it was an absolute pleasure. And that I would do it again, in a heartbeat. I’m really happy that I got to spend quality time with a valued user, and learn more about what we could do to help him get the most out of BigChange.

I don’t know what the trip cost me in fares and hotels (not to mention my dry-cleaning bill) but it’s worth every penny. The return on investment is enormous, if that customer feels valued.

I may be the founder and chief executive of this company but visiting customers is still the most important thing I do. If you run a company with customers all over the UK – or the world – you must be prepared to travel and meet them. Trust me, you’ll be so charged up by these sessions that you won’t care about the miles travelled or the challenges on the way.

CEO’s Blog – Getting to know me

Posted on 3 February 2020 by Martin Port

Did you know that it takes just one tenth of a second for someone to decide whether they trust you?

They have reached that verdict before you’ve said a word, just based on a snap judgement about your face, clothing and body language.

I was thinking about this recently, and wondering about what kind of impression I make on people when we first meet.

I should say: this didn’t come out of nowhere. A colleague I know and like recently described me as ‘mercurial’. This isn’t a word you come across every day, so it stuck with me.

There are two interpretations of ‘mercurial’, according to the dictionary. One is “often changing or reacting in a way that is unexpected” and the other is “lively and quick”. I have a feeling this person meant the former…

I don’t want to come across as inconsistent or make people feel they don’t know where they are with me, so I began talking to people around me to gauge their impressions about me.

This isn’t just me being self-indulgent. I genuinely want to know how I come across. I also believe that by sharing these observations in this blog, people will know what to expect when they meet me. And perhaps this will make it easier for us to get along.

I first spoke to Jane, who is an incredible event organiser, and works for BigChange. She laughed at the question but said that I wasn’t changeable or inconsistent – thanks, Jane – but that she can understand why someone would say that. Oh. Great.

“You carry a lot of information in your head,”

she explained.

“You’re dyslexic, so you don’t write anything down. Instead, you’re constantly making mental lists.”

“It’s a lot to process, and you jump from topic to topic quite quickly. It can be hard to follow but I’m dyslexic too, so I totally get it.”

“It means that you are unpredictable in that you never know what you will say next but, as a person, you are far from unpredictable. You are consistent in everything you do.”

Andrew, our commercial whizz, pulled no punches.

“You can shout and scream one minute and be completely calm the next. You’re the kind of person that will immediately verbalise any anger or disappointment but will not hold grudges. Once that moment has passed, you will be absolutely fine. Some people find this hard to handle.”

I think in entrepreneur circles, we call this “passion”. Joking aside, I can see that this might be hard to process if you don’t know me well.

It wasn’t all bad. Andrew also said:

“You are a very good person to work with. You are extremely commercially savvy and understand people very well. Although you can be tough to work for and do expect perfection and zero mistakes, you are also an incredibly kind boss. There are countless times I’ve seen you go over and above what any other employer would do for your team. If somebody is unwell or having a personal problem, you will do everything in your power to resolve it for them – even if it’s at your own expense.”

Charlie, who works in sales, thought I was having him on when I asked him to:

“be honest. Tell me what you really think.”

He was diplomatic, as you would expect from someone who is customer facing and negotiates every day. He called me “unique”, which I think means I’m not your typical boss (which could be good, or bad).

“You are hard working, an entrepreneur, a tough taskmaster, full of confidence and very positive,”

he said. All true.

But when I asked how his impression of me has changed over time, he surprised me.

“I think the main thing I’ve learned that I didn’t know from the off was that you are a generous family man and loyal to your colleagues.”

So there you have it. If we haven’t met yet but are likely to in future, be prepared. I may have a different approach, my thought processes may be a little chaotic, I am an emotional man, but take the time to get to know me and – hopefully – you’ll see that it was worth spending more than one-tenth of a second to make up your mind. Or maybe I’m just mercurial after all.

CEO’s Blog – Never forget where you came from

Posted on 27 January 2020 by Martin Port

There is a famous Monty Python sketch called The Four Yorkshiremen – if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you have a look.

It’s as funny today as it was when the sketch first aired in 1967. It is performed by the late Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones, who sadly passed away recently. They are sitting around in white tuxedos, sipping “Chateau de Chassilier”, and talking about the old days, when they were impoverished and couldn’t even afford a cup of tea.

These Yorkshiremen then start trying to one-up each other with stories of hardship. The sketch soon becomes totally bonkers – “We lived in a rolled up newspaper in a septic tank”.

Whenever I watch that clip, I laugh, but the sketch also serves as a sober reminder of how important it is to remember your roots, and appreciate how far you’ve come in life – and in business.

I never had to work down a mine or live in a shoebox, but times were much tougher in my younger years. Even in the early days of BigChange, when we had no money and were trying to forge a new path in a competitive industry, every day was a battle.

I didn’t draw a salary for two years. We had no money to pay top salespeople but one amazing individual was so excited by the business that he offered to work for free until we were generating revenue. He’s still with us today, and has been rewarded with share options and a six-figure salary.

I will never forget the people – customers and colleagues – who took a chance on me back then. They had faith in the vision, and me as an entrepreneur, and helped me to realise my dream. I owe those people a real debt of gratitude.

As your business grows and becomes more successful, it is easy for an entrepreneur to appear arrogant or seem less accessible. When you’re a small start-up, customers feel like they can phone you for a quick chat, and colleagues wander into your office whenever they have a question. I loved that open dialogue, as it kept my feet on the ground and helped me to stay attuned to what the people who really matter to this business thought and felt.

The other day, I bumped into a customer – someone who started with us seven years ago. They bought just two systems from us in the beginning, which wasn’t a huge revenue generator but we needed that business to help establish the company. This customer said to me: “You’re growing so fast now. I bet you’re too big to talk to us now.” I was devastated by that comment. I would never want any customer to feel they were too small to be important to me.

I reassured the customer that my door was always open, and when I got back to the office, I decided to take a hard look at my role, and how it has changed over the years, to make sure I’m not losing contact with important stakeholders like that individual.

That review has prompted me to make some changes. I have brought back my weekly catch-up calls with key people in the business to talk through issues great and small. I am committed to the BigChange Network, a networking event that travels around the country, bringing customer together to talk shop and thrash out solutions to their business challenges. These things really matter to me.

If you are a customer or a colleague, I want you to know you can talk to me any time. I put my mobile number on the internet so I’m easy to find. I’ll never be the big-shot CEO who hides behind layers of management. Just like those four Yorkshiremen, I remember where I came from, and I know who to thank for how far I’ve come.

Loyalty means everything to me, and it doesn’t matter how big we get, I won’t forget you.