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MR LOADLINK

Busy Fools and Discourses

A common character trait of many businesspeople, especially entrepreneurs, must be kept in check, says Mr. Loadlink.

I was jet lagged, my inbox was exploding, and I couldn’t remember the last time I went horse racing. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was.

Now, I remember that time well; I made a note of it just to make sure I don’t go back. It’s not important when it was—only my close friends and family even know about it (until now!)—nor does it matter what label I put on my state of mind (burn-out could be one) but it was crucial that I learnt from it.

I’m very proud of my work ethic but I let it get the better of me. I’d convinced myself that one more hour with my nose millimetres from the grindstone was always worth it. I saw no harm in waking up to a notepad full of ideas and scrawled diagrams on my bedside table—the product of sleepless nights wondering how to gain 1% more productivity here or 2% more margin there. I thought, isn’t it great that I can be creative when everyone else is asleep? I cursed the hours when my body finally succumbed and I completely shut down; exhausted, I sunk into the pillow before I’d even thought about trying to get some sleep.

Sadly, many readers of this blog can probably relate to this. After all, what makes us successful entrepreneurs is a passion for what we do. And that’s the hardest thing to rein in. I never cursed any sleepless night, or 80-hour week (many were probably more) because I loved every minute of them. The buzz of working on an overnight flight before landing and going straight into the office was like a drug. Cramming as many trade shows as possible into a spring or autumn season kept adrenaline whizzing through my body at such a rate that I sometimes had to remind myself to eat.

That was ok, though, because there was always someone to have a networking dinner with so we could talk about work in between mouthfuls.

In hindsight, it’s clear how clouded my senses had become. I justified to myself missing barbecues with friends and family; and saw the layers of dust building up on my golf clubs as a sign of my success. I remember thinking back to the days when my company was in its infancy and I had time to swing a club or put on a snappy suit and spend a few hours at Goodwood, which is not only my local racecourse but also one of the most picturesque in the world. That entire caper was for those with time on their hands or a lack of drive. I couldn’t keep count of my shots on a course or place bets at a track and answer phone calls or brainstorm at the same time. So I didn’t do it.

Stress out

Any medical professional will tell you that enduring a state of stress over a long period of time is a harmful thing. It puts strain on all the organs and bodily functions that we need to take care of the most. The side effects—loss of appetite, sleepless nights, low immune system, low energy, headaches—are there for an individual to feel and their friends and family to see, but they’re somehow suppressed or given a different label. It’s the quality of air in aeroplanes that makes one feel drowsy, I’ve heard it said. Or, no wonder that high-flying business owner has constant headaches, performing such wizardry on spreadsheets until the small hours.

When entrepreneurs get together it creates an intoxicating, yet dangerous, environment. See a group of over-worked, highly stressed professionals in a huddle, laughing, and it’s usually because one of them has mentioned a television programme or favourite pastime. They might even have had the audacity to mention the upcoming weekend. Champagne is spat from their ulcer-ridden gobs and they double over their big guts. One scoffs: what chance have I got to watch TV?; another boasts: weekend, what’s that?; I remember when my handicap was down to seven—now I couldn’t even hit it off the tee, roars the most pale-looking of them all.

If none of this incentivises a reader to slow down, get this: working so many hours actually makes a person perform worse. Chances are, a solid 50-hour week and a weekend off with the family, perhaps with a gentle coaxing of ducks into a row on a Sunday evening, will yield greater productivity and efficiency than an 80-hour week where one has barely spared time to ask how a loved one’s day at school or work went. Think about it: how could I have been as dynamic and engaging at a trade show on the morning after an all-nighter at the laptop, than when I’d had a relaxing meal, seven hours of sleep, and a healthy breakfast? The mind is a powerful thing and it can seemingly convince a person, especially an entrepreneur, of anything.

Any medical professional will tell you that enduring a state of stress over a long period of time is a dangerous thing.

Any medical professional will tell you that enduring a state of stress over a long period of time is a dangerous thing.

Here are my top four tips for anyone getting sucked into the world of busy fools:

  1. Get active

Schedule activities away from work and make them business-free zones. Whether it’s fishing, golf, horse racing, or billiards (fresh air activities are better), put plenty of it in the diary and make them as important as quarterly board meetings. Further, when the rod is cast, the ball is thwacked onto a fairway, the bet is place, or the black is potted, don’t let the workplace detract from the moment. Turn off one’s mobile phone and don’t put anything work-related in the diary immediately afterwards that might create a distraction or tempt a person to rush away from the fun. It’s amazing how mind, body, and soul can benefit.

Schedule activities away from work.

Schedule activities away from work.

  1. Take long holidays

It’s remarkable how many successful people, with plenty of money, don’t take holidays. I’ve heard (and made) all the excuses in the book: I’ve got too much on to leave the office; I’d only spend the whole time in the room working; what if I couldn’t get reliable Wi-Fi?; I’d have too much to catch up on when I got back; the company would lose momentum without its leader; what example does it set if I sit on a beach for two weeks?; I’m happier at work than on a sun-bed or sight-seeing so what’s the point?

The most laughable of all of these is the necessity for a business leader to be at their company’s beckon call 24/7. Of course, it would be unwise to take a three-month tour of the Far East just days after registering a UK-focussed business at Companies House, but there’s something wrong with an established, successful firm if the wheels come off when the boss takes some time off. (I’ll come back to this point.)

  1. Prioritise relationships

There’s no point reflecting on a great career, prematurely bound to a rocking chair, if it has come at the cost of every hobby, friend, and family member a person had. It’s no badge of honour or achievement to say, “I’m a great businessman, that’s why I haven’t got any friends or family.” Make time for immediate and distant family; sign-up to memberships that have nothing to do with business; be on a WhatsApp group with people who don’t even know what you do for a living; have a circle of friends that ask how you are but not how work is going. At times of great need, these are the people who will step in, not the customers or suppliers that get the majority of an entrepreneur’s time. Get to the office on a Monday morning having forgotten about what it looks like for 60 hours.

  1. Take email off your phone

This has proven to be a game-changer for me. Like a lot of business leaders, indeed, anyone in most jobs these days, I get bombarded by emails that range from important messages from by business partner to spam about money laundering schemes. I got into a mentality that I was being judged by the time it took me to respond, forward, delete, or act upon messages. If it was 2:05am and a customer had asked a question, they’d have the answer by 2:10am. Every time I felt my phone vibrate, I’d check the message and deal with it. Now I have to log into my laptop to access messages, which is inconvenient and takes time. Great! It means I only address them when I’m settled at a desk with a cup of tea—not when I stir in the middle of the night.

Taking email off my smart phone has drastically reduced stress levels.

Taking email off my smart phone has drastically reduced stress levels.

I wholeheartedly embrace the benefits of technology and I love my smart devices, but being a slave to an inbox is foolish. When I started my career as a rep, I used to carry a bag of 2p coins with me so I could stop and use a payphone by the roadside if I was running early or late for an appointment. Businesses back then still turned over millions of pounds. Whilst our companies are reliant upon technology and the efficiencies it creates, nothing is going to happen if an email doesn’t get replied to when one is at an airport or taking a taxi to a hotel.

As Steve Torres, CEO at Group Four Transducers Inc., told me once near his home in Boston, Massachusetts, it’s important to take time to smell the roses.

Good luck, Jessi; welcome, Kizzie

I alluded to the importance of systemising a business and building a strong team earlier in the piece. I don’t want to lose the hands-on approach that’s served me so well over the years, but much of being able to step away and implement any of the four tips outlined above depends on an entrepreneur’s ability to delegate and entrust a team.

We were very sorry to see Jessi Boskovic leave us recently; she had been with SP since school and blossomed into a consummate professional. However, we wish her well with a new challenge and remain proud that she will use the experience gained with us to no doubt be a huge success elsewhere. Jessie has been replaced by Kizzie Cordwell, inside sales, and the team is excited about working with her in the immediate and long-term future.

We had 18 applicants for the job and Kizzie was the outstanding candidate. I talk (and blog) a lot about the DNA we look for in prospective employees and we’re confident we’ve chosen wisely in our latest recruit.

Thank you for reading and use the hashtag #loadcell on social media.

Mr. Loadlink

It is important for business leaders to allow members of staff to represent the company on the front line. Dave Mullard, business development manager; and Mike Neal, product sales engineer, did a great job at the recent Vertikal Days, I hear.

It is important for business leaders to allow members of staff to represent the company on the front line. Dave Mullard, business development manager; and Mike Neal, product sales engineer, did a great job at the recent Vertikal Days, I hear.

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Luck of the Irish…

Sometimes one can make their own fortune, says Mr. Loadlink upon his return from Ireland, where LEEA staged back-to-back roadshows last month.

David Mullard, SP business development manager, and I spent a week in Ireland at the end of June, where LEEA staged two roadshows in three days in Belfast and Dublin. I’ve blogged before about the association’s ‘Lifting the Load—Out on the Road’ initiative that brings seminars, a small exhibition and networking to a regional audience that can attend free of charge.

I like the format for a number of reasons, chiefly because it requires all participants to be dynamic and make the best of the short window of opportunity. In only a few hours—everything happens between 10am and, say, 2pm—a tabletop expo, networking and educational presentations are all staged, usually in adjacent rooms at a small hotel or similar venue. Snooze and you lose. Blink and you miss it.

The concept also leaves something to chance, which only adds to the appeal for me. It’s impossible for LEEA to guarantee large crowds at a free-to-attend event and there wouldn’t be time to network with 500 people anyway. It means every roadshow varies somewhat; some attract large, engaged audiences and others less so. To some extent, Belfast and Dublin followed suit with the latter drawing a larger delegation to a venue that was probably better suited to the concept than the other. But I liked them both.

The roadshows are a microcosm of any other trade show or conference and the same rules apply; if one is prepared to engage with people and make the best of it, there are opportunities aplenty, even at the quieter events. Too many exhibitors make quick assumptions about the footfall and likely outcomes of participation. They look at the lack of a queue at the door at 9:30am and write it off. They get their smart devices out and waste the day surfing the net.

These doom and gloom merchants are often the type who pass up the bonus networking opportunities to be had over breakfast, dinner and at the bar. Dave and I, meanwhile, had countless conversations with friends old and new outside of roadshow opening hours. A holistic approach should be taken to all business events, especially the short ones. At a bar in Belfast, I was about to order another Guinness to toast that very sentiment when the phone rang…

“Is that Mr. Loadllnk?” they said.

Ok, they didn’t ask after me by my blogging pseudonym but the conversation was uplifting nonetheless.

It was a local marina and dockside walkway specialist (there’s a market for everything!), interested in learning more about our centre of gravity and compression load cells. As luck would have it, we were only an hour away from their facility and booked a meeting the following day. It was fascinating to see the volume of cranes required at their yard alone and hear about potential use of our product range on jobsites.

We also made a point of visiting W.H. Scott & Son Engineers Ltd. (founded back in 1897), which offers a range of lifting and rigging gear, including our load cells, to clients across the UK from depots in Dublin, Belfast, Plymouth, Wexford, London and Bristol. Water utilities work continues to be a popular market for force measurement equipment, the team at W.H. Scott says.

Music to my ears

A lot has been said about the UK’s recent election results and subsequent commencement of Brexit negotiations with the EU. If you’re from far afield and have been following the news, you’ve probably gathered that the Conservative Party won, but lost, and the Labour Party lost, but won. Make sense? Probably not, but essentially it means the latter performed beyond expectations and the Tories have had to prop up a minority government via a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Now, we’re arguably in an even weaker position to talk ourselves into a favourable Brexit than we were before we went to the polls last month. This isn’t a political blog but I’m unashamedly a Remain voter. I didn’t see the logic in leaving the EU when the referendum was held and I still don’t. However, I’m also a practical person and understand the importance of accepting the decision and moving on. We’ve got to somehow get to a place of political and economic stability as soon as possible.

On the upside, regardless of political persuasion, it should be celebrated that the election turnout was up 2.6% from 2015 to 68.7% and, moreover, half of those aged 18-24 came out to vote, up a whopping 16%. For too long the younger generation has felt detached from politics and poorly represented by politicians, but a combination of Brexit (the vote didn’t go the way most young people wanted) and the latest General Election has set a C-change into motion.

Young people are talking about politics, which is great to hear; it’s their future politicians are shaping, after all. Politics even made the headlines at the recent Glastonbury Festival—a famous music event that takes place over five days in Somerset, UK—where attendees were chanting the name of the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, when he made an appearance on the stage. It’s not about whom they were shouting, but what they were shouting about—politics—and I give that engagement a standing ovation.

I’ve also been monitoring closely events across the English Channel, where French President Emmanuel Macron recently took office. I see similarities in how he’s assembling his top team to that of a successful business leader who understands that it takes people with different skill-sets and personalities to excel in the varied posts of government. Mr. Macron found room in his cabinet for a campaigning environmentalist and an Olympic fencing champion, for example. Some of the UK’s more one-dimensional political parties could take note.

Rising in the East

The oil and gas industry in Singapore, like many places around the word, isn’t out of the woods but it shares a mood of cautious optimism with other hotbeds. Growth of some description will be recorded this year over last and the longer-term signs are good, says Gaylin’s load cell guru Presley Ng Seng Tat, who I visited recently. Fellow Singaporean Intermarine Supply Co. (Pte) Ltd was equally upbeat about market conditions.

Both are welcoming increased demand for our ATEX and IECEx range of products, which is consistent with a number of notable orders we’ve received here at headquarters. Our most popular product, the Radiolink plus (RLP), was our first explosion proof load cell and we recently received an order for 40 25t RLPs from a Greek shipping company, which noted the product’s Zone 0, 1 and 2 hazardous area classifications.

It’s been interesting to compare the market’s consumption of our ATEX range versus, say, our Clamp On Line Tensionmeter (or COLT). There’s a lesson for all product-based businesses to learn in that the speed with which new products go out the door isn’t always the most important barometer. Much fanfare greeted the ATEX RLP—and then the expanded range some six months later—while the marketplace was equally rapturous when we unveiled the COLT. However, the latter has proved to have a much quicker ramping up period; customers started buying it straight away.

That’s not to say it’s a better product than the ATEX range and herein lays the point. There are other load cells out there, thus, the ATEX range fills a smaller gap in the market. The COLT, meanwhile, is in a league of its own, offering a state-of-the-art Bluetooth load monitoring app among a myriad of standout features. It’s not more important to our growth strategy than the ATEX range, it’s just delivering at a different tempo.

H1 high

Finally, we conducted six-monthly planning meetings at the end of Q2, which are always beneficial and enlightening, especially when you follow a record Q1 with another record second quarter! I fly to the states this week to complete a similar exercise with the North American operation (we have a 30-strong global team in place). Punctuating our year with these plans keeps us on track. Imagine implementing a strategy in January and leaving it 11 months before working out where something went wrong only a few weeks into the session.

Here’s to a great H2 2017 for everyone!

Thank you for reading and use the hashtag #loadcell on social media.

Mr. Loadlink

 

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