I recently blogged on the topic, do you diversify or remain specialised? I forgot a fundamental principal which we now adopt before venturing into the unknown.

The 3 circles. You may have come across Jim Collins a lecturer at Stamford University, he is an authority on the study of successful businesses. He predicted and charted the growth of some of Americas biggest businesses and when challenged as a young lecturer by a student not much older than himself on the success of Apple (a then unknown) he decided to put his formula down on paper and test it amongst other great fortune 500 businesses.

One of the things he found with his research is that all of the businesses which grew at a faster rate than everyone else, did some things in common. One of these was called the 3 circles principal, adopted by the likes of Walmart, Sony, Apple, Microsoft.

The 3 circles are:

Can you be the best at something?
What are you passionate about?
What drives your economic engine?

If you answer YES to all of these when venturing into new unchartered territory you cant go far wrong.

Can you be the best at something?

There is no point setting up a business if you cant genuinely create a better company that those which already dominate an industry. It make years of trying, but ultimately you have to aim high and keep focussed on the end game, to provide a consistently better service or product offering than already exists. But just believing it isn’t enough, you have to have a scientific plan and competitive edge which separates you and existing competitors.

Ask yourself, what things have I already which help enable us to be the best?

What are you passionate about? Is this new business going to make you incredibly satisfied? If it is purely a vehicle to make you money, I guarantee it will not work. You have to have enjoyment first, which comes from passion and determination, long before the success and the financial gains.

Mohammed Ali said, “I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights.”  Although he became incredibly successful and rich through his boxing, he focussed on his training and the outcome of each fight, never on the purse.
What drives the economic engine? Is it sensible to make this investment? Do we have a competitive advantage with cost savings if we enter a particular industry?

For example, UKFast entering the world of Cloud Hosting makes perfect sense. Although the investment of £500,000 seems on the steep side, we already have the technical know how and infrastructure in place to run this type of business. It therefore becomes very easy to bolt on this sort of new venture.

Data centre space is another good one. We already have the expertise to be the best at it. We are incredibly passionate about the thought of improving resilience and customer care and does it make financial sense? Absolutely, we will save £1.5m to £2m each year as a direct result.

Do we venture into data centres? Already have done is the answer.

Using the same principal, on ideas that have not gone so well. The mobile phone division of UKFast.

Can you be the best at it? Yes absolutely and we were.
Are you passionate about it? Not really, driven by the fact that we were making money.
Was it financially the best thing to do? Although it made good sense to go into this venture at the time, on hind sight, yes we had a competitive advantage writing the software that made this company immensely successful, the business model was too far removed from UKFast’s hosting model.

Business to consumer vs. business to business. This one fundamental difference made it impossible to be financially viable. Our entire existing infrastructure was designed to manage the business to business relationship. We underestimated the amount of work involved in the change management.

The same applies to UKFast’s entry into the broadband arena.

Can we be the best? Yes and we were undoubtedly. We were too good and the strain this put on the existing support team was not sustainable.

Was it financially viable? NO! It was a disaster. BT had designed a business model from hell. The only winner was BT, the customer, the supplier, everyone lost out.

Were we passionate about it? No, we love hosting and we love the fact that people appreciate what we do. Supplying broadband which was effectively turned into a commodity by the telco’s (BT, Pipex, AOL) was not fun and we were too small to roll out a business model that was incredibly niche.

The result: Doomed! Luckily we were able to foresee this and we sold off our connections to a small business who specialised in this area. We were very careful not just to “ditch” customers as they also had hosting with us and they were incredibly important.

So the 3 circles principal is key to tackling the unknown. And if it is good enough for the businesses like Gillette, Nike and the others I mentioned earlier, it is a good enough litmus test for me too. Try it with your business ventures past, present and of course the import ones, the future ones!

Go have fun.

I was asked at a How-Do discussion group recently where I was part of a panel of experts [if there is such a thing], do you diversify or is it better to specialise?

Great question, and there is no right or wrong answer.

I explained that I have tried and failed many different things. The important thing in my opinion as an entrepreneur is to dust yourself off and have another go. Great entrepreneurs are resilient, they don’t know how to give up, they are prepared to push the boundaries and if they fail they do not see this as a negative emotion. In fact failure to a receptive mind means you are learning.

If you are going to try something new I think it should compliment what you are doing in other areas. Venturing into completely unknown territory carries more risk and therefore should warrant more research.

I enjoy new challenges, however I don’t see myself as a big risk taker. I have never had the luxury of huge sums of money to invest in new projects so the downside to most of my ventures is never a particularly alarming one.

We are currently venturing into the data centre arena, and although this now does involve millions of pounds of investment, it is a “related area” and therefore compliments what I already do elsewhere in the dedicated hosting industry.

It actually not only allows us to improve the quality of the service we currently receive, it also saves us millions of pounds each year of money which for the past decade has been growing some very happy businesses in Manchester and London.

I am not sure my current suppliers of data centre space will share my excitement. UKFast makes a very attractive anchor tenant however this sort of diversification is one I wholeheartedly recommend.

If you can provide a service where you are already paying considerable sums to a supplier and in our case competitor to boot, this should help you in your decision of where to diversify.

We once diversified in to the mobile phone arena specialising in Orange phones. We were good at it and we got about 20,000 customers in our first year trading. However it was so far removed from our hosting product. We were selling Oranges network when we had our own UKFast.

We got out of this industry after Orange put pressure on us to stop bulk text messaging to win business. Companies like Carphone Warehouse and other high street retailers were complaining that we had an unfair advantage. Our route to market was incredibly effective and hit our customer right at their heart. A simple text message encouraging them to use UKFast was all it took.

It worked famously until one day I received a phone call from my distributer saying that we had just inadvertently sent messages to the board of directors of Orange themselves during a board meeting. The message said, “upgrade your mobile phone with the latest Nokia on the Orange network, call UKFast now to find out more.”

Orange were fuming, mainly because they hadn’t thought of this themselves. They switched us off.

I could have targeted them and switched hundreds of thousands of Orange customers to other networks who our distributer put us in touch with, however this wasn’t our style.

We had invested huge sums of money and a great deal of time. We weren’t just the fastest growing supplier of Orange phones back in those days, we were the best. Each customer of ours also received confirmation text messages with Royal Mail special delivery tracking codes so they could know where their parcel was. Royal Mail even printed UKFast on the special delivery bags next to their name as we were shipping so many. They even sent us our own van each day.

Quitting whilst you are ahead is not quitting. Ironically Orange came back to us weeks later and asked me personally if I’d redesign their systems and manage their call centre. Someone had produced a report comparing all the dealers, distributers and Orange themselves. UKFast came out above everyone for the best customer satisfaction and retention rate.

The mess Orange are now in is indicative of their poor management and decision-making ability.  A decade on they still are not using the technologies that we brought to that industry. Shortly after we left, Oftel banned the use of direct text messages as a form of introductory communication as too many businesses jumped on our “banned” wagon: A shame really as they were exciting days. We would send out 20,000 text messages in a morning and sell 250 phones. The inbound phones went wild. If you were a visitor, staff member of a different division of UKFast or a prospective supplier, and were in our building when we pressed send, you were given a pad and pencil and told to answer the phone. Some of my funniest memories of this time include 2 bank managers caught up in the frenzy for a couple of hours locked in my office taking orders.

This was one example of diversification that was too far from our comfort zone, however I wouldn’t change this chapter for the world. We learnt everything we know now from this era.

We are all looking for success in life, be it in your career, in your family, in sport or a blend of all. What defines success? And why do some people become more successful than others? Is there a secret? There are a million questions that need answering on this subject. It is a subject that I am fascinated by and that I have been studying for as long as I can remember.

I have been lucky enough to have met some incredibly successful individuals over the years, particularly in sport, business and music. These are 3 very different areas and you would think they all require very different needs to make the individuals rise to the top of their game.

In reality though, the answer is “not at all.” The people at the top of their game whatever their profession, share common values. This is evident in all successful people. You will hear experts on this matter talk about “passion, determination, motivation, self-belief.” Yes these are all common in high achievers, so they are the obvious ones to get picked up. They all might also eat 3 meals a day and this does not guarantee success. It is also easy to assume that the confidence a successful person has, once they have achieved greatness, was the same at the beginning of the journey, and this is not always the case either. So what is the secret common ingredient?

It is simple when you think about it. What is the most precious commodity known to mankind? The one thing in life that cant be cheated. Time. Successful people all understand the importance of time. By understanding the clock is ticking, just like in a race or a sporting event, every minute is a minute wasted when you are not working towards a greater goal.

Ironically, it is the one ingredient we also have in abundance, so much so, in my opinion this is why we take it for granted.

The only reason I started to become successful was after a near death experience. Once I experienced the possibility that death was just around the corner, I realised that life was to be lived. I made the slightest change in attitude towards time, and this made a massive difference to everything I touched from then on in.

The answer to every question is “do it now.” If someone had asked me before my accident “do you want to go to the gym?” or “do you fancy organising the house?” The answer would have probably been “maybe later” or “tomorrow.” Ask me the same thing now, and if I now say “tomorrow” it will be because I have genuinely crammed so much stuff into today or rather my wife has! My wife grasped this concept at the same time. When Gail arrived in France and found me in a hospital attached to 2 drips covered in wire and hooked to all sorts of contraptions, it was just as real for her on the other side of the fence.

So when you are doing your New Year’s resolutions. Scrap them all and just do one. Make a conscious decision to treat time as leverage to do more. Imagine what would happen if you crammed in a weeks worth of achievements in to a weekend. Pretty soon you will be doing a months worth in a week, and when you get super efficient, there are people who achieve more in a year than most people do in a lifetime. Think about it,  in today’s society, doesn’t that automatically make these people more successful.

So today, and what better day to make a change, New Year’s day; take 3 things that you have been putting off and just go and do them, now, with out hesitation. See how much better you will feel, then tomorrow, just do the same, and so on.

All these small achievements will amount to massive change a year from now. Try it. It is easier than you think. After all what have you got to loose? Only time will tell!

Time is the most underrated commodity in business and life in general. Have no regrets and live life to the full.

Happy New Year and have a great 2010.

Lawrence Jones

A decade ago when Gail Jones (then Gail Everton) and I embarked on the journey of setting up a business on the Internet, I had no idea what lay ahead.

In fact if it wasn’t for a pretty horrendous experience when trying to register and host a domain called theGallery.com, we’d never have changed direction and set up a business in the hosting arena. And I suppose it was the “bad experience” which forged the direction we took to provide the very best in service right from the outset. It was this start which also gave us an understanding of exactly how a client feels when the hosting provider goes wrong or doesn’t listen.
If you are a client of UKFast and you ever have a problem, write to me or pick up the phone. I hate having matters left unresolved and I cannot settle when I know a clients server is down.

Although it is a decade ago, I remember choosing the name UKFast very carefully. The name needed to reflect exactly what we were about. UK, obviously for it’s location, Fast, because we hated slow service and slow connectivity, .net because we were a network and hosting related. Partly too because the .co.uk version had already been registered. It took us 3 years before we were able to acquire the UK TLD version of UKFast.

We must have trawled the who-is directory for 3 days trying every name possible. It was during the boom so the world and his dog were registering every derivative of every word. Design agencies were popping up everywhere linking colours to animal names. Blue Pig, Black Sheep etc. You can almost pin point a company and its date of origin from the style of the name.

So 10 years on what has changed? Well just about everything, in fact it is easier to highlight what has NOT changed. Neil Lathwood, then a teenager working in a computer shop, found by my wife on a search for someone who could network some machines I’d sold. He came in a for a days work experience and never left. He is now the IT director and one of the most well respected boffins in our industry. It is safe for me to say, I do not know a harder working man on the planet. His desire to continually learn and stretch boundaries is only matched by an identical skill inherent in my wife. Together we formed a solid senior management team and 10 years on we continue to disagree and challenge each other. We are considerably more beefed up now with Jonathan Bowers, communications director and Paul Harris, marketing director, yet we all still have to learn new skills every year to ensure we are capable of managing a continually changing business and horizon.

So what lies ahead in 2010. I am so excited by the challenge ahead this year. Even more so than usual. Last year saw UKFast able to compete with a bigger marketing budget. It is one of the challenges of funding a business privately and not borrowing form banks. We have seen many businesses fly past us on our journey, a lot now we have caught up, some we have overtaken, the others give me the challenge and the determination to continue to grow UKFast to be the best of the largest business to business hosting providers in the UK.

Last year we saw the benefit of the Castell Cidwm acquisition, a hotel at the foot of Snowdon in the National Park in Wales. It is an invaluable asset used for training and team building. It is a place where status is removed and replaced with rack-sack and compass, a place where team members can see their managers in as much pain as they experience themselves. We have run more than 40 trips touching more than 100 staff. Put simply it cements all the people who invest time and energy down there and lifts camaraderie when we are back in the office.

This coming year we are focussing on growing the business further and we have some exciting announcements expected in 2010. We are also exploring the opportunities of some potential acquisitions and some new services which will compliment our existing offering.

In the mean time, to everyone who has helped UKFast grow, people past and present, thank you for your ideas and contribution. To our amazing client base, thank you too. By having such a strong client base we are able to invest in infrastructure that ordinarily none of us would be able to afford singly. Thank you for having the foresight to choose UKFast and if you are not already a client I look forward to meeting you one day on our quest to speed up the Internet and improve the way we all do business online.

Happy Christmas.

Lawrence Jones

I can finally breathe a sigh of relief as the new week marks the beginning of the new era at UKFast. With UKFast’s 10 Year Anniversary Party at the Palace now a fond memory, I can reflect on the funny stories now that I know the night was a success.

It was 11 years ago at Granada I first used the Grand Ballroom at the Palace for an event. It was to raise money for the Christie’s For Cancer Appeal. The night was a huge success and I fell in love with the room. It is the perfect room for hosting a ball.

I knew the hotel well, as I’d originally played the piano there in my early years when I first came to Manchester. I had some great memories of the place and I made some fantastic friends. It was during the era of Les Miserables. And the cast used to pile in there for a few drinks after the show, before dragging me out until dawn. It was a real experience and my links to the area so strong, I bought an apartment in Oxford Place next door.

Years earlier I had my first job in a shop called A1 music, right opposite the Palace on New Wakefield Street. I did a range of jobs, from brushing up, to decorating. The funniest of these jobs, (although not at the time) was when Ann the proprietor asked me did I know anyone who could do plastering? Fancy asking a 17 year old for advice on building. Of course I promptly answered, “I can.” I had seen people plaster many times  with the houses my father used to renovate when I was growing up. I failed to mention my specialty was demolition.

The plaster eventually went up and although not particularly smooth, I was quite proud of the job. I spent that evening building all the furniture for the room. The next day I was greeted by Ann’s husband Graham who was furious. He marched me up stairs to see my handy work. All the plaster had peeled off the walls and had covered all the brand new furniture. It had then promptly dried over night!

I did a variety of jobs at A1 including their book keeping, but it was the selling I enjoyed the most. As a “Saturday boy” the professional sales guys hated me in the sale floor, so I was only able to cover for people when they were on their lunch.

Guaranteed with out fail, every lunch I would have a field day selling. I learned that by being honest and directing clients to what they needed as opposed to what the thought they wanted was a great recipe for success. I also realised I only had an hour, so I concentrated my efforts and honed my craft.

As I held the record for the biggest sale in the company’s history, Ann was much aggrieved when the sales men clubbed together and convinced Graham to put me in the basement wiring up reconditioned speakers.

Happy to accommodate, to the basement I went. It was there I was told to answer the telephone and I learnt a knew skill. I was now only able to sell when carrying the speakers across the floor. So this is precisely what I did, and I learned how to get to the point almost immediately, and with in months, we had sold every pair, with me selling the lions share. On the telephone I was also developing relationships, there were a few massive deals where I convinced the keyboard player of a touring band who were playing at the Apollo, who were number 4 in the charts at the time to come in and part with £21,500. Eventually Ann forced Graham to concede that it was ridiculous to bury someone showing promise.

It was around this time that I got my first job as a professional pianist, and rather than rock the boat with the other guys, I moved on and decided to use my musical talent to further my career. Which brings me full circle back to the Palace.

The event on Saturday was seamless, from the outside at least! Behind the scenes, the band, Clem Curtis and the Foundations were without a drummer who had broken down in Nottingham, and with 45 minutes before the start, I called my brother-in-law to ask for help. Dave is a fantastic drummer and agreed to lend me his kit, so we could get it set up and sound checked whilst everyone enjoyed the champagne reception upstairs. He also offered his services as a stand-in drummer too!

There is a saying “you cant chose you family,” and if you could, I couldn’t ask for a better guy. His attitude and calmness meant I was able to enjoy dinner and even with 30 minutes to spare when the actual drummer turned up, I couldn’t have been more relaxed.

On hind site though, it reminds me why I dont do this sort of thing for a living anymore.  If you think computer hardware is unreliable, you should try managing musicians!

I also was reminded of what I loved about event organising too. Giving pleasure to so many people is so rewarding. Being on this side of the fence too, where I was the client and the organiser, meant I could make the right decisions there and then. The team comprising of Gail, Rach, Paul and Jonathan literally had the entire evening organised and scripted to the minute. I could not have asked for a better team. Jim Collin’s description “the right people on the bus can be moved anywhere” was demonstrated by the way my events team, comprising of a few of my senior management team, changed roles as efficiently as a chameleon changes colour. But although I had great fun revisiting this former profession, I would not swap what I do now for the world.

This week has been an interesting one. I gave a talk at the ProManchester event at law firm Pinsent Mason’s which was great fun. I mentioned that I was lucky enough to be “raised in a convent” making a joke that this was a different talk for another occasion.

Well, maybe it’s time for that discussion.

A couple of weeks ago we were planning our new “School of Hosting” campaign. This was at a time when we had just had a very successful day where staff dressed up in St.Trinian’s outfits to raise money for charity, it was suggested, why not use the photography and continue the theme to promote the School of Hosting.

Business men and women of City Tower Manchester are used to the staff at UKFast turning up in all sorts of outfits. Dressed in suits for 4 days a week, from time to time UKFast relaxes its dress code policy in line with various calendar events or charity days.

This particular one was done in a similar vein.

As soon as the advert hit the shelves and the banners appeared on various websites, a few people complained. Now I am a great believer in freedom of speech, just as I am a believer in the right to express oneself and exercise your individuality.

We all need our own passionate driving forces and conflicting views, that is what makes the world such an interesting place.

Personally I feel the advert is completely innocuous and as it was designed and created by women and as I know it was never meant to offend I think it was harmless. It is funny how people automatically assume something like this was dreamt up by the men in an organisation. But to the thousands of positive comments and visitors to the site, thank you.

So, going back to the original comment about being raised in a convent, growing up amongst 150 girls does have its advantages. The greatest of these was that I was able to gain an understanding of how the “other half” work, their minds, their behaviour, their communication, their sensitivity.

It is safe to say, as a result of my social conditioning, I empathise far more with women than men. I feel far more at ease on a night out with 30 mums from the school our kids go to over a rugby club networking dinner full of men.

I am not sure of the split of men and women in management  positions across the UK, however at UKFast it is clear to see my trust in women is carried into the work place. In positions of trust where a high level of autonomy and delegation is required, the split of men and women is 50:50. We have 9 ladies and 9 men, managing 102 staff. As we have more men in the business overall, it is a fair claim that on average, the women at UKFast hold higher positions over the men.

I hope it is not too sexist to say also, out of all the management, I have slightly more confidence in the organisational skills of the women over the men.  (Oops, sorry guys)

My wife has put her views on the subject of the advert itself here.