The line up consisted of 3 politicians, myself and another business person. One of the big topics concentrated around university fees and whether or not the £9,000 is fair.

There seems to have been a massive cultural change over the last 10 or 15 years. Blair popularised the idea that everyone should go to University and whilst headline grabbing “right-on,” or “perfect world” scenario sounds great, it actually left the country in a bit of a pickle years later,  suddenly Great Britain was short of plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen.

No worries though we had a few million Lawyers coming through the system!

The way Tony Blair portrayed university made it such that if you didn’t go you were a second class citizen. Suddenly every parent in the country was busy competing with their next door neighbours and their family members to send all their children to Uni.

Is it any wonder so many families end up in debt. I was shocked to find out how expensive university is. This coupled with Student Loans are in my opinion big enough reasons NOT to go on to higher education, unless you are learning a specific trade for a particular vocation.

People forget, a university is a business. They generate money, pay salaries and report profits just like other businesses. But are our universities in danger of focussing too much on their own profits rather than the education they are providing?

There are other ways to learn, a university degree doesn’t give you an iron clad guarantee that you are going to be successful. Sir Gerald Kauffman the labour politician there mentioned a story of a girl who he’d known who’d gone on an apprentice scheme, ending up “carry a polythene bag walking up and down a train picking up rubbish.” Whether he meant to or not (and I am sure he did not) he spoke as if this person was a second class citizen as a result of her failing the scheme. Every job has merit and never underestimate a person by the clothes they wear or their vocation.

Its interesting when asked for a show of hands how many people wanted to go to university, everyone stretched for the ceiling but there was silence. I asked the question, what is it about University that you are looking forward to? Is it the freedom? Is it the fact that you get away from your parents and you have an abundance of parties?

Now I got a reaction. I got a unanimous resounding response.

Once I’d explained that you don’t have to go to University to have a blast. I had their attention. They had not considered this option.

I never went to university, I not only had my first 4 bedroom house at 19 years old, I also had an income greater than my mother who had been teaching for 20 years.

And all from just playing the piano and being resourceful.

I must have touched a nerve or said something that the kids related to because as  soon as we’d finished the 30 or so students all gathered round me to shake my hand.  It was an overwhelming moment as I realised that in amongst all the adversity and uncertainty, I somehow represented some sort of beacon of hope. I must have been the first bit of positivity they had seen in some time.

Talking with the kids, I could see passion tempered with an air of desperation of which way they should turn.

What sort of world are we creating for the next generation? We are so busy worrying about the now, the future is being overlooked.

John Moulton is the only one who put it in a simple enough way for me to understand. “For every £3 the government earns, it spends £4.”

It doesn’t matter if you hate the conservatives, the labour government set that ball rolling. And if you hate labour, there are a plethora of indiscretions the conservatives have made. Both parties are equal in their indifference and their desire to share the blame. The world is changing quicker than our political system can deal with.

Can you imagine a simple questionnaire going out, “Do we invade Iraq?”  and “Do we invade Syria?”

The people of Britain could answer that question very simply via the internet and there would be no need for the lies and time wasting debates that precede and follow.

This would have been an administrative impossibility a decade ago. Now it would be simple and you could have an answer back on a any question in hours.

Anyway its not going to happen. I can’t see politicians voting themselves out of the control they currently have. Something has to change though. The quality of the decisions being made and the management of the diminishing funds isn’t at a high enough level to propel us forward.

So it’s no wonder that the 6th formers are looking anxious.

What are the options?

Well whatever the economy, if you are wanting to set up a business, there is no right or wrong time. There were 2 of the 17 or 18 year olds, who told me they were already making money running their own little businesses. One a cake / confectioners, the other buying shrimp. (A bit random for Manchester – mind you if you can make money trading shrimp in Manchester, my money is on this kid being an entrepreneurial superstar.) Ironically, both these 2 young people told me they were being forced to go to university by parents who already run small businesses, yet they feel that their kids need qualifications to fall back on.

Crazy really. We dont look at qualifications when assessing candidates at UKFast. We look for great people and we don’t prejudice a person based on their ability to do well in an exam environment.

As my A level Music examiner said to me after I crucified Sonata in A, “If Mozart could have heard that, he’d have turned in his grave.”

"If Mozart could have heard that, he'd have turned in his grave!"

I failed my A level, and that same examiner ended up working for me a few years later. He often said, if he’d known what I was capable of on the piano, he’d have marked me very differently. But the system wasn’t and still isn’t built for the odd ones out.

It’s a good job I failed really, I think University would have been the death of me. It would have given me the confidence to write a CV and go for interviews. It was this lack of confidence in my ability to get a job that forced me to set up my own business. Ironic really, especially as you can set up a business without a single qualification. You just need the passion and the determination and a bit of belief. The rest will come as I am finding.

I got the impression these kids just wanted to be told that they could succeed, but no one tells them that. No one wants to build up their hopes for fear they might get knocked down. The economy doesn’t help, it discourages entrepreneurialism and whilst I don’t think this is a deliberate act, I do think it’s an inevitability from the constant doom and gloom that surrounds modern politics today.

So why a sport sponsorship deal?

It was not an easy decision spending millions of pounds of a hard earned marketing budget in one go, with the recession still firmly gripping society however I felt it important to take the opportunity and be decisive. Its a 3 year deal and when an opportunity as large as this comes up, in my opinion you grab it with both hands.

It is also important to look beyond the economic downturn. The credit crunch will not last forever and it is important to stand by what you believe in. For those fans who go to all the home games, you will know that UKFast gets a mention every time Charlie Hodgson scores. A few seasons back, he injured himself and although we were offered a replacement player, we stuck with Charlie. He came back, stronger, fitter and in my opinion is one of the greatest fly-halves in today’s tough game.

So when McAfee wavered, I made sure we had a window where we were able to negotiate without interruption.

I have had a few chats with Brian Kennedy, and he is grateful for the support and for the fact that there are others in the Manchester and Northwest business community who understand and believe in what the Sharks are doing.

It is the work the Sharks do team building in schools and with kids which sealed it for us. It is so easy to disengage and get transfixed on your financial goals and loose site of what is really important. Gail and I put as much emphasis on hitting personal goals as we do the financial ones, and this had been born from a discussion a decade ago, when First Software were on the shirts “one day, we’ll be main sponsors.”

10 years on, the Sharks, UKFast partnership is more than a logo on a shirt. It gives us an opportunity to say thank you to Manchester and the surrounding community. It is the fun part of being an entrepreneur which enables us to do something as exiting as this.

Just cant wait for the season to start now!

Mid recession, with no clear understanding of how long is the tunnel or how dark it might get, I am drawn back to the hypnotic clouds.

There are some things in life you can’t predict or influence, “weather” you want to or not. But do these unpredictable elements stop you from going about your normal business or day to day lives. Of course not. Only in extreme cases, but even these are “blips” and they cannot halt progress.

I am reminded of Earl Nightingale and his anology of the ship. He describes the damage caused by a ship in a harbor cut loose without a captain, crew, charts or destination. He then describes the same vessel, but this time with a captain, a crew a destination and therefore a purpose. The vessel will reach it’s destination every time. It will seldom be on the exact course, the currents and wind will do their best to divert them. However their collective purpose is stronger than the outside elements.

Just like the plane overhead. It’s destination firmly programmed in to the captain’s head and the onboard computers. The elements are constantly changing, but the clear path is set.

I set a path a few years ago, and every day I tread closer towards my goal. Some days slower than others I might add, but I carry on unperturbed. One of my intentions was to continue learning in order to keep myself interested and able to manage our rapidly growing responsibilities. And even though I am forced to change my location as the rain starts to spit, my vision is not spoiled by the change of scenes.

Far from it in this case. One of my goals is to surround myself with successful people so I can learn from them. I think my wife took this too literally and booked us into a place called The Lodge. Sir Richard Branson’s private Ski Chalet in Verbier Switzerland.

Although Richard isn’t here this week it is a real eye opener to meet some of his team and to see how real everything he has created is. And to realise  just how achievable it is to set and follow similar goals.

So we take a couple of hours a day on the slopes carving our future strategies in our heads before cataloguing, discussing, arguing, debating our future in these sumptuous surroundings.

I realise  that not everyone can afford to take time out in such lavish style. However you do need to take time out! However you do it, it can be in a garden shed as long as you get uninterrupted time to yourself. The important thing is you have the time to reflect and think about where you have come from, what you have learned, and where you want to get to and what you might encounter on the journey ahead.

Planning and knowing your outcome in the reverse order are the two most important factors that separate the Bransons from the Brainless.

“So where do I go and how do I do it?”

Personally I always head for the mountains. At home in Wales, we have been lucky enough to find ourselves a house and lake in the Snowdonia National Park. It is a place where mobile phones aren’t banned, they simply wont work!

Before the Lakehouse , I’d put on a rucksack, pack it full of beer, squeeze in a tent and enough provisions and off I’d go. My first weekend away with Gail who is now my wife, was in a serious thunderstorm where we camped at the top lake on Snowdon.

It rained so hard that breakfast turned to soup and we had to pitch the tent on a steep slope to stop it from filling with water.

But I’d set myself a goal years earlier, I’d find the perfect partner when I was still poor and she would be resilient, determined and kind.

I got more than I bargained for. She indeed became my partner in every sense, wife and business. Yes she had all the traits, and my friends who know me would laugh saying, she needs to be resilient and determined to put up with me!

So what do I mean when I say I got more than I bargained for? Well, I’d set the goal to find Gail whilst I was still poor. A fundamental flaw in goal setting.

“You have to be careful what you wish for” my Gran always used to say. She must have been on a Tony Robbins course!

What I should have set was to simply find the perfect woman. As a result, I remained “poor” and unsuccessful until I met her.

This is not superstition. This is simple programming of your brain. Whatever you ask for you get, whatever you focus on you will feel. This is how seriously I take goal setting now.

To give you an example of a goal I set as a child, “one day I will have a house in the mountains by a lake.”  I also set a burning desire to have a home that was big enough for everyone in my family to enjoy.

Gail found the perfect place amazingly less than 2 miles from the summit of snowdon, with an estate that has a 250 acre lake and the properties combined are big enough to sleep 28 people.

Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. I remember not being able to afford the fee at the Snowdon car park, plus I have too many cases of other goals for this to be coincidence.

It is worth noting that every super successful entrepreneur that I know follows the same key principals. Be very descriptive about what it is you intend on achieving, be bold and don’t hold back.

So instead of trying to switch off from your business at the weekend, get in your car or on a plane. Get a note book and pen and take some time out to pat yourself on the back for all that you have achieved and focus on Stage II.

Your business journey consists of many rungs on a very tall ladder. You determine how high you go. You can get off at any time if you get vertigo like Nixon of MoneySuperMarket.com, or you can keep climbing new ladders. Or in Bransons case, when you run out of ladders to climb on this earth, go Galactic. All I can say in his wake, is “Go Branson!”

And to fellow aspiring entrepreneurs like myself, never stop learning, never stop pushing, and certainly never stop trying.

Nothing should distract you from the path you set and don’t be hypnotised by events surrounding the economy. Your purpose will outlive any economic downturn.

I blogged a few weeks back after Rob Williams from Dolphin Music  died on the mountains where we are now.It is humbling to be reminded that life is so short. So get up, stop procrastinating.

All you need is pen, paper and you have a purpose.

Personally, I think not.

Companies that make their employees redundant to save money over the period of recession may be able to balance their books but they don’t think of the long term consequences. The downturn isn’t going to last forever and when in a year or so the economy regains its strength, these companies will have whittled down their pool of talent.

Apart from this, companies that have grown and been successful until this period of economic slowdown also face losing valued members of staff. Team members that have helped the company grow and move forward in the past. Ask yourself – if you lose these staff will you be able to drive your business at the same rate? What is the potential for damage to the company culture?

When organisations choose to batten down the hatches and cut spend they stop focusing on their forward growth and start talking themselves into doom and gloom. All the talk of the failing economy simply allows managers to make allowances for the company’s poor performance – once again causing slower growth. The long term result of this is one of deeper recession, caused by the businesses themselves.

But even whilst the advertising sector as a whole shows a decline of 0.7%, online adspend has increased by 21% in the last year.

So why has online advertising increased this much despite the credit crunch?

It stems from the fact that the medium offers a relatively low-cost approach to brand building. And it works. At UKFast we operated an “online only” advertising policy for many years. Here’s why:

1. You only pay for the people who see your ad. If you pay for 100 click-throughs or that number of leads, that’s what you get. Businesses like this quantifiable approach because it guarantees a healthy ROI.

2. Targeting the right audience online is much more easily done than in other mediums such as broadcast or print because online communities are much more specific.

3. Businesses are recognising the ease in which they can extend the transaction within online advertising. Traditionally, apart from placing freephone numbers on TV and coupons in print publications, there was no way for customers to act on adverts. On the internet though, interested customers can click and buy on the spot.

4. With online platforms free advertising is much more plausible – strategic press releases need only cost for production as they can be posted in many areas free of charge.

It’s not all spam. The internet is a valid and cost-effective platform on which to advertise and grow your business – even within the credit crunch.

If you’ve had any experience of online advertising growing your brand and delivering great results please leave a comment. I’m very interested in hearing your stories.