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By Dani Saveker, June 30, 2009 10:18 pm

Whether you serve a Board as an employee or are a Director yourself, most of us encounter good and bad Board members. I’m still shocked at the ridiculous and petty behaviour of some Directors and in particular the complete incapability of some individuals in positions of responsibility.

I recently read a very interesting suggestion about Boards. You can look at this personally or professionally but it’s a surprising and important exercise…

 Take a piece of paper and draw a Board table. At the head of the table write your name. Now is the interesting bit – think carefully and then add your ‘ideal’ Board members. As mentioned you can do two, one for your personal life and one for your work life.

You can include people that may have never actually met but that inspire you. You can include people that are oversees or deceased. Put who you call on for advice, support, expertise etc. It might be that you put just a couple of names down or quite a few, it may include your partner or a family member – but it more than likely isn’t a Board that exists in reality.

If you’re an MD or CEO, you might want to think about the implications of your choice of members compared to those you really have!

If you’ve created a Board for yourself on a personal basis you might want to tell the people you’ve selected – it’s quite a compliment and will strengthen the relationship between you.

Whatever the Board you create, make an effort to see the people on it whether for coffee or more formally. Just because they aren’t really on a Board doesn’t mean they can’t benefit you!

 And as a final thought, who would select you for their Board and what can you add to it?

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By Dani Saveker, June 30, 2009 9:37 pm

I had an interesting meeting at the end of last week – nothing like I thought it would be.

This meeting was set up following another of my contacts recommended seeing him. On the tin, so to speak, John Whitfield from Grant Thornton is an insolvency practioner, but after spending a couple of hours with him it was quite clear he was not like the “stereotypical” IP that’s for sure. The message that came over loud and clear was his understanding of opportunity and recovery. As he put it, google him and you’ll read about insolvency work and not the positive work he’s done to help struggling businesses. 

Highly professional, John shared with me his views of insolvency and the need to bring in expertise at an early stage – something that I strongly agree with. Equally, I explained my background and the hopes I hold to help those with entrepreneurial spirit whether in education still and starting out on their career or someone that has been established and found the current recession too much to trade through. In return he agreed with me.

Our conversation then turned to much more pressing issues based on the changing world we now live in forced upon us during these difficult times.  In particular we discussed at length the shift back to ‘values’ – family and personal values and as reasonably young (!) and successful business people we have realised that we all have been missing the point to some extent.

One of the reasons for breaking away from the 9 to 5 routine (not that I ever worked just 9 to 5 or had a ‘routine’) was based on wanting flexibility to be a better Mum and wife, to avoid office politics  (you know, the arguements over air conditioning etc!) and generally to enjoy life and work. I wanted to dictate my day not the other way round. As a consequence I am actually more productive and effective.

During  the meeting, we laughed and shared numerous stories but then John told me about a recent email he’d received. I have to say that normally I hate such emails and they head straight to my DELETED ITEMS. He insisted that after all we’d talked about I should definitely read this one. When I returned to the office the email came through. Let me share it with you…

Picture this, a beautiful picturesque fishing village with four fishermen finishing their day on the tranquil sea and just tieing the boat up.

A tourist was just passing by when he stopped to comment on the quality of the fish they’d caught and asked how long it had taken them to catch them.

“Not long” they replied

The tourist asked “why didn’t you stay longer and catch more then?”

The fishermen explained that the fish would feed their families and meet their needs.

Looking slightly puzzled, the tourist asked them what they did with the rest of their time.

The four fishermen told him that the sleep late, fish a little, play with their children, enjoy siestas with their wives. They added that in the evenings they met their friends in the village, had a few drinks and played songs on their guitars. They said that they had full lives.

The tourist interrupted by saying he had an MBA from Harvard and could help them. He said “you could start by fishing longer each day. When you have extra fish you could sell them. With the extra revenue you could buy a bigger boat”.

One of the fishermen asked what would they do then

“The bigger boat will allow you to make more money so you can then buy another boat and another after that until you have a fleet of trawlers. Once that’s happened you could cut out the middle man and sell the fish directly to the processing plant and maybe even have your own plant. You could leave your little village and move to a big city like New York and build your empire”.

The fishermen asked how long this could all take.

“Twenty to twenty-five years I reckon” replied the tourist.

The fishermen then asked what would happen then?

“Afterwards, that’s when it gets really interesting. You’d be able to  buy and sell shares and make millions” explaind the tourist.

“Wow, millions you say? Then what?”

“Well after that you’ll be able to retire,  gentlemen, to a beautiful little  picturesque fishing village where you can sleep late, fish a little, play with your children, enjoy siestas with your wives. In the evening you could meet friends in the village, have a few drinks and play songs on your guitars”.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING IN LIFE… YOU MIGHT ALREADY BE THERE AND YOU MIGHT ALREADY HAVE YOUR TRUE HAPPINESS YOU’RE SEARCHING FOR!

John, thank you for a great meeting, the start of our working relationship and a superb email!

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By Dani Saveker, June 22, 2009 12:00 pm

I was very fortunate to have a meeting, well a coffee and a chat, with Savekers Ltd’s previous relationship manager from HSBC last week. This is the man who saw what we as a company faced during the last few months of trading – up close and personal.

We are all very guilty at pointing the finger of blame at the banks and at anyone else that will allow us to avoid accepting our own faults and  responsibility for our situations. It seems that in particular we target those that represent banks and that we come into contact with. This gentleman however kindly agreed to meet me just to talk. I became aware on the 10th March (the day we went into administration) that our failure to get through the situation was something he also took personally. The relationship managers from the banks, the good ones, are really caught between a rock and a hard place. He told me how he had to be a shoulder to cry on as well as being target of frustrated directors on a regular basis.

Banks and business leaders should be uniting – have they forgotten we are the customer? Are we forgetting that if we were asked to invest our own money we wouldn’t just ‘hand it over’. Why are the divisions between us so vast? Communication has to be one of the main things. We could all learn from each other.

I listened to Jean Pousson from the IoD today. He gave a talk on the subject of “How to get the best from your Bank“. The main message that came through this very comprehensive and entertaining presentation was to communciate with the banks. If you want them to loan you money, work at it! Answer their doubts before they have chance to cast them. Be serious and clear in your aims. Jean even suggested that you collect the bank’s representative and bring him to your business – if you want someone to help you, get off your backside and make the effort. My advice would be not to view the banks as the enemy – try and get them onside. Sooner or later they will have to start realising they also need to work at the relationship too.  Banks needs businesses, successful ones. Let’s all pull together – we’re all working towards the same goals, aren’t we?

 I challange the banks to proactively talk to business leaders and try and improve their understanding and start providing a service. Is the ‘relationship’ manager the correct person to act as a motivator and strategist? Why don’t they send someone the company will trust to do this and let banks do what they should be doing. I would welcome talking to the banks about my experiences, not to criticise but to help improve things. It’s time to change.

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By Dani Saveker, June 15, 2009 3:58 pm

Have I got your attention? If so it may be that you’re thinking of the wrong ‘c’ word. I am actually referring to CONSULTANCY but it does seem to have the same reaction as the more commonly known ‘c word’.

From my own experience, CONSULTANCY is not something popular and more often than not it’s not even very useful.

Why would someone starting out in the business of  “consulting” say such a negative thing? Because it’s true, that’s why.

I’ve used the term to explain to people and businesses what I’m doing now but I’ve decided to make an effort to clear out all references to this. I don’t want that label.

The number of people and businesses who had hopes of getting value and support from consultants – only to be let down is quite incredible. I’ve been one of those businesses myself, I had a particularly bad experience with a so called ‘consultant’ from a University who spent weeks preparing a document that I could have written (and done a better job of it) in an hour.

They attempted to tell me who my clients were, who my competitors were and how big the market sector is I operated in. My background is originally marketing, I’d worked in our industry for over 10 years and knew all my customers and competitors. This so called report was paid for by the tax payer… needless to say it went in the bin.

The brief given to them was to establish new contacts to sell laser profile cutting to following a significant investment. They told my clients (existing ones!) that they represented a company that put holes in things, that was as far as these ‘consultants’ understood… fantastically awful and a complete waste.

So what’s different with what I’m doing?

I come back to my belief that all business is about people. Business only ever replicates life – all of the issues that we face in life can face us in the board room, offices and factories albeit under different labels. So again, what can I offer? I don’t have all the answers to your problems, personal or professional, but I have an incredible amount of diverse experience behind me, the type of experience you simply can’t buy.  Add to this a desire to help other people and then what I have achieved becomes  invaluable and it can help you and your business. I can ease your life and build on your strengths – simple.

As far as labelling goes, I appreciate people are more comfortable putting things into categories, so I can be known as a friend, a support, a leader, a business owner, a manufacturer, a set of ears and eyes to give another view, a woman, a mother, a confident, a telephone/email directory,  an introducer, a problem solver, a marketeer, a strategist, a sholder to cry on, a mediator, a motivator, a businesswoman, someone that has gone through loss including a business and someone that has achieved - I can keep going. For more of an idea please feel free to read my biography, read some of the PR articles or Google me. Everyone I help is unique and has their own story, their own issues and certainly their own strengths on which we can build.

I don’t claim to have the answers but I can help you find them… you probably know them already but just need help to find and sort them into something useful. You might just need help to find what to do with the answers once you have them. Leading businesses can be lonely – but that’s where I can step in. I can prove that despite the lows of life, including business, there are opportunities and hope. I’ve certainly worn the T shirt of ‘lows’ but I’ve also worn the T shirt of success and happiness too.

You can label me if you want, but the label I use is simply DANI. If you’d like to discuss how I can help you please drop me an email dani@danisaveker.com or call 07812 992726

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By Dani Saveker, June 10, 2009 8:22 am

As much as I love what I’m doing now – more than anything I have done previously, there are of course hurdles still. Over the past few years I have been quite vocal about the lack of support given to business, through onerous legislation, poor service and bankers (!!)

Anyway, I do need a bank account. Next question is which bank?! The events during my time at Savekers Ltd have slightly scared me and in particular the lack of customer focus or understanding of what businesses need. I believe that associates and advisors to businesses should become part of your team and yet banks have a whole different agenda to that of supporting the business or being part of a team. Businesses are the ‘customer’ but banks don’t give them that respect. Customer service in the UK is a whole new subject and one I shall save for later.

So I thought I would look at one of the smaller banks such as the Cooperative or Allied Irish. I do remember the time that you could go into the Midland Bank or Trustee Savings Bank and talk to lovely people and there was a bank manager. That would have been perfect for someone in my position – or anyone for that matter! But that’s not an option.

So, the CO-OP seems great but you can’t sit down and discuss your needs with someone, you do it over the phone or fill in a website questionnaire. However I think they seem to be about the best. I did ask if their customer service team was based in the UK so I could understand them and they could understand me!

Allied Irish are great – if you live in Ireland where they give small businesses free banking. In the UK it’s different and I was even told by a lovely lady that the relationship managers are all in London and she wouldn’t recommend using them.

The main high street banks are a waste of time at the moment and even though Savekers used HSBC I would stand by the fact that they are possibly the best of a bad lot! This of course isn’t all their fault, our relationship manager there was a lovely chap  but simply had no power or authority.

Next… insurance. Professional Indemnity cover isn’t as straight forward as you’d think and yet again when talking to the customer service people at these organisations, unless you tick straight forward boxes they are completely useless. Unskilled and inexperienced people are not helpful, even if they are pleasant in their approach.

It seems to me that more and more companies have taken the approach of removing the ‘service’ element from their offering which ultimately is what sets companies apart from each other. Indian call centres cum it up.

You know the scenario… dial one for customer services, press two for sales, press three for us to be useless to you, dial four to get even more frustrated as there will be another set of options, dial five to get sent back in a loop to the start of this message and dial six to waste some more of your time and money – by which point you have forgotten why you called in the first place!!!! The other great barrier they present to you is the web… this time you can spend 20 minutes filling in a form to get to the end and it tell you that you’re application/query etc needs to be discussed with someone and so it tells you to dial one for customer services….

Why can’t you call a number (prefeably a free call number) and speak to someone that will help you with your query? Even more impressive would be being able to meet a presentable and knowledgeable person face to face. Simple! It’s called good old fashioned customer service.