Summary

Dr Glyn Cartwright, a serial entrepreneur running six businesses and author of "Why Has No One Ever Told Me This," shares practical strategy advice tailored specifically for small and medium enterprises. Drawing on decades of business experience, MBA tutoring, and doctoral research, he emphasises that SME success depends on clarity of personal goals, ethical long-term relationships, and keeping strategy simple and measurable.

 

Key Points

  • Entrepreneurs must first define what they personally want from their business, whether that is lifestyle, growth, a sale, or a family legacy, as there is no right or wrong answer [10:15] [10:26].
  • Building trust with staff, customers, and suppliers through ethical, win-win relationships is fundamental to long-term business success, as demonstrated when Cartwright's company returned profits to distributors during COVID-19 [3:36] [4:23] [4:49].
  • Managing multiple businesses requires surrounding yourself with the right people, empowering them to make decisions, and focusing personally on strategy and key figures rather than day-to-day operations [2:20] [2:56].
  • SME leaders must clearly define what business they are in before they can effectively identify competitors and substitutes, which is a more nuanced threat than direct competition alone [15:58] [17:06] [16:52].
  • Strategic planning for SMEs should be kept simple, with one or two key annual objectives, a clear vision, measurable performance indicators, and monthly monitoring rather than lengthy multi-year plans [21:38] [22:57] [23:18].

 

Transcript

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Kiran Kapur (00:00):
Hello and welcome. This week we are back in the world of strategy, but we are in strategy for small and medium enterprises.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (00:09):
I love accountants, but they only keep the score. It's the entrepreneurs and the business reader that score the goals. You need to make the decisions yourselves. What's your heart? What's your knowledge tell you? But don't just go with that. Test that. Now

Kiran Kapur (00:24):
I spent a lot of my life reading strategy books and following people that write about strategy, and most of it is for large organisations. So it was completely refreshing to come across a book that was very much designed for smaller organisations. And so the strategy made a lot more sense. And the author is Glyn Cartwright, Dr. Glyn Cartwright of Glyn Cartwright Associates. Glyn, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for coming on. I think we need to talk a little bit about your career before we get into the book, because I have to say, reading your CV and your LinkedIn profile, I did wonder when you slept and I actually needed a rest when I'd read it all. You are quite prolific, aren't you?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (01:09):
I love doing things and making things happen. And yeah, I believe if you want something enough and you work hard enough, we live in a great country and that's very achievable in the UK.

Kiran Kapur (01:21):
So let's talk about some of your achievements. So you run several businesses?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (01:26):
Yes, I have six businesses at the moment. Yes.

Kiran Kapur (01:29):
And they're mostly in construction, is that fair?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (01:32):
No, a couple of them are in construction materials. We have some property development businesses. We have two consultancy businesses, and we have a kitchen design and manufacturing business as well.

Kiran Kapur (01:45):
I'm going to come back to how you actually physically manage that number of businesses, but you are also on the board of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and I know you through The Worshipful Company of Marketors.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (01:55):
Yes, I was master of the Worshipful Company two years ago, and I became a board member of the CIM in January this year.

Kiran Kapur (02:03):
Okay. So I think you are the first really serial entrepreneur that I've had on the show. So how do you physically manage six businesses? Is it Monday it's one business, Tuesday it's the next business? Do you swap from one to the other? How do you actually do that?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (02:20):
What you need to do, I believe, is surround yourself by the right people and trust in marketing with the customer, but more importantly with your own staff and your people who you work with, trust is so important and you've got to give people the empowerment to make their own decisions. They'll obviously talk to you about key strategic issues, which would have a major impact on the business. But I often smile because if somebody asks me about one of the businesses, I'm not really sure what's happening day to day. I know the strategy, I know the figures, I know what's happening, and we are very, very proud of our ethos and our culture, both within the company and to our customers.

Kiran Kapur (03:09):
So can you describe your ethos?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (03:11):
You should always treat people as you wish to be treated yourself. One of the programmes I wrote for Erasmus, a section of it was about negotiation. And I think people like Alan Sugar on The Apprentice do industry a lot of harm because your negotiation is about both parties winning and walking away feeling it's a win-win situation. It's not about rolling somebody over because that's very short term. And with our raw material suppliers, when there are shortages, because we always pay in advance or early and because we're good to deal with, become friends, when there were shortages, we got priority because of the relationship, not because we were shouting louder than the other. So I'm a great believer with your staff, with your customers, you need to treat them as you wanted to yourself. The best example I can give is in the construction, our main system is building materials.

(04:13):
When COVID came, we sell through builders merchants, roofing distributors. When COVID came, all of the builders' merchants in London closed. They didn't have to because they were in construction, but they closed for six weeks. We knew all of their customers, so we supplied their customers directly at a higher price than we'd have supplied the distributor. At the end of the six weeks, we went round all of our customers and gave them a paper to invoices for the profit they would've made had they supplied their customer. People thought we were crazy doing that, but we are not in business for short term. We're in it for lifestyle, we enjoy what we are doing, and we want long-term relationships with our staff, with our customers, and with our suppliers. I

Kiran Kapur (05:04):
Think that's really interesting because so often people talk about business ethics and long-term, but you are actually giving an example of literally walking that and doing it. So it's not a fluffy thing to wish to have, it's an actual way that you work.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (05:20):
100%. And the construction industry, as you know, is a very big industry, about 8% to GDP, but it's a very small industry. Everybody knows everybody, and it takes you a long time to build a reputation or a brand. It can take you 30 seconds to destroy that.

Kiran Kapur (05:41):
Yes. And sadly, you give examples in the books of the book of people doing that. So I wanted to come back to the book. What was the motivation of writing it? Because you talk about it was through your teaching.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (05:53):
My motivation for writing it, if you like, it was a path. When I did my MBA in 1980, I think it was, something like that, I wasn't over-impressed. I did it with Open University were tremendous, but I wasn't over-impressed when I was challenging some of the business concepts I was being shown because I didn't see the relevance. And so at the end of my MBA, I went back and tutored for the Open University for 30 years, only at summer schools, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And I told stories that helped the concepts come to life. And the most common thing I got asked at the end of the first Friday evening was, why haven't we been told this before? They had been told it before, but it was told in academic speak and hadn't been made relevant by stories. And not only the stories that you tell as a facilitator, but you encourage them to tell each other stories about what they've done.

(06:56):
And that's the most powerful thing about that. So I was then invited to write two Erasmus projects, which I wrote and we delivered across seven different countries in Europe. And that was cited by Erasmus programmes of excellence in terms of impact, the impact they had with the recipients. So I wanted to understand what made these programmes more relevant and stimulated the delegates to take action. So I decided I'd do a doctorate. I think I started it at 65 or 64. And my motivation behind the doctorate was to test my thought process and see if I thought what was making the difference was making the difference. You should never enter a doctorate with preconceived ideas, but most people do. And I looked at the four components of a programme to see which had greatest impact, and the results weren't what I thought. The greatest thing that created impact and stimulated action was the discussion the delegates had between themselves.

(08:09):
The second was the facilitator and the fact that he was in the real world, not in an academic world, but it was the interaction with the delegates that was the greatest stimulator of action. So when I completed my doctorate, the Lord Mayor of London of the time, Michael Minelli, asked me to give a lecture for him in one of his knowledge male lectures, which I snatched his hand off at because I was told when I did my doctorate, you have to remember that this will only probably ever be read by six people, yourself, your supervisors, and your examiners. So I didn't see the point, because I wanted to do it to share the experience, I wanted any opportunity to spread the word. So that lecture that I did for the Lord Mayor's been viewed by just under 3,000 people so far, but I still wanted to reach out to more people.

(09:07):
So I thought, well, I'll write a small, simple book and try and communicate some of the key learning issues I've taken from my experience, both in running businesses and in academic research.

Kiran Kapur (09:23):
And the book is called Why Has No One Ever Told Me This? And I thought it was really nice that you start right at the beginning with what do you really want? And I thought that was such a powerful thing to ask somebody running a small business. So why did you start there?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (09:44):
Because I always ask my students with the Oakman University, when I got them, probably about 16, mature students, probably from mid - 20s up to 60, I always ask them three things. Why are you doing an MBA? What do you want? What do you want out of the weekend? Tell us a bit about your business. And very few people have considered what they want out of their business. And when I talk to SMEs now in my seminars, I say, "What do you want out of business?" They answer things like to make money or to do this. That's not what they want. Do you want to build it quickly to sell it? Do you want lifestyle? Do you want to provide you with a lifestyle? Do you want to hand it on to your family? There isn't a right or wrong answer. You have to be honest with yourself.

(10:34):
And one of the funniest things I had when I was lecturing with Open University, I had a Russian guy who was a similar age to me. I was about late 50s at the time. And when I asked him why he was doing an MBA, he thought about it for 10 seconds and said, "So I can understand some of the decisions I'm making." Now then whilst that sounds a flippant comment, there's a lot of truth to it. He was wanting to make the decisions with his heart and knowledge, but he wanted to test it more before doing that. And I think that's a great way to think.

Kiran Kapur (11:14):
Oh, I see. So I mean, as a small business owner, one does tend to do an awful lot of, "Well, it just feels right," because there are really no manuals for what you're doing. So that allowed him to test what felt right.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (11:26):
And he should always refer back to the. See, that academic concepts are great if they're made relevant, and if they're not relevant, don't use them. But if they're relevant, use them to test your own thinking. And also, I think I say in the book that I think it's often good to talk to children about your ideas because they don't have any filters. They tell you exactly as they see it. You need somebody to confide in. And when I give the tutorials and the seminars to SMEs, I say, always have a monthly board meeting, even if it's with yourself, step back from your business, go and have a coffee, go away from your business for an hour and say, "What am I doing? Is everything I'm doing taking me in the direction I want to go or am I doing things I don't really want to do?" And I think it's very, very important that you do that.

(12:25):
And in order to do that, you have to measure your performance. And I give a graphic example in the book of how that's made visual so you can see whether you're on track or going off track. I love accountants, but they only keep the score. It's the entrepreneurs and the business reader that score the goals.

Kiran Kapur (12:44):
Absolutely. And sometimes, I mean, I know back in the day, the person that set up and ran Pret A Manger said, "The accountants always tell me I have to have a central kitchen and send out the food, but that's not what we are for." And I always thought that was really important.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (13:00):
I totally agree with that. That was their differential, which was unique at the time. Financial people are great and you need to surround yourself with people who know their business inside out, but you need to make the decisions yourself. What's your heart? What's your knowledge tell you? But don't just go with that. Test that, and that improves your chances of success. I often say on my seminars to business people, if you come into the room, a rubbish business person, at the end of this programme, you'll be less rubbish. And if you come in brilliant salesperson, you'll be better still because everybody can improve. And this gets back to the debate, is entrepreneurship and marketing an art form or a science? And I believe it's more of an art form, and I can't paint for toffee. So if I sat down with Picasso for a year, I'd be a bit better, but I wouldn't be a good painter.

(14:03):
But I can be developed. Art forms can be developed and continually improved.

Kiran Kapur (14:09):
Okay. So I want to come back to the what you want out of business because one of the things that has always frustrated me is you hear people dismissing lifestyle businesses. Oh, well, you're only in it for a particular lifestyle. And you are very clear in the book that that's a perfectly reasonable thing to want to be.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (14:27):
100%. There's two reasons for that. One is we are only on this earth once. We should do what we enjoy. I've been very fortunate. As you say, I've been in lots of businesses. I've run some major businesses. I've always loved going to work, and if you enjoy going to work, you perform better. And I gave a story of a lady that had a few physiotherapy practises, and I interviewed her for my doctorate two years post-completion and said, "Did you do anything as a direct result of me saying that about don't apologise for lifestyle?" She said, "Yeah, I've been in the South Yorkshire Entrepreneurs Club for the last few years, and all anybody ever talks about is how many helicopters they've got in their back garden." She said, "It was all about chasing money." And I realised that I shouldn't apologise for lifestyle. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter, so I rewrote my business plan.

(15:27):
I said, "What's happened to your business?" And she did that. She said, "It's just grown." She said, "Because I'm turning down work I don't want and I'm doing work I love," and the passion had gone back into the business, and I think passion and trust are key to any business success.

Kiran Kapur (15:45):
I'm absolutely with you on that. The other section, so having looked at why you want to be in business and what you're trying to get out of it, you then talk about what business are you in, and it's one of the best analysis I've seen about substitutions.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (15:58):
Again, there are two questions that I always ask SMEs when I'm facilitating a session. One is what they want out of the business, and the second is what the business are they in? Hardly anybody can tell me straight away. They have to really, really consider it because they can describe what they do, but they can't define the business they're in. And academics would call that the span and scope of the business. I call it, it's what you do and when you do it. What do you do and where do you do it? And we always tell them to imagine they're sat in a pub and somebody asks them that question and they've got to tell them in one sentence or two sentences, and that encapsulates what business they're in. Then you can start to analyse the substitutes for that. The alternative, your competitors and your substitutes.

(16:55):
You can't start to analyse that unless you're really very clear about the business you're in.

Kiran Kapur (17:02):
And again, you make this point. It's very easy to assume substitutes are your direct competitors.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (17:06):
100% they're not. No. And in a lot of ways, your direct competitors are easier to take business from than are your substitutes. But that may tend to need to be an industry function that's saying you're better spending the money in this market sector than you are in that.

Kiran Kapur (17:27):
Yes, I think that's so important. We teach Porter's five forces. We've taught Porter's five forces. You were taught it on your MBA. I was taught it on my MBA. We still teach it, but you are very clear that actually there are five boxes in the Porters five forces, hence the five forces, but you make two of the boxes much bigger than the others. One is substitute and the other one is barriers to entry.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (17:51):
I only did that in those two cases I was giving, because in some cases the barriers to entry would be very low. So that's telling you, you've got to be dynamic because people can come in quickly and easily to copy. If the barriers to entry are high, that's saying you've got more time to develop a strategy. It's not saying, it's suggesting. And I think in most industries, the substitutes are quite high. But what I was saying in the book is that each box, you should draw it to represent how much impact that has on your business at that moment in time. Then you need to say, so what does this mean? What are the implication of this to my strategy?

Kiran Kapur (18:41):
In your own businesses, have you seen and have you had to deal with substitutes specifically?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (18:49):
Yes. It gets down to defining the business. Our core business, we're in liquid waterproofing, liquid waterproofing systems. So people can waterproof their roof with felts or with single ply or with other materials. So our direct competitors of people offering liquid roofing solutions, our substitutes are everything else to keep people's roofs watertight. So we have to persuade people as an industry to move away from felts, hot melt, bitumen, all the environmental issues, the problems with joints and seams, and persuade them to come to liquids, and then we persuade them to come to us as opposed to our competitors.

Kiran Kapur (19:39):
Yes. I mean, that's a lovely practical example. So is that finding their pain points and explaining or is it talking about how much better your product is? How do you do that?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (19:53):
Well, the industry talks about the liquid roofing industry, which we're a member of the biggest trade association, ALWA, the Liquid Waterproofing Association. And we talk about the fact that unlike the sheets and felts and membranes, there are no joints because whenever you have a joint, it's a weak point. And if they're laid properly, they will last forever. I was sales director of Rubroid, ICO now, the biggest felt manufacturer in the UK. And if the systems were laid properly, they'd last forever. But joints and turns were real skill, and unless the tradesmen had real skill, vulnerable points, whereas liquids are a seamless system, still needs skill to apply, but less skill, and it's more tolerant of mistakes.

Kiran Kapur (20:50):
Yes. So you're really understanding your customer's pain points and being able to explain where your product fits in.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (20:56):
What you're doing is you're taking out the fear. People always want to feel that what they're buying is as secure as it can be, and they're not as worried about it if they were purchasing other things.

Kiran Kapur (21:10):
You've actually covered my how well placed are you to satisfy your potential customer's needs as well because you've given me a lovely example of your product and how it meets your customer's need. The final chapter you give is talking about planning your strategy, and I think this is the bit where often small businesses fall down because I can do the thinking, I can have my board meeting with myself, I can go for a walk and I can really think, and now I've got to do the planning.

Dr Glyn Cartwright (21:38):
As with everything in business, I believe keeping it as simple as possible is key. We were invited in as consultants to advise a membership company that had over 30,000 members worldwide and were losing membership, and they've got a big consultancy company to write them a strategic plan that was 26 pages long with 26 strategic objectives. Within the weekend, we got that down to three pages with three objectives. My advice to NASME leader, refer back to why you're doing it, what do you want out the business? And each year, set yourself one or two key objectives that you want to achieve that year, and make sure everything else you do helps achieve those one or two objectives. I never understand why a bank asks for a five-year plan. First of all, they don't understand your business. And the secondly, at the end of the first year, we're living in a very different world to what we were at the start of that year.

(22:45):
I think you should have a vision for where you want to be, and that should be almost a journey you never complete, and everything you do helps you get towards that vision. But don't have a complicated five-year plan. Have a very simple two-year plan with some numbers behind the key points, which we show in the spider in the book. So we have some key performance criteria, but again, only half a dozen, and have the first year quite firm. Have the second year an ambition that you've got to achieve the first year in order to take that. So I'd say keep it simple, keep it measurable, and monitor it every month.

Kiran Kapur (23:30):
That's very, very sound advice. Glyn, my final question to you, and this has really been because you've done a book, you've got plenty of experience, but if there were just one or two things you wanted to get across to somebody who might be thinking, "Should I become an entrepreneur? Is it something I should do?" What would you advise?

Dr Glyn Cartwright (23:50):
What I would say is it's very lonely being an entrepreneur or an SME leader. When I became managing director, a guy said to me, and he was chief executive of big PLC, I said, "What advice would you give me?" He said, "Well, you've been part of a team and now you're captain of the ship and you're steering the ship." He said, "But then the ship hits choppy waters and you look over your shoulder and there's nobody there." He said, "So what do you do?" I said, "I don't know. What do I do?" He said, "You give me a ring and we have a coffee and we have a chat." When you are an entrepreneur, you're taking a risk. Expect setbacks. Don't take them personally. Talk to people about them and build from that. Every setback is a step forward into what you want to achieve as long as you don't take it personally.

(24:46):
You think it's only you that's having these problems and it's not.

Kiran Kapur (24:51):
Dr. Glyn Cartwright, that was absolutely fascinating. And you are, of course, the captain of several ships, six I think at the moment. Glen's book is Why No One Ever Told Me This, and it is available from Amazon as a physical paperback or from Kindle.