Picture it..A Blogging Virgin, a surely insurmountable challenge –Interesting, Finance and Funding all in the same sentence. Surely not possible. You’re in for a treat..
Me ? I’m a recycled Bank manager , 26 years worth in a past life. I loved the good bits, people, training, knowledge building, team building, customer service, service to the community, the seductive remuneration package but around the end of the last century I wanted to see if I could find what my customers kept calling the real world.
This isn’t the place to expand upon the very real world ‘early’ experiences but sufficed to say I’m not without a wide selection of development stories in my career work portfolio.. Kama of a sort, I expect.
Government grants were eventually my saviour, and Gamekeeper turned Poacher probably the best behavioural change descriptor….. to cut a long story short, I now work for the Sussex Innovation Centre where we help people to make businesses out of their amazing ideas. Big businesses. Just for good measure, I’m also a SFEDI accredited Business Advisor for our work with Business Link.
Grants, Risk Capital and standard Banking debt all feature in the day to day but thankfully there’s more to my current role and Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Planning all come into play…potentially far more interesting than finance…but not workable without it…you wont eat without it, to state the obvious.
So the exiting Blog 1 message is this..‘Bankers are just Suppliers’ Build the right Professional Team. Choose carefully
One of my roles for the Innovation Centre is to match personalities – Bankers and Clients – so I’m always on the look out for Bankers who will work for their money and actually add value to their client’s objectives…even want to do a deal. Yes, they do still exist even when it’s a ‘High Growth Innovative Research and Development.’ Don’t deal with this every day. What no security!
Those we know, do it well and they talk and deliver big numbers. However we do ask them to do things they can do, which can be half the battle.
This isn’t new: searching for the right personality to support your goals. Building the right ‘professional’ team and recognising that the team will change as your business needs change. Historically the right team has always been a must have and sets aside business that works on achieving outcome that is ambitious, growing and as consistent / predictable as possible.
The core team has always been; Banker, Accountant, Lawyer, though probably now you would want to add external expertise from Marketing, PR, Media/ Design and SEO as must have drivers for success. Sometimes I don’t think business spends enough time selecting the right people in the early stages and it can be the same with Banks and Bank managers.
Paul Jordan, Innovation Support Advisor
