University News Last updated 14 October 2009
To be a successful business person you don't need to do anything magical, you just need to look at the world in a slightly different way - that was the advice given to current and former Birmingham City University students by the 2009 Midlands Business Person of the Year.
Entrepreneur David Nicoll, whose association with Birmingham City University dates back over 20 years having studied both an Accountancy degree at the then Birmingham Polytechnic and MPhil at the then University of Central England, entertained over 40 staff, current students and alumni as he launched the University's new ‘Alumni Speaker Series' last night (Tuesday October 14).
David, who has run his own business, JTD CerTax Accounting, since 2005, markets himself as the ‘Accountant with attitude' and prides himself on being different - or as his clients put it, ‘just the right side of crazy'.
He gave a number of helpful hints on how to go it alone and make it a success in a business environment, believing that first and foremost is the ability to manage and use fear positively.
"It can be blooming scary sometimes. To find yourself sitting in a back office of the house with no clients, having not lived in the area long and always commuted, not knowing any businesses or neighbours takes a certain amount of fear," he joked.
"The mortgage needed paying in 31 days, I had no money coming in and needed to go out and get it. Not everybody has the ability to look at fear and think, okay, I can do that. I joined a network of small firms and by the third year I was the biggest firm in the network.
"Having that adventurous spirit and just going out and having a go is the key. You've got to ask ‘what's the worst thing that could happen?' and the answer is not a lot actually."
David, whose skills include being a qualified accountant, marketer, PR expert, journalist, NLP trainer and qualified hypnotherapist, said that the most important thing is to have fun when you're in business; the ability to network and make connections is also critical for SMEs.
"For many SMEs, it's about who you know and who they know," he said. "I'm a networking tart - give me some crispy duck pancake rolls and Hoisin source and I'm anyone's! But in all seriousness, it makes a huge difference in taking business forward. I'm all about connections and finding people to solve other people's problems.
"The other main principle is the engineering principle - Occam's Razor - which is about getting everything down to its bare minimum. Identifying what is at the heart of what you are trying to do."
Finally, while David admitted that 2009 has been what he described as the ‘cruddiest' year he's seen in business in the last 10 years since the last economic recession, he feels that there is hope on the horizon.
"Because we have things like the Internet, which make it far easier and cheaper to communicate, and we can make more use of technology than we did 10 years ago, we can come out of the recession much more easily," he predicted.
"One of the major problems currently is people holding back and not doing things - and that's not necessarily just borrowing money, it can be just getting new equipment. Once people start, we'll find a quick way out."
The Birmingham City University Alumni Speaker Series is aimed at current students, former students and members of staff of the University. The next event on February 24 features Deb Leary OBE and Richard Leary MBE, who have founded and built their company Forensic Pathways Ltd into a major international business. More information can be found at www.bcu.ac.uk/student-info/alumni clicking on ‘reunions and events'.
Added by on October 15, 2009