Terry O’Regan on the benefits of having a trusted business advisor
Becoming self-employed, a desire to have control over an enterprise is high on the agenda,
coupled with an ability to take your own decisions rather than implement the decisions of others. But to be successfully self-employed, an openness to take advice is useful, coupled with the mental sharpness to separate ‘the wheat from the chaff’ when seeking out that advice.
There are many variations of a well-worn anecdote about someone who is lost in the countryside. He asks a local for directions and after a series of confusing instructions finds
himself confounded with the local’s concluding advice, “If I wanted to get there, I wouldn’t have started from here!” It’s reputed to have originated around 1924 with an Englishman,
lost in the west of Ireland, who sought advice on how toget to Letterfrack from an Irishman cutting turf. It’s a well- travelled yarn that has been transposed into other cultures, undoubtedly because of the wisdom buried in the fable, not least about advisors and advice.
If you enjoy a varied career you will wear many hats, and along the road you will be a seeker, a giver, a taker of advice and sometimes an ignorer of advice. You will meet many advisors, some seeking you out directly or indirectly, but to get the best advice you may have to make the move and pay directly or indirectly.
Since retiring, I have added another hat to my own rack, working with landscape contractors in an advisory role. It set me thinking about the evolution of such a service and the range of diverse scenarios in which the service is delivered. Some come with specific titles nowadays, such as business mentors, coaches, consultants, gurus, trainers or even angels! Many of these business training concepts originated in the USA in the 1960’s, making their way across the Atlantic over subsequent decades.
In 1970’s Ireland, few such exotic creatures existed, except for a few early bird business consultants nesting in the Irish Management Institute in Sandyford, Dublin. I remember
little of the IMI course I attended, courtesy of Goulding Horticulture (of the Fitzwilton Group and the launching pad for many self-employed landscape contractors). I do,
however, remember one consultant suggesting a memory training trick involving a visualisation of a horse race, with your list of business priorities sequentially riding the horses. It sounded like a good idea, but I soon found myself with the Grand National in my head every day!
When I became self-employed in 1975, such sophisticated advice was well beyond our means, our advice came through our bank manager, accountant or insurance broker. When
we met with our bank manager we did not always see it as an advisory session, it often felt like a return to secondary school! Yet the bank managers of those days were a vital source of sound business advice, often on the conservative side, but it is a pity that now access to such managers seems to be as extinct as dinosaurs. Of course we paid for this advice indirectly. I well remember discussions over pints with my peers, when fees for services were compared and sometimes derided. You came away wondering if you were being had by your trusted advisors, but good sense usually prevailed following mature reflection, when you realised the value of the advice that came as part of the service.
Much is made of the perceived merits of on-line transactions today. I am an advocate of the old-fashioned ‘horses for courses’ rule and the current gallop down the internet racetrack has yet to take full account of the number of Beecher’s Brooks that may lie ahead, some of which are being constructed by cyber-attackers. The changes have
morphed our banks into a robotic row of Las Vegas style slot machines coupled with a website in the sky. This was sharply illustrated to me in the closing years of my business
enterprise. Our request for a temporary overdraft increase drew us into an impersonal world of a phone call from a young man (am I being ageist?). He appeared unaware of our
40 years of custom with the bank and knew even less about the landscape sector. Instead, we trudged our way through his list of tick boxes but business advice did not have a box
to tick. In pre-robotic days a short-term overdraft request involved a phone call discussion with the manager and based on our record we were always facilitated. So, bank services
no longer come with an inbuilt advisory or mentoring bonus, in fact it is questionable if they are now even a financial service. The same applies to on-line insurance providers and
other such modern ‘conveniences’.
If there is one thing that characterises the human race it is its love of novelty and its capacity for reinvention in response to that human trait. Without the stimulus of novelty we get bored and disinterested. I wonder when we will begin to reinvent genuine financial services. In the meantime, if we want advice now, we must engage with people often wearing a hat with ‘Mentor’ on the band. In fact, you might feel there is a ‘Mentor Maze’ out there. With the benefit of hindsight, I will try to describe a way out of that maze.
The term mentor goes back a long way to Greek mythology. The original Mentor was a friend of Odysseus and tutor of his son Telemachus. An old-fashioned definition of a mentor is ‘an experienced and trusted friend and advisor’. Exploring the internet (beware!), we are assured that business mentoring is about accessing the knowledge and experience of a seasoned business professional so that you can learn how to run your business more effectively. It is not about getting someone to run your business for you. Mentoring is a well-developed process sometimes combined with business coaching. Your trawl of the internet will bring up a range of service providers, but I recommend an initial engagement with your Local Enterprise Office (LEO), they have a panel of mentors and will guide you to a possible good fit for you and to the financial support available.
However, you may not need the ‘Full Monty’ and it is important to grasp that there are a wide range of options out there that will deliver advice and support for SMEs. I
found that membership of representative organisations such as the Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland (ALCI), Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Association (IHNSA), The Irish Small & Medium Enterprises (ISME) and the Chamber of Commerce were valuable sources of information, advice and support. Both Teagasc and Bord Bia play a similar role.
Often, the most valuable nuggets were mined in social settings after meetings. In 1995, I joined the Plato Ireland network in Cork and found it a particularly supportive and informative experience. I am still part of that network today. Plato Ireland provides small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with a unique business support forum for exploring business growth and expansion.
Business owners in our sector are very busy people, actively engaged with their enterprises, time is always at a premium and the work-life balancing act is a continuous
tightrope walk. The right advice at the right time can save you time, money and more, but you should be selective when choosing your advisor, recognising that nobody has the right answers all the time, you need to build and use a network of trusted advisors. For my part, I don’t have a business mentor label on my hat, but I am happy to be a part of that network, working with young landscapers as an experienced and trusted friend and advisor. ✽
TERRY O’REGAN pursued a career in the Irish landscape sector for some 50 years as a contractor and consultant, before retiring recently. For much of that time, he was also an active advocate of ‘bigger picture’ and ‘outside the box’ thinking. He is still active and can be contacted at 087 240 7618 and terryjoregan@gmail.com |
