Latest Interviews
Louise Barnes-Johnston – ’10 things I wish I’d known’.
Posted: Monday 14th Apr 2008
Running a business for the first time is like beginning to juggle knives – an often unpleasant, painful experience. Being nice and fluffy, therefore, the boss of FrontLine Results Ltd., Louise Barnes-Johnston, very kindly shared her own hard-won wisdom with us at the last Wired Wessex networking event…
But first, please introduce yourself! “I incorporated FrontLine Results in 2005, and I worked as a business coach and life coach as well. I call myself a business accelerator because I help firms to achieve their goals and move on to the next level faster than they would if they were working on their own.
“In terms of background, I’ve spent nearly 20 years in a corporate environment, with Marconi and Toshiba – which was a fantastic grounding: I learned so much from them. And I think that’s helped me to bring both a corporate and a small business perspective to the work I do with my time.”
That’s more than enough time, in fact, to have something to say. Do elaborate… “I was talking about that when you first set up in business you REALLY don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. You think you’re going to be doing what you’re setting yourself up in but actually you’re going to be spending a lot of time marketing. And so it’s really, really important for you to have a plan, to have one written down, so you know where you’re going. It’s important to keep your eye on finances and important too to make sure you’re not doing ‘busy’ stuff; you need to be working on the business, not just in it.
“You also need to make sure you get help when you can, because you cannot possibly wear all the hats needed to run a business or company. You need to be able to outsource as much as you can so you can get on and do what you’re brilliant at. You need to get out there and tell people how fantastic you are, as unfortunately people are very unlikely to beat a path to your door. And also you need to make sure that you take care of yourself, because you are your biggest asset and if you try to burn the candle too much at both ends, eventually you’re going to be ill! And if you’re not there, the likelihood is that your business will falter, so it’s very important to look after yourself as well.”
The talk seemed based on your own experiences and by that I assume you must have made many mistakes at the start of your career… “Oh! Too true, too true. I do base them on personal experience because I think that until you’ve been there, you’re not able to speak with any authority or authenticity. Part of who I am is being authentic. In my newsletter, I recommend a product or service in each issue, but I wouldn’t dream of advertising something I haven’t used myself. I mean, how could you possibly do that?”
One thing you mentioned was the possibility of free e-mail coming to an end. “I don’t know if it will be coming to an end, but I do think it will have a limited life. At some point in the future, there will possibly be so much e-mail flying around the place that we will have to find a way to contain some of it.
“You think about the amount of spam there is – in a week, my spam filters check out about 6,000 unwanted e-mails. Multiply that by everybody or every company that’s got a web site – that’s an awful lot of e-mails and there’s a chance that it could all get clogged up. And that in order to perhaps stop the amount of spam a small charge may be levied in the future. I see that coming in the next five to ten years. Things move fast on the Internet.”
Any last words? “Only that running your own business is the best job in the world, and the worst. And it’s your attitude and what you do that makes it the best job in the world.”