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My 14 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m as well as the life that goes with it.

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Simon Says

Winformation This Week...

As it’s Friday and we are just heading into the Christmas month…if that’s your thing! I thought I would unwrap a little early gift for you. A slightly longer, more detailed step by step playbook on the exact methods we used to scale our business to £1m and beyond…way beyond!

Today’s Winformation is for the legends that want to scale and scale big in 2026. Next year is your year, I can feel it.

So, below in today’s One Idea to Win in Business we look at how I scaled my business to 7 figures and beyond. And as always, this isn’t from a text book, it’s from, well you know, the real world!

Our company is a sales company. There is a big misconception that the best sales people talk more than they listen. Talking is such a small tool in the master communicators toolbox. In today’s One Idea to Win in Life we look at truly game changer steps to elevate your communication skills.

One Idea to Win in Business

Something to Get You Scaled!

Steal the Playbook: How I Scaled My Business to 7 Figures and Beyond

From the 5.5m private businesses in the UK, only 4% will ever hit the £1m mark. So, that tells me, 96% of business that don’t hit this milestone fall into 2 camps. Those that are happy to stay smaller (and that’s cool), and then those that strive to get to 7 figures and for whatever reason can’t.

Today is all about you guys in camp 2. Let’s get it.

Nail Your Hiring

Depending on the nature of your business, you can get to 6 figures on your own with a few outsourced partners. To get to 7 and beyond, you will need the assistance of other people. As a recruiter, I am biased, but hiring is always my number 1 priority to get right. Decide on the personal attributes you are looking for, hire on those. Everything else can be taught. Experience and qualification (outside of the medical field and things like architecture) are vastly overrated.

You will make mistakes. We have recruited almost 10,000+ people for our clients, and then 200+ people internally, and I still get it wrong. You just need to have a robust probation period in place, I would always recommend 6 months. Use that process as a proper assessment of whether the individual is capable, coachable and possess the personal attributes and core values you are looking for from a team member.

Culture: Use of Language

Once you have hired the right people, the next task is to retain them. Our team retention rate is 92% annually. We have people walk into our business and ask how we have created such a culture. In short, there’s no silver bullet. One of the most important blocks of culture is the use of language.

I never refer to our people as “staff”, they are team members. Staff gives me connotations of Victorian times. Those from a lower class that lived and worked in the basement of large family houses, serving the more affluent family members. It gives totally the wrong vibe for a collaborative working environment. Our people are team members, we work together towards a common goal, a single mission. We have different roles, but none more important than the other.

No one “works for me”, our people work for the company, they work for their families and ultimately, we “work together”. How you describe someone, and their role has an impact on their identity and how they feel they can contribute to ideas and solutions, rather than simply serving the founder. You need to lead the action, be the first, and live the values you wish to see in others.

Sticking With Your Strategy

A lot of people try and overcomplicate business. In its rawest form, it can be a very simple process. You can scale to £1m and beyond with a simple model. You need to understand it takes time to gain traction even in a market where you are an expert. If you have changed course every 6 months and have a 5-year-old business. Have you been in business for 5 years, or do you have history of 10 companies that effectively died on month 6? 

Back yourself, your original strategy probably isn’t too far from the path you need to be on. Always look to improve, always look to tweak and systemise the bottle necks, completely changing course will mean starting again and will result in staying small for longer. I would outsource absolutely everything that isn’t your core skill or function on the way to 7 figures, as you approach 8, for us it made sense to start to bring these functions back in house, once a solid base has been built.

Crystal Clear Vision & Compelling Mission

You need to formulate a big “why”. Why does the business exist, what is it going to achieve, by when, and how will it be done. Every 6 months, our leadership team meets to review our company vision and ensure the objectives we set from this vision for the next 2 quarters are aligned with our long-term goals. 

The CEO should change their title to CRO, Chief Repetition Officer. This vision needs to be repeated in everyway as often as it can be. It needs to be communicated and received using the different senses of the team multiple times a week. On email and the wall for those that read, talked about in meetings and even in the lift for those where audible communication resonates more. As a founder you need to evangelise where you are going as a team, specifics are key. This really helps with retention and to help people see their role as a career, a long-term shared project, rather than just a job. You also need to be aware of the personal goals of your team. 

Expecting your team to know the objectives and mission of the business when you don’t know the basic life ambition of your team isn’t going to get the long term, two way buy in you are looking for. I know who in my team wants to buy a house, who wants to get married, and who wants to go on holiday and where. I ensure in return for their hard work towards the business mission, the business does all it can to help them on the way to their personal goals too.

Process, Process, Process

Revenue of £1m is a result of creating a machine that operates independently of the Founder. The founder’s input daily, although not required, is there to give the machine a huge boost, a supercharged “power up”. To achieve this, you need to systemise and process everything. The earlier you can do this, the better.

The sooner you can process, the quicker it gets engrained into the culture of the business. What’s harder than brining in a process for credit control when the company is only 2 people? Bringing in a process for credit control at 30, or 40 or 100. Changing to a new way of doing something is always harder than implementing it early. With each way you do something or every piece of software you are considering, you need to ask yourself, “will this get us to £1m?”

Hope this helps! Let me know which one…or more you are thinking of implementing. Hit “REPLY” and send me an email to the address this newsletter came from. I reply to every email!

One Idea to Win in Life

Something to Help Become an Expert Communicator

How To Talk So People Listen, and Listen So People Talk

We’ve got endless ways to communicate these days, but nothing quite beats an actual face-to-face chat. Strong communication will make you a better leader, more successful, more liked and…studies show…happier! What’s not to love here. Here are some practical, genuinely game-changing tips to sharpen those communication skills.

Listen Well. They say we have 2 ears, 1 mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. I actually think it’s more than that. We have body language and eye contact too. The most successful people I know listen 4 times more than they talk. The more you listen, the more you are learning! No matter how fired up you are about getting your point across, communication isn’t a solo performance. Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People reminds us that active listening is the secret sauce.

Get Over Your Glossophobia. A 2023 YouGov survey found that half of Brits dread public speaking. The fancy word for that fear is glossophobia. But a strong presentation can inspire, influence, and open doors. Don’t read your slides like a robot. Tell a story. Start with a relatable problem, explain what’s at stake, then reveal the solution and outcome. Nail this and your audience will be hooked - and you might even enjoy the experience.

Body of Evidence. Psychology professor Albert Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 rule highlights something wild. Words only carry around 7% of our message. Tone of voice gives you 38%, and body language takes the remaining 55%. So make sure how you stand, move, and speak actually aligns with what you’re trying to say.

I, Not You. Sometimes conversations get a bit spicy and can easily slide into an argument. When emotions run high, leaning on an “I” statement can save the day. Instead of saying “You never do the washing up,” try “I’d really appreciate it if we could keep the kitchen clean together.” It shifts the tone from accusation to collaboration, and that’s where solutions happen.

Never Assume. You’ve probably heard the old line: “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” And yes, it’s painfully accurate. Repeating or summarising what you’ve heard can prevent misunderstandings and build confidence. You don’t need to do it for every tiny thing, your partner will lose the will to live if you say, “Just to clarify, you wanted the tomato ketchup?” But in more serious situations, this habit can be incredibly useful.

Win or Wonder?

Ask Me a Question…

No matter where you are on this mad journey. Starting out, scaling up, or somewhere in the messy middle feel free to ask me anything.

Business, life or mindset, I read and reply to every question. The best ones will get featured in future editions of Winformation, with your permission of course!

To ask, just hit “reply”, type your question and send. That’s it. No forms. No fuss.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!