The information to Win in Business, the information to Win in Life, all wrapped up in one winning, weekly email. Winformation Weekly.

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...

Is your business your baby or your puppy? Let me explain. A puppy will grow into a dog, but you’ll be cleaning up after it and heavily involved right up until it pops its little puppy paws and goes for walkies in the sky. As a dad of two crazy young boys, I know more than anyone that on the flipside, a baby needs lots of love and attention in the early years but will one day grow up and not need you to stay alive. Lots of business owners out there 10 years in or more, can’t take a short holiday and their puppy business won’t allow. So, below, in today’s One Idea to Win in Business I let you in on how we gave birth to a baby and grew into a young adult that (by and large) looks after itself.  

It might be my mild ADHD brain; it could be that I live with 5-year-old boys and a partner that like to sign loudly. I could just be getting old. Call me old fashioned, but I like my quiet time. I also find I do my best work when I’m just sat in silence and looking out the window. Below, in today’s One Idea to Win in Life outro we look at Bastian Overgaard’s concept of silent meetings and how it could be worth trying yourself.  

One Idea to Win in Business

Avoid the Big Dog Mess: How to Raise a Grown-Up Business

So, like I said in the intro, how do you make sure your business grows up right?

You want it to be like a well-raised kid: starts off needing your full attention, but over time becomes a confident young adult who just needs a midweek call and maybe a BBQ on Sunday. 

Not a puppy that turns into a giant, smelly dog that smashes up your house.  

Strap in, here we go then.... 

In our business, over the years, I’ve had a few nicknames, the two I can reveal(!) are “Prince of Process” and “Captain Boring”. My desire to process, process, process was (on the face of it) overkill in the early days.

I had lots of comments and questions as to why we needed to bother creating and enforcing a process for certain aspects of the operation when the company was only at 2 people, or 5 people. My answer was always the same. We weren’t creating processes for 5 people, we were creating them for 200+ 

You Need To Ask This Question 

The sooner you can process, the quicker it gets engrained into the culture of the business. When the culture is one of systems and structure, it can begin one day to self-police, and your baby starts to become a toddler. What’s harder than bringing 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 (one day) to a new way of doing something is always harder than implementing it early.  

It's why a child can become almost fluent in 3 languages by the time they are 5, and someone in their 40s could struggle to learn the basics of a second. 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” – or whatever your big vision for your business is. 

"OK For Now" 

The “it will do for now” approach is the dream killer of small businesses. If it’s ok for now, it will be ok for 3 years’ time. Before you know it, your back office, your promotion procedures, and your annual reviews are all cobbled together “for now” cultivating a slapdash environment that soon becomes the norm. There’s never a good time to systemise that bottleneck. It only ever gets harder as time moves on. 

The biggest push back is the cost of the software and the price of the systemisation. People that struggle to achieve their big grown-up adult business goals see everything as a cost, and not as an investment. Which results in your puppy growing into a big dog.  

The real cost is your 4 holidays a year and leased range rover you bought yourself for getting half way to your goal. Forgo all luxuries, your business and your people deserve better. Build properly and build early. Your baby business needs you to systemise for its adulthood, not the here and now.   

How? Start With The "Simple" 

You can process and systemise any business, no matter how small, you should do. You need a process in place for everything, and years before it becomes an issue. Don’t wait. These documents become the blueprint, the map for others to step in and one day run aspects of it for you. Most processes and systems we designed started not with a big expensive piece of software, but with a simple pen and paper, or a whiteboard and sticky note.

Work back from the intended outcome and ensure everyone feels heard when suggesting the steps in any given process. Once designed, you need to enforce it.  

The longer the new process is adhered to, the more likely it is to become habit. When well thought out steps becomes a habit, then you are off to a winner.

And your business will grow up to one day look after you, with less of your direct input...like any good kid does.

One Idea to Win in Life

The Most Powerful Business Tool You've (Literally) Never Heard Of: Silent Meeings

Big up Danish legend Bastain Overgaard. Like me he must have had enough of people talking over others and going on and on about things they don't understand. He introduced the concept of Silent Meetings. He called it Silent Co-creation. Here’s what is it, why it’s useful and how it works. But, come on...please don’t read this out loud!

1. What it’s not: It’s not meditation or dramatic pauses. It’s a strategic, facilitated silence embedded in meetings to give people time to think, reflect and truly listen.

2. Facilitated & agreed silence: A designated facilitator sets the tone and asks the group to pause - reducing anxiety by creating a safe, controlled space.

3. Clear purpose & framing: Everyone needs to know why silence is being used - without context it feels awkward or tense.

4. Absolute respect for silence: The facilitator enforces the silence strictly - one person speaking can shatter the collective focus.

5. Time‑boxed silence: Typically, 30 seconds to 2 minutes a set timeframe gives participants permission to think without getting awkward.

6. Why it works: Reboots the brain after mental clutter we speak at 150 words per minute, overwhelming our processing capacity. It reduces “ordnani” meaningless chatter that drowns out real ideas. It creates psychological safety, especially for introverts who benefit from space to reflect. Finally, it boosts decision-making and creativity by enforcing pauses before jumping into talk. 

To be honest if it means 2 minutes less listening to Carole in the corner talking about her weekend rearranging her sock drawer, then we’ve all won anyway.  

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 away, and send. That’s it. No forms. No fuss.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!