Podcast sheds light on when entrepreneurs need help to grow their business

In our latest podcast, Adam Henson and Duncan Andrews from Cotswold Farm Park talk about how they recognised the limits of their (albeit very strong) entrepreneurial skills and abilities and recruited experienced managers in order to continue the growth of their business.

I have seen this issue many times before and it has been commented upon by several of our previous podcast guests. The best description I had heard is the ‘obsolescence of the entrepreneur’: on their own, an individual can usually only grow a business to a certain size and quite often the very skills that allowed them to start up and initially grow the business then prevent them from growing further. This can be the lack of willingness to delegate or difficulty finding the right individuals to work with (something that is even harder to do outside major capital cities).

Nick Rodda from Rodda’s possibly summed it up best with

Well there’s that great saying: What got us here won’t necessarily get us over there. So I very much believe that you do have to have an open mindset…to take the business forward, one has to embrace change.

Individuals like Nick and Will Ashworth from Watergate Bay have made good use of non-executive directors (NEDs) to overcome this growth barrier. I have seen a number of formal NED groups grow rapidly over recent years – perhaps this is where the government should focus as part of their efforts to encourage experienced workers back into the work force?

Listen to the latest episode with Adam Henson and Duncan Andrews and previous episodes below