Ian Fishwick

When you set yourself up as someone offering advice and tips then the obvious question from any reader is ‘Why should I listen to you?”

In this introduction I try to give a few reasons why I might be worth spending a few minutes with.

I ACHIEVED WHAT IS PROBABLY THE 'ULTIMATE DREAM' OF A NEW BUSINESS OWNER - FROM A SPARE BEDROOM TO £100 MILLION

In 2003 I started AdEPT in a spare bedroom. In October 2018 it was valued on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market (AIM) at £101 million.

29 CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF RISING PROFITABILITY (EBITDA)

I started as a Managing Director/Chief Executive in 1990 and finally stood down as a CEO and became part-time Chairman at the end of 2018.

If you are not an accountant and do not understand what EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest Tax and Depreciation) means, don’t worry; it is simply the operating profit measure that gives you the best estimate of a business’s cashflow.

For 29 consecutive years, despite several financial crises and massive changes in technology, I reported increased profit every year.

Some of the sections in the book look at how you can keep yourself motivated over such a long period and how you can train yourself to never give in.

ONE OF ONLY THREE COMPANIES ON AIM TO GROW EARNINGS PER SHARE FOR 10 CONSECUTIVE YEARS (2008-2018)

It is quite astonishing how hard it is to achieve consistent growth, so don’t beat yourself up if you cannot achieve it every year. To put this into some context, consider this …

There are almost 1,000 companies on AIM (the Alternative Investment Market), the part of the London Stock Exchange dedicated to smaller companies. Only three companies (AdEPT - my company, iomart and Churchill China) managed to grow Earnings Per Share for 10 consecutive years (2008 to 2018).

We must have done something right.

ALONG THE WAY I WON A FEW AWARDS

If you are the type of person who is impressed by badges, then this bit is probably for you. Along the way I won a few awards. No-one ever tells you why you have been awarded something, so I can only guess. I suspect it was because of the unusually long, 29-year run, of rising profitability.

In 2016, at the European CEO of the Year Awards, Corporate Vision (CV) magazine named me as UK CEO of the Year. Later in 2016, Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) magazine also named me as UK CEO of the Year.

In 2017, Acquisitions International magazine named me as their London CEO of the Year. Later in 2017, at the ACQ5 Global Awards, I had the honour of being named as UK Game-changer of the Year for my work on converging the Telecoms and IT sectors.

In 2018, my final year as a CEO, at the Global 100 Awards, I was named for a 3rd time as UK CEO of the Year.