And the winner is....
Andy Gilbert, winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 at the Leicestershire Business awards, spoke to us about his win.
What did it mean to you to win the award?
Fantastic - especially as I was up against some strong candidates. It was as much an award for my team as it was for me - as without their support and activity I would not have been able to achieve many of the things that contributed to winning this award.
Internally, it was a great boost for the team and will undoubtedly help us with future recruitment. In fact it already has as a couple of weeks ago we recruited an additional two software developers to our Product Development Team. As a regular conference keynote speaker it is nice to add the award to my profile and externally, we have already started to leverage this in our communications with our clients and prospects (this should be no surprise as we were also runners up in the "Sales and Marketing" category of the Business Awards). The announcement of the win to our database resulted in over 400 congratulation e-mails from people who have attended our business improvement and leadership thinking programmes. Already, within 3 weeks of winning the award, we identified 58 possible new business leads from organisations who are serious about helping their people Go MAD (Make A Difference) in achieving greater business results.
We have also noticed a surge in our i-Tunes downloads of our popular free podcast series "Thinking For Business Success" (get your people to visit the management and marketing section of the business podcasts, download the Go MAD Thinking podcasts and keep us ahead of the Harvard Business School!!)
Where are you now?
Very busy helping organisations develop survival and growth strategies.
Planning the research and writing of my next two books which focus on handling large scale organisational change and the importance of developing the workforce capability in solution focused thinking skills.
What’s the secret of your success?
My success is based upon the application of the key elements of the Go MAD Thinking System. It is no secret – it is what I have trained people around the world to apply in their lives in order to achieve greater success.
1. Check the strength of your reason why - what are you prepared to do or do without in order to succeed?
2. Develop a really clear vision of success with written short and medium term goals. (Or, in my case, a long term 55 year lifetime vision)
3. Build your confidence through continual learning/development and your self belief through continual achievement of small wins in line with your larger goals.
4. Rigorously explore possibilities, challenging boundaries and assumptions - dare to think what others would not even consider and then prioritise and plan in the time to achieve your priorities and do the things that others are not prepared to do.
5. Think about how others could help you in achieving your goals and be creative where necessary in communicating with them and gaining their buy in to helping you.
6. Take personal responsibility - without blaming anyone or anything. When the times get interesting and possibly the going gets tough, there is no point in pointing the finger at others when you could be thinking and planning the way forward. The results you achieve depend on the actions you take which in turn depend upon the thoughts you have. Of these thoughts the easiest of the four key thinking components to influence is the questions you can ask yourself to keep moving forward in pursuit of your vision.
7. Take action and measure the results. Keep doing what works and change the stuff that doesn't work. Be solution focused in overcoming obstacles and remember you have a choice - to be an entrepreneur or work for someone else!
What was your greatest challenge?
There is an ongoing need to educate prospective clients about the link between the capability of their people’s thinking skills and the results achieved by their business. This can be a challenge when many business leaders have had their heads buried in the sand convinced that all they have to do is carry on doing the same things the same way. The economic downturn has, in a strange way, been an upturn for us as it has helped give businesses a wake up call to think differently – hence we are seeing an even greater demand for our services.
What does the future hold for Go MAD Thinking?
We are currently developing an exciting range of web based and artificially intelligent software products to enable people to achieve their goals quicker and more effectively. This will enable millions of people globally to have online access to an incredible resource tool and for organisations to embed a shared thinking system and achieve greater success.
In order to achieve our 55 year vision we will have to transform our business improvement consulting business into a technology business with a consulting division. Over the next 5 years we plan to license our technology and intellectual property to a range of corporate and community organisations seeking to make a difference for their people.
Click here to visit Go MAD Thinking's website
Click here to see what essential business services Vantis offers for entrepreneurs