2019 Review

Generating quality construction leads on projects like these.

Our latest newsletter has been sent out this morning. Discussing appointments/enquiries made on construction projects, the latest at Advance Group and sharing a few of our industry related posts.Firstly, as always, I would just like to thank you for taking the time to read this article as the age old saying goes time is money!

So, we are now into our 4^th year (approaching our 5^th) of trading for Advance TM Group, how can I sum up 2019 in one word? Tough!

We are still expecting to hit a fantastic growth figure of 42.6% for our yearly turnover! This has been tough to achieve for reasoning I will explain below. 

Statistically the first 2 years should be the toughest, with 20% of small businesses failing in their first year and 30% failing in their second. So, that’s half of business that fail within the first 2 years.  For Advance our first 3 years were relatively smooth sailing, of course there were still tough times, difficult decisions and a lot to learn. Maybe it was all the hard work? or luck? I would like to think it was the teamwork with every one of us all pulling in the same direction. 

So, looking back on 2019 to understand why it feels like it has been a tough year and to learn from the experiences we have had. What has happened during the year?

Two big impactors to our business this year have been staff and clients.

Good staff are hard to come by and 2019 has seen a lot of changes to the team, comings and goings. We’re extremely grateful to be working with some fantastic people and have the foundations of a strong team. Our clients with the market uncertainty with the dreaded ‘Brexit’ scenario taking its toll, I would be lying if I said the rippling effects haven’t impacted our business too.

These two factors were accounted for in our business plan for 2019 as best they could be, so what else has been going on this year?

Simon and I were looking at other business opportunities outside of Advance for potential opportunities, at 1 point during the year we had 5 business we were part of, so I think spreading ourselves pretty thinly to say the least. Outside of work Simon and I have been going through the process of buying new homes, this too has taken up some of our focus. Rightly or wrongly this has crept into the 9-5 hours, what can we say we are only human.

Moving forward into 2020 what changes have we made?

·         We sat down with our team during a couple of focus groups and asked them what changes would they like to see?  They came up with some great suggestions of which we have implemented above two thirds of them.

·         We have introduced new procedures to insure higher standards are maintained throughout the year, meaning an even greater ROI for our clients.

·         We have restructured our business with some key strategic changes to our operation and also recruited a sales director to drive a massive year of growth.

·         We have scaled back our business interests, ending some stressful & less fruitful ventures, putting Advance 1^st.

We believe with these changes that we have implemented we are hopefully on for a fantastic 2020/21.

So here is to looking inward, reflecting on what has been and gone, to learn from our mistakes and to changing our futures, good luck to you and yours for the new year and beyond.