Entrepreneurs offer insight into consultancy

Insight with Passion, set up by Richard Gomersall and Kate Hardcastle, has opened in Birstall after starting up in Chester last year. They started out at the height of the recession and are on course to turn over 100,000 in their first 12 months.

The firm, which has seven staff, has already worked with businesses in fashion, interiors, memorials and funerals and the spa industry and retail. It

hopes to expand this and take their turnover to 250,000 in year two.

Ms Hardcastle, who lives in Huddersfield, said the recession had presented a chance because firms had to change the way they operated in order to survive.

"We knew there were a lot of businesses that needed assistance and had to become leaner. We knew there was an opportunity to get into the marketplace, whereas if businesses were quite cash rich, they were not thinking so much about the challenges."

IWP works by assessing the roles of staff, providing feedback on individual leaders, showing them how they can take calculated risks.

Two of the higher-profile businesses with which they have worked are Frank Hudson, the Buckinghamshire-based upmarket bed-maker, and Gone Too Soon, the memorial website on which people can pay tribute to their loved ones, as well as celebrities such as Malcolm McClaren.

The firm has also worked with developers who revamp town centres and this had led to Mr Gomersall and Ms Hardcastle being invited to World Congress 2010, a London conference which takes place in June and which organisers say is the only event of its kind in the last 20 years.

Mr Gomersall, a former managing director of Co-operative Funeralcare, said repeat business had played a significant part in their growth, despite the anaemic state of Britain's economy.

"In the current climate, people are facing change they have never faced before. Every single client we have worked with in the first year, we have done another programme with."

IWP is also launching a service and website for business men and women to improve their "personal brand". It focuses on a person's main attributes, including their body, appearance and knowledge. It is a growing industry in Yorkshire as last year Jennifer Holloway set up Skipton-based executive coaching firm Spark to help executives define themselves for their audience.

Mr Gomersall ran Co-op Funeralcare for four years to 2006 and also oversaw the merger of CRS and CWS, the retail and wholesale arms of the Co-operative Group. He said he hopes to double the size of IWP each year.

Ms Hardcastle was previously marketing director of Silent Night Beds and held the same position, as well as general manager, at furnishings and accessories firm Halo International, for four years until 2008.

Practical Advice

Cynics have often said that management consultants ask to borrow your watch and then charge to tell you the time, but Insight with Passion says it is more about offering practical insights into the challenges facing a business's management team.

It says each firm has its "unique DNA" which it pledges to respect as it steers them through change management.

It appears to be working as word-of-mouth recommendations have made up about 90 per cent of their business in year one.