Expert’s perfect blueprint to put businesses on path to growth

Combine these things with absolute financial control and small businesses have everything they need to achieve growth.

This is according to Colin Glass, a respected business adviser and non-executive director.

Over a long career, the 67-year-old has helped establish some of the region’s most successful SMEs and, in a rare interview, he revealed how best to create the right conditions for growth, based on his own significant experience of working with businesses that have achieved great things.

Mr Glass also shared details of his innovative plan to encourage more seasoned business people to share their own know-how with up-and-coming companies.

“The most important factor in developing a business from start-up phase is the people involved,” he said, carefully adding that not all teams work out, particularly in crisis situations.

“You have to have a clear plan of where they want to go, including the exit. You need to build a business plan – it concentrates the mind. It should be like the bible that you work to.”

Owner managers must be passionate about what they do. They must empower the individuals in their teams and “give them their head”. Absolute financial control is a must; for example, he insists on “prompt, accurate, meaningful information” from management accounts.

These, then, are the basics for the entrepreneurs to get in place if they want to be successful. At the legislative end, ministers can help too.

“There is a desperate need for experienced mentors for growing SMEs,” said Mr Glass. “The Government recognises this. However many of these companies cannot afford to pay the mentor, at least in the early days.

“I would like to see tax relief given on the notional fee that such mentors would charge. For example, if a mentor would charge £1,000 per day, he would be entitled to receive £500 tax relief, if he was a 50 per cent taxpayer.

“Ultimately, if the company succeeds through his efforts, he would pay tax on his fees, and the company would pay corporation tax.”

He has put the tax relief suggestion for approved mentors to Mark Prisk, the minister for business and enterprise, and to Alan Lewis, Conservative vice chairman for business, during a visit to Yorkshire last week.

Mr Glass is qualified to offer advice in this area – he made his name by providing expert help to new businesses. He is a founding partner of Winburn Glass Norfolk, established in Leeds in 1974.

“In those days you couldn’t advertise, you had to rely on recommendations,” he said. “We got a lot of early-stage start-ups as established businesses were wary of changing their accounts.

“We also recognised that the time-honoured time-cost basis of working would not work with start-ups. I cajoled partners that we should risk our currency – time and expertise – and help these companies and roll up our fees and help to give them a future.”

In this sense, WGN is a quasi-venture capitalist. If a company did well, WGN would expect an ongoing fee and sometimes would subscribe to shares. This made them fairly unique in their field. “There were no accountants doing that because it was high risk,” said Mr Glass.

One early client was a husband-and-wife team in a back bedroom. He helped them grow and today, that company is Datong, the Aim-listed spy gadget firm. “That said to me what could be done if you had the right people, the right product and administration and the right kind of financial advice,” he said.

Others successes include video surveillance firm Coe, sold to Digital Barriers last year for £3.3m, Straight plc, the recycling group, and Surgical Innovations plc, the medical equipment specialist.

Mr Glass estimates that he has invested millions “or at least hundreds of thousands” in time costs over the last three and half decades. He said: “It’s a very high risk approach but I like to think it works because I am quite proud of being associated with these companies and the people involved.”

His clients are often on the phone, reinforcing an important point for him. “It’s so important for a business to have a mentor or non-executive,” he said. “Somebody who’s committed to them, who they can get on with and who can act as a bouncing board.”

Mr Glass is encouraged by the move towards entrepreneurialism in the UK.

While bank funding between £10,000 and £500,000 is seriously lacking, he is pleased by the growth of the business angel movement and said changes to the Enterprise Investment Scheme should help SMEs.

An irresistible challenge

As a young accountant in the Sixties, Colin Glass had little interest in auditing.

He was, however, very interested in the stock market and enjoyed following the activities of Jim Slater, a well-known corporate investor.

Inspired, Mr Glass found work at a small Leeds investment bank called PR Grimshawe and Co that bought small, unloved quoted companies and revamped them.

He was keen to do his own thing though and with Melvyn Winburn, a long-standing friend, and David Norfolk, a steadying influence, set up accountancy firm Winburn Glass Norfolk in Leeds in 1974.

At 67, is he thinking of retirement? “I enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “I can’t resist the challenge.”