Profile - Simon Stokes: Even in the business of security, it can still pay off to take a risk

SITTING in the audience at an event in London for entrepreneurs, Simon Stokes watched as Duncan Bannatyne took questions from the floor.

One of the audience, a woman from a charity, decided to take a chance and ask the multi-millionaire for some funding. It didn't go down well.

"I get asked that every day," the Scot told her. "If you want to be successful in life, you offer something for free first. Then your actions will speak louder than words. It's a way of getting in places."

After the event, Mr Stokes approached the businessman, introduced himself and said: "I'm going to offer you a free CCTV system for one of your health clubs. There's no catch. I know once you've used us for that, you'll want to use us for the rest of your clubs."

"Email me," said Mr Bannatyne. He did the following morning.

Mr Bannatyne replied by return and put him in touch with his managing director, who put him in touch with his facilities manager. They needed a system for a new hotel in Hastings.

It was a risk for Mr Stokes. Doubt crept in. The system would cost him 4,000. But at the business meeting, he was asked about looking after fire and security for the group's 82 health clubs, five hotels, bar

and casino.

He installed the Hastings system for free and then won

the 200,000 contract for the whole group.

"That's what a good salesman does, he seeks an opportunity, is not afraid to go up and shake someone's hand and say, 'I want to do business with you, are you going to give me the order?' We have got quite a few national contracts like that."

This go-getting attitude has served him well. His company, Assured Fire & Security, is on target to turn over 3.4m this year, up from 2.4m in 2009, and now employs more than 50 people.

The business sells a range of fire and security services and

has customers including Rolls-Royce, Nissan, the Royal Navy and Kier.

The company has moved into a new 4,500 sq ft head office in Sheffield and is considering getting an overdraft for the first time in its 12-year history to help fund Mr Stokes's plans.

The 38-year-old wants to create the UK's number one national fire and security company, an ambition which may come as a surprise to

some of his old teachers in Rotherham, where he grew up.

"At school, I flunked pretty much everything. Always in trouble. My main problem was I didn't like authority. Looking back, you were never asked your opinion.

"That's a big thing with me. That's why the business does so well – because we ask people's opinions."

From school he joined NG Bailey, the Yorkshire building services firm, as a 16-year-old apprentice. He didn't like it and soon got himself a reputation for the wrong reasons. Consequently, he would arrive at sites and be given the worst jobs.

He found he was good at them and particularly good at wiring fire alarms. He enjoyed it, because it was making something work and it saved people's lives.

Mr Stokes served his four-year apprenticeship and passed with flying colours. But when the recession hit in the early Nineties, he lost his job. He went to work with his electrician cousin, a one-man band, and later at a company owned by his electrician father.

Eventually though he became fed up at not being in control of his own destiny and decided to set up his own business.

"I thought, 'I can do this. All I need to do is get some business cards'. I had no big plans about running a multi-million pound company. I didn't know what an entrepreneur was."

He had no real aspirations other than to look after himself and his wife and set up his company. The firm's first four years were spent, he said, "in the wilderness", subcontracting for other companies.

He didn't know where to go and didn't have any business contacts. Instead, he was putting light bulbs in lofts for old men who lived down the road.

If he didn't have any work, he would put up handwritten cards in post office windows and then graduated to distributing handmade flyers around council estates.

He drove a battered van, with a hole in the roof. Looking back, he said some of his efforts were a waste of time, but he couldn't sit at home waiting for business to come to him.

"That's why we've grown through the recession.

"Right from the beginning it's been a struggle because we've never been given anything on a plate. We have that ethos of going out and getting stuff. It's starting to come to us now, now we're established.

"If I knew what I knew now, I'd have got a suit on and gone round knocking doors in industrial estates where the good business is and where people would have been looking for fire and security systems.

"Putting things on windscreens outside Morrisons in Bramley – it were futile really."

He was learning the hard way. It was slow, but gradually the business grew and he hired a part-time assistant to help him with the paperwork and then an engineer and then another and the work snowballed.

He realised that business is all about operations, finance and sales.

Two years ago, he won the contract with the Bannatyne group. The company has worked overseas, with past projects in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Sudan.

The challenge now is to maintain customer service standards.

"It was easy then. I would sell it, install it, bill it and chase the money. How can you be bad? As you grow, customer services becomes really hard.

"We have all got to take this responsibility. If it comes through to you, it is your problem. It's about sorting out your systems and processes internally."

He has hired some experienced managers to implement some of those controls. He has also hired finance and operations directors to help steer the future growth.

In recent months, the father of two has been concentrating on new business opportunities in North Africa, using his natural salesman's skills.

"Any entrepreneur is going to be a good salesman because they have got the passion about the business and it comes across.

"If you're interested in what you're selling, most people will buy that.

"We will do what we say we're going to do. We're not just after a fast buck. We want to do it properly."

SIMON STOKES

Title: Managing director, Assured Fire & Security

Date of birth: February 24, 1972

Education: Nothing whatsoever... doh

First job: Apprentice electrician

Favourite holiday destination: Chamonix

Last book read: The Beckoning Silence – Joe Simpson

Car driven: BMW 320 Sport