Aspen Waite London: Recent Episodes
Aspen Waite London
Advice and insight from the experts at Research & Development (R&D) tax credits specialists Aspen Waite London.
In our first episode, Aspen Waite White CEO Gary White explains how the company's new Succession Accounting service is making the sale of established businesses every bit as rewarding as it should be for hard-working owners.Special guest Alan Taylor, senior business development manager with European law firm Fieldfisher, talks about the benefits of the Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) model.And host James Colasanti, a journalist from CogitoPR, puts Gary on the spot for his views on London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s divisive ULEZ strategy.If you have any questions, comments or feedback about this episode, or would like to be one of our special guests, please email jamescolasanti@cogitopr.co.uk* Graphics by Faye Reynolds and music by LiteSaturation.
Michael shares with us his experiences of his career within the Automotive sector, which has spanned across 5 decades. Michael was a keen salesman and took this passion of selling into running his own business. The passion Michael displays when talking about his business is really inspiring and his self confidence has created success through living and breathing his business. Michael also talks about how he has tackled previous recessions to find opportunities for growth, his experiences of selling his business and how he ensured he stood out from the crowd to create a memorable brand.
Kim is our Strategic Recruitment partner and believes that the Recruitment industry in general lacks strategy. The recruitment market is currently a break fix model and Kim wanted to create a Strategic Recruitment firm, hence why Wavelength was born. His focus with Wavelength is centred around long-term planning with companies’ recruitment strategies to ensure cultures and vision are focussed upon. Also, by coaching their clients to remove unnecessary criteria when recruiting it can help to eliminate some of the difficulties faced in the recruitment process. Kim has learnt about these constraints from his previous experiences acting as an Accountant, Finance Director and a Business owner and therefore is applying his knowledge to create services that actually help business owners achieve their strategic goals.
Kim mentions a couple of books that he has read which have been highly useful. They are:
Traction by Gino Wickman Good to Great by Jim Collins Great by Choice by Jim Collins
Kevin has started a new Sales coaching company, Sales Made Easy, and has vast experience in not only the sales industry, but also experience in running his own businesses. Kevin talks about his career to date and why he decided to create Sales Made Easy and how he wants to change the perception of the world of sales by removing the connotations of ‘Sales’ being a dirty word.
Sales Made Easy is a remote learning platform designed to be accessible and affordable for the SME community. This podcast touches upon the issues that arise in businesses where sales training and sales strategy is overlooked. Nothing in business happens without a sale and therefore Sales resources and focus needs to be prioritised.
Kingsley is a qualified accountant who has experience as a Finance Director and buys into our culture of focussing on how to help business owners grow their companies. He loves working with SME’s specifically on their exit strategies and is a specialist in Employee Ownership Trusts (EOT). In this podcast he explains why business owners should consider them as part of their exit strategy. Kingsley explains what an EOT is, what their benefits are and talks through how they operate.
If you want to know more about EOTs, set up a call with one of our experts here
Dean is the Group Managing Director of Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions, which is a division of RELX a FTSE 20 company. RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers, enabling them to make better decisions, get better results and be more productive. The teams Dean lead use data and analytics to drive the best business decisions to enable Energy & Chemical markets to trade more effectively, aviation more efficient and to tackle fraud, financial crime compliance, credit decisioning and insurance. The ethos is delivering differentiated data to help customers make decisions.
Dean has a wealth of experience working in leadership roles and his insights are invaluable for any business owner wanting to develop high performing teams and make people work better together. Dean communicates clearly about his beliefs on how to create high performing team environments. He believes that personal growth occurs when you’re uncomfortable and move from your comfort zone, and in addition, the best teams have a high degree of mutual accountability and psychological safety, which creates an environment where the fear of asking the ‘stupid question’ is eliminated. We also discuss how to break the norms of the industry you work in and the importance of shattering the ceiling of expectation, which is hindered by self-limiting beliefs, whilst remaining focussed in the process of the performance rather than the outcome or result.
Rich and Cassie hate the cookie-cutter approach and love to be creative in their approach to digital marketing, design and brand strategy. They wanted to work in a less corporate and sales-oriented environment, and this was the motivation to create Cheddar Creative.
Rich and Cassie discuss their understanding of the need to review their business activities strategically and undertook growth coaching to create a plan to and clear direction. However, outside influences of BREXIT and Covid forced them into becoming more flexible, which they see as a positive for their business because it has forced them to become more agile and they can adapt their approach depending on the type of client they work with. They are firm believers of saying YES to new opportunities.
Their positive attitude towards fresh ideas and embracing change is refreshing and can be applied to businesses in any industry.
The entrepreneurial advisory podcasts are a great opportunity for us to share some of the invaluable wisdom that our network have to offer and create a community with high-quality experiential knowledge. Below is an overview of our first podcast with Gill Tiney.
Gill is a keen collaborator and loves to share talent. Gill loves being her own boss and loves sharing knowledge with others. Her enthusiasm for helping people is endearing and has spanned all avenues of her career, which includes coaching, collaborating, and being an author / helping others write their books.
She talks about why ‘Goals are bad’. It’s more impactful to feel inspired to do something and remove the pressure associated with business activities.
Gill is innovative in her thinking around her profession. She loves talking to other business coaches to find out what other business coaches love to do and then with this knowledge, Gill collaborates so she can focus her time on working on what she is great at and then can let other coaches help clients with what they are good at.
Connection with business partners and customers is more important to Gill than the financial uplift of working with clients.
Please listen to this podcast for a refreshing view on the approach to working whilst maintaining a positive mental well-being and how important it is to love what you do.
In our latest post, Gary explores how to assess a company's heath when only the balance sheet is available.
When looking at competitors, a potential client, or even a potential acquisition, it is essential to understand the company's financial health. Unfortunately, many businesses will not have their full accounts available to the public and sometimes you are left with just the balance sheet.
This short clip will give you guidance on what to look for and what the numbers really mean!
Too many SME businesses are reliant on the business owner to operate, and simultaneously they are reliant on one or a small number of large customers. By having a committed workforce who can work and operate independently of the directors, have clear processes and procedures for all aspects of the company’s operations, and be generating significant cash reserves each year to enable either continue sustainable growth, and/or significant dividends for its owners is crucial. How is this environment created?
In our latest podcast, Gary White explains how business owners can change the way that they prioritise tasks, allowing them to utilise their time and focus on running the business!
In this short clip, Gary takes us through what the term EBITDA means, why it is used in accounts and how you should utilise it as a business owner.