On Growth: Walli Ullah

How Growth Happens
Walli Ullah

Growth happens in one of two ways; it can be organic or it can be through mergers and acquisition. Organic growth is usually more gradual and controllable than mergers or acquisition however it still needs to be managed. You need to understand how and why it's happening and have a plan and structure in place to cope with the growth. Without a plan you’ll run the risk of damaging your existing business, because problems can become much bigger with growth.

As an entrepreneur, you have an insatiable thirst for growth - it gives you instant gratification seeing revenues increase. Unfortunately, it can be like a very addictive drug; the more you have the more you want! When I started, I was driven to build the most successful business that I could and in the early days it was always revenue milestones that drove the business: let’s get to £10k a month, then £100k and the ultimate £1m a month. Even when we got there it still didn’t seem enough and it wasn’t until we’d reached an annual revenue of around £25m that we felt ready to take the foot off the growth pedal. At that point we felt we had a sustainable long term business and could start to be smarter about the contracts we wanted. After years of chasing revenue we came to the realization that actually profit mattered a whole lot more than simply growing the revenues. From then on in we re-focused the business on acquiring high profit contracts and set our sights on acquiring equally profitable competitors. The pursuit of growth didn’t stop; we just got smarter at how we grew and were now driven by profit. There comes a point in every business where you have to reassess your strategy and sometimes it makes sense to stop growing, to consolidate and focus on the bottom line.

Looking back it is difficult to know if I would change anything at all. I think the only thing I would do differently second time round is be more ambitious. When I set off on my journey I thought I would have made it if I had a £10m company. I wish I had set my target a lot higher from the outset at £100m. I’m sure if I had I would have got to £100m a lot sooner than I eventually did. I was very lucky in that I met a number of people on my journey who were willing to mentor me. One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to avoid taking new staff on until you are ready. If current staff are unhappy with extra workload, offer them a pay rise. Make sure you tie-in all your key staff with some kind of equity based scheme. Your staff are the ones that are going to have to deliver the growth and be responsible for the success of your company so make sure you look after them.

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Upon leaving school in the early 1980s, Walli decided he didn't want to work for anyone else other than himself. It was the start of a remarkable journey. Fast forward 25 years and he is a successful media entrepreneur, senior executive and a business mentor with the Prince's Trust. Walli's experience of creating something out of nothing and leading global companies has taught him how to deal with constant pressure and resolve dilemmas.