It’s not all about the llama…

It has been over 3 years now since Anderson Anderson & Brown Consulting was established, so I figured it was a good time to look back and reflect on the journey so far and share some of my reflections.

Some of the regular readers of our Life at AAB Blog will know the blogs usually have a lovely photo of the team member at the top.  Well, this post is about a team not me, so I wanted a photo that means something to our team which means that yes, you get a photo of a llama.  Our llama friend has been with us since the start so it is only fitting it gets a shout out today (massive thanks to Paul Lequay on unsplash.com for the image).

Three years is an important milestone. It is estimated that 60% of businesses fail within the first 3 years. Thankfully, due to our amazing team, our fab clients and partners, we have not just survived but we are thriving and growing.

So, here are some of the highlights and challenges:

We have delivered great support to amazing clients across many sectors

This includes economic development, health & social care, higher education, professional services, engineering, Government agencies and charities.  It has been a privilege – working with amazing clients who view us as trusted partners and welcome us into their organisations.

A changing and growing team

Start-up companies are not for everyone, therefore we never expected all team members who were here at the start to stay for the whole journey, as there is so much change on a regular basis. However, we have been incredibly fortunate that all team members have been committed, energised and prepared to go the extra mile for our clients and we really appreciate that.

We have four values underpinning what we do and the first one is ‘Not letting each other down’.  It might not be as profound as the words you hear in other companies about their values, but its simplicity is why it is powerful.

I have learned a lot

I have to be honest and say that I thought my experience with my previous employer would have stood me in good stead when it came to financial and performance management of the business (as they were pretty hot at it).  However, the challenges of starting-up (and now scaling-up) hit me right between the eyes.    I think colleagues in our Finance Team are fed up with me asking constantly about debtors, creditors and cash-flow!

We are fortunate to work with and advise a lot of start-up and scale-up companies, so we have been taking our own medicine! I do feel the weight of responsibility for the commercial health of our business and am pleased to say that weight is now lifting as we grow and mature.

Finally, gratitude features even more prominently in my life now

I’m grateful for our clients, our amazing team, our supporters across the Anderson Anderson & Brown Group (particularly our Board and our Finance, HR, Marketing & IT colleagues) and, most importantly, for Mark Bell who is sharing this journey with me.  Thank you Mr B.

I imagine many of you are thinking, ‘you can’t finish without telling us about the llama!’  I was tempted to leave you guessing but that would be cruel.  We adopted the llama right at the start when we were talking about what we do and, quite simply, what we do is deliver change without drama (no drama llama).  Our llama is therefore a constant (and fun) reminder that our job is to make change easier for our clients and that is what we try to do every day.

 By Lesley Fordyce, AAB Consulting CEO