The Trials and Tribulations of Carl Hopkins – entrepreneur, marketer and secret millionaire

So much has already been written about and commented on regarding the now confirmed demise of Yorkshire Forward (YF) and one of its financial recipients – Business Link Yorkshire (BLY).

I have been asked what my opinion is and I find it difficult to answer. On a personal level, I do know people who are employed at both at YF and BLY. As you would be about any friend you have a concern over their  future, their job security and its impact on their home lives they were to lose their jobs which is a real threat for hundreds of people. [click to continue…]

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A busy week which posed me to the lows of running a business and to the highs of wanting to start a business. I dont wh to dwell on the lows but not for the first time this y I met with a business owner who was all ready for jacking all in and ‘getting a job.

The will come times, unless you are staggeringly lucky where you will ask the question “what is the point?”. The banks will not help you, previously happy customers are suddenly less happy, staff are asking more of you or the good ones are packing up and moving on and then there is the grief at home from the long days at work… sounds familiar. I certainly suffered this probably more than once.

All I can say is if you are in this place asking yourself these questions than the first thing to do is get another person in front of you and ask them the questions you ask of yourself – DO NOT FEEL YOU ARE ALONE! Trust me there is nothing you are facing that someone else hasn’t already faced and has dealt with, so find a buddy a mentor a colleague and talk to them. I guarantee things will look clearer almost immediately. Also do not let the bad things that happen in one area of your business (life?) cloud the other areas. Look carefully where the real problems are and prioritise them and then DEAL WITH THEM. Make some decisions. Some decisions are so big they are made for you – when I was fired from a £1m account I couldn’t worry about it, they had made the decision for me – but I did have to then make many smaller decisions.

Also make sure, as much as you can, that your home life is ‘sorted’. It’s hard to find a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear to listen if you are neglecting the emotion and finance of your home life while at work. Trust me my ‘first’ life of building a career left me in debt and divorced. My ‘second’ life I make my home life the priority. If that’s ‘sorted’ then when I have a bad day my family support me and my home becomes my sanctuary.

Midweek I was privileged to be a judge for the regional heats of The Pitch 2010. In Liverpool I was able to receive 5 pitches from Entrepreneurs. These businesses were all under 3 years old and some still just an idea on a sheet of paper. I cannot talk to much about who they were or their plans. But what inspired me was their originality, their drive and self belief – along with the wide variety of ideas from a chocolate melter to book rentals and geo-mapping! This is a great event and I look forward to our regional winner taking the ultimate prize in London later this year.

I was delighted to be asked to sit in on a meeting of the board of YPEF services to discuss how to promote and support young people into a future of Enterprise as Entrepreneurs of tomorrow. They have put an exceptional board of directors and non executive directors together including the likes of my chum Deirdre Bounds and the ridiculously successful Justin Whitson founder of Venturelab.co.uk. They have some fascinating and well researched plans to put into action in the coming months to help this vital part of the Yorkshire economy our 14-25 year olds.

But above all of that my weeks highlight had to be the launch of Creative Calderdale (www.creativecalderdale.co.uk). An initial event held at the Elsie Whitely Centre in Halifax where they held an audience with Trevour Beattie. As an ex-mediocre-creative, agency employee and agency owner I have long admired the work of Trevour and that of his past agency TBWA and current agency BMB (www.bmbagency.com) During the course of his presentation which although slightly disjointed, occasionally disheveled,  technically clunky it was simply brilliant. Trevour shared with us in an incredibly modest way his belief in the lack of his own ability to have or ever having had a big idea – but he admits to having thousands of little ideas.

This from the man that brought us FCUK, Hello Boys and the recent campaign for The Independent. He shared with us the story of supporting a creative guy he employed who wrote a screen play, which became a film, which went on to win a BAFTA (www.sonypictures.com/classics/moon). He told us of his ambition to visit space, an ambition he will fulfill next year with a $200,000 ticket on Branson’s Galactic Space Ships (www.virgingalactic.com)

I was able to shake Trevour’s and afterwards and pass on my admiration of him and his work – I think I was a bit star-struck

So a week with friends at their lowest in business but ending with meeting a bubble haired brummie I have admired for years who shows if you stick at what you love it can take you from the lowest of place to, well, to the stars!

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