Real name: Simon Raybould
UKBF user name: simonr
Company name: Curved Vision
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Company website: www.curved-vision.co.uk
Company contact: [email protected]
How did you start your business?
I started part time while carrying on with my research work at Newcastle University. I'd been a senior research associate there for 20 years working on dozens of high profile contracts but the time had come to do something else. My Dad lost his voice (he was an actor) when throat cancer meant that they had to operate and remove his vocal folds and I became fascinated with voice work.
From there it was a natural progression to putting my research together with that interest and my previous work and experience as an actor.
What products or services does your business offer?
Everyone makes presentations every day. We help people make them better, with more impact but less stress. Simple! What's more, we're so confident we can do a good job that if anyone uses us and doesn't think a day with us has been worthwhile, all they have to do is say so and we'll not charge them!
We help you in-house if there's a few of you, or in pubic courses if there's only you and your shadow. (See curved-vision.co.uk and tellingpeople.co.uk respectively).
What were the main challenges you faced when setting up your business?
Time... or rather lack of. I researched and found out what I needed to do and what order I needed to do things in and then did it all sensibly. Unfortunately I didn't quite shake off my need to sleep. If I had, things would have moved faster!
The other major issue has been numbers on our public courses. In-house work is more profitable and less hassle but we won't allow ourselves just to do that because it's important to give individuals (particularly people just starting up in business) the access to the kind of training we do – that means we do public courses. And that means administrative hassle as people drop out because they're ill, because they're in hospital, their mother's died.... that sort of thing.
How would you rate the success you've achieved?
I'm pleased. From me part-time it's now me and two others part-time. We've got a full order book through to January of next year for our in-house work and our public days are ticking over nicely (though there's space on them still).
Why should customers and clients use your services?
We know what we're doing. We do our work well, based upon research and experience. We also believe that you can't learn this kind of thing if you're nervous or anxious, so we work hard to make sure our clients laugh as hard as they work and the courses are therefore very intense but entertaining. Just poke around the public course website for the pics and so on to see what I mean.
Besides, there's that money-back promise if you don't think we're worth it!
How has UK Business Forums benefited your business?
Two ways. Firstly I've got some (limited) Google-juice out of it as a sideline of being active. More important, though, has been the challenging responses I've got to some questions. Often they're quite rude-sounding at first, but when I've had a cup of tea and thought about them they've usually been right to be rude!
What are your plans for the future?
We're buying out a general training company at the moment, so watch this space as we double our staff in one go! That will put us in a position to take on the bigger, longer term contracts offered by the heavy-weight clients. That is, of course, if we want them. I recently declined to go to an interview with (very!) big British airline when we were down to the last three because it was in the middle of our family holidays.
With only four days notice they were just not going to get a look-in. To my mind if they couldn't be more organised about the interviews they were unlikely to be organised about the project, no matter how good the money, and so they weren't the kind of clients we wanted.
What are your three tips for business success?
Stay hungry – look for opportunities all the time. Actually I'm not sure I mean look for them because you can quickly become obsessed, boring and miss out on life if you do that. Family and friends are still more important. I guess what I really mean is that you should be "open" to spotting opportunities when they float past you.... when they do that, grab them.
If in doubt, do. Sometimes you'll do the wrong thing, for sure but doing nothing is far, far more likely to be the wrong thing. If you're not sure what to do, do something.
Remember it's only money. You can always make more of it. What you can't ever get more of is the time you spend on the business. Stay true to yourself, your family and your friends.
Fancy being the subject of our next UKBF Member Spotlight and gaining some free publicity for your business?
Email us at [email protected] with no more than 100 words outlining why we should pick you. Please note you must be registered with UK Business Forums to take part. To register, click here.
UKBF user name: simonr
Company name: Curved Vision
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Company website: www.curved-vision.co.uk
Company contact: [email protected]
How did you start your business?
I started part time while carrying on with my research work at Newcastle University. I'd been a senior research associate there for 20 years working on dozens of high profile contracts but the time had come to do something else. My Dad lost his voice (he was an actor) when throat cancer meant that they had to operate and remove his vocal folds and I became fascinated with voice work.
From there it was a natural progression to putting my research together with that interest and my previous work and experience as an actor.
What products or services does your business offer?
Everyone makes presentations every day. We help people make them better, with more impact but less stress. Simple! What's more, we're so confident we can do a good job that if anyone uses us and doesn't think a day with us has been worthwhile, all they have to do is say so and we'll not charge them!
We help you in-house if there's a few of you, or in pubic courses if there's only you and your shadow. (See curved-vision.co.uk and tellingpeople.co.uk respectively).
What were the main challenges you faced when setting up your business?
Time... or rather lack of. I researched and found out what I needed to do and what order I needed to do things in and then did it all sensibly. Unfortunately I didn't quite shake off my need to sleep. If I had, things would have moved faster!
The other major issue has been numbers on our public courses. In-house work is more profitable and less hassle but we won't allow ourselves just to do that because it's important to give individuals (particularly people just starting up in business) the access to the kind of training we do – that means we do public courses. And that means administrative hassle as people drop out because they're ill, because they're in hospital, their mother's died.... that sort of thing.
How would you rate the success you've achieved?
I'm pleased. From me part-time it's now me and two others part-time. We've got a full order book through to January of next year for our in-house work and our public days are ticking over nicely (though there's space on them still).
Why should customers and clients use your services?
We know what we're doing. We do our work well, based upon research and experience. We also believe that you can't learn this kind of thing if you're nervous or anxious, so we work hard to make sure our clients laugh as hard as they work and the courses are therefore very intense but entertaining. Just poke around the public course website for the pics and so on to see what I mean.
Besides, there's that money-back promise if you don't think we're worth it!
How has UK Business Forums benefited your business?
Two ways. Firstly I've got some (limited) Google-juice out of it as a sideline of being active. More important, though, has been the challenging responses I've got to some questions. Often they're quite rude-sounding at first, but when I've had a cup of tea and thought about them they've usually been right to be rude!
What are your plans for the future?
We're buying out a general training company at the moment, so watch this space as we double our staff in one go! That will put us in a position to take on the bigger, longer term contracts offered by the heavy-weight clients. That is, of course, if we want them. I recently declined to go to an interview with (very!) big British airline when we were down to the last three because it was in the middle of our family holidays.
With only four days notice they were just not going to get a look-in. To my mind if they couldn't be more organised about the interviews they were unlikely to be organised about the project, no matter how good the money, and so they weren't the kind of clients we wanted.
What are your three tips for business success?
Stay hungry – look for opportunities all the time. Actually I'm not sure I mean look for them because you can quickly become obsessed, boring and miss out on life if you do that. Family and friends are still more important. I guess what I really mean is that you should be "open" to spotting opportunities when they float past you.... when they do that, grab them.
If in doubt, do. Sometimes you'll do the wrong thing, for sure but doing nothing is far, far more likely to be the wrong thing. If you're not sure what to do, do something.
Remember it's only money. You can always make more of it. What you can't ever get more of is the time you spend on the business. Stay true to yourself, your family and your friends.
Fancy being the subject of our next UKBF Member Spotlight and gaining some free publicity for your business?
Email us at [email protected] with no more than 100 words outlining why we should pick you. Please note you must be registered with UK Business Forums to take part. To register, click here.
