About Business Hat

Gill Bray - Managing Director of Business Hat

I set up Business Hat Ltd in November 2007 having left a 30 year sales career in the pharmaceutical industry. I had finally realised, rather late in the day, that it was a constant supply of business challenges and problems to solve that primarily motivated me.

There were plenty of challenges working in my chosen industry, with constant changes in almost every aspect of business life from products, management, business information systems, teams, geography, legislation, to say nothing of our changing and hostile business environment.

Each time I was faced with a the challenge of a new set of sales targets to meet I had the same sense of excitement (and no small measure of anxiety) about exactly how they were going to be achieved! With more experience, I learned that there were some fundamental pieces that needed to be in place to guarantee success in an acceptable timeframe.

I disagree with those who insist that it is attitude, in the absence of knowledge and skills,  that consistently predicts success. All three are required to bring swift results with a minimum of stress, allocated budget and sacrificed business relationships. Whilst learning by mistakes and experience might be all very good if controlled, if applied to the experience of learning to drive, it is clearly ridiculous. Why should business be any different? Who wants a car crash of a business, with costly repairs, damaged people and a potentially written-off vehicle?