Life after corporate exit..

I have been privileged enough to work with some very talented and capable people in the last two years. People who have had very, very successful corporate careers and have emerged into the light to set up their own businesses. They have found their way to me because their new small businesses haven't yet taken off in a way that reflects their abilities and experience.

They start out with the confidence they deserve to feel having earned recognition, and good salaries in large organisations. I generally meet them when they are becoming concerned (and sometimes, frankly, panicking) about the lack of business coming their way. The first thing that I reassure them about is that this is not an uncommon scenario, and the second, is that they can bring about change fairly swiftly.

There are a numerous reasons why successful ex-corporate beings can struggle initially when setting up their business. Here are three main ones:

• Insight into reasons for success
• Commitment to their new business
• Getting stuck in the past

Insight into reasons for success

When fitting in with a great corporate machine, employees have particular roles to fill, with titles, and objectives that they need to achieve. Since they are fitting in with a large machine, and generally into one team or another, they will flex to perform the role, doing some jobs that they find easy and at which they excel, and others which they may find more challenging and don't come so naturally. Nevertheless, they do them.

The first thing I ask someone to share with me is their CV. I can learn a great deal about how people view themselves from the content of their CV! It's incredible how often these high achievers will describe themselves in terms of roles, titles and tasks, but omit to mention their achievements in roles. Capturing solid, measurable achievements is not only important for confidence, which can take some knocks in the hard slog of setting up a business and getting to market. No one can take away or argue with achievements, whilst they might doubt the value of titles and roles.

Another exercise which is useful following on from this is to work out what it is that they have done consistently well when turning in one achievement after another. The reason is simple - it is these attributes that are likely to help them now that they need to rely on themselves. As 'ex-corps' gradually unfold these core abilities may become more apparent than before, since they are able to grow in their own space rather than just occupy a space dicated by a large machine around them.

Commitment to their new business

Lack of commitment to working in the small to medium business market isn't just limited to people used to the corporate environment, but it is more likely to do so. I've noticed a common misconception that applying skills and experience gained in corporate life to the small business market will be relatively easy. The idea being to feed in a large pool of small fish whilst gaining the health and strength to acquire the large corporate clients with large corporate wallets!

However, the approaches required are quite different, and getting sufficient income from small businesses, particularly for those who are selling corporate experience as their offering is tough, and sometimes learning how to turn services into saleable, affordable packages comes too late.

So one of the main decisions that people can usefully make is on which market are they going to commit, concentrate and develop their goods and services? Trying to graze in the SME market, whilst having half an eye on the corporate market is a waste of energy and money. Decide, and go for one or the other. Working in the SME market can be just a lucrative as the corporate market, but offerings need to be pitched differently.

Getting stuck in the past

At the beginning of last year I met someone who had had a truly sensational corporate career. Not only did he work for a large corporation, but all of his clients had been large global corporations. He had made a great deal of money, taken it easy for a few years (why not!), and shared his wealth with a great many people. He was now about to sell his modest house which was all that remained of his stockpile.

He had worked freelance intermittently and lost the knack of going out and gaining more clients, and his former network had run dry. In addition, the programme in which he had been a consultant was now thirty years old, and had been superceded by new brand names. He hadn't stayed in the mainstream or maintained his knowledge. All in all, he was in trouble.

It was impossible to talk for longer than two or three minutes about how to resolve some of these difficulties, or start to lay a road for the future. The reason? Anecdote after anecdote about previous clients, and previous successes. He had written to companies, councils, and colleges explaining what roles he had held, and the jobs he had carried out. He was literally dumbfounded and confused by the universal indifference, at best, and rejection, at worst, that greeted his approaches. He had been used to making appointments with business owners and managers just by mentioning his company's name.

He hadn't realised that he was now just plain Joe Bloggs, with a company name that no-one had heard of, and that Joe Bloggs needed to impress them in his own right, and very quickly.

In fact, what Joe had to offer businesses was still of high value. He had just been delivering good, sound business and management principles but under a brand name. He had been so caught up living in his past that he had lost sight of his current value and abilities.

Unfolding and unbending

Corporate life is often viewed, particularly by those with limited corporate experience, as either a haven for the bone-idle incompetents, or a hell for the human. There are examples of both, and it may be a mixture of the two for many people.

One of the big pluses of exiting (and there are many) is that individuals have the chance to grow naturally and build on their strengths and talents in order to make a go of their own businesses. However, growing into freedom can sometimes be a slow and not always painfree process.

Celebrating achievements, and growing the successful attributes of  the 'real you' into the future is a big step towards individual and independent success.