As we’re celebrating ETC Tax’s 10th birthday this month, I thought it would be good to take some time out to reflect on the last ten years: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Unlike some small business owners, my introduction to running a business wasn’t a ‘typical’ one.
Whilst I had always wanted to be self-employed, I didn’t wake up one day and decide to go it alone. In fact, ETC Tax started for me as simply a convenient way for me to escape corporate life.
Having already had a couple of different jobs early on in my working life, in my late 20’s I decided to requalify as a tax lawyer.
However, whilst I found the work rewarding - I loved solving problems, supporting clients, and being part of a team – after I had children, it quickly became clear that the job was not compatible with my family life.
Of course, this was years before hybrid and flexible working were part of the bigger picture. Indeed, when I explained my challenges to my bosses, their solution was simply “Get a nanny, a cleaner, a gardener - or all three!”
One evening, I came home in tears. I knew I had to give up my job. I’d spent five years re-training - but now, it felt like it had all been for nothing.
Fortunately, Andy, my husband, had gone self-employed himself 18 months earlier and was planning to grow a tax consultancy, so he suggested I help him “for a while” whilst I figured out my next steps.
Fast forward a few months and after I gave myself the title Managing Director my “journey” began.
From the start, Andy and I shared a vision: to build a team, to create something of real value, and eventually to sell it.
But, hiring was (and still is) tough, particularly for small firms and especially in a specialist area like tax.
People have to want to take a chance on a small (and particularly back then) unknown firm.
For those who did take a chance on us, there were real opportunities for them to contribute, to be heard, and to be part of something. And, whilst there were plenty of knock-backs recruitment wise, we managed to make some brilliant early hires.
Whilst most have since moved on, I hope they look back fondly on those first couple of years, as I do.
Perhaps I was naïve or simply blindly optimistic back then , but it felt quite magical. We had some great clients, some great work, we hosted some great webinars and events, we met lots of great contacts, and everything felt new and shiny.
A couple of years in, thanks largely to Andy’s writing efforts we launched a new website driven by our Knowledge Centre, which has helped us generate significant new leads and income over the years.
LinkedIn has also been a big part of our story – it’s a great way to share our voice - from technical updates and behind-the-scenes stories to client successes.
Having grown our client base quite quickly, but still struggling to recruit, in 2019, we moved from our original office in Lymm, (a quiet Cheshire village) to Altrincham town centre, which marked a significant step forward for us.
With better transport links, and a thriving local business community, Altrincham provided us with the perfect environment for taking the business forward.
But, shortly after our move to Alrincham, the Pandemic hit. Whilst there was an initial flurry of panic we were able to adapt quickly (helped by the fact that we already had a hybrid working options in place way before it ever became a buzz word and the bigger firms started crowing about it ).
Indeed being small and agile meant we actually thrived during the Covid-19 period. So much so, that in 2020/21 we had our best year ever!
The end of 2021 and start of 2022 saw the end of the pandemic, and also saw us returning to F2F events with two of our most popular events to date - our Fizz and Fashion Ladies Event and our Succession Conference, with over 150 professionals attending across both events.
Thanks to our in-person events, our webinars, our website and our new location, we had started to grow very quickly (with hindsight a little too quickly), and, one day we looked around to realise we had employed 22 people. Where had they all come from?
That’s when the fun really started. If I thought recruiting people was hard, well, keeping hold of them was just as hard (if not harder).
To start with every departure hurt - it felt personal – it hit hard. But gradually I realised that people move on for all kinds of reasons, sometimes they simply outgrow the role or have personal reasons to leave, but sometimes it's a mismatch in values.
Realising the only bit I could really control were our values with help from my then HR Manager and our Marketing Co-Ordinator, we started to focus a lot more on team and culture.
Whilst we had always recognised that collaboration doesn't just happen inside the office and is built through shared experiences (which was the reason we had always prioritised team away days and socials), we knew that there was work to do in really embedding our culture and values.
Whilst this is still (and perhaps always will be) a work in progress, we are definitely winning on that front.
So, everything was going pretty for a while. But let’s not forget that in small business, no two weeks, months or years are ever the same.
Sufficed to say therefore, that whilst the first 7 years or so of my time at ETC Tax had been relatively plain sailing, the last 2 years or so have not been quite the same.
The challenges started coming thick and fast in late 2022, when we came close to having to call time on the business entirely, following the discovery that one of our most senior employees had badly betrayed us, leaving us with a huge financial black hole.
Fortunately, with lots of determination (and the help of some good lawyers) , we came back fighting just before Christmas 2022.
Shortly after that, my home life took a turn for the worse when my Mum was diagnosed with cancer in January 2023 and ended up very sadly dying just weeks after her diagnosis.
Then shortly after that, Andy and I decided to part ways professionally with Andy leaving ETC Tax in May 2023 and heading to Dubai to explore other business opportunities later that year.
Whilst this may seem like strange timing, Andy’s departure from ETC was something we had been discussing for a year or so.
Unfortunately we simply no longer shared the same vision for the business.
I’m not going to lie though, although I knew it was coming Andy’s actual departure sent me reeling quite a lot.
We’d built something great together, and I had never planned to go it alone. It felt lonely. When we were good Andy and I had been a great team. So I started to look for someone to help me grow the business once again.
Easier said than done of course, and whilst I have tried a couple of potential business partnerships in the last year or so, things haven’t worked out just yet, so, as Alan Sugar might say - “the search continues.”
There is certainly still lots to be grateful for and, as we reach our 10 year anniversary, and with a special birthday for me too later this year, I have taken some time in the last few weeks and months to reset and re-focus.
Whilst the challenges of the last two years have continued of late with various significant issues (including our CRM disappearing overnight, our website failing to perform after being re-built, and some of my team experiencing some quite difficult issues of their own); with the support of each other, it now feels like we are ready for the next phase of this journey.
We might be small, but we feel quite mighty!
I’ve learned a huge amount in the last decade and whilst I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way that experience has brought me to where I am today.
I often wonder if I had to start again, would I? I think I probably would.
Whilst running a small business in the UK is no doubt much harder than it was when we first started ten years ago (due primarily to the changes in the political, regulatory and of course the tax environment) running this business has brought me more than I could ever have imagined: more flexibility, more new skills, more challenges, more variety and more personal growth.
Whatever happens in the next few years, I feel lucky to have had this opportunity. ETC Tax wasn’t ever part of some masterplan for me - it was simply the result of circumstance, but running a small business is certainly addictive!
