Being a NERD can boost your business… and here’s how

NERDS may be the subject of jokes, but there is nothing wrong with being one in business. In fact, being a nerd may be GOOD for your business.

And here’s how…

Nerds are often obsessed with numbers, details, and they like to fix things.

Right?

But isn’t that what we should all be doing in business – constantly analysing our costs, profit margins and cash flow, and then making adjustments?

This came to me when listening to an excellent presentation by John Cardy – of the increasingly successful Garden Games Limited – at a past annual Local Leaders’ Meeting of MD2MD business leaders in Abingdon last month.

“I am a bit nerdy,” said John. “I like to look at figures, like the sales figures for each member of staff.”

And in that handful of words John had revealed one of his key personality characteristics – a characteristic that has been instrumental in growing his nationwide business, overcoming the challenge of changes in technology, and why his business is still going from strength to strength.

John’s love of detail – that his presentation showed, for example, he had learnt to understand search engines and get to the top of Google, streamlined staff workflow, and automated his ordering and enquiry services – has made his business increasingly efficient and profitable.

This point was also noticed by one of MD2MD’s members, Fergus Reid of Urban Element, who said it was one of his ‘golden nuggets’ from the day’s presentations.

“Be nerdy is my lesson from today,” said Fergus, sharing it with others. “Be prepared to measure things constantly, like John Cardy.”

Both of them are right.

The message to all of us is … collect and monitor the variables that are key to YOU – whether it is reducing avoidable overheads, decreasing the bounce rate on your website, increasing particular staff members sales figures… or increasing the time you spend being a nerd.

Bob Bradley

Bob is a specialist in running high value added service businesses, having run five such businesses as General Manager, Managing Director or Chief Executive. His last employed role was as Chief Executive of a £16M, 200 person family owned business having previously been Chief Executive of an AIM listed company for which he raised £5M funding and which he grew from £4M to £12M in three years through two acquisitions and organic growth, and a corporate PLC subsidiary where he was Managing Director responsible for delivering £10M profit on £45M turnover through 450 staff.

Bob is now following a portfolio career providing entrepreneurial business leaders with mentoring and coaching around business leadership, business growth, merger integration and exit planning.

Core to his portfolio is MD2MD. Having experienced for himself the value of having a strong sounding board of fellow Managing Directors he founded MD2MD in 2004 to provide groups of business leaders with a confidential environment within which they can support and challenge each other to raise their game as leaders and by doing so improve the success of their organisation.

More about Bob

MD2MD membership

You meet your peer group privately for structured confidential conversations about real business challenges. You meet online for 90 minutes every 3 weeks.
You attend one of a selection of open workshops led by top professional speakers sharing best practice on a wide range of leadership topics.
You join our annual conference LeaderFest and our annual ‘Retreat to advance’.