He started his company, Webmart, with £10,000 of his own money. He now turns over in excess of £30m per annum. Having grown organically he has never borrowed money or used private investors.
Simon believes to stay ahead you need to recruit and develop the best people. He gave a really thought provoking insight into how he employs the right staff; by encouraging and incentivising existing staff to recommend potential candidates, and researching social networking sites of all candidates to really find out what they are like.
Very keen for his staff to achieve, Simon implemented the SEXischeme to reward them with generous profit share bonuses on achieving and exceeding targets. Results for each employee are displayed on a board to create competition and identify those who may need more training or support. Simon believes the more you give, the more you get back. However, he confesses he did have a large turnover of staff but those that stay, stay for a long time.
With the need for workable, effective systems being a regular theme amongst the directors at the event, Simon also says “if you can’t describe the process, you don’t know what you are doing”.