Dream Big

Adam Stott

Adam Stott is a man on a mission and clearly knows where he is going and why. Everything this young gentleman does reflects that sentiment. He has mapped out his path early on and taken the necessary steps to reach the goals that he has set for himself. His can do attitude and why not thinking has laid the path for each step in his journey and no doubt will continue to do so. This journey has taken him from humble beginnings to the visionary entrepreneur, international speaker, innovator and philanthropist that he is today.

Having to face life changing choices as early as aged 15, Adam took this in his stride and made the difficult decisions of doing whatever it took to survive and to better himself. Notwithstanding the terrible jobs he accepted or his living standards as he grew up – he used this to drive himself to learn as much as he could in his chosen field and come out on top. Step-by-step he progressed up the career ladder and made sure he cemented his position, always standing out and standing strong, so that at the age of 25, he quit his well-paid job to start his own business. Within eight years built it up from zero to 40 million UK pounds in turnover and employing over 70 staff members.

His story is very inspiring for many men and women who want to enter the business world and be determined to succeed in overcoming all challenges and obstacles they face on their journey as entrepreneurs. This interview with him will teach you more than you think.

You have managed to grow your business to a very high scale at a time where many are complaining about the financial crisis. How did you achieve this?

My mentality has always been not to let what I cannot control concern me, the economy I can't control, but my work ethic and my persistence and what I do within my business I can control. There have been times in my business where the economy had a huge impact, what you have to do is to adapt to those issues. Business is never smooth sailing and that is what I love about it, it is a constant challenge and battle of wits, it weeds out those who have a poor mentality. For me the business owner mentality is very important, it's something that I believe you have to develop, as it is not natural to a lot of people to be able to take the ups and downs that come in business.

The more you develop yourself as a business owner the more your business will grow.

The more you develop yourself as a business owner the more your business will grow. I have a zero tolerance for excuses or complaining in my business, everyone that works for me knows that, because I firmly believe we create our own results. Once you remove the excuses you are free to work and create the results. Also we worked very hard to make sure we used innovation in our business. We haven't followed the crowd. We do things differently and pride ourselves on that, which has helped us create explosive growth, by just taking the time to think and create strategies on how we can improve our business is a key factor.

How did you start with ‘Big Cars’ and what motivated you start this business?

What motivated me was the glass ceiling I had working for other people. In my business I always look to provide growth to the people that work for me, and frankly had I been able to grow when working for others I may have not been in the position I am today. I also wanted freedom and the flexibility to create something and that is something I enjoy. Once I started my business I viewed that as a commitment. I have always been successful in my other roles and starting my own business no matter how hard it can or would get, I always saw that as my responsibility to see it through and ensure I was equally successful in running a business. There have been times where I lacked certain skills but when those times arrived I either got the people who had the skills or developed myself. As I mentioned earlier, in my opinion working and investing in yourself is key to becoming successful in business.

In my business I always look to provide growth to the people that work for me

What was your dream as a child? Did you always know that you have this entrepreneurship spirit?

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a millionaire, I told people who laughed but that spurred me on more. What I didn't know was how much I would enjoy growing a company and developing people, I am now coaching other business owners and am able to quickly raise their levels and help them to achieve massive success in a very short space of time, and I find this extremely satisfying. I don't think it matters if you are 16 or 50, if you decide and make the commitment to become a success and you get the right people around you, I believe you can achieve it.

Many successful business people say that before they reach their success they have faced many challenges. What are the biggest challenges you have faced to become who you are today?

I have had lots of challenges from lack of funding, to staff and friends betraying me, stealing from me, setting up rival companies, stealing data from me, and other companies trying to discredit my business. All sorts of challenges but I just see them as an opportunity to grow and learn from these issues as lessons, when something challenges you it's a great opportunity to refine and improve your business to make it better and more resilient.

Can we know a little about your personal and family life? Who is Adam when he is not doing business?

I spend most of my time with my partner Hannah and my young son, Samuel. I like to spend as much of my spare time with them as possible, we like doing things together and going on nice holidays and visiting new places. I do weight training around 3-4 times a week and I love football. I am a big Tottenham Hotspur fan and have followed them my whole life. I have a close group of long-term friends and love to socialise with them, like going to nice restaurants, horse racing, sporting events etc. I am perhaps one of the only men that also enjoys shopping, ha ha. I also like watching films and reading motivational and inspiring books and biographies.

You have many employees in your company – what is the role of women in your company?

We have increased staffing this year with the opening of two new showrooms during 2016 and have 70+ staff. The role of women in my company only depends on the skill set of the individual. I have always liked working with women and find them to be more approachable, more pragmatic to situations and they have a higher level of attention to detail. That, of course, isn't always the case although those are traits over the long term that I have found.

I have always liked working with women and find them to be more approachable, more pragmatic to situations and they have a higher level of attention to detail.

I have quite a few females in senior management, my Head of Marketing, Head of Events and Head of Accounts among others, who are all female, and they are all excellent at there respective roles. Our actual ethos is to promote from within, however, when we promote, we want to make sure that the individual has the skill set to do the job they are promoted to. This is why we always train and educate within my business, to allow people to continue to grow. Even when promotion opportunities are not there yet, we find it is best to prepare people far in advance for the job that they want, to ensure they are successful.

How do you promote and encourage women who work with you?

We encourage women to be confident. We are always encouraging, especially when people are performing highly in their role. We have schemes including ‘Employee of the Month’, ‘The People's Champion’, as voted for by their peers, ‘Manager of the Month’ and ‘Department of the Month’. Everybody has an equal opportunity, which is how we have always done it. We find that females often make great leaders.

Many business people complain about being “Busy” and not having enough time – how does a business person like you manage time?

I'm action orientated, I ensure I have a clear plan of what I want to achieve daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. I stay focused and don't let things deter me from the goals and targets I have set. I do use software to help organise myself, like trello, which if used well is very effective. I understand that you can't do everything yourself and have mastered delegating tasks, I also don't allow myself to get overwhelmed. Instead I break things down and focus on the most important tasks first.

What is the biggest ambition that you have in life?

My biggest ambition has always been to create the largest used car brand in the country. I have other important focuses like being a good Dad and ensuring I am there for my family. Also with the coaching for other businesses I am doing, I take it very seriously when I take on a client, I feel I have made a commitment to them and their business. I must deliver success to those individuals, it's a challenge that I enjoy immensely.

What would be the wisdom that you can share for people who aspire to achieve success with their businesses?

My advice is simple:

Invest in yourself, you only get one of you
Commit to things and follow them through to the end
Master what you are doing before you do ten more things
Don't quit, you never know where the next breakthrough is coming from
Get the right voices around you and listen, you have two ears and one mouth

" I have persistence when it comes to business and a never say die attitude. I have an ability to solve people’s problems in business quickly and practically. I am not afraid to take sensible risks, or explore avenues other people will not. I have an ability to take ideas, form a vision and create it."

"Challenges happened early on in my business which made me stronger and taught me to toughen up in business, not to involve personal relationships in business and to become better organized, more structured and improve everything within my business, including recruitment and lots of other areas."

http://www.big-cars.co.uk/

Developing the resilience of young people

Melissa Farnham

Executive Head Teacher at Stepping Stones School

Melissa is a single mother of two children, who inspire her each day. She was brought up through the UK Care system and was privileged during her childhood to meet many different people from different backgrounds. She studied PE teaching at university and then went on to work within the special needs sector. With her background and having the learning impairment of Dyslexia she thinks that she had a naturally empathy with learners that had barriers to learning, and so her journey began to help children with disabilities. Now she is the Head Teacher at the Stepping Stones School, a very outstanding institution that develops the resilience of young people with mild disabilities and hidden disabilities such as terminal illness, learning disabilities, mild ‘Aspergers’ and high anxiety.

Working with disadvantaged and disabled children is a challenge. Can you describe your experience as a head teacher there?

A quote I have in my office is, “the kids that need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways.’ This is a true reflection of the young people I work with. They inspire me each day to evoke the staff under my watch to role model and guide each of the students to reach their true potential. Stepping Stones is a school full of young people that the mainstream couldn’t help or guide. I have the pleasure in seeing them flourish and transition into young people that society understands and can see the potential in. My job is to make sure that potential is uncovered and a light is shone on it.

The kids that need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways

Can you share a positive story with us that will inspire parents who have children with similar problems?

You have to ask yourself this question – What happens if the basic expectation of having a child is taken from you in the earliest days? For whatever reason, be it nature, error or simply bad luck this is what happens to the families at Stepping Stones. You are simply thrown into a different world in which you are bombarded by a language that tries to explain what is wrong and what that means.

For us that happened when our son was six months old and we spent the next five years trying to understand why – a question to which we still don’t have an answer. What we did know quite quickly is that our life was different to those around us. Less time was spent at toddler groups and more at the hospital or in therapy. Our own reality was that we found ourselves daily growing away from the family life of our friends with young children. After all it is all too easy to look at the negatives and get depressed when you are told that your son would never walk, has a learning disability and at one stage may not even live the year out.

This was and is still is quite a lonely place to be most of the time. Many people ask us how we cope and keep smiling. My answer is often – ‘I don’t know’ – or ‘Because we have no choice’ – or ‘What else would we do?’

More than anything we have been taught it was a case of learning, to look at what we had in our child and not what was lacking. We learnt to see him for who he was and today many would use the same words to describe him as they did then. Our son is happy, he accepts who he is, he tries things and he works hard at what he enjoys. We did play in the autumn leaves and we did carry him down onto the beach to build sandcastles but there is so much more. If we hadn’t begun to look at the positives we would never have seen him play wheelchair hockey at the Italian national finals, win gold in wheelchair slalom at the UK national athletics finals or more recently take to the skies to fly a plane. He is only 18 and his and our lives are not what we hoped for and they never will be – but I still stand here today as a proud parent.

How have you tailored the curriculum to make the school easier for these children?

Our students access a curriculum that is informed by a transdisciplinary team to bring their potential to the surface. It is not controlled by the barriers to learning but purely by the different pathways we must weave through a harsh curriculum that schools have to follow. Creative Arts is extremely vital and is at the heart of what we do from Drama, Music and Art to creative writing skills that you cannot believe.

How do you collaborate with parents and how do they get involved in your projects?

Parents are at the heart of what we do regarding the journey we take our students on and the families and siblings must also come along. This includes everything from volunteering at the Cookie Bar through to a very proactive Parent-Teacher Association. Parents bring in new ideas and new ways of thinking, run workshops for other parents and our school for Parents (F.R. E. E. which stands for Family , Resilience , Enablement and Education ). It drives forward how we all look and reflect on the journey to adult hood these young people travel.

What is your New Year resolution?

To ensure I am a good role model to my family, to eat healthily and to take a little exercise every day.