In 2013, after working for nearly 25 years in the energy industry, Russell Thompson decided to go it alone as a consultant. Since then, he has continued to work predominantly with corporate businesses – until recently, when he took the bold step of rebuilding his business, offering the opportunity for SMEs to also benefit from his help and guidance. We sat down with Russ to discuss his plans.
Hi Russ. You’ve recently embarked on a slightly new direction for your consultancy business. Can you start by telling us about that?
I decided a while ago that I wanted to do something more with my business. It’s great working the corporate contracts, and I really enjoy them, but I wanted to do something that supported smaller businesses too.
I wanted to give something back. I’ve done a small amount of work with SMEs over the years, which I’ve loved. You’re not in the big machine there. You come up with the ideas week on week, and you see the rubber hit the road. You get to see the impact on people’s lives and not just the business. That’s such a great feeling. Helping somebody in their business and their life is a buzz that’s hard to beat.
With that in mind, there are now two strands to the Russell Thompson Consulting: there’s the corporate consulting, which is something I’ve done for 10 years across different industries, and there’s now more of a focus on work I’m doing to support SMEs. I’m launching this as a new side of the business, targeted at helping smaller and medium-sized enterprises improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how their operations run.
What prompted you to make the changes in the business?
In 2017, I joined a few networking groups. I’ve been lucky enough to get plenty of referrals and recommendations from existing contacts, but I’m not daft enough to think that will always be the case, so I looked at other ways to work with more businesses.
Networking opened the door to helping many more businesses, but I didn’t have a clearly defined proposition. Actually, the itch I wanted to scratch was to knock my business down and rebuild it, incorporating packages for SMEs. That was my plan, and then COVID hit. Obviously, at that point in time, people’s focus was really about keeping the lights on rather than making wholesale improvements – which was completely understandable.
I was lucky enough to get offered another corporate contract which saw me through COVID. This was a huge boost, and so I decided to put the rebuild on hold. The contract was also Sheffield-based, which made a huge difference, because the life of a contractor is often quite nomadic, so it was a perfect gig at that time of instability.
At what point did you feel ready to revisit your plans for SMEs?
I turned 50 in 2022. I knew what I wanted to do, but the longer I kicked the can down the road, the harder it was going to be for me to establish myself to help and support the businesses in our city and across the North.
I took the decision that when the contract came to an end, which was July last year, I was going to rebuild in the way that I always promised myself that I would.
How did it feel to make that decision?
It felt great. I’m a big believer in being in control of your own destiny. 50 is a bit of a milestone, and I felt that this was the right time for me to capitalise on the knowledge that I’ve got and to be able to build something of my own; something that will help me because I want to grow the business and will in turn help the people that I work with become more effective and efficient in the way that they operate their businesses, with the happy end product being that it helps their customers too.
It’s quite a bold step to come out of your comfort zone like that. How has the change been for you?
Fantastic. It’s been liberating because it was kind of like starting again. I wanted to use the same process I use to help my clients to build a new proposition that I can take to market, so that’s what I’ve done. The rebuild is virtually complete and I’ll relaunch the with a new brand and a new website in the next month or so.
What will the new proposal incorporate?
The new proposition is called Russell Thompson, Director on Demand, and within that there will be a suite of products that will all be aimed at helping business owners, entrepreneurs and business leaders run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.
It’s not only for SMEs, but what I wanted to do was build a proposition that was supportive of SMEs. Part of that is because the opportunity to have that kind of support is almost precluded from SMEs because they often don’t have the budget. What I wanted to do was offer a high calibre of product that doesn’t come with a massive price tag.
A big thing for me is about ‘leaving something behind’: I believe that if you work with me, or any consultant, you should have clear success criteria in mind. I should be a resource you work with to help you accelerate growth or progress, but actually, it’s incumbent on me to transfer some knowledge to you so you don’t have a dependency on me or anybody else for the long-term. This is one of my key principles.
Can you tell us about the products and services you’re now offering?
The proposition is a complementary set of products and services and in essence, it’s about helping businesses run more efficiently. Where people tend to struggle is with systems and processes and the back office stuff around governance and control.
“The Purpose of my company is to lift people up, and I want that to be how people feel when they work with me, whether it’s a big corporate client or an SME.”
There will be three key products at relaunch: A Business Process Triage Session, which is a two-hour session where a business owner sits down with me, and we fix a process they’re having a problem with. They’ll take away a suite of documents we build together to improve that process.
Fractional Operations Director is the second product. It’s about designing the operational strategy for a business from the ground up. I work in the business to design, build and implement a sustainable operational plan to improve your business, on a basis that works for you.
The flagship product is my 3D Business Blueprint. This starts as an audit of a business, from which I’ll produce a report of my findings. I use the findings to build a roadmap to show a business how they can get from where they are, to where they want to be. I will also provide 12-months accountability partner support, so the business has a continuing independent viewpoint. I’ll also bring my network of contacts, which means I can recommend people I know and trust to help move the business forwards in areas that aren’t my expertise.
Each of these products are flexible in their design, so that businesses can take what they need and leave what they don’t. Making these services available to smaller businesses is important to me, because they can really can help SMEs progress, without costing the earth.
For me, there are incremental benefits these products can bring to people’s lives, in terms of their reclaimed time, improvements in mental health and reduced stress, which are each so important in their own right.
Prior to setting up your consultancy you worked in the energy sector. What were your experiences of that time?
I started in the energy industry in the late 80s and worked there man and boy, starting out as the post boy! I worked there for 24 years and had some good jobs, progressing through to the management ranks. They also funded my education, so as a first step into employment, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
True, it’s the energy industry, so it isn’t the sexiest industry to work in. But, luckily for me, I worked in the industry at a time where there were a lot of interesting projects going on.
I was lucky enough to work on sponsorship programmes for Test Cricket and the Football League. Those were ‘money can’t buy’ type jobs, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I probably don’t need to explain too much about the problems the energy industry has faced over the past 20 years because it’s all out there, but it struggled with a lot of issues around mis-selling and billing, and a lot of outsourcing activity on and offshore took place, so customer service was a big challenge.
What prompted you to make the switch from working for the energy companies to consulting for them?
I think the thing for me was that the companies that I worked with seemed to be underpinned by some of the biggest consultancies in the world. Each of these consulting giants would probably have had a seat at the table in the energy industry at some point in time.
These guys are very knowledgeable, and obviously they come in with great reputations, but also very high price tags. They’re great at putting on a show and delivering complex presentations, but really, what’s behind the sharp suits and the flash PowerPoints, are simple solutions.
You’re looking across the table at these guys and thinking – I could do that. That was a bit of a trigger for me to go out on my own. It’s about letting common sense be your North Star and unpicking convoluted and complex processes to leave something behind that’s quite simple to manage.
The great thing about working in the energy industry is that you build up a lot of transferable skills. And working in the industry at that time gave me a ringside seat to see how things can go wrong – and build my own ideas about how to put them right.
When you set up your own consultancy, did you always intend to go back into the energy companies?
I took redundancy in 2013 and that’s when I set up my company. I thought long and hard about what I was going to do next. I looked around for different jobs and just saw a lot of things that I’d done over and over again, and thought, if I’m going to use my experience to its best effect, I’ll try and help as many businesses as I can, rather than just 1.
With my background being in the energy market, the first place I went back consulting was with energy companies, which just made sense. That’s where my network was, and where a large part of it still is.
I also spread my net a little wider, taking on other contracts from contacts and companies outside the energy sector, who retained me for multiple projects. Working across multiple sectors has stood me in good stead to help clients across corporate and SME markets.
Do you feel like all this experience as helped shape your business today?
Absolutely. The Purpose of my company is to lift people up, and I want that to be how people feel when they work with me, whether it’s a big corporate client or an SME. Lifting People Up is also my personal Purpose so what I’m trying to do is put the real Russ into my business – the Russ who just wants to help people. I love what I do and getting to see the difference it makes in people’s lives and businesses is huge for me.
