Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, there are always lessons to be learned from the journey of one entrepreneur who has been through it all. Join best-selling author Trenton Moss in this episode, as he shares stories and knowledge on how strong values helped him get through the rollercoaster ride that is entrepreneurship. Learn how he traversed the highs and lows of starting, scaling and selling his UX consultancy business.
Trenton is a business leader, trainer, and coach who inspires everyone around him to achieve more than they think they can.
His best-selling book, Human Powered was published last year. It helps you gain all the people skills and EQ you need to succeed. He's the Founder and Head Coach at Team Sterka, a training and coaching business that supercharges client-facing businesses with people skills. Previously, he spent 15 years as Founder and CEO at one of the UK's first user experience consultancies, Web Credible.
Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, there are always lessons to be learned from the journey of one entrepreneur who has been through it all. Join best-selling author Trenton Moss in this episode, as he shares stories and knowledge on how strong values helped him get through the rollercoaster ride that is entrepreneurship. Learn how he traversed the highs and lows of starting, scaling and selling his UX consultancy business.
Trenton is a business leader, trainer, and coach who inspires everyone around him to achieve more than they think they can.
His best-selling book, Human Powered was published last year. It helps you gain all the people skills and EQ you need to succeed. He's the Founder and Head Coach at Team Sterka, a training and coaching business that supercharges client-facing businesses with people skills. Previously, he spent 15 years as Founder and CEO at one of the UK's first user experience consultancies, Web Credible.
Hello and welcome to today's edition of the Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang. I'm part of the Beautiful Business team, and in this episode I was joined by the infatiguable Trenton Moss. Trenton is a business leader, trainer, and coach who inspires everyone around him to achieve more than they think they can. His best selling book, Human Powered was published last year. It helps you gain all the people skills and EQ you need to succeed. He's a founder and Head Coach at Team Sterka, a training and coaching business that supercharges client facing businesses with people skills. Previously, he spent 15 years as Founder and CEO at one of the UK's first user experience consultancies, Web Credible. When he is not working, you'll usually find him running around after his kids or sleeping. He loves a post lunch power nap. Don't we all? Trenton? We'll jump straight into the chat. Hope you enjoy it. Okay. So growing a business and maintaining the culture through good times and bad. Trenton, could you just give us a bit of context cuz you went on quite the journey with your consultancy business before you kind of got out of that and before you started Team Sterka. So tell us a bit about it. Give us a rundown of the highs and the lows.
Trenton Moss:Oh wow. Lots of lows. A few highs. Yeah. So I started my consultancy back in 2003 and I was just, I was young, I was just in a rented house. Shared house, and there wasn't space in my bedroom for a desk. So I just put one in the hallway, got a computer, got one of those dial up internet connections and away I went, made a website and tried to get things going. So it was, you know, it was quite tough in the early days, cuz trying to get it going is just, just very hard, you know. It was a user experience consultancy, a specialist and tried lots of things to kind of get clients and nothing seemed to work. So I remember going to my local Pizza Express and saying, could I have a job? Because I really didn't think the business was working. But luckily I managed to get a couple of clients managed to get things going. So I got over that low of like, okay, I'm gonna have to go work at Pizza Express. And. You know, got some desks, hired a couple of guys, and, and it kind of just went from there and it kind of grew from there, which was, which was extraordinary and, and very exciting. So yeah, we were a user experience consultancy and as luck would have it, I started that business at a time where the.com crashed, .com bust kind of happened and we'd gotten over it and people were actually, you know, kind of interested in user experience because it was about real substances. Like, let's do stuff to make. Whatever digital thing you've got, make it more successful. And that's what UX was all about. So that was very, very fortunate. I was in the right place at the right time and yeah, I managed to grow the business, which was great. Like something that was always very important to me was culture and that it was a place I wanted to work at. So the words collaboration, trust, and empowerment were those three words were always at the core of the culture. And I did a lot of work. I was very intentional with the culture to make it a culture I wanted it to be. And yeah, you know, we had lots of ups and downs, you know, like winning, like some, you know, Great clients with some, doing some great delivery work that was like, things that millions of people in the UK would use or internationally. That's always very exciting. And some bad times where you lose lots of pitches and where you run at a loss for a while and some good times. So, yeah, you know, like trying to launch in New York and failing was in some ways a good, in some ways bad good, like learning experience. Good thing to do, but we lost a lot of money and it completely failed.
Yiuwin Tsang:Wow.
Trenton Moss:So, and probably the best thing was just working with so many really awesome people. And then, yeah, after 15 years we got acquired and about a year later I exited. After being acquired, I realised very quickly that I was now allergic to working for someone else. So it was never gonna last. And so I stayed around for about a year, year and a half before yeah, exited.
Yiuwin Tsang:Nice. Very nice. So how big did you get in terms of head count, because then I'd like to explore a little bit more about the culture that you were really deliberate about and you're very intentional about. But just give us an idea of how many people you grew the company to.
Trenton Moss:Probably about 30.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah. So it's still quite a sizable company. And I guess, when you're building that team, you're recruiting people, you see them develop, you see them grow, they flourish professionally and personally and I think we've spoken before about how rewarding that is. But can you tell us a little bit more about what made you really proud about that team that you grew? And then let's explore a little bit more about that culture piece that you were very intentional about.
Trenton Moss:Yeah, I mean, what was always a source of pride was, you know, when you see people doing things for the first time. So where you have more junior members of the team who join and you know, they develop and they grow and you give 'em feedback about the things that you'd like to see them doing more of, which is often documented in our kind of progression path anyway and then seeing them do that, seeing them go in and smash it with a client or just really the quality of their work they deliver. It was amazing watching people grow and develop was fantastic. And something we did quite relatively early on was like we came up with three rules and they were the only rules that the consultancy had, and they were in order of priority. So if you ever weren't sure what to do, you went to rule number one first and then two and three. So rule number one was always act in the best interest of the business, and you had to determine what that meant. Rule number two was never do anything to make it harder for other people to do their jobs. So don't do anything that has a negative impact on the people you work with. And rule number three was do whatever it takes to get your job done really well. And that was the order of priority. Think about the business first. Think about your colleague second, and think about yourself third. And that was it. That was our rules. And so if ever someone was behaving in a way that we didn't think was ideal, you know, we'd go and talk to them, understand where they're coming from. But by having those three rules, we could always refer back to those and explain why, what if they couldn't see it, you know, why what they were doing wasn't in the best interest of the business, or, you know, if they wanted to work from home regularly on days where the team were in the office collaborating, then that does have a negative impact on your team members. And so it was quite good having those three rules, cuz it always gave us something to refer back to. So that worked well because as I said before, it's all about collaboration, trust, and empowerment. So it's like, right, well we're all gonna collaborate with each other and with these three rules, I'm just, we're gonna trust you, we're gonna trust you to get on with it and we're gonna empower you based on do what you need to do within those three rules. So you've got your framework and your guidance of what to do. Otherwise get on with it and then for people as individuals, we really liked Dan Pink's three themes around motivation. So he always talked about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And we did a lot on that. We talked a lot about that with people when we'd do kind of like personal development reviews with people. Talk a lot about, right, how do we give you more autonomy? How do we help you get ownership of what you're doing? How are you gonna become a master? What do you wanna get mastery in? And how aligned to the company's vision and goals do you feel you are, like where are you at in terms of the purpose and what can we do more of? So we did a lot of that as well. And that helped with the culture too but I think ultimately the thing that makes the culture happen is, as I talked about earlier, is the behaviour of the leader and the leadership team. And if there's the guys in charge, you generally live and breathe the values that you want the team to have if you wanna have a place that is truly collaborative, that it is empowering where there is trust, then as a leadership team, you've gotta live and breathe that you can talk about it, but actions speak louder than words. And if your actions don't show that, then there's no point talking about it.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah, indeed. It sets a tone, doesn't it, for the rest of the business, but also really does kind of put a line in the sand for your growth, for your recruitment, for new people that are coming through and having that real clarity. I really like those rules. They're really nice cause I feel like there's enough in there for people to have, to think, you know, it's not hugely prescriptive. There's a degree of interpretation and the question is how you interpret it and whether that aligns with, as you say with the values of the business. Brilliant. So I wanna explore a little bit about some of the tougher times because before we set this call up. I've gotta be honest with you, my jaw was on the floor when you told me about how hard it did get on that rollercoaster before, as you say getting acquired, which arguably took you back up again. But six months of losses that sounds pretty painful just to say out loud. I guess my question is for you being the leader of that business and having to keep people motivated, keep them going so that you could climb a backup again, that must have been really hard. How did you handle it?
Trenton Moss:Yeah, it was kind of brutal. Like we were going for about, I think about 13, 14 years, and we were quite reactive when it came to new business, and then all of a sudden the new business tap turned off and we saw a 60% decline in revenue from new business. So that hit us hugely. And yeah, six months of, of awfulness just losses, losing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds and being like, oh my God, if this keeps going, it's all over. We're out of business. It's 14 years and it's gone. So it was horrendous. But I just. You know what, what you gonna do, right? You're gonna be a victim of the situation and you're gonna do something about it. So whilst it was so awful, I just found levels of resilience. I never knew I had. And I worked , we had an advisory board, so kind of three external people, quite senior people in the industry and they were fantastic and they really, really supported us and me both emotionally and practically, cuz we had to get new business happening again in a way that we hadn't before. So, I mean, you just get on with it. I just went all out to try and just have coffees with anyone I could. And just to kind of drum up long term interest in the business and what we did. It was hard because, you know, I was out there trying to sell the dream whilst on the inside I was crying. It was all falling apart and all falling to pieces. So it was really hard. And then obviously there's managing the comms internally, so, you know, my leadership team knew very well what was going on, you know, we all see the finances. So, you know, I could use them for support, you know, and people in the business could see what was going on in that they could see how quiet we were and they'd be a bit worried and be like, you know, we're not that busy. What's going on? Is everything alright? And you have to be honest. And the honest answer was like, no, we're not doing very well and we have a lot of money in the bank. You know, we make hay while the sunshines so that when situations like this happen, we can kind of ride through it. We had to do some redundancies during that process, during that period, so we, we downsized a bit, but generally, morale in the business was all right that time because as long as you're open and honest about these things, say, look, we're not doing well, but you know, we've got money in the bank to get us through this and we're gonna work our way out of it and here's the plan for what we're gonna do and we're gonna now try and execute it. And everyone then is very motivated to help out. Cause they're like, okay, you know, it's not going that well, but there's a plan, we're gonna do something about it. Come on, let's all go. And it kind of rallies the troops a bit, which is quite nice. But yeah, that was a really awful six months of my life really, really hard and you know, when I look back, it was a 15 year journey ultimately. And when I look back and if I could only say one thing that I was the most proud of it's that in the whole 15 years, it's that it's getting us out of that hole. Cuz it was the deepest hole we ever found ourselves in.
Yiuwin Tsang:So it sounds like having your leadership team on a level with you so you weren't having to carry the burden on your own two kind of shoulders, sounds like that was really beneficial for you on a personal level and then having that external board as well, your advisory board. I'm very interested to explore a little bit more you said that they had that kind of emotional support, which you kind of get. It's always good to have somebody who's slightly detached from the situation just to kind of hear what you have to say, almost like therapy, I bet.
Trenton Moss:Yeah. Yeah, completely.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah.
Trenton Moss:And then a couple guys in the advisory board ran agencies, very, very large ones are much, much bigger than us. And they would say, we've gone through periods like this. Like it's normal. You just work your way out of it. You come up with a plan and you execute and you just go for it. And, and we did and luckily it worked.
Yiuwin Tsang:That's great. And to the point where you turned the business around that somebody's interested enough to, to take it off your hands. But, just to explore a little bit more, cause the Beautiful Business community and listeners often own businesses or leaders within that business. I guess just to emphasise that again, is that when times are tough I feel, and certainly from personal experience, you beat yourself with a stick. You know, if things aren't going to plan, you as a leader, you take responsibility. You know you are accountable for it. People rely on you to make payroll, to pay the salaries so they can pay their mortgages and things like this? And if things aren't going to plan you, give yourself a hard time over it. Do you feel like having that external outlet almost was important to...
Trenton Moss:Yeah, very much so. Because the thing is, the challenges that you face in your career, those same challenges are faced by every single other person that does your job. So, you know, we spend our days just trying to solve problems, trying to get over humps, trying to move those obstacles out of our way and move things forward. And every other person who's doing a similar job to you faces all of those same challenges, and it can be very isolating when you feel like you're the only one so having that outside. Having a network of people who've been there, done that or who do it is very important. One of the things I did when running my agency was I started a couple of communities for digital leaders within brands. It was a very successful community. It was one of the things we did during that period of loss making to try and get some business. And it really worked. But why these communities were so successful was that the leaders that we brought along, you know, digital leaders within brands, they were also very lonely in their jobs. And they just were dealing with problem after problem day after day. And like, am I the only one with this? And we created these communities and had these round table discussions where, again, for many of them it felt like a bit of therapy. It's like, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one banging my head against a brick wall every day.
Yiuwin Tsang:Good. Really, really good. And just to finish this bit, this little bit off, I do love a good exit story. So tell us a little bit about that phase of when, you know, leading up to your exit and then the bit I'm really interested in is how did you take your team on that journey? Was it really open and transparent all the way through, or was it a kind of a surprise?
Trenton Moss:It was more of a surprise, to be honest. So yeah, basically we had our six months of losses. By the end of that I was, I was done like, it'd been 14 years, so I was a bit tired anyway, have to say. And then like, you know, it's like the straw that broke the camel's back, right? You know, all these losses. But it wasn't like a straw on the camel's back. It was like, let's put a bed of hay and another bed of hay let's really properly break this camel's back. Bail upon bail of hay was getting thrown on me. So, by the end of that, I was like, I just, I'm done. Like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna push on, I'm gonna get us out of this. And then I've got nothing left. I can't do this. And at the same time, an M and A guy that I knew just happened to get in touch and we went out for lunch and I was, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. He's like, well, why don't we go to market? And I was like, I don't know. He's like, look, you've got a great, you've got good brands. Got a good proposition, good stories you know, and good financials apart from the last six months. Just, if we can just get out of this, then, you know, I think we can do something here and yeah, as luck would have it the next month we broke even. All that hard work during those six months started paying off. So big celebration. Me and my leadership team, you know, drinking water, there's no money to buy anything else and then... not exaggerating. For the next eight months, every single month, our revenue increased. Like, like without fail it just went up and up and up and up and maybe like the last three or four months of those were our best revenue ever. And then every month kept beating the previous one. And the final month. So kind of nine months after the, the awful period was our best ever revenue with a very, very healthy profit margin. And the sale went through there and then you know, the sale process took a while, it took many months. So it was, yeah, it was remarkable. It was a remarkable turnaround. We only announced it to the team after it happened, so we didn't tell them before because it could fall apart at any moment. It's like buying a house. Anyone can walk away at any time. And it's the same in the process. You never fully know if it's going to happen and I was very, very nervous about telling the team. Incredibly nervous because, you know, I was like, well, you are just gonna think I'm, I'm a sellout. You joined the business in part because of, I guess, my values and the culture that we've got here. And then you're gonna feel like I'm just, just a sellout. And I remember, again, I got a lot of help with my advisory board on this cuz they were like, don't be ridiculous. You know, you're entitled to do this. Plus what you're doing is creating more opportunity for them in something different. And that was actually true because we were a user experience specialist and we were acquired by, you know, kind an engineering agency. So very, very tech heavy. And it just meant like we became part of something bigger, which meant more opportunities for my guys. And, you know, my guys had always been saying like, oh, we don't work closely enough with engineering to kind of really be around to see the products being built. And it's like, well suddenly that the point of this acquisition is so that the two businesses together can have that joined up proposition. So, after the acquisition happened, no one really left for the first couple of years. Because there was, you know, more opportunity there. So we announced it to the team the day after signing and everyone was like, yeah, okay. You know, we explained why we were doing it and what we felt it brought the business and how having this joined up offering we thought was stronger. People were generally, Yeah, I get it. It makes sense. Yeah. Let's see how this goes.
Yiuwin Tsang:Best intentions. It's that whole kind of,
Trenton Moss:yeah,
Yiuwin Tsang:whole kind of best intentions piece. Must have meant that the message landed as positively as possible. People thinking, oh, you know, Trenton's not gonna stitch us up. There'll always be best intentions at heart. So I imagine that must have just meant Yeah. perhaps the reason to be nervous wasn't so big.
Trenton Moss:Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that stops people potentially going ahead and, you know, trying to maybe sell their own business. I think there's three things actually. The first is the fear of what people are gonna think of me. Are they all gonna hate me? Are they all gonna think I'm selling out? And that didn't happen. Like my leadership team were really excited by the whole thing. They had a small amount of equity, but they were really, really excited about it. And the business as well were generally happy, like I said, so that fear of what people will think that was unfounded. But I think there's two other fears that, that we have as, as business leaders from from doing this. I think the second fear is, what am I gonna do next? Like if I do sell this business, I don't know am I gonna go work for someone else like. Like, because when you're in it, when you're running a business that you, you are all in. It's, it's extremely difficult, I think to have an idea for another business that you are ready to execute. So I'll leave this one. I'll go and do that. I think that's extremely hard so I think it's the fear of what people think, the fear of what I'm gonna do next. But then I think also the fear of what if no one wants to buy us? So when you're running a business, you've always got in the back of your mind. Yeah. You know, one day I'll, I'll maybe sell, but you never actually do anything about it, right? Maybe one day someone will come along with a massive offer and it will all be good. That just never happens, right? That's not reality. The reality is if you want it to happen, you have to go out and make it happen. If you go through that process, like I went through and, you know, speaking to lots of different businesses, getting offers in, going down to like you know, final offers and all of that stuff. At any time that could have fallen apart at any time. It could have not happened and I could have been left with, well, no one wants to buy us and I'm stuck here forever. And that pipe dream that I always have at the back of my mind that one day we'll sell. Knowing that that's put out and that's not gonna happen. I think that would be very hard. And I think that's another fear that that stops us doing it. And I know that as we got through the process of being acquired, when it got towards the end, I remember thinking to myself, you know, cuz they could have walked away anytime. I remember thinking to myself, if this doesn't happen, if this doesn't go ahead, I, I'm not sure I can come back from that. I really was like, I, I can't just go back to running the business. I can't, I, I'm done. So
Yiuwin Tsang:how interesting.
Trenton Moss:There's lots of things, yeah. Lots of things that hold you back from selling, but luckily, fortunately for me it did go ahead.
Yiuwin Tsang:That is really good
Trenton Moss:It worked out well in the end
Yiuwin Tsang:Again comes back that, that moment that you said where you kind of sat down and thought, I can't do this. I'm done. I'm knackered. You know, I'm spent .That was your foot out the door in many senses, isn't it? And as you say, once your foot is out the door, it's hard to come back in again. Nigh on impossible to come back in again.
Trenton Moss:Yeah. Yeah. Once you've got the, the shiny thing there that, that could happen, going back to where you were, it's very hard.
Yiuwin Tsang:But I think the key thing to take away and to finish up on is that that point that you madethere, Trenton, about, you know, if you want it to happen, if you want this thing to go, that you do have to get up and go for it. You do need to make it happen. It doesn't, it won't happen by itself.
Trenton Moss:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Thank you to Trenton Moss from Team Sterka for sharing that wonderful advice, sharing those stories and being so candid in telling them.