About Tim Addison
By the time Tim was in his early thirties he had already amassed a multi-million pound fortune from his entrepreneurial activities. Unlike many young millionaires, his wealth was not generated by the sale of just one business, property developing or setting up a dot-com. Instead from the age of just seventeen, Tim has successfully setup, built and sold three business's.
For this reason, it is evident that his success has not happened by fluke, he is no 'one hit wonder' or 'flash in the pan'; Tim is a true entrepreneur.
“I do not recall exactly when I developed the entrepreneurial bug, I guess it was due to not wanting people to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. In essence I wanted to be the master of my own destiny. It started out wanting to earn more money and have more free time but now it’s a passion and I love it!”
Tim played around with a few business ideas whilst in his teens, but his major breakthrough came when he was just 17 and studying for A-levels.
“I was 17 when I was involved in my first successful business. I went door-to-door selling knife, scissor and blade sharpening. I was selling the service to hotels, restaurants, hairdressers, homes and anywhere that had an edge that might need sharpening.
Within a few years the business was taken over and franchised out throughout the UK while I was reading Business at university.”
After Tim graduated, he went onto study law whilst being involved in a number of other business ventures which included writing a couple of business start-up books for two International publishers.
“At this point in my life I had a change of mind. My father always had numerous businesses on the go but there was constant risk and uncertainty. Even though he was very successful, I saw the bad times he had and decided I wanted a stable job.”
Tim went into finance for a major city investment bank for 3 years, and was responsible for 80 high earning City traders.
“I had real fun working in the city but I guess the entrepreneurial spirit got the better of me. I was bored and did not enjoy working in finance, so I got out of it.”
After a few months of testing new business ideas, Tim found one that he both enjoyed and felt had definite potential. This was in the IT training and recruitment industry. He dived straight in, setting it up on a shoe-string budget whilst also doing a marketing MBA. Tim grew the business very quickly and after a few years had the opportunity to sell it, which he did.
Tim wasted no time in moving onto the next project which was in the construction training and publishing arena. For the last 5 years this business has been one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. In 2007 Tim decided to sell the business and concentrate more on his investments and new business interests.
“The business grew a lot faster than we predicted – we really nailed the Internet for marketing and this gave us a huge competitive advantage. We literally entered the market place with nothing and become a main player within 18 months.
Eventually the time came when it was right to sell some equity and take a back seat. I am now focusing on new business concerns including BIG Strategies and several investments.”
Link to Fast Track 100:
http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack/leagues/dbDetails.asp?siteID=1&compID=2465&yr=2008
Link to University work:
http://www.solent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/marketing_management_pgdip_ma/contributors.aspx
About Chris Addison
Chris’ love for all things marketing started at the age of 15 when he was introduced to the ‘American Way’ of marketing and selling. At the time Chris’ father was replicating his successful UK franchise in the US and Chris was drafted in for cheap labour.
“I remember dad bringing an Apple Mac back from the States, being propped down in front of it with a user manual and told to figure it and produce a range of brochures, sales letters, presenters and alike. The whole strategy behind the marketing collateral my dad asked me to reproduce fascinated me. I really wanted to understand how you could get someone to part with $45,000”
By the time Chris was 16 the Internet was just being made available to homes across the UK, coming from an entrepreneurial family the Addison’s got straight into it.
“Tim bought one of the first courses available in the UK on how to design a Web site and passed it over to me. I scrapped homework and revision and spent most evenings and weekends figuring the whole Internet thing out.”
At 17, whilst doing his A-levels Chris was charging thousands of pounds for designing Web sites and implementing Internet marketing strategies for all kinds of businesses.
“I was good at the marketing side of everything I did back then, but I couldn’t program or build good Web sites. They worked well from a marketing perspective, but they really sucked in every other way.”
Chris was frustrated that he couldn’t do the more technical things, and thus decided he was going to study for an IT related degree at university.
“I spent a few years thinking that I wanted to be some kind of IT or Internet boffin, but after a few years I realised it bored me and I just didn’t have the right kind of mind for it.”
So Chris was soon back doing what he loved, marketing. During university he helped Tim and several clients with their various business interests.
After university Chris was still plying his trade as a marketing consultant and had involvement with a number of other projects.
“When I finished uni Tim was just in the early stages launching a new business, so I got on board with that and helped in everyway I could. We spent about 10 months locked in an underground office, nick named 'The Dungeon', whilst Tim’s business partner was out on the road selling.
Over the last few years Chris has still actively been consulting, but a lot of his time is spent developing his own concerns and working with Tim on new projects.
A large part of Chris’s spare time is spent studying successful company’s sales and marketing strategies and figuring out how he can adopt and improve them. He also has a huge love for psychology and the role it plays in business and marketing. With out question, Chris is a ‘marketing geek’.
“In 2010 we have all kinds of things going on. As far as BIG Strategies goes, there are big plans for this business. We really want to actively start helping more small and medium sized businesses with marketing and business growth. This is something we have wanted to do for a number of years but the time was never right, it is now.”
About BIG Strategies
BIG (Business Innovation & Growth) Strategies provides marketing consultancy, strategic alliances and a free marketing resource. With many new ventures planned for 2010 please make sure you are a member of The BIG Marketing Club to be the first to know.
The BIG Strategies are a compendium of time tested, proven, Plug 'n' Play strategies and tactics that all businesses can adopt and apply for serious fast growth. If used correctly these Business Innovation & Growth Strategies have the power to completely transform a business and the marketplace.
