Member Article

What's it like to be an entrepreneur?

It’s entrepreneurship week on Bdaily. Gavin Murray, one of the founders of £15m turnover haulage specialist Grampian Continental, gives us an insight into his experience of being an entrepreneur.

“I’m hesitant to use the word entrepreneur to describe myself. I just always knew I wanted to run my own business right from the moment I left school at 16, keen to get out into the world and earn a living.

I went straight into a job at a haulage and logistics firm and moved through a variety of roles, learning about business from the ground up. In 2009 I took the plunge with two business partners and we set up Grampian Continental, a haulage company specialising in the oil, gas and energy sector.

I’m sure some folk thought we were mad since the UK was in the grip of a recession, but we were confident that with a collective 50 years’ experience and a firm belief that we could provide exceptional customer service at honest prices, there was a real gap in the market for our services.

Four years on, Grampian is now a £15m turnover business and we plan to hit £20m by 2015. More than 500 customers are serviced by our fleet of 120 trucks and trailers from bases in Northumberland, Aberdeen, Great Yarmouth, Holland and Italy, and we were delighted to win the 2012 Scottish European Haulier of the Year award.

College or university is not for everyone, and people who don’t take that route can still be very successful in business – just look at Sir Alan Sugar and haulage boss Hilary Devey, for example. If you have confidence in your idea, the tenacity to see it through, and the ability to deal with setbacks then you are part-way there.

I do think you need a certain stubbornness and mindset to be an entrepreneur though. My personal bugbear is being told something can’t be done – it just makes me more determined to find a way through.

And you also have to be realistic about the amount of risk you will be facing. All business is risky, so if you can’t cope with that then running your own show is probably not for you.

A lot of business is a juggling act, with numbers at the centre. For instance in our business, fuel accounts for a quarter of our costs and it fluctuates daily. When oil prices are high our oil and gas clients are busy, which is great for business but we pay for that at the pumps. We also have a lot of standing costs, such as an operator’s licence, insurance, and continuous training to meet quality and environmental standards and certifications, particularly if you are handling hazardous loads as we do on a daily basis. I’ve found the best approach is to assess the risks, then minimise them and always, always stay on top of the figures.

One of the great pieces of advice I was given when we started out was to hire good people and let them get on with it. You will have plenty to do without looking over their shoulder.

Another is to surround yourself with people you can use as sounding boards, but then weigh up all the advice and make your own decision. Sometimes you have to trust your gut instinct, and there is no shame in changing direction slightly if that’s what it takes.

Succeeding is really just about doing it better than everyone else. For instance we were early adopters of satellite tracking and automated track and trace systems so we can see at a glance where every customer load is in real time. Our customers appreciated that, and it prompted our competitors into playing catch up.

We have experienced huge growth in the four years since we established the business – in fact we are around five years ahead of our business plan - but our ethos will never change. Grampian will always be big enough to meet all of our customers’ needs, but small enough to care.

And that’s one of the secrets to successful entrepreneurship.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Grampian Continental .