The stunned silence was deafening.
I was gathered with 20 of my colleagues in one of our meeting rooms at work. It was hot and stifling.
“And we will be closing our doors with immediate effect,” continued our MD, as he confirmed that the business that I had worked for, for over 10 years, had gone bust.
Now the silence was broken by a few cries of anguish, everyone started looking at each other, and then started talking at once, looking for answers.
What made this worse was that the announcement was being made at the end of a wet and windy month in the autumn of 2007, and there were no wages.
Not only had I worked the whole month for nothing, but I was also hundreds of pounds out of pocket due to expenses I had incurred while out on company business.
So I was down a large sum on money but still had a mortgage to pay, electricity bill, council tax…
I also needed to ‘put food on the table’ for my family. I had responsibilities.
“Bloody hell.” This was a scary and unknown situation for me.
To say that the next month was stressful is an understatement. It was a whirlwind of activity as I literally fought for survival.
Had I stopped to think about the consequences of what had just happened then I think I would have given up. As Sir Alex Ferguson used to say during times of stress on the football field, it was well and truly ‘squeaky bum time’!
But I was so busy trying to get some money together to support my family that I barely had time to think about the stress. For me not to be able to support my family was a horror story I was not willing to contemplate.
So I scrapped and scraped around and got through the ordeal with the support of my amazing wife, Annabel.
I managed to earn some money and keep the ‘wolf from the door’. And while I was doing this, I set up my first business, a creative design agency, with one of my colleagues.
That was back in 2007 and as it turns out, things have worked out really well.
Looking back, perhaps I was getting a little lethargic in my old role and this was a really good kick up the backside. And the excitement of setting up a new business was addictive – I seemed to thrive under the pressure, and I learnt a lot commercially and about myself.
Sure the business has been through its ups and downs over the years and been through various transitions. Indeed, there have been several big challenges along the way. But at all times I have been in charge of what happens.
And this is the main lesson I have learnt from this experience: to never be in the situation again when someone else was in charge of my destiny.
I never particularly saw myself running my own business but now I do, I have my own future, and that of my family’s, in my own hands.
So success (or failure) is down to me and has been for the last 15 years. But that’s just the way I want it.
And my experience (I have quite a few grey beard hairs now) has undoubtably helped me to help my clients. I understand the need for marketing to work if a business is to succeed, the benefits it can deliver to its owners, its team, the stakeholders and wider community. And that if they do well then so do I.
And this is at the heart of everything I do.