Lewis Taylor is one of my favourite artists. He will not be known to many, given his comparative obscurity. After a difficult musical career where he was unable to break into the mainstream he retired from music.

However in his career spanning about a decade he can claim to have some very high profile fans like Sir Elton John, David Bowie & Paul Weller . Robbie Williams also covered his song Lovelight .

He can also claim Beverley Knight as a fan as, during the promotion for her new album she has cited Taylor as a huge influence in her career.

Her cover of Damn is very good, she has a very soulful voice and injects a lot of passion into her version.

The Original: Lewis Taylor

The Cover: Beverley Knight

Ok, so an odd title for a business blog, or so you might think…

I thought that I would share this as I have just written it in a note for a board meeting where our MD is proposing his expansion plans for the coming year.

It is a startup business and the proposal is to increase headcount by 4-6 in Q1. This in itself isn’t odd however what so many new start businesses forget is the hidden costs of staff.

In this case:

Bodies
You have the recruitment costs. The salary, the NI & any other benefits (i’ll assume that you have worked these into your plan)
But have you factored in they are going to need:
A computer – Circa £800 with software
A telephone, extension & line – £80 a month??

Bum
Don’t worry i’m not talking about the extra loo paper or anything, but where are the new staff members going to sit & work?
Desk – £200
Chair – £80 at the least

Plus is there enough office space for this desk? If not has this been taken into consideration? That could cost £1,000, possible even £10,000′s
If you are in a serviced office there will be a standard cost per desk/user of around £150 in London.

So ask yourself this:
Do you need to see your staff?
Do they need to be office based?

Most importantly ask the question:
Do I need a human to do this, or is there a technology answer?
A lot of the time the answer will be no, but still ask the question and don’t forget if you are able to add an extra process or system or bespoke application to your business without increasing your head count and cost base then you have most probably increased your sale multiple on exit.

I flew with Virgin today for the first time. I am lucky, if one can deem it luck, to fly a fair bit each year. This year I have been shown that the exits are: ‘here, here, and here’ on board United, American, Swissair, Air Canada, easyjet, Ryanair and BA planes. Plus, thanks to a friend, a twelve seater private jet to watch an amazing Tottenham team against the European Champions at the San Siro in Milan.

All of these flights, apart from the private jet, were at the same level (well maybe not the EasyJet or Ryanair ones). They all largely had the same levels of comfort, space, food etc.

When we all think of Virgin we automatically think of Sir Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur who poll after poll place him top of the most influential Business leader survey, or, the person that everyone regards as the best business leader in the UK, and who kids leaving school want to be.

Branson, through his numerous activities and PR stunts drives sales, that is why they came about in the first place. They are, after all, a hugely cost effective way of gaining column inches. However, sales are one thing, creating a culture, and a culture which becomes infectious is entirely another.

Virgin, even though they are celebrating a milestone birthday this year, is still one of the new kids on the block. They aren’t the British flag carrier airline, although I’m not sure if even BA are allowed to state that claim anymore. Virgin is equally a multi-million pound company employing tens of thousands of people across the world.

So why do Virgin staff act like it is Their Airline? Wasn’t the airline that everyone wanted to work for, and took pride in wearing it’s uniform BA?

The thing is Virgin cabin crew actually care. When they introduced themselves there was a warmth and depth of care you get from a passionate small business owner or employee and hardly ever from workers of large companies, be they airlines or supermarkets.

The Virgin staff used words and phrases like; our excellent service today. When they asked passengers to complete a survey about their experience on board, they added in a bit about about how ‘they’ are just in the process of making a huge investment in new planes and want to make sure that they had the right seats and sound and vision systems. Other cabin staff, quite frankly couldn’t care if you completed the survey or not, they probably privately think that no one ‘reads the damn things anyway’.

This is the sort of group thinking that good collaborative small and medium sized businesses have. However, they are nearly always lost when that company and it’s staffing numbers rises.

I’m not sure what Branson and the Virgin Airways management team teaches, but virtually every big businesses needs to learn from them!