An audience with Peter Jones

As part of the BT Business Experience, a select group of entrepreneurs were invited to a Q&A session featuring Dragons’ Den panellist Peter Jones. BusinessZone.co.uk editor Dan Martin managed to secure a last-minute seat and in the article below he outlines the highlights of the session.

It wasn’t that long ago that an event featuring an entrepreneur would have attracted little attention but driven by the likes of The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den, successful business owners are nowadays as high profile as rock stars and premiership footballers.

So when BT offered small business owners the chance to attend an intimate Q&A session with Dragons’ Den millionaire Peter Jones on the panel, the company was inundated with responses.

Ever the journalist, I managed to blag a spare seat and recorded the highlights of Jones’ words of wisdom.

The feminine touch

Questioned by a female entrepreneur, Jones congratulated her for going it alone.

“Forgive me for saying it,” he added, “but you’re in a minority. We don’t just want more female entrepreneurs, we desperately need them. If we had the same number of females going into business in the UK as in the US, we’d have 800,000 more companies. I find that astounding.”

Jones said efforts are being made to boost female entrepreneurship by organisations such as Enterprise Insight, which he chairs. He urged the entrepreneur asking the question to drop him a line and I’d advise any other female business owners reading this to do the same.

Letting go

Starting and running your own business can an emotional experience. Setting something up from scratch and seeing it grow is hugely rewarding and many view their business like a child. But because of that, it can sometimes be hard to let go of control of certain elements even if it impinges on company growth.

An entrepreneur in that very situation asked Peter Jones for advice. He told her to step back and “train the trainer”.

Admitting he has been prone to micro-managing in the past, Jones advised: “Instead of training people to do a job that still requires having you around, I’d look at replacement; how do you train people to do what you do and how do you train them to train someone else to do what you do?”

He had a (slightly touch in cheek) warning though: “I trained four directors over three years. A few years later they had all left to set up their own businesses and are now multi-millionaires. When you train the trainer, I’d get them under some sort of serious contract so you can get something back for your efforts!”

Continue the interview here.