Phil Jones Mentor Interview

Phil Jones Mentor Interview

Phil Jones Mentor Interview

When did you start mentoring and how does it work?
 
I started the mentoring and non-exec roles in July 2004, I had a six month sabbatical after I left work and that culminated with a month of football in Portugal for Euro 2004.
In hindsight I wish that I had access to somebody who was impartial when I was running my own business and my partners and I had to make life changing decisions on a regular basis. Our houses were security for our business for 11 years and the only people we could rely on for advice was ourselves.
In my opinion I think it works best when the mentor/non-exec has no personal financial interest in the company. On more than one occasion I have been offered shares in the companies I work with and decided against it. I like the fact that whatever question is thrown at me I can answer it honestly and without factoring in personal gain. It doesn't mean I always get it right but more often than not I probably do.
It's a strange situation but for a non-exec success often means losing my job. If I help a business strengthen its board then sometimes that is inevitably at my expense. The FD I hired for one of my companies a year ago told the board they couldn't afford a non-exec so I left that company in December 2010. I should have been pissed off but actually I felt the opposite, I lef them with a strong board and they didn't need me. For a digital agency,  I found them a buyer and took them through a two year earn-out that merged them into the parent group.  That became another fond bye bye for all the right reasons. I think its quite funny.
Where did you work before?
I started a typesetting studio (called APT) with two very good mates back in 1979 and we built it to 100 staff before selling it to an advertising agency on a 3 year earn out between 1987 and 1990. I decided on a change of career and took over as MD of a small studio called Real Time Studio in 1991 before the advent of digital and ended up building one of the UK's first digital agencies working with clients like Diesel, Canon and Accenture and creating identities for UK Sport, UK Athletics and the FA's 2006 world cup bid. We merged Real Time with a top 5 DM agency Evans Hunt Scott to become ehsrealtime and two years later with another DM agency to become EHS Brann. When I joined in 1991 I inherited 10 staff and when I retired it was well over 300. The creatives nicknamed me chairman of vice because along the way I had acquired the vice chairman and operations director title. Big agencies throw up some silly job titles.
From where do you get your love of the creative industry?
That's an interesting question really because many of the people I have hired and worked with in my career are not creative in the traditional sense. I think many people who don't work in the creative industry have creative ideas all the time but are never given the opportunity to bring them to life. I did a 5-year apprenticeship in a printing company in Manchester and it was probably the least creative environment you could ever imagine. But for some strange reason it inspired me to write a book of song lyrics and I put together a book of 30 of them called Inside Looking Out. It coincided with the great Bernie Taupin, Al Stewart, Dory Previn etc writing inspiring lyrics and I decided to move to London to try my luck as a songwriter. I teamed up with a musician named Dave Cooke and we hit Tin Pan Alley hoping to make it big. Despite failing to make it big in the music industry it did get me out of my comfort zone and to move to London and that changed my life forever.
How do you balance work/life?
As they say in football parlance, it's definitely been a game of two halves. The first half was heavily weighted in favour of work. In the eighties it was 12 hour days for as long as I can remember and in the nineties my wife and I lived apart during the week in order that I could focus on building Real Time and our kids could be closer to grandparents in case everything went t s up and we needed to downsize quickly, there was a nasty recession at the time. It was a one year experiment that lasted 13 years. Once the kids had started school in the Lincolnshire countryside there was no bringing them back to London and the success of Real Time dictated I spend more time at work during the week. The first half seemed to last forever.
But the second half started on January 1st 2004 when my lovely wife Babs and I decided to change everything. I gave up my full time job with no job to go to, our daughter was leaving Liverpool University and our son was on his way to Nottingham University, we sold our beautiful old rectory in Lincolnshire, shipped the furniture over to our villa in Portugal and rented a big house in Fulham for a year while we planned our tactics for the second half.  It was the best thing we ever did and I can honestly say that the noughties have been the most enjoyable time of my career. The balance is now 80% family 20% work and its great.
 
How is the business structured?
Real Time Consultancy has a simple structure, me and mrs jones. I am MD and Babs is my company secretary. Working for a selection of small and large businesses in London, Manchester and Liverpool requires an enormous amount of organization and forward planning and in between working for businesses I organize my own non-profit events which help me bring the design, digital and sports communities together annually.
www.podgelunch.com is 17 years old for the design community. www.digitalpodge.co.uk; 8 years old for the digital community and www.sportspodge.co.uk which is six years old for the sports community. The Manchester version is starting in Feb 2011, we are calling it The Stodge Lunch. Each lunch has a different design theme and has 200 guests who split the bill between them.
They are great fun but take a lot of organization. I have a little A team who help me and they include Babs, my daughter Clare and my son PJ.
 
What is special about your work/company?
Well having worked such silly hours for 25 years or more its great to be able to pick and choose when to work and who I want to work with. It's also a great feeling when I walk into one of the businesses I work with and everyone is genuinely pleased to see me. If you are only with people one or two days a month it's very different to walking into a company every day of the week. Regardless of how good a person is they eventually end up being taken for granted. In my last few years at work board meetings for me became a chore and now they are back to being lively and fun.
What has been your best move at the company?
Well to start with the name itself, Real Time. I think the URL www.realtime.co.uk is very much of the moment so I was pleased I was able to take that over to my own business in 2004. And being able to work with my family every day of the week is my greatest pleasure.
And your worst mistake?
Not starting my own consultancy two years earlier when ehsrealtime became EHS Brann and the name Real Time was dropped from the name. It never felt quite the same to me after that.
What do you most enjoy about your work?
First the people & second the freedom. I genuinely love meeting people and making introductions and in my current role that takes up a large percentage of my time. Every day is different with new challenges. Having the freedom to be able to decide who I work with and for how long is my greatest pleasure. In full time employment its very difficult to choose who you work with and turning up at the same place 5 days a week is a distant memory to me.
Who are the key people around you that contribute to your work?
Well in my business life the key people around me are the owners of the businesses I work with. They range from design and digital agencies to IP lawyers, Auto networks, fashion photographers and Animation specialists. They are the people who pay me and allow me to do the things I do for fun. And that's where the family unit step in to help me organize all my peer to peer lunches.
 
Current trends in the industry?
Partnering and collaboration is most certainly back on the menu. In the eighties I made all my money by working as a supplier to advertising agencies and design companies who outsourced a lot of work to trusted partners like my company APT. With the advent of the apple mac they took it all in-house in the nineties and then they did the same with digital in the noughties. I think that is all changing now and the larger agency groups are outsourcing much more to specialist companies who they can trust to deliver rather than employing the staff and worrying about the constant battle to stay ahead of the technological changes.
Another trend for many of the creative businesses I work with is to open overseas offices. The opportunities for UK businesses overseas continues to offer great opportunities.
What are your ambitions for the future?
All my ambitions revolve around my immediate and extended family and my mates. I love to see smiles on people's faces and it gives me the greatest pleasure when those around me (at home and at work) are in good spirits and enjoying life. I love it when I hear my wife or my son whistling. It sounds stupid but just hearing people around me laughing out loud or having a little skip in their stride makes me feel good. Listening to my daughter on the telephone telling her grandma she has just been promoted or hearing my son pick up the phone and speak in Spanish or seeing both my sisters becoming proud grandparents.
If you were not doing this what would you be doing?
Well, when I watch the way an outstanding football manager like Alex Ferguson deals with the people below, around and above him, cutting through all the political bullshit, dealing with greedy agents, the press, the ego's of the players, never losing that winning mentality and keeping a twinkle in the eye I would quite like his job. I just wouldn't like to be the one who took that particular job immediately after he retires. If my life so far is a game of two halves I might leave that one for extra time.