10 minute read
Spotlight on Christina Robinson
Christina Robinson of Green Umbrella Marketing shares some insights into her management buyout of the company and her journey since then.
It’s an interesting journey in terms of how you became the boss of Green Umbrella. It might be quite useful for those that might be an employee in a business or thinking about buying a business. You’ve obviously gone through that experience, so what was it like for you? What are some of the top tips you’d give anybody that was looking to maybe buy a business from a previous owner?
I’d worked with the previous owner for a number of years and we’d got quite a close working relationship, so it was very difficult to draw a line between the emotional and the commercial. That’s something you really need to consider if you’re looking to go through a management buyout scenario.
A mistake I initially made was that because I knew the business so intricately, when I was looking at the figures I was very much ‘I know this is going to happen’ and ‘I know that’s going to happen’ and ‘I know the other’s going to happen’.
Your purchasing decision is not made in the same way when you’re buying a business from within. You’ve got to be able to go to someone that doesn’t know the business in the same way you do and present them with the figures because essentially, the only thing you should be going on is what’s happened to date - not what you believe is going to happen in the future.
If you were buying any other business that’s how you’d be thinking. But, for me, in an MBO situation you get hooked in. Depending on which part of the relationship you are (whether you’re buying or whether you’re selling) you’ll see the value of the business in a very different way.
At what point on that journey did you realise that you were going to buy the business?
I came into the business as a freelancer initially. Within a very short space of time I became a full-time employee, very dedicated to the business and buying it was just not on the cards. I never imagined myself as a business owner. I was having a conversation with the previous owner and she explained that if she were to ever sell , she wanted to sell it internally and asked if that was something I would ever be interested in. At the time I went yeah sure! But in my head I was thinking that’s never going to happen, it’s a long way off! I was absolutely flattered by the question.
A couple of years passed and the business grew. My role continued to increase in terms of the function that I served and I was very much involved in decision-making. All of a sudden, that gap that I’d felt when buying the business was first mentioned, became really, really tiny. The previous business owner had found another passion and was spending more and more time out of the business - which is a fantastic thing to be able to do when you’re a business owner. But the more she was doing that, the more I was doing the day-to-day running of the business and thinking more strategically. It got to a point where I thought if I’m going to buy this business, it’s now or never!
It must’ve been a range of emotions going through that - was there a conscious mindset change from you going from employee to employer?
My mindset had changed already. We got to a situation where, from my perspective, a decision would need to be made and I’d be waiting for her to make it and she’d be waiting for me to make it! I think that’s where it got a bit tricky and that’s why I started to feel like I already was the business owner. Only it wasn’t my business - that was the crunch point, it just felt like a rite of passage. To be honest I’m not a risk taker, buying the business was a natural next step. I didn’t feel any anxiety apart from the day I drove over to where we were meeting to sign all the paperwork. I parked the car, turned off the engine, went to open the door and I just felt the reality of the situation come over me. There were a few choice words - I thought who am I to do this? I probably sat there for a good five minutes or so and then realised there’s no going back now!
You have mentors/coaches for your business. Was that something that you took on when you took over the business or did you have external influences before?
My approach to this was very much about me rather than the business if I’m honest. What leader do I want to be? What kind of business owner? What kind of entrepreneur? Where did I feel the gaps were in my knowledge, or where did I feel my risks were? I put myself in the position of an employee and thought “Christina’s coming in as the business owner, where would my concerns be?”. I then went and found mentors that would help me get over those ‘gaps’.
I’m not a natural salesperson when it comes to business. I didn’t go to business school. I haven’t got a business degree. I’ve never studied entrepreneurship. When it comes to reading business books, I’ve only really done that for the last three years. So I felt from a business education
perspective, it was almost like I was functioning at a level but had zero foundations! So what I needed was someone that would have the conversations with me and call me out on the stuff I didn’t know, rather than assuming that I knew things.
Any business would value from a business mentor. You’re buying a friend and it’s as simple as that. It’s really frigging lonely trying to make decisions. I don’t think it matters whether it’s just you and your business, if you’ve got a team, if you’re working with contractors, freelancers or whatever. When you have to make the difficult decisions it’s lonely - and it’s all on you. When you’ve got to start making plans, even when they’re exciting plans - who are you going to talk to?
When you buy in, what you’re actually buying is someone you can share all this stuff with because you trust them, you’re like-minded and you’ve got similar interests. I remember a day when I’d dropped the ball on something, got really frustrated with myself and then couldn’t get out of that negative head space. I literally sent my mentor a voice note saying you don’t need to respond but I just need to get this out of my system - I just needed to put it somewhere! It’s that ear to bend or shoulder to cry on when needed!
As an organisation, you share a hell of a lot of information. You’ve got videos, you’ve got eBooks, you’ve got regular webinars that you do. Some people say don’t do that - that’s my company’s intellectual property. That’s what I’m selling. That’s what people are going to be buying. What are your thoughts on that?
Give it all away! Why not? If I can educate as many people as possible in what we do, then the reason for sharing all this stuff is that they’ll hopefully use us at some time. I
always say we help people who lack the time, the enthusiasm or the courage when it comes to their online marketing. If I can educate you in everything you need to do, you’re going to come back to me when you’ve realised how much time it takes, and that it’s possibly not the best use of your time in your business.
Some people get some really fantastic ideas of what to put on social media or what to blog about - but actually hitting that publish button? That’s the bit they struggle with. The more I can put out there and the more I can make it easy for people - the better! The reality is, it honestly doesn’t matter what you’re selling. If you’re not providing that answer, people are just going to Google it and get the answer from someone else anyway. Why not let them get the answer from you?
Build trust with you and then, when they’ve got that money in their back pocket, when they can actually pay to have it done rather than struggling to do it themselves - where else are they going to go? You fairly recently launched a podcast - what was your thinking and idea behind that?
‘Christina Talks’ launched at the end of August 2020 because I’ve been privileged to have the experience that I have. We’ve talked about mentors, but the reality is I was someone that didn’t really have a lot of self-confidence. I was constantly pulling out that line of “fake it, until you make it”. There have been a lot of people who saw things in me that I could do, and be. So having met people that are my cheerleaders, people that have really inspired me, people that really make me think and ask questions of myself as well as the business - the idea was for the podcast to really be a reflection of that.
In reality, the podcast is very much about all the little things that have happened. For example, where I felt exceptionally lonely as a business owner even though I’d been surrounded by people - it’s actually just voicing some of that stuff. Having conversations with people that have helped me overcome issues or have been the inspiration to make me ask the questions I’ve needed to ask. There’s a little bit of marketing in there of course, (because I’m always tuned into the marketing stuff) but the podcast is more about me - in fact it’s all about me! It’s not about Green Umbrella and it’s not about digital marketing, it’s just a slightly different insight.
One last question - what’s the biggest challenge that you’ve faced being in business and how did you overcome that?
The biggest challenge is probably saying no to people. There are things you have to say no to sometimes even though you really want to do them. There are opportunities I’ve turned down because what I needed to put in from an effort and time perspective wasn’t going to be worth the reward.
Equally, there have been people that have wanted to come and use our services that I know we can’t deliver for because of what they’re selling or the way their business works. Maybe I just
didn’t gel particularly well with that business owner and I just couldn’t see that we would ever be able to gel - maybe I didn’t believe in their business. Even in that situation, it’s really hard to say no to someone and turn that business away. Especially when things are tight and everyone’s looking to protect our bottom lines - we’ve got to have the revenue!
If you were to give one top tip for a business owner, what would that be?
Don’t be alone - Don’t think you have to know everything. I think people expect you to have all the answers and actually most of us don’t. The more you talk to other people, the more you go out and say “this things come up and I don’t know what to do” - the more you’ll realise that there are very few business owners out there who do have all the answers. What you’ll find by asking those questions is that you’re able to surround yourself with a circle of accountability, whether that’s a formal relationship with a mentor or informal relationships you build with your peers.
Being honest about the fact that you don’t have all the answers, asking those questions and reaching out to people that might have the answers you end up having a solid foundation and getting into a scenario where you’re not alone and find that you’ve got a choice of people to reach out to.
Watch the interview
This is an edited version of the video interview – for the full version and even more insights into Christina, visit here: https://youtu.be/MItBkpft1tw.
