Chartered Marketer, Member Chartered Institute of Marketing
Hi, welcome to the about me page, I just want to share a little bit more about who I am and what I do, just so you can get to know me a bit more.
I started my career working at an engineering firm based in Hull who built vegetable oil extraction machinery for overseas clients, my role was in the marketing department, putting together material so the sales team could sell the plants – some of these clients were worth several million dollars in business so the presentations had to be of a good quality.
I didn’t know much about vegetable oil extraction but what I did know was how to put together an interactive marketing CD that could be used to show how our equipment was better than anyone else’s.
Eventually all good things must come to an end and after the company was bought by a much larger American firm they decided that they wanted to move all the marketing duties to America.
So I moved on and indulged in my love of cars and especially fixing them – I became the owner of a garage!
This was not the qualified success I hoped it would be,
although my marketing skills were great my skills at running a business at that point in my life were not so good and with regret I had to let it go, but I had learnt some very valuable lessons that would come in useful in my later ventures.
But this was the start of a new era for me, I was 24 and I had got a taste of working for myself and the rewards that come with this. And I was looking forward to learning more and embarking on my next venture.
But the next few years were not a great for me, my relationship with my wife went downhill and eventually ended in divorce and inevitably I lost everything that I had built up over the last few years, my house, my car and all my money.
I ended up working for a courier firm, earning just enough to keep myself afloat and slowly I started building myself back up.
During this time I also learnt a lot about self-reliance and being able to plan things out (just goes to show no matter what job you are in there are always skills to be learnt).
I also thought about my future and what I wanted to do.
Then,
My good friend and one of my current business partners approached me with an idea.
He had recently got involved with a firm who did financial claims. We did our market research in to the area and saw that there was a growing market and we could take advantage of this, we launched the company focusing on unenforceable contracts.
Little did we know that the market would die very quickly on the back of the market leader collapsing and several high profile court cases.
But all was not lost, the key to survival is adaptability,
so we re-branded and re-launched the business now looking at Payment Protection Insurance and Personal Injury Claims – this is what would become Claims Review.
At the same time there was an opportunity to be able to help our clients with their financial difficulties and we launched Money Help, a debt management company.
Whilst we were setting these up we also identified a need to have an internal IT system and after finishing our own internal systems the team became SME IT Services.
In the short space of 3 years I had overseen the successful launch of 3 companies which now run and serve their respective markets very well.
Luckily for me, the systems I had put in place for automation and outsourcing the work for my companies, now allow me to share the knowledge I built up and help new or struggling businesses turn around their fortunes or get on the road to making their own success.
After meeting Daniel Wagner and Rob Moore (of Progressive Property) I realised that the skills I had learnt throughout my career could be applied to coaching people, to help them achieve the same results that I have.
After spending many months learning, investing in and working with coaches, including Tony Robbins, Chet Holmes, Dan Bradbury and Daniel Wagner, I started consulting with clients on a 1 to 1 basis and found that the people who invested time and money into my methods soon achieved the successes that I did.
I was lucky enough to become a proud father to my little girl Evelyn, at the same time Rick and I undertook the launch of what is now our flagship company, Forbes Burton (we eventually folded Money Help and Claims Review into Forbes Burton), and I started my own marketing agency LeadGrow (update May 2017 – LeadGrow has been transferred into the ownership of another agency), these have since grown hugely and continue to keep me working hard!
If you would like to know more be sure to follow me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, the links are below.
To your success,
Chris
P.S Below is an extract from an interview I gave to a local social enterprise company, CPO Media, I was interviewed by Craig Lock one of the students there.
As part of the Enterprise course we interviewed Chris Leadley a local entrepreneur on his views on business and the business world. We also talked a little on his personal life, before and after he became a business man. Below is the interview with the founder of Claims Review.
Interview
- Q) What Jobs have you had in the past?
- A) At one point he was unemployed.
Chris took on a paper route at a young age for the reasons of: earning a little extra pocket money for himself, the drive he had to succeed at any task given to him, and his will to impress. He also took on the paper route for the sense of pride and the feeling of achievement he got from his work which could be a huge reason towards how he developed a sense of business and standards of his work within his business today, and the part he plays in the peoples lives who he helps via Claims Review.
- Q) For how many years has your current business been successful?
- A) He told us that his business has been a success for three years so far.
- Q) What traits do you feel are necessary for a successful business or for a successful entrepreneur?
- A) Being able to work with and enjoy helping, and working with other people it could help your company a lot.
Drive for success; take advantage of any and all opportunities to further your business, thoughts and careers objectives. Make the most of the area and the opportunities in the area (he realised he could make money and saw business potential in Grimsby). Strong determination, patience and a mentality set on your goals.
- Q) Is a good education necessary?
- A) A good education is not a necessity but it helps, really it’s just about ideas and a drive for success, but it is also important that you enjoy your job and are willing to spend most of your time including your so called free time working and studying on your business, for in the end it will only help you and your company, Chris spends a lot of his time working at home after he has finished his work day insisting that his breaks are his walks to and from work, where I can only imagine he is still working in his mind but this is not a problem for him as he loves his work and is dedicated to get the best possible outcome for his business and his clients.
- Q) Where do you hope to be in ten years?
- A) Working from home. He hopes to make all his businesses independent and he wants to live in Scotland, he also wants to drive across America and Canada.
- Q) Would you allow your children to take hand-outs from you?
- A) No he wouldn’t mind the job they got as long as they were happy and could get by and he also wouldn’t bail them out of all their money problems. Independence is necessary to making a success of yourself, but also knowing people and getting along with them and a will to help others are also strong traits necessary for success you also need to get rid of people who only hold you back.
These were the main questions asked in the interview and the answers to them (expanded a little).