Who actually are we?

It’s a valid question! My name is Tom, I’m 25, I live in Derby and I love business. I know it sounds silly, but it’s the truth.

I’ve run my own businesses, I did a degree in marketing, and have worked for businesses of all sizes. From working for the Co-Op as a team leader, to an estate agents as a business development officer, to being a video editor for a YouTuber, all the way to doing marketing for the UN Environment Programme. At every job I’ve had, I’ve always enjoyed the intricacies of each company. What makes them tick? What makes them successful? What could be better? I’ve always tried to leave my mark on each company I’ve worked for, and done so successfully in a host of different ways.

I believe small to medium businesses are the heart of the economy, and yet are the most hard done by in the UK. Let’s face it, at their core, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (who own Google), are all boring. Yet they, and other large businesses in every industry, are the ones with the money to lobby government, sue smaller companies into the ground, and control the narrative for business as a whole. Politics aside, this is the issue for a lot of small businesses. How can you hope to compete against the biggest companies on the planet?

My girlfriend runs a small business selling self-designed, hand-crafted goods. The most irritating comment she gets is: “yeah, it’s nice, but I could get it cheaper on Shein / Amazon / Temu” - and it’s true to an extent. There are choices everywhere, and large companies can manufacture and sell at a fraction of the cost of small businesses. Fortunately, this really isn’t the point. Small businesses are all about 2 things: the people and personalities that make them, and the care and quality that they provide.

So, I formed Headway as a love letter to small business, I seriously want small businesses to find their voice, and show their personalities off. Personality and quality are the major things that small businesses can have that large corporations often ignore. Your business deserves to succeed, because you deserve to succeed, because you care.

Further to this, I want to help small businesses find the techniques and processes that work best for them. Technology has the power to automate work and catapult your business into the future, customer relations and targeting have the power to generate repeat business and spread the word about how great you are, and internal management can help bring ease and clarity into all your decision making. But sometimes, it’s hard to know where to start, or to see from the outside in.

So, that’s the pitch. I want to help you succeed by bringing you ideas, helping you reach your audience, helping you develop techniques and strategy. I’ll leave it there before I turn this into a manifesto. But if you want to talk more, book in a consultation; we offer 30 mins for free for a reason - we just want to help.

Cheers to you.

- Tom