Time away from a growing company

At LobsterPot, I’m very blessed to have excellent staff working for me. Someone asked me just today why we haven’t grown more than we have in the past year, but in just over a year I’ve brought on 3 staff members and have another one starting next month. And these aren’t sub-contractors – they’re actual employees. There are others I haven’t managed to get on board, but the company is strong and growing nicely.

Now, I’m taking a trip to the UK for a few weeks. I’m speaking at the excellent conference SQLBits, giving a sold-out pre-conference seminar and then giving two presentations on the subsequent days. It’s the second one I’ve done, and I really feel a connection with many of the UK SQL Community. I can list many good friends there, but am afraid to do it by name in case I miss someone.

While I’m away, I leave my company LobsterPot in good hands. Roger, David and Ben all have good relationships with our clients. I already trust them with the company name, and have no hesitation in telling my clients to contact them while I’m away. Ashley will be the same when he comes on board. I imagine that I will still want to be checking emails regularly, putting the odd document together, and so on – but the day-to-day activity of looking after clients is well in hand.

This year, our company has grown significantly. We had secured Gold Partner status with Microsoft when there were just two of us, based on having the necessary MCPs with subcontractors and plenty of happy clients. Since then though, the Partner Program has been transitioning into the Partner Network. In the past week we’ve received confirmation that we are eligible for the Gold Competency in Business Intelligence, as well as Silver Competencies in the Data Platform, Portals and Collaboration, Web Development and Software Development – the main areas that we use to complement our Business Intelligence offering. We currently have the Learning competency as well, but I don’t yet know if that will be transferred into a Silver Competency. I’d like it to, as Learning is definitely part of what we do, and one of our core values.

It feels strange going away for a few weeks, but I know the guys will continue to excel.