Lifting Entrepreneurial Spirits
(From an article in Business East Midlands Magazine March/April 2009)
Ex-Nottingham Rugby Club player, Richard Hunt, is the founder and managing director of 21c Telecom, a business to business company providing telecommunications products and services from mobiles and landlines to vehicle tracking and VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). Established in 1996 in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, 21c Telecom is on track to double its turnover to £2m. In the last 12 months the business has doubled its office space and increased its headcount from four to twelve, as well as acquiring a Derby-based landline business, which is a far cry from when Hunt started with only £300. "I had spotted an opportunity, a gap in the marketplace, and I was sure that I could translate my ideas into a viable business. Starting with only a few hundred pounds wasn't a plan it was a necessity. I'd spent years partying, was already £30,000 in debt and I could no longer play for Nottingham Rugby Club following a cracked knee bone. These factors, combined with meeting the woman who is now my wife, meant that I realised it was time to get serious. It was more a case of my business had to work, so there wasn't really any doubt in my mind that the venture would be a success. Three clear options kept me focused and drove the business forward: turnover is for vanity, cash flow is for sanity and profit is reality." Commenting on some of the challenges that small businesses face Hunt added: "Small businesses face a huge number of challenges in todays regulation-burdened society. I think the main challenges are poor cash flow, cost awareness, legislative requirement, and turnover of staff. Our real challenge is that we are in a fast moving and evolving industry and the networks can change our commercial arrangements overnight, without notice or warning. Dealing with some of the largest corporations in the world as our main source of income leaves us vulnerable, especially as constant policy and management changes at these companies can have serious impact on our business income and strategies." "The main growth area for 21C is the provision of VOIP phone systems and solutions. By 2010 it is our aim to have the internal infrastructure and knowledge base to totally manage a company's telecoms serices and IT requirements, the final piece of this plan will be to employ our own IT engineers and programmers." "I will consider acquisition opportunities to help increase our volume of connections/customers, however more importantly, I am determined to increase the skillset within my business." "An entrepreneur sounds a very grand name for anyone that sees an opportunity, has the courage to act on it and make it work." "Everyone has the ability to see a business opportunity. Often you will listen in the pub as people discuss what they would do with a business, what great ideas they have, how this would work and why they don't do this. The difference between most people and an entrepreneur is that he/she will see the opportunity, take the risk and invest time and money to make it happen, and they won't always get it right" he concluded. | 
Phones Direct focused on B2B from the start and Hunt realised in order to make the customer feel cared for he needed to have a policy of visiting them wherever they were based. "The difference between other B2B dealers and ours is we go and see our customers at their premises, regardless of whether they have one or 200 phones from us," Hunt explains.
