Network dream is given a new life
Mar 16 2010 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette
Born: Stockton
Age: 49
Family life: Lives in Seaton Delaval in North Tyneside with his wife Allison. He has three children - Jon, 25; 20-year-old Stevie and Sara, 19 - and five cats
Downtime: Supports Leeds United Football Club, plays football and always leaves Sunday free for “family time”
Strengths: Confidence and strategic vision
Limitations: Leaves the operational side to others
Business icons: Alan Sugar and Richard Branson
Best quality: Single-mindedness
Worst quality: Single-mindedness
“In November I’m off to a trade mission in Melbourne... I’ve jumped off a bridge here - I’m not even ready in the North-east yet.”
Losing your home is no barrier to entrepreneurial activity, as Teessider Paul Lawton tells JEZ DAVISON (left)...
PAUL Lawton literally had the rug pulled from under him in a recession that has similarly floored hundreds of individuals and businesses.
Stockton-born Lawton lost his home after ditching a full-time career in finance to develop a grand idea to create a multi-layered networking and procurement community that could be rolled out worldwide.
Ambition had overstretched reality and he’d simply run out of money to pay the mortgage.
But now he has found his feet again, moving into rented accommodation in North Tyneside and aggressively pursuing a six-figure cash injection to fund the expansion and re-branding of his networking firm, Dual Concept Marketing (DCM).
His aim is to create a ‘collaborative golden triangle’ that would combine face-to-face and online networking with a procurement arm that allows small firms to bid for lucrative contracts.
Hardly unique concepts in their own right, but if this three-pronged partnership comes off, the figures are mind-boggling.
Seven hundred and fifty North-east-based members paying £250 every six months would generate £375,000 a year - more in the first year once the £100 one-off fee is taken into account.
But the ultra-fit Lawton, who says he completed the Great North Run in 71 minutes, intends to scale much bigger mountains.
His aim is to have more than 100 UK postcode areas covered in three years - generating £7m-plus a year based on the above model - before moving into Australia and at least five other countries.
Using local universities as a collaborative hub, he wants to develop the business into a global franchise - with a personal reward of around 15% of the royalties.
Somewhere in the conversation £58m is mentioned but the figure gets swept up in a tumultuous tide of ambition.
“In Australia they [the Government] are spending $43bn AUS (£26.1bn) on broadband infrastructure so that all 22 million Aussies can be online. People want to network, exchange ideas, do with business with each other.
“In November I’m off on a trade mission to Melbourne...”
Then it dawns on him that he may be getting ahead of himself.
“I’ve jumped off a bridge here - I’m not even ready in the North-east yet.”
He’s unfazed by competition from a growing number of networking organisations that are weaving their way into industry consciousness.
Even a merger between Ecademy and BNI, major players in online and offline networking, won’t slow his advance.
“It would be like Celtic and Rangers [football clubs] trying to get together - it would take a monumental effort.”
He’s used to hard graft, having travelled the length and breadth of Europe to watch his beloved Leeds United play 400 games in seven countries and slide to the old third division of English football.
But he’s not the kind to give up. Self-faith and determination were drummed into him, first by his devout Roman Catholic parents and then by the Army during a four-year stint in his early twenties.
By then he had already had experience as an apprenticeship fitter for Tioxide, formerly owned by iconic Teesside chemicals giant ICI. But after the Army he moved into the civil service before he embarked on an 18-year career in financial services.
“My entrepreneurial spirit was beginning to come out. I wanted to work with people.”
Initially he worked for Black Horse Finance, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, before freelancing as an independent financial advisor.
A six-year stint at Newcastle-based Positive Solutions Financial Services gave him a good income and a cushion for retirement.
But instead he reduced his IFA work and launched DCM in 2006, growing membership via lunchtime networking events, entrepreneurs’ dinners, ‘Meet the Professionals’ exhibitions and online networking groups.
Then recession hit what was left of his IFA income and he handed back the keys to his home.
Now he has ditched the finance work altogether to concentrate on growing his ‘golden triangle’ concept into what he hopes will become a global networking phenomenon.
Succeeding is likely to be a difficult task in an increasingly saturated marketplace.
