Emma Carter makes tech human!

Hosted by Fiona Scott, today’s podcast welcomes Emma Carter, CEO of WestSpring IT. Emma’s small business is based in Bristol and offers clients technical support and IT services to companies across the UK. She’s known Fiona for many years as a client and as a friend. Fiona takes Emma back to her background. Emma describes her history as working in ‘sales’ although she feels she wasn’t ‘that good of a salesperson’ but she had the unique ability to go from industry to industry. When she was at Yellow Pages, her management and leadership skills were developed. From there, she went on to Biffa (the waste company) and from there to Excalibur which was her first experience with IT. After 9/10 years, she left and went to a digital marketing agency before joining WestSpring where she is now and thoroughly enjoying it. Fiona begins by asking Emma about her time at school and her childhood. Emma explains that she spent her childhood years in Portsmouth with her mum. She then moved to Slough for her dad’s work and grew up in the most deprived area of Slough. Emma says she did well at school, but it was about working hard for her rather than ‘brains.’ She’s the eldest of six and learned very early that she had to contribute. She left home at sixteen and actually always wanted to be a teacher but she couldn’t find work experience and actually ended up working in a mobile phone shop. She absolutely loved the experience and was offered a ‘Saturday job’ at the end of it. She eventually found an apprenticeship in administration with a brilliant mentor, which is something she feels is incredibly important in life and business. Emma really touches upon her childhood in poverty and explains how money as an adult became a sense of security. She was told that sales was the easiest way to earn money and that’s what she did. She always worked hard and wanted to build good relationships with people. She feels it was later in her career at Yellow Pages that she learned good relationships equals good sales and began to understand the world of business more. Fiona then goes on to ask Emma if she’s a ‘tech geek’ and Emma laughs in response, saying ‘no!’ She feels because she went from advertising to waste disposal and then to IT doesn’t feel like that. For her, management and leadership skills are what got her to where she is today. Emma says she liked to make the ‘tech’ world sound human, and this is something she strives to do in her business. Fiona asks Emma to tell listeners about the company WestSpring and what she feels she has brought to the table. Emma explains that they had been around for 8 or 9 years when she joined. It was created by two amazing founders, Jason and Phil, and they started with a credit card around a kitchen table. They had seen the poor way that some MSPs had treated their clients, and they wanted to change this. They took on Emma as CEO because they felt they had taken the business as far as they could but didn’t have the skill about how to grow at scale. They’d focused so hard on winning any client without finding consistency and stability to enable the business to grow. Fiona then goes on to ask Emma about why she always valued media outreach, especially during her days at Excalibur, when Fiona and Emma met. Emma says that PR and media activity helps to form trust in the relationship before it’s even needed. For example, if someone was to hear her talking on the radio or a podcast, the person would get a real representation of who she is as a person and what she stands for. She feels this helps the person to make decisions before even picking up the phone or emailing. The PR and the media bit is really important. However, she does touch on her earlier days, when she used to be afraid that people would be intimidated by her and her reputation. But now, Emma feels she owns this in her everyday life and the people known to her, realise that she does this with care and isn’t afraid to have difficult conversations. Fiona also talks about how she sees similar traits in herself to Emma and that they can’t ‘not be themselves.’ Fiona discusses with Emma how when she worked at Excalibur, she used PR to show how important and valued their team members were. Emma explains this because they had a lot of competition with bigger companies in Swindon and they found recruitment difficult, so they needed to prove to people why working for them was the best decision. The PR really allowed them to share that ethos and culture with others.  Fiona asks Emma what her biggest challenges have been so far as the CEO of WestSpring. Emma says the first was working with the founders can be very different because they struggle to give up an element of control to someone new. Secondly, some of the people found the change hard, especially when they needed to implement new structures into the company. Fiona goes on to ask Emma how she’s going to tackle the challenge of keeping the small business intimate feel while allowing the company to grow. Emma says that has been a challenge over the last 6 months. They’ve also had to think hard about what growth means to them in their company. Emma says they’ve found that growth for them is sustainable growth by winning the right types of clients, not just any clients and if they’re aware of what their forecast and pipeline looks like so that they can schedule recruitment and plan resources that might be needed and find partnerships and clients to support them on that growth journey. Fiona notes how Emma has always been committed to personal development and self-awareness. Emma talks about how much of this comes from the mentors she had in the past. She says James Phipps was a massive help in the early stages of her career because he signed her up to a group called Vistage which puts you around a table with other senior leaders of businesses and you have a safe space to share what’s going on in your business and gives you the chance to see some great speakers. She talks about how important networking is and that socialising with others who are also CEOs and founders’ means they understand the pressures you have to face every day.Fiona asks Emma, ‘When you started at WestSpring, you contacted me quite soon... why?’ Emma says “as a board that it was really important to start making sure that people knew who we were straight away. We’d done well at making some relationships, but we had to tackle the idea of making sure people knew that PR isn’t the same as selling. We wanted people to understand who we are and our culture. We also felt that authenticity was important and Scott Media’s reputation preceded you with other clients and we had great references. We needed a mentor who was honest, would be up front and wasn't afraid to give feedback.”The two then go on to discuss a moment while Fiona was in Canada earlier this year and an opportunity on TV and radio came up for Emma to talk about working from home. Emma was able to give a different viewpoint to this as she values working in the office and she talks about the importance of such opportunities and taking them when they arise. Fiona then asks Emma what her take is on AI. Emma says that AI gives an element of automation and productivity gains that doesn’t replace people. Creativity comes from humans and that can’t be replaced but AI can be used well as a tool in business. She feels everyone’s opinion of AI is different, but it may help to save time in certain cases or to help with organisational tasks. Emma also talks about her friends who are artists and musicians who have had their work stolen by AI. She feels this is a huge problem in today’s society. There is a moral side that doesn’t like the environmental impact of it but for businesses it can be helpful to use. She says for business owners they have to decide what their use of AI is like for them and how does it suit them individually. Emma says the best thing about AI for many businesses is the efficiency it brings to the table. You can contact Emma on usual social media channels under ‘WestSpring IT’ and on LinkedIn or email [email protected]. Listeners can tune in to hear everything about Emma Carter’s story. To get in touch with Fiona and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk.Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe