About Royston

A Pathway to Personal and Business Growth

I know success is not an accident. To be successful requires hard work, commitment and focus, but it doesn’t have to be trial and error if you follow a path where others have gone before you. I want to help individuals find their pathway to success. Whether I’m consulting with a client and their leadership team, one-on-one executive coaching, speaking at an event or working with my team on our online business growth tool – my passion and mission continue to drive me every single day. I want to change the way the world grows business, one business and one individual at a time.

Built To Grow

I had a strong desire to want to help every business owner, leader and entrepreneur build and grow the business they deserve. I knew you could create and navigate a pathway to building and managing a great business focused on being productive, not busy; feeling in control not out of control; feeling connected not isolated, and building a business and life you deserve. I had done it twice, so I set my heart and mind in writing a business book that would make a difference.

I took all my proven, time-tested ideas, strategies and tools from the past two decades; all my successes, learns and mistakes and created a blueprint to help business owners and leaders deliver accelerated, sustained and profitable business growth. Built to Grow was born and soon became a #1 best-seller on Amazon.

A new addition

I don’t think anyone can prepare you for the life-changing event of having a child. Despite Jane and I being super organised, efficient, prepared (or so we thought) we didn’t have a clue. The first three months passed by in a blur. In business, I had to trust my team to get on with the job and trust that the building blocks and foundations I had put in place were robust as I juggled with the demands of being a new daddy.

Sold My First Business and Made My First Million

This time was all about putting in place several core building-blocks in my business, which I now call the ten growth enablers. Within three years, I was running a million pound plus business. To be successful, I knew I had to widen our client base in terms of size of clients, number of clients, and diversification of industry sectors. I also needed to start building a more stable platform for growth; looking beyond twelve months, putting in place robust processes and systems so I could begin to identify what was working, what wasn’t, and fix it quickly. I also needed to recruit and expand the team. With more people came the need to focus more on the high performing team – defining what the business was about into a compelling story, vision/purpose, values, strategy and culture. It was at this time I also decided to sell. I sold my business for a seven-figure sum and set up a new company with an even bigger vision.

Developing the Entrepreneurial Itch

Following my return to the UK from the US, I worked for various companies honing my business skills along the way. I started to understand the importance of culture – good and bad – and could visibly see the impact leaders had, again, good and bad! I honed my commercial skills and could start to see what makes some businesses succeed and others not.

My first foray into the world of owning my own business was a bit of a half-way house if I’m honest. I became the third owner in a training business with two other individuals. It was great exposure and very grounding, but also a steep learning curve. While this ‘on the job’ development taught me so much, it cost me a fortune in hard cash, missed opportunity and extended my timeline for growing. I got caught in the ‘doing doing doing’ and became quite successful imitating a hamster on a hamster wheel going around and around and around.

School Days

School was not for me. Day after day, week after week, the same routine, same time, same classrooms. It felt stifling. I attended an academic school; I was sporty, not a great combination. In my first year, I failed all my exams, and I mean tanked big time—27 % in maths, 33% in English. To remain in school, I had to repeat year one, which meant I was a year behind all my classmates. My teachers openly shared their thoughts that I was ‘not intelligent enough.’ On reflection, my school days probably gave me my greatest motivations and drivers and were the defining periods of my life; shaping who I am today. Repeating a year made me get my head down and prove them all wrong – I grafted and got focused. I became wired to succeed in the things which people told me I couldn’t succeed in, and it taught me that the past does not equal the future unless you choose to live there.