Name of Business: EMH Associates
Location: Hebburn, South Tyneside
Line of Business: Financial Advice/ Consultancy
Director(s): Tony Errington, George Mackie and Michael Home.
Where did you go for business advice?
TEDCO's Building up Business team and Financial Practices.
How did you decide which line of business to enter?
We have been in the business collectively for 40yrs and so it was an easy choice
How did you come up with the company name?
It is the first initial for each of our surnames.
What’s the best thing about running your own business?
The knowledge that when you get to work the business is ready to start you sort out the queries, you sort out what your doing and where your going, you have the choice of working late or finishing early. The biggest benefit for our business is that when we deal with clients, they know that the advice/business they receive and transact is the best on the market place at that time, because we are not targeted to sell particular products or services which may not necessarily be as beneficial to the clients needs. You are filled with pride when you know you have given someone a great level of service and they really appreciate it, we have received cards of thanks from clients yet when we were employed you barely got a thank you.
The other obvious benefit is the financial rewards which can be and should be much greater than when you were employed, but you only get out of the business what you put into it.
Our wives would tell you that the best thing about us running our own business is that we are all now a lot happier than when we were constrained by the bureaucracy of an employer.
What is the worst thing about running your own business?
In the early days there is not a lot of time to rest or sit on your laurels knowing that if you don’t push the business forward you may not see the rewards or expansion.
What advice would you give to anyone starting out?
You must be driven, seek out all the help you can, work closely with the TEDCO Business Advisers who provided so much help and gave us different directions for research that we had never thought about, also be enthusiastic work hard and hopefully it will succeed.
Good Luck!
