Mark Fielding, Lead Consultant at Fielding & Associates
Mark Fielding is currently working as a mentor and independent advisor to several businesses and their management. Specialising in all aspects of SME business from pre-start-up through early stage and growth phases.
Mark was the CEO of the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association, ISME, from August 2001 to November 2016. Increasing its influence and growing its membership tenfold to over 10,000-member companies.
He was educated at the Christian Brothers Schools, UCD, Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Taxation. And he was a senior partner in a chartered accountancy and management consulting firm specialising in SMEs for 20 years (1980s/1990s).
He has been involved in the SME sector throughout his working life, in the printing, food processing, biotech, recruitment and property sectors. Mark has worked in the UK, France and Ireland and has assisted in the start-up of more than 500 enterprises.
He was a member of the Company Law Review Group until February 2018, has served on numerous government advisory bodies, including the high- level group on Business Regulation, the Retail Consultation Forum, SME Procurement advisory body and the Advisory Group on Small Business.
At an international level, he also sat on the administrative council of SME United (UEAPME), the European body for SMEs, representing over 12 million enterprises with more than 55 million employees for 15 years until November 2016.
Tell us about your current role and what you like about your career or areas of focus.
I am the lead consultant in Fielding & Associates, working as a mentor, coach and independent advisor to several business owners and their managers.
I specialise in all aspects of SME business from pre-start-up through the early stage and growth phases, and now during the Covid-19 pandemic I am advising on survival, revival, and pivoting enterprises to new ways of operating. To date, I have assisted in the planning of over 500 SME start-ups and growth phases.
I love the daily interaction with entrepreneurs which is invigorating, and the broad spectrum of issues arising in SMEs keeps me on my toes and continuously learning.
Every project has similarities but also completely different, you definitely cannot cut and paste 'solutions', like every project, enterprise or organisation is different, just like every individual person.
My focus must always be to help create a solution which is long on sustainability, understanding and implementation and short on jargon, waffle, and lengthy reports. In other words, I save entrepreneurs time and money in start-ups, growth, and rescue situations and leave a trail of effective techniques and plans for subsequent phases.
What inspires you, motivates you, helps you to make each day count?
I genuinely love and enjoy what I do. I get a massive kick from listening to a client explain how they have solved a problem, business or personal, and their method of working, subsequent to our sessions.
In many cases, they may not even associate the outcome with our prior interaction, and that's OK; sometimes in dealing with entrepreneurs, you will have to wait for acknowledgement if it comes at all!
My motivation comes from that, and the sense of achievement one gets from unexpected word-of-mouth referrals. Another boost is to see one of my client's get positive media coverage, knowing the efforts that they have put into their business and have been a small part of that success.
Outside of your professional work area, what hobbies or interests do you have or what other areas of your life are of real importance to you?
Long mountain walks with Maria, allow me to recharge the battery, I devour historical novels (not while mountain walking!), and Munster rugby is my other passion.
When it comes to your life chosen career, is there a phrase, quote or saying that you really like?
I was lucky to get a solid education and one saying, from a great Christian Brother, stuck with me since the final year is "Illegitimi non-carborundum". Loosely translated is "don't let the bas**rds grind you down".
Things will always come against you in life, people, situations, and it's important to be resilient, some would say stubborn. I have often remembered the saying, which has given me 'stackability' and has helped me get through difficult times.
What are you most proud of in your life?
Professionally, I am proud of the work that I do now; being part of the SME economy, assisting entrepreneurs in different areas of their businesses.
I am also proud of the great work which my team and I did over 17 years building ISME into a proud and reputable business association. On a personal level, I have three strong, proud sons.
What do you wish you had known when you started out?
I wish that I had known that I was as good as some and better than most of my peers as a young man, but I was extremely shy. I would have taken more risks and learned from them.
Who do you most admire in business, academic, or creative circles?
In my business, I am privileged to meet and work daily with those I admire, and they are my heroes.
The owners of small and medium enterprises, known as entrepreneurs. The real wealth creators, the real risk-takers, the real backbone of the economy.
Their attitude, creativity, aptitude, and never-say-die approach is admirable and fill me with awe.
What companies, brands, or institutions do you like, or do you think are getting it right?
Ryanair stands out for me in the category of 'telling it as it is' and giving the customers what they ask for, flights at reasonable prices, 'you want frills, you pay extra'.
I can remember when air traffic was so controlled that a flight from Dublin to London was over 300 old pounds, one way. Deregulation has truly opened the skies for us, and Ryanair has been to the fore.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
My late father once said to me, "If you have the opportunity to run your own business, grab it. Find competent and driven people and lead them with passion. Following your plan with flexibility and persistence leads to success."
What drives or motivates you each day in a work environment?
There are always surprises when you deal with entrepreneurs. I enjoy the business challenges crying out for solutions which I encounter every day.
What are your thoughts on the future of social media?
Social media is pervasive and exciting, and as a business owner, we will need to know the latest info and modify our strategies as the new trends start.
Regarding fake news, governments may start to regulate more strictly, and we need to prepare ourselves for this and the increased oversight on privacy.
I do hope that social media can regain respect in allowing us all to stay connected.
What is your favourite social media platform, and why?
I find LinkedIn quite useful for business information, and Twitter keeps me up to date on what's happening in the real world.
Do you have a mentor, or have you ever been a mentor to anyone?
I run an average of ten 50-minute mentoring sessions a week with a variety of clients.
How do you network? What is your preferred way to network?
Pre COVID, I tended to do my networking at various meetings and seminars. Now I am tending to use LinkedIn more as a networking tool.
What advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same area of work?
Become an expert in your field. Be honest with your potential clients. Be prepared to make mistakes and admit to them and move on.
Fill your work with curiosity, tenacity, flexibility, and integrity, and most of all, enjoy your work and have some fun.
What do you feel is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
People, in my mind, don't fail, their ideas and plans may fail, and I feel that the main reason for failure here, is not being flexible enough to change when needs dictate. Giving up is different; people give up in the main because they don't have the tenacity and don't ask for help.
How do you define success, and what lessons have you learned so far that you could share with our audience?
There are so many ways of answering "what is success?". My own definition is 'achieving a goal'.
That means that goals must be set, and you work toward that goal.
It is important that each individual or team set and understand their own definition of success.
Some of the main reasons for not achieving success is lack of clarity in 'What it is', 'How to get there' and most importantly 'How does my success fit into the overall?'
What skills do you feel have helped you to become successful?
Early in my career, I noticed that my long hours, hard work and resilience was not getting me the success that I felt was deserved.
Remembering my father's advice, I started to delegate more and invest in a team.
Then it became obvious that general management skills were the key, which involved leading, directing, and controlling a group of people to coordinate activities that accomplish a common goal.
The real skill is knowing when to get out of the way and allow the team to use their combined skills to accomplish their tasks.
Is there anything new that you are working on or involved in that you would like to share?
I have always enjoyed giving training sessions in a variety of topics. I am currently putting together a project/ module to make SME management more understandable to new (and not so new) entrepreneurs.
To demonstrate to them how success is achievable through a few basic but essential processes which are simple to install and so easy to follow. Essentially, taking the mystique out of the management of the business while achieving success.