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Back from the dead - and now a winner

6 March 2006

You're out snowboarding and suddenly an avalanche hits. You're buried under five tons of snow, unable to move, unable to breathe. The snow presses into your eye sockets and into your mouth...You feel your body slowing down.

By the time your friends dig you out, eight minutes have passed and your heart has stopped beating. Only the chance presence of a heart surgeon in the party saves your life.

An horrific experience that would haunt you forever, you might think; one to make you rue the day you decided to go off piste.

Not so for Lawrence Jones, founder of UKfast - the UK's leading web-hosting company.

Incredible though it may seem, Lawrence believes it was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Top awards

It certainly seems to have worked for his business. UKFast clients now include Sky Interactive, Sainsbury's and Royal Sun Alliance, and the company has won two major industry awards in the past two years, scooping the ISPA's UK Best Hosting Provider in 2005 and Future Publishing's Best Business ISP in 2004.

Turnover more than doubled last year to £1.6m, with expected profits of £250,000 after substantial reinvestment in new equipment.

So how did those fateful minutes buried under eight feet of snow affect him so positively?

'It was such a life changing thing - if anything, I have said, "Thank you" to God and have been grateful for literally every single day I have had out of life since,' says Lawrence.

'I remember everything. I remember saying goodbye to all my friends and my family - your brain works incredibly quickly when it's shutting down.

'I knew I was running out of time and i was just listing people to say "Thank you" to and just literally saying "Thank you" to God for everything i had, and the opportunities i had had. I think that's why i was given a second chance.

'I was completely aware that that was it. I felt incredibly connected to somebody; a much, much greater force.

'Every time UKFast wins an award I pinch myself and wonder, "Is this just a dream and did I really die that day?"

'I've become less bothered by money and the bottom line, and more bothered by what the customer really needs- and we make damn sure he gets it. If I promise to deliver a service I make sure we deliver it lock, stock and barrel.

'I am talking about delivering something with an unprecedented level of professionalism and passion. Where does that come from? I suppose the importance I now put on life in general.'

That passion for life extends beyond his immediate family - his wife Gail helped him set up the business, and is still a key player despite their growing family.

But for Lawrence, every employee is a part of his family - and he goes to great lengths to keep them all healthy and motivated.

'With every single one of my team take an active interest in how they are progressing, we are now doing more training.

'It's affected every area of my own life - even down to diet; having a healthy body and healthy mind is absolutely paramount.

'I put a big onus on trying to keep people here on the straight and narrow on the healthy side. We have a mountaineering club, and I regularly drag people up Snowdon, and walks like that. Some people would argue they are more like runs!'

Staff challenges

Lawrence also likes to give staff challenges. 'It's a more competitive spirit that I have. If somebody's scared of heights, then let's have a go at combating that. If somebody's scared of water, let's all go white-water rafting.

'Life is way too short to be sat in an office doing a dreary job every single day of your life.

'The first thing I say to people when they join us is, "You will not consider this a normal business. You sleep a third if your life, you play a third of your life and you work a third - and we want you to enjoy that third while you are here".'

Lawrence's entrepreneurial streak goes way back beyond the launch of UKFast. A talented musician, he started earning extra money while at college playing the piano at the local cinema, He saw the business potential in live music, and went on to line up music slots for Manchester's top hotels.

'When hotel managers said "We don't even have a piano here, we don't need musicians," I would say "I'll have a piano delivered tomorrow!" I must have had about 20 grand pianos hired out to people all over the north of England.' In fact the business became so successful it ended up becoming the largest supplier of corporate entertainment in the city, attracting the attention of Granada.

A year working for a big corporate was enough for Lawrence, however, and in 1999 he decided to take time out with a friend in New York.

'It gave me time to sit outside the box and look in,' says Lawrence. 'The more I stayed over there the more I thought "Gosh, us Brits could really lap up this Internet!"

His trip to the US was to prove fateful in more ways than one - for it was over there that he discovered snowboarding.

When he came back, he and Gail decided to set up an Internet company- but they weren't sure in what business area. They soon found their answer.

'I wasn't sure what I wanted to do on the Internet at the time, and we registered a domain name. 'The trouble we had registering and hosting that made me realise that if these were the market leaders, this was the business we needed to be doing,' says Lawrence.

Business ticked over- then in 2001 came the accident. As it happened, on the day of the avalanche one of their web servers had gone down, and customers wanted to know what was happening. Lawrence was in hospital, but he wasn't about to let that affect his business.

'I unplugged all these drips, checked out of hospital without anyone knowing and sneaked off. I thought "I'm going back to England, I need to sort my company out."'

Family time

He and Gail married a year to the day later, and all the ushers were the guys who dug him out.

Lawrence believes it's 'paramount' to allow time off for yourself and family if you are running a business - or your business could actually suffer.

'There are some times with Gail and I when are paths are only crossed in the morning; she was coming to work and I was going home.

'In the early days we hardly saw each other. If you overdo it, it's got to come out; it will cost you somewhere'.

The two of them spend three weeks at the beginning of each year in the Maldives having a complete break - though Lawrence uses the last week to take a fresh look at the business. 'There's always somewhere that needs a little bit of work,' he says.

Lawrence built the business by selling to his customers the benefits of a fast website. He advertised in magazines, phoned round his old entertainment contacts, mad won new business by going straight to the top. 'You've got to be confident and you've got to be passionate,' he says.

'The customers that we've had since day one have really benefitted from the fact that their sites work significantly faster than their competitors' sites,' he says.

Promotional events

Lawrence has also used promotional events to raise the profile of UKFast. The company started sponsoring the local rugby team, Sale Sharks, about six years ago, and has just signed a three -year deal with Ducati to sponsor their British Superbikes team. 'We invite as many clients as we can and they come and meet us face to face,' he says.

Lawrence is the first to say that everyone at UKFast deserves credit for the company's success, but he didn't build a great team by chance.

He's a great believer in psychometric testing as a way of measuring someone's aptitude for a job. 'You need to make sure you get somebody who is going to fit your organisation,' he says. 'You can weed out people who just shouldn't be there.'

He says problem- solving tests are the best. 'You should ask as many questions as you can and put people through their paces. Give them a Sudoku puzzle to do and see how they get on. I'm not saying they need to do well, but they need to embrace it and have a good go.

Team players

'On people's CVs I look for sporting activity, were people have worked as a team, and what they are interested in outside of work.'

Lawrence always puts people on a year's probation. 'If at any time somebody isn't pulling their weight I can just say, "Look, this isn't working",' he says.

Once on board, he believes it's vital to spoil your team and make sure they feel valued.

'We do an annual go-karting race where they try to beat the boss- they've not managed it yet!"

'We bring the team together where they can all do something completely different and let their hair down. We try to do something different every month now. People shouldn't underestimate how important that is.'

It's a philosophy that obviously pays off. Lawrence says he had tears in his eyes when a member of staff came up to him recently and said: 'I want to work for you for the rest of my life.'

Of course, it hasn't always been easy. 'There are times when you can get despondent and think, "This is hard, are we doing the right thing here?" - but you must, must carry on.'

For a man who technically 'died', nothing can seem bleak. Lawrence sees life as a celebration- and his business success can surely be no coincidence.

Lawrence's tips for business success

Never give up.

Be very careful where you spend your money.

Be extremely careful who you employ.

Researching your product is paramount. Is what you are selling really important? Compare it to your competitors' products. 'I'm going to be taking out our top clients and talking to their account managers and saying, "How can we really improve our products and our service to you?" It's the biggest favour anybody could ever give you. They are actually going to be giving you free information and it's the right stuff. If you can go to your clients and say "We want to improve," they will tell you the top two or three things.

Don't get a business partner.

Don't advertise without knowing how effective it really is. It's easy to spend a fortune on advertising and get nothing out.'

Don't be afraid to pay people what they deserve. 'A lot of people were paid a lot more than me in the early years. You've got to find incentives and bonuses for sales people - you've got to keep them hungry and seeing the benefit of hitting targets.'

Don't be afraid to take on someone in sales who is a bit of a maverick. 'They may have been the people in the classroom making raspberry noises when the teacher was turning his back, yet they have the gift of being able to communicate, and if you can teach them the product inside out and give them all the product information you have hit the nail on the head.'

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