4pManagement Ltd

Apologies to my followers, the blog output this year has been a bit poor in content, mainly about my trials and tribulations flying around Europe!

Whilst business travel is important as there are somethings that can’t be done over MS Teams, particularly when you’re building petfood lines, the pain of travel is still one thing that gets me heated. Roll on the day when we can all say, “beam me up Scotty”. After all most things from Star Trek have come true; flip phones, sliding doors and universal translators are three that come to mind!

The real reason for my low blogging is good news, as I’ve been busy!

In my blog from February, I mentioned a marketing campaign through LinkedIn, freshening up the website and some calling of contracts, to fill up what looked to be low workload in 2023. Well, it all worked. I picked up four new contacts that turned into offers for my services, one of which won’t be going forward, the second is delayed until next year, the third engaged me and the fourth I’m waiting for feedback on my proposal.

The third was via a consultancy site that look to place you via a brief they have. The client, a venture capitalist who needed technical help with deciding on investments into petfoods, was interesting and challenging. The consultancy site who connected us was a nightmare….never again. There was an excessive mark-up they put on my fee: 45%, which made it tricky for me when the commission required more work than the client had a budget for. In the end to keep the client happy I absorbed the extra work, but my warning is, don’t engage with GLC.

I also picked up two more commissions from an existing client, this is the fourth and fifth for them, helping them on projects in Czech Republic and Poland. When a client comes back it shows they are satisfied with what I have been doing and they trust my judgement. Both projects will complete in Q2 and Q3 2024.

Both projects are key to the development of my client as they move into pan European production. The scale change is quite large and can be costly from a capex point-of-view, but I’ve helped them find cost effective solutions that will save capital, be more productive, using tried and trusted OEM’s.

My Mexican project is now progressing after some delays, they had to change the civils contractor. I was on site in May to review the layouts and help them with some changes forced on them by mistakes by the civils contractor, but in the end, we can make it work.

I’ve also been mentoring through PMI, which I find fulfilling, helping other project professionals to reach their potential.

Going forward, my estimated number of working days will be similar to 2022, circa 160, which is perfect for me, and I would like to thank all my clients for putting their trust in 4pM Ltd.