Flying Solo

By Victor Cattermole

Asia Pacific Bureau Chief

This month I managed to tap in to the busy schedule of my good friend Robert Gerrish.

Robert’s first taste of small business was at the age of eight when he began working part-time in his father's car showroom in the east of England. Sometime later Robert moved to London joining up with a small, independent marketing and design agency. He helped the big end of town build brands and launch products. Robert says they were at what they did and it was fun.

In 1989, communication giants, Saatchi & Saatchi snapped up his company and he naively took on the role of Managing Director. While his car grew longer and pointier, his sense of freedom and creativity diminished. Before long he knew it was time for change and he simply had to fly solo.

So in 1994, armed with lashings of bravado and a sketchy vision of a brave new world, Robert ventured off in search of a better way of living and working. His quest took him to Australia where for the past 12 years he has pretty much dedicated his professional life to supporting those going it alone in business.

In this time, Robert has co-authored the Australian business bestseller, Flying Solo - How to go it alone in business with Sam Leader and has had over 160 articles published across News Limited titles, Dynamic Business, Marketing, My Business and countless regional and national newspapers, magazines and newsletters.

In addition to this success Robert has been a business commentator on ABC ‘4 Corners', Channel 9's ‘A Current Affair', ABC Radio & 2UE and a guest on Qantas ‘Radio Q'.

In 2000, Robert founded Flying Solo online (www.flyingsolo.com.au), a place where Australia's growing solo and micro business community can share experiences and build knowledge. Today Robert has over 35,000 unique visitors per month, 2000+ pages of content and publish a weekly email newsletter that goes to over 14,000 subscribers.

In his role as an advocate for all things micro Robert has been invited to speak at over 90 conferences, events and gatherings since 2003 and indeed ran his first national Flying Solo Conference in late September, attracting over 225 delegates.

Today Robert works as a coach and consultant to solo and small business owners, presents short workshops to anyone who'll listen and lives in Sydney with his amazing wife and son.

Looking forwards, along with his two business partners Robert intends to grow Flying Solo's reach still focusing on Australia for the foreseeable future and to the extent that he can continually add functionality and resources to his existing website.

Robert has been an inspiration and mentor to thousands around the world and will continue to in the future. In so many ways a hero in the field of small business as I am sure many use his amazing resource.

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Flying Solo