The Business Recovery Partnership.

Hard Hat Business Advice was founded by Bob Gorton in 2004.   

Bob initially trained as an electronics engineer with the Ministry of Defence, later moving into the private sector as a design engineer, progressing through managing projects to managing his own division of a major audio visual equipment company, where he grew his operation from a turnover of £2 million to £10 million.

In 1991 redundancy provoked Bob to go it alone, and he set up his own design-and-build audiovisual company – in true entrepreneur fashion, from the back bedroom of his house.   From an initial investment of just £15,000 he grew the business to £6 million annual turnover, financing this growth from profits.   

It was also during this period that Bob encountered Brian Warnes – author of  “The Ghengis Khan Guide to Business” and exponent of the ‘value added’ approach to business growth.   

Bob successfully applied these techniques to his own firm, growing it to an annual turnover of £12.4 million with the help of external funding and becoming one of the top 5 players in the industry.

During this time Bob studied for a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Greenwich and became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Regrettably the company was forced into receivership when the events of 9/11 provoked withdrawal of working capital.   

Not one to give up easily, Bob found an American buyer and brokered the sale of the company as a going concern, preserving 80% of the jobs.   Then, as Vice-President for sales he kick-started the recovery of the customer base generating £1 million of orders over the next 3 months before deciding to move on.

Realising that having operated as owner/manager of his own business, he was unsuited for employment in the traditional sense; and that having collaborated with Brian Warnes to develop techniques for applying the ‘value-added’ approach to growing profits, he had the experience, expertise and qualifications to help other growing businesses struggling with the consequences of their development, Bob decided to go it alone again.

As a business advisor Bob quickly discovered the ‘feast and famine’ lifestyle familiar to so many freelancers.   Bob realised that he needed a vehicle that would combine three things:

This means that we don’t have to re-invent solutions, we share the rewards of efficient delivery and other people can consistently deliver the service.

Hard Hat was born.

So why the Hard Hat?

The yellow hard hat signifies our ‘real-world’ approach to solving business problems, which is deliberately direct and assertive.   We make change happen.   If the business we are helping is between a rock and a hard place then a Hard Hat can be very useful.

The Hard Hat brand is deliberately designed to stand out and be ‘sticky’.   People remember it whenever they see it.

Like all good brands it signifies a promise that will be delivered.   What we do works, and we wear the yellow Hard Hat with pride.

Call us on 01474 872152