ABOUT DAVID EGERTON —
SMALL BUSINESS ADVISOR

I was mad about art from a young age, but I didn't get to university. My mum got me a job as a motor mechanic. £9 a week, and I contributed half to the household. I'm grateful for that start. It taught me the value of real work, what it means to contribute, and that experience is an education in itself.

I became top apprentice. Moved through the workshop, into the cost office, service reception and into sales. Within a few years I was running a small sales team in St Albans.

A friend told me Apple were setting up in the UK and I should get into computers as it was the next big thing. I didn't know what that would meant, but I got trained, and got a job selling computers before the IBM PC even existed. 3 years later and I saw my first £10,000 monthly pay cheque. I had a wife and two small daughters to take care of. That changed everything.

Within a few years I started my first business, selling accountancy and manufacturing software. Then another. Then another. Six businesses in total across software, web, marketing, professional services, and consultancy. Three of those, including the very first one, I sold.

I've been so broke I had to question having hot water! I've made expensive mistakes. I've built systems that worked and watched others fail without them.

At some point I stopped scaling and started paying attention to the small business owners who were working harder than anyone I'd ever employed, and still couldn't pay themselves properly.

I knew that feeling. I'd lived it. That's why I built the Lockgate Method.

Small business owners are the most underserved people in the economy. Too small for the big consultancies. Too busy firefighting to step back and fix the real problem. Too often told to just spend more on marketing to get more leads, when that's not what's broken.

I've watched owners with real businesses, real customers, and genuine ability stay stuck at the same revenue year after year. Not because they lack effort. Because the foundations, the numbers, the offer, the right customers, were never built in the right order.

The Lockgate Method exists because of that pattern. Six gates. The right order. Built from fifty years of doing it yourself. Not theory.

This is the work I care about most. Every client who finally gets paid what they're worth, every business that stops lurching from month to month, that's the point.