Liz Jackson

Liz Jackson was 26 when she went blind, a spectre that had been hanging over her since the age of two when she was first diagnosed with the progressively sight-threatening condition retinitis pigmentosa. Now, she is the brains behind Great Guns, a telemarketing agency that after eight years has created 130 jobs on eight sites, makes 20 per cent profits on annual sales of £2.5 million, and is growing at 45 per cent a year. In her school and college days, though lacking some peripheral vision, she was told that her sight could go at any time, but eventually felt “the doctors don’t know what they are talking about’’. Then the condition became active and over two months destroyed her retinas, leaving her blind. “It was a few months after I’d started the company,” she says. Not particularly academic, she went on a YTS job placement, starting as an office junior with a local business. She worked her way through departments, into telemarketing, “loved it”, and ended up managing the department. She went to the US to set up the company’s telemarketing operation there and “when I got to 25, I quite fancied starting up my own business”. The eldest of four children, she was used to responsibility. Her boss had been an entrepreneur. “When you work directly for entrepreneurs, they tend to give you a lot of responsibility and trust you quite quickly. They don’t micro-manage things,” she says. Sharing rented accommodation, she had no money. A bank loan was refused, but the bank suggested she apply to the Prince’s Trust. She devised and presented a business plan and the trust gave her £1,000, loaned her £4,000 and, importantly, made her account for what she did. She bought a second-hand desk, phone and set up in her lounge. Her former employer out-sourced work to her and she persuaded another company to allow her to do its telemarketing. Soon she employed a second person, then a third. “My friend got fed up with our lounge being used, so I moved into a garage and then business premises. That was a huge step, probably one of the scariest things as you have a huge leap in bills.” She then got more work. “We make sales appointments for companies that want to sell to other companies,” Mrs Jackson says. “We don’t call people in their homes.” Clients include Price Waterhouse Cooper and BMW. In 2002, finding it hard to grow from one office in Basingstoke, she decided to franchise the business. “We got great quality people. They are completely committed.” Employees range from the young to those in their late sixties, from various backgrounds. Mrs Jackson has married, written a best-seller, Start Up!, spoken at conferences and is about to move Great Guns to bigger premises. “It’s fun, exciting and we have lots of laughs. It doesn’t really feel like work.“