We often hear the story of a growing business from the perspective of its founder or owner. At Connect Over A Cuppa September 2025, I thought it would be interesting to look at that journey from another perspective: what does growth actually feel like for someone working inside an SME?
Luke Wiseman gave us exactly that opportunity when he joined us to talk about his experience at Performance Lighting.
Luke joined Performance Lighting seven years ago, just a few months after the business started. He was its first salesperson, joining the two directors as the third member of the team. Today, the Leeds-based business employs 18 people, offers more than 150 of its own branded LED products and works with over 400 wholesale customers across the UK.
His presentation wasn’t simply about that growth. It was a refreshingly open account of what happens inside a small business as it develops — the opportunities, frustrations, changing roles and challenges that don’t necessarily appear in the sales figures.
From salesperson to helping lead the sales operation
When Luke joined Performance Lighting, his job was relatively straightforward: sell.
There were plenty of outbound calls, customer visits and new accounts to win. Luke also brought relationships from his previous employment, which were particularly important in those early days when Performance Lighting didn’t necessarily have the purchasing power or supplier relationships of its larger competitors.
The product mix was very different too. Fluorescent lighting, control gear and batteries were still important parts of the market, while LED represented a relatively small proportion of the company’s sales.
Fast-forward several years and both the business and Luke’s role look very different.
Luke still looks after national wholesale customers, but he has increasingly taken responsibility for helping to run the sales operation. That includes sales planning, reporting, recruitment, one-to-ones, motivating the team and customer visits.
He has also invested in developing his own leadership skills, including undertaking leadership training, and has become increasingly involved in presenting and agreeing the company’s annual sales plans with the directors.
It’s a good example of something that happens frequently in growing SMEs: the business changes faster than the job description.
When your market changes around you
Performance Lighting’s journey hasn’t simply been one of adding more people and selling more products.
The market itself changed.
Fluorescent lighting, which had once represented an important part of the company’s business, became obsolete. LED became increasingly important and Performance Lighting began developing and importing more of its own branded products.
COVID added another disruption along the way.
And moving into LED brought a different commercial challenge. Performance Lighting found itself competing in a market where numerous suppliers could offer products with broadly similar specifications, warranties, delivery and pricing.
Luke illustrated the problem with one product where around 20 different suppliers could potentially be selling something very similar at roughly the same price.
When price, product and delivery don’t provide an obvious differentiator, why should the customer choose you?
For Performance Lighting, relationships have become an important part of that answer.
It was an interesting reminder that businesses don’t operate in a static market. What worked when a company started may not be what drives the next stage of growth.
Growth brings structure – but also complexity
One of the most interesting aspects of Luke’s presentation was how the organisation itself has had to evolve.
The early days of a small business can be highly informal. Everyone knows what’s happening, people turn their hands to whatever needs doing and decisions can be made quickly.
That becomes increasingly difficult as the company grows.
Performance Lighting has introduced more processes and clearer structures. It has employed a full-time marketing manager, invested in training and development and introduced company values intended to create greater consistency across the organisation.
The role of the directors has changed too. Luke described them as increasingly spending time working on the business rather than simply in it, while giving him greater responsibility for the sales team.
These are positive signs of a business maturing, but they create another challenge: how do you move from an entrepreneurial business where the founders are involved in almost everything to an organisation where other people are genuinely empowered to lead?
Leading when the owners are still in the room
This was perhaps one of Luke’s most useful observations for business owners.
Managing people in an SME can be particularly difficult when the directors remain closely involved in everyday activity.
For an emerging manager, authority can easily become blurred. Who does the team look to when a decision needs making? What happens when the manager gives one message and an owner gives another?
Luke spoke openly about the importance of consistency and of expectations being followed through.
There is an important lesson here for founders.
Delegating responsibility isn’t quite the same as delegating authority.
If you want somebody to lead part of your business, they need sufficient space to actually lead it.
That doesn’t mean owners disappearing or giving up control. It means becoming increasingly clear about responsibilities, decisions and where authority sits.
The SME problem: everybody wears several hats
Luke’s own role illustrates another familiar feature of small businesses.
He is simultaneously helping to manage the sales operation, supporting and motivating colleagues, producing reports and plans, recruiting, conducting one-to-ones, visiting customers — and managing his own national accounts.
Unsurprisingly, he admitted that prioritising everything can sometimes be difficult.
There simply aren’t enough people for every responsibility to sit neatly with a specialist.
The same issue appears elsewhere in the organisation. In a small team, one person’s absence matters. Limited resources affect how quickly the company can build its brand. Cash flow influences how much stock can be held, while the physical size of the premises creates another constraint.
These aren’t necessarily signs of a badly managed company. They are some of the practical realities of running and working within an SME.
But they do create an important question:
At what point does being resourceful become being overstretched?
Progression looks different in a small company
Luke also raised something that owners can easily overlook: career progression.
Large organisations usually have hierarchies. There may be another grade, department or management position for an ambitious employee to move towards.
Small companies don’t necessarily have that.
Luke joined as Performance Lighting’s first salesperson and has gradually taken on greater leadership responsibility, but he also spoke about how difficult progression can sometimes be when there simply aren’t many layers within the organisation.
That doesn’t mean SMEs can’t offer excellent careers. In many respects they can offer opportunities that larger organisations cannot: broader responsibility, greater visibility, closer involvement in decisions and the ability to make a tangible difference.
But development may need to be thought about differently.
Progression doesn’t always have to mean another box on an organisation chart. It can mean greater autonomy, new skills, wider responsibility, involvement in strategy and a genuine voice in where the company goes next.
Growth isn’t only about sales
What I particularly liked about Luke’s presentation was that it showed growth from the inside.
We naturally describe business growth through numbers: turnover, customers, employees, products and market share.
But behind those numbers, something else has to grow as well.
People have to grow. Roles have to evolve. Leadership has to change. Systems have to become more sophisticated and founders have to learn when to remain involved and when to create space for other people.
Performance Lighting has travelled a considerable distance from the three-person company Luke joined in 2018. The photographs in his presentation showing the office then and several years later provided a simple visual reminder of just how much can change inside a relatively young business.
And Luke has grown with it — from its first salesperson to someone increasingly involved in leading its sales operation.
For me, his presentation also left business owners with a useful question:
If you could see your business through the eyes of the people working inside it, what would they tell you?
They might see opportunities you don’t see. They might experience frustrations you’re unaware of. And they may be ready to take considerably more responsibility — if they’re given the space, support and authority to do it.
That’s one of the reasons I enjoy Connect Over A Cuppa. Sometimes the most useful business insight doesn’t come from another chief executive or entrepreneur.
Sometimes it comes from listening to the people helping to build the business alongside them.