My name is Graham Lee, I am the proud owner of this blog, Graham-Lee.com, as well as a number of other websites covering Internet Marketing and some specialised niche topics. I am a 61 year old successful business owner of more than 25 years, living to the west of London in the UK. At age 16 I left school with 8 ‘O’ Level grade qualifications and went straight out to work.
I started my career in retail sales and secured a position as a Trainee Sales Manager with the largest Wholesale and Retail company in the UK in the mid 1970’s, the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). After completing my training and holding various departmental posts as Assistant Manager, I progressed through various other Specialist Sales and Sales Management positions in the retail field, before finally deciding to take a completely new and different career path as an Ambulance Paramedic. This eventually led to my working in the offshore industry as a Dive Technician and Medic.
Whilst spending some time in the company of a friend, a Deep Sea Diver and one of the 59 survivors of the Piper Alpha North Sea disaster of 1988, a chance encounter with the Graphic Designer he had employed to produce a brochure for his diving company, led to my becoming involved in the IT industry. I became a Freelance Graphic Designer and Apple Specialist by forming my first company aged 30, providing Design services to a number of Advertising Agencies based in Newcastle, in the North East of England. As time progressed I once again became involved in management and held a number of Information Technology, IT Support and Customer Service Management positions in the industry for a number of years, specialising in Apple Software and Systems. During the mid 1990’s I also held the position of Customer Service Manager for Apple Computer. UK. This was during one of the lowest periods in their history, when their products were not as good as they are now. I learnt a great deal about Customer Service during this period. It is not easy remaining calm and focused on helping someone, when they are shouting and verbally abusing you at the other end of a telephone line, but I survived intact and have carried those lessons with me to this day.
After leaving Apple I formed my own IT Support and Project Management Consultancy, again specialising in Apple Systems and operated as a UK Limited Company for approximately 15 years. My company was engaged by most of the larger national newspapers in the UK, including the big four groups, News International (The Times, The Sunday Times, News of the World), Associated Newspapers (The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, London Evening Standard), Guardian Newspapers (The Guardian, The Observer) and the Telegraph Group (Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph). The company also held one of the longest running contracts to provide IT services to the second largest Pharmaceutical company in the world, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), a contract which ran for some 10 years.
I became involved in Internet Marketing around 2006 to add another income stream to my Consultancy business, and had a reasonable success marketing information products online.
Unfortunately this all came crashing down to earth with a life changing wake up call, when I was diagnosed with Leukaemia in May 2009 and the two years since, have been spent in treatment, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant and finally recovery.
Obviously all my business interests suffered greatly during my illness when I was in hospital and unable to put in the time needed to ensure their success, I had to liquidate my company and the internet side of the business slowed to virtually nil income. Mid 2010 and I began to regain the energy and enthusiasm to start again. I started by consolidating some of the websites I owned, closing some sites and rebuilding others.
Having Luekaemia has also given me the opportunity to revisit my lifes’ purpose. I no longer want to sit in commuter hell, travelling 1-2 hours to sit in an office for 9, maybe 10 hours per day and then return home exhausted.
I want to enjoy life.