I had not heard of Grant Shapps six months ago. He had not registered on my radar. It was only after attending a dinner in London last year, at which he also attended, that I became aware of him and of how he had already, and would continue to play a major factor in the running and future planning of my business, as well as the businesses of many others operating within the home information pack industry.
So who is Grant Shapps, and why is it so important to understand how he ticks. More importantly is there any evidence available within his past, or with regard his approach to business, that could help us understand why he has become so obsessed with repealing the home information pack legislation, and in the process, destroying the heart and soul of a thriving industry. Some argue that the HIP policy is not so much a Party backed policy, but is rather a policy that has fast become a personal crusade on the part of this bright and very career minded MP.
Well we all know he has the important position within the Conservative Party of Shadow Housing Minister. Some may know that he has an ‘at arms length’ interest in a London based Printing Company called Print House that, much to his credit, was founded by him in 1990. Perhaps not so well known, and which may surprise some, is his former role as an Internet marketing guru in the company - How to Corp Limited. He held at least at one time a shareholding in this company in which he promoted marketing aids under the pseudonym, Michael Green. More on this rather interesting aspect of his life later!
He was born in Watford in 1968 and was educated in a Grammar School before obtaining a Higher National Diploma in Business at Manchester Polytechnic. In 1990 he founded the printing company in a way best described by the text which you can find on the home page of the company website at www.printhouse.com:
‘Way back in 1990 our founder, then a young entrepreneur, started us up during the days when design and print was just emerging from the dark ages.’
Looking at this there is, interestingly, a direct parallel to the approach adopted by many of us, who relying on brave legislative reform, took the opportunity it presented to invest time and money in building IT systems and recruiting people to do what others have failed miserably to do in the past (e.g. Law Society), and that is try and take the home buying and selling process out of the dark ages and into the modern age.
He remains a shareholder of Print House, and in a rather cynical marketing trick, the website contains passing mention of his role in politics:
‘Oh, and that founder of ours, he left us and went off to work elsewhere - as a Member of Parliament!’
The major break through in his political career, that started the same year as his marriage in 1997, came in 2005 when he was elected as the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield at the 2005 election defeating the Labour MP and then Minister for Public Health, Melanie Johnson. He had as a result of the success access to large funds for printing and consequently spent, so it is said, an estimated twelve times what Johnson was able to invest in her campaign.
Now on the shadow front bench and a close supporter of David Cameron, Grant Shapps has sought to make a name for him self in the role of shadow housing minister, focusing his attention on several populist issues such as the homeless, and not forgetting of course, the abolition of home information packs.
Though his history does not give many clues behind this unhealthy obsession with HIPs, there is plenty from his background that makes his complete and politically driven disregard of the consequences his policy will have on an industry packed full with innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, difficult to comprehend, and indeed stomach.
Not only does this evidence lie within the success he has had with his multi- million pound print company, but also in a less publicised part of his life, that is, his former shareholding in the internet marketing company How to Corp Limited, established in 2002 at the same time he was beginning to rise within the ranks of the Conservative Party.
So what is How to Corp? Where do I start! Perhaps it’s best for me to quote Mr Shapps, or perhaps I should say, Michael Green:
‘If you are like me, you dream about making money on the Internet!
But maybe you're still wondering whether it is possible to really make big money online -- I mean, to achieve an outstanding and superior standard of living from the Internet.
Who am I?
My name is Michael Green, and the reason I dream about making money online is because I happen to know for sure that when I wake up each morning, there will be a pile of new orders just waiting for me in my email inbox!
So, you could say that not only do I dream about making money while I'm sleeping -- I do!
Better still, those shiny new orders populating my inbox don't even require any input from me. In fact, the only thing I do in the morning is file those credit card receipts in my new SALES folder. And...err....well that's it!’
Its fair to say that although Mr Shapps originally wrote under this alias, the company now uses the name Michael Green as a publishing name, with the products primarily commercially written by third-parties and marketed by How To Corp Ltd.
Interestingly however the website which gives the impression through fake US telephone numbers and the use of dollars as the primary trading currency, it is of USA origin, still contains a biography that makes mention of Mr Shapps, sorry Mr Green, as being a person who seems wholly unconcerned about people making a connection with his real identity and political life. His self-penned biography (well as afar as I can see it is self-penned) reads:
‘Michael Green is a 35 year old Brit who lives in London, England.
When he was just 21, he set up his own printing business. Today that same business has developed into offering Design, Print and Website development services and has a turnover measured in the millions.
Nowadays Michael works on a part-time basis as Chairman of his printing company and in his spare time he's developed http://www.howtocorp.com
Michael discovered that his offline, real-world, business experience helped make him an overnight online success. And the facts speak for themselves because he established his online How To Corp enterprise as recently as the Spring of 2002, yet today he has created over 16 toolkit products and these are marketed and sold worldwide via the internet.
Michael Green has achieved a #5 position in the much coveted ClickBank MarketPlace, which lists literally tens-of-thousands of other online products, so the chances are that by the time you've finished reading his biography, he will have made yet more internet-based sales!
Michael explains:
"Doing business both on and offline is much more similar than some people would have you think. You still need to provide good products and a great service. In addition it's important to be courteous, polite and responsive when prospective customers contact you by phone or email. These same rules all apply no matter which environment your business operates in."
Michael says that there are however some very big differences to doing business online. He confesses that he still struggles to believe how it has been possible to build such a profitable company, without the need to employ staff, hold physical stock or deal with so many of the other regulatory issues that surround traditional 'real-world' businesses’.
Lucky Grant Shapps that is what I say! Fortunately he operated and made a load of money in a world where he was totally unaffected by the political whim that he has and continues to impose upon hard working people like myself. The insult is even worse when you look that what he was doing is not too far off what we are doing within the HIP industry – that is, looking to use the Internet to make a living! Technology to provide an information-based product is what we do and what we do well!
The only difference is that we sell a product that is demonstrably helping to improve a system desperately in need of improvement, whereas How to Corp seems to be praying upon and selling to unsuspecting people who are persuaded through clever marketing techniques to part with hard earned money in the belief they will make their millions.
Not sure what this tells us about the type of person the electorate is being asked to elect as the Country’s next shadow housing minister – perhaps it is best to leave it to my readers to make their own mind up.
So who is Grant Shapps, and why is it so important to understand how he ticks. More importantly is there any evidence available within his past, or with regard his approach to business, that could help us understand why he has become so obsessed with repealing the home information pack legislation, and in the process, destroying the heart and soul of a thriving industry. Some argue that the HIP policy is not so much a Party backed policy, but is rather a policy that has fast become a personal crusade on the part of this bright and very career minded MP.
Well we all know he has the important position within the Conservative Party of Shadow Housing Minister. Some may know that he has an ‘at arms length’ interest in a London based Printing Company called Print House that, much to his credit, was founded by him in 1990. Perhaps not so well known, and which may surprise some, is his former role as an Internet marketing guru in the company - How to Corp Limited. He held at least at one time a shareholding in this company in which he promoted marketing aids under the pseudonym, Michael Green. More on this rather interesting aspect of his life later!
He was born in Watford in 1968 and was educated in a Grammar School before obtaining a Higher National Diploma in Business at Manchester Polytechnic. In 1990 he founded the printing company in a way best described by the text which you can find on the home page of the company website at www.printhouse.com:
‘Way back in 1990 our founder, then a young entrepreneur, started us up during the days when design and print was just emerging from the dark ages.’
Looking at this there is, interestingly, a direct parallel to the approach adopted by many of us, who relying on brave legislative reform, took the opportunity it presented to invest time and money in building IT systems and recruiting people to do what others have failed miserably to do in the past (e.g. Law Society), and that is try and take the home buying and selling process out of the dark ages and into the modern age.
He remains a shareholder of Print House, and in a rather cynical marketing trick, the website contains passing mention of his role in politics:
‘Oh, and that founder of ours, he left us and went off to work elsewhere - as a Member of Parliament!’
The major break through in his political career, that started the same year as his marriage in 1997, came in 2005 when he was elected as the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield at the 2005 election defeating the Labour MP and then Minister for Public Health, Melanie Johnson. He had as a result of the success access to large funds for printing and consequently spent, so it is said, an estimated twelve times what Johnson was able to invest in her campaign.
Now on the shadow front bench and a close supporter of David Cameron, Grant Shapps has sought to make a name for him self in the role of shadow housing minister, focusing his attention on several populist issues such as the homeless, and not forgetting of course, the abolition of home information packs.
Though his history does not give many clues behind this unhealthy obsession with HIPs, there is plenty from his background that makes his complete and politically driven disregard of the consequences his policy will have on an industry packed full with innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, difficult to comprehend, and indeed stomach.
Not only does this evidence lie within the success he has had with his multi- million pound print company, but also in a less publicised part of his life, that is, his former shareholding in the internet marketing company How to Corp Limited, established in 2002 at the same time he was beginning to rise within the ranks of the Conservative Party.
So what is How to Corp? Where do I start! Perhaps it’s best for me to quote Mr Shapps, or perhaps I should say, Michael Green:
‘If you are like me, you dream about making money on the Internet!
But maybe you're still wondering whether it is possible to really make big money online -- I mean, to achieve an outstanding and superior standard of living from the Internet.
Who am I?
My name is Michael Green, and the reason I dream about making money online is because I happen to know for sure that when I wake up each morning, there will be a pile of new orders just waiting for me in my email inbox!
So, you could say that not only do I dream about making money while I'm sleeping -- I do!
Better still, those shiny new orders populating my inbox don't even require any input from me. In fact, the only thing I do in the morning is file those credit card receipts in my new SALES folder. And...err....well that's it!’
Its fair to say that although Mr Shapps originally wrote under this alias, the company now uses the name Michael Green as a publishing name, with the products primarily commercially written by third-parties and marketed by How To Corp Ltd.
Interestingly however the website which gives the impression through fake US telephone numbers and the use of dollars as the primary trading currency, it is of USA origin, still contains a biography that makes mention of Mr Shapps, sorry Mr Green, as being a person who seems wholly unconcerned about people making a connection with his real identity and political life. His self-penned biography (well as afar as I can see it is self-penned) reads:
‘Michael Green is a 35 year old Brit who lives in London, England.
When he was just 21, he set up his own printing business. Today that same business has developed into offering Design, Print and Website development services and has a turnover measured in the millions.
Nowadays Michael works on a part-time basis as Chairman of his printing company and in his spare time he's developed http://www.howtocorp.com
Michael discovered that his offline, real-world, business experience helped make him an overnight online success. And the facts speak for themselves because he established his online How To Corp enterprise as recently as the Spring of 2002, yet today he has created over 16 toolkit products and these are marketed and sold worldwide via the internet.
Michael Green has achieved a #5 position in the much coveted ClickBank MarketPlace, which lists literally tens-of-thousands of other online products, so the chances are that by the time you've finished reading his biography, he will have made yet more internet-based sales!
Michael explains:
"Doing business both on and offline is much more similar than some people would have you think. You still need to provide good products and a great service. In addition it's important to be courteous, polite and responsive when prospective customers contact you by phone or email. These same rules all apply no matter which environment your business operates in."
Michael says that there are however some very big differences to doing business online. He confesses that he still struggles to believe how it has been possible to build such a profitable company, without the need to employ staff, hold physical stock or deal with so many of the other regulatory issues that surround traditional 'real-world' businesses’.
Lucky Grant Shapps that is what I say! Fortunately he operated and made a load of money in a world where he was totally unaffected by the political whim that he has and continues to impose upon hard working people like myself. The insult is even worse when you look that what he was doing is not too far off what we are doing within the HIP industry – that is, looking to use the Internet to make a living! Technology to provide an information-based product is what we do and what we do well!
The only difference is that we sell a product that is demonstrably helping to improve a system desperately in need of improvement, whereas How to Corp seems to be praying upon and selling to unsuspecting people who are persuaded through clever marketing techniques to part with hard earned money in the belief they will make their millions.
Not sure what this tells us about the type of person the electorate is being asked to elect as the Country’s next shadow housing minister – perhaps it is best to leave it to my readers to make their own mind up.
Another great article from HRG showing Grant for what he is - an 'I'm alright Jack' Tory only interested in his own career and wealth.
ReplyDeleteI would encourage anyone with an interest in this industry to support HRG in their efforts to save our industry.
Obviously the best bet for retaining our industry is a Labour Govt or even a hung parliament. In view of that I would urge interested parties to assess the prospects of the parties in their constituency and actively work with the one most able to defeat the Tories.
Finally, my grateful thanks to HRG for their sterling work.
Dave Copp - South Wales HIPs