If You Hire Smart People, They'll Find Their Way

Neil Walton is the founder and Managing Director behind The HMO Guys, Manchester's fastest-growing independent co-living specialist.

From a back bedroom to a Salford HQ employing nine people, Neil has built a team that now manages around 850 rooms across 150 properties throughout Greater Manchester and Cheshire. His approach is refreshingly simple: property management should be straightforward, responsive, and genuinely useful. Landlords and tenants both seem to agree.

In this episode, Neil sits down with Emma to unpack the journey — and it wasn't a straight line. He got sacked from his first three jobs in a single year. He walked away from a 15-year recruitment career with zero property experience. And seven years later, he deliberately left his business for seven weeks — not for a holiday, but to find out where the gaps really were.

Emma and Neil explore the hiring philosophy behind an 850-unit portfolio run by just nine people, why Neil believes training and mistakes cost about the same, what stepping back reveals about your leadership, and the counterintuitive link between payment terms and customer respect.

Outside of work you'll find Neil planning his next trip somewhere sunnier than Salford and backing his team to keep raising the bar.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations with founders and business owners who've built something that supports their life — not consumes it.

🌐 Work with Mi-PA: https://mi-pa.co.uk 

📲 Follow Emma on Instagram: https://instagram.com/emmamills_ 🎧

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Focus on the Fun Stuff, the podcast for business owners who want to build a business that they actually love. I'm your host, Emma Mills, seven-figure founder of MyPA, the UK's leading virtual PA support agency. And since 2008, MyPA has helped thousands of business owners to buy back their time, get out of the weeds, and focus on what matters most. And every week on the podcast, I'm sharing my own journey, live as it happens, and interviewing other business owners who've been exactly where you are now. And we're sharing practical tactics and real strategies to help you build a business that works for you, not the other way around. Neil Walton, welcome to Folks on Fun Stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

I'm excited to have you here today. It's not often we've had many clients on the podcast. So you're one of a few at the moment. You're the founder of the HMO guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Does what it says on the tin. You are the HMO guys. You're a co-living specialist.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Based around Greater Manchester, North.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Greater Manchester and some Cheshire. So we started as we started in Salford. That's what I suppose are still our biggest market. Boington's our second biggest market, and but we stretch as far as Mackelsfield now, to be honest. Um I suppose Cheshire. So we would go all the way from Bury all the way down to Macklesfield. Full breadth.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

So today we're going to talk about the business. You've had the HMO guys for seven years now, and I was keen to have you on the podcast as well, because I think we, although you didn't agree with me just prior to the podcast, I think we're at quite similar stages in our business, although I've been at it a longer time. Just means you've got that quicker kneel. Okay. Very quiet. So kudos to you. No, but I do feel like we're at very similar stages in terms of us trying to remove ourselves. We're going through a bit of a journey at the moment. I feel like we're both that and we're both working with the same guy, Mike Jones, to do that. But so we're going to unpack a little bit this journey of why you decided to do it and where you're at now and how you are. Because I think so many people who listen to the podcast, you know, you're in your business for so many years, you build it, you get it to a certain level, you've got revenue, you've got team, but most people get stuck to kind of like what I want either more time or more time to focus on the things that I love doing. Or it's like that kind of like, I don't know, it's not a plateau, but just a bit of a constraint or a barrier that and I think it's slightly different for both of us why that is, but yeah, I think it's just useful to unpack for so many people because there's a reason why most businesses don't get past the seven-figure mark because it is, I guess it's a constraint around the business owner, and it is just bloody hard, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, it's hard work. Like and it tells you like when you get your friends that go, like, oh, you're so lucky working for yourself, and it's like you can take holidays whenever you want. No, I can I can take them whenever I find me to, like, but and I you know, I can take them as long as I take my phone with me and stuff, but you know, like not quite. I wish it was.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

So you were in recruitment for about 15 years prior to HMO guys, like what spurred on the change to go into business and why the HMO guys.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

This is quite always surprises people, actually, to a fair, because and you don't even know either, do you to affair? So, this is the first the first time I'll tell you. So basically, I worked in recruitment for 15 years, um, and I'm not gonna say anything negative about it. I really liked what I did and I really enjoyed the job and everything like that, but I sort of hit um a point in my career where I'd done lots of things that I really wanted to do. The company I worked for got sold. I got offered voluntary redundancy, which was really nice because I basically got paid to have some time off, and that was lovely to be fair. Um, and then when I was at home, sort of having this time off, I was genuinely like, do you know what? And I was thinking I was 36, which means you can now work out how old I am. But like, so I was 36 at that point, and I sat at home going, like, do you know what? I really like recruitment. Can I picture myself as like a 50-year-old doing it? Because I don't know whether you know any many recruiters, but like it's a really high-energy job, it's really long hours, it's really hard work, and I used to be based between three offices, so I was based in Manchester, Birmingham, and London. So I used to move between locations every week, and so every week I'd be in Manchester one or two days, I'd be in Birmingham one or two days, and I'd be in London one or two days, depending on the week. And I was like, do I really want to get to put it bluntly, old and do this? Because I'm not sure I want to be getting on a train at six o'clock on a Monday morning when I'm 50 years old, you know, like I don't want to be that tired, angry person that's just like there. Um, and so I sort of decided early in my redundancy bit, like when I'd finished, because the first sort of couple of months I had to be available at home in case anything happened with the business, and then I got officially made redundant. So the first and I sort of decided, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. Um, or I don't want to do the job that I did if I was in the same industry. And then I sort of had a couple of months off work and I quite liked not going to work. Who doesn't like who's gonna really? And so it was quite hard to go and get a job again, to be honest. So then I started looking at jobs and I had a few interviews and I was like, oh, I don't like this. And then my one of my friends called Sally, um, she'd moved to she'd given up her job in recruitment maybe a year before and she'd moved to San Diego. She's back in England now, but she moved to San Diego and I went to see her and she was self-employed, and I was like, Oh, that sounds quite fun, doesn't it? But then I knew how hard work it was from her, and my dad's also self-employed, so I knew how hard work it was from seeing him growing up and working all the hours God sends, and he still does now to fair, and he's he's you know, he's in his 60s. One thing he always said is his job is not hard work because he likes what he does. So, like, although now he's like he's in his um mid to late sixties to fair. I don't even know how old he is to be honest, but I know he's not 70 yet, so let's just say that he's um he goes to work every day and he enjoys it, and it's given him some flexibility, and he now doesn't work too hard, and it's it's not just about the money, it's about him enjoying and helping his customers, and I was like, that would be quite a cool place to be, really. So it was all about that, and then HMOs was a whole different thing because I was like, if we I'm in Manchester, um, I worked in recruitment, what's the biggest barrier that people have in moving to Manchester? And I was like, So it's finding somewhere to live, isn't it? And then so I started looking at different options like do I sell houses, do I let houses, do I do this? And then I stumbled across HMOs as a niche, and I was like, Well, nobody does this, really. So how can I do HMOs? And then I was like, shall I start investing in HMOs? And I was like, don't really want to do that because we talked about this before, and I'm not I'm this weird person that doesn't like debt and doesn't like paying things off and doesn't like doing bits, so I was like, investing in HMOs isn't the right strategy for me. This and then I was like, I wonder if there's any managing agents that do HMOs, and then literally I found out there wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Really? Seven years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Well, there was one other, I think, to be fair. Okay, or one other big one in Salford, and um there was lots of agents that tried to do it, but the thing about HMO is it's quite niche, it's quite compliance-led, it's very different to letting a flat. You know, like if you let your flat out, you need three pieces of compliance to do it. If you let HMO, you need a minimum of eleven pieces of compliance to do it. So it's it's very different, and lots of high street agents will pretend they can do it and they'll take your HMO1, but then the council will come and inspect it three years later and be like, So, anyway, what where's your fire doors? You know, like it's quite a big it's like block management on a smaller scale. And I was like, So that's quite a good market, isn't it? I'll try and do that. And then if I'm honest, I just decided one day I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

And like really, and you had no prior experience in the process. Never even worked in property. That's very cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, never even worked in property, just was like, do you know what? I met a few Letting agents um when I'd been looking for my flat and stuff, and I'd met a few when I'd been doing the research, and I'd literally thought, do you know what, I can do a better job than these guys, and then that's what I did.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

And how much was just sorry, a question I want to know? Like, how because I do think also it's an advantage not knowing or doing the thing you've done before. I don't have that advantage. Um, but did so was there a lot of um learning, like how did you go about going, well, okay, how do how do I myself stay compliant being a lettings uh manager for HMOs? Um that just like kind of a I'm just gonna make this happen and yeah, literally it was it was that, and do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And if I'm completely honest, we probably weren't that compliant at first, if honest. Like, do you know what? I remember we had our like our first customer that came on board with us, and I was letting this house, it's a house in Bury, um, and we were letting it and we got like four or five tenants in, and then the council came to inspect it, and she said to me, Oh, which redress screen redress screen, which redress scheme do you belong to? And I was like, Oh, um I need to double check that when I get home, and you know what? It's because I didn't even know what one was. Um and then like literally I got home and joined your redress scheme and then sent the certificate over to the house.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

That was seven years ago just to clamp the five.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Like it was literally that point, and we don't get me wrong, we were compliant, as in we were letting the house, the house had all its fire certificates and everything like that. But I didn't realise the letting agents had to do this. I thought it was just something that everybody did. And I was like, Do you know what? I've got most of it right, I've got my liability insurance and I've got all of this. Didn't realise it was some extra bits. And I was like, but I also was like, do you know what? When you start a business or when you start a new thing in life, right? You can either pay for training or you can make mistakes. Either way, they cost about the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

That's a brilliant analogy. I've never heard that before. Is that a new special?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Maybe, yeah. Yeah, maybe because that's what I was like, do you know what? Because I'm not a I'm like not I'm not a classroomy person, like I'm not very good. I'm good at being inquisitive, like we've met before, and I've asked lots of questions about your business because I I'm curious and I like to learn, but put me in a classroom in front of a whiteboard and there's no talking to me.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Really? Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, sorry, I'm super interested in this. I do think it's just so cool. Like, you've decided to do this, I'm gonna learn it, I'm gonna figure it out. You're doing like seven-figure business now in it seven years later. Small business owners are just for me so every single one of them, like so inspirational creating something out of nothing, like it's pretty cool. So, um, how did you go about in terms of acquiring customers? Like, how did you start to take this into the real world and make it into something that was paying you a wage?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, it's um again, it's probably quite a funny story, I guess, to be fair. But so I'd met um I joined lots of Facebook groups that had HMO landlords and stuff in, and I met this person that's um had the HMO and Bury, and I was just I just took an interest in what he was doing, if I'm honest, went along to talk to him, went to look at it, went to see how it was going, went to sort of did loads of research in between. So I'd go and look at it and think I don't know what that because I'm quite inquisitive, so I'd be like, I wonder what that's for over there, and I wonder what that is over there, and like and and weirdly, I know lots of things about how buildings and stuff work because my dad's an engineer by trade. Um, and um, so I I'm quite good at technical stuff. I'm not that interested in it, but I'm quite good at it naturally. Um, so I was quite inquisitive about how things work, and what I'd do is I'd go to this HMO and talk to um Gary about what he's doing and what was changing and what was there, and then I'd like go home and research more about why is it like that and why is it like that, and then suddenly you've almost become this self-taught expert in it, to be fair. So I'm not like there, and I'd almost learn by doing and I and I I'd do random things, and I'm gonna sound like a proper weirdo for a second, but like I'd do random things, like I'd look online and find out where were the HMOs in my area, why were they there? And like literally I'd get in my car and drive to them and be like, Right, why is this a good location? Why is it a bad location? Yeah, like literally, and just think through it, and then once I'd worked through it in my brain, then I'd be going, like, right, so that's when we look at the business strategy. What's working well here is you know, so we exclusively work with 18 to 35 year old tenants, okay. Because do you know what the biggest thing about a house share, which is good, is that you need to have some level of congruence with the people that you're living with. Yeah, of course, and like so. We're um in a similar age group, to be fair, um, and we will have similar things that we remember from our childhood, similar programs, similar whatever. And in that kind of age gap, they will that 35-year-old will still have something in common with that 18-year-old because there'll still be some similarities. Whereas if we look at me now, I won't say us just you know, um, don't involve you in the in the age gap here, to be fair. But like if I talk to people about what they're interested in as an 18-year-old now, and me as a 46-year-old, no 44-year-old, 45-year-old maybe, I don't know. Like, um, I think I am 45 actually, to be honest. It's really bad, though, isn't it? Yeah, maybe 1981. Yeah, so 45. Or maybe 44 now, 45. Don't even know, do I? And um, but when I talk to people in age group, like, do you know what? And I talk to an 18-year-old now, mind blown that I don't even know.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

No, it happens in RP 18, the stuff that they are talking about, like artists or just stuff that they do, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Honestly, yeah. You know what I do? Like little things like when I was 18, you know what, you're going out on a Friday night, aren't you, and doing like as many shots as you can, you don't take pictures, there's no record of it, you know what.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And and to sound really old, you go out and you buy 10 cigarettes for like £1.50 or something, and you get a bottle of twenty MD 2020 and drink it on your way and whatever, and like whereas now that's you know what's these little pouch things that they're all smoking, like not smoking, but you know, putting between the gums and I don't know what they are, like literally. Yeah, totally sound like an old person now. I'm alright with that though.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

So then from a marketing perspective, you then actually became quite specific about we're gonna do HMOs and we're gonna do it for this particular age group and in this particular area. So you like got super niche on it.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, literally it was all about that niche, and it was all about you know what you can be our customer.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Um did you have because I have had uh in the past like concerns about going niche because you kind of feel like you're excluding people that you could help, but it also makes it super super clear who you are talking to. But I guess in the early days, I often think it's like quite a brave thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

I think it is, but I think it's the best thing to do, actually. Yeah, for me, in my opinion, it's the best thing to do because do you know what you can focus on everything and become like a really busy fool, can't you? Like, do you know what? And I think that you know you can try and appeal to everybody, and this is always a battle I have in my company, to be fair, with people that join us because people are like, What do you mean, 1835? This person's 42, why can't we have them? And I'm like, Because it's not our market, you know, like don't be scared to say no.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Nice, so you stick to it that yeah rigorously, that's quite cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Um, and when we have, if we look at the times, so we have had times where people have joined us and things have changed. We have had times where we've because I'm I try as I as and as we talk about it, but as we try try and step out of the business, I'll say to people, like, you know what, you're looking after it, you know what, if you think it's the right thing to do, we can try it, and I'm I'm open to being wrong about it, but and when I look at it logically, every time we've tried to step away from the niche, we've been less successful, we've had really you know, we because our system is designed to look after the niche, um, and I think that you've got to look at it in that way. If that's what we're for, that's what we're for. And when I look at recruitment, so I worked in recruitment in different markets, but my last job I worked in a very niche market, all I recruited was PAs and EAs, and we had uh uh a team that recruited for law firms, a team that recruited for um like surveyor firms, a team that recruited for ultra high net worth individuals, all of that. Um, but that team, like say you worked in the um PA search team, which all was ultra high net worth people, um, all they would do is recruit ultra high-level PAs for like you footballers and all of that sort of thing. Yeah, um, but they would charge high fees, they would, you know, be very niche. But the work that went into it was was mega, you know, like because you don't just find this PA that's you know a PA to a footballer by putting a job advert on indeed. You you've got to network to do it, and the the benefit they get is they can charge like somebody comes to them and asks to recruit. It when I worked in a generalist agency, you'd have clients coming to you going, like, oh we do this for like 10%, we do it for you know whatever. Whereas in that niche agency, we'd just be like, These are our terms. And I was like, So that's and I learned from doing that that the best way to do it is the customers that will pay you what your terms say, are the customers that'll treat you respectfully throughout the process as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

I love that. That is yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

I mean it's a harder business to do, like, don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

You have to be brave enough to have no money as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Totally, honestly, my massive respect, because I know so many business owners would go, oh well they're 42, we'll just take them on, they'll be fine. Like, you'll just like make those allowances to take the revenue to stick by your guns so much. I don't think lots of business owners would do. They'd go, Oh, we'll just make it work.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, whereas we'd like to. And it's something we've learned quite recently when we've been doing work with Mike as well, to fair, we've looked at whenever we had big periods of growth and whenever we had sort of little bits of stagnation and stuff. And really, when we've had little bits of stagnation, it's when we've tried to diversify is the wrong word, but when we've tried to fit a different niche into our niche, yeah. You know, we've gone like, do you know what? This house is we've taken this house on that's in a bit of a um maybe not the right, not the right area, but not the area that we'd normally take it on. We've tried new area. So to put it blunt, we took one on in in Wigan, to be fair. And I'm not gonna say anything bad about Wigan, actually, there's market there, but it's not an 18 to 35 young professional market. And of course, more like families, maybe families, yeah, it's workers, it's blue-collar, like and and then we've got nothing wrong with that market. There's a very good market there, but we're not set up to attract them. So we it was the hardest business we did. And when I looked at it, I was like, we've actually it's cost us money to actually service this. So do you know why we doing it?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Tim like so when you got started, it's you, it's you figuring it all out, it's you creating the systems. Who was your first hire and why did you choose to do that?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

So we got to about So we started from my back bedroom, um, and we knew my back bedroom still looks like it did then, to be fair. Like I've literally we we moved out, I was in my back bedroom on my own for about nine months, and when I moved out of it, really I literally moved out and I've left it, it's just sat there. Like it literally I do go and work in it every now and again if I'm working from home, but like it's twice a year or something that I go into it. Like it literally it's still got the things on the whiteboard that were on the whiteboard. But yeah. And um I just started, you know, what's the first one?

SPEAKER_03 18:07

One year into business.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

It just shows my like ADHD ADHD brain that like literally I've left it and it's not there anymore. You know, like in my head, it doesn't even compute that it's still there. And um, but yeah, so I moved into it. We got to about 70 units that we're managing. And then I was like 70. Yeah, and the first thing I wanted was like an office because I don't like working from home.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Do you know? Okay, fair enough. So on the same I hate it to be honest. Like I get so bored, and I think if you've got something that goes wrong, you just need to go and sort of like talk about it to somebody. It doesn't matter who, like, you just need to go like to a kitchen and make a cup of tea and talk to the random person in there about oh, how's your day, you know, and like distract yourself from the badness that's that's gone on.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

And so we moved into an office in the same building that we're in now in St. James's house in Salford. But like literally I found an office there that was like like a shoebox, to be honest. We could literally fit two people in it, and it was something like something stupid, like 250 quid a month or whatever. Then we got two second-hand desks and put them in there, and then I sat in there on my own for about a month and a bit, and then my friend Becky came and she worked in property, and she used to come in like two days a week and just work on her stuff, and I was like, You can have that desk until I've hired somebody, whatever, and then we've got we were keeping each other company, um, and then we got to like 75 units, and then this guy called Keenan, um who maybe watches, I don't know, Keenan, um, came from Salford University and was really interested in HMOs and was like, Do you know what? I'd really like to get into this. And I was like, Oh well, I haven't got a big job to give you, but if you want to come for a few hours every week, you can do it. Um, and then he was with me for three years, and he started as like doing four hours a week and then six hours a week and then ten hours a week, and then during COVID, he was working like almost full-time and was going to university.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

So is he effective for your first hire?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

First hire, yeah. So he was first employee.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Um he was with us for three and a bit years, to be fair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Um, and then during that time we hired somebody full-time and grew and yeah, and so what was he doing? Anything and everything, to be honest. Like, do you know what he was um hats off to him? Like, he's he left us three and he was with us three and a half years, and he left because he finished his degree. He was doing quantity surveying as a degree, and he left, he finished his degree, and he got offered a job as a trainee QS. And I was like, Good luck to you. But it was happy to see him go at the same time because that's what he wanted.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

But this is what he's meant to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, and I'm very happy for him to do that because like we always knew that what we were doing, he was interesting, he did his dissertation on HMOs, and he did all sorts of things, and we we really tried to help him as well. And then we'd sort of grown from that point, and then he sort of left us, and when he left, so when he joined us, he was the only person, and when he left us, there was um four of us, so we went back down to three, and then we've sort of grown from there, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah, and so now, seven years later, you've got a team of seven, did you say?

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Uh seven and maybe eight at the moment, maybe nine, because it was due to start shortly.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

You've obviously got a lot more units now because you said you've got like a rent book of about six, seven million.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, I mean it's about yeah, it probably is six and a half million. Yeah, we've got nine people that work for us now, uh seven that are full-time. Uh nine hundred units probably.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Nine hundred? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Eight hundred and fifty, nine hundred probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

So my question is from you on your own, did you was there a plan in your mind? Was this kind of because I feel like in my business I've always wanted to grow it, but to be fair, until about 2021 when I first properly put a plan in place that we started to follow, it was very organic, it was very like adding some more clients, do you know, just like finding your way through it? Did you how was that for you? Like, were you following a plan?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Did you No, never to be honest. Um and COVID was a hard time, like so COVID was really hard because like you couldn't you couldn't show anybody around and all that sort of thing. But one one thing I always learned in recruitment, right? So my first recruitment job started at like a peak of a recession and I'm I had this Um boss at the time, and he always said the biggest thing you can do to be successful is work. Like you don't read the news and you don't know what's going on, and you know, like so that's brilliant advice. It is though, because like do you know what we were we looked at it? I remember in recruitment, we I worked administrative and clerical recruitment in a company in Chinatown then, and um I call it administrative and clerical, that shows my age a bit more, doesn't it? To be fair that like we were like it was data entry people and fire people doing filing and you know switchboard operators and all of the traditional jobs that probably don't exist that much anymore, to be fair. And um he would always say, like, we got the recession came in, like literally all my friends I had like lots of friends that worked in recruitment because you do when you work in an industry. And um they were all like getting made redundant and losing the jobs and stuff. And my boss was so clever, and he was saying to me, like, let's look at the industries that are never going to disappear, and let's work as hard as we did on our niche then and a new niche. And so what we did, we looked at like right, so there's a big recession. What do people always still buy in recessions? Food, yeah, clothes, you know, all of that sort of thing. So instead of targeting, like at that point, you know, we'd be placing day trench people in companies like yours, I guess, to be fair, you know, like, or you know, call centre people in companies like yours and all of that sort of thing. So instead of doing that, we'd be approaching people that made fridges for supermarkets instead. We'd look, we'd like literally we'd he'd he'd send us out on a day and go, like, go and talk to people in supermarkets about things that they're doing and things that are growing and products that they're growing and stuff. And we'd go out and literally walk around. I mean, mine was Marks and Spencer's, to be fair, that I had to do because I'd worked for MNS's on a grad scheme, and so I went into the shared service centre in Salford and talked to somebody who I knew from there. And I was like, So, what things are the stores investing in doing well in and stuff like that? Right. And it worked out that they were all bringing in more cold food and they're all bringing in this, so we're like, right, so what we'll do, let's talk to the people who make your fridges, let's talk to the people who make your you know your storage, let's talk to the people who do your transport because they'll still have administrators in their offices, the fridge people still have admin people, and so try and look at it from a different angle, totally and that was and something I've always looked at from life that you know we provide like our tenants, if we look at tenants as a whole and and the team as a whole, to be honest, and I like to be really sort of holistic about it, I guess, to fair, but our tenants, the biggest thing, if you think of somebody starting in their career and you think of your most successful employees, and generally, and it's a big generalization, it's not always true, but you may be your least successful employees, the most successful ones tend to have a stable life, a stable home, like lots of foundations. And so all I saw is that I worked in recruitment and I was helping people get in their careers, and then we moved into property, and now we're giving them the foundations to help them.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Oh, that's a mega story, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

And so that was why I did it.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

So um your team now, there's eight, nine of you. Yeah. Um, you've got an assistant, a full-time assistant in-house. You've got what what do the rest of the team look like in just in terms of uh responsibilities?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, so we've got I've got an operations manager who looks after my company um day to day. Um the team will report to him apart from I've got a finance person that reports to me as well.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Um so I've got three direct reports, he's got the rest. And then we've got a team of four property managers. Um, they look after our tenants day to day. Basically, like it's a customer service focused role, I guess, to be fair, because that all of our tenants, we call them tenants, but they are customers at the end of the day, and you know, things go wrong. Um, but they're all quite practical and on the ground. You know, if something goes wrong, we want to see what the problem is to send the right person. Whereas most estate agents or letting agents will go, Oh, your boiler's gone off, let's send a plumber. Well, actually, do you know what? Let's go and look at it and see if it's turned on properly, let's go and make sure that nobody's messed with it. Let's you know, lit literally they're probably things that could be just solved. Yeah, and 80% of them are, and that's where Are they really? Yeah, and that's where we do well for our customers because you know, if you worked with another agent, and I'm not gonna I won't name any of them for the purpose of the podcast, obviously, or whatever, because and also because I don't follow them that closely either. But if you think of where you've let a property from before, you ring, you say your water's not working, you send a plumber. They don't send anybody out to just make sure it's plugged in still, do they? But actually, how many times in a a house that's shared by say six, seven, eight, nine people, as somebody just switched the switch off by accident.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

Absolutely. So the stage that you're at now, um, and we're both working with Mike Jones, who I've spoken a lot about a lot on the podcast Fractional COO, you're um and we were just talking slightly before the podcast, because I think a lot of business owners, the constraint in so many instances is often themselves, isn't it? Because you're either spread thin or and it it's not it's not necessarily via that's where you want to be or you're micromanaging, it's just the the the situation. So the the stage that you're at now, what what are you because this podcast is about focusing on the fun stuff and ultimately for lots of us that's getting more time back, it's doing the things we enjoy. So this stage that you're in now, what does that look like for Neil?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

What are you trying to So I feel like my job in the company, don't get wrong, I don't I don't dislike it to fair. There's I do more of the stuff I dislike than than than I used to, I guess, to be fair, because now I do lots of finance stuff and I do lots of that, and I don't I'm very good at it, but it's not it's not exciting, it's not interesting to be fair. Um I'm not I'm not really money's important and money's part of the business, but it's not the most important part of the business. As long as we've got enough to run, there's enough to be secure. That that for me that's where we're at. The whole thing is about creating opportunities for people. Um so we're creating opportunities for our tenants, we're creating opportunities for our team, we're looking after them, and if we look after them, they'll look after us. And it is literally about that. Um, and I feel like I'm too transactional in it, and so it's about getting me out of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Transactional in what way do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Transactional, like I'm dealing with customers when there's a problem. I'm not getting to know them as much as I used to, you know, like and you know, really I like my customers. I've got a customer that we dealt with um for years, called Liz, and she's on holiday at the moment. But she was texting this morning pictures of cocktails that she was having on the beach and things like that. Yeah, and I was like, Do you know what? That's like we look after a house and she knows we do a good job of it, and she's leaving us to it. But you know what? I've gone all day and she's slightly my pictures on Instagram, going look like having a whale of a time, and then I do the same to her, and like it your business should be about working with a group of people that you enjoy working with, and that's could go for your team and your customers, like and we talked about before quite briefly about the fact to have moral values with people as well. Like, do you know what we treat people right and we do things as well as we can with people, and the biggest thing if you were working in one of my teams, like if I thought you were trying to oh not thought, but found out you were trying to do something that was immoral, you know, not right, hidden, secret, whatever. You know, if we break something, we tell somebody we've broken it. If we send the wrong contract, we say, John, we cocked up there, sorry about us, you know, like because actually, if I've got a supplier, like um there was something I can't remember what it was with you, but we had something where a process between us wasn't working quite right when we were working with you, and it was nothing big and we sorted it out. But it was as simple as I rang you up and said, This is not like it used to be, and you were like, Oh no, this has changed, and then it was like we fixed it, we were humans, and I think that's what it should be all about.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Totally agree, totally agree. So um just before we started the podcast, there was um we were just talking about I had a moment in 2023 where I thought I was about to retire, went away for six weeks, came back. Turned out that wasn't the case. It was uh short-sighted is not the maybe the right word, but like I don't know, you d you don't my one of my ex-mentors, Martin Norberry, always had like this um really good phrase which was a problem big enough will come and find you at some point. And to be fair, going away did also kind of pull to the fore things that weren't quite as I expect I thought they were or I expected them to be. And you were saying that last year you also like spent more time out of the business.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

And I did that on purpose, if I'm honest. Did you? Yeah, so I had a mentor called John Paul, which was long before Mike, to be fair, I guess, or probably two years before Mike. And John Paul was has helped me a lot, in all fairness. I'd I'd probably the first four years in business where I didn't have any mentorship or didn't have anything, I just I bumbled along and did all right to fair and you know, and and and and got there. And then I joined John Paul's mentorship, which is like a monthly round table where we all went and sat in a room and they were all in. I was the only HMO agent, but we're all in similar industries and we all talked about property. Like a property, yeah, like literally, yeah. Um, and we'd go and talk about what was wrong, you know. This person in the business was doing this, how shall I handle this? We've got this situation with this person, whatever. Um, and that really helped because it was like, you know, he I'd go into that meeting and I'd be like, Oh, I haven't done what I said I'd do last month because I've been doing this, this, this, this, and this. And he'd be like, Why have you done this? Have you not paid somebody to do it already? And I was like, Yeah, but it's not why I wanted it, and now I wanted to get involved, now I want to see it, and he would challenge me on that, and that made me step back quite a bit, in all fairness. And that was when I hired my arts manager at that point to come in and do it, and he took a lot of weight off me. Um, in that, and then um I stepped out more and I was like, So I've stepped out of it probably I don't know 70%, but actually, until I actually take some time properly off, like I'd traditionally taken like a week or two a year off to go on holiday. Um, and then what happened last year is I I booked a holiday in March or April time, um, and we'll see your theme throughout the podcast. I like holidays to be fair. Um, and um I went away, everything went alright, and I was like, brilliant. And then my friend Dominic was like, Why don't we go away for your birthday in November? And I was like, brilliant, book it. And then my friend Peter was like, Oh, I'm going to Grand Canary in September. Do you want to come? And I was like, Yeah, book it, like literally. And so I went abroad for like seven weeks last year, and I was like, Do you know what? This is gonna really highlight to me where the gaps are. And it turned out there's more gaps than I thought.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

So you were literally preparing for that as well? Because that's it.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah, I knew it would happen, like I knew I knew, like, I knew it would run all right. I knew we weren't gonna go bust, I knew there was no gonna be no like I knew I wasn't gonna come back to business on fire. But like you I knew I wasn't gonna come back to perfection as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

That's that's really cool. I was also advised all the time by my uh mentor Martin. It was like, take the holiday, go away, switch off because whatever has or hasn't gone right, well, you're gonna know about and you can fix it. So, and again, like it wasn't like oh, I'm just going shutting the doors and I think it'll be on fire when I come back. It wasn't that. I also know my business wouldn't have grown at that point without me as well, like it would just continue to exist and service the customers. But I do think it's a really good thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

That was interesting you said that actually, because one of the things that I discovered is we grew when I was off, we did grow, but we didn't grow. So we grew in size but not revenue. And so it highlighted to me that I'm the person that's driving the fact that we grow both sides because what was happening- What do you mean by size? People no stock, I guess, to be fair.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So what was happening is Liam, that's my own manager, would go out and win new business, but then people would get really excited and service that. But then maybe we'd take our eye off the ball on our existing tenants, and so maybe we'd turn. I mean, it wasn't huge, don't get me wrong. Like it was it was small bits, but it was a small bits of detail that I'm really into.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

We would be super aware of, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, like I'm talking about like we'd drop off little bits of things, but it wouldn't be mega, like it'd be literally like you know what, instead of maintenance, a maintenance job turn around in 24 hours, it'd turn around in like 36 hours or something like that. But then I'm quite analytical in life and I understand the cost, the the implication revenue-wise, that that makes to us because if we turn everything around within a 24-hour period, you know, the cost difference to us is cheaper, the amount we can do is be more, and actually the team are less stressed. So it was little bits like that that I looked after.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah. And so those bits now, because I totally get that, and I know my numbers to a shocking extent. I like feel like I know everything. Like, as soon as I look at numbers, I can in in the business, I'll just go, that's wrong. I just know it's wrong. I'd need to talk about it, it's off. Um, and I am bit by bit. So we've got I've got a CFO that's been working with us since the beginning of the year, one of the best things I've ever done is amazing. I've got um an assistant in accounts now. Like, I'm starting to expand that knowledge because it's quite heavy otherwise, isn't it? If there's only you that like, how are you going about that? Like, is there someone you know, part of the work with Mike is that how other people are fully aware of the numbers, what's on, what's on.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah, and that's a really big thing, actually, to be honest. And we we're still going through that with Mike to be honest, and we've kind of we've got a lot closer, but are we there is a whole other question. Because we discovered like we've probably been doing it with Mike for probably 12 weeks, to be fair. I was sat at home and I'd kind of again with the mic stuff, I'd taken a bit of a step back from it because I like to observe it and then go, actually, this is what I think now, you know. Like I I want to know what I dead genuinely value what the team think and what the team do and what the team input and like I but I want to see it because I know that if I start going in there and going, This is what I think, this is what I think, this is what I think, we'll never know what they think.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

So I've got to take a deep breath and go, like, don't like what you're saying, but it's alright, I'll just smile and it'll all be okay. And um, but then I've finally sat down with um well with myself to fair and then Jeanette came and helped me a little bit about it as well. But like I sat down and was like, right, this scorecard that we do in mics. We do a scorecard every week that goes through some key numbers, and it's got too many key numbers on it at the moment, but we also had that problem.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

First scorecard was ridiculous. It had like 50 bloody rows on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Oh, we're not that bad. Like we've got probably about 22, right? Okay, right, but we probably need about 12. So um and so we we've we're breaking it down into job roles now to be fair. And um, so I looked at it and I was like, Do you know what the thing is, I've let this happen every week and I've not paid that much attention to certain parts of it. I've trusted it's right. And then I said, I said Jeanette, do you know what that number can't be right, Jeanette? And she's like, Which one? I was like, I was talking about units, and I was talking about tenancies, and I was talking about this, and I was like, It's about right, don't get me wrong. I was like, but if we look at occupancy, that's not right. And she's like, Why do you think that? And I was like, Because if we were that if that was our occupancy on an average rate of X amount that we make off a customer, that's our turnover will be this and it's not that. So there's like a big there's something going wrong there. I don't know what it is, it's not mega, like it's not we were talking about I don't know, 1500 two grand, 1500 quid, two grand a month or something, not mega, but I was like, that's how mega it is mega because if you understand that detail, you can make the difference very quickly. Whereas if you don't, you can't.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And so we've finally got to that point where we understand the scorecard. We've got a couple of weeks now where we're changing the structure of how we work with Mike to fair, where we're gonna have like a meeting with the senior leadership team, which is like me, Liam Merrill, who's our sales manager, will come into it at certain points because she's the sole person in her department, really, to be fair. And that'll come in because she understands what I'm talking about more than anybody else. But I'm a little bit crazy sometimes. And then we'll do that, and then what we'll do is now get the teams to present their parts of the scorecard to us weekly, but then have a smaller strategy because I think that one of the things that we've also discovered in this process is that the property manager's got a very different job to the person who does sales, to Liam who does ops, to um Jamie who does finance, and actually Jamie doesn't necessarily need to know the day-to-day of the property manager and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

But they're all sitting looking at it, and actually, is it any wonder they're not that excited about coming to this hour and a half meeting?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Got you. Yeah, you're setting that up a little bit now. Interesting, okay. Yeah, we did have that back in the day. I feel like at one point there was about seven or eight people in our Monday meeting, which now looking back is stupid because most people didn't contribute, they were just kind of staring and looking, and now it's me, Matt, Ty, um Bex is in there as well, my assistant. But like it's the three of us ultimately looking at the key numbers because I just think it might be really interesting for people that are that are at that level of I know everything, how can I get somebody else to? It is it is with work and frustration and um progress that other people can get to know the numbers as well. So now like Matt will present his for PA, Ty will present his for Call, and I will own like the the new client sales and marketing currently, which is my next uh project as well. But yeah, no, it's um I think it I think it's massive that because you you know you just because you just you are the business, you know the numbers so well, don't you? And I think it's a real challenge for most.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

A challenge, but do you know what? What's and maybe you'll mirror this, but I think it's a challenge, you're right. But I don't want to be the whole business. No, I don't. I a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

No, I'm very happy to say I don't want to be the whole business.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

No, when I say this, people think I'm a bit crazy sometimes, but like, do you know what? Like, if I've hired you into my business, I genuinely think you've got a future with me. I genuinely think we've got real things we can do together, and I genuinely want you to own what you're doing for me. And like, do you know what? If it is wrong and you've got an amazing idea, let's bloody talk about it and let's make it happen. Like I had somebody who worked for me in um and they left. One of the reasons she left, she was like, Oh, because we couldn't do this and we couldn't do this and we couldn't do that. And I was like, Well, first of all, she never talked to me about doing that. Because, you know, and I and I won't go into what she talked about, but if she talked to me about that, actually, there's a bloody brilliant idea there. Like, do you know what? And one of the things is bringing some stuff in-house, and like like she never talked to me about it. Um, I never knew about it, but do you know what? We've got a cleaning company now that's in-house because Oh, do you really? Yeah, so we've got our own cleaning company, our own maintenance company, and everything like that that runs alongside the business, but just services our business. Wow. Because it's a profit centre and it allows us control. Um, and if she talked to me about that, do you know what? And she pitched it to me, she could have been the person who ran it, if but maybe not at that exact point, but we could have planned it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

You know, like totally, totally. And how how is that um I'm just interested in that because I have ideas and we've I want but yeah, I have ideas all the time. But um I had an idea for a follow-up, which you are a client of currently as well, following up on leads, on customers. That was my idea. I got it to a certain level, then handed it over. We've never really got it past a level since I handed it over, but it's also now not become a focus, so it's all good and it's fine. But your idea then of the cleaning company, of the maintenance company, like how did you was it you kind of that's gone, I'm gonna make this happen and then hand it over to someone?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Yeah, because to be honest, the maintenance company and the cleaning company are kind of still me, to be honest, because um Liam does some financials for it, and obviously Jamie. Um Jamie's quite new to us in our financing, but he will do some financials for it as well. Um, but I was almost like, do you know what? One of the biggest we looked at problems, so property managers would struggle to turn rooms around in I don't know, two working days because the cleaner wasn't available because she had a job that paid her more somewhere else, or a bigger job somewhere else, or a bigger opportunity. And I was like, So the way the easy way of us getting control over this is we just do it ourselves, like it's yeah, it's not that hard. Like we're paying somebody else a profit margin to do it, so why don't we we don't necessarily need to make the same profit they do? So actually, let's keep the charges the same, let's bring somebody in house, let's use that profit to make the company happen, and let's make it into a profitable entity. And then actually, when we've got somebody in the business that wants that as an opportunity, let's let them run it, grow it. And if they want to take it, we don't take it out to market at the moment. But if somebody did want to take it out to market, why couldn't we? You know, like totally.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

We are very good at having ideas, isn't it? It's then just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

I mean, don't get wrong, it does make profit, like, but it wets its head at the minute, like, but it wets its head, but it makes it easier for us. And that's half of it. Like that half it is making it easy.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Totally. So um you are you have a team, you are not fully in the business. I'm just interested in your time and managing that and how that looks for you across the week. Um, because I think that's one of the biggest constraints a lot of business owners have. And it is ultimately where you choose to spend each hour, which has the outputs of where you where you go and where you get to, and and how does your assistant and Jeanette support you in that as well?

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Um so she does. I mean, Jeanette doesn't plan my time really, to be fair. She more does she couldn't nobody can plan my time for me, to be fair. Even I struggle to do that, to be fair. So basically, what I I tend to work on deliverables more than anything else. So I look at my week and like I look at every day, and every day I look at what I've got to do, and I decide what my top three or four things is that I have to do today. And like, and if I don't do today, there is going to be something there.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

And basically, I work through that and I perfect. I'm very focused on it. Like, I am clearly a completely undiagnosed ADHD person somewhere in the in the background. But like I am that person that can sit in this office of ten people and they can all be talking to me. And if I'm focused on that, I'm not listening to you. I might, you know, like listen, I can look really ignorant on it, and it's not that I'm really ignorant on it.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah, just hyper focused on the thing.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yeah, and I I can't, like I but then equally there's I have other days where I just can't get my head around it, like I'm I'm everywhere, you know. Like, but it works out. I think actually it's one of my biggest strengths as well as a biggest weakness at the same time. But I think that one thing that's really lucky is that I've got to my age now, and if I look back to when I was an employee, my first three jobs I got sacked from in like a year, and I'm not even ashamed to tell anybody, like I was rubbished before I couldn't be on time for work, I couldn't be, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

My first job ever, I was rubbish. I really was. The boss, she wasn't very nice, she wasn't a nice lady, and she did teach me a lot on how not to treat staff, but I'm rubbishing my first job 100% with you on that.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

I was rubbishing like loads. I mean, I got that job I was talking to where I had a really clever boss in Chinatown. I got sacked from that one, to be fair. But actually, I learned lots of stuff from it, and I would say that getting if anybody ever gets sacked, actually, it's not horrible.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

It's a learning, yeah. Of course, everything is a learning.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

We've always done better afterwards because you learn. You genuinely um I'm not saying I want to sack people because touch wood, we've we haven't really sacked what we have, but not many people, like yeah, very rare that people leave us, and it's very rare that anybody, whatever. But um, in reality, like it's yeah, I got sacked from it, but I got sacked because of all the things that are good for me now. Like, I got sacked because I can't I'm not very good at being on time for work, but actually I get things done and I get things done well and whatever. But you know what? Ask me to be there at eight o'clock every morning. Oh, it's not working out, like literally can't do it. But that important meeting at eight o'clock, I can be there. But if it's not important and it's just I have to start off and 'cause it's eight o'clock. No sense.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

No. I'm okay. In terms of like, is there plans for growth with the business?

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Yeah. Well at the moment we're working on really what I want to do is get everything so simply straightforward. I think is probably the right way and I think you probably agree with me on this to fair. What I want is almost if you look at the businesses that create opportunities for people, because that's my key thing, like recruitment if you any all of my career has been about creating opportunities for people. And I am super passionate about it. Like everybody works for me, I like them, I want them to do well, I want them to and I'm not just saying that for the camera like I just think that yeah well I know I'm really glad you said it because I do think it's also really important.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yeah I think it's you know it's your family and your friends did it but like No but you care about them.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah. And I do care about them genuinely and when we've had we had we mean we had an employee that did some dirty bias a couple of years ago to fair or maybe that's the wrong way of putting it but but wasn't very kind to us to be fair a few years ago. And I was like do you know what the worst thing that hurts me about this maybe we did maybe we could have handled that situation better. Maybe we could have done that differently but actually that person was part of the family and we did care about them and we did want them to do well and we did try and we did you know and maybe we tried too hard sometimes as well to to do it and maybe that's where it all went a bit wrong. So you look at like a McDonald's or a Starbucks or a Costa or a thing they're all businesses that can be run by somebody that doesn't know what they're doing. Right? My business there is no reason you can't come in tomorrow like you could come work for us next week not knowing a thing about HMOs and I can guarantee you by the end of next month I just taught you enough to provide a good service to a customer. So what I need to do is put that into a book put that into a training programme and whatever because then what I can do is find these really good people because like you said earlier I think one of our key strengths as a business is that I didn't come from property. So I'm doing things because they're the right things to do and because it's sensible not because that's how this one does it and that's how this one does it. Yeah because if you hire like an experienced person in your business like from a call centre or from a call answering service or from something like that they're doing it because that's how their your competitor did it. And your competitor doesn't necessarily do it the right way. You've got to look at everything with logic.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

And so what I really want to do is grow a process in the business that recruits people who are intelligent, logical, sensible teaches them how to do it but then lets them grow it if that makes no it makes total sense and that is exactly the pro like the journey we've been in over the past year because we've had a few various managers in call and PA and what we found what me and Matt and Ty have kind of unpacked is that the there was so many so many systems and processes that were put in but it was to compensate people that were average do you know what I mean? So I totally get that like obviously McDonald's I I would love to work in a McDonald's um to understand just how like formulaic it is but what we have found is Jeanette my assistant and my company and my compliance manager I guess to be fair. She started life in McDonald's really yeah and Jamie who's our finance person now started life at McDonald's no way and when I worked in recruitment in retail recruitment we used to really target McDonald's employees because the way they train people is phenomenal is next level it is a Daniel Priestley isn't that isn't it he will he always says if you find someone that's managed a restaurant a nightclub McDonald's like these are things that could that require like um great systems process you're also potentially like handling random things that come up and you're doing with the public like let's be honest yeah that is that is the big uh anomaly isn't it as well but yes in so in our business we found that we'd almost gone to this like really stupid level of you must do it this way you must do it that way because we were trying to compensate for average people like from a couple of years ago and now our energy is exactly what you just said. Yeah we want the playbook of what it's like to be an amazing EA how to um speak to our customers the my PA way like the fun we embrace the quirk we but also like we don't want to have to go this is the A to Z way exactly you must do it like that. We want really great people to embody the playbook of how to do it and just bring in really good people who also have ideas and bring their own spirit to it and just know how to execute without being baby fed every single thing. I feel like do you know what I mean I feel like it's um systems and processes are great and we all read the E myth when we first start but I feel like you also want shit hot people to execute on it.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

It has to be like do you know what and you I I almost don't think I mean John my one of my bosses in recruitment everybody has a different opinion of John my only real opinion of John I really I'm I'm not gonna say I liked him or hate him to fair because I I I was alright with him some people hate him whatever but anybody who works for him comes out and goes we learned something from him and what we learned from him is that he threw in at the deep end like I started working for him in Manchester and he like literally my first day I turned up somebody gave me some keys for an office and was like there you go. And like and I had to build it from scratch and do you know what and he'd come every once a month and have a meeting about how P and L and how I was doing and if I was good he told me I was good and if it was crap he'd tell me it was crap and but you know I learned so much from how to run a business.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

From it but then equally what we'd then do is he'd say do you know what hire your first person right brilliant and then we'd hire people onto a reception desk and the the plan would be that they'd come in and they'd sit on reception for three months they'd answer the phones they'd see candidates coming in they'd do all of that they'd learn what we did in the business. Yeah and then they'd come and talk to you as the leader in the room and then hopefully like you'd have more leaders in the room because we'd had like four at the end and they'd pitch you for a job on your team because they understood your team and that's why they wanted to work for you but all he ever used to say to me and this is my key thing is if you hire intelligent people they will find their way in your company if you don't they won't like and we used to have this little saying in Birmingham and it wasn't about Birmingham but the Birmingham offices split level so we had like ground floor in the building was reception then like six floors where the offices were and then there was like five companies in between you know like we just we just happened to have the two floors.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

And he'd say do you know what they we'd call them the reception we called ops and he'd say what them people on ops what we'll get is um you'll have that girl and that guy on ops and he goes and some of them will come they'll get I'll get to be upstairs because they're good and the other ones will just hang around so what you'd find is you'd knew who the good person was and who the bad person was because what would happen is you'd have somebody who was raring to go to get onto a team and they'd be pitching and trying to impress the team leader and the one that wasn't that great will be up there doing the washing up in the office and up there collecting the cups trying to make friends. When actually you don't need to make the friends you just need to be pleasant intelligent do a good job and everything else will come along.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Yeah totally and I don't I don't want to put that too bluntly but you know like no not at all I think it is so important and I've been through this journey with Mike because just very quickly like if anybody's listening to this and you've got team members who are like I'm just not sure about it just feels okay like it is totally possible to get really good people in every role. Nigel Bosch will spoke about him 10 million times on this but the one thing he's just taught me so much is like you get what you tolerate and he is not tolerating anything that's not like we're trying to build something world clash you're either on the bus or you're not in um in 2021 when we first started like a big growth spike I remember we recruited like four or five EAs at the same time and on I remember particularly one of them Emily on her first day she had a welcome call with a new client like on her first day we just went this is booked in if you're a good EA you can you can you know how to speak to a client you know how to work out them like just get going. She was brilliant at it and kind of what happened over the as we grew and we were employing lots of people and maybe not all of them were the right standard it was then like oh you well you know you can wait two or three weeks for a welcome call or do it in a month or and it was kind of like we were watering it down to make it all nice and happy for everyone so they weren't too stressed and they weren't doing that. When actually and this is what Mike has reminded me of so much when actually you get shit hot people and they go give me the challenge what am I doing? I'll get on the welcome call I don't care that I've not spoken to I don't know Neil but I'm gonna make like tell me what your problems are like what what we're gonna fix how's your diary and I just think I lost that for a bit in like 2023 2024 which I've talked about so much on this podcast and on my mic one but I just think for anybody listening to it who's like I'm just not sure about like it's just you know you know in your gut don't you and it's totally possible to find really good people that are going to grow your business with you.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah and the key thing like I think you you're right the right people and we used to say in recruitment actually to fair that if you hired a new person if they made a placement of some sort in their first month like they didn't have to make a placement that started they didn't even have to make a fee but if they had candidates out on interview they had candidates who'd come into the office they had clients they were talking to in the first month they were probably going to be alright the ones that at the end of the first month would say to you like oh I'm not sure they probably weren't going to make it and I know that sounds really silly but you're like No I don't think so like I remember you know you'd have somebody and they'd make a placement in the first week that was unheard of like generally that did happen sometimes but like it wasn't the right thing. We don't need you to make a placement but you know what we need you at the end of your first month to tell me where you think your placement might come from because you've got a good idea of what we do. And it's the same in every business I think. Totally and I think the key thing and and you might disagree me I don't know but like when you're recruiting people the biggest advice and I know I've come from recruitment right I'm not gonna say you have to use an agency I'm not gonna say you have to advertise yourself but you know what don't dismiss any part of it because we've got people in my team that have come from agencies we've got people in my team that have come from adverts we've got people that have come as recommendations actually don't care whether I've got to pay a fee don't care whether I pay for an advert if you're a good person it doesn't matter so if you're a business owner and you're thinking don't want to pay that recruiter 15% do you know what? If he sends you a person in that's worth six grand pay six grand for him. Change your life totally I totally agree it is a false economy to I agree yeah yeah we'd actually don't use a recruiter and Matt does all of our recruiting but I feel like we've nailed we've like honed it down so much we know what we're looking for now because we've been through the bad stuff the good stuff but like I totally what I'm saying is don't dismiss it like if you had a if you had somebody walk into your company if you had a a a recruiter ring you tomorrow like and all business owners will I'm not pitching recruiters at all to fair because some of them are rubbish to be fair and whatever but if you had a person a recruiter ring you up tomorrow and go, do you know what Emma this business that's here has got this person who's a business development manager he's relocating she's relocating she can bring this with her this with her this with her you know and she knows what you do she's admired you whatever why wouldn't you meet her? Like and if if she walked in blew you away why wouldn't you try a good person changes can change your business.

SPEAKER_02 54:51

I feel like it also changes your energy do you know when you're with a team member and they're like you've you're bouncing off and you're frown you're like oh this is great like it it can change your own confidence and energy as a business owner as well because I feel like when you've got a lot of substandard stuff going on you don't feel confident that you're gonna smash the plan. I agree and I think that if you've got somebody in your business as well like that isn't working out you should cut ties for each other not just for you as a business owner like you know what if you've got somebody in your team that's not performing the likelihood is they're not having a nice time they're not enjoying it totally like do you know what have a chat about it don't just pretend it's not happening don't push them too hard go do you know what is this really right for you as well such good advice it's just so easy just to let things roll isn't it because you're busy and you've got all the things in your inbox we've all done it though yeah we have all done it yeah totally um coming to the end of our time together that's absolutely flown I guess just my last question like what's next for Neil in terms of like because I've I was gonna say we're all trying to get to the next stage but that's not just necessarily in revenue it might be in your lifestyle it might be in the time you have back but what's what's your like what are you trying to make happen for you now?

SPEAKER_00 56:00

For me now so when I worked in recruitment um my last sort of two jobs were all about starting new things to be fair and I and I found my niche there to be honest because I'm really good as an entrepreneur at getting things off the ground getting things moving yeah getting plates spinning I'm also quite good at keeping the plates spinning but if I'm honest I find that quite boring to be fair I like things yeah I like it when things are changing I like it when challenges I like problems to solve like I'm I'm a natural yeah really yeah um I do really yeah um like so what I want now is I want to get the process perfect in my business and then I want to go out and find the next area that we want to work in and I want to really go and find somebody and say do you know what like let's set this up exactly as I want it or exactly as the process works in Manchester here. Let's have the back office in Manchester looking after it and then let's grow some micro sites around how exciting UK but I just need to get the per process perfect in my office to give me time to think about it. And it's a brain space to be honest. It's not necessarily a physical time.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

No it's just thinking time.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

So important.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Because one thing that like I found going like going away for a week or two weeks or whatever on a holiday there's some holidays like last year where I just didn't even take my phone with me.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Really?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Yeah I didn't take my work phone with me on two of them. Um haven't managed that and on purpose because my fa I've got a work phone and a life phone so like and and they don't mix between each other and that's on purpose. But I didn't take it with me to give me time to switch my brain off from it. Because that's that for me that was the clarity of everything.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Totally it's the shower thoughts isn't it it's the blow drying my hair thoughts it's like you're just doing something monotonously then yeah like you your your brain just totally goes into proper thinking time.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

Yeah but thinking it is taking the time off and and I have said it like it I went down to I did generally do a four, four and a bit day week. And everybody says what do you do on that fourth day the the day that you're not in the office and do you know what I do literally it's about thinking about I need to create some mental clo mental space because if I it used to be Friday that take off it changes each week now to be fair but if I was taking a Friday off I'd do my wind down on a Friday and get over all the crap that had happened in the week and then by Saturday I'm thinking about new things what shall I do here and and my best ideas come when I'm not thinking about the drama I guess.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Totally I think that is a perfect note to end on so many it's so easy to keep yourself busy nowadays isn't it like we've all got meetings we can say yes to stuff to put in our diary we could be busy all the time we could you know our phones keep us busy but having sacred thinking time is honestly so underrated for so many business owners most don't do it they think by keeping on the wheel like things are going to happen but yeah just on the wheel all the time. No you don't it doesn't generate good stuff like actually taking the step back to go what do I want what's the next thing is where all the good stuff comes from I think you need to be able to you don't even all the time and I think that the the bit that you made me think of then you don't even all the time but you need to be prepared to jump on it whenever you need to. Yes agreed that's yeah that's a good uh antidote to it yeah yeah that's amazing Neil it's been fabulous to unpack your story as there's so much good stuff in there. If anybody wants to connect with you find out more about the HMO guys where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 59:18

So find us on Instagram the HMO guys um is our Instagram um or Facebook the same thing or our website thehmoguys dot com.

SPEAKER_02 59:26

Amazing thank you so much