If We Can, You Can

Author:

Mark Ions

Business:

Exclusive Human Resources Ltd.

Published:

12/11/2008 11:39:00

I’m always looking for the next challenge, and owning my own business was the real pinnacle for me. Success to me wasn’t about how much money I made or what car I drove; it was about having my own company.

After university I went to work for a large national recruitment organisation, starting at the bottom. Eventually the company were looking to set up a HR division, so I put my hand up to head it up as it was something new that would really drive and challenge me.

I sat on the corner of a desk with three other people with numerous voices in the background saying I was completely mad; I’d never be able to do just HR recruitment by myself. But I was confident that there was a market for it and managed to grow the business from being me to me and a resourcer and a consultant.

Something was still missing though. I just wasn’t interested in building an empire. With big businesses, you start to build something up then it gets halved and then you build it again and once again it gets halved; a pretty frustrating process. Although you’ve built a market and a strong client base, you end up passing a lot of that business onto other people. It’s all very sales orientated; the figures on the board are all that matter and you live and die by that month’s figures alone, and not by building market relationships. It’s all exceptionally target driven, KPI driven and micro managed and you’re not given the headroom to grow.

I thought there had to be more to business than this. I had a vision where I could head something up that would be purely HR recruitment, would be non- salesy and the business could come in through recommendations and word of mouth.

A lot of agencies out there simply pay lip service to the candidates who then become a commodity, just another number to them. I wanted to look after the candidates with the same amount of professionalism I would give to the clients who needed a vacancy fulfilling. The candidates would become the clients and the clients would become the candidates.

At the time I’d had these ideas but I hadn’t done anything seriously to carry them out. My wife then became pregnant, and the restrictions of working for a big company suddenly became much more apparent. I was being made to constantly travel across the country to name one thing, and with a baby on the way I knew that that was something I didn’t want to continue. I had to figure out what I really wanted to do.

So I started to think seriously about setting up my own business and putting my ideas into some sort of action. I started to have meetings with Project North East, and I remember one in particular. I wasn’t keen on starting it straight away as I had shares maturing in early 2008. I thought you needed quite a lot of capital to put into a new business so I couldn’t see the point in not waiting.

The woman said to me, ‘If you’re not happy now, they’ll just end up giving you slightly more responsibility, maybe paying you a bit more. That desire and want that you’ve got now to land the business might start to fade and you’ll find more and more reasons not to do it.’

She was absolutely right. Where I was I could end up being a director, but in name alone only; in the end I‘d just be a glorified sales person. So I put my plans into action, and resigned.

A couple of weeks down the line I got a phone call from a director of the company. It was a Sunday and just so happened to be my first Father’s Day. She rang to say that she thought my leaving was the wrong decision and that she wanted me to stay in the business. If the phone call had ended at that point I would probably have left with positive thoughts.

Unfortunately, this woman who up until that moment I’d had a huge amount of respect for, progressed along the lines of, ‘Have you really been on top form recently’ and ‘How are you going to compete against us from your back bedroom?’ She was doing a great job of trying to put me down and knock my confidence.

I knew that I was about to feel the force of a huge, national competition with my old company, and that took a lot to get my head round and it was a very difficult period. I also knew though, that I was definitely going to compete, and I would get my business off the ground.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was getting the name of the business, Exclusive Human Resources, into the market. Although I knew the market, HR, very well, I had no idea about how to create a brand, or what makes a good website. I definitely needed help in those areas.

I worked very closely with a web development company who did a fantastic job of designing the website. It needed to be clear, concise and easy to use. If the client doesn’t understand the message, it’s going to take him twice as long to pick up the phone. It also needed a good brand, a good logo that looked fresh and strong against all the other competitors.

On our website we talk about the recruitment journey, both for the client and the candidate, in order to offer a more personal and professional service. We needed to make sure we weren’t tarred with the same brush that other recruitment consultants are; the perception that they’re all sharks and not really interested. I wanted to work very closely with the clients and candidates and ask them what it is that they specifically wanted; I never just assumed I knew.

To get our name out as quickly as possible, we sponsored a few events hosted by the CIPD which is the professional body for HR. Suddenly our name went out to 2800 HR professionals and was associated with a well ran body. People started to ring up and said they’d never heard of us before, but were impressed by the website and loved what we stood for.

The first day in the office was pretty bizarre. I was always used to phone calls and general chatter in the office but it was just silent. When there’s no phone calls coming in you’ve got to tell yourself that it’s not because no one likes you, it’s just that they haven’t heard of you yet. You need to believe that it will happen; you can drive the business the way you want and the phone will start to ring. It takes a bit of time, but it will happen.

That first client was just fantastic. I was used to doing it for a big company for a number of years, but there’s always that little bit of doubt that whether other companies will have that faith in you.

When the clients and candidates started to come in, all of a sudden those databases and websites; systems that you’ve put in place, start to be tested, such as sending a CV out to a client. You’ve actually got someone who’s utilising the service that you’ve spent all those months developing and frantic last few weeks planning. It’s just an amazing feeling.

But you’ve still got to deliver that service, so the pressure is on. But you can’t think, this could be the difference between paying the mortgage next month or not. You need to have the belief that you’re perfectly capable of delivering that service.

Financial planning is still crucial though. When I started out, I didn’t have a bottomless pit of money by any means; my family and I risked everything to do this. We had to make sure that we could survive for the first three to six months because there was no guaranteed income. We didn’t forecast any figures for those months; it would have been unrealistic since no one knew who we were. But we did reduce all of our outgoings just to make sure we could survive. I did things like borrowing my granddad’s old car and that really helped take the pressure off for that first period.

I would really advise going out and talking to as many people as possible about your idea, preferably individuals who’ve been there and done it because if you can get even one inspirational gem of advice, it will all have been worth it. Your business will start to seem less an idea and more as something that would be really worth pursuing and going for.