From £5M Success to Closure: The Rise and Fall of Finlay James with John Gaughan

John, welcome back to the podcast.

Hello there, how are you?

Really good. Um, I'm really appreciative of you coming on here and sharing your story with us. I think when we bumped into each other at the expo— obviously I've known you for a good amount of time now, always had you as a prospect when literally from Hoxsey, so I've known you for like 4, 4+ years now really. Yeah, when I bumped into the expo, being honest, I didn't actually know what had happened to Finney James, if I'm honest, or hadn't seen anything. So obviously, as I do, I'd always say hello, and we spoke and said about what's happened this year. I was like really pleased to hear that it was something that you'd be open, or at least willing to share on the podcast, because as we discussed, I think particularly this year, my experience in the business that I run. For the very first time, I've had 4 recruitment companies sign 12-month contracts with me and all go out of business. I've never had that before. I've been running this business for 3 and a bit years now. So when you tell me about some of the things that you've gone through with Finney James, that just really matched up with the conversations that I'm having. And I think we both agreed that how much education, content, information is out there around recruitment businesses going out of business? Is there? Not how much.

There's nothing, unfortunately. Even with, you know, the advisors out there, it's really cool to be talking about growing your business, setting up in America, doing stuff in Germany, growing this, expanding this. The dirty side of, you know, companies kind of downsizing and going smaller and going out of business or going into liquidation or going into administration or, or doing some kind of pre-pack. It's a bit of a dirty subject, so people don't talk about it. So I guess I'm here today to kind of, you know, open back the curtains and kind of tell people kind of what happens, what goes on, and, and what, what you can do to kind of look after yourself and look after your own mental health because it's, uh, you know, it's tough. So if I can help any people out there today, you know, I will do.

Yeah, and a lot of people go through this, but definitely a lot of people go through this in the recruitment industry. But why don't we set the scene then? I guess the way that we're gonna approach this, we can caveat it with this isn't a financial podcast. There might be things in here that we speak about that you got advice on and someone listening might be going through this now, uh, yeah, you're gonna have to do your own research, get your own professional advice. But the way that we're going to talk about this is ultimately we're going to talk a bit about, with hindsight— I'm sure you've reflected on this a lot— what were some of the things that started to happen, unravel, that led to Binley James going into liquidation, no longer existing. We're going to start there. We're then going to go into when you got exhausted all your options, you tried all different things, and then you chose the path that you chose. What was that like? What were the paths? We'll talk about that. So actually going through that, and then the decision around starting a recruitment business and coming out the other side. Yeah. So to paint a bit of a picture here, I feel like a lot of people would agree, particularly in the UK market, although I know you you spent a lot of time in the US as well, is I think a lot of people would say that they know Finney James, they respect it as a brand. You've been around the block for a long time, 20+ years running this business. I always think, when I think of networking groups, recruitment leaders, like John Gorham would be a name that you'd probably often see. You'd be involved, always willing to share. And I've, I've met multiple people in your business Emilia Sordell, Gareth Fox, Nick Guy, just to, to name a few that have been on this podcast. We've done things with like a lot of people. So I think that is the other thing as well. Regardless of what people would say about Finney James, their own experiences, what they can't deny is the impact that that business has had, like the amount of lives that your business has impacted just in terms of the recruiters that have been part of it, right? Because I know how many people have then gone on to start their own businesses end up in other companies. So I think that's the first thing, which is why I think a lot of people, when they saw your post or heard, there will be an element of like surprise there or shock there because you've built that and obviously you deserve that, right? You've got that over time. So I don't know if you want to add anything to that because 20 years is a long time. But before we start into like what started to unravel, but like that's been just me, that's just been my interaction with your business, the amount of people that I've met So I think that's the other thing. It's always not a nice thing to hear, especially when it's, you know, your brand and business would have had a lot of respect from people.

Yeah, I think what I'd add to that is, uh, myself and Sarah, we were looking at, you know, the list of people who had worked for Finlay James, and I think we got up to over 350. Now I would safely say 98, 99% of those people were in a better spot when they left Finlay James than when they joined. So, you know, we, you know, we've helped, I guess, in some small form, create 15 to 20 other either recruitment businesses or other businesses that employ people and, and grow and develop and stuff like that. So yeah, myself, Sarah, we're really proud of the impact we've had on people's lives and when I put that message out, the day I met you at the expo, the number of people who reached out who they had worked with me 15, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, kind of 5 years ago, 3 years ago, the people who suggested that, look, you know, Finlay James and you and a bunch of the people there changed my life and for the better. That was lovely to hear. But you can't take that to the bank. You know, the bank manager, he's not that interested. So yeah, I'm really proud of what we've achieved and what we've done over a 20-year period. And, you know, I'm now looking to, I guess, do that again over a 5, 6, 7-year period and, you know, take the learnings and do something about it. So I'm really excited about the future and I'm very sanguine about what happened at Finlay James. And, you know, as CEO, I take on all the responsibility. You know, 350 people have worked there, but, you know, it was mine and Sarah's name on the door. And, you know, we need to take responsibility for that.

Yeah, and I think just worth saying that post the MBO that happened in Finney James, it is you and your wife that has run this business, right? I know it's just me and you sitting here, but she's absolutely part of the, the story. Oh yeah. So obviously, yeah, you're sharing like your experience, or as what I'm sure will be fairly similar, but there might be other things. But you're obviously sharing your experience and how this has gone for you. So I guess why don't we start from— you can tell me because you would have reflected on this with hindsight, where you feel like things maybe started to unravel, or maybe you should have thought about things in a bit more of a serious way. But I think this is the thing that will be surprising for people to hear, and feel free to add anything else to this, but I asked you at the peak of Finney James, in terms of performance-wise, what did that look like? So I've got written down here June 2022, you had your biggest ever month as a company, which was £1 million. You're a perm business, £1 million perm fees. And, uh, that year you went on to turnover £5.85 million. Was that your best year?

Yeah, by far. So the previous year we had done £4.2. The year prior to that, which was the COVID year, we'd done £2.7. So we went from £2.7 to £5.8 over a 2-year period.

Yeah. And your EBITDA at that point was around a million, you said. And literally, I don't know if it was before that June, you said, but you were in conversations, serious conversations that year with a PE firm about getting a 5-6 times multiple on your business.

Yeah.

So we were having conversations. Uh, so we had a financial advisor at the time. Uh, we had a company that was basically looking to take us to market. And they were really, really pleased with our— so we had done £5 million at the 9 months. So we, we were looking at, you know, hitting the £6.5, you know, for the year, up from £4.2. Uh, we had Chicago, we had a guy in New York, we had, uh, a growing team in London. So things were looking really excited, but exciting. However, you know, even from June till July in that year, we went from turning over £1 million to turning over less than £200K in a month. Now, that was at the time we had, you know, signed up to a lot of big contracts. And, you know, we were at that point, we were looking at how quickly we were going to get to 100 staff and how quickly we were going to get to £10 million turnover.

Because it was about 80 at that time.

Yeah, the, the max we got to was 80. And of those 80, I think we would have had maybe 12 in the US and, uh, 13 in London and the rest in Didsbury, Manchester. Yeah.

And how— again, just roughly, what, what did the back office look like?

What is that back office at that point?

Uh, I'm not sure they like being called back office, but, uh, well, non-billing staff.

Non-billing staff. Yeah, non-billing staff. Uh, we would have been looking at 8 So probably 10%, which wasn't a huge number. So we had, uh, you know, people in HR, we had people in finance, we had people in marketing, and we had the infrastructure for a business that could easily accommodate 120 people. You know, everything was built, everything was in place— systems, processes, relationships, cash. You know, we had £1.5 million sat in the bank account. We had just given back £300 grand's worth of bounce back and loans that had come out of COVID because we didn't want to pay interest. So we were, you know, looking, uh, looking a good bet and, you know, thinking like what the future would look like, you know, what type of company we wanted to be acquired by so we could go on a, you know, a different journey. And so yeah, it was really, really exciting, but then that summer from July, August, September, from doing a million quid in June, we did 850 in the next quarter, which, you know, that was a chunk of a loss because our overheads at that point, Hishem, would have been over 400 grand a month. So we were turning over a lot of money, but we were also spending a lot of money, and our consultants were earning a lot of money, uh, So yeah, we, you know, when the company was billing for £420, £450 a month, that was absolutely fine. Suddenly when those overheads are creeping up and you're then billing £200, £250, things start kind of unravelling pretty quickly.

And I think just to make sure that we've made it clear, so at this time, 'cause we're using this maybe as a bit of a milestone, and then we can move towards what happened. But you're saying then, just to be clear, at that point the company had no debt? Basically you took on some loans, but that at the same period, or I don't know, around about when, but you, you paid those off. So at this point you had no debt in the business?

No.

Yeah. And then just, I think, the final bit to paint a bit of a picture, because I do think it's absolutely part of the equation what was like your, uh, approach in terms of how the team was set up? In terms of, did you have— obviously I know you had Nick. Nick, from what I always understood, he was very sales-heavy, um, and did a lot on that side. Like, did you have a delivery function? Was it everyone was 360? Just tell us a bit about that because that is absolutely part of the equation here.

Yeah, yeah. So if you're looking at, you know, let's say at the max we had 70 people creating revenue. Of those 70 people, uh, looking at the, the percentages, 50 of them would have been delivery focused, filling jobs.

50?

Yeah, but, but we had enough jobs. Uh, 10 of them would have been more on the new biz side, bringing in the opportunities from a 180 perspective, and then 10 of them would have been 360. But If I was to tell you, you know, anyone, you know, we had over 250 live vacancies. So even with, you know, 70 billers and 250, like, we didn't have enough billers to keep up the demand to actually kind of fill the roles we had. So there were roles that we had that weren't getting worked. And so we felt, you know, we, we wanted— at that point, we wanted to hire more people. Because we had these roles, but we went, you know, the drop-off in roles was not as, it wasn't like, you know, off a cliff like when COVID happened, but it was a steady decline. So when interest rates were increasing, inflation was going nuts, suddenly the tech companies that we deal with One day they were basically being asked to grow, the next day they were being told to make money and cut costs and, you know, headcount freezes. So we had clients who we had placed maybe 3, 4, 5 people a month with some of these clients. You know, we're not hiring and we're not going to be hiring for at least 6 months, 9 months, 12 months. So it went from kind of one minute, you know, we've all got headcount to the next minute we've not got headcount when all the, the, you know, the VCs, PE companies basically just one day just stopped. And that would have been the summer of '22.

And your world, just everyone knows, is— I mean, is it just the commercial function in tech companies, or is it just sales? Did you also customer success, marketing, or was it—

yeah, all of those, Hishem. So, uh, the go-to-market stuff, anything that like supports the, you know, the sales function and the commercial, commercial function. So as you say, customer success, marketing, pre-sale, sales, SDRs. We're doing really well in SDRs at the time as well. So any of those functions. But what's difficult is when these companies who were getting basically given checks for $10 million, $50 million, $100 million, and they're sat in a WeWork or some other facility, and you know, it's, we need to fill this space with talent, suddenly it's, we've now got to make money. These companies were like, well, we've never had to do that before. You know, we were basically, and you see it on LinkedIn, you know, people were more interested talking about what money they had been given. Oh, we've just got Series B, we've got, just got Series A. Nobody was talking about what, whether they were making money or not. It was what, what funding they were, they were physically getting. And so a lot of those tech companies will have gone under, and a lot of the, the big VCs are sat even now saddled with companies that they paid 5, 10x what they're worth now. But even all that stuff hasn't unraveled yet.

Just two things on this, and then we'll start going through some of these bits that you've reflected on that came up when we prepared for this. But just as you, as you mentioned it, so one, curious to hear your thoughts on this. So you said that you had over 200 live vacancies. That's a lot. But if we're being truthful, I don't know how you measured this stuff, and if you did, but like, how much of that was committed, good quality work? Because not all jobs are equal, right? And from what I understand, you know, feel free to correct me, I don't know how much was you doing contingent, exclusive, retained, I don't know. So although that's a lot of jobs, if we were to look into the detail of it, how much of it was actually committed? You have to tell me, you might have a way of tracking it. I don't know, we did A jobs, B jobs, whatever, but yeah.

What I would say is, you know, if I think back to June '22, you've just done a million pounds, you know, you don't do a million pounds in a month without having a bunch of committed clients. So what I would say is, you know, we went from having committed jobs to non-committed jobs because— so that, that kind of happened more or less overnight, right? So we didn't suddenly kind of get, you know, become rubbish at taking job specs and developing relationships and reaching out and doing all that kind of stuff. The market absolutely shifted. Now, if you think about it as well, Hishem, you know, coming out of COVID we had dropped to maybe a headcount of 40 people. Within 2 years, we're at 80. Now, those 40 people who would have come into Finlay James, 10% of them would have had recruitment experience. So what's difficult is not only did we have, uh, you know, a young, uh, inexperienced workforce who were doing well in a good market. Suddenly we then had a young, inexperienced market who— sorry, a young, inexperienced workforce faced with the most difficult market I've seen. So if I think about even like, you know, what, what's happened in the last 2 years, way different to what happened in 2008. 2008, you know, that was kind of— that was a walk in the park compared to what we're experiencing now and what we have done for 2 years. And I personally, I don't think there's enough people talking about it. I think people, uh, people are very, very nervous to kind of talk about, you know, the debt that sat on the balance sheets of recruitment companies. Uh, and you know, from the conversations I've had with insolvency practitioners and people in that space, you know, they're doing the most work they've done ever. So companies like mine, they're going under every day. You know, the, the IP, they can't keep up. You know, that's the great— that's the market to get into right now, mate. Recruiting people for insolvency practitioners, that could be a market.

Fair. So I understand your point on like, yeah, you don't just go from one month doing a million to then, like you said, that's fair. Final bit that I wanted to make sure I asked with when you explain the team setup. Again, I really appreciate that I've got to take what people say to me with a pinch of salt. LinkedIn isn't the truth, right? However, personally, from the people that I met, the companies that I've met, obviously I, I don't know truly how what their profit looks like at the end of the day. I can just go off what they tell me. But something that I would maybe say, and I don't know if you thought about this and maybe thinking about with your business now, is the companies that maybe didn't get in a really difficult position are ones that really stay committed to developing a sales-first culture. Because 50 delivery people, that's— that is a lot. And you've got 20— I don't know what the percentage ratio is there, but that is a lot, right? And like you said, if you combine that with people who've always known a good market, who are being fed jobs, haven't developed that skill of expanding client relationships, new business, expected to do that, that's, that's going to be really tough, right? So have you thought a bit about that? Do you think that—

yeah, I think it's a really good point. But you get, you get to a point where as a business thinking back to May, June '22, we were taking on more jobs when we couldn't fill the ones we had. So suggesting to people we want more jobs, you know, the analogy I always use is that if you've got a, you know, if you've got a restaurant and it's, you know, full of people, uh, and you can't actually fit any more people in, having a guy outside with a sandwich board saying, right, you know, come, you know, that doesn't do you any good, you know. So, so getting more people at that point doesn't help, you know. We, we needed to fill jobs to keep our clients happy. So what happened was we, we went from having, you know, clients with a, a huge insatiable appetite to have their jobs filled If I've got 4 people sat on a desk saying, right, I'll tell you what, guys, can you go and get me some more vacancies, please? We need to get really, really good at new business. And I've got the new business guy, you know, you mentioned Nick. Nick had at one point, I think, probably 45 live vacancies. So he got to a point where, you know, we need to fill these before we can go out and basically sell the concept of us working on them. So, you know, we worked on a model where we had what I call direct responsible individuals. So we didn't want to take a job with no intent to fill it. So balancing that is really difficult. But what's quite interesting, uh, I mentioned just before we started, we were talking about football, Claudio Ranieri. You know, Ranieri went from basically winning the league with Leicester when they were 1,000 to 1 to do it and getting voted one of the top managers in the world in January, and then he got sacked in February. So whatever he was doing was right until it was wrong. And so, you know, we just had our best ever month So if people say, oh, you were doing it wrong, it was like, whoa, just done a million quid in a month. If that's wrong and I should be basically getting everybody to take more jobs and not fill them— taking job, you know, I hear it all the time now. We've signed terms with this person and we've done this and we've done— and we've got to meet and we— it's about filling jobs. It's about, it's about basically giving the clients what they want. And clients at that point didn't want to give job specs, they wanted to fill jobs because they were all desperate and they were all competing with one another. So, uh, could we have done it differently? Well, I think it would have been hard to basically create mass teams of new business people when the issue is lack of delivery.

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But I guess now, now knowing what unraveled— because I'm thinking for people like that's in this now, right, they might be in this exact same situation. But, but you now knowing— I, I totally get that perspective, by the way, like that makes complete sense. But I guess now knowing what happened, do we actually think it was more important than maybe you realized in terms of— I guess I understand about the filling the jobs piece, but I guess a lot of your team didn't have the skills that they were going to need, right? So I don't know, now knowing what happened, do you think actually maybe we need to make sure that we don't have such a heavy weight on these people have the skills for this and a lot, and then these people don't have the skills for that?

I don't know, it's difficult because I've always been a big advocate of, of 180. Okay, so I cut my teeth on 180 almost 30 years ago. Finlay James was predominantly a 180 model, and a lot of the people that you've mentioned there, you know, you mentioned that, you know, Nick was a 180 guy, you know, Nick brought on Jobs and did really, really well. Uh, whereas other people you mentioned, you know, like, would have been at that point when he worked for us, would have been more delivery focused and filling Nick's jobs, and that worked great. So I, I'm a firm believer that, you know, bringing on clients and bringing on jobs is a completely different skill to filling jobs. And I think the, the model that had worked for us for a year. You know, we'd been going 20 years, you know, the turnover had more than doubled in a 2-year period on that model. Now, so what, what, you know, that didn't just become a bad model overnight. Companies stopped hiring tech salespeople, and so it wasn't the model, it was, it was the market. But that might, that might come across as defensive and, and maybe I should have been hiring, you know, people and training them up to do new business and thinking longer term. But at the same point, you know, if you've got a restaurant and you've got a full of people, you know, are you going to be training up your staff to cook these elaborate, like, fantastic meals, or are you going to feed the people who are in the restaurant and get paid for it?

So no, I get it. I just think it's my job to make sure that I ask that. I just felt like compared to us, yeah, because I totally get what you're saying. I just think for people listening now, they've got that decision to make, right? Um, because then what, what's happened— and obviously we're not saying this is the only reason, right? But I think it's just something to— I wanted to make sure that, um, I asked. Why don't, why don't we get into them? We're sort of already talking about them, but I guess with hindsight, what do we feel like are some of the, the lead dominoes, let's say, in terms of the ended up leading to where we got to. Yeah, I think what I've got here, and we're talking about it here, I've got here, when things were getting bad, I maybe should have taken this a bit more seriously. And I think what is interesting to share there, and you can share your thoughts on this, is a couple of things. One, you've been doing this for a long time, so you've got a lot of evidence of like, we've come through adversity before, we can get through this. You didn't have any bank debt. Right, you cleared that, you just had your best months ever, you got money in the bank, you got people delivering, you got all the, the jobs. So I totally get in that scenario why you— why would you not be optimistic, or why would you not be positive about, okay, maybe we are starting to see some things that could be challenging, but we can get through this, like, we can do this, we've done it before. Like, I totally get that. But what, what do you— is there anything specific that maybe you should have taken more— I don't know, have you— I'm sure you've thought about this, like, what is it that you should have taken more seriously? And if you did take it more seriously, what would have those decisions been that would have been different?

I think it's a really difficult one because sometimes as a business, having a chunk of cash in the bank can be a bad thing. And I think in our instance it was. So we were sat with, you know, £1.2, £1.3 million in the bank. We didn't owe anybody any money, and there was a little bit of nervousness in the market. But even at that time, it was, it's going to be a tough 6 months. So summer '22, it's going to be a tough 6 months, and then January, it's going to be all— everything's going to come back. Now we then got into February, March time, and you've got guys invading countries and everything that kind of came about with Russia and things like that. And that also affected confidence and things like that. But our philosophy was our overheads were coming down a little because certain people who had done well were choosing to leave. So we had consultants kind of leaving a lot, you know, to go into maybe TA. And 2023? Yeah, yeah. So, uh, back end of '22, early '23, there were— our, our headcount was coming down, our overheads were becoming more manageable, but that was happening naturally. So we, we weren't getting rid of anybody at that point, you know, they were deciding to, to move into other areas, which was good. And You know, people got huge pay rises to do that. And, you know, I've got a lot, lot of respect and a lot of time for that. So, uh, as far as we were concerned, our overheads were becoming a little bit more manageable even though our revenue was reducing. But we were looking at having, you know, we, we can survive for years and years and years because we've got enough cash in the bank and we're just waiting for the market to come back because when it does, everything's going to be absolutely fine because it always has been. And that was built on experiences going back 28, 29 years. So we've always kind of had this kind of, you know, it's difficult and then it becomes good, and then it's difficult again, then it becomes good. Greg Savage at the, uh, the expo in Birmingham talked about the same thing, especially in perm businesses, that, you know, the harder it is for a period of time, the better it gets. Over a period of time, and that keeps, keeps on repeating. So our philosophy was that we've got enough cash to survive. Now, where it got difficult was we then got to a point where we had the infrastructure and the offices of an 80-person business. However, suddenly we were then at maybe 30 people, 40 people, and we had, you know, 25 billers, 30 billers. Now, 25, 30 billers aren't going to bill as much as 70 billers.

What sort of revenue are we doing then, roughly?

We were down to, I would say, in '23, we were doing nearer like £150,000 a month.

Really?

Yeah.

And your overheads, it's not going to be at least half, is it? It's going to be what?

Yeah, I would say we got to a point where we were consistently losing £100,000 a month, but even consistently. So it sounds horrific and it sounds quite tough. You know, I'm reliving every month of it as well as we speak here, Hishem. But it's interesting, you know, if you've got £1,000,000 in the bank and you're losing £100,000, you kind of think, well, if I lose £100,000 for the next 3 months and it's down to £700,000 and then I'm back making money again, right, that's absolutely fine. And we don't have any debt, I don't have any personal guarantee, you know, we, we're not impacted in the mid to long term. This is, you know, I'm not going to say blip, but it's, it's a short-term problem that we're going to fix over the mid to long term. Where it then gets quite tough is that, you know, when we were doing really well, you know, some of the relationships that we, we signed up to, you know, I'm going to mention LinkedIn, you know, we're we had a, an enterprise deal with LinkedIn for 66 recruitment licenses and we were desperate to reduce those number of licenses and they wouldn't. So we got to a point where—

How long was the agreement? Like 3 years or something?

Yeah, the, the agreement ran up until June this year. So June '22, sorry, June '23. So yeah, so that would've ran from, sorry, June '24. So that was a 2-year enterprise deal for 66 recruiter licenses.

So any of your listeners who've got 1 or 2, we're talking like near like 18-20K roughly.

Yeah, you're talking about a lot of money. Now when you've got 66, 68, 70 units, that's absolutely fine. That's kind of fair, that's equitable, that, you know, you'll get a return on that. When you're suddenly down to maybe 16 and you're paying for 50 recruiter licenses that, you know, you haven't even got people to use, that's tough, that's hard. So, you know, I went down to London, I sat down with the guys, I talked to them about it, and they said there's nothing we can do. And the impression I got was, sorry, the SMEs can, can, can burn so long as our huge enterprise clients are paying us, that's absolutely fine. And they're owned by Microsoft and they're making hundreds of millions, so it's billions even, so it's, it's fine. So we got to a point where, I'll be honest, we, we were struggling to pay the bills, but instead of helping us and reducing the number of licenses and, and tying us in maybe for another 3, 4, 5-year deal on a, on a reduced number of licenses, they turned it off. So I had recruiters who then didn't have a recruiter license that we were paying for, who physically couldn't do the job. So they left. And so it's, uh, how much revenue did you do last year? Uh, yeah, 23, uh, we would have dropped from 5.85 to circa 2. Yeah, so it would have been a bit— a big old drop.

Yeah, literally just half back down again.

Yeah, yeah, but when you've got less than half the people, that's, that, that's what happens, you know. So you've got a depressed market, you've got a tough market, uh, but when you're then asking a recruiter to try and do the job without the tools, when, you know, we've been paying the likes of LinkedIn for, you know, since LinkedIn existed, you know, hundreds and thousands of pounds a year, you know, we, we needed help and we didn't get it, but you know, it is what it is. And, you know, there's other people in the same spot. You know, I've, I've spoke to guys who've got 90 license deals and they've got 6 recruiters. So if you can pay for 85 licenses and an office space and the CRMs and everything else, you know, and commission to your consultants and give yourself away, you know, you know, you're going to be doing really well right now.

So it sounds like— let me know if this is fair— but it sounds like really, yeah, like throughout that year, I'm sure there's periods where it felt worse, but it— you wasn't massively worried. It sounds like you wasn't massively, massively concerned because, like you said, losing £100 grand a month, but then seeing the amount that you had in the business bank account, you didn't have any debts, these things, you just felt like surely it would, would we'll be all right, we've got a solid runway. That's at least like 12 months, right? If you just lose 100 grand every month and you had like a million in the back.

Yeah, yeah, that, that was it. So the mindset was we were kind of— I'm going to call it playing for time. So we were just waiting for the market to come back. So people were still working hard, people were still kind of energized, people were still kind of getting trained and developed. And, and, you know, we, we were trying to, I guess, push water uphill.

And had you— so had you lost some of your, like— it's never down to like one person, right? But had in this period, had you lost some of your like big like salespeople as well? I don't know, like, is that— yeah, maybe some key personnel?

I think what you, what you find is that the interesting thing about recruitment in the market is people who can be, you know, real assets when the market is really good, you know, there can be occasions where they're not assets in a bad, in a bad market. Yeah, so, uh, there's a phrase you use, you know, flat track bully, where, you know, the market is absolutely great, you know, they'll absolutely monster it and do really well and, and make a load of money. And, you know, a cold light night in Stoke on a Tuesday night, you know, they might not turn up. So I think there was people who, who left the business who had done well in the previous couple of years but there wasn't many that were then doing well that were leaving the business. So there was, there was nobody who we, we tried to keep. So, you know, and anybody who had decided, look, I'm looking to move on, I've got a job, fine, that's cool. Because at that point it was, that helps with the overhead. And at that point, unfortunately, they weren't doing it anyway. So we didn't have anybody kind of smashing it and doing really, really well and I'm now moving on. That, that didn't happen. They might think it did, but it didn't.

So going into this year, what was the mindset? So like, what, where was we at going into the, into the new year then in terms of—

so new year for us, it's an interesting story actually. So new year for us was October, so that was our new financial year, October. Now at that point we had, we had a level of interest. So one of the things we've not touched on yet was I was looking to basically partner with companies. So when things were, were getting tough, I was looking at all our options. So one of our options we considered was, you know, selling the US. Another option was to take on funding and basically sell half the business. So October last year, you know, where myself and Sarah and Alistair are out in Dubai, meeting a bunch of Indian guys who were looking to pay us a chunk of cash to buy half the business. And it's kind of like you go from that being a positive thing, you know, a company that's looking to like potentially grow to £10, £15, £20 million over a 3, 4 year period. Uh, you're spending time with them, you're getting to know them, you know, you're talking terms, and unfortunately, you know, Nothing came of it. But what I'm kind of getting at is October, we were still in a positive mental space where we're going to come out the other side of this. So in, you know, October last year, I was—

the idea that Philly James wouldn't exist within a year wouldn't even be in the thought.

Mentally, there wasn't a 1% in my mind because all the talk was of, you know, markets improving. And, you know, even this year you know, interest rates are probably getting discussed now, but there was talk of interest rates coming down 5 times this year. Now, prior to, you know, this lunchtime, it's happened once. And so the economists and the political bit, you know, everybody have got— they've all got it wrong, but that's the advice that, you know, we've been given to kind of work with. So I think it's interesting. So, you know, back in October, Yeah, we were looking to continue even in January, February, you know, we actually made some hires to try and come out, come through the other side of this. So it was kind of like, you know, we've got to the, you know, the bottom of this, let's move forward. And so, you know, we had an okay December and January, you know, it was like the finance—

where was it financially? Like, was you still doing those 100, 150 a month.

Yeah, we, well, we, we had got to a point where I would say January, February, we, we were then getting to a point whereby, you know, from a, from a management accounts perspective, it was getting tight, you know. So yes, we didn't owe anybody any money, but it was becoming more difficult to look at like your headroom to be able to kind of pay your bills moving forward. So at that point, Hishem Azzouz, I got more vocal with, you know, the companies within my network as to who would look to partner with us. So I met with 8 to 10, uh, guys who I respected from, you know, within the market and had some really interesting conversations, had some really interesting discussions, but I think what they wanted— they wanted Finlay James and they wanted the legacy and they wanted the 300,000 followers and, and they wanted, uh, you know, they wanted some of the people. What they didn't want to do at that point was to take on any debt. So they were kind of of the opinion that, look, if, if there's an opportunity to potentially purchase you guys out of some kind of administration, pre-pack, yeah, we're, we're potentially interested. 'But we're not gonna— we're not coming to save you.' So I realized that, you know, there's nobody— the cavalry aren't coming over the hill.

Yeah.

You know, to—

was you surprised to hear that? Because of, you know, you don't go into these conversations expecting or feeling like you have a right to, like, their money, right?

It's—

you've got to earn it. But, you know, there's a lot of things there that are good things that you've done over time. Was you surprised that that ended up being—

I wasn't surprised. I was— there was some really good meeting, and we, you know, there was, there was some comical moments, uh, because a lot of these people never anticipated seeing me in a room asking for help, you know, can you come in and, and kind of save us? But, uh, because in many respects, you know, I'd grown up with these guys, you know, these were peers, these were CEOs, these were And they potentially kind of thought, well, Finlay James is a better company than, than I've had over the years. Uh, so I wasn't surprised, but, you know, I wasn't, uh, I was pretty sanguine about it. You know, I was basically— what, what I said to everybody was, look, the journey that we've gone on with Finlay James, you know, it started when my kids were— our kids were 3. So, you know, one day our kids were like coloring in you know, before school. And then suddenly, you know, they're doing work experience at Finlay James and they're, you know, they're coming out on trips to San Francisco and things like that. And then they're having to witness, you know, that their parents' company kind of slide down and down and down and down, which is really difficult. But as far as we're concerned, you know, we went on an amazing journey. We created and helped create you know, hundreds of careers, and we did it in the right way. And yeah, you know, I could have— and I mentioned this to you earlier, Hishem— I could have decided a year ago that, look, the die is cast, we're done, we still got half a million quid in the bank, get rid of everybody and just kind of, you know, go down to the bare bones and, and take some cash. But I couldn't then walk through the Northern Quarter and walk past a guy who I sacked just to save my own skin. So it's not our nature. And, you know, we— I think myself and Sarah look at it that, you know, we made 5 or 6 people redundant, we fired or sacked 1 person, and everybody else kind of, you know, over a period of time, you know, managed to get off the boat safely. And every single one of them is in work right now. So in some respects, they probably did better out of it than than we did, but we can hold our head high when we walk past people in the street as to kind of how we behaved and how we reacted and how we, you know, how leaders ate last. And they did. So, you know, even from February this year, you know, myself and Sarah were, you know, we were paying ourselves a pittance so that we could keep the lights on and pay people their salaries, their commissions, their redundancies. Etc., etc.

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At what point did it then be like, we're not getting out of this, we don't, we don't have the finances? Like, yeah, when, at what point did that then— because this is the, this is this year, right?

So at what point?

Yeah, it's— when did you arrive at that?

Uh, I think you arrive at it because what you do is, uh, you know, Recruiters are optimists.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, if, if we basically kind of, you know, looked at every situation and, and was pragmatic about it, we wouldn't have gone into recruitment in the, in the first place. And we certainly wouldn't be entrepreneurs and, and building recruitment companies because most of what we do doesn't actually turn into anything. And most of, of the work we do is, is based on failure. With the odd bit of success here and there. So I think from an optimistic perspective, even back in, you know, March, April time, because the headcount was reduced and because, you know, some of the costs had gone down and some of the contracts we were in were coming to an end, are over. And, you know, people had left in the US, you know, so, you know, we didn't have anybody left in the US then from like spring this year. You know, our costs were then becoming more manageable. What I would suggest is, you know, LinkedIn, LinkedIn switching us off, that was certainly one of the nails in the coffin where we thought, you know, we're trying to do it with one arm behind our back now. But even then, we were still fighting and we were still scrapping. And, you know, you're always, you know, a couple of deals away from having a month you make money.

How much money were you losing that period then?

I'd say it would be going down to maybe 50 or 60K a month. So, you know, you start to see this kind of—

this is what— with what type of revenue though then? Were you doing that like 50? Right, okay.

You know, so, you know, so there'd be months where, you know, even if you were doing 80, 90 and your costs were 140, 150 from an optimistic perspective, you think to yourself, look, this is better than it was a year ago.

Yeah.

Uh, but you're then at a point where, you know, you're pleading with the banks, look, you know, even if you could kind of lend us 50K, 100K, you know, and we'll pay that back over a year, 2-year, 3-year period, you know, the problem was banks wouldn't, uh, lend to a company that wasn't making money. Now, the fact that some of these banks are the banks who got bailed out, I thought was quite interesting and curious. But, you know, that, as I said to you before we started, Hishem, you know, when you don't need money, banks are amazing, you know, they'll give you loads. When you do need some, they won't give you a pound. So, uh, yeah, the, the banks didn't really give me any support or help.

When did you have that first meeting with an insolvency practitioner? Do you mind sharing what they actually do?

Because, yeah, so IP, so basically I started to have a bunch of conversations with IPs, and I was, it was, you know, for me, a real eye-opener because I'd never thought, I had never met one. I didn't really know what they did, and I didn't really know that was what was involved. So I ended up having conversations with maybe 5 or 6, you know, all really kind of professional, credible people. And most of the conversations I was having with people was, look, you've, you've earned the right to try and come through this. So none of them were kind of saying, right, you need to go into a process tomorrow.

Right.

And when I was telling them, look, these are the meetings that I've got set up with these CEOs, with these kind of FDs, with these companies, both in the UK, they were saying, look, you owe it to yourself and the business you built to try and come out the other side of this. And, you know, we got to a point where if somebody would've basically acquired mine and Sara's equity for nothing to keep the lights on and go again, it's probably a deal we would have looked to do. The difficulty we had at that point was the companies that I would have looked to partner with, they have their own problems and they had enough going on than to consider, you know, even acquiring Finlay James with 10, 15, 20 people. So to answer your question, you know, the conversation started back in the spring. But even then, we were getting some really kind of interesting conversations taking place where there might have been a different option to what ended up happening. Yeah. Now, would that have been better than kind of where I find myself now? Who knows? Who knows? But, but you owe it to yourself as a business owner and a CEO to explore everything. And, you know, even Philly, you know, Philly James is named after, you know, Finlay's, you know, the middle name of my son. So kind of giving up on something that started off as 2 or 3 guys in a one-man office in Didsbury, really, really hard to kind of let go. And even like, I sometimes, you know, I look at, you know, some of the data, you know, you look on Finlay James Glassdoor, you know, I think last time I looked it was like 4.7 with, you know, 100+ reviews and 93% recommend this and 94 Now, it didn't count for anything, but not many— Philly Jays was a good company. And as I say, you know, with more help from the banks, with some help from LinkedIn, you know, could it have had a different ending? Most definitely. Am I relaxed about it and sanguine about it? Yeah. It's kind of like, look, you know, when I needed help. You know, I'd like to always think as a businessman and as a CEO and as a founder and as a leader, when people have needed help from me over the years, I've always been there for them. I needed a bit of help, and yet unfortunately from that business, you know, community, that wasn't there.

What, like, I know you've said a few times that feel sanguine about it, but what, like, there must have been, there must have been a the period where you and Sarah were— like, how did it affect you personally? Because like that, you know, there's so much time and energy that you put into this, even element of pride. You know, if I was in your shoes, I'd be thinking like, what other people are going to think. I think that's very natural. Like, there might— like, was that just whilst this was all going, did you start to process it and really feel it personally, feel for you? Because that, that's also one of the hardest things about it, I think, for people. Because your identity gets wrapped up in your business, right, when you're really proud of it. I think that's fairly natural to happen. I know people say you shouldn't do that, but I'd find that hard if I was in your shoes. So hard. Like you said, you did all these things and you owe it to yourself to not. But like, how was you feeling throughout that period?

It's interesting actually to think back. I live very much day by day and I work on this kind of acceptance type process whereby you look at kind of what you've done and what you could do differently and what you'd change. And what I looked at was all these little kind of mini points over time, you know, did I do anything wrong? Could I have done anything differently? And could I have explored any options? And, you know, I'd sit down with Sarah and we'd, we'd talk about it and we'd discuss it. And in some respects, I'll be honest, she, she struggled with it more than I did. Because my philosophy was, I can hold my head up high that I've not shafted anybody. That I've not cheated anybody, that I looked after everybody as best I possibly can. And that means I can go to sleep at night doing the right thing. And, and where I think it's different for me, and this is where I feel sorry for other people out there going through something similar, is at 54, you know, my, my family's built, you know, my kids are 24, and they're amazing. And Finley James gave them, in some respects, the opportunities that they've taken advantage of, and they're both in a great spot. So I, I look at what I've achieved and, and what I've done, and, and I think being a cool dad and being, uh, a person who they can kind of talk to and kind of communicate with effectively and all that that's kind of more important than being a great businessman or being rich. So even when, when Finlay James was doing well, myself and Sarah, we still live in the same 4-bed semi in Stockport that we've been in for 22 years. So when we had money in the bank, we weren't going out there buying the big house in Alderley Edge and buying the Maserati and driving around and saying how cool we were. So our life hasn't changed. So yeah, you know, 2 years ago we were successful and running an 80-person business and turning over £5.8 million. Now I'm running a 3-person business in ancoats, and from a happiness perspective, I'm no less happy now than I was then because I can look myself in the mirror that I've done the right thing and I did my best under these circumstances. And I didn't let anybody down. And so does it affect you? Yeah, I, I really think it affects you, but I think it would have— if it would have happened to me at 34, I think it would have been seriously impactful, and I think I'd be struggling to have this conversation now. If it would have happened at 44 and my kids were 14 at private school, and I'm thinking, I need to pull you out of there, guys, uh, you know, you, you head into the comp up the road again, that would have been tough as well. But at 54, you know, we've achieved so much, and there's so much that I'm proud of, and there's so much that I've still got to do that I'm, I'm okay with it.

What, what do you think would have made it way more difficult at 34?

I think for the, the fact that I don't think even at 34— how old are you, Hishem?

31.

34, 31. Even at 34, you know so little, or at 31, you know so little. I think at 54, what I realize is, you know, 30 years in, in recruitment and, you know, being a, being a dad of 24-year-old twins, I've learned so much that none of this stuff really matters in the end. So whether we would've sold the business for 5 or 6 million quid and I, I was sat on a beach today, would that have made me more successful or happier? Probably not. And it's funny actually, you know, I think I've managed to, and myself and Sarah, I think we've managed to teach the kids more in the last 2 years with what we've gone through than if we would've basically been showing them a bank account with 5 million quid in it. And so I think that's gonna impact on them. And, you know, their families, their children in 10, 20, 30 years' time. So we've had friends come up to us and say, look, how have you guys done it? Because you know what, we've not changed our life. We still go to gigs. We're at Stockport County when they lost 5-0 the other night, and we were still smiling on the way home, heading for a hot chocolate. So we, we're pretty cool and we're pretty chilled. And Philly James was an amazing journey, and, and there's so few people who will ever get to experience what we got to experience with Finlay James. And yeah, it, it, it didn't, and it didn't have a happy end in that one, but it was still a great story.

Yeah, I just really respect that you're able to view it from that perspective. I think I really respect that, and I, I do understand what you're saying. And what I'm sort of hearing is you've had a lot of life experiences that show you John's life and entire life isn't his business and what he achieves. Obviously you wouldn't have got to where you've got to without having big ambitions and big goals and wanting more for yourself, more for your family. But at the same time, it's not your entire identity and it doesn't make who you are and what you're about. And I do appreciate that if you are maybe younger in life— not for everyone— there's a lot more that can be caught up in it, right? Um, for sure. So I do get that, particularly with Yeah, just you being older, there's a lot of things that you can point to as like, yeah, like that happening. There's way more important stuff that I need to care about.

Well, it's funny actually. I mean, my Father's Day card this year, and Aaron and Joe kind of— it was a joint thing and it was basically taking the piss. So my Father's Day card was, you know, it was, uh, you know, came through in the post, big card. It was a bit like, you know, magazine cover. I can't remember the company that does it. But it was like, CEO, failed CEO, blah blah blah. And I was like, the fact that they can laugh about it and we can laugh about it when it is serious stuff, it just shows how as a family we've managed to kind of get our way through this. But for the people out there who are, you know, whether my age, 54, or whether you're in your 30s or 40s, your business and what you've created, you know, you gave it a go, and so many people don't. And, you know, there's one— and there's, there's a lot of one-man bands out there who talk about how amazing they are and how much they know about business, but I'll be honest, they didn't ever try and grow anything. So we try, you know, ultimately we, we failed, but Philly James also gave us, you know, a lifestyle and experience and you know, stuff that most people don't get to accomplish or achieve or be part of. And so we're really kind of privileged and, you know, we've had that privilege of pressure for 20 years of, of growing and developing a business now. And even, you know, the, the idea that, you know, we've now set up, it's just year when, and we're going again with no break. It means that I'm still excited about it, but whereas 20 years ago I didn't know I could run and build and create a recruitment company. I know now I can, but I also know some of the things not to do.

So why don't we just go into— I just want to make sure that we cover this. I appreciate you sharing all of that. Can you just explain to us the path that you ended up choosing, basically, in terms of— yeah, just, just explain it because you'll be better to explain it, but you can just talk about it. But I just want to make sure that We've spoken about different things, but I want to make sure we cover this. So what was the option that you ended up choosing? Yeah, um, and we can—

yeah, so yeah, the— let's consider like the options that were kind of put on the table for us, really. So, uh, one, you need to decide on the IP you feel most comfortable with. So a bit like with recruitment, a bit like any partner, you know, you, you want to kind of look under the bonnet and have a conversation, get referrals, get recommendations. So Uh, we ultimately chose, uh, a company called Begbies Trainer, and, uh, the guy over there, Mark Weeks, who's a really good guy. And, you know, the process you go through is, is thorough. So you basically, you sit down with the IPIT and you say, look, this is where we're at, this is the situation, this is the pipeline, this is what the future looks like, this is the situation in terms of who we owe. So thankfully, you know, we didn't owe banks any money, but We owed people like LinkedIn, we owed people like our landlords in Didsbury, and we owed HMRC. And it was like, look, this is the situation. So certain things we looked at was we looked at a CVA where you'd physically look to put something in place where you can pay the money you owe over a 3, 4, 5-year period. And unfortunately, because our headcount was reducing rapidly, and people were moving on into other roles, we couldn't give a forecast that we were confident of achieving. So a CVA route wasn't an option for us. We then looked at a pre-pack where if I was going to go again, there was an idea and there was some discussions whereby, you know, we would take maybe 10, 12, 15 people from Finlay James into a new co, and Finlay James would be— would go into administration, and we, we would go again. But the appetite from the people wasn't there. So that was something I was potentially keen to do with a bunch of the FJ guys who had stayed.

It was a pre-pack.

Pre-pack is where you go into administration.

Like the original company on Companies House?

Yeah, would go into administration, and then there'd be a process whereby somebody else could then physically buy the IP and the assets of Finlay James, right?

And I still keep it called Finlay James, but it'd be linked to a different company.

Yeah, uh, it might— the name might change slightly, but in, in that instance, the there was a possibility that I, I wouldn't be the person. So in, in, in a pre-pack, other people get the opportunity to buy Finlay James out of administration. So that was a route that was considered, but that would only be considered if there was a bunch of people who, who were confident doing that with me. And They weren't. So that was then off the table. So we then get to a point whereby, you know, at this point there's, you know, I came back from holiday in mid-August. So I went on holiday late July and Finlay James still had maybe 10 people. After the first payroll was run in July, you know, that was down to 7. I then came back, as I say, probably end of first week, second week August, and, you know, where we at, guys? What, what are we doing moving forward? And I think 4 people resigned within 12 minutes. And so it was down to me and one other. And so, you know, at that point I kind of realized, well, you know, you, you can't go into, you know, an administration and going through that, you know, with, with two of you, there's no point. So I got to a point where I kind of thought, well, look, there's two of us, we're never going to be able to pay back the money, so we, we now need to do something. So at that point, the, the decision was made to go into, to, to kind of basically consider going into some kind of liquidation. But before we did that, there was then a deal done. So we basically spoke with a, like, an independent advisor who basically looked at the assets within the whole of Finlay James. So he's an independent guy who came in and, you know, he was basically paid for to independently value Pimlico actually have. Yeah, so they came in and counted the computers and the desks and everything to think what it would be worth. And then at that point, I basically looked at the numbers and looked at, you know, what I would want to take to potentially, you know, bring to another business. So things like the CRM and some computers and some tech and a printer that doesn't work and all this kind of stuff. And some work in progress, and then, you know, a deal was done. So that deal was done, so that was like independent of the liquidation process. So that was all done pre-going into liquidation at the end of September.

Then that means you was able to take those bits into— yeah, you would have purchased it through the new business.

Yeah, so we now have— it's just you, and you know, it's basically me and two other people right now, with another guy starting in a couple of weeks. And, you know, we want to get to a point where we can now grow and develop and build a business and utilize, you know, what I've learned over, you know, 30 years in this game. And already, you know, I've kind of thought about, you know, the personalities and the, the experience of the people I'm bringing in. And, you know, something's changed slightly. You know, I've, I'm bringing in experienced people. And, you know, down the line, will I be going for the grads and training them up? Yeah, I would imagine so. But it's utilizing what I've learned over a period of time to ensure that I've got, you know, we're all aligned on values and things like that, and, you know, we can move forward. So I think the advice I would give to your listeners, Hishem, is it's a very, very lonely place. So when you're doing well as a business, everybody wants a piece of you and everybody wants to be your mate and everybody wants to be your friend and everybody wants to be all— when you're then going down a route whereby that's not happening and people are leaving, you know, it's— you're not, you're not as popular as you were and, uh, you know, people don't want to kind of spend time with you. So the lonelier it gets, the more important it is to seek out the right kind of advice. And, you know, I've already had people reach out to me that I've given advice to that they've been very appreciative to, whereby the business, the business failing and the business, you know, that's not a personal failure. So you've got to take, you know, what you achieved over a period of time. So I, you know, I was working out how much tax and NI and corporation tax kind of Finlay James kind of paid, you know, over a period of time.

Oh God.

And it was millions and millions of— it was a vast amount of money. So the idea that we've gone under, you know, owing HMRC, that's, you know, it's not something I'm pleased about and it's not something I'm kind of happy about, but, you know, we paid that and, you know, 50 times over, over a period of time.

That's what I just wanted to make sure that I asked, because I do think people think it, or definitely just from me having a business. So because you end up going down that path, obviously you had no personal guarantees, which meant if I lend you this money to your business, John, and then your business can't pay for it, I can come for John to get it paid, right? So you had none of that. But some people that's part of the deal of getting a loan, right?

Yeah.

Which is, I know something that you said, if you're listening to this, be really mindful of that, right? Because you never know where you might end up in terms of financially or whatever. But just so I— so if, if my business goes out, yeah, goes into what you just said there, voluntary liquidation, and I owe money to products that I pay for or different things, what happens? It just gets struck off basically, like because obviously they can't, they can't get it off.

No. So the job of the liquidator, and you know, my job as the owner and CEO of Finlay James, is my job is to help the liquidator get as much money in as they possibly can to basically pay the creditors. So even in the kind of the latter days of Finlay James, you know, there were some invoices that, you know, I've helped chase on behalf of the liquidator to get that money in, uh, to create a pot they can then distribute, that, that can then distribute. Now what happens is HMRC are top of the list, right? So basically, uh, partners and, you know, other providers, they will struggle to get anything. However, you know, we were very careful to basically do everything in our power to ensure that, you know, we didn't enter into any relationships or buy anything that we didn't need to buy and cut costs as best we could to ensure that the position of the business wasn't made any worse by us continuing. So one thing I would say there, Hishem, for your guests really, is the temptation for people who are struggling right now is to go and get to max out their credit cards, to go and secure some like unsecured debt, sorry, secured debt, and basically put their mortgages and houses and everything else on the line sell a kidney, whatever it is. And that might not be the right thing to do. So what I'm kind of getting at is there's an analogy I always use, which is making one mistake is bad, it's the second one that gets you. And so if your company is failing and very likely to fail, then you can go and get 50K, 100K, 200K, whatever it is. And pay huge interest and basically be in a position where you need to pay that money. And that might not be the right thing.

You know, be mindful if you're— yeah, just be— don't be so quick to—

yeah. Well, the problem is you can think very short term that I just need to kind of get this money so I can pay that bill and get that person off my back. In that instance, you're better off, you know, really sitting down with them and speaking with them and seeing, you know, is there anything they can do to extend payment terms or reduce this or increase it, whatever it is. You know, get out of an office or something like that. But taking on extra cash, the difficulty is that that money will get hoovered up really, really quickly. And then you might be into a bank or something for 100 grand, 200 grand, 300 grand. And that can be impactful then on the next 5, 10, 15 years of your life. Whereas you've got to kind of, you know, I talked about acceptance earlier, you know, failing and giving up, you know, it's not in our psyche as entrepreneurs. But sometimes you, sometimes you're done, you beat, and you got to put your hand. And you know what, the people I've spoken to who've gone through this thing, they're in a much better spot now than they were a year ago. So the entrepreneurs who, whether they went through a pre-pack or whether they went through a liquidation or whether they basically got out and got a job doing something different than continuing to kind of live in a, in a painful situation has got to be an improvement. So in the same way, in a, in a relationship, you know, if you were in a relationship and it wasn't— it was a relationship that didn't make you happy, you're better off getting out. That can also be a business relationship you're in with yourself. And it's, you know, there comes a time when you need to kind of accept, as I say, nobody's coming over the hill to save you. Nobody is.

Yeah, I think that I really appreciate it, and I know so many people will, just, just giving us like a real honest account of it. And I think regardless of what people think or may say about what they've learned here, from my position, I feel like absolutely you can hold your head high and go, you know what, I gave it a real crack to have the best chance of us not being in a position where Finney James no longer exists. That was obviously important to you. And I think sometimes maybe when people outside looking in, they don't automatically think that, right? Because of the stories that they've heard. Like you said, you could have easily just got rid of loads of people, made sure that you had money, took money, and did that. But you didn't. You wanted to give it a real go. That wasn't in your nature. And I think what I've learned here as well is, is that journey that you've gone on with— but I don't think a lot of people, obviously they wouldn't have seen that or known that, but I do think when people see these things happen, that— because it's the first time that I heard it this year around this term of like phoenixing a business, where they're like, we've got these debts that we owe, grab that, let's just close that down, we'll open the new company, we'll do this, right? So I do think there's a lot of people that when they come across this or speak to people that have gone through this, that, that's often the story. I don't think that's the, the story here in terms of you've— you tried all these different scenarios and this is the one you end up in. But as you said, it's about accepting it. What did you learn? And I understand why you're going to have energy to apply that to new business with everything that you've learned. So yeah, like, I really appreciate it.

No, it's good. I think the interesting thing is And as I say, this is another one for your listeners, is it's so easy to get caught up in what other people think. But what I would say to your listeners is 99% of the people who have worked for you or been your peers wouldn't have the confidence, wouldn't have the appetite, wouldn't have the work ethic, wouldn't have the drive to achieve anything close to what you guys have achieved. So don't worry about what some keyboard warrior in Milton Keynes is thinking about you going under or your company. And, you know, I would imagine that there's people who will have taken great glee seeing Finlay James kind of fall. And, you know, if that's what they get off on, good luck to them. But I, as I say, can hold my head up high that, you know, as I said, there was one person who we exited over an 18-month period. People were given space to kind of move on and leave. And yeah, last time I looked, you know, there isn't a person who left Finlay James in the last 12 months who isn't in work right now. And, you know, the comments I've had and the, you know, the support and the love I've had of people who've work for the business over a period of time, that's fantastic. And already, you know, we're already registering ex-Finlay James people, trying to help them get jobs in HR, finance, stuff like that. So it's, it's all pretty cool. Uh, but the key is, if you're so bothered about what everybody else thinks, you're not, you're not being fair to yourself. So, so long as you can look in the mirror and you've done the right thing under the circumstances in a real difficult situation. Hold your head up high, make the decisions, but look after yourself and your mental health and your family in the mid to long term. And don't put yourself in a worse position. So don't try and save it by taking on a chunk more debt when the die's already cast.

John, appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks, Hishem.