The office never died, expectations changed 🔁 | Joe Averill

You've got to back yourself and fully believe in yourself because in times of turmoil and turbulence, when things are going wrong, as they sometimes will, you've just got to believe in yourself and keep on going. And that you've got the credentials and the reason why you set up the business, you're justified. And that self-belief and self-trust is really imperative because you have nothing else when you set up on your own and your ups and your downs.

Most people complain about the office, but Joe Averill built a business by rethinking it. He launched Level in the middle of a so-called office apocalypse. No co-founder, no funding, and a young family depending on him. But Joe saw what others didn't. Companies still want space. They just don't want the old school leases, hidden costs, or landlord games. In this episode, we talk about What founders get wrong about office space when scaling, how to build a business in a brutal market without funding, and why confidence is built, not inherited. Millennial Masters is brought to you by Jolt, fast, reliable web hosting built for founders. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling an app, Jolt gives your project a rock-solid home starting from just £3.95 a month. You'll get 99.99% uptime, support in under 30 seconds, and flexible payment options including Bitcoin and Amex, so you can rack up those points while you build. Get your first 3 months free at jolt.co.uk. Smart hosting for people building what's next. Joe, welcome to Millennial Masters. How are you today?

Good morning, Daniel. I'm very well, thank you.

Let's get straight into it because you're in Manchester and most people wouldn't dream of launching a property business just after the pandemic when everybody went working remote and a lot of people still are. So I'm wondering, Joe, what made you ignore the timing and made you go all in on Level as a solo founder without a co-founder and without funding?

A good question. So it was a massive risk for me going doing this. So it's not something that I took lightly. I've got a wife and I've got two children. So it was a huge, huge risk for me because I'd never made any money before, you know, never had any equity or any earnouts or anything like that. So everything was literally starting from scratch. But I always had a burning desire to go on my own. And when I made that decision, I felt like I had all the credentials, all the skill sets to go out and do it. So I made that decision. The reason why I did it is because pre-pandemic, when I was in the office market and I was in, I was employed by my former employer, is that the wave of flexible workspace was starting to come into Manchester. So in 2016, 2017, we saw the rise of flexible workspace. I mean, WeWork, who were the pioneers of flexible workspace, came into Manchester. And ever since they made that move, the wave of flexible workspace started to increase in Manchester with lots more operators setting up and lots more operators expanding into the city of Manchester. So when I made that decision of going into that market, even though there'd been a pandemic, there was still a feeling from my side that people and businesses are still going to need office space, whether they're upsizing, whether they're downsizing, whether they want leased offices, whether they want managed or serviced offices, they're going to need a site or some form of hub to come in. And, you know, some people have gone fully remote, but there still are a lot of businesses out there that still require a physical presence. And I think that's why I wanted to set up Level to advise the tenants out there, not the landlords, but the tenants, because the market is changing. The market was changing then and is still changing now as to how you advise that tenant and hold their hand throughout the process because the market's evolved so much. And some of these businesses were only looking at office space maybe once every 5 years prior to flexible workspace coming in, maybe once every 10 years because they were signing up for leases. So I think a lot of people in my position take it for granted because we're in it on a day-by-day basis and seeing how the market's evolving. Some of these other tenants haven't seen how the market's evolved because they're not looking at space on a daily or weekly basis. So I really felt there was a gap and an opportunity there to go in and support these businesses and hold their hand through the entire process and educate them on the full market, on the end-to-end spectrum. Of the wave of flexible workspace that's increased, new serviced office operators coming into town, the levels of amenity that are now in the buildings in terms of, you know, gymnasiums, coffee shops, breakout spaces, phone booths, events, communities. The office at the time setting up was no longer just four walls and a boardroom. And that sort of really excited me to go out there and educate the occupiers of the world of how Manchester in particular has shifted so far in such a short space of time. And I really, really believe that I could come in and change the industry and turn it on its head in Manchester. And even though you have doubts when you're setting up, when you first start out on that journey, it's a long, lonely road. You know, I still had that confidence in myself that I could shake things up a little bit.

Well, speaking of confidence, your career started on Manchester's tech scene. You worked with a startup that raised $25 million and scaled, and I'm sure you'll tell me there's some parallels there about the office needs and what they needed to do and some of your experience. So, and then you pivoted to commercial property. So what lessons did you bring over from tech and then carried them over into what we look at now for office space and real estate?

Yeah, so great question. And I was very, very fortunate when I got my job in the technology industry because it was through a family friend. And I was very, very well schooled in that business because the CEO of the business had already previously sold out an IT firm. So proven track record. And now he was onto his next venture. And I was around very entrepreneurial people in that business. So I'm very fortunate and very grateful for that day for the learning lessons that I got from day one as a, as a young lad coming out of University. And the thing that I was taught there was it was sort of very, very well schooled in the world of sales. So when I was 21 years old, I got a real insight into what a good sales operation should look like. And I'll always remember those days because they shaped my career and how I approach my work today. So I was the of postgraduate that was coming in and I was filling the CRM with leads for the cold calling team to pick up. So within 6 to 12 months, I became very good at identifying people, email addresses, numbers, building up a profile of that person. And because you, they were quite a young entity at the time, the value proposition changed quite a bit as the business evolved and who we were selling to. So it might have changed from a learning and development manager to an HR director, from an HR director to a head of applications because of the software was evolving and the business was evolving. So not only did I have a great research background of understanding businesses, understanding how they ticked, what software they were using, who the right people in the business were to sell to, but also how I would change my messaging to people that we were selling to, because obviously if you— each person has different pain points. So I became very good at populating the system for the sales guys to have as much information as possible. And then I would send that information through to them, and then they would make the cold call. So you were heavily invested in because we'd get commission if the sales guys were able to convert them onto a demo, and then the demo ended up being successful and we're able to sell to them. So it was a really good, like, lean sales function of somebody filling the hopper, which was me, somebody doing the cold calling, and then a business development team to take those demos and then take it over the line and close. So that for me was great because I ended up getting promoted from the research into the cold calling. When I jumped onto the cold calling, I was great because I had that research capability behind me. So I was able to establish trust, respect, and credibility every time I picked up the phone. It wasn't the easiest as a young young lad, uh, nobody likes cold calling and it was quite hard. But as you built the resilience and get used to getting rejected and stuff like that, you just get conditioned as you grow throughout your career and you sort of, uh, shed your shell and become tougher and become tougher. So that experience for me was absolutely brilliant and I'll never ever forget it. And then I took a huge U-turn after the tech space and went into the world of property, something that I always wanted to do. And I took that sales experience into the world of property commercial office space because a lot of businesses at the time, a lot of businesses are improving now, but specifically at the time where I was employed in property commercial, my first commercial property job is everybody was quite reactive waiting for the phone to, you know, ring where I would say the transferable skills that I brought across was proactivity in terms of getting the brand out there. Getting the name out there and also filling that hopper. So I was, as I say, bringing that real sort of drive to the, to the sales process in, into the property side of things. Which is something I really enjoy. And then when I went into the property side, I added another string to my bow, which was the networking side of things. So I've built up a capability of the networking and built a strong network. Which also adds to your sales prowess because you're covering different areas. You're not just jumping on the phones and, you know, doing the sales side of things, which is very transactional. You're switching it and going to the relationship side of things and building relationships. And that's something that I did really well in my career. In my previous job, I had a reputation at the time for going out pretty much any time from like 4 times to 7 times a week. Whether that's, you know, hosting tables for the rugby, going to the football and living in town and just getting out there and absolutely loved it, but build it, building the network.

Well, let's talk about that because you clearly explain how having the sales skills are important for building a business. There's no business without an element of sales, and you had all that covered. And I've read as well that you said you used to hit, you know, 3 networking events a week. So are there Any tactics that you approached that would be useful for any other founders or entrepreneurs today to build their network that you are still using for Level?

Yes, I'll save them the hard lessons that I learned because I went to the opening of an envelope in my 20s, but I had to do that to build the network and separate the great events from the bad events. And that was just going to as many as possible. And I found that when you were building more and more relationships, you started to level up in terms of the quality of the networks that you were a part of. And I would say one of the best things when approaching networking events is actually to try and approach it not from a position of selling, but a position of adding value because there's so many people that go up from a BD perspective, business development, and you've got busy CEOs that see the job title of BD and just want to run a mile. Whereas if there's someone there that's emotionally intelligent, puts themselves in their shoes and asks the questions of, you know, what is your biggest challenges at the minute? You know, who you're trying to sell to? What's your value proposition? How does that compare versus your competitors? And you get an understanding of their business and actually facilitate introductions for them. That is something that stood me in really good stead from a networking perspective, because I was actually introduced as a person of value rather than a person that was trying to sell to you. So I'd be introduced as, oh, go meet Joe, he's really helpful and really useful, rather than go meet Joe, he's going to try and find you some office space. It's a lot more appealing if you've got somebody who's helping you and is on your side and trying to connect you and has got a good network. So that's one point of how I'd approach the networking events in terms of when I was there, but in terms of actually facilitating how you're going to go and how are you going to choose them, one thing we do phenomenally well as a business, again, comes down to my research background, is we understand the market before we approach it. So if it was pre-pandemic, we would tell you that the TMT sector the technology, media, and telecom sector in Manchester accounted for around 40 to 45% take up from around 2016 to 2018. So all the businesses that were taking office space, 40 to 45% of them were TMT sector. So that is imperative to understand before you go and approach the market. And the thing is, the exciting thing for Manchester at that time is they were local businesses that were raising that investment. So let's pivot that today. So at that time we would have been hanging around in all the tech events and going to the tech networking events in Manchester. But if we were to use the word fishing there now in today's environment, we wouldn't be coming out with many fish because it's not where the market is today. So that has to pivot your strategy in terms of where you're spending your time and energy, because if you were still spending, if you'd not done your research, and known that the market has now shifted away from the local TMT sector because interest rates— um, so basically what's happened now is interest rates have risen, so there's a stat— the cost of money is more expensive, so there's a standoff between investors and investees of how they value the business. So investees value it here and investors valuing it down there, so there's less capital flooding that market to scale the local tech businesses. So the cost of money is more expensive. So what we've seen is last year we did 1.22 million square feet is a city in Manchester. And a lot of those transactions, that sounds fantastic when you say it because it's higher than the 5-year average. However, it's important to note that Bank of New York, BNY Mellon contributed 220,000 square feet of that. 1.22 million square feet.

So it's a blue chip company can took a big chunk of that.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're seeing a lot of blue chip organisations or a lot of more well-established operators are taking this. So a lot of flexible workspace operators, serviced office operators are coming into Manchester and taking big chunks of space, you know, compared to WeWork. So we've seen a lot of serviced office operators enhance their presence. And they typically, you know, take space between 20,000 to 40,000 square foot. It sort of skews the market ever so slightly. And then you have your big international businesses and your blue-chip organisations that are taking space. So recently in Manchester, we've had Channel 4 take space, S&P Global take space, Arm Holdings take space. You know, these are huge blue-chip occupiers. And even this year we've had Auto Trader. Take 100,000 square feet and Puma takes circa 25,000 square feet. So the market is a lot different now in terms of it's not just the TMT sector, but it's financial and professional services. There's a lot of, you know, great recruitment businesses that are scaling. So it's that, I would say, that's a very long-winded way of basically saying you have to do your research before you go and approach your market. And a lot of people, you'd be surprised, neglect that research because it's arduous and it's a little bit boring, it's a little bit tedious. And as founders, we sort of want to just sort of roll our sleeves up and just get stuck in, and that's fine, you can do that simultaneously, but just make sure you're protecting your time and energy by delivering that research piece first before you go in there get onto this, you know, executing your strategy.

This all stemmed from networking, and I understand where you're coming from because, Jo, you said you were painfully shy as a kid and you weren't keen on public speaking. So I'm wondering, what were some of the tricks? How did you get from being a shy kid to running a business, building your own personal brand, getting yourself out there with networking and in a way putting your face to the business because you're driving it yourself.

Yeah, I think that comes from my appetite for, my appetite for winning essentially is to be, is to compete. I've always competed in sports since being young. And if I'm doing anything, I want to win. So the ambition and the drive has to overcome that fear. So I'm a salesman deep down by trade. That is my passion. I love selling. So whatever I have to sort of do to evolve and develop in order to become the best that I can be, then I will put myself forward. So I actually have to go on a panel after this today at 11:30, and I am unbelievably nervous. I've got somebody hosting the panel who's a really good friend of mine. I've got good friends on the panel. But I can feel my nerves now thinking about jumping on that panel. And that is something I've steered away from because the last panel I went on, my hands were bouncing up and down, which was probably around maybe 6 to 12 months ago. And ever since then, it's just something that I don't enjoy. Whereas if you're on LinkedIn, it's a little bit easier to sort of, uh, hide behind the profile. And, you know, I love writing content. I love talking about the market. And I love balancing, you know, the personal stuff with the business stuff, because I think it's important for building your personal brand, obviously. But the public speaking is not something that's come naturally to me. And when people speak to me and whenever they meet me, they say, you know, I would have never have known that that is the case. And I think it's just trying to shake off that identity that you've had since being a kid of, you know, with my family, I was perceived as the shy one. Mm-hmm. So for me personally, it's the drive and the ambition that's got me to where I am, but it's not something that I find easy to do. It's just something that I push myself into do because I believe it's important to raise the business brand, and I believe that good can come from that.

So the lesson there is that unless you put yourself out there, you're not going to be able to get over your shyness and you have to practice a bit more the things you don't always enjoy doing.

Yeah, 100%. And the world goes on, doesn't it? I mean, sometimes we're in our own head and think the world revolves around us when it's not really the case. Everybody wants to see you do well when you jump on a panel, but I think you've just got to go in there with a mindset of, for me personally, if I start shaking or if my face goes bright red and get nervous, It is what it is. At least I've put myself on the panel and gone for it because it is a difficult thing to do. It might not go well, it might go great, who knows? But the world moves on. In another week, something else will have happened and it will be forgotten about.

You said you like to speak about the industry, and I'm sure you're going to have a lot of interesting advice for any business scaling and looking at getting some office space or increasing it or going multi-location. And what you do differently differently with Level is that you went for the gap in the market and Level is purely tenant side, not for on behalf of the landlord. So I'm wondering what's the biggest key in turning the business model on its head?

Essentially in Manchester, when you go and search for an office space now is lots of the agents represent the landlords. So they market—

estate agents. Yeah.

Yes, correct. So for us, we have—

it's across the UK, so it's not just— yeah.

Yeah. So we have full impartiality, unbiased, conflict-free advice. So no matter whether you're looking for serviced offices, managed offices, or leased offices, we have full impartiality across the country because we don't market any space for any landlords or any serviced office operators on their behalf specifically. So we are impartial. So we don't have any stakes in any serviced office operators. Some of our bigger competitors own some of the serviced office operators. We don't go on any buildings. So for us, we have full impartiality. If somebody comes to us and says, Joe, or any of the team, can you show us your office spaces or take us around a couple of buildings? We can't do that. So we have a full exclusive retainer with our clients where we say we'll challenge them on their brief. And then once we formulate that brief, we'll go out to every single building in the city or their desired location, whether that's Manchester, London, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, and we'll exclusively represent them. We'll keep their identity confidential because we have no obligation to report to landlords who's in the office market. So it means that protects their position of their current building where they are. So nobody knows they're on the lookout for space. And it also means that there aren't, you know, 10, 20, 30 other salespeople trying to contact them. We're their one point of contact and act very much as a personal concierge service. We book in all the viewings on their behalf. We attend the viewings on their behalf. We negotiate for them. So we're very much their workspace partner throughout the whole process.

So you gave a few interesting clues there about what businesses in the office space market should be looking for? You mentioned that perhaps they don't need as many desks as the number of employees now that a lot of people have hybrid work and only certain people come at certain times. And you mentioned cleaning and connectivity. What other things should business founders keep in mind when they're scaling their office presence?

So it's really important to analyze their recruitment and their hiring plans. And we represent a lot of fast growth businesses, those that are going through Series A raise, Series C raises, right through to IPO businesses.

Which can scale very quickly within 18 months, they can double or triple their headcount.

Correct. Yeah. So that's very, very true. So the last thing in that essence, they don't want to be locked into a 3-year agreement and frustrate the growth plans. And that's what happened to me when I was in the tech business is obviously it wasn't my business, but I experienced firsthand the challenges of that. We had 3 separate offices that we had to go into because we were locked into a long-term lease. So we lost the culture of the business essentially. So you don't want to be locked in. So we really advise on that flexibility, how they can align their growth plans with their workspace strategy without frustrating those growth plans. And there's a number of ways that we can do that through flexible leases, pay-as-you-grow space utilisation deals where you step the rent, where you only you're paying for the headcount that you are in year 1 through to year 2 to year 3. Option agreements where you might be able to knock through walls and also putting in front of landlords that have a proven track record of scaling fast growth businesses throughout their portfolio. So that's our bread and butter. We absolutely love that, the fast growth businesses scaling. And in terms of these businesses that are going hybrid and might not be all in in the office, we do tend to challenge them and say, listen, there are a number of buildings out there that have a great level of amenity in the building, perhaps on the ground floor, but you might actually not need to take as much space because if you have, um, what we call sort of overflow space, um, and you get a— let's say you have a team of 50, you might only need space for a team of 20. And it's just our job just to challenge them on it, just to see how they respond to that in terms of, do you actually need a space for 40 or 50 if, you know, the ground level of the main city has some breakout space where people can work. They've got internet access, they have phone booths, they might have auditorium spaces. And a lot of our clients do all hands meetings where they'll have the whole team in once a month or once a quarter, biannually. So, you know, an auditorium can work really well for that where they have all the team using the ground floor amenity and they might book it once a month rather than taking an extra, you know, 500 square feet where they're paying on a monthly basis. So there are means and ways of how we advise. Businesses on that flexibility. And if they are scaling fast, there are numerous ways from a commercial perspective that they can have that flexibility in their office space despite growing rapidly.

Is there something that a lot of businesses overlook before you advise them?

I think one thing in particular is the— one is the magnitude now of the Manchester office market. Or if it's in London, then, you know, even bigger because it's an even bigger playing field. So it's the amount of spaces that are now available, the change in landscape in the market where there's now a lot of serviced office operators, but there's now a lot of managed operators that are circling Manchester and there's a few operators that are doing well. For those that aren't familiar with the managed space, the managed space is basically blend in the best of worlds between serviced and leased. So you get a little bit more space, you could, it's your own private space, you can bespoke it a little bit more, and you can wrap all those offerings around the space, such as your cleaning, your internet, utilities, M&E, maintenance, etc. Navigating that world in terms of the different types of spaces out there and understanding, you know, Who owns the building? Is it a big fund in London? Is it somebody personal that's actually going to be face to face that you can meet in Manchester, that you've got that time and relationship that you can build and navigating that full office market essentially. So I don't think people understand how much of a challenge it is until they actually undertake that process. And I think when somebody starts out, they think, oh, it's fine, we'll have a look on Rightmove, and then in order to do a thorough search, you have to contact like 50 different people. Then you've got serviced office agents. You don't know necessarily the difference between serviced offices, managed or leased. You don't know who you've spoken to. You're not sure what the costs are and what the hidden costs are in these spaces. So what I think a lot of people have more of an appreciation for when they go on the journey with us because we cash flow absolutely everything over a 5-year period or over 3-year or 2-year, whenever they're going into the space. And we, we put everything in there. So if it's a leased space, it'll be, you know, the cost for a schedule of condition going into the space, the cost for dilapidations at the, at the end of the, the bill, the service charge rates, insurance, the building insurance, provide that full transparency of the costs. And we also factor in the incentive for the rent-free that they're going to get. So they know exactly what they're paying from a fixed cost perspective, but also from an operational cost perspective over the tenure of their agreement, essentially. So a lot of people don't know what they don't know until they begin that journey. And we always call it the poison chalice because it normally gets chucked to one of the team members who've never done it before. And then they have a go at it and then they, you know, they've got to run their job and simultaneously figure out how to navigate this office market. So I think as time goes on throughout our process, they have more of an appreciation of the value that we add because it is a minefield out there, essentially. The property jargon, the amount of different agents, different buildings, what's transparent costs, what's hidden costs, and then the actual heads of terms themselves in terms of looking at things like, you know, we always have a laugh internally around the property jargon used in our sector, but like alienation provisions. Lapidations, et cetera, looking at those clauses for somebody that's never been through it and doesn't understand the terminology or how they can minimize their exposure to those clauses, um, is where a lot of them see value as they go through that process with us.

Now, let's talk about your own business journey because on LinkedIn and social media, you've been radically transparent about revenue ups and downs. Even posting that you've only hit like only 13% of the previous year's numbers before bouncing back. So I'm wondering, Joe, what's your playbook for staying calm and rallying the team when the market shifts and can turn very brutal at some stages?

Yeah, it's a great question. And, you know, it's not easy. The thing that I've done If I'm to blow my own trumpet for a second, that I've done quite well is due to my nerves and apprehension around the ups and downs of the market. I did build in my first 2 years sort of like a long cash run in the business so I could get more comfortable with hiring team members and being able to weather that storm a little bit better because, you know, I've got a lot of founders, a lot of friends that are founders, clients that have become friends and friends that have become entrepreneurs and it is tough. And these guys, you know, sometimes are living from month to month on their cash flow and fair play to them. It's not something that I would have liked to have done. I know I took a risk when I first started up, but I tried to minimize my costs as much as possible by, you know, moving into an area where it was low cost in terms of rent and, you know, Tried to minimize my costs as a business as much as possible. So for the first 2 years, I built that cash run to have that more flexibility and to weather the storms. So I was very prepared from that mindset, essentially, when we, when we do hit bad times to weather the storm. But I have, um, had one of the best mentors who said, you know, activity breeds confidence. And I think. Um, somebody said to me the other day, how the terminology off the ball work, um, in an analogy to football. And I quite liked it in terms of our off the ball work when things aren't going so well is we don't sit still. So we reinvest back into the business to ensure that we are out and we're active and we're reaching as many people as possible. So quiet time isn't necessarily the worst time. So for example, now in summer, it's cyclical for us because the decision makers are on the beach in August, July, and we're now preparing. So for us, it's understanding where we are, understanding what's happening in the market to make sense of it.

Let's talk mentors then, because you already mentioned that. Who's been in your corner over the years? And what's the single best bit of advice a coach or a mentor ever gave you that actually changed how you lead your business?

It's a good question. And another great question. The thing is with mentors is I always say some of the best mentors don't teach you from what they do well. Sometimes they teach you from what they do badly. And I would say that the best lesson has been taught to me by watching people that, you know, I respect in, in business. And I know some great people that have had some phenomenal careers, but the best— I wouldn't say that I've strived from their positives. I would say the best advice that I've taken from them is just by watching, watching them and what they actually do wrong. And that's what I've implemented because, you know, there's positives and negatives of mentors. And I would say that we've had some great advice.

So what did you steer clear of then?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of mentors from a leadership capability, um, that have gone out there and they're very sort of focused on driving the business and the sort of lone wolves and the going out in terms of driving and their sort of leadership strategy is the business leading the business. And a lot of the times they're that fast-paced that the team get chucked into the deep end. You can have high attrition rates, et cetera. Whereas I suppose on our side of the spectrum, we've had a bit of a more of a different approach where we're very much more so people-focused in the business. We put a lot of time into before hiring and scaling, et cetera. We put a lot of time into our people, investment in training, ensure that they're embedded in the business before thinking about going on to the next thing because it's right for the business or right for the individual. We're very focused on the people in our business and understand how they can be embedded into our culture, how they can be trained before going on to, you know, the next, the next thing and scaling too quickly before having those foundations into the business.

So this is your first founder role, and you've admitted previously that you're picking management as you go and leadership. And can you think of what has been so far your hardest management lesson and how do you keep on developing that skill set?

Yeah, as you say, I'm still quite green, still quite new to this management role, and And I wouldn't say management is my strong point, although some in the office might disagree. I tend to provide like a basic structure and to let the team sort of go with it. And I think when I first hired Sam, I remember being sat in the office in a two-person pub thinking, what have I done here? Because I've got no experience managing. I've got no infrastructure in the business. Everything's in a pen and pad, piece of paper, etc. But that was one of my biggest challenges was being unprepared when Sam first came into the business. So what I did in that instance is I brought in somebody far more experienced than me. Um, a great guy called Sugev. He's a two-time exited founder at 29 years old, very impressive guy. And he came into the business and he helped me build those systems and those processes, but also helped me with a little bit of the, the management side of things and helped me to get everything sort of out of my head into these systems and processes to be able to train better, to, um, sell better, um, and to operate better as a business and to scale better. So very thankful to have him. So that was one of the biggest things, is actually being a little bit more prepared before.

Systems and processes, or documenting your systems and processes as you add staff on board.

Exactly. Yeah. And you know, that was a lot of, um, a lot of people within my close network were, I wouldn't say concerned is the right way, but probably challenged me on how scalable my business is because a lot of it was my personal relationships, et cetera, and my, you know, way of doing things from the way that I've been upskilled throughout my career. So I've tried to get as much of that out of my head as possible and into systems and processes. To help train the next wave of level team members coming through into the business. So that has been really, really helpful for me. So now our tech stack is absolutely fantastic. Our collation of processes is brilliant from a personal perspective. For such a young business, we're operating in a really sort of slick manner. And we have a lot of that owed to our fractional COO who came in and did a great job and he's now stepped back from the business because his systems and his processes are working brilliantly. And now we're working great with them as well. So now I know that anybody that comes into the business, we've got a great onboarding pack. We've got, um, great information around our systems and processes and how we leverage those. So yeah, that was great for me to having that understanding and having something visual and tangible to be able to be able to talk through rather than saying, here's my pen and pad with all my notes in it, which isn't useful for anybody.

Interesting, Jo, that you had a fractional COO and you've been through the whole process of bringing them into the business and then kind of like them fulfilling their role up to a certain point in the business and then stepping back. Have you used this for any other parts of the business as well? I don't know, maybe like like marketing, for example?

We have had some fractional support. We had, we had this sort of fractional team where we had a great non-exec advisor that I can't rate highly enough called John Shinnick from formerly Grant Thornton. He was brilliant for me personally because he was a great coach as well as a numbers man. So he was basically helping me with my confidence and my numbers. And I used to meet him once a month. He was instrumental for my career. So there was two analogies. He used to use a lot of analogies, and one was the lobster analogy, that you go through the motions as a founder and your shell gets tougher and tougher, and then you shed your shell, and then you become a little bit tender and a little bit sore, and then you grow back a stronger shell, essentially. And that's how the journey of entrepreneurship and the founder journey sort of um, grows, grows. And he used that as, as the analogy, and it always stuck with me because it allowed me to see overwhelm as a positive and seeing that as myself getting stronger. So that was his first analogy, the lobster analogy. And then the second analogy was when he was talking around the business, because you're in it from a day to day. So that's what I loved. I used to go for a coffee with him at around 8 8:30 in the morning, it'd be my first meeting of a Monday. And, um, we'd go and have a bit of a sit down and a chat and he'd talk through the numbers. And then the other analogy was the, um, the Wright Brothers analogy when he was talking around the business. So he was basically saying that the business is on the runway, but the plane is bouncing up and down and you're ready to take off. But that's what the numbers are doing essentially, and linked it to the Wright Brothers who created the aeroplane. And he was just saying that we're on the runway. Bouncing up and down and we're just getting ready for takeoff. And it was a great way for me to picture the numbers that he was going through and the trajectory that we were on. And it allowed me to sort of see that as a positive, that the numbers are going up and down, but we're getting ready to scale. And it was important that the numbers were going up and down because it was showing that we were reinvesting back into the business and getting ready for that growth stage. So yeah, he was fantastic. We brought, we've brought on recently a fractional CFO as well, and she's great. And we've got a freelance events and marketing manager and she's absolutely fantastic as well. So got a lot of support networks around us. And not to forget, we also have a freelance content writer as well. So we do make use of a lot of fractional talent as a small business. And we're quite good at leaning on that fractional talent pool to help us with our scaling journey because you get access to great talent, but also we don't have the money to invest in, you know, a CFO for 80 to 120K a year or whatever they may be.

Now, Jo, I'm wondering whether we can reflect a little bit on the transition from being an employee to running your own business, because when you're employed, you in a way have, you think you have less freedom, but you actually have more freedom. I'm sure you can reflect on that. When, when it's your own business, business, you can be connected 24/7, 365, rather than having a bit more regimented days and actually more free time. So how did you manage to avoid burnout, but also keeping it together, especially in the early days of building and scaling Level? When you are very tempted to work 24/7, push it as far as you can?

I was very fortunate in my journey because I did come to a point of close to burnout and I met a great life coach called Josh Cheetham, uh, which changed my perspective on life and understanding where I spend my time and energy and become more conscious of regulating my own emotions. So he was absolutely a game changer for me in my life. And I was able to spot, you know, areas where I can improve on and balancing work and life essentially. So it is really hard. I'm not going to lie. There's a lot of people who preach, you know, the health and wellness and all that sort of thing, which I'm all for. But running a business, it's important to be very transparent to those that are looking to do it. And it is extremely difficult. It's hard. You do have to put the long hours in. And you have to put the time in and it is getting easier now for people because there are some great tools out there that are coming through like Lovable and Replit, being able to design websites really quickly, ChatGPT to be able to, you know, support with some website content ideas, et cetera. So it is getting easier for people, but it is important for people to know that sometimes the extra hours do need to, do need to go in. And I'd be a liar if I said to you that I've got it all figured out because I don't, and I'm not structured. Sometimes I balloon up in weight and put on about 2, 2 and a bit stone. Sometimes I shift that really quickly. Sometimes I'm at a lot of networking events and sometimes I might not drink for 2 or 3 months. So I haven't got that figured out. Um, and it's important that I'm be transparent about that. Uh, because I think I see a lot of founders online and I think, blimmin', that they have actually got it all figured out. Uh, but for me personally, I, I haven't. I go in peaks and troughs, ups and downs. I'm doing well and balancing the health and well-being. Other times I'm just flat out and enjoying the wave of, uh, doing well at work or enjoying the roller coaster of the ups and downs. But I do try to get to the gym sometimes whenever I can. I love, I know a lot of founders get rinsed for this, but you know, doing, doing the ice baths, that's one thing that really brings me into the present. So I absolutely love that.

We're getting close to wrapping up, Joe. So I want to quickly go through a couple more questions because to me, it seems that getting out of your own shell and not Being shy or overcoming shyness has been one of the key themes in your journey. So for any founders listening who are painfully shy or on the fence about going solo and putting themselves out there, what's your one piece of advice for getting started and building confidence?

I think for me personally, and I've said this before, I went to my first networking event when I was younger and I walked straight out and It was the second networking event that I went to that I sort of forced myself to go to. And ever since Sarah got speaking to the person that was on their own, and that was a good tip for me for getting out there. But one of my mentors, and this was a positive bit of advice from a mentor, it was activity breeds confidence. And I think you just need to put yourself out there and take that first step. And that is the hardest thing for anybody as a human. That's why more people aren't entrepreneurs. That's why more people aren't public speaking. It's that fear of taking that first step. And I think activity does breed confidence and you can just sort of, yeah, get, get on and do it. Um, for example, for me, I've get— I've been pretty comfortable on this podcast, mainly because you're a great host, but I've been a lot more comfortable than, you know, as, as I've built up over time. So I think it's just getting in that rhythm and that consistency. And it's having that mindset of if I go bright red, if I get nervous and I stumble on my words, so be it, but at least I'm getting on there and at least I'm getting it done.

Getting the reps in. I get it. You're not the first one to say that. Finally, Joe, what's one risk you're most glad you took?

Without a doubt, it is setting up this business, Level. It was a huge risk. As I say, I didn't have any cash setting up. I just went into my brother's office in a mill in Failsworth, just outside of Manchester. I got the whiteboard out, I got the phone out, I got a list together, and I called that list and I just didn't stop on a daily basis. And that's the best risk that I've ever taken. Uh, and I've never looked back. It's been absolutely an unbelievable journey. There's been lots of ups, lots of downs, but that's one risk that I'm so glad that I've taken because It's given me so many great experiences. It's enhanced my character massively. And it's led me to meeting some great people, whether that is my team members or whether that's new clients or people in the, in the business community. The risk has been all, all worth it despite the, um, the rollercoaster journey.

And I think that's a great parting thought, Joe, for our conversation today. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your journey and your learning so far.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Daniel, and inviting me on. It's been a pleasure. And I really appreciate you inviting me.

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