Season 7 | Ep20 - Owen Myers & Jenna Mackie on doubling revenue YoY whilst working a 4 day week!

On this week's show I was joined by Owen Myers and Jenna Mackie, the founders of Mackie Myers. 

Mackie Myers is a specialist accounting and finance recruitment firm headquartered in London, two and a half years old with 14 employees. 

Since launching, the business has doubled revenue year on year and operated in a sustainable way!

They've introduced a 4-day work week after 12 months, which has been hugely successful. 

And they are now looking at growing from 14 to 40 - 50 over the next few years. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• Their start-up story whilst navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time
• Business planning basics
• Transitioning to a four-day workweek and the benefits they’ve experienced
• Managing client expectations and effective communication 
• Balancing work and parenthood 
• Returning to work after maternity leave
• Challenges and successes of 2022
• Profit margins in the recruitment industry
• The current state of the business and their future vision!

For anyone who's listening, who wants to build a business in the future always right at the start of their journey, this one's gonna resonate because ultimately, these guys are two and a half years in, everything's fresh, everything's real, and they're making it work. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Mackey Myers

02:20 Working together at Michael Page

08:29 Leaving Michael Page and starting a new business

12:38 Navigating the challenges of Covid-19

19:40 Setting up Mackey Myers

27:19 Hiring and scaling the business

34:24 First year of Mackey Myers

42:47 Lessons learned and balancing personal life

45:42 Business planning basics

46:43 Transition to a four-day workweek

48:04 Benefits of a four-day workweek

49:02 Operating model of a four-day workweek

50:53 Managing client expectations

52:20 Communication with clients

54:07 Balancing work and parenthood

55:34 Returning to work after maternity leave

59:21 Challenges and successes of 2022

01:01:09 Profit margins in the recruitment industry

01:02:29 Current state of the business

01:05:06 Future vision for the business

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Episode Sponsor: RecruitHub

Our trusted partner RecruitHub helps new founders launch their own recruitment businesses in the UK, US & UAE. The community is growing rapidly, with over 70 founders on the RecruitHub platform.

Everything you need to launch your own recruitment business with ease.

- Receive 100% of the fees you bill

- Own full commercial control of your business and increase its value

- Cutting-edge tech stack, from ATS to sales automation

- No admin - they handle everything from company registration to contracts, to finance and support

- No setup costs on the platform, no recurring fixed costs, and no surprise fees

If you're thinking of taking the next step in your career and want to discuss your business idea, please book a confidential chat with RecruitHub's team or learn more here: https://www.recruit-hub.com/uk-awareness/

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Episode Sponsor: Untapped

Safe to say it’s been a tricky year for the recruitment sector globally. Many have had to operate through uncertain times, making tough calls and streamlining where possible.

However, accessing lower-cost resources internationally has proven to be the 2023 cheat code for business performance. But anyone who has tried it knows it’s not easy to get right. That’s where Untapped comes in. 

Untapped is one of the hottest companies in the market right now, helping agencies in the UK, US, Middle East and Australia transition to the new world, leverage elite remote individuals and even build whole offshore sourcing and recruiting teams. 

They source from the most exciting talent pools on the planet for recruitment staff and embed elite talent into your company to improve diversity, productivity and the cost of your teams. Your UK team will also love the help with some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that lands on their desk, improving their job satisfaction. 

They put around 3000 candidates per month through an intense 4-stage interview and online testing process to find the top 1% and secure these people roles in UK agencies doing research, marketing, finance, sourcing, end-to-end recruiting, coordination and account management. 

All candidates are benchmarked against UK competency frameworks and are tested for the highest level of communication and language skills.  

It’s a simple process: You pay a deposit to kick off the search, they provide a candidates shortlist in 14 days.  You can also put people through your own process and then hire perm or on a freelance basis, depending on your needs. They are totally transparent with salaries. Typically your global talent will earn 30% more than their local benchmark giving you high levels of motivation and work ethic, but you’ll still pay 70% less than a UK equivalent support. It’s a no-brainer to complement existing teams to handle surplus demand or to ease cost pressures. 

If you’re not using this time to rip up your business model and rebuild it with global resources, you are going to fall behind those that do. Due to demand and capacity restraints, they are operating a waiting list at the moment, so be quick to get in touch: www.tryuntapped.com