How do you build a SaaS business, a team, a company and customer culture built around genuine lived values and service at scale? In this interview with Pete Wilkinson, founder of Reclaro, and the 1-3-5 OKR methodology we learn how he has built a successful coaching, consulting and SaaS business based on these principles.
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Matthew Todd
Hi. My name is Matthew Todd, and welcome to Inside the ScaleUp. This is the podcast for founders, executives in tech, looking to make an impact and learn from their peers within the tech business, we lift the lid on tech businesses, interviewing leaders and following their journey from startup to scale up and beyond covering everything from developing product market fit, funding and fundraising models to value proposition structure and growth marketing. We learn from their journey so that you can understand how they really work, the failures, the successes, the lessons along the way, so that you can take their learnings and apply them within your own startup or scale up and join the ever growing list of high growth UK SaaS businesses.
Hey, and welcome back to the podcast really pleased to be joined by Pete Wilkinson from Reclar this morning. Good morning, Pete. Good to have you here.
Pete Wilkinson
Morning. Matthew. Thank you very much. Good to see you again.
Matthew Todd
And like other guests on the podcast, I like guests to introduce themselves introduce their business rather than me speak on their behalf I think is always interesting to hear how the the founder puts themselves on their business across so yeah, oversee up for a little intro if you could.
Pete Wilkinson
Okay, yeah, so my name is Pete Wilkinson. I am the founder of Reclaro, reclaro.com. We are a OKR. Software, SaaS startup, based in the Northeast of England, most customers are in the UK, we do have some international. And where we’re at the stage of business where we have got a great product, it’s beyond MVP. It’s been tested, it’s been refined, we’ve done a UX UI project on it, we’ve got some great paying customers, and we’re just starting to put some fuel in the fire to start getting some really good traction.
Matthew Todd
Cool, fantastic. Sounds interesting. And you know, I’d love to kind of talk more about you know, how you’re looking to scale it, etc. But let’s kind of wind back a little bit. For those that don’t know, OKRs. Can you give us just a brief summary?
Pete Wilkinson
There’s a huge emphasis between building the strategy or building the plan. And there’s not always the same emphasis on the execution side.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, so OKRs stands for objectives and key results. It’s a very simple goal achieving framework more popular in the US than the UK at the moment. But businesses like Google started using when they had 40 people, LinkedIn use OKRs, you know, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, these sorts of high growth businesses. And what why we feel passionate about them is that there’s a huge emphasis between building the strategy or building the plan. And there’s not always the same emphasis on the execution side. And you know, as an as a person who has been told I’m slightly intensive, always thinks I’m intense my Christmas, think of intense my children do. But for me, like there was a real gap missing in in helping people executed pairs. So I created this little system called 135, many, many years ago, and began talking about it and coaching on it and consulting. And then I wrote a book on it and get some workshops, and we just evolved the idea. So it’s an OPR type of two, but our three five is vision objectives and key results. And I believe vision is very important. So we built this system on and OKRs exists to help somebody to not just work hard, but work hard on the right things.
And that’s what’s really important, Matthew, it’s no good just doing stuff. You’ve got to be working hard on the right things that are gonna they’re gonna move the dial, you know. You got to make sure there’s, there’s focus. And you’re not just busy, but you are doing activities, that are aligned with the direction that you’re trying to go in, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you can find a simple way. So that like your team, or your organization knows what they should be working on. And, and you know, a system that doesn’t get in the way of work, but just sort of helps you to direct what you should be working on. And then you can execute, you know, it is a great trick, I totally get the idea of thoughts and plans, brilliant.
But it’s not until you start executing them and nailing things and getting stuff done. That it can make the impact for your customers or your team or community, whoever you’re working for, you know.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. And obviously, you mentioned you’ve done a lot of coaching and consulting. In this space. What kind of customers were you working with as part of that kind of coaching work?
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, I mean, a lot of a lot of small small businesses, they would normally be a team of of probably more than 10 up to a business that was like 130 million pound engineering business, most will be probably you would classify them as SME size business. done that and still continue to do some consulting.
At the moment, I’m doing less of it now, but I still do it. I do a lot of presentations as well, to certain chief exec organizations. And, and I like that because it’s it’s sharing the methodology and helping people to improve, which is what I really love to do is to see people get better or teams improve. That’s what really gets me sort of fired up to see people have tools and tactics that helps them improve. But at the same time, I’m learning from them as well. So it’s really great. If you’re like a lifelong learner, which I am, you know, yeah, you’re sort of, you’re sharing your stuff. And then you’re learning how people are using it, adapting it challenges, how they overcome them. So it’s that really great cycle of like, you know, helping others and then obviously, receiving help as well, you know, yeah, absolutely makes a lot of sense, like I mentioned, that feeds into the product development very well. But with those coaching customers, were they coming to you with knowledge of OKRs? And looking for how we’re implementing them or other problems that then led them to you in the first place? Yeah, they were coming to be saying, we’re doing okay, we’re doing well, we know we could do better. We know there must be a better way to have our people on the same page, we know there must be a better way to have to have the objective slide in our fed through the organization, we know law must be a better way for like, get everyone on the same page pointing in the right direction, you know, yeah. And it was right, if that’s the problem, then one of the solutions, and there’s many other solutions could be okay, so not for everyone. And 135 isn’t for everyone and for claro isn’t for everyone.
But the people who we help and support and partner with really, because I do get to know, really, I’ve just just this morning, come off with a new customer, we’re just doing the onboarding with them and going through and the builder, the builder, one through five walk er, Doc’s in the cloud, or Matthew, but that, like, their objectives weren’t really clear, they weren’t refined, the outcomes weren’t up, that is clear. So what’s the outcome you’re gonna go for? Then? What’s the measure on that key result? You know, it’s like, Key Results shouldn’t be great. They shouldn’t be based, there should be like, has it been done? Has it not binary? Yes, no, what’s the number?
So, you know, we I like that bit, because then they go, right, great. And they end up with a better quality one through five or PR plan, which means that they execute better, which means, you know, they get they get more success that they’re hoping that people have a lot of the stuff today was around team engagement around delivering better service to their customers, to their, to their serve. And by just refining what their measures are. There, they ended up with a better plan that helped them to deliver more value, and that’s what it’s about in life. And you know, just just just hope people deliver more value, you know, yeah, that makes sense. And is that the common mistake you see with people when they’re trying to either get alignment in their business or implement OKRs? Is it actually being able to codify the rights, objectives and measures? Yeah, I mean, there’s a few things that there’s a few common themes that come up when we, when we get deeper, and one of them is absolutely, you know, that principle of, than if we’re being brutal, it’s it’s rubbish in rubbish out, you know, if it takes you three minutes to build a plan, well, then don’t really expect it to be well thought out.
Refined, a good measurable plan, you know, and it’s a little bit like, you know, how many people want to be fit, but they’ve got to go to the gym, you know, it’s like, you do know that you can’t just pay for your pure gym membership, you’ve got to actually physically turn or three or four times a week in all that door, yeah, you know, and it’s like, does take a bit of effort. So if anyone’s looking for a silver bullet, or I was looking for like a dead quick win, what’s a quick win that then then it wouldn’t be launching an OKR project in your business, or you’re using a system like 135, or a cloud, or it’s, you have to put the effort in so it does pay you back tenfold if you spent a little bit of time, putting the right stuff in the system to begin with or clarifying the right measures or clarifying the most important objectives.
You know, in our system, we talk about 135 to have three main objectives, mainly because people are 33 like they’re trying to do so much, Matthew, is that just juggling plants and spinning plants in the lake? You know, Paul? Yeah, you know, doing so much stuff in there get overnight to go speak to their life partner said, You know what, I’ve never stopped today. And what you’ve been doing stuff? Impact? Absolutely not. I’ve just been doing stuff. So what we like to do is help people to have less of those days, and more where they go out. You know what, like, I’ve got a tighter focus. And I’m actually moving things along. I’m making an impact. I’m not just moving stuff around, you know, moving into paper around, you know, I’m getting stuff done and it’s the right stuff. Because there’s the secret to all this and we are various sort of sayings we use our customers is. In order to achieve more you need to focus on less.
So for most people watching or listening to this, it’s not like, it’s not like a wider focus, or a better focus, it’s more of like a tight a deeper focus. So if you can really get out of what it really what’s really important that we must, what what is the stuff we must execute. And then system we’re gonna work on not the easy, nice to do bright blue butterfly chest and things all over the place, you know?
Matthew Todd
Yeah, far too many people doing what they could do rather than what they should or must do. Yeah, because it might be easier.
Pete Wilkinson
It’s easier. And you get the endorphin kick. And if you’ve got like an empty email box, or you’re gonna have a couple of conversations with team members, and there is value in that, but if that’s putting off writing that report, or doing that proposal, or speak to that challenging customer, or having that difficult team conversation, you don’t want to maybe have or write not cash flow forecast or putting that funding pitch together, you know, these difficult things, it’s very easy for the brain o’clock, you don’t really do that pay, get go off and do something easy. Instead, go and talk to Zoey, it’s always a good conversation. So So I think, I think if you’re looking for peak performance, if you’re looking to do something special in your in your business, rather than just Oh, and if you’re happy bobbing along doing, okay, we’ve got no problem with that. But if you’re really, you know, when it gets quiet, you’re by yourself and you go, you know what, we should be doing better, I could be doing better, I want to be doing better, then having a system to help you to do that, I think is is wise, you know, like trading, you know, you do lots of trading and and all I do is weigh in and just go out and just do training. There’s a plan, you know, what I mean? Like, is this a tempo session as an endurance session, a speed session, lactic threshold session or huddle session, when you’ve got focused sessions, you might be spending actually less time trading, but it’s better quality training. You know, when I did my first Ironman, I was just drunk trade, and I just trained all of them in time. And then when I got focused, I was like, an hour in 10 minutes faster, doing less training, because there was purpose.
So it’s the same thing with your work. It’s what are the what are the high value activities? And I think it’s easy to find those, when you have a simple sort of, you know, 135 Walk er, Doc, that just is that purpose and intent of activity as well, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. And, and I’m a big fan of outcome thinking rather than activity based thinking. And what often happens is people have think about the activity, they think about writing the cash flow forecast, or writing the management report, or whatever it is in their heart, and we want to do that. And it’s like, well, what’s the outcome of having that report run? Or what’s the outcome of completing a pitch deck to get some funding? If that’s what you’re after? Or what’s the outcome of having that difficult conversation with a team member? Instead of tolerating, you know, a lower level performance, maybe have that difficult conversation, understand the cause? address that and help them move on? Like as in progress, you know, and you can put those difficult things off. But if you think of the outcome, not the activity, then that gets you started, you know? Yeah, I think that can motivate you to perform the necessary action. And I think it can also help you kind of keep the course and course correct. If maybe, actually, than action that I thought I needed to do, maybe I don’t need to do all of it.
Or maybe I need to do something else as well, or instead of this. But if you’re focused on the outcome, then you you know why you’re doing something, don’t you? You do and and, you know, I want to work in progress. I’m a work in progress, but I’m getting better at like, what’s the outcome of this call? What’s the outcome of the email? What’s the outcome of this meeting? You know? Yeah, I work with people, we get them to start costing their meetings, Matthew, it’s late, right? We’ve got 10 People from the senior team in a room for an hour. Do you know what this meeting is actually physically costing the business? So let’s make sure that the value is sufficient that justify the cost of the meeting, where it ought to be by 11 o’clock, you know, what does that look like? What a good outcome by that, right? Let’s work towards that, you know, whereas too many meetings, you put 10 people in the room, there’s no outcome, there’s no way the agenda or it’s, you’ve got any of the business or the end of it, and everyone’s cup sizes that meeting. And that’s why people don’t like meetings. There’s not a clear outcome.
You know, I was fortunate to do a visit around the Google head office in London a couple of years back, and they have very, very short meetings, but they’re always focused, there’s always an outcome, they get in the discuss it in the route. And again, the cadence is pretty good. Whereas I came from a corporate background and some of the meetings went on for ages and they didn’t need to, you know, so I think the whole point around what’s your outcome and work towards that, rather than activity, just let’s just do some stuff. It’s like, what’s the outcome? You know? Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ve all been in those kinds of meetings and if there is no outcome, how can anyone expects to be able to contribute during that meeting, because by definition, there’s nothing really to contribute needs to to know, that’s really not, you know, and yeah, I mean, we this is a whole subject in itself.
But it was really interesting on some of these really sort of good growth businesses, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve designed a structure and, and refined that and it works for them. You know, I mean, one of the best resource I came across was that Patrick Lencioni is death by meeting to create a book. And it just, it’s kind of suggest the sort of meetings and, you know, I’m working with a business guide, and he’s guiding, guiding me and my business. And, you know, we’re looking at what the monthly tactical meeting looks like the quarterly review the annual retreat, and you’re finding out what cadence works. I mean, even yesterday, I was in London with a team, and we were talking about one to ones and they’re not always getting done consistently because of time.
And I’m like, right? Well, you know, let’s have a very simple structure for a one to one and I shared what my structure was when I do with my team and, and you know, there’s three parts to it, if it’s a 50 minute, one, to one, it’s a five minutes each, if it’s a half an hour, one to one, it’s 10 minutes each, if it’s a, you know, 21 minute, one to one, seven minutes, eight, but there’s a structure to lead to an outcome, because work expands to fill the time available, if you put an hour in your diary, I’ll take a bloomin hour. You know, so. So that whole concept about changing from the activity focus to the outcome focus, I find it changes a lot, you start to put a higher value on your time, you know, because if you get the outcome by like, 20 minute meeting, that’s great. Give everyone in the 40 minutes to do something else, you know.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely.Yeah. And I’ve seen some bad examples of that. I think the the worst case I’ve seen is a status effect of your team status update meeting, you know, teams going around saying what they’ve been working on essentially, every few weeks, every couple of weeks, and I think at peak I counted 56 People in the meeting, that’s a two hour meeting. That’s a lot of hours they’re being spent.
Pete Wilkinson
Icredible. It’s it is isn’t it? It’s like somewhat, it’s like, nearly three weeks of someone’s working full time, isn’t it?
Matthew Todd
Yeah.
Pete Wilkinson
And there must be a better way of doing that was there must be a better way of getting out of debt rather than than 56 people in a row. Yeah. But that’s it. That’s it. And I think, I think that the moment and this, you definitely get this out of having like kind of a an oak er type or a too late that is you get clarity, on, on what you should be working on. And I think it’s really easy to be measuring your input, like the effort you’re putting in how many hours you’re putting in, but it’s really all about output. Like, you know, you meet someone who’s really effective in like, 25 hours to produce massive volume, well, then let them just work 25 hours, you don’t have to work 37 or 40, or 50. You know, it’s like if they move their dial, and they’re just high value activities that focus that persistent on the right things. They value their time highly. They are the productive people.
We when we talk again, yesterday, I was talking with a team and we were explained that you know, efficiency is doing things right. But effectiveness is doing the right things, we’ve got to get better at doing the right things. Alot of people really efficient at doing the wrong things, you know.
And it’s just getting it’s that shift. And I think that’s what we’re on a mission for is to help people to have simple tools and tactics to allow them to produce their best work without having to work 5060 hours a week, sometimes you got to put big shifts in I totally get that. Like by becoming really effective. You can get a better outcome in less time. And that all helps to get the work life blend you know.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. So then, when it comes to totally when it comes to Reclaro, what was the kind of the thinking behind or the the gap that you saw that led you to wanting to develop your own SaaS platform? In this space?
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah. So when I was speaking in workshops, I was working with various chief exec organizations, and the we had the templates, the 135 template, and people loved it. And we’re very, very, very grateful and lucky as well, to have you know, won some awards in that people love the content, they like the delivery and, of course, great feedback. But then there was always there was always a thing, like there’s a limitation in a PDF, you know, it’s like it’s good. On spreadsheets are good. You can put a 135 in a spreadsheet format, but there’s limitations. So we started getting some feedback about it’d be great if this was like an interactive tool that you could like, you know, see dials move or you could see progress.
And and there’s other there’s other organizations out there that do a similar thing to us in terms of OCR software and stuff but our like sort of secret sauce, if you like is the 135 system and people love the simplicity of, you know, I’m heading up ops, I’ve got a 135. I know what vision, the one, the vision is for my operations department for the next 12 months. And I know what I should be working on my three objectives, not 33, my three to get that. And I know what my five key results are for each one. And people love the idea of that simplistic logging in seeing something and then off again, so when we started sending people, we could put this in this format, what do you think we got some really good feedback on on, one guy was saying was simple genius. I think he meant the system, not me. But he was like, you know, it’s really easy to use. And we’ve we’ve kept true to the core sort of premise, if you like, of a light touch, easy to use system that, that helps people to move forward without getting in the way of work.
So based on feedback from from guys who were using the manual system, I went out and raised a couple of quid just like, you know, seed investment from some, some friends really built the first model, I don’t know if we’re gonna get into the journey. But the first model was very, very embarrassing, the first iteration of the software wasn’t wasn’t great at all. We then rebuilt it. And then we then sort of assess pros and they’re doing, we then sort of went through a UX UI project, the sort of first six months of this year. And then we’re starting to get scale now. But the real driver was people using the manual system in like a spreadsheet or a PDF or whatever, Word doc or something like that. I’m realizing its limitations. Don’t get me wrong using it. And that format is better than nothing. But it was like, Yeah, but like, how I want to, I want to delegate something and see if it’s, if it’s linked, how could it link, and it’s very hard and spreadsheets to do that. And that’s what really was like the iteration was like, almost customer led, you know.
Matthew Todd
I see so kind of taking it to the next level, but based on the feedback that you had from that, like coaching consulting work.
Pete Wilkinson
Yes, yes. And because I still do that, I’m fortunate to be very close to the end customer. And I’ve get really good understanding of, of what’s needed. And what’s the next thing needed, you know, because we are always looking, yeah, but it’s a balance, you say, Matthew, because you want to make it? Well, I want to make it valuable. And we have to realize that part of its significant value is the simplicity of the system. And if you make it too elaborate, too detailed, where you’ve got to have a blummin PhD to use it, then then you don’t, you know, get the value remains. So we’ve got to, we’ve got to, we’ve got to enhance the product. Absolutely. But we know the challenge is enhancing it without making it overly complex. Because from an execution point of view, if you can make things as simplistic as possible, it helps you to execute and if you can avoid complexity, it makes better execution, you know, so that’s, that’s that’s our like, niche if you like, our UDP.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely. And I think theres a lot to be said for that.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah. And there is there is some great elaborate systems, you know, SAP Oracle got some massive systems great. But we like sort of in this sort of mid market, we’d all this customer who really benefits from us, and we know, their size and their challenges. And that’s where we target you know, this sort of simple to use system that doesn’t get in the way of working. And we keep learning from from customers, which I think is important.
Matthew Todd
Yeah. And is that where your your first customers came from then club existing coaching consulting engagements?
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, it was up until, not long ago, we would call it founder led growth, where like, you know, every sort of new customer had had an interaction with me, you know, whether they’ve seen me speak, simulate an event, being in one of my workshops, you know, watched a video or whatever it was, it was it was really the classic founder led growth initially, you get your first 10 customers that everyone talks about this, but it is actually how it worked for us. And now we’re starting to see the other methods of of reaching out to prospects now we’re starting to work but yeah, in the early days, Matthew, everybody had been like, was a client or they’ve been on a on a course or, or a workshop master class. Yeah. And they go Oh, that looks good. And it was great because it was that no, like trust in marketing, which takes time It all happened to be three hour workshop, you know, they came in late the delivery got an all the system, not that was promoting the system, but they got to know what was happening. They saw it and thought, this is really good. And then you’re kinda late, you’re really sort of condensed that that three to six month normal, you know, watch some videos, get some email, nurture, nurture, that was all condensed to a sort of three hour journey, really. So yeah, most of our early customers 95% work that had a relationship at some degree with me. Now that’s different but it was like that before yeah.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, that makes sense, certainly for the early phases, and as you see things changing now then with kind of new customers where that may not be the case, how do you ensure that they get the same experience when they come on board the platform if they haven’t had those kinds of prior engagements, maybe not the same level of kind of education as some of these other types of customers?
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, I mean, what it’s done is it’s put pressure on us to enhance the product, we will never be a self service model, we don’t want to be a self service model, we’re not a Calendly, we’re not a, well, this is great, I’m predicting that we’re not, we’re not that sort of product. So there will always be there will always be a very commerce consultative sale process, you know, there will always be some contact with a member of our team, what we have done is that it has put us under pressure to infer to enhance the product.
So now, when someone goes into build their first 135 OKR plan, you know, there’s like a video, you can click on a button that says, Show help, and it’ll be a video of giving you the overview. And then when you go to build vision, there’ll be a video of me explaining what what a great vision looks like, there’ll be an example of a grid vision will be a checklist, and there’ll be a place to put your vision. And the same with objective. So the product now is far better at delivering that, but we do still get a large percentage of customers will pay invest a little bit extra to get guided onboarding, which again, is currently me, too, just during the session this morning with it with a team from home. And they’ve got four sessions, which is done via zoom remotely, you know, condensed to sort of 40 odd minutes, they pay for that, but but that they spend more time getting their plans, right, but they make more progress. Because the weld, the better quality plans go in this system, you know, they’ve always got that consulting option to go alongside the platform as well to get out of your body. Yeah, in the onboarding, we also do things like webinars and various things. But the more one to many, now we’re not doing we’re not doing as much one to one stuff, you know, mostly, and then in time, we’re probably going to build out some some coaches that can also do that. Onboarding rather than me, it’s like, it’s like the story of war, SaaS businesses, the founder, is in charge of sales, onboarding, designing product, you know, flying the flag, building the vision, selling, doing demos, I’m still at that stage, you know, we’re still starting to get the big traction. So I’m still doing a lot of that stuff at the moment.
But yeah, we’ve successfully on boarded a good three or four customers recently that hadn’t gone through that, you know, being client or being that detail. They’ve had just the light touch, onboarding and the stuff within the product. And they’ve got going, and they’re getting value, and it’s working for them. So, yeah, you just got to improve the product. But we know, we’re never going to be a self serve, you know, it’s never going to be do a Google search, find us onboard, get 40 team members on the system. You know, it will be a consultative sales process, we realize that.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, yeah, I think it’s good to recognize that, but I imagine that you’re gonna get far moreloyal customers that are buying into, you know, not just the product, but they’re buying into the methodology. They’re, they’re buying into your perspective on their problems and challenges as much as anything itself.
Pete Wilkinson
Yes. And, and I, if I was brutally honest, out probably in the early days, didn’t appreciate that as much.
Matthew Todd
Right.
Pete Wilkinson
Like, yeah, just just everybody do this. And when we looked at some of the guys in our space, they don’t really do a lot of that. So we do class ourselves as OCR software and expertise. We use that word only because like, you know, I’ve helped build over 1000 135 Walk er Doc’s, if you play tennis, 1000 times, you’re going to get better, you know, you play. You’re playing snooker 1000 times you’re gonna get better.
So you know, obviously it’s my system I created it but but the fact that I’ve overlaid you know, it nine years been helping build these one, three fives, I can kind of very easily in an onboarding course, spot, a challenge that might take the customer three or four hours to work out, I can say, well, actually, that that could be a way of approaching it. Have you thought about that? And it’s just because of experience, you know, so we’re trying to say we’re experts, but we are saying that we offer more than just the platform. If you looked reclaro.com website our knowledge of we have over I think it’s Zoe, just last week, got the 100th blog, you know, so we are really passionate about listening to a problem a customer has and then answering it within a blog.
You know, there’s 100 blogs on the site. There’s there’s there’s all chiar guides and templates, and all this stuff’s on the site free you know, and there’s there’s the complete guide walk ers, which is a big 5000 word pieces. Like I said, there’s 135 templates, there’s there’s there’s ebooks there’s so we do produce this content because, you know, I am a lifelong learner and I’m reading stuff or I’m at home now, when I’m looking at my bookcase, you know, there’s a reading and studying all the time. So we’re always looking at like, you know, what are the barriers to this? And what about mental resilience, and we do sessions on grit, mental toughness, and, you know, and all this outcome thinking and got model of what’s your potential look like?
So we’re very passionate on that side isn’t just like build a product, sit back and just get your monthly recurring revenue, you know, we’re really wanting, we have a set of core values as five of them, you know, and core value, one is put the effort in go the extra mile, and everybody has to buy into that, you know, in fact, before they even start our business, I created a team charter. And we send that to someone say, here’s our team charter, there’s three sections, there’s the purpose at the top, there’s the core values in the middle, the core value and how you live the core value. And then there’s the expectations dock at the bottom.
And this is because we only want to attract the right people who get us, you know, because if somebody joins us, and they don’t want to go the extra mile, they don’t realize the importance of it, or they just don’t do it, then there will be a mismatch in our business. Because we, you know, we want to go see, right? Can we quickly build a checklist to help someone do that? Could we could we write some content that would help someone do that cool, shoot a video that will help someone do that? And that’s the kind of culture of the business, you know.
Matthew Todd 31:26
Yeah.
Pete Wilkinson 31:26
We want to build a business where someone says, you know, what, they’re doing it right. You know, they’re taking care of a team to taking care of customers that delivering value, they’re humble, and they’re constantly improving the product or service. And that’s the sort of business I want to build, you know, that we are building.
Matthew Todd 31:39
Yeah, absolutely, I think there’s so much to be, I think you can tell the companies that work in this way, and talk about the problem, space and the solution space this way, and you want to put those articles up, not as a transactional marketing tactic or anything else, but it’s there because you want to educate, you know, the, the people within your audience, and help to improve thinking to elevate that, and that will then naturally lead them to the product, of course, but it’s doing so in a genuine way.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, we worked hard. With the blogs, you know, Zoe’s putting out, who works in our team, she’s head of marketing operations. And she, she, it’s a big effort to create 100 blogs, you know, It’s like 500, 600 words, he turns 60s 50 60,000 words there, you know.
So books haven’t got that many words in them, you know, so she’s really, you know, thinking about examples and templates and challenges and all the blogs or links of someone who reads about something and all that interesting. Well, as always a link to like, another type of content, you know, what I mean? And this is, this is on gated that you have to put name and email and get this, it’s there on the on the site, you know, it’s, it’s to consume, it’s to help, you know.
So yeah, we are that and the workshops we put together in the master classes, we’ve got one coming up, while depending when this goes out, but it’s in a couple of months time and we’re working with a couple of HR people because we know hybrid working is causing a challenge people, many people don’t want to come back to 40 hours a week in the office. So how do you have a an effective people strategy when you’ve got some people in some people off some people remote? Hybrid? So we’re putting together a master class, you know, we’re just we’re doing that and it’s just a free masterclass to sort of say, Look, we thought about this, he has some solutions. So we’re always looking to, to try and sort of educate and support our customers, prospects, people who have got these problems, you know, the UK as a productivity puzzle problem, we’re not as productive as other parts of the world.
We’re on a mission to give people the tools and techniques to try and become more productive and have more productive businesses. That’s going to be great for UK PLC, you know, so that’s what we’re really sort of on a on a mission about you know, yeah, and I guess I I kind of feel compelled to to ask them I’m sure you’ve got all of this codified in recliner yourself. But then for clarity, what are what is the vision for Claro? What do you you see that going? Yeah, I mean, we’ve we’ve built we’ve got a purpose, which is to help millions of people to be their best. So one of the benefits of having a SaaS business and having the resource to be lots of content is easy. It can help more people.
Like one of these these irritatingly positive people, right and and, and I can’t help help people if I’m walking down the street and I see someone like looking lost. I already know Yeah, I carry someone’s case or flight of stairs in London, even though the person thinks I’m going to pinch you but we’re out from the northeast, you would you would do that, you know, so I’m just one of these people who helps people you see.
So we are on a right mission and to help and when you’ve got that sort of mindset, you know, it, if you build a SaaS product, and you have the resource to build the content, then you are helping more people, if all I did was stick to workshops to master classes, 1015 people, I’m helping 15 people at a time, if I build a SaaS product that, you know, we’ve got a customer in Asia now, great business offices in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India, and clear business, and like, you know, we’ve produced something that they are using to help their team to add more value value to their customers. I mean, that’s brilliant, you know, I couldn’t do that I will not, you know, haven’t got the time to go to do master classes or to Malaysia, you know, it might be nice, but I’m not the type.
But because I produce something, the SaaS product, we’ve got that now. We’re having a wider reach. So if so the purpose is to help millions of people to be their best going back to vision, we have a very clear vision for the next five years. So we know what five years looks like, we know what success looks like. And we know what the outcome will be in the terms of an exit for us at that five year period. So that’s, that’s pretty clear. And all the team are aware of that it’s not. It’s not a secret. Internally, we’ve we’ve explained that to the customer. To that to their sorry, to their team member, we do have a sort of business we’d like to exit to and we know they’re sort of values will be aligned to ours. closely.
So yeah, we’ve we’ve, I’ve gone through that whole process of I’m a big fan, Matthew, and having five year vision 12 month plan. I like the idea. And I’ve seen that work works for us, and it works for a lot of our customers and clients, five year vision 12 month plan, you know, every 20% 40% 60%. So we’ve got our own five year vision. We know it looks like we know who would like to exit to, we know what we’re building something that it’s a great systemized business that just delivers genuine value. We track things like net promoter score, we track things like Google reviews, it’s important to us. And we’re just constantly innovating their business and their systems, firstly, to get to this point in five years, but its impact led, you know, yeah, I can tell it’s impact level, I like the the first thing you said, when you talked about exit strategies was that the the values would be aligned. Yes. Yeah, that’s important. Like, I mean, it’s very controversial, but there are certain sectors that I wouldn’t want to have as customers if we like. So we are, we are pretty cool to see what they are. But, you know.
Matthew Todd
I’m interested now.
Pete Wilkinson
Well, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m interested in health and fitness. So any sector that doesn’t contribute to health and fitness, you know, I wouldn’t want to go and speak at the vape convention, let’s just see, if there isn’t one, you know, so. So the business that we’re going to exit to, will will, will have to value what our values are, just to see a team member, a team member will join if they’ve got values that aren’t aligned to ours. And that’s important, because, you know, we’ve got some really great customers and, and, you know, I wouldn’t want to build a business, take care of those customers, and then, you know, exit to an organization that doesn’t value and is just about profit maximization not service, that that wouldn’t be fair for us, you know, so that that’s really important.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, yeah. And I can tell that and the way you’ve described, it is very much that service, at scale, and, you know, seems like the values that are something that you genuinely embody and take care to make sure that you’re, as you say, said, but, you know, a few times your team members, anyone, any prospective team members must align to those as well, I think so many businesses, you know, almost do that value exercise, after the fact or looking for, you know, a positive spin to put on something internally, which may or may have an effect for a day or two, or maybe, you know, most people will see that the company doesn’t live it, so therefore, don’t believe it. But I can see that you could carefully and deliberately, you know, making sure that those values are upheld.
Pete Wilkinson
Yes. And we do a thing every Friday morning at 10 o’clock called MTS, which stands for micro training session. And these are primarily led by me, although other team members do sometimes train on their interest or their subject or whatever, but part of these micro training sessions can 1520 minutes probably.
We do often review the values and we’ll say right, value, you know, value three, personal professional growth. How are we growing? what courses are you doing? What books you read, what have you learned? You know, which podcast made the best interest with you this week? You know, what do you do? So you know, then then then we may say, right, okay, then being professional do the thing you say you’re gonna do you know, have we always followed through this week? Did we do the things that any tasks that you’ve promised someone that is still hanging? Is someone waiting for something from union, you know, team is a value core value five team, you know, like how we support your team this week?
You know, we do I do not want a silo business I have worked in with and seen silo businesses where this department is almost preventing this department from operating dreadful Yeah, you know, that’s just not what we want. So we do use the core values in the in we what we call the team chart at the very offset, we’ve, we’re in the middle of onboarding a new dev guy, and then we’ll be joining us on the beginning of October. And I went through the team charter state, right, this is our purpose rare, does this resonate with you? Because if it doesn’t, that’s a problem. He’s all five values, you know, 12345, this is how, you know you would live the value, do you have any problem with that, which one jumps out at you, which resonates with you, here’s our expectations rare, this is what you can expect from us as an employer as Reclaro being an employer.
And then on the right, this is what we expect from you Ray, as an employee, so the very offset we say, purpose values and expectations and and that does put off some people and that’s absolutely fine. Because it will be very costly for them and us time and money. If they don’t change Peter been intense, he keeps talking about this purpose and values because the SP is intense, am intense, and it has therapy, right? So we do see that almost like putting them off Matthew, before the joy, you’re right, you’re, you’re sure you really want to join this business, because this is like, you know, software flipping Special Forces type of thing. You know, it’s not for everyone, but we’re on a mission, you know. So the values are there from day one, and then we will review them in trainings and, and we’ll know them and and I know lots of people who can see oh, yeah, our business got five values. And I’ll say great.
What’s core value on the whatnot, you know, and I think the value should not be set and forget they should be living. There’s a there’s a business that can equate say the word it’s that Thai restaurant is it Chai, Chai or something I can’t remember how you said it to Thai restaurant, Matthew, right. And I heard the founder the CEO speak at a, at a conference in every one of his restaurants, he has this thing called a love candle. And it stands for live our values every day, and the first person into a restaurant on a morning lights the candle, and it’s lit all day, and the last person who leaves on a night extinguishes about the candle. And it’s to try and symbolize like, this is the love candle.
So, obviously, I’m sure there’s variations of a love candle, this particular one’s around values. But this is this is like, when that’s lit remember our our core values, you know, and I think that’s really good to be a values led business. Because if you look at some of the things that’s gone on, certainly in politics, you know, people will say these their values, and then how they operate are completely in violation of the values, you know, and you lose credibility, you know, and I think that’s the problem, but but yes, they are very important to us, and the people who we will be working with and partnering with, I even mentioned values on our demos, when I’m demoing the software I say this is our values in order means this is what you can expect because this is what we value, you will we will go the extra mile we will do what we say we will do.
You know so I mentioned them in, in in demo. So that part a company who’s going to partner with us and trust us understand the sort of organization we are you know, so it’s very, that’s very important I like the way you describe that. The way that you will kind of tell people how you show employees and team members, how you live those values, what it means to actually execute them and it gives them context but I think it also gives your sets expectation as you describe it I think it also gives them permission especially if they have come from that siloed environment in the past I think many team members probably aren’t used to genuinely being able to live those values for fear of being called or what you’re doing that for yeah and you know what, like if I was you know if we were totally open and brutal on this on this this this chat we had a team member start a while ago and they were in for a day okay I went through the process in the new process went through everything on boarded them I did the onboarding great the look the part and there was a couple of amber flags you know when you just choose not that we thought they were young so I thought right you know maybe lack of experience Haven’t you know I can help to develop them you know, I’m I’ve been in management leadership for quite a while now. I’m not your typical 20 something SaaS founder of a 50 Something SaaS founder.
But so I am experienced, I thought I could help the person to develop anyway turned on for day one. And as the induction, the sort of the onboarding part of it, when we go through everything, it just became evident that the person maybe wasn’t living the way that they said they would in the interview process
Matthew Todd
Right. I see.
Pete Wilkinson
So that was the first day when there was a couple of things said, during that first day, which which went from amber to red, and I couldn’t sleep that night, and I was thinking. I wasn’t sure. I came in the next day.
You know, the start dates, technically nine o’clock, the guy walks in at 858. And I’m like, second day, there’s lots to be doing, I would have preferred you to have like, been ready with your coffee to start not come at 8:58 and then pop the loo, then take your coat off, then get a coffee and come in the room at like nine or, yeah, it might sound a little bit like, you know, like, timing is very important. Anyway, as we’ve started that conversation, the second day it appeared he wasn’t doing the training that he said he would do. And he needed to do this training, because it’s a certain technology we use and he wasn’t much fit with it. So he said he would do the training, we paid for the training, we paid for it. There’s a training. But of course, the funny thing is, though, Matthew, because we pay for the training, we can see he does the training can’t we.
We can see if he’s done module one, two, and three or if he hasn’t anyway. And there was a few other things. So it was the morning, it was about 10 o’clock, and I went, look, let’s just pause for a second. I said do you think that you have put sufficient effort in in this new role? And he said, no, I don’t think I have. And I said he is our first two core values. I went through these with him, went through these with you core value won’t put the effort in and go the extra mile. Have you done that? No, have not done that. Okay, come on you to be professional, do the thing you say you’re going to do? You said you would do this? Have you done this thing? No, I’ve not done that. I went well, it’s just new, but because this is the way that is the normal way of operating, it isn’t going to work. Because I’m going to irritate you, you’re gonna irritate me. So let’s just agree on this occasion, you’re better off in a different organization. And I just we just let them go straight away.
Didn’t want to do that. And I would have given the benefit of the doubt if he met me halfway. But he had. So based on the fact that after one day, there was two core values that he was like, it isn’t gonna work. And and I just made the decision straightaway, did it cost us? Painfully. Yeah. Because like, you know, we’ve gone through the process, we’ve lost traction, I liked the guy, you know, but yeah, values, you know, you said you would do this plumbing thing, that’s usually not going to proliferate or when you first start, what’s gonna happen in six months time, when you think you’re in terrible pains now is think about that cost is it’s not so.
So that would be an example of like, you know, if I would be really honest, that’s how important these values are to us, like we, we have to let them because, because that’s the sort of business that we want to build, we want to build a beacon business that people go to, you know, what, then book doesn’t require they’re doing it, right. They’re taking care of their team, they’re investing in trading it to the customer, the measuring NPS, the producing conduct that educate, and they’re trying to help. And it’s a great product that’s easy to use to take feedback that, you know, they’re constantly evolving. That’s a great business. And Robbie, a big business, you know, by the time we execute, might only have 2020 odd people. But it’s going to be a small group of absolutely elite focused people working hard on the right things that get it and wanting to build something special. And that I hope comes across for our customers, you know, but yeah, value is very, very important to us from that perspective.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely. No, I think that’s really, really refreshing to hear you say that. And I think that anyone listening to this, you know, if they’re starting or scaling their own business and think about values, I would encourage them to, to listen to this site three times, at least and, and go over what that means. It’s, you know, genuinely living it and living it when it’s good, is kind of easy, you know, still requires focus, of course, but yes, living those values, when it’s hard when there are painful decisions like that to make. That’s what makes sure that you those values genuinely do enjoy in that company.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah. And I mean, our interview process consists of a screening call, who interview like, who are they, as a person a focused interview, on the scale fit? It’s a reference interview, we take up references, so we don’t just we don’t like you know, Oh, you look quite good. Come and join us. So I did go through that process. And, and even though we went through that process, it didn’t work out. But I think what the rest of the team saw was that because we’re on a mission, because this is important.
Like, this person started and hasn’t stayed, because it was in the first day, two of our values wasn’t lived. Therefore, it’s an instant decision in inand gonna work, you know, because if that person tried to live our values, then they will be acting. It wouldn’t be natural. You know what I mean? It’s like, you know, you really want people who are a natural fit, you know, to your business, you know what I mean? You want somebody who kind of gets gets what you are. And this guy said he would do it and said he was, but it wasn’t. So therefore, from the value point of view. Yeah, we just had to make a decision. And yeah, it costs us because we lost a lot of time in that interview process, you know. But fingers crossed Ray is better.Yes.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, I think its better for all parties involved.
Pete Wilkinson
It is. Because I said, the guy shook his hand the door, you know, and I said, Look, you’ve got a bright future, you need to learn from this. And I said, if you want to separate call, one to one, you and I on the phone, I can give you some honest feedback about how you could improve next time when you go somewhere else. I wouldn’t help the guy. But just I wasn’t, I couldn’t have him in our team, you know?
Matthew Todd
Yeah, no, I think that’s a really genuine way to do it is be willing to help him but realize that for both parties is not the right fit. And I think that genuinely shows how you are living those values.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah. It’s important. It is important, you know, it underpins things, it does underpin things.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a lot to be said for that genuine, you know, values driven and service driven type of business that you’ve described. And, yeah, just I want to be respectful of your time as well, I’m sure we, I hope, a follow up to this conversation. There’s lots more we could could dig into. But just something to leave people listening with, if they haven’t listened to this and interested in finding out more about either Reclaro itself or the 135 methodology and how they might be to implement it in their business, what are some good kind of resources for them to be heading towards.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah the first thing would be the website is is our sort of our anchor hub. So Reclaro. R E C L A R O .com. In there, you will see the Knowledge Hub that has the blog in there with like I said, there’s over 100 blog articles in there, it has the free templates, it has the OKR complete guide, there is there is ebooks in there, there is case study. So like, you know, you could see how our businesses use Reclaro, the challenges they had, how it helped me overcome that. That’s the main source. And of course, ultimately, if they wanted to have a discovery call or a demo, there’s there’s buttons on the site, that book a demo, and then you just choose a half an hour, half an hour slot if they wanted to do that.
But there is a lot of resources on there that would help themto understand the thinking behind that, you know, yeah, and then and then from a general point of view, I just like to say, Matthew, I think one of the things that I’m seeing more of which is encouraging, and I would I would encourage more people to do this is that, you know, Stephen Covey talks about begin with end in mind in one of his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I think we should be building business and what business do I want to build?
You know, like, where, where do we want it? What are what is business look like? And like what conversations and discussions and goals and values and purposes they do I have to have to get that sort of business? And I think of what and get more businesses that alike lead that way? You know, rather than figuring out on the way, yes, you have to figure some stuff out. But I think we and I’m very fortunate that we got really clear on the type of business, not just the product and who we’re serving, but we’re the message, how are we going to operate as a business? And I think I’m seeing more do that, you know, but I think we need more and more people.
So if anyone’s listening to Susan, at that stage, do think about, like the sort of business we want to be, you know, we we asked our customers like, how did you find the onboarding? How do you find the product? You know, what, what’s working? Well, even better, if you know, we do do that, to genuinely demonstrate, we want to build this, what we call a beacon business, you know what I think if more people did that, I think would have would have a lot better businesses that operate within within the UK?
Matthew Todd
Absolutely. I think that’s a great message in a great summary of what we’ve talked about. And I think, just to add a small point to that, I would say don’t be afraid of being honest about what you want that to look like. And I mean, instead of what you think the right answer should be, you know, oh, it should be a billion dollar unicorn bit or whatever it may be, you know, you should go down this particular route or that particular I think too many people instinctively reach for what they think the right answer to that question is rather the one that the genuine aligns with their passion and purpose and values.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, I mean, we love the thought of our SaaS startup. And, you know, when we got like, we are not there yet, but like, a couple of years ago, 20 people, you know, really clear functions. We were operating a pinnacle business system in the business and, you know, we know who would who’s doing what and when that energy is there. And that’s what we want to build. And when we get to that point, and everyone’s optimized, and the business reaches a certain thing, we’re ready to let another organization come in, we’ll exit to them, and they’ll they’re there put their resources in, which will increase the impact further.
But as we say, there’ll be an alignment with values at that point, you know, yeah, this is important.
Matthew Todd
Absolutely. So yeah, I think, Pete, firstly, thank you, personally, for taking the time to talk to me. So I know the audience is gonna get a lot out of this. And I hope they enjoy the conversation as much as I have as well. And I wish you the best of luck, I think you’ll leave it on that, on that journey towards that point that you’ve described, and I’m sure we’ll hopefully have around to and see how that journey is progressing.
Pete Wilkinson
Yeah, absolutely. Great. Yes. We’re in the middle of a little bit of a race. So yeah, we can certainly pick things up once that’s done and just see what that’s how that’s helped the business accelerate.
Matthew Todd
Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to thanks again.
Pete Wilkinson
All right. Thank you very much. Bye for now.
Matthew Todd
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Inside the ScaleUp. Remember for the show notes and in depth resources from today’s guest. You can find these on the website insidethescaleup.com. You can also leave feedback on today’s episode, as well as suggest guests and companies you’d like to hear from. Thank you for listening.