My Favourite Failure: On the cusp of losing my company, marriage and myself - Mike Dunn

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0:43So if you're leading a small or medium sized business and want to spend less time and effort on HR admin, then book a demo at personio.com forward slash secret leaders. That's personio.com forward slash secret leaders. There's a link in the show notes. She just, I think the moment she realized she had to do it was when she found me in a really bad place at home, which, you know, I know she probably wouldn't want me to mention, but she found me broken. And she said, I've got to help you because this is not... She knew at that point, it was like, right, what's going on? That's Mike Dunn, the founder and MD of Excel TLM Group, who do telemarketing and lead generation for construction businesses.

1:29Excel today is a solid growing business, but they came within a whisper of collapse, as did Mike himself. It all came to a head on a family holiday they'd saved four years for. Mike thought he could lose everything, including his family. He felt like he'd hurt and failed everyone.

1:54When Mike set up the business, he had just 20p in the bank. in August 2019 well during my time at another company I had a really bad bill of health when I ended up in hospital with stress and I just bleed on my brain and basically I just said to my wife you know if I don't do something with myself here because it was a scary moment to think you know it could have been so much worse and left them with nothing and I think I'd spent years complaining saying I could do this so much better than everyone else everyone's focusing on the numbers and not the quality and she just sat there and listened to it and she went well you should do it then and I think in the end she just said are you going to set this company up or not because you keep moaning a hell of a lot about it how you can do it better why you can do it better just go for it and I think for years people had said you'd be really good at doing this on your own but it was the scared factor of what if it fails you know what I was saying what if it fails what if it doesn't work and I think I just took the leap of faith and said you know what that's it I'm going for it I've got a good name in the industry I need to do something for me my own So, of course, Mike does the sensible thing and decides to take on more stress by starting his own company.

3:03Mike laughs at this and says it's different, though, because at least you're in control of that stress when it's your own business. Plus, when you're starting your own company, the first part is always a thrill. I suppose the exciting part was when we kicked off. It was January 2020. It was like, you know what, we're going for it. And I literally had a borrowed laptop from my friend who's another fellow entrepreneur, a mobile phone and a desk and a whiteboard. And it was like in this back room in my house. It was so exciting. I was like, wow, we're really going for it. And then obviously two weeks into it, my nan passed away suddenly, which really shook me because my nan lived two doors down from me.

3:40And she died really suddenly, which rocked me. But I threw myself so deep into work that I didn't really have time to get over it. So kind of February, March, the business has got its first couple of clients coming on board. We're, you know, we're really getting going. And then, of course, March happens and what COVID comes around. And it's like, well, sorry, Mr. Dunn, but you don't get furlough. You're not having a bounce back loan. You're not having anything. It's like, right, I've got a daughter and a wife. The whole reason I set this company up was to provide for them. And if these companies are saying, we can't, we don't know if and when this is going to end.

4:16How can we help you? So I was like, right, okay, it was sink or swim. And for me, that was a weird moment because I still said to myself, I can really make this work. But at the moment, the world is on pause mode. So I resorted to TikTok, making TikToks and making people laugh. And then I think I had two clients at the time, it was two out of three clients. And I said to them, look, I'll work for free of charge and the hope that you will either give me a job at the end of it, because if Excel does go to pub, which I don't want it to, will you offer me a role or will you stay with us? The bet pays off.

4:55Those clients are still with Excel today. The business starts to scale rapidly. They keep upgrading from office to office to keep up. They get to the point they have their own building and 22 staff. They're winning awards. They're inundated with job applications. This is February 2022, and on the outside, it looks rosy. But although Mike doesn't know it yet, the wheels have already started to come off. February, March 2022, that was when I should have truthfully looked at it and said, what am I doing? I'm in a building that's far too big. Trying to be a people pleaser with clients. I've got too many staff.

5:37I've grew far too fast. but I was so so focused on trying to make it work with what we achieved you know I didn't want to seem like if I take if I walk out of this building now and I take a step out of this office in my head at that time I was like I failed I've let myself down I've let everyone down I failed and it was really actually the moment where I said you know if I don't do this now I'm going to end up back in hospital but Mike doesn't take his medicine. They don't downsize. Rent keeps going up. And Mike says the quality of their work dips. Cash flow is becoming a big issue. The worst of it hits at just the wrong time for Mike and his family.

6:23In August, me and my wife last year, when me and my wife went on holiday, that was breaking point. That was when it was the worst experience of my life, to be honest with you. so um we'd say for this holiday for about two or three years we went to greece and we'd had a couple of clients that had been late paying us in the past and it happened again but this time we were away and we missed uh the payroll for some of the for for some members of the team. Some members of the team, I needed a card with me while I was away because it was in a foreign country and I couldn't get it. It was just little things I took my eye off the ball with.

7:09But because it had happened once or twice before, it got to the point where everything leading up to that moment had become like this massive trust with the team of, we just don't think you're going to be able to get through this. Missed the rent on the office, missed paying staff, missed paying suppliers. and obviously at the time I'm away with my family, and my little girl is asking where I am, and I'm spending three days down at the hotel lobby while they're in a pool, and this is meant to be our family holiday we've saved for. I had members of the team, which I trusted dearly. One of my best friends, he called me while I was away.

7:50He was like, I'm leaving, and I was like, what? He was like, yeah, he just said, I'm leaving. didn't give me a reason and found out he went to one of our competitors um you know and i look back now and i'm like you know at the time i was so upset but did i blame him for feeling like that probably not because it did look like excel was a sinking ship we'd kind of gone from nothing to this big business that everyone was coming to work for but because i hadn't taken the steps prior to that holiday to get back on track, it just imploded. And it was one of the worst. August last year will always stick with me.

8:30One of the worst experiences of my life. I've never experienced anything like it. I would never want to. But I will always be grateful for that because if it hadn't have happened, I probably wouldn't be doing this podcast now to be perfectly honest with you. Like all entrepreneurs worth their salt, Mike tries to find a way out of the mess. We tried over and over again to try and get some sort of support and help because it wasn't like the, what happened was we, I'm trying to think of how I can wear this about sounding like I'm making excuses. We, we weren't, we were being quite flexible with some clients.

9:05So we, everything would come in, but it would come in at different times. So instead of us saying to some clients, we're not doing it until we get paid. There was a, like a sense of, well, they'll pay next week. Just carry on doing it. um we needed cash is king and you know every entrepreneur every business says that um but we were so i was so focused on being the nice guy that i wasn't taking stock of what the real problems were um and we would we look you know we looked for investment we looked for cash injection we looked for cash flow help and everyone would say the same thing you're two years old you know you're one year old you don't own your own house your credit rating isn't the best and be like yeah but we've we've turned over like you know 200 grand in a year like no it doesn't matter and obviously we had the problem coming out of covid but everyone would stop lending and you know i'll be forever grateful for certain members of my family and certain even certain friends because they helped us they were they were literally helping us some months when we were waiting for like certain payments to clear and nothing would be coming in you'd be sat thinking what it's friday you assured me it was going to happen at four it's now six and you're not answering your phone.

10:12You just need to think that, oh, I've been a nice guy. You're going to be a nice guy too. And it didn't work like that. So I could only look at myself in the mirror and apologize to everyone that was affected by, I don't know, the growth, me not paying attention. Where'd you start? Where'd you finish with the apologies, really? The strain pushes Mike and his family life to the brink. oh i'm gonna try and say this about getting upset um

10:44oh god okay so obviously my wife shan is is an incredible woman you know she stood by me when we've been in really dark patches you know we've lost you know we've lost children you know we've been through a couple of miscarriages before and we've always got through it together but the strain it was putting on my marriage and my family life was just unbearable and there was days where you would wake up i'd wake up and think you you deserve so much better than than this sorry and um i kind of just kept thinking to myself either she's going to leave or i'm gonna it's better off if i if i'm not here with her because there's only so much you can you can go through and you can put someone through before it gets to a breaking point and that was just an everyday occurrence waking up feeling what what have i done what have i done you know i've been on podcasts i've been in magazines been up for awards it felt like it was a farce it felt like i just felt like it just this was all utter rubbish like what am I doing why am I going to these shows why am I meeting these people how can I post about success on LinkedIn how can I post about when all I'm doing is absolutely messing up my marriage messing up people's lives um and even though sometimes people go yeah but it wasn't just you you it wasn't you that did that it was people around you doesn't matter when you're the man that runs the show everything comes back on you and you know sean stayed with me and she you know she said at the time i'm gonna come and and help this was in the august so in the august that's when she said i'm gonna come and help because she could see the potential in the business but she i think she could see where my mindset was at and where i was just a breaking point i man i couldn't even i didn't know what i was doing i didn't know where i was going with things and yeah it was a scary time for me mentally and i didn't know you know it's it's selfish to say about not wanting to be that and I know some people might hear that and think that's not fair to say but the honest truth is at the time I was just I didn't know what I was doing anymore I'd forgot why I'd set Excel up I'd forgotten myself I just felt like I'd hurt everyone around me my mum my dad my wife my daughter people's families people's friends I just can't even put into words how it felt.

13:26But Mike is grateful for that painful holiday because although it was an awful time, it gives him the space and clarity he needs to change his course. He goes back to basics with his company and then he and his wife Sian take a massive risk. So she decided to put her own, she said, I'm going to leave my career and I'm going to help you do this. And you know, it it was such a risk because if Excel did go on, then we always had Sian's salary in an industry, by the way, that she, she was thriving. And anyone that meets you will tell you that Sian is one of the women that finds the good in everything.

14:04And she joined and the, what she implemented and what she brought in was her own touch. She was able to see things from the bird's eye view, looking down. She was able to see my failures and say, this is why it happened, but this is what we're going to do. And yeah, so she took a risk and the best risk that she ever took. And I think me working with my wife was probably the best risk I ever took as well, to be honest with you. Mike and Sian turn the ship around. They downsize. They start working as a team again. It's worked out or it's working out. He's conscious of not scaling too fast again.

14:43But what else can Mike teach us about failure? my advice to to anyone who listens to this and can relate to it now is talk um if you feel like you're failing don't sit please don't sit there and feel like that's it everything's for nothing there is always a way that you can get through and even if you have to strip back if you have to go right back to basics if you if you believe that what you're doing is worth that risk then please do it because this is the most what's that there's not even a there's not an emotion you can use for being a business owner it you can laugh cry get angry be sad be overjoyed in the space of a couple of hours a day a week but if you feel at the moment if you're listening to this going this is me right now reach out talk to people speak to other business owners but understand that you are only human and it's okay to to feel like that i can't tell you how many times i've cried over mistakes i've made more bad decisions than i've made good decisions and i'm probably going to continue to do that but that's what this is this what this journey is all about that's why we do it um but if you want to you message me on linkedin instagram i'm always happy to lend an ear and you can talk to me i'm always happy to help people out where I come.

16:21Mike Dunn, a wonderful man married to a wonderful woman, and we wish him all the best. Thanks for listening to this episode. I've been your host, Dan Murray-Surter. If you like this episode, please hit follow or subscribe. See you next time.