Doesn’t time fly? It seems only yesterday that Andrew Welsh and myself handed in our notice and decided to start Newton Colmore Consulting. Now on the turn of the year it is time to celebrate our first year of trading (woop woop!) and I would like to thank everyone that has helped us along the way. All of your support and well wishes have been extremely useful and we could not have done this without you. Thank you.
The Past
It has been a fascinating first year for us with many lessons learned and we can take great pride in the service we have provided to our clients and candidates. Starting your own business is difficult but there are things you can do to make it easier, for example, we leaned on the expertise of a specialist recruitment incubator to help us through the first years of business. It is easy to think that you can do everything but stick to your strengths and let other people stick to theirs, enlist as much help that you can get and focus on what will generate revenue.
You might also think you need all the bells and whistles when you start; the best phone lines, the best database and CV parsing systems, access to all the job boards. One of the lessons we learned quite early on was that try and keep it as simple and sensible as possible and to not rush into anything. We for instance signed up to a rather expensive recruitment database for a 12 month period, which in hindsight was a mistake on our part, we should have perhaps assessed our needs over the first few months instead of signing up at outset. The positives have far outweighed the negatives mind you and I would happily pass on any advice or guidance to anyone else looking to start their own consultancy.
The Present
Our first year has gone by so quickly and even coupled with the added stresses of running your own business it has been incredibly enjoyable. Andrew and myself have specialised in the medical devices and scientific technology arenas for the last six years and have built on our reputation and secured new clients in new territories for us, including mainland Europe and the US. In such a niche market such as medical devices reputation can be everything and can be an incredibly important part of how successful you will be. Although Newton Colmore Consulting is only one year old I believe that already we have a strong reputation within the marketplace. This can be backed up by an interesting metric; repeat business. Over the course of our first year 66% of our placements has been from repeat clients, companies we have placed multiple people with. I believe that if a client is willing to come back to you time and time again it is a good indicator of the level of service you provide. I am also happy that it isn’t too high, as we are always looking to grow our portfolio of clients that we partner with. All in all, 2015 has been a good year on which to build a solid foundation moving into next year.
The Future
Moving into 2016 is really exciting for us. We are about to move into a new, larger office on Temple Row in the heart of the Birmingham’s business district as well as welcoming our first new consultant to the team, who we will be introducing very soon. We are also upgrading to the Linkedin Recruiter Platform as well as investigating new markets/specialisms and new ways to attract the candidates that our clients need.
Again, on behalf of Newton Colmore Consulting I would like to thank everyone that has helped us along the way. We would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2016.
Matthew Lowdon
Director, Newton Colmore Consulting.