End of Year Review: Interviewing Neil Clough
As Prime enters its 5th year, what better time to look back and see how the company has grown in 2018. From new staff members to new offices opening and lots of exciting events such as charity fundraising at the business heavyweights, it’s been an incredible year.
With all that’s gone on, I thought it would be a good time to pull the MD and co-founder of Prime Mr Neil Clough over for a review of the year and to discuss Prime’s future moving forwards.
Interviewee: So Neil, with the end of the financial year here at Prime, what achievements have members of the team been recognised for this year?
Neil: It’s been our best year ever where we’ve achieved a 75% growth year on year. In terms of performances that have played a huge part in making this growth happen, the award winners were Joe Leggat who won both top biller and best retention rate and Nick Gandhi who won top dealmaker and most client conversions.
There was also our employee of the year award which went to AJ, also known as Adam Johnson. AJ has played a key part in helping the launch of our new London office and is absolutely killing it.
Interviewee: So you mention the London office, how exactly has Prime grown from previous years?
Neil: In addition to the 75% growth year on year and our London office launching, we’ve also broken records for both number of placements made and most candidates trained. On top of this, the team has grown in headcount too! We recently hired four new recruits – Mike and Lucy in our Manchester office, and Jamie and Martin in our London office. We also have a student placement with us, Jon and he’s been doing a great job running all our social media and marketing.
Interviewee: What have you found most impressive about Prime’s growth?
Neil: I think what’s most impressive is that even as Prime continues to grow we still manage to maintain the quality of our process, with 85% of the candidates placed still successful in their roles.
Interviewee: What are your plans for growth moving forward into year 5?
Neil: We’re at 16 employees now which is amazing and we’re looking to grow the team even further next year. We want to continue to be the market leader in Manchester, become the market leader in London and open our Birmingham office, which should be exciting. Year 5 will be our most successful year ever.
Interviewee: What’s the company’s biggest challenge moving forward?
Neil: It’s really making sure that we achieve what we want to achieve. What I mean by that is we’ve got a growth plan in place and we’ve got to continue to work as hard as possible to make sure we achieve it. We’ve not got to where we want to get to yet – there’s a long way to go still, but so far so good.
Interviewee: What’s been your favourite moment with the company so far? This could be a success, a funny story whatever you want?
Neil: Erm my funniest moment is hiring Jon our placement student. He’s crazy. Aside from that, all and all I think there have been some really great successes… Nicole being nominated for the BESMA sales trainer of the year award for the 2nd year running; we’ve had our best year yet, and we’ve got a team of people who genuinely want to help change the perception of sales, they want to make a difference, they want to make Prime successful and they want to get more and more graduates into a sales career.
Interviewee: And what’s the biggest change you’ve noticed as Prime has grown?
Neil: *laughing* Erm stress. But with stress and hard work, comes results. As your business grows, so do your people. Trying to maintain making it a great place to work for everyone is probably the biggest challenge, but I’d like to think that we’re succeeding at this.
Interviewee: Finally, what is Prime’s biggest success this year?
Neil: The team. They’re incredible.
Interviewee: That’s all, thank you for your time, Neil.
Neil: My pleasure.
After a career in sales and recruitment? Did you know that our Prime process includes; free training, interview preparation and continued support before and after you secure a position with one of our clients. If you like the sound of what you’ve read so far and want to be part of the Prime journey, send your CV to us on our website or contact a member of the team on LinkedIn for more information.
We hope to see you soon.
