It takes all-sorts… May 3, 2017

A business is like a cake – you take lots of weird ingredients which on their own might seem a bit odd – mix them all together ….and something wonderful comes out with icing on and butter cream in the middle.

Radcliffe – where our offices are located is a bit weird. It’s a bit ‘Northern’ and a bit ‘hard’ the people are not exactly chatty and don’t take easily to new people – we’ve only been there 15 years so are still classed as the ‘new neighbours’ …. but…once you get to know people they are the salt of the earth. The location is near to the motorway and generally works well for getting around the country being close to M6 and M1 and well as multiple cross country routes.

Pulling our teams apart and separating the ingredients you probably wouldn’t want to ever just deal with me (Mike Clough). I’m a bit of an arse, I’m arrogant, a bit of a know all and I generally think that my opinion is always right…. but…. water me down with a bit of Alex (younger, better looking and far more like-able than me) and a bit of Ann (younger better looking and far nicer than me) …and you get a good result.

It should also be noted that most of the time when you ring for me – you will end up speaking to Suzanne anyway – and she is far nicer than me.

Looking at the site lads – I’ve got to admit there are one or two that I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night – these are BIG, HARD AS NAILS lads …which when taken on their own they can look a bit scary. Add a bit of Phil… (worked for me forever and my brother by another mother) … and suddenly you have a better mix and a softened version of the team. Not that Phil isn’t – ‘hard as nails’ – he’s just a bit more ‘approachable’ …. which makes the site lads a better group to work with for our clients.

We have a team of lads that drive round the country checking on the progress of our eradication strategies. They are fairly solitary types not used to long conversation limiting themselves to simple communication along the lines of – ‘it’s dead’ …’it’s nearly dead’ …or …’it’s about to be dead’. Again, if you were to meet these lads on their own…you may well run for the hills feeling a little like you had wandered into a film about ‘hillbillies’ who had little contact with human kind…. but …add them into a mix of our admin department and updates from site and they are a huge asset for JKSL.

A business needs this ‘mix’ of ingredients. a cake made just with eggs and nothing else – just wouldn’t work. A business made just from an accounts department wouldn’t work. Just having surveyors …wouldn’t work. Site lads and nothing else …sorry, again…just no…

…but a mix of all of the above – lovingly stirred together by chef mike – delicious.

I love seeing the interaction of the teams and the constant humor and banter that goes back and forth between them all – this is what makes a business work.

This is what makes the cake.

I’m just a baker – I like putting all the ingredients together and seeing what comes out.

Mike C