Growth, resilience and tea: Mick on 16 years of the business
Manchester is seen as a real success city in terms of how it’s grown, something we’ve harnessed during our 16 years.
It’s an oddly sunny afternoon in Manchester, but inside CEO Mick’s office, there’s no time to acknowledge the great turn of the weather after his swift arrival at the Head Office in Manchester to sit down for a debrief after speaking at a roundtable held by The Business Desk, of course with a cup of tea to hand, one that he had candidly asked for us to prepare ahead of the questioning: “Milk and one sugar please. If you can get the tea right, you’re going far” he exclaims from experience.
Going far’ is nothing new for Mick, who founded urbanbubble 16 years ago after seeing a clear gap in the property management market. It’s a decision (over that famous Espresso Martini) that has led him to be the figurehead of one of the most renowned property management companies in the UK, now having 20,000 homes under its ever-growing belt.
After being called upon to speak at the roundtable event, it’s clear he has made a name for himself thanks to his business knowledge and positive outlook, but also his strongly evident Liverpudlian sense of humour (despite his clear opinion of Manchester being the best city for growth in the North for businesses).
Even though the roundtable was an ‘economic growth-focused’ small segment of his day, it served as an opportunity to reflect on both the past and the future of the company. As a timeframe, the next 12 months is as unpredictable as the next. Many events such as COVID, Brexit and the current Cost of Living crisis saw the company having to adapt and overcome. The political climate has not been easy-going to say the least, especially with the fact that this same day, the Bank of England interest rates were being released.
“I remember years ago, there was all of this financial information and I was thinking ‘what relevance does that have?’. I was going to go out and spend my wages and have a beer regardless” he says as he chuckles and looks up with a reminiscing stare and a smile. “These are really important things now when you’re running a business and deciding what you do over the course of the next 12 to 24 months is pretty crucial. We’ve had strong growth over the year – it’s better than we expected.”
He follows on from this to think big for the future: “We are now at this point where we want to go further. We think we can go from the 25 million level to the 50 million level and develop a good profit and continue to be a workplace of choice and an employer of choice.”
The world has changed since Mick first started, specifically with the working environment seeing a flip after COVID. ‘Do we need more offices?’ he ponders to himself as he tells us about the headquarters move next August.
It seems to be the ambition that drives Mick to continue to try and innovate the business and the property landscape simultaneously. An ‘ambition period’ so to speak, an arguably great term coined by one of his close business partners that rivals the norm of having an exit plan. His ambition over the next 5 years however is completely planned out. “We have to have clarity and focus on what we’re doing and from that we have to build a strategy.” He then breaks down the strategy further: “It’s a plan, do, review. You plan it, you do it, you review it. It’s okay to make mistakes.”
Mick is no doubt seen as an extremely approachable leader of the business, but it’s his interest in being a thought leader that turns outsiders heads towards him. Throughout our short time together, he was to sure demonstrate how having the head office in Manchester City Centre has benefitted urbanbubble’s growth massively, and the recent nomination for Fast Growth Business at the Business of the Year Awards surely echoes his sentiment.
“Manchester is seen as a real success city in terms of how it’s grown and develop creative jobs; something we’ve harnessed during our time here. It stands out, you know, in its comparison to Liverpool, Lancaster or Preston. It’s not there, there is no comparison. So, probably the reason why there are businesses like ours in Manchester that can flourish into life is because of all of these factors. We’ve found it an incredibly supportive city in terms of how business leaders connect, we can work in cohorts to develop our businesses and access support from the local authorities – it gives opportunity. Just like the roundtable today, it gathered business in the North West who are thriving in this city.”
However, being a busy company man sometimes requires things to end early; “are there any more questions by the way?” he asks. As a matter of fact there’s two left in the chamber, the latter of which could be the most important one for us as question-askers. Firstly, a classic one-word answer question: ‘Describe urbanbubble and their place in the UK business sector’. He pauses for a moment to sift through the entire English language adjective list to pluck the best one out.
“Resilience…”
and urbanbubble is that in spades: resilient. A word that best describes the team’s sustained ethos to constantly achieve the vision of enriching communities and residents lives one-by-one and providing an unrivalled customer experience – it most definitely checks out. However, then came the ultimate make-or-break question:
“So, how was the tea?”
“Spectacular.”
He exclaims the one word answer confidently, this time without any pause or hesitation. Judging by his brew-infused outlook and experience that he told us about forty minutes earlier, it’s a clear sign that we will go even further.
