How trust and shared ownership powers growth for Utility Results

Like his beloved Brighton and Albion FC, Clive Steed sees potential in people. “At Brighton,” he says, “they recruit these wunderkinds from overseas knowing they won’t keep them forever, but they’ll get three or four really good years with them.” The same strategy is at the heart of what Clive does as Managing Partner at infrastructure consultancy Utility Results. 

Since it was founded by Scott Goodwin in 2015, the company has prioritised training and development for its employees. Part of this is Clive’s personal love of learning. Though he left school at 16 to start an apprenticeship, he stayed in education until he was 35 - going to night school, then university, and eventually getting his Masters in Engineering Business Management. 

But the bigger part is that Utility Results looks after their people, whether that be making sure employees get a decent wage every month or giving them development opportunities. “It was one thing worrying about my mortgage, never mind worrying about other people’s,” Clive says. “That’s why I was always keen on training. This is a great business, we’re doing really well - but if it all goes wrong tomorrow, what training have you got that puts you ahead of the other candidates for your next job?”

This care and dedication makes Utility Results a great fit for our Making It Count series. We’re excited to celebrate the businesses that use our accounting software to bring transparency and predictability to their day-to-day and future planning.

Employee growth and ownership 

Apprenticeships were a fantastic way for Utility Results to find people ready to learn. “We took on apprentices because I was an apprentice, Scott was an apprentice. I think you get loyal employees if you take on apprentices,” says Clive. 

Under the minimum wage legislation at the time, the apprentice rate only required Utility Results to pay their recruits £8,000 in their first year, but Clive and Scott decided to double that figure. “I thought, if my daughter or son was earning that, it’d be an outrage. So we offered £16,000 a year.”

Chloe, one of their first apprentices, stayed with Utility Results for eight years. “We paid for her to go to university, gave her days off to do that - I think it’s money well spent. Seeing her grow from a very timid 18-year-old to somebody who’s now an Accounts Manager at a different organisation was amazing.” They still meet up for drinks and celebrate her promotions. “It’s like having a daughter, the door is always open for her to come back.”

In the last year, Utility Results has gone further to make their employees feel part of a family. Though they had offers to sell the business, they decided to take a different route, making the transition from a limited company to an employee-owned trust. It means he and Scott “can step away a bit and slow down,” says Clive. 

This route means all the employees own the business and share the profit at the end of the year. In terms of the daily routine, nothing’s actually changed - the employees were already able to see the business’s profit through their FreeAgent accounts. This radical transparency allows them to understand how their work affects the bottom line.

The secrets to 10 years of business growth

The winning formula for Utility Results really started 10 years before the company was founded. Clive and Scott first met building a data centre, each working at a different organisation involved. Bonding after a difficult meeting, they quickly discovered how well they worked together to deliver results. “We bring very different skills, so we both need each other.”

Then, in 2015, Clive was made redundant and was left wondering what to do next. The first person he called was Scott. As it turned out, Scott had just quit his job as a director at a larger firm to start his own business, where he would have more control and see the rewards of his hard work. Within three months of joining Utility Results, Clive bought into the business. “As soon as we got together, the business started growing,” he recalls. “We were clearly better than the sum of our parts.”

Utility Results has grown gradually and organically over the years. In the construction industry, work comes in through word of mouth. They’re known for their ability to tackle unique infrastructure challenges, having worked on complex developments like the Battersea Power Station project, which created 7,000 homes in central London. These types of building projects take a village - and when Utility Results do a good job, it means there are lots of people working on the project who remember them.

Running a small business from wherever they are

Though the transition from senior manager in a large business to running his own small business was huge, Clive dove in headfirst. “Initially, we had a bookkeeper who ran payroll and did everything for us in FreeAgent. But I really enjoy learning, so I started asking questions. And then I started doing more and more myself, until I basically did it all.” That’s when they switched accountants to someone who only helps file their end-of-year accounts. 

For small businesses, time is especially precious. Clive’s found he can make the most of any moments of downtime - like traveling between clients, or the daily commute - to get a head start with his daily admin. It’s made easy, he says, by the FreeAgent mobile app.

“You don’t need to do any tasks outside the office. But when you’re sat on the train and you finish the Sudoku or the Wordle, you’ll just flick across to explain those 10 bank transactions that came in. You can put your expenses in. Then, when you do get to the office, you don’t have to do the admin, you have time to look at the bigger picture of the accounts,” he explains.

The mobile app also gives Clive the flexibility to take advantage of unusual opportunities. “We usually send invoices in a very planned way, on the same day of the month. But one exception was a client who said, while I was sat in his office, ‘If you send me an invoice now, I’ll get it paid’. So I created the invoice on my phone, sent it to him, and his wife paid it there and then.”

Looking to the future, Clive is now training another employee to manage the accounts and run payroll so he can take a step back. “The stuff you do monthly is very easy, it probably takes about 10 minutes. FreeAgent has evolved over time, the automatic submissions were always there but pension contributions got easier to do. It’s been very easy, and it’s grown with us.”

All 15 Utility Results’ employees use FreeAgent to access their payslips, add expenses and check invoices. “We’re very transparent about how much money we’re invoicing each month. Bad debt is visible to everyone.” 

Building this trust from the very start of their business has helped to pave the way for a seamless transition to employee-owned trust. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, hide nothing,” says Clive. “I think it’s important that even someone who’s joining on quite a small salary can see the impact their work has on the business.”

Photography: Luigi Di Pasquale