065: The Importance of the Right Aptitude and Attitude with Andy Knowles Cofounder JAK Inc Ltd

To summarise this recruitment strategy that I have deployed, aptitude is something that you need a level of aptitude, but you can always work on that. If you have got somebody who scores low on attitude, that’s something that I have never been able to change. So aptitude and attitude are the two things that I measure down in business, in recruitment.

#00:00:55-4# Neil : Hello, its Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey, the vision, the mind-set, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Andy Knowles. But before I introduce you to him, I have a quote for you. A R Ammonds said, ‘questions structure, and so to some extent, pre-determine answers.’ The entrepreneur way asks the questions, so we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Andy, welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?

#0 #00:01:45-5# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I am, thank you very much Neil, its great to be here.

#00:01:51-0# Neil : Thanks for coming on the show Andy. Andy Knowles is family first, then managing director of Jack Inc. Ltd. He started his career in retail management, and then moved in to FMCG sales with Coca Cola Enterprises Ltd, before setting up Jack Inc. in 2005 at the age of 28 with his father. Jack Inc. Ltd is the holding company and design agency side of their business, which specialises in graphic design, illustration, web design and online and offline marketing. Their office is located close to the city of Durham, where they employ 15 people including 4 graphic designers, a customer service team and account managers. He also has two other strategic business units, including an online printing business, fullcolourcards.com and a fun photo to characture website, BillandBenthecartoonmen.com. He is passionate about marketing and delivering extraordinary customer service across their diverse range of business services. He is allergic to negative and thrives at the challenge that anything is possible. Andy, can you provide us with some more insight in to your business and personal life, to allow us to get to know more about what you do and who you are?

#00:03:17-9# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Of course Neil. So for me, its all about family first, I am a proud father of three children, I have got quite a sporadic age group, they have got, I have got a four year old, a six year old and I have a got a 17 year old, at the other end of the spectrum. So they are all in to different things, but we all have some great family times together. Business-wise, co-founder, alongside my father John of a company called Jack Inc. We are a web, design and brand agency. We set up in the North East of England, and this year we also opened a London Office.

#00:03:59-5# Neil : Ok, so you make money from doing marketing for other companies, I assume that is what you do. Is that right?

#00:04:05-6# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Yeh yeh absolutely, yes. Both online and offline.

#00:04:10-5# Neil : And what do you enjoy most about what you do?

#00:04:13-0# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Its a great question actually Neil, and for me its the best part of my job is meeting lots and lots of interesting people, who started off being clients, who we now consider friends of the business. We have seen their business now expand, we have seen it grow, and we are now taking that further, scaling up, with account managers, BDN’s. Not only in the North East, but obviously recently opening the London Office. We are starting to get more clients down there as well and its good to, its a good feeling.

#00:04:48-3# Neil : And what is it that drives you?

#00:04:52-0# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : For me, its all about that unknown kind of ‘I want to be successful.’ But then, I am not actually sure what success looks like, its that desire to do the best that I can. Something that has always been within me, entrepreneurship from 13 to 14 year old, I remember being at secondary school, and I was that kid who would be renting out videos from an old school bag in the toilets, I enjoyed making money, I enjoyed that anything was possible. Not exactly the actual the wealth for creation, but just going out there and doing something different. Making money and meeting people, and seeing what good that can do. So yeh I think entrepreneurship has always been within me.

#00:05:51-8# Neil : And how do you relax when you are not working in your business?

#00:05:55-6# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I would love to say that I relax while working out in a gym, like a lot of business leaders, its one of the compromises that we make which is looking after our wellbeing. But for me its about that family time, its about getting a pizza, sort of kicking back, watching some reality tv show on a Saturday night, laughing, going out for walks. I am a really big fan of the North East Coastline, its really beautiful up here. You know we have got castles, hundreds and hundreds of year old on beaches, and we have got not a lot of people on the beaches so, the four or five of us will go for a nice sort of blustery beach walk, and we will just talk about what we are going to do. How we are enjoying the weekend, and its all good, I really love the region, and especially spending time with my family.

#00:06:56-8# Neil : And do you have any entrepreneurial role models?

#00:07:00-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I do, I would say that my father has always been an entrepreneurial role model, although my dad was very much in to that corporate world. So when I grew up, I would say that we were a middle class family, we had a new build property, we had one or two holidays a year, dad drove a company car, went to work in a suit, and I guess that that was my role model. I was brought up very much with a dad working hard, going out to work early, coming back late, working weekends, you know at the time, being brought up in the 80’s, it was he always had a pager stuck to his belt. And every time that went off, he ran to the nearest phone, made a call to his office, and dealt with business, and I just liked that role model of a business person to me, was success because I had a happy childhood. You know, we went on multiple holidays, we enjoyed the good things in life, great experiences and for me that’s always what I wanted to achieve for my family, for my children, to enjoy blocks of family time together whether its holidaying in the UK, holidays abroad and giving them experiences, but also the kind of becoming a role model myself, you know to my children and to peers around me, its always been something that’s been a driver, but I have had a lot of role models around me, starting off with my dad, definitely.

#00:08:45-3# Neil : Andy, can we talk about the time before you were an entrepreneur?

#00:08:48-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Of course,

#00 #00:08:50-0# Neil : What difficulties did you have to overcome when you started your business?

#00:08:55-6# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : So I would say, I had a few challenges going back before the business really, so I had this role model in my dad, going to work and being this business man, you know and I had a choice when I left school, I got good grades, for me grades that were good enough to get in to a college, or go and do my A levels. But I made a choice, I took the work route, at the time it was a YTS, these days its an apprenticeship. And my choice was education, or work and earn money, and for me again, it was not down to the earning money, although of course that comes in useful. It was the going out in to the big world, seeing what I could do, building relationships etc. Unfortunately, that did not work out, probably a year and a bit in to a two-year YTS, I actually started asking, ‘you know I am really enjoying this role, but is there going to be a job at the end of it?’ because I felt like I was doing my best, working towards the end goal being getting taken on as a permanent employee, and at that point, very honestly and brutally honestly, my line manager said, ‘look Andy, there is no job, there never was a job, and you are going to complete your two years, you are going to get experience, but we cannot guarantee you any employment.’ And I took that badly because at the time I felt that I had made a decision and the end kind of goal was to get a job at the end of that decision and I felt that I had let myself down, I had let my family down, at the time and being a sort of 15/16 year old coming on 17, its a tough time, its uncertain, because you not know where you are going to go, and you do not know what choices you are going to make.

#00:10:58-4# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : So I ended up working on a checkout in a supermarket, and just went with the philosophy of ‘get your head down, work as hard as you can, you will get recognised and good things will come your way, good things come to those who wait and work hard.’ So that was my philosophy, so I thought a couple of years, I was stacking shelves, working on a checkout, working in a warehouse, in a busy food retail market, and eventually I did get spotted and I got put on to a management trainee course, worked my way up further, and then got up to be a star manager, and was very much on to the corporate ladder at that point I felt that this is a, this is something that is working, this is getting my head down, working hard and I get recognised. And I thought that that was the pattern, so I continued doing that. I went from a few different retail brands, worked my way in to different sort of management positions, I had stint in buying. And I thought, ‘I actually really like this I have got my own office now, and meeting with business development managers, or account execs, they are talking to me about their products, I am deciding whether to take that product and then take it to the market through a series of supermarkets that this company owns.’

#00:12:25-1# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : And I actually liked the idea of being sat at the other side of the desk with the flexibility of driving around, meeting customers, talking about the products, and this I guess was going back to my dad, going to work in a suit, company car etc and decided to start applying for sales jobs. And I was lucky enough to get accepted with a job for Coca Cola Enterprises, and this was a big thing for me because I went to Leeds for the interview, and I remember it was a big thing getting the train to Leeds, going through the whole interview process, I was very nervous, and I got home after a long round trip, got back home. The guy rang me and said, ‘Andrew, thank you very much for the interview, I am really sorry but you have been unsuccessful.’ And I asked him why, I said, ‘why is that?’ and he said, ‘to be honest Andrew, you are just have not got the qualifications, we are looking for A Levels as a minimum standard for this job role.’ I don’t know if it was I went in to a defensive mode, or if it was passion or if it was sales that kicked in but I just said, ‘I am grateful for the opportunity but I can do this job, it never said that on the application, I have got so much life experience with my retailing, my purchasing, you know I would really appreciate the opportunity.’ And he turned and he said, ‘Andy, you have done something that not a lot of people do, you have stood up for yourself, you have turned a negative in to a positive,’ and you know what Neil? I actually got offered the job, I got offered a job with one of the biggest brands in the world, Coca Cola Enterprises and I worked for them for 6 years, built my way up on the corporate ladder, loving my role, great package, I was getting recognised for salesman of the year, and things were going really well.

#00:14:31-9# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : And at that point, my dad unfortunately went through a series of redundancies, and came to me and said, ‘Andy, I have got this business plan, it means giving up your career, and I know how much that means to you but what do you think?’ and that was in 2004, had a good think about it, and at the time it was a bit of a risk because I had just been married, I had just secured the mortgage on our first property, and it was my dad. This is my role model, pitching to me a business plan and there was no turning back, I said, ‘yes lets go for it, let’s do it’ and that was Jack Inc. that was when it was established in 2004, and I have never looked back.

#00:15:10-7# Neil : Ok, thanks for sharing that, and did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

#00:15:18-7# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : There was that doubt in my mind of certainty is always a factor when you are employed, you are certain that you are going to get your pay at the end of the month, you are certain that there is a set of rules, regulations and policies that you need to follow and you are certain of your contact strategy, you know who your line manager is, you know who your team mates are, and you know where your position is, there are a lot of intangibles I think, that when it came to it, I had to kind of decide on all these intangibles and kind of weigh everything up. Not only that, but it was my nearest and dearest to me, were I would say ‘look I have, I am looking at going in to business with my dad.’ and friends and family who were mostly employed in corporations where they were pretty sceptical and they were saying, ‘Andy, are you sure this is the right thing? You have got a great job with a great pension with a great package, get your head down, you have got an opportunity to move in the career.’ And it was kind of, whilst I was supported, I just felt there was an underlying ‘Andy, don’t do this, this is a big risk’ and actually it is a big risk because as we know the stats about business stats ups and most businesses go out of business within the first 12 months, so those were risks that I did not really calculate, they were kind of a very strong gut feeling, working with my dad and yeh I just went for it.

#00:16:44-7# Neil : And what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

#00:16:49-3# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : So we made a lot of mistakes in our first two years. A lot of it was employing the wrong people. Maybe looking at employment, instead of employing people in the early days, we needed to get our product out there very quickly, but we did not necessarily have the experience or knowledge of taking people on, how really we knew about interviewing skills but what we did not realise was that we had to pitch our business to potential employees because we were just the two of us and our office was a cafe on a railway station, which was where our first office was. So we had to pitch our business to potential employees and we actually went down a self-employed route first of all, and we found that was a challenge because we were expecting a permanent member of staff, without the risk of taking on a member of staff. All the risk was pretty much on the employee, or the self-employed person. Albeit, the incentives were there if they the more they sold the more they got back in return, but that just did not work out. But yeh that’s just one mistake really of a few to be honest in the first two years.

#00:18:09-5# Neil : And what are some of the things that you did before you started your business that would be helpful tips to some of the listeners who have not yet taken the first step on the entrepreneur way?

#00:18:22-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I would say that planning was absolutely essential. We see quite a lot of new business start-ups come to us very excited about this, the idea and about the logo generation, and about the branding that goes behind the new business. But not necessarily taking a step back and looking at the financial risk, what are they going to grow? How are they going to grow? What are you going to put in to place if things don’t work out as they expected? yeh definitely raising finance, looking at a business plan. Thats the best piece of advice I could give, work out your business plan, tweak your business plan, change your business plan, right up until the day that you go and see a bank manager or however you look at it. Looking at raising finance, make sure that that business plan is done correctly and you have spent a lot of time on it. Thats the best advice I could give.

#00:19:17-6# Neil : Alright, and what I would like to do now is just talk about the entrepreneurial journey a little bit more now Andy, so do you think culture is important from the beginning in a business?

#00:19:29-7# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Yeh I absolutely do and its something that we have been investing in heavily recently. I was lucky enough to get accepted on to a Goldman Sachs Business Growth Programme last year, and I thought culture was something that was a nice to have, it sat in the business plan but not did not really get listened to or kind of adhered to. After Goldman Sachs, it was essential, we were a family business and something that was so important to us that we had that family spirit within the spirit, so our business culture, Jack Inc. has kind of spread out from that family culture, we respect each other, we are very transparent. We are passionate about our region, and we are grateful for the companies and the people around us, so very much its intrinsic within our business model now, having a culture. And that was on the back of the Goldman Sachs programme that I went through. And we looked at companies that for me are way up there in terms of culture and I think no better at this than companies like Zapos. We are a big fan of Zapos, we buy in to their culture, book every year, we have registered on their website and we pick up bits of advice and tips around culture. Build a culture and you build a really good team to help build your business.

#00:20:58-6# Neil : Mmm absolutely, in fact if you are interested in Zapos, have you read Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan?

#00:21:06-6# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I have not read Tribal Leadership actually, no I have read delivering happiness or delivering happy.

#00:21:12-3# Neil : Have you? Well I think Zapos are in tribal leadership quite a lot. So it might be interesting for you.

#00:21:17-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I am making a note of that now actually, that’s good.

#00:21:20-2# Neil : Its a good book. Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

#00:21:32-1# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Yeh I would say I wax lyrical before about having a business plan and whilst we had one, it was not very, very robust, it was more of a vision, we want to achieve x,y and z within a set period of time. But what we did not do, and what I would do moving forward, is actually invest in the structure of the business, a very strong vision and think about actually multiplying that by ten, so whatever we wanted to achieve, just think bigger on a massive scale. And that’s something that we did not do and so we were very much our vision was to be the biggest independent publication company and print company and web company within the North East of the UK. Well actually we have seen huge growth opportunity since we have thought out that North East Region and moved in to London. We see much more opportunity and I think that if I could do it all over again, I think I’d probably as part of our growth strategy, I would say have lots of pockets of regional offices. Certainly with an experienced sales force.

#00:22:47-9# Neil : And how much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

#00:22:53-1# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : It always did and you know going back to when I said that we, when I started the business with my father, a lot of that was gut feeling. The gut plays a big part I think in running a business, you know you can follow the blue print, you can follow the business books and that’s something that I am very passionate about. But ultimately, if you have got a gut feeling, trust it in my opinion, because chances are you are normally right.

#00:23:24-3# Neil : You know early at the beginning, you talked about somebody, I think it was your dad actually having a pager and running to phones and things so this next question is sort of about that. Life is made of constant change whether we like it or not, in fact many people say the only constant in life is change. Andy, how do you try to keep up with change?

#00:23:45-3# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Change is very important to us, not only we mentioned culture before, built in to our culture is that we embrace change. Because one minute, we will be talking about our core business of web, design and print. But the next thing we are talking about introducing other brands in to the business, and in the past I have had to sell that in to the team, but nowadays, its kind of ok, Andy’s going off, he’s looking at investing in another brand for the business portfolio, we will just embrace that because you know, we have done things before and its worked, so embracing change is a big thing, is part of our culture, not only that, its also something that we have seen a huge change in the curve since 2004 when we started in business. We were and I remember the day that we got our first mobile phones in business, and it was a really nice phone, I think I spent an hour working out its functionality, and I think the only game at the time was Snake but this was our device that we went out there and we were talking to customers and we were building our business on the back of tech. I remember us buying our computers and we actually got our PC’s built by a specialist because we needed a bigger hard drive to cope with the publications and software that we were running on it.

#00:25:06-5# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Nowadays, we are having an interview now through the internet, we built our business, a lot of our business has been built on the internet. Social media obviously emerged and we have embraced it as a business, not only have we embraced it but we have also educated ourselves in how to use it. We now pass that skill and expertise on to our clients, in a teaching capacity or in a management capacity. If people want us to look at social media for them and manage it for them, and come up with a content strategy, we will do that for companies, so I think for me, to summarise technology is something that has helped grow our business, because the more technology platforms that are launched, it just gives us more tools for our services, in this tech world, so yeh I embrace this technological revolution.

#00:26:07-6# Neil : And what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership or motivation? and can you tell us why you have chosen it?

#00:26:13-7# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Of course, a book that was one of the first books that I read when I was working at Coca Cola Enterprises, was Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people. And its a book that, although it was written in a time that was way back when, is still so current, I am always amazed at when I am reading that book, in how relevant it is in today’s society. So that has been a big inspiration in building relationships with my clients. And its a book that I go to time and time again, in fact, its always with me, in fact its actually in my brief case and its my go-to book, if I am sat on a train, and just want a little bit of down time.

#00:26:58-7# Neil : A lot of people mention that book. Everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge, in the time when you may be doing other things. Such as driving or when you are at the gym, we have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing. To choose your free audio book, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com. As long as you have not already signed up, then you will qualify. Andy, what I would like to do now is speculate about the future a little bit with you. What one thing would you do with your business, if you knew that you could not fail?

#00:27:38-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : If I knew that I could not fail, I would definitely invest in the right people to take the business forward from a sales point of view, so something that we are very strong at, at Jack Inc. is the operational side of things, we have got a fantastic team of designers, developers, social media executives. So within our hub, we have got skill sets that can be scaled up. I just think that the services and the offering that we have got, the opportunity is so big to take our services across the UK and in to Europe. So again, going back to what I was saying before, if I can think big and then double that feeling, for me it would be to have a regional office within maybe 12 regions of the UK, possibly in to Europe and investing in the right sales force, the right people, create a culture, scale up, and yeh, that is something that I actually feel very excited about talking about just now.

#00:28:39-1# Neil : Good, what skill if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business?

#00:28:47-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I would say that we are in a world of, well we have got a shortage of developers, so people who can … people who can develop not only front end, but the back end of software development, I think if I had a team of people doing that, we would not have a problem picking up business, because there is a national shortage.

#00:29:12-3# Neil : And what about a personal skill, have you got a personal skill that would help you?

#00:29:18-1# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Personal skill? I would say that public speaking is something that I would like to do. Something that is part of my business plan, on a personal level, has always been to invest in personal development for me and to be a better dad and to be a better business person, so yeh I would love to be able to share my story if you like and talk to other businesses or individuals. Especially our guests in schools, because this was the real pinch point, that I had was when obviously I had a real challenge when I left school, I opted for the you know at the time, the YTS avenue, thinking there was a job at the end of it. And actually, there are not just two options, there’s not just the education route, and the work route, there is other things and I think that I would just like to reassure like especially like kids that are looking at leaving school who might not be straight A students, like lets just weigh up your options here. Its an exciting world, there is a lot going on out there, and just do not discount that because I think that was my biggest challenge, I thought that was just two options.

#00:30:31-6# Neil : In five years from now, if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business, after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

#00:30:39-7# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I like people of think of Jack as an innovative company, that started off small, believed that anything was possible, built a very strong brand that helped others, not only in business but gave back to society, in sharing a story and offering advice to business start-ups to help them grow more quickly, with the right tools around them.

#00:31:07-0# Neil : We are now at the part of the show where you share three golden nuggets with us, Andy what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

#00:31:15-0# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : My favourite quote comes from Winston Churchill, and its the never ever give up quote, I love it, its in a frame in my office, I look at it every single day, and it typifies business, we are going to get our collars felt, we are going to have good times, we are going to have bad times. But in those bad times just understand that it will get better, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, you know in the darkest, darkest nights, it is followed by day. Never give up is something that is well and truly embossed within my psyche and I always pass that on to my guys in business, and friends that I meet.

#00:31:52-5# Neil : How have you actually applied that in your business?

#00:31:54-5# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : So there are times when you are at a low point, I remember myself and my father one Christmas, obviously its a time of the year when financially in our business, its drops off in December, and it does not really pick up until the end of January and February. I remember us sat in the office over Christmas, and we are very passionate people, we are very positive people. I remember us sat there thinking, ‘what’s our plan B Dad? what if this business actually does not work out? do we have a plan B?’ and the fact that we did not, is probably something that made us stronger, until that point, but at that point we just started actually reviewing our business plan, talking about strategy and just believing that things will turn out, but you have got to apply change. You know and its not a case of just reaching out to the universe and saying, ‘I hope something good happens, and I am hoping that something good will manifest’ because it didn’t and it doesn’t.

#00:33:01-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : We had to re-work our business plan, we had to apply a strategy, we had to constantly review that strategy, and that moment was actually a real low point but three months later, I think we were breaking records in sales and profitability.

#00:33:18-3# Neil : And do you have any favourite online resources that you can share with us?

#00:33:28-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : I am trying to think what it is called now, there is a podcast, a business podcast, apart from yours of course. Oh it was an American guy, really really popular podcast, young guy doing, he has got a lot of help and advice around start-ups. I think he is sponsored by 99 designs. I have forgotten the name, I am trying to think of any of the online resources, Inc.com.

#00:34:01-8# Neil : And what is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

#00:34:07-8# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Best advice with other entrepreneurs is its all about the people that you bring in to your business. And its something that I learned again, something off Goldman Sachs was that yeh gut feeling plays a big part, especially bringing people in to the business. But something I introduced this year for the first time was when interviewing new members of staff, look at two columns, look at the aptitude, can this person do the job that they say they can do? have they benchmarked their performance against other members of people in their team in previous jobs? and can they prove that and demonstrate that? and have they got the qualifications that backs up what they say they can do? That’s one column that Iook at.

#00:34:52-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : The other side of that, is people’s attitude, what sort of attitude do they have? do you see them fitting in to your business? are they a positive person if you are interviewing them for a sales development job for example, well you want somebody who is going to be positive. You know, and at the end of it and to summarise this recruitment strategy that I have deployed, aptitude is something that you need a level of aptitude but you can always work on that. If you have got somebody who scores low on attitude, that’s always something that I have never really been able to change. So aptitude and attitude, are the two things that I measure down in recruitment.

#00:35:30-7# Neil : Ok here is something for you to think about. In my podcast interview with Casey Eberhart, he actually says that people hire on skills and fire on attitude.

#00:35:42-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Ha ha, there you go.

#00:35:42-0# Neil : There you are you see, exactly what you said. Everyone if you did not manage to get a note of Andy’s favourite resource or his favourite book, you can find the links on Andy’s show notes page, just go to theentrepreneurway.com and search for Andy or Andy Knowles in the search box, Andy is there anything else you would like to add about your business?

#00:36:02-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : Yeh its a really exciting time at Jack Inc. we are taking on more and more web development projects, we have got a fantastic team around us, the three things I would say we are very, very strong on, is web design, graphic design and print. They are the three areas that we specialise in. And they all grow arms and legs but it always comes back to web, design and print.

#00:36:26-7# Neil : Andy its been an honour having you on the show, you have really shared with us some great wisdom and given us some great tips and really shared your knowledge, so thank you very much for coming on the show.

#00:36:37-2# Andy Knowles Cofounder & Owner of JAK Inc Ltd : You are welcome Neil, its been great, a great experience thank you.

#00:36:39-8# Neil : You are welcome, thank you.