Business Manager – Full Time – Guildford

Catering; Guildford; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private healthcare

25 days holiday

Job summary

Catering in Guildford is seeking a self-driven, early-career professional to work alongside a serial entrepreneur. One third logistics, one third supplier disputes, one third strategic thinking. You will drive tasks from obtaining deliveries to chasing late payments, and you’ll protect time for real projects.

Two to four years of demonstrable experience will be valued, and you’ll be paid accordingly. This is an apprenticeship dressed as a job: a chance to learn fast, build credibility, and grow

Responsibilities

• About a third of it is logistics. Driving. Collecting things. Returning things. Buying things. Giving time back I don’t have. Waiting at a property for that delivery to arrive – running that urgent errand when I and you don’t have time.
• About a third of it is fighting. Suppliers who are six weeks late. Companies who’ve taken the money and gone quiet. Refunds nobody wants to pay. Contractors who said Tuesday and meant never. You’ll take these off me entirely chase them, elevate them, and where it comes to it, argue them.
• About a third of it is thinking. Real projects with a start, an end and something at stake. Going away for three weeks to learn an industry I need to understand, and coming back with a view on it. Building the thing I’ve been meaning to build for a year. This is the part I most want, and the part that gets crushed first if you let the urgent stuff win so protecting it is part of your job, not mine.

Job description

Four+ businesses, two teenagers, no spare hours. A third of this job is logistics, a third is fighting suppliers who don’t deliver, and a third is real strategy. It’s access to a serial entrepreneur you will not get on a graduate scheme. A successful application will take about an hour.

The short version

I’ve built and sold several businesses. I run a property portfolio, a hardware distribution company, I’m in the middle of a large and complicated property build, I sit on multiple boards and I’m a single dad to two teenagers.

I need one person alongside me. Not an administrator someone I hand a problem to and then don’t think about again.

I’m hiring deliberately early: you’ll have two to four years of doing something real, and a lot of headroom. You’ll be paid properly for that level, and you’ll learn faster than you would anywhere else.

What the job honestly is

• About a third of it is logistics. Driving. Collecting things. Returning things. Buying things. Giving me time back I don’t have. Waiting at a property for that delivery to arrive – running that urgent errand when I and you don’t have time. Tidying up the mess I leave behind me. It is not glamorous and will come when your knee deep in the other two thirds!
• About a third of it is fighting. Suppliers who are six weeks late. Companies who’ve taken the money and gone quiet. Refunds nobody wants to pay. Contractors who said Tuesday and meant never. You’ll take these off me entirely chase them, elevate them, and where it comes to it, argue them. You’ll get good at being politely immovable.
• About a third of it is thinking. Real projects with a start, an end and something at stake. Going away for three weeks to learn an industry I need to understand, and coming back with a view on it. Building the thing I’ve been meaning to build for a year. This is the part I most want, and the part that gets crushed first if you let the urgent stuff win so protecting it is part of your job, not mine.

What I need from you

• Manage yourself. I don’t have time to manage you. You’ll get context from me in voice notes, fast calls, a short conversation once a week, and you’ll have to make that be enough. If you need someone to check on you, this will make us both miserable.
• Manage me. Bring me decisions, not questions. A recommendation, two alternatives, and what you’ll do anyway if I don’t reply by Friday. Chase me when I’m the bottleneck I will be, often, and I won’t be annoyed about it.
• Finish things. Most people are fine at starting. The rare thing is the person still politely on the phone about it in week seven.
• Be bright. You need to be able to walk into a subject you know nothing about, work out who the real players are and what actually matters, and explain it back to me in a page.

What I’m not looking for

• Someone who thinks parts of this job are beneath them. The person who’ll load the car is the same person I’ll trust with the strategy.
• Someone who has only ever worked somewhere with a proper structure, a line manager and an induction. You’ll drown.
• Ideas people. I have plenty of ideas. I need someone who lands them.
• Ten years of experience. I’m deliberately hiring early in your career.

What’s in it for you

You’ll be in the room for deals, disputes, builds and decisions that people ten years further into their career don’t see. You’ll see the numbers. You’ll see what I get wrong as well as what I get right, and you’ll see the difference.

In two years you’ll be able to run a project end to end, hold your nerve in a commercial argument, read a contract, and tell the difference between a business and a hobby. This is an apprenticeship dressed as a job. Treat it that way and it will work out for both of us.

Who this tends to suit

People who’ve already had to work things out on their own. Life hasn’t always been easy for you. You’ve worked as part of a small team. You were the only person doing your job. You’ve come out of the forces. You’ve managed a venue, a site, or a set of angry clients. Any or all of that.

What you studied and where matters to me far less than whether you’ve ever had to sort something out with nobody to ask.

Practical

• Full driving licence essential. There’s a pool car for work use.
• Broadly 9-6pm (5pm Fridays), but this isn’t a job that respects a calendar perfectly. Some early starts, some late finishes, some late starts, some early finishes!
• DBS check, right to work, and an NDA
• 25 days holiday with service + usual bank holidays, private healthcare

Salary: £30000 – £40000/annum

Job Type: Permanent

Location: GU1, Guildford, Surrey