How about starting your own business when you are married with three children, have a mortgage to pay, no savings to draw upon and would be abandoning a solid job?
That is what Glynne Dyer did a year ago when he finally took the plunge after 18 years in recruitment to set up his agency Vanta Staffing based in Slough.
But Glynne’s new chapter of entrepreneurship is not about him borrowing more than he can afford, putting his house at risk, and living off credit cards month-to-month to keep the wolf from the door.
He launched Vanta Staffing in June 2017 completely risk-free thanks to support from The Recruit Venture Group, which backs new recruitment businesses with 100% of the finance needed for launch and a swathe of back office support to get things up and running.
Glynne said: “I’ll be frank, with a wife and three kids to take care of as well as a mortgage to pay, there is no way I would have been able to start this new adventure without the help of The Recruit Venture Group.
“Like many people, I was at a stage of my career where I knew that if I was ever going to run my own business, I had to do it then. I’m so glad I decided to go through with it.”
The Recruit Venture Group model takes care of not just finance but all the other essential business functions like payroll, accountancy, marketing, IT, legal and HR. The model is designed to allow talented recruiters to get on with the job they do best – filling vacancies with quality candidates and keeping clients happy.
Glynne’s career story is one of continued success, from starting at the bottom of the recruitment ladder to working his way up to area manager positions, responsible for setting up and running whole branches.
But he knew something had to change when, despite taking on more and more responsibility from his employer, he noticed that his pay packet was reducing because he could no longer focus on work that would earn him the commission.
“It was then I knew something had to change, and I knew deep down that if I had my own business, I would have full control of my working day and more control over what I earned,” said Glynne.
It was January 2017 when he first met with Paul Mizen, Managing Director of the Recruit Venture Group, after connecting via a colleague.
“Paul was great, and we just had an excellent early chat about the possibilities of me going alone and how he could help.
“My wife Charlotte was very against the idea because of our position with the children and the mortgage, so she came with me to the next meeting. By the time we had finished our conversation with Paul, she was even more excited about the idea than I was!”
Vanta Staffing launched in June 2017, just six months after Glynne’s initial chat with Paul. Focusing on the industrial, driving and commercial sectors, Glynne says those first six months flew by, establishing the business, making calls and building trust among old and new clients.
Vanta now employs six people and turned over twice as much money in 2017 as Glynne was expecting, and he now has plans to treble that turnover again for 2018.
Paul Mizen, Managing Director of The Recruit Venture Group, said: “We support 43 businesses just like Glynne’s, and I’m delighted to see Vanta Staffing going from strength to strength in just its first 12 months.
“It is so satisfying for the whole Recruit Venture team to see the potential of these talented recruiters unlocked through owning their own business.
“Once we sit down with people and chat about how we can support them as we did with Glynne, you see that fear factor go. That initial trepidation turns into optimism and energy for what their new business might achieve. The 43 businesses we support daily are a testament to the fact that this model works, and I was delighted when Glynne said he was ready to take that next step. The results speak for themselves.”
Glynne added: “Nothing quite prepares you for when you walk into your office on the first day of trading and pick up the phone for the first time. It’s exhilarating and a little bit scary, but ultimately this journey so far has been so rewarding, and I wish I had taken this step sooner.”

I’m constantly asked where the Vanta Staffing name came from so here you go…

I’ve only ever been part of naming 4 things before now, my 3 children and our dog. With children’s names you think of people you know or you’ve known, other kids you know, old teachers, bosses and more often people you dislike. The dog I can remember us shouting all our proposed names to check how they sounded and eventually settling with a well known Disney character – think Frozen!

So when it came to naming my new business I thought it would be easy.

I was mistaken, it was probably the hardest thing of the whole set up process.

My wife and I started brainstorming names almost as soon as we’d made the decision to work with recruit ventures. We came up rather quickly with JAAC RECRUITMENT – this covered my kids and wife’s initials. This was a pretty solid choice until we met with Paul Mizen at Recruit Ventures who rightly pointed out that people may not know how to say or pronounce it.

We needed a name that was unique, that would stand out, and had the grounding of a good brand, one that easily recognized, could be used nationally and more importantly remembered by candidates and clients.

We started to draw up a list of possibilities and then we’d go through a list of criteria the name had to meet. This included companies house checks to see if there was or had been a recruitment business with the same name, had been was equally important as we didn’t want to be associated with a failed recruitment business. It was important to bear in mind logos and copyright, website availability, and other local companies and if the business names would clash or be too similar. All the names we came up were all in use in some way or another and just weren’t right – we wanted to be unique.

At this stage we asked family members for some help and that’s when we’re we came up with Vanta.

Vanta was suggested by my mother-in-law. It was actually the name of an old family pet but when we started to look into the name we realised it had a lot more meaning and more importantly hadn’t been used before for anything in the UK and in fact most of the world! This meant we had no problems with copyright, website, competitor names and branding. We loved it even more when we googled it and discovered some meaning for Vanta

Meaning of Vanta

Icelandic

Verb

vanta

1. to want (be without, fall short)

Also if you look at the word adVANTAge VANTA fits in the middle perfectly.

Vanta was our new name and with a lot of local companies using personnel we wanted to stand out so Vanta Staffing was perfect.