‘Chaos is Your Secret Weapon!’ How to Turn Crisis into Cash – John Stevenson & Clive Sheppard

“From chaos comes opportunity so keep searching for those nuggets of light in the dark. Stay flexible and stay positive. ” – John Stevenson, Clive Sheppard.

Today, we feature John Stevenson Clive Sheppard, the founder of Zero Procure. We hear their stories in their own words, their successes, their challenges, and their insights.

Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?

John: I grew up in Edinburgh and began my career working in the hospitality sector there for many years before relocating to London in 1995. In 2001, I moved into customer account management and business development roles for print management company Danwood followed by Aquila Support Services, where I secured some fascinating contracts including Wembley, Emirates Stadium and Gordon Ramsay Holdings.

In 2006, I made my first foray into entrepreneurship and set up ACT Clean, which quickly became one of the leading cleaning and support services suppliers to the hospitality industry. I was pleased to work with some of London’s most luxurious hotels, world-class restaurants and members’ clubs, with clients including The Ritz, The Savoy, Mandarin Oriental, Zuma, Soho House Group, Claridge’s, W Hotel and The Connaught. After nearly 14 years with ACT and amidst the COVID-19 crisis, I conceived the idea for Zero Procure to support affected industries, helping businesses get back on their feet by making procurement simple and at zero cost.

I’m a huge football fan, in particular a Hibs fan, stemming from my Edinburgh upbringing. I’m also a keen golfer, as is Clive. We were social distancing on the golf course long before it became fashionable! Clive: I have over 20 years of expertise in procurement, with about 15 of those years within the luxury hospitality sector. I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the world’s renowned hotel brands including The Savoy, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts and The Dorchester Collection.

Prior to Co-Founding Zero Procure with John, I held the position of Area Director of Purchasing for The Dorchester Collection, nine autonomously run hotels including three luxury hotels in the UK: The Dorchester, 45 Park Lane and Coworth Park. I managed spend for the three UK hotels, including contracts from external labour, print management, waste, to all food and drink. I also worked closely with the Dorchester Head Office in managing a new standardisation project being rolled out currently across all nine hotels.

I’ve been involved in some really exciting large-scale projects including creating and managing the operating supplies and equipment budget during The Savoy Hotel’s £220M restoration project in my role of Regional Director of Purchasing, as well as overseeing the operating supplies and equipment implementation of the £85M spend for the opening of Rosewood’s first hotel in Europe, during my role as Director of Procurement.

Like John, I’m also a keen golfer and hope to join a club soon. Since lockdown, I’ve developed a new passion for making cocktails, and we are finally using up several bottles of nice whisky I’ve accumulated over the years!

This is a great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us how you started, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?

John: I founded my own business, 14 years ago which was my first foray into entrepreneurship. Having previously worked for others, I realised that it was time for me to forge my path with my own set of values – this is when I set up my first business, ACT Clean.

After nearly 14 years with ACT Clean and amidst the COVID-19 crisis, I conceived the idea for Zero Procure to support affected industries, helping businesses get back on their feet by making procurement simple and at zero cost.

Clive – I’ve spent my career working for large organisations so the leap to becoming a founder and launching Zero Procure was quite a big step, especially given the backdrop of Covid but the time was right to take on a new challenge. I’ve spent my career developing a far-reaching network of supplier-chain connections, leading procurement operations, developing and implementing new systems and launching hotels and restaurants.

Along with John, I wanted to use our network and experience to offer the industry something that would help them through these challenging times and beyond.

Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?

A business idea conceived and launched during the 2020 pandemic out of a desire to support affected industries, we’re a procurement company with a difference. We offer our customers simplified procurement with zero cost, zero risk, and zero contract.

We help operators and suppliers work together to make procurement effortless, efficient, and, above all, save time and money. In addition to simplifying procurement, we add great value through our vast network of suppliers. In many cases, we won’t require customers to change their buying habits; they will just enjoy lower costs and a simplified purchasing process. Through our vast UK-wide network, Zero Procure also provides suppliers with a high-yielding, low-cost sales tool.

We’re headquartered in London, servicing businesses of any size, in any industry, across the UK. In addition to making procurement effortless, we are driven by the desire to give back to our industry, and we look forward to announcing further initiatives, including the Foundation Zero charitable trust and our thought leadership platform, Zero Connect, in the near future.

What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?

John: With all the fear and uncertainty that has been brought about by COVID-19, myself and a couple of other industry professionals decided to try and come up with a good idea for businesses. What I absolutely knew, is that all businesses would be forced to look at costs. I realised that literally thousands of businesses, across all sectors, would either collapse or be in serious jeopardy.

This is when, together with Clive and our Director, Lucy Flinter, we came up with an idea to help clients and suppliers ease their pain. Along the journey, I have been helped by lots of kind people and motivated by those who were maybe not so kind. Strangely, the biggest lessons have come from the latter, and I’ve developed very thick skin!

Clive: The aha moment for me was after speaking to many suppliers during the first two months of lockdown and seeing how determined they were to find ways to keep their businesses going and keep their employees from losing their jobs. It made me think that I must try to help on as large a scale as I could.

Following this catalyst, we launched Zero Procure in October 2020, setting out to help operators and suppliers work together to manage their way through these troubled times. Our idea is different to the more traditional procurement companies’ models out there which tend to either promise large savings after an extensive audit or require a monthly outlay to “stay on top” of industry pricing.

Zero Procure will not at any point ever charge any of our customers a penny. Never. We don’t require a contract and there really is no risk involved for our customers. It seems simple right? Well, it is!

Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?

John: There is such uncertainty right now and this is causing businesses to be unsure of what fire to put out first. Universally our model has been welcomed, but it’s not an ideal time to get employers to be able to give us time when they are trying to save jobs and in some instances their businesses.

What is heartening is that we know that we are here for the long haul and we will be a massive asset to businesses as they work their way through the carnage this pandemic has caused.

Clive: As John has said, the biggest hurdle has been talking to the right people as they are desperately trying to look after their businesses. It’s been so encouraging to know that when we have been able to talk to someone and start the process, we have been able to show them savings and improvements in quality and services. That knowledge helps when you know you need to be patient!

The other hurdle has been people’s perception of procurement companies, having either used them or heard from others about their experiences with them in the past. Showing people that we are not here to take over their entire procurement strategy, but simply to target chosen areas that they wish us to look at, has been a challenge, but again one that has been so satisfying when we achieve this.

One of my biggest learnings is persistence. I continue to strive to make things better every day. I’ve always said to anyone who will listen, that work for my pride first, my workplace then gets the benefit.
I’ve worked with many inspirational people along the way that have helped my development.

John: Everybody has similar insecurities and making mistakes can be good for you.
Clive – Tracking emails, meeting notes and other documents on one shared platform is so important. Having automatic reminders instead of relying on my memory is very handy too!

If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

John: It’s only looking back that I realised I’d always been entrepreneurial. At 14 years old, I tried to start a cleaning company so my dad could take me to the 1982 World Cup. I didn’t manage it then, but I did manage it in 2014!

Clive: Looking back, I would tell myself to be braver and try different things. Learning from all new experiences is amazing; they can be transferred into most jobs. It’s natural for people to doubt something new, especially when it’s at a time when most people are looking to hold on to what they have. For me, it was the most natural thing to do. Knowing I could make a difference to businesses that one year before wouldn’t be as receptive to a company like us giving them a free health check. This will show many people that even when business is good, you still need to look at your costs, not just your sales.

We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?

A CRM system to effectively take notes and set actions for all customer and supplier requirements as well as run sales and forecast reporting and analysis We currently use Salesforce as it’s a comprehensive and industry-leading platform and is customisable to suit our needs.

It also integrates fully with all our G Suite products as well as with our accounting software. We chose Quickbooks for this as it is cloud-based and can be connected to our accountants making the financial side of running the business as seamless as possible.

LinkedIn is also an extremely important tool for us as it allows us to develop and nurture our connections.

How did you find out about them? Do you have a dedicated team to run them? What were you doing before using them?

Clive: We’ve used these tools in our previous roles. We’re currently a lean team, with John, Lucy (our Director) and I working very hands-on in the business.

How would you cope if you no longer had them? What other tools, or services are you interested in exploring?)

Being a lean and remote workforce, we rely heavily on collaboration tools such as products found within the G Suite platform. This requirement will continue as we grow as we don’t see an office-based environment on our immediate horizon. Productivity tools such as Slack are being considered as well as developing a Zero Hub app for our suppliers.

What do you know now that you wished you had known before?

John: Everybody has similar insecurities and making mistakes can be good for you.

Clive – Tracking emails, meeting notes and other documents on one shared platform is so important. Having automatic reminders instead of relying on my memory is very handy too!

What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?

John: Being able to tell my late father on the day I sold my last business that the advice he gave me when I was 14, was absolutely right. It was a very special moment for me.

Clive: Standing in The Savoy hotel on the day of the re-opening, looking around the public areas and knowing that I had played a massive part in putting it back to where it should be.

What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?

John: Our goal is to be the most respected procurement partner in the UK. We aim to develop long-term partnerships with businesses and support them well into the future.

A big focus for us going forward is the creation of a charitable trust into which a percentage of Zero Procure’s profits will be paid, with the funds being used to support businesses, that have been impacted financially by unforeseeable and unavoidable events, to get back on their feet.

Clive: As John said, we have high expectations for Zero. We want to look back and say we did something to support businesses and help them survive and thrive. We support businesses of all sizes but a personal passion of mine is to support those smaller businesses, who perhaps don’t have as many internal resources as larger organisations.

This is where I feel we can really add a lot of value by bringing independent businesses together. We can act as a support hub for them, galvanising their buying power to achieve lower prices and also saving them valuable time in negotiating the best prices with the right suppliers.

To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?

John: From chaos comes opportunity, so keep searching for those nuggets of light in the dark. Stay flexible and stay positive. Given the current circumstances, I think we’ve all developed a higher degree of agility, and flexibility in the way you work, the way you deliver service to your customers, and the way you support your suppliers is key to success.

Clive: It can be really daunting starting a business but stay true to yourself and your idea. Persistence pays – keep going, especially when the going gets tough. Even when you get a little knocked down, try to learn from it and keep moving onwards and upwards.

“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Zero Procure”

To learn more about Zero Procure Visit https://zeroprocure.com/

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