EP221 – Becoming B Corp…
And the Difference It Made To My Business
– Success Stories with Gildas Jones & Ian Lucket

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we help you understand what is B Corp and why can it help you grow your MSP?

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million and if already there, get to 5 and go fast. At the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Welcome to this week's episode of the IT Experts podcast. We've got a really interesting show today. We are going to be talking all about B Corp certification and what that means to you, what that means to your business, as we're joined by one Gildas from Dial A Geek. Good afternoon, Gildas.

GILDAS: Good afternoon, Ian. How you doing?

IAN: I am doing very good. Thank you very much. So in today's episode, we're gonna be talking to Gildas all about why he decided to go through the process to get certified in B Corp, what it is, how it's going to help. And it's actually part of niching in a marketing expertise. So Gildas, before we get cracking, do you want to just tell everybody who are you, what you do and who's your help?

GILDAS: So yeah, my name is Gildas and the company's name is Dial A Geek as you can probably see in the background, if you're watching the video. So we support businesses from 20 to about 70 staff, we're based in Bristol and we've been going for 18 years.

IAN: Excellent stuff. So first of all, let's get very clear. What is B Corp?

GILDAS: B Corp is quite a big term. So B Corp is a, imagine an ISO for your business. So the ISO 27001 hat's an ISO around data governance. So there'll be other ISOs and it's a similar type of certification, but it's for about the way you run your business with it's a way to companies to demonstrate a high standard of accountability and transparency for all social and environmental factors in your business. So essentially it's a kind of badge that says yeah, we do the right thing That's what it is.

IAN: Is it all around sustainability and just best practice and running good values and that sort of thing? Is it more on the...

GILDAS: It's all of that and more. And you have to prove it. Which is, yeah, some of it's a hard bit. So yeah, so it's around sustainability. So you end up with a, when you get certified, you end up with a score. So you have to score over 82 I think it is or around 85 and then they do your assessment. So it shows you'll do in terms of sustainability and how you look after your clients, who your clients are as well. That's quite important because that's something that you can't, if you work for the say the MOD or if you're working for arms manufacturers or oil you will struggle to get B Corp. So it's about who your clients are and then it's about how you look after your staff as well. So that's all built into it. So it's a whole standard that covers the whole range of factors.

IAN: That's really interesting, isn't it? Because I suppose you've got, the ISOs where you've got process and cybersecurity and kind of these things, but this is covering it for the, I thought it was all about sustainability in the environment actually, but when it's, it goes into employee engagement and client engagement as well, I suppose in short, this might not, this might be the right thing to say. It actually says, we're running an ethical, proper business here where we're looking after our customers, we're looking after our employees, and we're doing the right thing, where we possibly can. That's like the kind of headlines of what I'm hearing. Is that fair to say?

GILDAS: Yeah, it's at the moment, it's like the gold stamp of that, to be honest. Yeah, so everything we do is we have to keep in mind the environment, we have to keep in mind what the impacts are on those actions.

IAN: How did you get to hear about this to start with? And why was it important for you?

GILDAS: To be honest, we've always, I've always cared about running a decent business more than making money. Probably much to my detriment, to be honest. But yeah so we've made it, we've always been, we've made an effort to be a good employer and treat people right, treat clients right, just treat people decently and it's about that, but this is quite a large extension on treating people decently because then you're thinking about the whole impact your business is having. So we've done things like this years ago, we did carbon impacts, probably seven years ago, eight years ago. We've been doing this for a long time in the background, but never really had any kind of official badge to show you do it. We just weren't doing it and then we had an inquiry from a company. So this is what triggered us to actually look and do B Corp. We had a target market client who said we went through a whole sales process. Yeah, we like you, we you're ticking all the boxes. And then we got down to the sales stage and they said, ah, the final decision. They said, oh, we've gone with another company, it's a B Corp, I'm afraid. After all that, after every box ticks, and it was a bit like. Really? And then, okay, so we, so I thought let's have a look at what B Corp involves. So there's a local B Corp coach in Bristol called Andy Hawkins. He's amazing, I've got in contact with him and he did a sort of cohort scheme to get you through it. So like week on week over the course of nine weeks you go through the questions set essentially, all the questions are online, so you can sign up for free now if you go to the B Corp website, so you can sign in, it won't cost you anything, you can see what those questions look like and where you score the points, and see if that's something you'd want to go ahead with. So yeah, we ran through that with Andy, and eventually, probably a year later, we got accredited. It's a lot of work, to be honest, because you have to every point you've got to prove and document all the things you do a bit like imagine where you, where do you buy your laptops from? So we went through quite a large process around that. And we went through a few things, we ended up on the wrong track. Basically, I started the process and then I went that looks good. And then I handed it over to our marketing manager, Nina. And it wasn't quite as simple as I thought it would be for her to do, it's a lot of work and I also put us on the wrong track. So it turns out that we should have been on the retail track due to where they do their certification. Because we sold that many laptops and that much hardware, they had to sell them as a retailer, which we were a service company. So there was a strange, that was quite a strange anomaly. But yeah, that went, we have to do extra due diligence on our supply chain in terms of Dell laptops, and then you have to find out what Dell was, policies are pretty pretty vague, to be honest.

IAN: It took a year to get that certificate. How often does it need to be? How long does that last for? Is it an annual thing or...

GILDAS: It's every three years you get, you recertify and every year you have to do an annual impact report. So just say what you've done since the last year and just to keep things moving...

IAN: Make sure that you're keeping up with your standards just like I suppose it's just like any other iso, isn't it? You need to demonstrate that you're following the procedures and that you're doing what you say You're going to do which i'm guessing is going to be a when did you get this again?

GILDAS: Oh, we got this two years ago now...

IAN: Two years ago. So next year you'll be up for the you know

GILDAS: We're on the reserve next year. Yeah. And they've changed the questions and the process. So this is going to be interesting.

IAN: Yeah, of course it is. Talk to me Gildas, that's about how this has helped you then, turn this kind of like into your niche. So you did it originally for, obviously you had this sales inquiry and that kind of did work because of that. And then you thought, hang on, this is the right thing to do. Values wise, I know you that, and that's absolutely, that's. So you've turned this into kind of spun this into a marketing thread. Now, have you...

GILDAS: We haven't niched entirely into the sustainable sector, but we've got a lot of clients doing the clean tech space anyway. So clean tech and then other biotech spaces that are all environmentally sound anyway. So, it's more of just it's more spotlight in what we do anyway. So it's spotlight. So that's which has attracted other clients that are in that space as well. going to say, it's also influenced our clients, which is quite interesting. I don't think this would happen. So we've had the certification and our clients have gone, oh, Gilda's got a certification, what are they doing over there? And they've had a look and then we've had a couple, we've had two maybe three companies now that have our clients have gone B Corp as well. So that's quite an interesting thing. I didn't expect to happen.

IAN: I suppose it's a badge now, isn't it? And if the sustainability and I think that, the ethics and the values are important to those businesses, probably, value led businesses like commercial charities and things like that. And Yeah, some of the business that you mentioned, it's important to them. And I guess ticking that box takes you actually probably half of the way, all the way down their qualification process, before they've even got even talk to you really, aren't they?

GILDAS: Yeah. And it's also back. So obviously if you'll be cool, it's easier to. If you, in your supply chain, if you've got B Corps, because you know they're doing the right thing and they can that adds value. It becomes yeah, self generating in that respect. So that's good. But yeah, but,it's not just charities, it's quite, it's like recruitment B Corps. So it's not always PR companies, a lot of PR companies, a lot of agencies have got B Corps as well, agencies.

IAN: So it sounded like Nina had a bit of a shock when she opened up this little bag you gave her and you said, oh, this is it. Just get the certification. It'd be absolutely fine. What other impacts has it had on the business itself? Is it, we're here in business to make money. Has it helped you make more money? Has it helped you become more profitable?

GILDAS: What's his face? In the short term, I would probably say no to this it's if you're thinking of doing it as a money making exercise, there's other, there's better ways to spend your money. There's easier ways to make money than that. Yeah so I wouldn't say that was the case. But what it has done is Because as you, we're a smallish companies. We were, we've got nine staff at the moment. We were 11 and it, what it does, it puts a lot of frameworks in place. So you've got a lot of governance frameworks and that type of thing, just in the way you work. So it makes sure that you're, so it all feeds back into your HR policies, into everything. So you just, it kind of professionalizes your company at the same time. If you're a smaller company, a larger company, obviously they'll have a lot of those things in place, but it's quite good for that as well. So we've got because we're, even though we're a relatively small company, we've got a very structured governance from that. So that's that's helped. As well as we've got other certifications that help with that.

IAN: Would you say that B Corp sits it may or may not be the right term, under like the ISOs, is it like the first level into governance in your business? If somebody wanted to take a step up and they really wanted to get some control, we meet lots of clients in there. In a place of going I just need to get the team in place. We need to get the process in place and then everybody doing what they need to do. And the one way I'm going to do that is I'm going to bring in ISO 27001 or whatever it is, which is a big thing to do, it sounds just as big as B Corp, but is B Corp slightly less, impactful as it would do in terms of time and cost getting up and running, or do you not know whether that's the same in terms of the ISOs?

GILDAS: I personally would say it's more expensive than doing ISO, especially for something like ISO a tech company. That's not a big ask really, because that's a lot of policy, but it's, this is more work. There's more work and more money, I would say. So if, yeah, budget wise, you need, because it's the time taken to go through and evidence everything is, it's quite a lot of time.

IAN & GILDAS: It's quite a lot of time.

IAN: So what's the kind of like the key learnings that you had going through this process?

GILDAS: Key learnings, I suppose it's you have to be careful what you sign up for key learning because we didn't go in where our eyes were open as much as we could have done. So we started on a journey and it's we've got to finish this journey now and this is quite a long one. I've got, there's quite a nice community out there. So I was just in Manchester last week for the Better Business Network, which is feeds into B Corp and that type of thing, a similar type of thing. So where it's people wanting to do good things. So, that's been good to us. And there's quite a good community around it. I was in Oxford last year for a few days for the the B Corp Festival there. We've got one in Bristol. So it's quite, it's a good community around it. So that's a good thing. It's got plenty of other people you can meet and other businesses with similar values. So yeah, but the key learnings here, when the big thing for us was the cost really, the cost and the time was surprising.

IAN: Are you pleased that you did it, Gildas? Because at the minute you've told us it's been expensive. It's taken a long time to do it. And yet you went all the way through to the completion. Give everybody who's watching and listening this, the golden nugget on. And we got this out of it. And this helps us now do this.

GILDAS: We are, so you've joined a very exclusive club, essentially, that's what you do. So you're, you've joined a club. There's four or five B Corp IT companies the country. So I know the owners of two in London. And then there's one in Cheltenham glossed away. And there's an, there's a couple of others, but not many. So you've joined a very small club. So that's a benefit as in terms of like people looking for a supplier with ethical values. So that's good. There is a lot of things, good thing. We've got B Corp clients because they've taken on clients of our target market size that are B Corps and they've chosen us because we're their B Corps as well. So this is good. It is good. It's just the payback isn't maybe as immediate as you might think it might be.

IAN: But I think, two years you've had it. You're up for recertification next year. And by the time you've got your head around how we're going to market this, how does it actually work? What does this community look like? If you're one of four MSPs in the UK, that's got a B Corp, and then you're going to go into a networking room where someone says, do you know any decent IT companies? It's you're shooting barrel in a, you're shooting fish in a barrel there, aren't you really? Because we're in this club and it's just going to be a, you're going to have those values matched. Would you say that B Corp clients, your potential B Corp clients and prospects would pay more than they would do if you didn't have it and you didn't have those kind of like values?

GILDAS: That's a good question. I would say definitely there is a premium there. Yeah, I definitely say there is a premium because you want to, also you want to work with people like you. And that's a benefit to start with because the ethical values are there. There is a benefit. Yeah, it's got, and you can, and we are slightly premium as an IT company. So yeah we focus on compliance and security and we don't sell anything else as in terms of we don't do anything else, but properly done IT.

IAN: Stay in your lane, as they say, as Stuart often says to me but that's it, to me, when you work for anything and you really believe it's the right thing to do for the business, you are going to have challenges, you are going to have costs, you are going to have to, it's not easy running a business. I think anybody listens to this podcast says it is, then they're sure they lie about other stuff as well. I'm trying to find, the right thing, for the right time for where your business is right now, just listening to what you've said here. I know that it's been a challenge, but you've got it. And I think once that marketing and once that networking and that no and trust and, how that whole thing's going to start to play out, I am sure that's going to pay back in folds in terms of make it making you a more desirable MSP. Within that executive, that exclusive club that you've got and also those customers as well. All good stuff. Nice. Interesting. Gildas, thanks very much for your time with the show. It's been very interesting understanding what B Corp is. You have certainly educated me and I'm sure everybody else. Let's have the summary from yourself. If this is something , that people who are listening to this are going yeah, but what's it all about and how does it work and what do I need to do? What's your kind of like tail from the top as it would be?

GILDAS: Great. Yeah, if you want to go for it go to the B Corp website and sign up, you can sign up for free and then you can see that what the question set looks like overall, you've got to find someone to lead this project. So the business owner can't run this project because it's too much work. And maybe give it to someone who's got a bit of a kind of process head on them. Communicate to your staff, why are you doing it and what you're doing. Get that in early because you need to buy in from your team because there'll be parts where they have to do. Yeah, that was one of the issues we had actually. We didn't communicate properly to the team what we were doing and then we didn't get the, so we, yeah, we just got to get everybody on board to start with, say what we're doing this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it and everyone's coming on this journey because there will be changes to make in the business. Yeah, and it's also, it's just, if you want to get the sell to the buy in for the employees, it's, there's quite a few employee benefits they'll end up having because part of it is like, what is, do you have dental care, or do you have private health care for your staff? Do you have this? And you score points on those, at those elements. So there's a lot of that there's points to be had then. So eventually they will end up getting, seeing the benefit in other ways rather than just the B Corp badge.

IAN: Sounds like there's a whole, it's a total solution for making sure that you're running ethical, led, great clients, everyone's matching the values. And I, it sounds for me, anybody who's interested in, growing a Proper MSP, and I'm sure that profitability on this particular exercise, I know you can't measure it too well, we'll come back, everything that you've talked about Gildas is the right thing to do, right? It's just about doing the right thing, having the right people. And yeah, it's been very interesting and a great learning point. So thank you very much for your time. Good luck and keep us updated on how it goes. And I look forward to all the B corp clients come in flooding into your pipeline.

GILDAS: Thank you very much.

OUTRO: Hang on a minute. Just before you go, and if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we wanna invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz. And in just three minutes, you're gonna get a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time engaging along your people and help generate more leads in your MSP. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes. And if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best.