Clearer Training: A business on the go needed to find a forever home
Sue and Lee of Clearer Training are not well acquainted with the word “stop”. Since filling an up-and-coming niche in the market seven years ago, they have not slowed down. However, though their initial model saw them jetting off to all areas of the country, they explained why they decided to condense the business and find a more permanent home in our Milton Keynes Business Centre.
Finding their niche
When Lee and Sue began their first business, Clearer Ears, private earwax removal services were fairly unheard of in the UK. However, when Lee, a paramedic, needed his ears cleaned, he wondered why such services where not more commonplace. Along with his partner Sue, who was in pharmaceuticals at the time he founded Clearer Ears, and the pair began offering their services in their own clinic as well as in local pharmacies. Sue describes a conversation with a mentor who had experience with independent pharmacies: “They mentioned that pharmacies weren’t making as much money anymore, and recommended they offer additional services to increase footfall.”
In response, Lee and Sue got to work. “We started handing out leaflets, literally walking into independent pharmacies, messaging all of the practices in our local area and letting them know that we were providing the service.”
The strategy worked, and soon Sue and Lee were being recommended by GP practices, audiologists and hospitals, not only in Milton Keynes but across the country.
Neither of the pair ever actually quit their day jobs, so when they were approached by other practitioners keen to offer the service, they realised that they needed to found their second business: Clearer Training.
Lee remembers: “We could see that lots of people recognised that what we were doing was working. There was a lot of interest from people who wanted us to help with competency training and wanted to sit under the Clearer Ears umbrella. We didn’t feel comfortable starting franchises. People from NHS backgrounds couldn’t afford it. So we started an affiliate programme: they came on board as independent practitioners, but they got to use the Clearer name and fall under our CQC registration. The aim of that was to build the brand and to ensure quality control in an industry that was still fairly new. At our peak we had 14 clinic sites around the country”
Finding a place to land
Sue and Lee experienced massive growth and success during their first few years of business, and were finding it hard to run their business on other people’s terms at other clinic sites. “We were hiring rooms in Milton Keynes and often found we were being dictated to. We’d have to open at eight and be closed by five, but our patients often need to get their ears done outside working hours. We want to be able to work at weekends. Here, we were on our own terms; we’ve got our own doors that we can open and close ourselves to fit with the needs of our patients.”
Milton Keynes Business Centre has afforded the pair the home base they had been needing throughout their years of business.
Finding their business model
In contrast to many businesses, it was after settling into their first permanent studio space that the couple decided to condense, rather than expand their business. Sue explains, “The affiliate programme was taking so much of our time, and we were getting so busy with the other business, that we decided to disband it.”
However, for Lee and Sue, cutting back certainly never meant slowing down. The Clearer brand, though more locally based now, has expanded into three different businesses. “We’ve got Clearer Ears, and now we have Clearer Clinics: a wellbeing clinic that offers blood testing, vitamins, laser hair removal and cryotherapy and more. We also have a doctor working for us in our new Skin Clinic that does mole removals and lumps, bumps and everything else. Oh, and we’ve just launched our own e-commerce site.”
Lee explains: “We still do lots of training, which was why we set up a second room six months ago. It was so easy at the Milton Keynes Business Centre. We told the reception staff, ‘We’re getting busy & looking to expand’ and they were able to set us up with another unit next door when it became available. We run a lot of courses now from our bespoke training room: MK Training Hub.”
Finding time to rest
With so much going on, it would be remiss not to ask how a couple like this keep going. Lee says, “We don’t drink, we don’t smoke. Aside from work, we’re really boring! I still work two shifts a week as a paramedic. Poor old Sue’s working seven days a week. She’s training again on Sunday and not stopped. But we have a vision, an end goal. We want to retire at 55. So we’ve got a year and a half left.”
Sue continues, “Our patients really do mean a lot to us. We couldn’t do this unless we truly believed in what we do, so when we get good reviews we take them very seriously and we pride ourselves on that.”
With impressive growth and a host of achievements behind them, we asked the Clearer couple if they had any business advice. They said: “Marketing is great, but word of mouth is priceless. The amount of times people come in saying, ‘You were recommended by a friend’s sister. She swore by you.’ We’ve worked really hard to get to that point where we’re being recommended by so many different people and different sources. So, it’s really key that every customer gets a good service.”
