The Superhero Complex: Business Growth, Boundaries & Learning to Let Go - Ben McManus

Ben McManus: And last summer, they went on family holidays that I was supposed to go on with them.

Phil: we can't just be Batman all the time.

Hayley: how could somebody begin to balance that, well I do need to pay the bills I don't want to start

Ben McManus: I don't.

Hayley: down the road of running a business and working with people I don't want to work with

Ben McManus: I'd rather gain the respect for doing the right thing over the monetary win. sometimes it's okay not to deal with this on the day.

Phil: Ben, welcome to the pod. And before we kick into your won one thing, I'd love to know what kind of position is your business in at the moment? What do you do? Who do you serve and how are things going?

Ben McManus: Yeah, so my name is Ben McManus. I'm the director and owner of BM Civil Engineering. We're a civil engineering design consultancy that targets the residential market and our ideal client is National House Builders that we support sort of from early inception through to detailed design and construction.

Phil: I love it. And how many employees have you got at the moment, Ben?

Ben McManus: We've got three employees plus my wife, so five in total.

Phil: I don't know if she'll appreciate that man. And then how long have you been going for?

Hayley: Ha ha ha.

Ben McManus: So it started back in March 2024. So we're approaching the sort two and a half year mark at the moment.

Phil: I love it.

Hayley: And tell us Ben what is your one thing?

Ben McManus: So my one thing I've captioned as the superhero complex and I believe that that is about putting the pants on in the working world, employing good processes and systems that I should transfer to my private life but don't perhaps do.

Phil: And what was the build up to did you say the superhero syndrome or the superhero experience after?

Ben McManus: superhero complex.

Phil: Superhero complex. What was the build up? What led you to the point where you discovered the superhero complex?

Ben McManus: So it was not really a working experience. We lived in the house probably four or five years ago and we got broken into. I was sort of tasked with how do we manage through the process and I see a counselor twice a month and he sort of said, you you've got sort of great ways to manage things in a working world. where effectively if you were to employ those successful techniques in your private life, there's opportunity for personal growth. I've sort of let that sit with me, but I recognize I don't naturally do that. And what I'm realizing is that in the working world, I'm generally quite good at delivery and doing things correctly. but I'm almost willing for it to be at the cost of me slash my family, et cetera.

Phil: I think we all find that because our our work almost becomes our baby, doesn't it? And I think for a lot of British people, it becomes our value and our growth and and what we judge ourselves by. Was there one kind of triggering moment, or was it that meeting with the councillor? And then what did you do to kind of try and transfer that superhero complex across?

Ben McManus: with the business being new and the sort of rate of growth, I think it exposes you. And I actually, I actually think that there's an element of vulnerability, which is perhaps what exposes weaknesses. And my personality by nature or vice, I suppose, is making sure we do things properly and doing a good job. But you know, it's come with its costs as far as like I've got a young family, my little boy is just seven and my daughter is four. And last summer, for example, they went on family holidays that I was supposed to go on with them. So I'd suggest it's almost at the cost of my own detriment that I prioritise delivery. So yeah, was sort of, that's the main realisation as far as the superhero complex is concerned. And this year my aspiration is taking an appropriate amount of annual leave.

Hayley: I think every business owner's aspiration isn't it? was that just a natural thing that you, your personality is like that and that's what you do and then you've recognized it in yourself or was it a conscious process to get to a point where you're like, this is my business, we need to do it this way, I'm going to make the tough decisions or I'm going to have those tough conversations at the points that I need to have them.

Ben McManus: Yeah, think it's always been there as far as personality. I think since setting up the business, it's been made more clear that that's sort of the thing that separates me from others. I'm not a traditional engineer by nature. I've got an architectural background and I also did construction project management. The team we've selected here are all sort of senior engineering up, which naturally helps us lean on that sort of aspiration to reassign works and fit things in. And now we've got such a big push on things like planning and things like that, it almost lends itself to the superhero moment, I suppose. So some of it is perhaps deliberate, but I'd argue the learning's along the way as far as. recognizing client demand and timeframes and things like that, sort of open the door for it as well. So I'm naturally drawn to it anyway.

Hayley: So part of, think, what you have done potentially differently, given it's kind of your first two years of business, is be quite strong with clients and boundaries and what you can deliver and what you can't deliver, and not saying yes to everything, which is a massive... I don't want to say shortfall or downfall, but that's the only word I can think of at the moment. But it's sometimes something that after a couple of years in business, people reflect on it and say, why did I start working with that client? Why did I take on that job? That wasn't the right thing to do. Or actually this client's running me ragged and we're, you know, we're not making money out of it because I didn't price it right. Whereas I think what you've done differently with this one thing in mind is you've kind of. almost done it the other way and been very strong in that area up front,

Ben McManus: Yeah, I did have clients snobbery. And by that, mean, not that they're a premium client. It's a two way street, really. So I do sort look for individuals that reflect, that got similar values as far as the way they want these things delivering. But equally, I like to be able to lean on them as well. So, if things happen all the time, like let's be honest, and projects, we sit down on a Monday and we run through, this is what we're all gonna do this week and by Monday afternoon. There's some form of curveball that interrupts that. But we've got great clients. We're able to say to them, hang on a minute, we can't do this. Or we've got schemes that are in the works and things have gone wrong as far as external factors. Sometimes I'll say, yep, we can capture that and let's not worry about it. I think that this sort of relationship element is really important to me. now that the team has grown, it's kind of like, I don't really want to have to step in as far as personal relationships are concerned. But equally, there's almost, there's not really much need to, don't get me wrong, there is on occasion. But I think that door's open and I've always been quite good at just sort of... saying it as it is, think that's part of the brand is a spade is a spade. So yeah.

Phil: What would you say and just hit me with a scenario and give me the difference between someone who is utilizing the superhero complex and someone who is utilizing the Clark Kent complex? So what would be a scenario and what would be the two ways that you would handle that differently?

Ben McManus: So I think the main difference is, for example, if we had a site that came online, deadlines were tight, argument's sake, it's a land bid site, and we've been tasked with, here's your scope of work, we've said to this particular client, this is the cost of the work, they're sort of saying, well, we don't want to spend the fee on this, that, and the other. challenge inside, they're saying, you omit this part of the brief from your pricing structure? And in that moment, I was more willing to lose the job than skip that part of the brief because I, you know, I would, that work had come in, I'd done the due diligence on the information available. And I said to them at the end of the day, you missed this piece of information. The contract, like the vendor's pack is it's out as far as this factor, I think you are arguably going to be a million, two million pounds out before you start based on this oversight. And on that particular scheme, I sort of said to them, the scope's the scope. If you want someone to do less, fine, but it won't be us because if you buy that piece of land for 50 million pounds, then you've got a problem before we uncover anything underground. So I think that is the difference. we do sort of dib beyond our realms really, which is a differentiation that I suppose I push amongst the team as far as we do things like that. Whenever we quote work, I'll give them the fee proposal and I'll say, but here's sort of three headliners to look at on this site. if we're successful or not. So I think that's the difference. That's why we keep the mask on. I think that sums that up quite well.

Phil: Yeah.

Hayley: think it's really interesting. So I can imagine somebody very early on in the journey, I don't know, and they've got this big client, they've put their proposal forward for it. I would be like, I really wanna win this. I'm excited, it's the next thing, it's gonna change my business, it's good for the team, blah, blah. To stand there and be like, well, actually I'm to work away from this. In that early part of your business journey is quite a strength. How did that make you feel? And were you worried? Did you have any doubt at all? Or were you just like...

Ben McManus: I

Hayley: going forward.

Ben McManus: think I've always gone with moral compass and I'm a believer in if it doesn't feel right it's probably not right. You know that scheme was probably worth half of our monthly target. I think it's a fine line really as far as I'd rather gain the respect for doing the right thing over the monetary win. So like that's the sort of principle we apply on sites generally. So I think we kind of take that approach on the pricing and you know selection of jobs and what we walk away from.

Hayley: I think what would be really helpful, I think, is to... So for somebody listening to this podcast, who perhaps is in that early stage of their business and doesn't... feel like they've got the confidence or the strength at that point to be so picky or choosy or you know they're worried about and I'm thinking back to when I first started so maybe this is a bit of a broad brush because I know not everybody's like me. But it's that kind of, you you just think, well, I need to get money in the bank. I've got bills to pay. I've got, you know, this to do that today. what steps could they take to begin to like practically. balance that, well I do need to pay the bills but actually I don't want to start

Ben McManus: I don't.

Hayley: down the road of running a business and working with people I don't want to work with

Ben McManus: yeah, I I treat our clients as though they're our customers as much as we're theirs. I think that I think I'm quite honest in as far as, you know, this has happened and We're not accepting of that. We've got clients where payment's been, you know, a tricky thing to talk about. But I'm sort of saying to them, you know, we're not late on your deadlines and ultimately you're not going to purchase that piece of land if we're late. So I think really it's about difficult conversations, which I naturally don't find that difficult purely on I just think honesty pays. for example, I had a client in the early days where I priced quite a small job for them. I'd primed the diary for a week or two weeks or whatever it was. And I sort of said to them, where are you with this site? They came back to me and said, look, we've awarded it elsewhere. It's one-man band. And I sort said, as far as fee feedback, if you've got anything you can give me. And they said, you were over twice the price. And I hummed an art and in the end I went back to them and said, look, if that's where we are and that's where you need people to be, it's just not going to work because I personally think you can't compare our services side by side. I said, so if we're just going to be used to the pricing exercise every time, it's this kind of no point, you know, and it's a contact I used to work with elsewhere. So. Again, not really an easy conversation, but I just said, that's where I stand. He sort of said to me, no, no, no, it was just this one. And you think, well, there's an element of, don't know how much truth in that. And then I think it was the following day or the day after that, I get an email from him saying, I was at an event last night and I bumped into such and such who's technical director from another developer. He's asked for recommendations on good engineers and I've given him your details. Now that recommendation has been fruitful and I almost sat there scratching my head because I first personally felt I'd had a bit of a pop at him and they got recommended a day after. So I think my recommendation is there's always, I think there'll always be clients that are non-preferred in the early stages because ultimately you've got to get going. it's about the supplementary. less tangential items. So for example, we will say to our developers, we've done this design. But by the way, if you were to visit this area of the architectural layout, we think there's opportunity to do this and the other. Or we've noticed that during the levels of drainage design, we've got affordable plots that sit here and you've got your big four five bed plots that sit here and you've you've placed your least valuable items on the best location. So if you set yourself apart in that way, it creates opportunity to work with those clients that you aspire to work with. And that's kind of the way the cards have fallen for us.

Phil: the piece that I've taken away from that is especially around creating that value proposition. when you first start out in business and you're trying to grow, you you're literally trying to chomp in any business because you need that cash flow and you can't afford to keep the lights on. What I really liked about the way that you were putting that proposal there is to try and add as much extra value in as you could do to truly try and show your expertise. Because there's a good chance, as you've said there, that you might not win that initial proposal because you've said, you know, in our world you might have twenty four seven security monitoring, this, that, and the other. Things that maybe the the customer doesn't appreciate. However, when they're talking to somebody down the line, they might appreciate it. In our world of business, certainly when first starting out, we would often just say, Look, I'm gonna give you those services for free essentially, because what I can't do is I can't downgrade my job, but I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna I'm gonna hope to break even because I need to keep the lights and I need

Ben McManus: Okay.

Phil: to get the business and I'd like to have a conversation with you in a few months to see whether you've now felt the value of that. What would you say to somebody who is in that really early position? You know, you've got young Haley, she's just started out her accountancy practice, desperate for money, mortgage isn't getting paid, etcetera. How do you think that she copes with the superhero complex and what steps would you say to her to take, you know?

Ben McManus: What do fact I think we sort of offer supplementary services that are not a detriment as far as time's concerned really. I think we try and focus on those. What can add the most value? I say with the least amount of effort, but I don't mean that. mean, so for example, say we're looking at a site and we're working through the levels design, I say to our team, you're experiencing those plots. No one else in that process gets that exposure. So what I try and do is it's almost like the items that will get them on the hook. I sort of try and say, look, OK, we're doing this or we're doing this part of the exercise. I sort of push the supplementary services as far as it would be of benefit for you to do X, Y and Z at this point. I think traditionally people stay in the lane, whereas I think we're a bit of a merger. And by doing that, you integrate yourself with the wider delivery team. I believe we are an extension of that developers engineering team. But equally, the feedback we give them means that we work with, you know, quantity surveys, we work with the architectural team, we work with, I don't know, we're dealing with their accounts. we're a bit more ingrained and personable. And I think the other thing that I perhaps do as the superhero complex is I will always return the call. you know, even if it's bad news, good news, no news, I will always call back and more often than not we've had schemes where we've got this problem on site but while I've got you, we just want to mention this other site we've got coming forward or I think it creates opportunities just that being personable and I feel like we come to mind when there's a problem.

Hayley: when we started talking at the beginning, you very much said that you're this way naturally in business, but you struggle with it in your

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Hayley: private life. what are like three steps or three things that you're trying to do in your... personal life to bring some of those elements in.

Ben McManus: So this year, objective number one is to take all of my annual leave, which should be slightly more than my team. I think I'm down to maybe five days and my wife actually will book that because I'm guilty of, I could just fit that in. So that, guess that is step one. The second step, which is only like a recent thing, we... We too see a business coach and he sort of said that I should treat me physically like the business as far as, you know, doing like putting good systems in as far as like not working around the clock or, I don't know, sort of straining myself. So that's more of an active task that I would argue I'm not fulfilling currently. But it's certainly on the list of aspirations. And I think the third thing is realizing that there's, you know, a lot of things come across the desk as desperate, urgent, et cetera. And, you know, generally I'm quite good at the fight, but I think it's more fighting those cases a little harder. you know, sometimes it's okay not to deal with this on the day. So I think it's more about mindset as far as I feel like I put myself under more pressure than any of our clients. And it's like a falsified urgency that I am creating One of my friends when we were starting this, said to me, anxious people make good business owners. And I think that that anxiety almost feeds my wanting to deliver. And I think naturally that's just what I'm like anyway. But I think I'm working towards giving myself a bit of a break as far as, you know, it is okay for that thing not to happen today. So yeah, there's my three steps. think step one, holiday. Step two, nurturing myself physically. And step three, giving myself a break or breathing room, more breathing room that I'm not forgiving in my own internalization.

Phil: for a lot of businesses where it's gone from engineer to business owner, we are the Lionel Messi, the Cristiano Ronaldo, whatever you'd like to say with that. We obsessively love what we do. And so we have to create a second persona almost and say, I've got Batman, but I don't want to unleash Batman on everything. If there's a cat stuck in a tree, I need to stop Batman from going up because I know that he will.

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Phil: I know that he'll go and rescue that bat. know that he'll do. And that's, think what you're saying there is it starts to impact on your life because you've got to try and put your commissioner, Gordon. Is it commissioner Gordon? I'm going to go with that. I'm happy with that. Yeah.

Ben McManus: Yes, I think it is,

Phil: You're going to have, you've got to have your commissioner. Is your life coach kicking in or your business coach kicking in to say, you need that commissioner Gordon to say, not this time, Batman. This is, know, Gotham city is not at risk. Actually, you need to spend that time with your family. Is that

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Phil: one of the things that you've learned on this path?

Ben McManus: Yeah, so we have, we've formalized sort of my right hand man's position now. And part of the, part of the tasks from the business coach is offloading and distributing more items like that. But I'd argue the secondary issue with Batman is that Batman likes saving Gotham and other things. So. I'm finding the transition difficult as far as Chris who sits in as number two is absolutely brilliant, but areas that I'm weaker at, ideal. But there's still an element of, you know, this is my thing. And naturally, like you say, you sort of, you're good at what you do and my... role all the time is evolving for things that are new that I've not necessarily found the love or comfort of. So I find myself doing things and I think I'm starting to sulk in because I don't like this thing because it's just not what I traditionally enjoy. But equally I expect that if I give it more opportunity it will be something I get good at. So we are in a real transitional phase now. And don't get me wrong, I'm available if Gotham can't be saved alone, but it's difficult thing to do. But we're at least talking between us all about obvious things that can be reassigned or shared. So that's the work in progress, I'm afraid. So yeah.

Hayley: So Ben, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?

Ben McManus: So we can be contacted by email or phone. My email address is just ben at bmcengineering.co.uk. Give us a call, send us a project, send us a problem and we can sort of open the lines of communication that way. You know, we want to work with good people. Yeah, get in touch if you want to.

Phil: I love that you're not responding to a bat symbol at this point then, Ben, is what you're telling me?

Ben McManus: No, no, I'm okay. I'm calm.

Phil: I love it. yeah, I think

Hayley: Thank you

Phil: that journey that you're going down is, I think, yeah, I get the superior complex because we all feel, and one of the reasons as an engineer, think 90 % of a start-up business is because we think that the company we're working for isn't doing a good enough job. And we think that standards are slipping and that we've got that and it needs to be done. And then as we become a business owner, we get that realization that actually we can't just be Batman all the time. And being Batman, like you say, detracts from family time, doesn't it? And I've had it where I've missed holidays, like you say. Or you've been on holiday, but you've got the flipping laptop out because, you know, for me, it was just that I wasn't delegating to my team enough. And I just kind of, wouldn't allow the Robins to kick in. know, everything was a Batman job.

Ben McManus: Yeah, and the truth is our team is better than the team I would pick. it's, you know, that's the sort of the headliner. We, you know, we had a client come in last week and we presented to their full engineering team and I've sort of pushed you lean on your consultant because in my opinion they shouldn't be having to do the level of checking that they're doing. Yeah, like I say, was always the strategy was always employ good people that are able because naturally that shake up of projects that happens week in week out. I'd argue we've got more sort of opportunity to do that without it being at the cost of quality or time really. So, yeah, I'm happy as far as our team's concerned and the way things have gone. But like you say, everyone holds on to this. the angst I suppose.

Phil: It's the terror of when a job comes up and you can't remember how to do it and you realise that the team do it now and they do a better job of it than you do. And sometimes

Ben McManus: Yeah. Yeah.

Phil: you have to put it back down and give it back to them in a really meek manner.

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Phil: Do you mind doing this guys? I do it myself but the buttons don't seem to be there anymore. Yeah, yeah, they changed two years

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Hayley: Ha ha.

Phil: ago. did they?

Ben McManus: Yeah, yeah that's true.

Phil: even eating your words. think we all stay the same, but circumstances change, don't they? Life events happen, things happen where you maybe say, we've got similar to yourself, a small team. And all of a sudden, two of them go on sick and one's on holiday. And all of a sudden you're in this, oh my God, what's going on? This is, you know, and we're lucky that we've got other companies that we know that can kind of, you know. show us out if we need to be. But it's so there's benefits to growing. But then as you say, the downside to growing is that now you're off the tools and you are that, you know, that senior manager and you've kind of, is this what I wanted to do in the first instance or so? Yeah, I think I think there's pros and cons of all of it, isn't there?

Ben McManus: Yeah, it's a lot different than I'd have imagined. Even in the beginning, I was like, we were looking at how much money do we need to make a month? And I think me and my wife had written down, if we make 8,000 pounds a month, we're going to be rich. And there's just so much more to it. I do think people get strained, do know what I mean? But we do sort of lean on our relationships, but have been surrounded by so many good people and it's like the likes of Laura at Ecotech. She describes us as her cheerleaders, but it's the same in the opposite direction. Laura and I had not realised that we'd worked on a lot of jobs together when I was at my old employer. And I went to that developer for six months and on the phone to her and she's like, where have you come from? Because she's naturally chatty. And that was the point we realised. you know, there's people like her that have really helped along the way and, you know, we sort of hold tight as far as, you know, there's a real argument in our industry for this consultancy does multidisciplinary and they'll deliver everything. Whereas I would counter with, I don't think that it's better because they're all together. Because I worked in a business that did that and the link up was non-existent. It was so siloed. Whereas like Laura, for example, we've got a scheme we're working on with her at the moment and we're giving her early release on the info she needs to get going. Because it's her.

Phil: I think having deep relationships like that are really important. I think that one of the things that we as small businesses, what people like about us is we work with big companies and they work with big companies that do the support. And what they find is that they might have five Benz in a team, but none of Benz are as committed because it's none of their business. So none of them want to be Batman or Spiderman or whatever. They haven't started their own business because they want a nine to five. And so they find that

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Phil: even though there's technically more resource, actually, when it comes to crunch time, you know, nine PM on a Friday night and the thing needs to go live at Saturday at eight AM, everybody's gone

Ben McManus: Yeah.

Phil: home. Whereas you've probably stayed on because you know, it's your baby and you know, it needs to be done. And you know that there are internal errors or whatever, but you're going to fix those because it's your business. Hailey, what was your big takeaway

Hayley: the way that Ben described a lot of things was that it's the way he is naturally. which actually is quite difficult then for other people to take away lessons from that because how do you share the way you are if that is just the way you are naturally. I'm struggling a bit, Phil, with what my big takeaway is. I'll be completely truthful. What's yours? I'm gonna flip it back to you.

Phil: what I loved about Ben was that he holds true to his value. And that's something that I'd say I'm actually going to have a look through proposals now and maybe spend more time on that. think Ben listed it as additional value, you know, the intangible. I think I'm going to take forward that intangible piece and really push through why people should work with Affirm IT on those proposals. as opposed to having a relatively generic proposal and relying on my wit, charm and charisma to win people over.

Hayley: Yeah, think, I think that's an interesting point because there's two things that sprung to mind when you were talking then. One is, it's interesting because both Laura and Ben not taking anything away from them. So the connection with Ben is through Laura. That's how I connected with him. that the industry they work in is an industry in the UK that's being really pushed at the moment, how many, like there's like targets to build so many houses. So part of, part of the success in that industry might be linked to that. And I don't want to take anything away from them and the way that they run their businesses or how they've done things, but there's definitely got to be a correlation there, even if it's only a small one. The other thing was the bit about Ben talked about, and I'm sorry, I'm just trying to read my own writing here, because it doesn't make sense. But he was talking about adding value that wasn't like adding easy value that wasn't necessarily the detriment to the time of the team or of him or of you as the business owner. And I thought that was a really interesting concept because that's not when you're... thinking about how you add value to clients or how you make the journey better for them in how you work with them. I don't necessarily believe you consider the bits that actually don't take up more time or more cost. So I think that's an interesting thing to have a think about are the things that you can add that straightforward and easy. And I bet that's a conversation that would be really good to have with your team. Like what could you do to help our clients that would be not a lot on you but would actually mean a lot to them.

Phil: completely agree. I am going to challenge a little bit. Alastair talked about on a different part, talking to customers and understanding where they feel the value. Instead of talking to our team, we maybe need to be reaching out to our customers and saying, here's the banquet that we present to you. But in the 80 20. What's the real pieces that you value? What would you value? Look, I've got these other things that I don't think you'll be interested in. Would you be interested in these other pieces that we do anyway? One of the biggest surprises always to me, as you probably well know, is that I'll buy a tool and think everyone's gonna be super excited about it and they're not. And on the flip side, we'll be doing something that's really boring that customers get really excited about. because it's understanding their journey and understand what's valuable to them and how do we present and package that piece.

Hayley: So the challenge is not speaking to the team or as well as speaking to the team, actually having

Phil: Hmm.

Hayley: conversations with your clients too. I feel like that's a challenge Phil, cause you know that I don't like doing it in that way. But it just got...

Phil: It's definitely changed, maybe it's something that I'm going to get somebody else to have that conversation on my behalf.

Hayley: Yeah, yeah maybe. I also think that the other takeaway from it which Ben only touched on at the end a little bit was having the cheerleaders along the way. I massively think that that does help in business.

Phil: Yeah, I think and we could talk about different industries and things for everybody. Having a cheerleader who's also growing at the same time so you can pass work to each other is fantastic. And one of the pieces that maybe we don't discuss in networking as much is having real deep relationships with two or three people that you can really work with is better than having really shallow relationships with 200 people. you don't really know that well but you do attend the same networking groups and you see from time to time.

Hayley: yet is interesting.

Phil: If you found this conversation interesting, please share this with your friends, with your family, with other business owners that you think would enjoy it and subscribe to our pod.

Hayley: and we'll see you next time on What One Thing.