“I always, always felt that the demand would come back.”

David Vaughton is the MD of Make Venues, a venue portfolio made up of Broadway House in Westminster, Woodland Grange in Leamington Spa and Engineers’ House in Bristol.

I've spent 20 years building this business with the team. Last March was going to be our best ever trading month across the group. I was looking at additional venues as part of our five year strategy, we were really on an upward journey. Then we shut our doors, which was heartbreaking.

I'm always going to go for the bigger picture approach. As soon as we weren't able to accommodate events, then there was no question of charging cancellation fees. Naturally, you'd work with clients and try to encourage them to postpone and schedule for later in the year or even into this year. But ethically, we were not willing to try to financially benefit when the client isn't able to actually host the event themselves. We're not in transactional sales anymore. It's about relationship building.

I kept the majority of my sales staff off furlough, so we kept that client relationship going. We reopened in early July, servicing key sectors and educational establishments, and we've remained open since then and actually kept our heads above water. Not only have we retained our existing clients, we've won new business opportunity from some of these key sectors.

One of the good things coming out of this has been the self-reflection, the reprioritising of what's important, and the strengthening of relationships. I kept my senior team on throughout the lockdowns and the consequence has been a much more human connection. Having all of us lived and breathed the experience, and with the whole mental health dynamic that has affected so many people in some shape or form, we’ve actually got to know each other a bit better.

Being a leader can be lonely. Everybody expects you to have a certain personality and be indestructible. But you're not, you're human and you're vulnerable to a degree. And I think the great thing is my team have started to think, “He has emotions and needs just like the rest of us!” The trust and transparency of communication across a much flatter hierarchy has led to much more collaboration.

I experienced tremendous vulnerability, tremendous anxiety, mental health issues. I'm a bit of a manic character, I'm either on top of the world or not, there's no middle ground. The lockdown in January was the biggest smack in the teeth, because we got good trading in September and October last year.

We'd got real momentum coming into this year and it felt like having the rug pulled from under us. I did ask myself - Dave, do you really want this? Can your mind take it? And, you know, you chat with members of your team, you listen to people, and everyone's up for this, we'll dust ourselves down, and we'll go again.

I always, always felt that the demand would come back. Having lived through the last recession, everyone said that face to face is dead, it won't come back. It did with a vengeance. We are human beings, we were built to socialise and interact and reproduce and network. That's my glass half full approach on it.

I've been close to tears a lot in the last six weeks. The passion, enthusiasm and excitement from the teams, just wanting to get back up and on it. I feel blessed that I've got the right people, that hopefully comes back to our recruiting strategy. The right attitude is more important than the right experience. We'll take anybody on if they're willing to learn.

Recruiting is challenging at the moment. With a large proportion of the European workforce going back to Europe, added to a lot of people being made redundant from hospitality and finding new roles, it’s tough.

People are deciding that they actually enjoy the nine to five and rather more sociable hours. Maybe an industry that's slightly less at risk of lockdowns appeals as well. Until we have some further clarity that the economy is up and running, I think that will remain.

Recruitment is not just about filling roles, it's about creating a pathway. In terms of succession building and them reaching their potential. That's what gives me the buzz. Giving people a chance and helping them on their way. Given the challenges in recruitment, you've got to have a retention strategy to hang on to decent people.

I’d like to think that operators have hopefully lost some of their bad habits. We're not perfect, you know, and it made us realise, hang on a minute, we shouldn't be doing that anymore, or this isn't right. So it’s quite exciting, actually. There's a sense of almost launching a new business again.

Last April, I was prepared to be made redundant. I’m a businessman, I know how it works. But as time went on, there was a lot of faith being put in me and the team. And I feel very thankful that I was able to use the time in hibernation to restrategise and plan for the future. But it comes with an expectation level. I'm under no illusions that I need to be making the contribution through my business. That's the deal. And it's a fair deal.