Meet The Member - Mark Munnelly of Cubed Consultancy
Mark Munnelly of Cubed Consultancy
We caught up with our member Mark to talk behind the scenes at Cubed Consultancy.
Hi mark, it’s great to have you on board at We Are Harpenden. You and richard founded Cubed Consultancy during lockdown in May 2020. How did your vision for the company come to fruition at that specific time and what challenges did you face?
Hello. Great to be on board! Well, our first invoice was Jan 19, and it was a very slow build, we had just got to a more comfortable stage when lock down happened. However, speaking to the existing clients we had, people were struggling, so due to the fact we had very low running costs we offered all our clients to half or pause their monthly fees while everyone was working out what was actually happening. After the dust had settled a little bit, we started picking up loads and loads of new clients.
What type of frustrations do your clients tend to have and how does Cubed Consultancy alleviate those?
I think a lot of clients are simply worried about taxes and accounting and how it all works. We often hear about accountants making it very complicated and using big words, but we try and make it simple and make sure that we are always approachable.
How many people do you have in your team, and what characteristics do you look for in your employees?
We are now a team of 15 which is crazy considering it was just me and Richard up until August 2020. We look for hard workers, people who can speak to clients and put them at ease, are motivated and calm in a crisis.
Your headquarters are in Harpenden, but are you looking to expand.
Harpenden is indeed our HQ. We currently have a satellite office in London that we currently use for meetings, but we are looking at a new location near Farringdon which we hope to be opening this year.
Your logo is fantastic. how easy was it to agree on the design of it?
The logo has changed a couple of times and as we started expanding the Cubed Group with additional companies, we decided we should work on a symbol that one day could be recognised with all our companies. Me and Richard tend to agree on most things quickly.
You regularly post tips on your site and via social media, and you even have a podcast! How do you keep your finger on the pulse and stay inspired to keep your clients informed?
We realised that in order to show how we can add value to our clients we should try and assist with the many questions we are often asked. We also worked out that to show our brand and approachable style we needed to show it on our social media platforms. We work with a great production guy who has been able to make our videos relevant and direct us a little on what would work.
You also offer accounting tools including calculators, factsheets, and forms. Can you tell us a bit about them and how they assist your clients?
A lot of clients fear numbers and are not sure how tax works or is calculated so we decided to add the calculators so that people could use them of their own accord and plug in the relevant numbers they currently earn or hope to earn.
With all that finance, we’re sure you need good ways to unwind. What are your favourite things to do locally when you have time to relax?
Richard has finally got me into golf and now the entire office is hooked, and we are looking to organise our Cubed Golf Master competition very soon.
Lastly, what is on the horizon for Cubed?
Expanding our client base. We are working with lots of professional sports people and individuals/companies in the sports and media sector, so we are looking to continue that growth as well as the outsourced finance function. We have seen so much more value being added to clients that we carry this out for so that is an avenue that we want to expand on more.