#037 - Hospitality Meets Mary Jane Flanagan

When we started the podcast, we wanted to tell the stories and journeys of the people of hospitality but we also wanted to shout from the rooftops about anything incredible that people are doing.

Mary Jane Flanagan (MJ), founder of MJ Inspire (www.mjinspire.com) fits into both categories effortlessly as not only does she have a really interesting journey, she's doing an incredible body of work to support job seekers at a time when they need it the most. Bravo MJ!!!

There's a lot crammed into our chat and that includes, positive greetings, country house hotels, left field opportunities, business evolution, the importance of travel, attitude over skill, Pre-battle pep talks, Winning or learning, Adding value, Job Seekers toolkit, careers advice, psychology, being a morning person, When it’s OK to kiss the health inspector and a massive dose of Fun.

It's a cracker, as always there's some brilliant anecdotes as well.

Enjoy!

Show Transcription

Wed, 9/30 10:51AM • 1:07:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hospitality, people, MJ, restaurants, cv, running, industry, buy, skills, job, inspire, feeling, brilliant, business, psychology, interview, thought, stories, person

SPEAKERS

Phil Street, MJ

Phil Street 00:01

Welcome to hospitality meets with me Phil street where we take a light hearted look into the stories and individuals that make up the wonderful world of hospitality. Today's guest is the inspirational managing Flanagan, creative director and founder of MJ inspire limited. Coming up on today's show. MJ talks us through some tough, tough learning.

MJ 00:22

What do you mean? You don't know? I could be running a Brothel

Phil Street 00:25

Phil reveals one of his more repeatable nicknames. I got the Mickey taken out of me me relentlessly for it because they used to just call me Mr. Disney. And MJ tells us the lengths you'll go to to get a good environmental report.

MJ 00:38

And the chefs are looking at my dad, and they're looking at me. And they said, Why did you just kiss the health inspector,

Phil Street 00:43

all that and so much more as MJ talks us through her story and journey to date, as well as the incredible and inspiring work she's doing through lockdown to help job seekers at this tough time. In addition, look out for the many wonderful nuggets of wisdom from MJ, And dare I say it from myself. Not to be missed? Don't forget, we launched a brand new episode each week telling the amazing and always amusing stories from hospitality. So make sure you hit that subscribe button and give us a like and share across your networks. Let's share these stories as far as we can. Enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the next edition of hospitality meets with me Phil Street. One of the objectives of the show when I started this was not only to tell the amazing stories and journeys of the wonderful people that exist within hospitality, but also to shout loudly about anyone incredible that that comes along any new ideas, innovations, and that sort of thing. Today, my guest easily fits into both categories and so I'm delighted to welcome to the show, the founder and creative director behind MJ inspire Mary Jane Mary Jane Flanagan should get that right. Welcome to the show.

MJ 01:48

Hi, hi, Phil. Let's make it easy. Call me MJ.

Phil Street 01:52

I thought everybody calls you MJ don't they?

MJ 01:55

They do.

Phil Street 01:56

Thank you know that is much, much easier, especially at 9.21 in the morning when the coffee has not quite kicked in yet.

MJ 02:03

Or midnight when the club you're running is slammed.

Phil Street 02:06

Yeah,

MJ 02:06

Then I'm just MJ.

Phil Street 02:08

Yeah. I bet. Yeah. So how are you anyway? How's things?

MJ 02:12

Do you know? Well, I'm marvellous as I always say to people, I'm very lucky. lockdown is tough. But I've had a huge learning curve. I've got a back garden. I have a running tap of frozen watermelon Margarita is so life could be a lot worse.

Phil Street 02:31

You know the the great thing about your reaction there when you said marvellous is that I remember way back when I still worked in in kind of operations and things is that I absolutely conditioned myself to no matter how I was feeling to just say wonderful. And when people asked me how we were and that was we always used to got the Mickey taken over me relentlessly for it because they used to just call me Mr. Disney as a result of it.

MJ 03:00

Boom, I'm exactly the same. Yeah. People don't need to hear in hospitality out our issues or our problems. They're with us to have a good time.

Phil Street 03:09

Yep. Absolutely. And actually, it's just a little moment of joy you can give someone by if if they're feeling a bit down and you just impart this exuberance and positivity then it plays its part and impacting them.

MJ 03:24

It certainly does. It certainly does. And actually, if you say enough during the day, you end up feeling it anyway.

Phil Street 03:30

Yep, absolutely. It's the same old thing about the psychology around, you know, when you give somebody a smile.

MJ 03:37

Yeah.

Phil Street 03:37

You know they take it with them. I don't know what the actual cliché is, but it's something along those lines.

MJ 03:42

No, no, it is and their brain is conditioned to smile back. It's part of our DNA. And before you know it, they're smiling naturally. Yeah. I love that one. Don't probably need it more than others.

Phil Street 03:53

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. We're two minutes and 47 seconds in and we're already talking psychology.

MJ 03:59

Yes.

Phil Street 04:01

So just give us a quick snapshot if you would of what you you do under the banner of MJ inspire.

MJ 04:09

Okay, so company formed in 2016. And mission is to help organisations and individuals be the best that they can possibly be through strategy, learning and development, and of course, inspiration. Yeah. And it can be coaching one to ones it can be working on the strategy of mainboards opening new hotels, running conferences, the I ran the Chewton Glen iconic hotels conference, about a month before lockdown. Wow, the two days with sir Clive Woodward. I mean, that was fantastic.

Phil Street 04:49

That sounds amazing.

MJ 04:50

It really was, God I get to speak with some amazing speakers.

Phil Street 04:54

Yeah. Got put me on your invite list for future events.

MJ 04:58

Yeah, definitely. And Chewton Glen is always a joy. It's my happy place.

Phil Street 05:03

Yeah, I've never actually been it's, it's on the hit list for sure.

MJ 05:08

I thoroughly recommend it. It's not stuffy. It's relaxed, very, very chilled. And the food and the wine are superb.

Phil Street 05:17

Yeah, I know. It's sort of benchmarking how to do Country House Hotel.

MJ 05:24

Yeah. But to be fair, you know, Cliveden, Whatley. Hey, I love The Pig. Yeah, they're all just, you know, they do what we do best. They make us feel fantastic. Yeah.

Phil Street 05:37

Yeah. And that's your that's hospitality in a nutshell, right there, isn't it?

MJ 05:41

Yeah, absolutely.

Phil Street 05:43

Well, thanks for coming on the show.

MJ 05:45

Nice to be here. I'll just start quickly that I don't just work with hospitality. I've got global it clients, banking firms, a national veterinary hospital chain, and my current clients, of course.

Phil Street 05:59

Yeah. Well, I know they can all do with inspiration, I'm sure. Exactly. Great stuff. Okay. So before we get on to kind of talking about the the excellent work that you've done, I suppose as a result of the situation that we find ourselves in, I want to want to go all the way back to the beginning. And I'd love you to walk us through your journey and to how you've ended up doing what you're doing.

MJ 06:25

Okay, okay. And I've got a few funny stories in and tries to get too long. You know, why do they and in 1973 So, parents bought a guesthouse in Brighton when I was 12. So you could say I grew up in the industry of waitressing on Brighton seafront, and from there decided to study hospitality in Huddersfield. And then on graduation, had to come back to London and find a job. Yeah. And I was thinking about this this morning, because back then, I'm very old, didn't have the internet. You know, I was in the Huddersfield library, looking at the caterer or the grocer, trying to get information

Phil Street 07:09

my life. I remember that

MJ 07:11

I remember one of the jobs I applied for, for a salary assistant manager, six and a half thousand pounds a year. Well, that was the starting salary was for rishu restaurants. So that really upmarket restaurant chains, one in Piccadilly, with Michael de Costa. And I remember coming down for the interview, you know, I look my best and walk into his office, absolutely petrified. Yeah, a one page CV because I've got no experience other than the waitressing on Brighton seafront. And yeah. And he said, Tell me about my business. And I just looked at him blankly said, Well, I don't know. He would. What do you mean, you don't know. I could be running a brothel. Get out of here, go and find out about my restaurants and come back in an hour. Fair enough. I thought, Oh, my God, I've lost the job. before the interview, went to the local restaurant, which a restaurant had lunch, interviewed, the restaurant manager, went back, told him about his restaurants and got the job. Right. And then never took it.

Phil Street 08:17

Lesson straight away though, right?

MJ 08:19

Absolutely do your research

Phil Street 08:21

Be prepared.

MJ 08:22

And so I then actually went on to my first restaurant was a restaurant called tarts on Chiswick highroad. a burger joint

Phil Street 08:30

Right?

MJ 08:30

It looked like a brothel actually had a big red sign and..

Phil Street 08:33

and has a brothels name as well.

MJ 08:36

But and of course, I thought I ruled the world straight out of college, I know how to run restaurants. Then you go and run one. Within a month I was the manager, right? And boy, we know how to hurt to work hard in hospitality. But there were lots of instances had somebody runs through a plate glass window, blood everywhere. Middle service goodness, once got held up and I'm there in the middle of service. I've got somebody with a knife to my throat and I'm yelling instructions call the place lock details don't get the chef's up the kitchen because I was worried they come out with knives and table for once about the sharp knife and I remember yelling all this stuff and then when the police came and it was fine, but yeah, that's what happens. And then I just carried on with service

Phil Street 09:25

Goodness gracious me.

MJ 09:27

So from there ran various restaurants. I was Rocco Forte's trouble shooter for his in house restaurants and his his Moscato fresco chain. ran down Mexico way because I wanted club experience. And we opened the first Gaucho grill in the basement of de Mexico. We actually then went on to got headhunted went on to set up the bar one chain and ran that for the first three years which was fantastic. We played the music, we wanted to help Yeah, we drank the wine we wanted to drink. It was everything we wanted in a bar, which is why they're still going today. I was gonna say they're still going strong, really strong. Yeah. And then work my way up to MD and operations director and then MD of Tiger Lil's working for fantastic Alan Lorimer, who now owns piano works. Yeah, he is one of the nicest guys in our industry. He's a superstar and taught me so much. And then set up a chain of bars for Robert Earl, and got made redundant. So I know exactly how it feels. I was 24 years old. So still quite young, and thought, what the hell am I going to do? Yeah, I went off, studied for my wine exams and went travelling around Europe. Great picking, came back and he gave me a job at 5151 is a wine buyer. So I got to have a love of American wines. And then moved into learning and development Actually, I started to work for pen Comm. Who, who owns the service that sells brand? And the English franchise was run by Michael Gottlieb. Okay, so one day I got a call saying name your hours and your price just work for us. And I just had my son, he was 10 months old at the time. So went off to do that a couple of days a week. then went on to work as training director for learn Purple. Purple cubed as it is now. Jameson Lee and then set up my own business, as I say in 2016. So really went from operations through to consultancy, but I will always be an operator. I mean, being a caterer. It's in your soul. It's in your heart. You're born with it. You're not made you made better but you're born with it. What Why would we do it? So now I literally train and develop and strategize for lots of industries. But with those lessons from hospitality, you know, there's nothing like running down Mexico way. You know, it's a 250 c two restaurant, four floors club. And believe me, stag nights, hen nights and tequila. What a combination.

Phil Street 12:20

Yeah, for sure. There's a line that's going in the intro for sure.

MJ 12:25

Absolutely.

Phil Street 12:26

That's a belter. It feels that that I mean, that's obviously the the short version of of your, your journey. It feels like jobs came, kind of easy to you. I mean, you just you mentioned there a couple of times that people were you know, offering you.

MJ 12:42

Yeah,

Phil Street 12:43

jobs before you'd kind of even stopped to think about it.

MJ 12:46

Yeah. And there's a couple of reasons for that. I'm, I'm very social, and I've always networked. Yep. And something that's really important that people could learn now is always do favours for people and expect nothing in return. Just do it. Yeah. So the reason why I got that call from Michael Gottlieb that time was because we were actually running competitor restaurants. I was a down Mexico way. He had his Dover street restaurant, but I helped them out sometimes. And he never forgot that that's how he knew me. Yeah. So you know, get around and never upset anybody. It's a very, very small industry. Yeah. So he's somebody that people want to be with. Down Mexico way I applied for I looked at my CV and realised I had a gap with high volume, sort of nightclub experience. And so I went to a portfolio at the time and said, Okay, these are the five properties I want to work in don't mind which one it is, you know, they were all the clubs at the time loss low costs down Mexico, so I'm not in any hurry, but when a vacancy comes up in one of those, can you ring me because I'll take it, huh? So what I also did, I was quite strategic in my career, where I would fill gaps so a bit like when I got made redundant, I realised I was running wine bars but had no one wine exams. So I decided to go off and do that. Yep. What working for in between all that and a task was actually owned by cross which was then bought out by Kennedy Brooks, which was then bought up by Forte's, which is how come I ended up working for Forte's but within that there was some real fine dining restaurants. I mean, Roy Ackerman was part of that, you know, they had for jack was part of their chain. So I also within that had some fine dining experience as well. Yeah. So I was trying to hit each box to give me a real range of expertise.

Phil Street 14:45

Yeah. Do you know the interesting thing about that about being strategic, I think that's a pretty key factor. I think in really, truly knowing what direction you want to head in and where you're where you want to go, but equally I've found my experience is that you've also got to be open to the left field things that come your way because they can also take you off into something that perhaps you hadn't even thought of. So getting that balance is, I think, absolutely key in moving forward.

MJ 15:18

Without doubt, and especially today where I think people are going to need to be more flexible, more agile. And they may have to take something out of left field, but guess what? They might love it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so you just don't know. And I know since I've started MJ inspire some of the consultant jobs I've taken have been really leftfielder I had to fly out to Riyadh to train the team that were opening Nobu out there, you know, and I'm a girl that likes a glass of wine. So imagine wasn't necessarily my first choice. But having said that, what an experience I was there for about five days, I learned so much, I had to wear Habib 11 hours a day. That was hard going because I'm not used to it. But I also got to interview some of the women on my course that mostly men that had four women, one actually was a finance director. And I really got to understand the dynamics of some of the Arabic culture Arabic families. And my biggest question to them was, how should teams treat you in the UK when you visit? Because we're all we know what we think we know. But you tell us yeah, you know, and then I use it in my training. You know, it's so interesting. Probably wouldn't go back. But I don't need to I've been there now.

Phil Street 16:43

Yep.

MJ 16:44

But who knows? I might tomorrow cuz I might get asked. So

Phil Street 16:46

yeah, the interesting thing about that is that the there's actually a really great business lesson there as well, in the sense that a lot of businesses form the the crux of the the business out of the, your, the rune idea as to what I would like, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that, that's a really great place to start. But if you really want to then move forward, you've got to, you've got to go out to market and go Okay, so that's what I want to give you. What do you actually want that kind of fits within this? And how can I evolve that and make it better? And that's exactly...