Today's podcast episode is from my Directions for Directors 🧠  series where Ryan Cunningham and I had the pleasure of chatting with our guest Rory Underwood MBE, former RAF Flight Lieutenant,  England’s highest ever rugby try scorer, and Director of Wingman. 
 
Rory shares insights gained from his rugby and Royal Air Force career on what's required to accelerate business growth, and why training helps teams fly higher and faster with less effort. 
 
In our talk about ‘creating a performance environment as you scale’ we discuss;

• The challenges that businesses experiencing growth face
• The well-trodden path where an entrepreneurial founder has to shift roles dramatically as their business experiences growth to deal with staff, process, and the ‘day to day’ stuff
• How there's no ‘magic number’ of revenue or staff for when its the time to start formalising your processes but its when everyone in the organisation can’t hear the same conversation
• Why the cheapest way for any organisation is to develop from within - but every now and again you have to bring in someone from outside
• Getting both communication and culture right to find the winning formula

Rory uses comparisons from rugby, flying, and business to describe performance training environments. 

"Rugby is 1 hour 20 mins game on a Saturday - so you could argue that 90% of [a players] time  is training, and 10% of the time is the doing - playing the match".

“When flying, we don’t just turn up and fly a jet...when I talk about the military, it’s a training organisation. We train, and train, and train, to get ready to go to war. And even when we go to war we still think about training because the enemy are trying to adapt and workout ways of overcoming us. So again, 90% of the time is training, and 10% of the time is doing”. 

“So if you take the context of business, what would you do with those figures...most people say it's the other way around...and I’m not advocating that you should spending 90% of your time on training and planning before doing, because you don't...but if organisations say that they want to be a world class business with world class people then there’s budget and time to be spent on developing your people”.

Rory shares a huge amount of takeaways in this conversation for founders and directors at all stages of their leadership journey on how to build the sustainable, high-performance environments required to deliver their goals and release the full potential of their people.

Thanks go to Rory, Laura Taylor and Jane McClelland from the Wingman team, and David Wafer Chair of Institute of Directors for LCR for the superb recommendation and organising.  
 
Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published.
 
Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your ecommerce store.

Struggling to build a strong recruitment brand that will help you register the top talent? Thinking about how to find your place in a crowded market and differentiate yourself from the competition?
 
Ryan and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dave Madden the Owner and Director of Mustard, the International recruitment agency for the design sector  🙌🏼   
 
In today’s podcast episode from my Rules for Recruiters 🧠  series we explore;

• Why naming the business was the initial spark 
• How investing in the Mustard brand allowed them to grow beyond the three founders quickly
• How to stand out against the competition with a visual identity 
• How the brand was the foundations for building out their foreign desks and communicating the company culture locally
• Why having a stable of sub-brands in highly specialised ‘inch wide, mile deep’ niches helped grow the business

Dave explains how they wanted the brand to mirror their ideal clients both in person with jeans and collarless tee-shirts, as well as the digital world so when they visit the mustard website they say “these look and feel a bit like us, and can interact with us on our level”.  
 
In this interview, Dave talks about his experience as someone with 21 years in the recruitment sector and has some great advice for anyone else thinking of building a brand in a particular niche.  
 
Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your recruitment agency.

Today's podcast episode is from my Directions for Directors 🧠  series where Ryan and I had the pleasure of chatting with our guest Barry Leahey MBE, CEO at playdale.co.uk. 

Barry is an award winner for leadership, turnaround, export & manufacturing, as well as featuring in The Telegraph’s Top 50 Most Ambitious UK Business Leaders. 

This episode, which goes under the title of ‘expertise in innovation and leadership’ describes how Barry Leahey became the first external MD of a ninth-generation family business. 

The family run business which originally dates to 1735, having had many changes over the years as it has progressed from a coopers, hoopers, and timber merchants, before evolving into the international playground equipment manufacturing company Playdale Playgrounds in 1978. 

Barry’s vision has again transformed the company – its gone from a domestic business selling playground equipment to an international supplier now exporting to 51 countries and increased the turnover by 300%. 

Ryan and I talk to Barry and discover;

• How he moved away from a 'spray and pray’ approach to marketing and began measuring the ROI on all marketing to find out what's actually working 
• Why sales and marketing is a science rather than ‘just blustering your way through’
• Why their marketing spend is virtually the same as it was in 2004 and they get 400% more leads - all because they adopted digital very early doors 
• Why their growth strategy was to commercialise the business and to be a little bit less nice 
• The necessity for creating a culture of being accountable
• His thoughts on adopting a culture of ‘fail fast’ 
• Why being curious helps to be on the front foot all the time with digital marketing trends 
• The importance of getting systems and processes in place before scaling to Europe and ROW 
• His thoughts on self-belief and personal development

In this inspiring interview, Barry also talks about joining Jon Dutton and Jonathan Neill on the business advisory supporting the RLWC2021 (Rugby League World Cup which launches later this year in October 2021) to build engagement and best practice as part of the tournament’s commercial strategy. 

Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your ecommerce store.

Automotive has been hit really hard during the coronavirus pandemic - so what's happening during the recovery stage and what can we learn from it? 

With most people having made the physical return back to work by now and non-essential shops have re-opened, what happens to your digital transformation project now?

Does your traditional B2B brand still have to transform to a ‘digital-first’ one to be the market leader in your vertical? 

As 2021 moves through Q2, the world of ecommerce has changed yet again, and customers of all types are more willing to go online for their automotive needs, so our I-community podcast conversation is a timely one. 

Ryan and I had the pleasure of chatting in this episode with our guest Anouk Brown, Head of Digital and Marketing at the hugely successful automotive tech company AAMP Global, we discuss the journey of driving growth and strategic renewal by transforming a traditional analogue business into a digital one. 

If you’re in B2B ecommerce or automotive and are interested in understanding more about digital transformation, this is an essential listen. 

In this extra long 60-minute episode we unpick;

• The reasons for digital transformation
• The common mistakes and getting it wrong with a ‘digital only’ transformation project 
•  The AAMP rebrand and roll-out application across customer touch points  
• Managing an autonomous house of brands
• Communicating to multiple B2B audiences
• The importance of audience personas
• Why content marketing has become a buzzword for B2B businesses
• Closing the gap between marketing strategy and the delivery
• ERP systems and the point when digital transformations starts to take ‘grip’ with implementation
• Managing the human operational element to digital transformation

There's no doubt the digital trend is set to accelerate further – retailers of all kinds, whether offline, B2C, or B2B ecommerce, will seek to either transform their digital experiences completely or shape up their hybrid model to connect better with customers on social media, app, or website, as 2021 brings a whole lot of new expectations to online retail.  

There's plenty of great things to come from Anouk and AAMP Global in the future as they accelerate their digital marketing efforts, utilise online media to drive awareness and demand as part of their omni-channel growth strategy.  

Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your ecommerce store.

Today's I-Community guest is Peter Jow, Managing Director of Progressive Safety Footwear and Clothing. In this episode Peter shares his experiences of what's required when leading organisational transformation, and innovation is needed to keep up with a fast-moving business landscape. 

Peter champions developing individuals in his team, working on relationships and communication between employees, and talks about problem-solving during organisational transformation, and his hands-on approach to leadership during a whirlwind of retail change and a global pandemic. 

We discuss with Peter during this fascinating interview;

• Sharing the transformation plan and aligning everyone to it 
• Key reasons to have well-defined business processes when scaling
• Encouraging flexibility and being outcome driven when people are working from home

Peter describes how dynamics in their customer-base shifted significantly during Covid-19 and thankfully the initiative to re-imagine their digital sales and marketing processes for B2B  audiences was already underway when not surprisingly, after adjusting to largely buying online, their clients naturally compared procurement processes to their personal B2C experiences. 

Peter reflects on the present day confusion of what ‘digital’ is, how companies that adapt quickly can rise from the crisis as market leaders, and how digital change management has become an essential skill of effective leadership today.

Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your ecommerce store.

Today’s guest is Dave Thompson, Managing Director and Co-founder at Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery. This interview follows their journey to embrace the DTC (direct to consumer) model as they produce and launch Filey Bay, the first ever single malt whisky both made in, and of, Yorkshire. 

Find out how they built a loyal following and a standout ‘field-to-bottle’ product made with 100% home grown barley, spring water from a source on their farm, an instinctive approach to distilling, all coming together to produce something unique to the region of their home near Filey, on the Yorkshire Coast. 

David speaks with great advice for any British-made or UK brand wanting to stand out in the crowd. 

In this episode, we chat with David about;

• The challenges of starting something new and how they diversified from a farming background
• How online sales kept the business strong during the first lockdown of 2020 after closing the doors to their walk-in visitor attraction and distillery tours
• The importance of understanding your customer
• Why good design is important
• Positioning the brand to a larger demographic of new enthusiasts outside of (and this is said in the politest possible sense) the sophisticated ‘whiskey nerds’   
• The innovative way of using a balloting system to allocate their product  

This very relatable conversation is full of insight for those looking for an alternative to the traditional distributor model and building direct relationships with their consumers for the future.

Here’s to another exciting and emerging  British brand. 

Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your ecommerce store.

Today's episode is with Gail Hounslea the Founder, and Managing Director of Ladderstore.com.  In this Podcast we explore:

• Gails search for a career that would work around the family
• The sparks and obstacles of working with Amazon
• The pros, cons, and rise of virtual site consultations due to the covid crisis
• The long-term pay-off from communicating a value proposition
• The benefits of peer-to-peer learning when building an e-commerce business

Gail started her first e-commerce business all the way back in 1999 (when just 5 years earlier the very first online sale was processed...it was the purchase of a Sting CD in 1994 for those who are interested), only a few of us had mobile phones, and social media didn't exist. 

Fast forward to 2021, Ladderstore are a specialist in all things to do with working at height safely, providing a wide range of working at height solutions for both business and personal use. Alongside this, Gail is the current Chair of the Ladder Association the not-for-profit industry body responsible for advancing safety and best practice in the ladder industry. 

In this candid conversation, Gail speak about the importance of voluntary work, the sense of accomplishment, and the power of not simply offering just financial support - but transferring skills learnt in business to help local charities in the Bolton area reach positive outcomes during the challenges of 2020. 

Never miss a future episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be notified when a new episode is published. 

Email [email protected] to work with David and Ryan to grow your e-commerce store. 

Today’s guest Jim Green shares essential advice for those of you who are looking to communicate with a little more human element in your digital communications to both your new and existing customer base. 

In this absorbing conversation and reflections of the 2020 trading period, Jim Green explores:

- Communicating with your team ”if you think you’re doing enough, double it
- The importance of what you say, and taking time for your internal team communication
- Having personable, relevant content with a consistent message for your customers and your values portrayed in the right way
- The principle of having an empty-chair in the boardroom that represents the customer

Jim is passionate about doing what he loves, and heads up an independent optical group in the south-east of England with established practices in Brighton, Reading, Weybridge and Winchester.

Jim has an impeccable track record of looking after his customers and a strong ethos runs through the business. His consultative approach to patient care and eye-health has helped him build eyesite.co.uk with solid foundations. Jim has a very engaging personality and his undoubted communication skills has contributed to the 35 years of delighted customers, and motivated professionals who love what they do.

Join David and Ryan in a fascinating conversation with Jim where he shares his views on putting the customer first with clinical excellence and best-practice marketing when digital comms takes the place of human contact. 

This episode is with e-commerce manager Daniela Pisciottano from Woodland Leathers which goes under the title of 'digital marketing for a third generation family business’ and describes how their e-commerce operation had to evolve. 

We deal with 'coping with Covid' and the changes in consumer buying behaviour during the first lockdown, the subsequent retailing challenges, and how they actually had an increase in sales.  

In this episode we discuss the challenges faced in 2020 and how the growing trend towards sustainable fashion led to marketing their leather repairs service to keep customers coming through their virtual doors. 

With growing sales and demand on third party platforms such as Etsy, Amazon, and Ideal World, we can expect to hear a lot more of Woodland Leathers after recently celebrating their 50 year anniversary and Daniela's ability to call on her previous experience as a journalist. 

A thoroughly enjoyable discussion with one of the UK's brightest e-commerce retailers.