By Alison Warner
The podcast currently has 29 episodes available.
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Tony Donovan, Founder of UK Protrades and Director of UK Tradesmen, a network of contractors, developers and professional tradespeople nationwide.
As a contractor Tony always found it difficult to source professional reliable trades people and as a problem solver he went about changing this. His skills in digital marketing, web design, branding and socials enabled him to create a platform for trades to network free of charge. UK Tradesmen on Facebook now has over 2000 Followers.
UKProTrades has a group for every trade and the groups are made up of contractors, developers and professional tradesmen and women from across the UK and Ireland. Jobs are shared on the groups directly from the main contactors.
It helps all trades connect, they can access the interactive database mapline and interact with all trades local to them. It is designed to help if you are looking for an upcoming, ongoing or rush job. Members can search the database for trades in their locality and view their profiles, with references and details of qualifications and experience.
Anyone finding it difficult to hire good talent, will be interested in this podcast!
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://www.ukprotrades.com/
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Joy Zarine brand and business strategist, investor, speaker and bestselling author based in London, UK.
For over eighteen years, Joy has worked with industry leaders to design, build and market profitable and award- winning businesses.
Believing that life is too short for basic, boring or bad branding - Joy has gone on to build her own branding and marketing agency - launching UK-wide companies and consulting with global billion-pound brands.
A popular guest on the Build and Grow Academy, Joy always has some great practical advice for our trades community.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://www.joyzarine.com/
@joyzarine
In this podcast show Alison is joined by James Sargeant a construction law solicitor with Quigg Golden. James began his career in construction before transferring into the legal world, which gives him a unique understanding of the industry.
James shares the common mistakes he sees business owners make, from having a lack of the necessary documentation in place to burying one’s head into the sand. They discuss the most common disputes that arise between client and contractor and how best to avoid them.
James provides no-nonsense advice around the simple things to ensure are in place to protect you should things turn sour and how best to avoid problems from escalating into a full blown war!
This podcast is a must listen to for any owner of a construction or trade business, it will be 30 minutes well spent!
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://www.quigggolden.com/
linkedin.com/in/james-sargeant-mciob-93511249
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Ian Hodgkinson, Founder of Hodgkinson Builders, the Bricklayers Academy and the builder behind the BBC series Brickies.
Ian shares how he started out on the tools at 16, going on to build a successful business and then on to helping solve the skills shortage by creating the Bricklayers Academy. This provides the training to budding bricklayers, giving them not only the practical skill, but also the discipline required to have a very rewarding and lucrative career.
Ian has built his organisations on the basis of strong principles and vision – they don’t just build houses, they genuinely make positive social change. This led to him being approached by the BBC to help them make the programme Brickies, which features his apprentices working on site in Derby and shows the reality of the job as well as the benefits of providing a great working environment to young people in construction.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://hodgkinsonbuilders.com/
https://www.bricklayers.com/
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Adam Chapman, Founder of Heat Geek a company that provides training on heating design for heating engineers.
As a self-confessed Geek, Adam has an insatiable thirst for knowledge in the heating industry and has quickly risen to become a well-respected thought leader in the field. He began his career in within a commercial installation company in 2005 before moving to domestic heating installation, repair and servicing, and later starting his own business.
Adam founded the heating resource Heatgeek.com in 2016, and later the associated system design training course 'Heating mastery' in a mission to 'renew the heating industry'. The flagship training course is only 1 year old yet has already trained dozens of engineers in BIES (dept of Business, Industry Energy and strategy) and engineers within manufacturers including Vaillant, Viessmann, Grant and Daikin to name a few, and as well as 450 heating system designer and installers, many of them their competition.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://courses.heatgeek.com/
https://mobile.twitter.com/_heatgeek
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Andrew Small the Industry Solutions Managing Director of Houzz, the world's largest community for home renovation and design providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish. On Houzz, people can find design inspiration, research and hire home professionals and get advice for their projects.
Andrew joined Houzz in 2015 and now leads the expansion of Houzz internationally. Prior to Houzz Andrew was in an executive leadership position in a UK venture-backed business in the home and property space having previously worked in finance, technology consulting and venture capital. He is passionate about disruptive technology and empowering homeowners and pros with software and tools to improve the renovation experience.
In this episode Alison talks to Andrew about Houzz Pro, an all-in-one software solution that empowers industry pros to stand out, win clients and manage their projects efficiently and profitably. Another topic for discussion is their State of the Industry report, in which Andrew shares the key trends and provides advice to owners of trade businesses as to how they can best ride this wave and make the most of this increase in demand.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
www.houzz.co.uk/pro
@houzzuk
@houzzpro_uk
In this podcast show Alison is joined by Lorraine Bridges, Founder and Director of Bare PR. As one of only 200 Chartered PR professionals in the UK, Lorraine is extremely well qualified to share advice to owners of trade businesses who really care about their reputation.
Lorraine shares her good, bad and ugly experiences using the services of trades and valuable tips on how to ensure you are providing a service that stands out to your customers. And guess what? Often they don’t cost anything!
Sadly, we know that it is all too easy to let things slip and in the process gain a less than satisfactory reputation. Often this isn’t down to not caring, but is a sign of not planning for growth and being overwhelmed.
Don’t be ones of those trades who start out with the best of intentions, but end up providing a poor service. Invest in yourself, your business and take advice…….and there is no better time than here by listening to this interview.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://www.barepr.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorraine-bridges-chartpr/
@BarePRuk
In this podcast Alison shares her thoughts and experience on how to crack the issue of finding and hiring great people in a small construction or trade business.
In a previous life Alison headed up resourcing for one of the UK and Ireland’s global chain of coffee shops, so she knew all about getting the process right within this field. Taking this best practice into the world of construction and trades, she found that it didn’t always go to plan, and in this industry it is even more of a challenge.
In this podcast she shares what she has learnt by tweaking the process to fit the industry, as well as what she has seen first-hand that works with both clients and for leaders in the industry.
Given that recruitment is such a challenge right now, as a result of the perfect storm of Brexit, COVID and a 32% increase in demand for home improvements, this is a timely podcast to listen to.
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
In this podcast Alison welcomes Jordan Farley, Founder of Artisan Electrics on to the show. With 125,000 YouTube followers and 23k on Instagram, what started as a casual interest, ended up solving two of the biggest challenges trades face – attracting the ideal customer and the ideal employee.
Jordan took over the family electrical business from his Dad before selling it to go travelling and volunteering. Returning to the UK to start a new electrical business, in 2016 he posted his first video on YouTube to help his customers solve a common challenge, and it went viral.
Today he has 2 businesses, one the electrical and the other social media. He is one of the few trades that I have spoken to who appears to have cracked the recruitment challenge due to his social media following. We talk about this aspect amongst other things, with Jordan sharing some complete gems of advice for trades!
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://artisanelectrics.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ArtisanelectricsUk
@artisanelectrics
In this podcast Alison welcomes Kerry and Wayne O’Connor, Founders of Get Stowed on to the show. This entrepreneurial couple who had a business making exhibition stands for conferences, quickly decided to pivot their business when the industry fell off a cliff during COVID, transferring their skills to making secure storage facilities for trades tools.
Get Stowed was born off the back of Wayne having the painful experience of having his tools stolen from his van a few years previous. The business manufacturers bespoke storage solutions for trade businesses, so that the tools are not visible as well as secure. Here is what Kerry has to say about how this change came about:
“After A levels my Saturday job in retail evolved into a full time job and after a few years I made the move to office work starting as a Receptionist at a security manufacturer. Over the next 9 years I worked my way up taking on sales admin, field sales, onto account management and ended up as their UK Sales Manager. After this I took on a new sales role working with a large multi-national company in the security sector for a couple of years, but it had always been an ambition to run my own business....Wayne set up the exhibition business in 2008 and I started to help out with his admin tasks when I was on maternity leave. It soon became really evident that our skillsets complemented each other very well and I came fully on board with the exhibition business in 2010, and we haven't looked back since! The skills I learned with working in the security industry, where I was dealing with trades people and distributors every day have directly transferred to what we're doing now with Get Stowed.”
www.evolveandgrowcoaching.com
https://www.getstowed.co.uk/
The podcast currently has 29 episodes available.