In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, Aaron Worrall — co-founder of Weather Wise Solutions, the family-run damp, mould and condensation specialists in Newcastle-under-Lyme — shares how he took the business from £4,000 and a kitchen table in August 2024 to £1.75 million turnover in its first year, now forecasting £3.5–4 million with a team of 33. It started with a £20-a-day Google Ads campaign a friend set up as a favour, on one condition: don’t touch it. From there Aaron leaned into the channels most trades sleep on — Google My Business, Google Local Services and Checkatrade — building a shop front rather than chasing leads.

Aaron makes the case that most construction businesses have it the wrong way round: sort the brand, the customer journey and the three things every customer actually wants — turn up when you say, be honest, do a good job — and the work follows. He and his brother Jake have racked up millions of organic views (mostly on Instagram, filmed on a phone), while being honest that they can’t fully attribute what social does for the bottom line — they post for trust and visibility, not vanity. Along the way he covers why he won’t listen to the "experts" in the comments, how reinvesting every penny into better materials protects the reputation, the Checkatrade strategic-account setup that hands the legwork to an account manager, and the conversation with his dad — a mortgage guaranteed for six months — that got him to take the risk in the first place. It’s a grounded, numbers-first look at growing a trades business on almost no marketing budget, and a reminder that the shop front beats the lead chase every time.

Follow Weather Wise Solutions:

Instagram: @weatherwiseuk_

LinkedIn (Aaron Worrall): https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-worrall-cstdb-75593795/

Website: https://weatherwiseuk.co.uk/

Stay connected with dissident creative agency:

https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency

Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

of social media, is the worst one for nitpicky, bitchy comments from

other tradespeople.

I don't focus on.

No I focus on shopfront

we had a standing start with four grand and a tiny, tiny

marketing.

It

we hit 1.75 million in 10 men.

So in a year,

Welcome back to the buildup.

I'm Dan, the creative director at this.

And today we're talking to Aaron Wall from Weather Wise Solutions.

They deal with damp, condensation and mold.

And we're going to talk about how he scaled his business from

four grand of the owner's own money, and transforming that into

a projected turnover of three and a half to 4,000,000 in 2

years.

We're going to talk about how he utilized things like

Google My Business, which is a kind of a platform that

slept on a little bit, Google services, Google ads, starting off

small, scaling that up.

How utilizes Checkatrade to generate leads.

So check it out.

Aaron, thank you so much for being on the podcast, mate.

Really appreciate it.

And you're probably the closest guest that we've had so far.

That's not how to travel.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll take you to get here.

Nice I like that.

Can you first of all, just introduce yourself, talk us through

weather wise solutions, a brief summary of like, kind of how

you set that up and what that looks like today.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a pretty wild sort of transformation.

So weather wise we do damp proofing, mold radiation, condensation control, rendering

those kind of things.

Anything like water out in a building.

Yes.

So it's actually really boring.

It's very niche isn't it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well yeah.

And so we started this from my kitchen.

Okay.

It was I remember doing, you know, the Google video that you

have to do to verify your business.

Yes.

There's my car.

Yeah.

There's my pen.

What year was this?

This was August 2024.

Okay.

So recent.

Oh, yeah.

We went from there was five.

I was at the start.

There was in this.

Now there's three business partners now.

So there's me, my brother Jake and our friend Neil.

So it's a family and friends ran business.

Wicked.

You know Jake is I kind of run surveying.

So I run all the teams there.

Me and Jake torch on marketing.

So we kind of both have different attitudes towards it in different

attributes that we bring.

And then and Jake, us all the brand, which we'll go through

later because there's a lot to what Jake doesn't.

Yeah, but I'll touch on the things.

But I'm not going to take any credit from the communities, be

in the job and very awesome.

And he's not got a marketing background necessarily.

He's sort of learn on the job.

Okay.

Yeah, we've both worked in retail.

So our dad, the reason we came in to so our dad

has done damp the Stoke Council and Union Square for 40 years

got.

Yeah it's always been part of our lives.

And then we didn't listen to him obviously.

Yeah.

And did our own thing.

So I went into Rita added it went into retail with

the motor trade for a long time, and that's where a lot

of my skills came from, from video and working for manufacturers,

the corporate side of it.

And then we ended up with getting into this industry and

we it was a bit crazy, but we literally started weather wise

was five people and there was Harry, he's 6 or 8, six,

eight one.

Oh my God, he took the risk on us.

So you know I shout out that we got he came, which

was amazing.

What was Harry's role within Harry was I went out with Harry

on the tools originally.

Okay.

So we were surveying fitting and Jake and John and surveying.

Neil was a bit part time.

We had a lady in the office who was working for us

as well, and it literally started with we took four grinding.

Okay, that was it.

We had nothing that to rent a van.

Your own dosh.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I got that back.

Yeah, yeah.

So we had to, we had to rent a van.

We had to pay Harry.

We didn't take a wage for the first couple of months.

Yep.

And we knew we could do it because we, we saw

a niche in the market and we are very niche.

So not to go too much into detail, but the damp has

got like three factors to it.

Okay.

So and what nobody had ever seemed to think about was the

customer journey.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if like we were in your house now and you've got

a bit of damper on that wall, you're two options.

You can either get a damp roofing company out or and fix

it for you or fix it.

They might not.

128 00:04:39,749 --> 00:04:41,349 Or you can get an independent report.

Now there's independent reports.

I know some amazing independent ladies.

Yes, they are brilliant on what they do and we're a damp

proving company.

We could do reports because we're qualified to do them, but we

don't.

Yeah.

And what that is, is because you've got a customer who sat

there and I've got dampen this wall here.

I don't know what to do.

So they can ring an independent.

And those reports are really good for home periods.

And really when something's going wrong and you really don't know, that's

what you need them.

Yes.

And the well worth the money.

But then you've also got the other side of the industry

which is poor, where they go.

If you get a salesman, yes, it comes out and goes, you've

got rising down and being there 20 minutes.

What you're going to need to fall down.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

We know it's never the case to be something more simple.

It's actually quite a rare thing.

So the customer go and get the report to the independent.

And then the independent goes, well, I'm independent.

I can't tell you who can fix it.

Yes.

So that was just spent however much on report.

Still got a damp wall.

Yes.

So we went.

Surely there's a space in the market for a qualified set

of people.

If you want to report you're paying for doing that.

Yeah, I will do it if you pay me.

Of course, you know.

168 00:05:57,147 --> 00:06:02,827 But that customer that we want to protect from just being told

it's something by sales over servicing.

Yeah, yeah.

And overcharging.

We want to come out and we will tell you how to

fix.

Yeah.

You don't have to use us, but we'll tell you how

to fix it.

And if you do want us to fix it, will fix it.

Yes.

And that's we've always taken that approach, because when I spoke

to my dad about it and he spoke to Jake, we did

some you know, we did a lot of research.

I know we all noticed them, that there was three things that

the construction industry customers want.

Nobody in the construction industry thought really about the customer journey.

Yes.

Whereas mine and Jake's careers have always been about that.

So we kind of went, well, what do customers want?

And we literally knocked it down to three things.

So turn up when you say you're going to turn off.

Yes.

Very important for trades.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because they never do.

No it's notorious for that okay.

So that's that's one value that we want to be honest.

We have integrity.

Yeah it's a sad world but it doesn't exist.

And you know we just sort of shows was cowboy to

just be honest.

Whether it's good news, bad news.

Customers just want the truth.

Yes.

So if you're going to go there, tell them what's going on.

Yeah.

We found customers respected as more than most companies because even if

it was, bad, news is bad.

Yeah, and it can be fixed.

Yes, but we wouldn't just go.

It's bad news.

You've got this.

You've got bad news because of this.

And then we would take them even on surveys or about a

journey that would take customers on, because we want to educate them

so they understand why we're doing what we're doing.

Yeah.

And they feel more involved in the process then.

Right.

That's being told by a professional anybody could tell them what it

is.

But if you can physically show them what they're seeing and why

it's happening and what's coming through, and this is how we fix

it to stop that process.

And customers feel like they've actually learned something and they know what's

going on there at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And then the third one, even more simple.

Good job.

Yes, yes.

Aren't expecting Venetian plastering.

Yeah.

Stop down proofing.

They just want somebody who they can rely on to do a

good job.

And that's where we start from.

So like talking about brand even the logo.

So this is a pressure graph okay.

And it's there to signify because it's green it's calm.

It's a signify that we don't care.

That's cool.

We don't run with any pressure.

Either choose this or you don't just look to you.

It's your decision.

Yeah.

We'd love you if you did.

Of course we'll do you a good job.

But that's where we've gone from.

So we literally started going back to where we were.

It was from my kitchen.

We we started with four grand as a budget.

That was to rent the van.

We had to pay Harry.

We had to do all of that.

And then we got it to Pinos and we've all of and

love it.

And then today, big moment, isn't it?

The first van.

Yeah, yeah.

Still got it.

Yeah.

Wicked.

No, no, we'll never gave me that same forever.

To now we between staff and contractors there's 33.

Wow.

So we went in two years.

Two years in August.

My God.

So the first year we went from a standing start and we

got lucky.

You got to make your own luck.

Yes, but we had a standing start with four grand and

a tiny, tiny marketing.

It was literally for the day.

Okay, so then going out to vein winning work.

Me and Harry went out on the field.

I was still a notch there with him at 8:00 one night,

taking the radiator apart because the radio was leaking.

What do we do?

Yeah, but the best man was gone.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

I mean, my, my my favorite time of a business is

the first two years.

Because they say the first two years, you don't make any profit.

But that's where all the exciting stuff happens.

The first sales.

Oh my God.

You start to see the bank account kind of creeping up.

You put your socials out, you start to see that grow, you

start to see your marketing working and stuff.

It's so exciting.

We went from a standing start and we took all this stuff

out of the contractors that we had as a on the that

weekend of the 19th of August, and on the day that we

took them out, we hit 1.75 million in 10 men.

So in a year, literally, we've got nothing.

And obviously, as you know, turnovers, vanity, profits and we're very lucky

and everything apart from a couple of that we've had to finance,

we have all the tools.

And now this year we're forecasting anywhere between three and a half

to 4 million depending on superb.

So we've continually doubled what we've got.

Hardly any doubt.

Yeah.

Superb.

That's amazing.

It's all stemmed from the customer journey thinking about the customer.

So we've got so many great things about us and we've

made mistakes along the way.

We've done things we shouldn't have done.

And but one thing that we always do, and I say it

to my guys every morning, it's do the right thing, okay.

We don't care as a business if it comes to us.

If it's the right thing for the customer, you'll do it.

Yeah, that's a long term.

Like like that'll stack.

Those benefits will stack if you're just constantly doing the right thing

and just do right.

We're nice people and we just want to do a good

job.

And that's where it's kind of stemmed from.

So that growth like we were doing, we started out and it

was like, if we can do 10,000 pounds a week in there

and we can have a nice life.

Yeah.

Next 20,000.

Yeah.

Take on another nice 30,000.

They just escalated and escalated and that.

Yeah, yeah.

Keep it going.

Yeah I love that.

That's so cool.

What a journey.

Like, you know, not even two years in the forecast.

If it was at three and a half to to 4 million

nuts.

And then what, like roughly 30 staff, something between staff and

contract.

Yeah.

We've got 12 vans, six car nuts.

Absolutely not.

What I mean what what a journey.

And you've, you've you've done this with you mentioned like next to

no marketing budget.

Like can you, can you talk us through what you were doing.

Like like like like what did you start off with?

Like in a nutshell, how did that build?

Like like what works like talk to me about the first marketing

activity that you actually did.

It was a favor.

Okay, so I had a friend or two friends, Adam and Johnny.

They run a company that we could we couldn't we couldn't afford

them at a time, but we'd done a lot of work with

them.

Previously.

There were mates and still I was still talk to them.

Now they own a company called me a retail marketing in

Manchester.

Okay, but Jonny is like the Google ad king.

Okay, so I rang me, can you help me then?

And I said how much it cost me, right.

Because I don't worry about it, I saw it.

Yeah.

He says, well, you've got to promise me one thing because he

knows what I'm like.

I like to tinker with.

I'll set you the ads up on the one condition.

You don't talk to you.

Yeah.

Leave them alone, okay?

Just just keep just keep paying the keep paying the ads bill,

but just leave it running.

I'll sort it out.

The only thing you can talk to your budget if you, bro.

Yes, because I'm not doing that for me.

Okay.

Fair enough.

That means.

So we ended up I went off in Manchester.

He set up a campaign for.

And we set the budget.

It was, I think it was £20 for the first.

Okay.

And then obviously as we were winning jobs, I was like, wow,

turn it up to £40 a day.

So then I'm thinking and calculating.

Can we afford that?

And me and Jake had set up, something called Google

Local Services.

Okay.

That was really good.

But I remember speaking to a legal Ali who I used

to work with in the motor trade, and she'll kill me for

trying to do her accent, but she's very broad Scottish.

And I rang up and I said, Ali, what?

What is it?

What do you think I should be doing here?

I don't do your GMB.

GMB.

What's that?

Yeah.

She went, well, it's your Google business profile.

I won't tell you the actual way she told me, yeah, you

Google my business.

And I was like, okay, interesting.

So we, we went away, did a lot of research.

Obviously reviews is a massive thing.

So we focused on giving the customer the service to deserve a

five star review.

Yes, we've got a couple of one stars because we've had problems

with customers.

They have.

Yeah.

But somebody asked me at a conference like the reviews I won't

yet.

I went, yeah, just how have you got to five star

Google?

I was in reviews.

I went do a good job.

Yeah.

Deserve that level.

Yeah.

Ask them for the review.

Well, if you weren't the right to ask because you've done such

a good job, I don't think we've never had a problem with

a customer going.

Read your review.

You might sit there and type it in on the phone.

We've got a QR code to get into the screen, but we

don't sit there and demand it.

We we try and focus on that customer energy.

And in that experience, do they go yeah, sorry.

Yeah.

Problem.

Because we've done such a good job for them.

Love that.

And then so local services with Gordon.

There's a lot of work in local services.

But it gets you to a point where you are visible on

Google quite easily.

Yeah I'm not super familiar with local services.

You need to go through like what that is like is it

okay?

Okay.

There's loads of trades that can go on.

They're not just construction lawyers like that, but you've got one.

You choose the services that you want and then it gives you

a slot at the top so people can see your business and

it shows your reviews and, and you can click on the screen,

you get like 20 pictures that you can show, okay.

And it gives you what you do.

We have water damage service providers and customers can basically use your

Google My Business profile as a shop window.

Amazing.

And so it kind of that that was a good way of

doing it.

We're on the bar those kind of platforms.

We did those for a while.

But that was how it started organically.

We were growing it and then we were doing like blog posts

every day, making sure we're doing three images per day, every

day, seven days a week.

Okay.

Literally just taking the images, getting an AI to write the text

and checking it, writing it yourself, making it right.

Then we upload those to Google and we were uploading into the

Trusted Trader profile.

And then as we've grown, we just continue those foundational works of

making sure that our website, our website was done by a really

good directory and it converted very well.

Okay.

That was one of those things where we got lucky because it

was just set up really well.

And then we kind of kept growing and growing.

So and then obviously now it's not 48.

Yes, for a marketing widget because we've got to feed as many

mortgages.

Yeah, yeah.

You've got more money, more problems.

Right.

You got to keep keep feeding that ads budget because I imagine

you've got to feed.

Yeah food.

So we spend way more now.

But we're capable because we've, we've got the order book.

We've got the team, we've got surveyors.

We we're capable of doing that.

We literally built it from.

Wow.

Yeah.

We have four grand, one rental Harry's wages, bit of Google ads.

And then we start by the equipment, the drills.

We had to buy the tank and stuff.

So and then we ended up doing it like ad hoc per

job.

So we would have to go.

We'd win the work.

We'd take that deposit by all the stuff for that job with

that deposit.

Yeah.

Then go fit the work, do a good job, get paid.

Yeah.

That rolled in then and then just just snowball from it.

We still do that now with like if we've if we've got

a particular production like a really fancy, a really fancy, like if

it's the right kind of production and we've got this specific bit

of equipment and we haven't got that.

I've never found a use for that.

But I've always wanted that bit of equipment because it'll be useful

and we'll just take the hit.

We'll be like, right, okay, we're going to we're going to get

this equipment that's going to help us with this production, make no

money on the job, but then we've got that for future.

Well, maybe not not make no money, but we do that

on a regular basis because you just kind of go, well, I

don't need that until I need it.

Yeah.

I mean, we invest, I say, I don't watch me as of

course I watch TikTok.

I remember watching one, it was that guy that interviewed billionaires.

Oh yeah.

And he said, please get slaughtered.

Hogs get fat.

And we kind of taken that analogy, what he meant by that

we can afford now to buy the best quality materials.

So over kilometer we biased off that we could get away

with using cheaper stuff.

Yeah, but is it the right thing?

No it's not.

So Neil, who is our installations manager and co-owner.

Director.

Yeah.

Whatever.

Our job titles.

Yeah.

Because you've got like seven jobs in one, right?

Neil is like ex-army.

I love him to bits and what he is very much I

am weather wise.

He's protection.

Yes.

We will only do what is needed and we will do it

again.

He went out to a grandma and we got their

solution.

And it's it's so expensive.

Yeah.

But from our point of view, we don't want the remedial either.

We'd rather spend the money now and that get a fat piece,

get slaughtered.

Which I really wanted to talk about it.

What that means is we can afford to spend money on better

quality materials and spend more time looking at those jobs and maybe

not making as much profit as we could do or as other

companies do.

But we can't afford to lose reputation.

Yes, our reputation is absolutely.

So yeah, it was quite a journey to get there.

And what one stage we lost that Google profile?

Well, I want to go back to the Google My business thing,

because I feel like that gets slept on by a lot of

businesses.

Because you're so focused on socials, website, your LinkedIn, emails, CRM

and all that kind of thing, I feel like it's one of

those kind of like things that people just forget about, like updating

your actual Google profiles.

The way I see it is, if you had if you were

running a high street shop and you put up blinds.

Yeah.

Turn the lights on.

Yeah.

The one's going to come in.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

That's your shot from Google.

My business profile.

Whether we like it or not.

Google's a king.

Yeah.

So by focusing on that, we were discussing earlier about like people

saying about lead general construction.

Yeah.

I don't focus on.

No I focus on shopfront okay.

What does and does the same.

What does our business look like?

Yes.

And everything.

I mean, you love the kind of brand things our brand is

all about.

No pressure and that and, you know, nice.

Right?

In the vans.

It's a really professional looking set up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For for company maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well three, three lads.

One from Canada.

Yeah.

But he's creative as well, which I find quite interesting.

I mean I remember when we first met through networking and

stuff, you know, I, I think I had a vision in

my head of what your business would look like on social platforms

and stuff.

And then when I came to.

I was just like, oh my God, this, this looks like the

kind of stuff that we'd make.

Yeah.

So it's also on phones which, which I was going to ask

you that question because it's mad changed a little bit.

Okay.

For the most part.

So Jake is the mastermind.

I'm going to take no credit for it whatsoever.

Yeah.

Jake deserves all the credit for what he's done with the brand.

And he went.

I didn't believe him about Instagram.

I was like, TikTok.

Yeah.

On TikTok.

Yeah.

He's like, no Instagram.

And it's understanding your market.

Yes.

So we've got we we obviously we need homeowners and landlords because

they're the people that we can help.

Yeah.

If people don't own the house we can't really do anything about

it.

Yeah.

But Jake was very passionate about this, the brand and the way

he.

So he went up with the camera, the phone with him, and

he shot all these videos.

And next to me, he's like, his videos got 500,000 viewers.

Have you done that?

Yeah.

But what he was saying is, was focusing on just the stuff

that we do every single day that nobody thinks about.

Just video, that, yeah, no one knows how it's done.

And I think people are bombarded with the same stuff all the

time.

They like, you know, like we obviously are on heavily involved with

social media, heavily involved with the construction industry, and we just see

repeats of the same thing.

And we so you get numb to that, you get used to

it.

And then when you see something, you're just like, I have no

idea what these guys are doing, but I find it quite interesting.

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously all of our brand is all

about that honesty, integrity and all those values that come into that.

And then we have the lads on site so people recognize the

lads now, see is everywhere.

We want weather wise to be.

I've got done, they don't think I need.

They were the wisest, synonymous with damp molding, condensation.

Yes.

And that's what it is.

And it's, it's consistency.

Jake is very consistent.

Is up at 6:00, 4:00 in the morning getting those schedules ready,

firing them out.

I'm a bit like you, really.

I'll go on LinkedIn and I'll post a load on LinkedIn

businesses, build your personal brand and stuff like that.

Yeah, Jake has got us into the millions.

That's millions of views.

That's crazy.

And we are trying to do different things now.

So it's gone and we're at that stage now.

We've had this working really well.

Is it going a bit too corporate?

Okay.

Do people switch off with corporation.

Yes, because they might think we're too big for them.

We're currently experimenting with that.

We do a lot of talking stuff.

So because we want to educate people, we want people to know

what's going on than just going in blindly and trusting somebody.

Yeah.

To know that we know what you're talking about.

I went out and, you know, me and Neil went out and

got their qualifications, which is like the PTA is a bit of

a dumping industry like the regulating body.

So we got the difficult qualification.

We got that and we provide that to customers.

Yes.

And all of our surveyors go through level three years of working

towards that.

But we sign off everything.

We look at every job.

Yeah.

Day in, day out.

That's mad.

That's really, really cool in terms of the actual social media growth.

So you got you got big numbers.

You're consistent.

What impact does that have on the business like in terms of

like like it's really hard to put numbers on socials isn't it.

But like if you didn't have socials, what impact would that have

do you think?

The truth is I personally I don't think we know.

Okay.

Yeah.

So focused on people because it's really difficult when someone rings you,

it says where have you seen us?

713 00:24:47,074 --> 00:24:47,954 Searched you online?

Yes.

So is that Google?

Is it social?

Is it, is it Instagram?

The only ones that we really know when we get the

messages?

Sure, yeah.

We've done a work for a few different people now from from

Instagram.

We've got the younger generation vinyl, the houses because they can't afford

new okay.

And it really works from a trust element, especially like if they

see some of the fittest or the installer technicians going to the

job that.

Yeah, or even me, or as a survey or like one of

my surveys.

Brandon Heath, if you've seen my videos.

They've already the customer feels like they already know us before we've

got.

Yeah, it's a strong touchpoint, you know, across like it's one of

those touchpoints across the whole brand of like okay, we got

the you got the website, you've got Google My business and you've

got the socials.

And they might be going to all three of those and more.

But being like the socials is the one.

I feel like I've got connections to these guys now.

And I think people want to know who it is.

They don't want to see a big corporation like a corporate entity.

They want to know who they're dealing with.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in people will only buy from people.

I won't buy from your machine.

And that's online, isn't she?

Probably, yeah.

But I get frustrated when I'm bringing it to one of those

receptionists or a chat bot online.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We want people to know who we are so that when we

get there, it makes it easier for us and it makes it

easier for the customer as well, because they're not dealing with strangers.

Yes, dealing with real people, real jobs, realize that really care about

doing what's right by them.

That's really cool.

What's worked really well for us.

So I mean, the general theme throughout all of this conversation so

far is kind of be everywhere, but be consistent in some respects.

Yeah.

I went to an and he was saying, how do you

do all those LinkedIn post scheduling?

Yeah, I do them in the morning when I'm on the, on

the bike at the gym.

Yeah.

Once I've done my text out to the lives and done some

business stuff, I'll sit there and do just two a day.

When I sat there, I kind of have to consciously remind

myself to not go and do them.

Scroll.

Yes.

And just just go do something that takes two minutes and then

all of a sudden.

But then now I get recognized a lot from LinkedIn.

Yes.

And I'm seeing those messages from all the places coming more and

more now.

And it's been the same for weather wise.

When we consistently do everything, it's little and often we sit there

and go and do a six hour stints.

Yeah, we'll do deep probably does actually does loads of work.

But you know every day we'll just do three images okay.

We'll do one blog post.

We'll do two LinkedIn posts, Jake will do 2 or 3 videos,

which take a lot longer.

Yeah, he is working with but all on his phone and stuff

like, are we talking?

Yeah, we reached out to a guy who's doing some more stuff

for us and he's, he's he's taking some really cool stuff.

Yeah, but we're still deciding what works.

Yes.

Matter glasses.

We got those.

That's interesting POV from installation to survey.

You got in my bag that kind of stuff.

But it's just that consistency.

And sometimes we regurgitate a lot.

Yeah.

So we'll we'll take the same video and we'll flip it around,

cause you can't always get on side to that job.

No, because sometimes we'll have the same job and we'll regurgitate it,

which is fine, because I think a lot, you know, a lot

of people, even even my team, get weird about posting the same

thing twice over a period of time, because they assume that

because they've seen it and because they've seen it loads of times,

because they've gone through iterations, they've changed the copy.

They've changed the creative.

It's been a big thing in the office.

Not everyone's seen it like like even your whole kind of,

you know, audience of X amount of people, like only a

fraction will have seen that.

And if you think about, like, some of the best ads in

the world you've seen for 20 years, 15 years, it's like the

same.

The best campaigns are the ones that like continue on for for

absolutely ages.

So yeah, like the kind of social post that gets

tweaked a little bit like, you know, with within, let's say even

like four weeks.

Fine.

It's absolutely fine.

Just just like repost that, use that, use that.

Because if it was evergreen, if it was good stuff.

Why not.

It's going to be a different person.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and we do get people to say the same thing

in a few times.

That's cool.

Good.

The one thing I would advise people on social media, though, is

don't listen to the social media experts in the comments.

No, no.

Sometimes it helps us when people are being books in these

comments because it gives you wider reach.

Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes you do want to refer back to.

Yeah, well you can't.

We just said we don't really listen to them anymore.

We know what we're doing.

You can't diagnose it from online.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Seeing that full process and you've got the competitors that do it

and other companies and their staff are just nothings or whatever the

construction industry is.

I would say from all the industries that we've worked in, in

terms of social media, is the worst one for nitpicky, bitchy comments

from other tradespeople.

I haven't got time.

No, don't have the time.

We'll just.

If they're idiots.

Yeah, get on with the day.

We haven't got the time.

I don't I don't understand how I don't understand the mindset of

it, because it just seems I'm picturing this kind of other tradesperson

who's currently doing their job or whatever, looking on socials going.

He's done that.

He's done that wrong.

Or in my opinion, he could have done that in six of

the different ways.

But I'm going to I'm going to tell him or her

that that's a shit job, and I would do it this way,

or it would just like the little comments like, like a

eight mil screw, really like that.

Like stupid comments that I'm like, come on, mate, just go and

live your life.

You know, I, I would argue that it's.

So where are you focusing on energy?

Yeah, I would much rather not focus my energy on dealing with

idiots than I would go out and find customers and do a

good job with the customers.

Yeah, let them do it.

Let let let them be in the comments.

Whatever.

Yeah.

And then when someone reaches out and messages with me personally

and says, actually, you know, I've had good conversation with good surveyors

when they said, why are you doing that?

Why don't you do this?

And then we can actually have a good debate about.

Yes.

So actually, you know what?

You might be right.

We could do this or we can change this, or we could

do x, Y and z, or we do this because of that.

And then the person who is asking me to go, yeah, never

thought of it like, I mean, it happens in other industries,

but I just feel like it's so it's so bad in the

construction sector, just like trying to put people down, you know, like

it doesn't benefit you at all.

Yeah.

Like, I just I don't get it.

So we talked about, like, building this brand, building this shopfront.

Google my business.

Don't sleep on that.

It's massive.

I'm so guilty of that.

When we first started dissident, we had an amazing team member called

page, and she set up Google My Business.

And I'm like, why?

She's like, well, this is this is really, really helpful for your

Google search.

And Google search is massive.

And obviously this is organic stuff.

So we're not paying for Google.

My business is part of the this part of the process.

And she would update that regularly.

And I'm like, oh like like whenever you search for, you know,

let's say just dissident like it looks really good.

It used to just be like a link and now it's got

pictures and stuff like that.

And real early days I was like, oh my God, I kind

of, I didn't even know this existed because I went straight to

the obvious ones Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Ads, SEO website.

And then there's like Google my business, kind of like middle ground

of just like this.

This is, you know, if you don't show if you don't sort

of fix that and set that up properly, you don't appear

well on Google.

Yeah.

Aren't as much as I would love it because we would have

them enough.

Aren't going on to Google and searching for weatherwise.

No, they're searching for I've got this problem.

Yes.

And your Google Posts blog post.

All those countries are ways of showing.

Yeah.

So when all I want is near me and this is where

everything comes into it, by being consistent everywhere we appear.

So if someone's searching for dance specialist in Liverpool, we know we're

going to be somewhere there and I've got a chance.

And then when they click on our website and then go to

our social media profile, they see what we're about.

It just continues there for further forward.

And to be clear, the consistent stuff that you guys are doing

for the most part unpaid like is in like that, like if

you're showing up on Instagram, you're showing up on Google My Business,

but you're not paying for that, right?

That's all.

Just your time apart from SEO that we pay.

Yeah, I know most of it.

Yeah.

Like local services UK.

Oh okay.

That's interesting, which is good.

But no, no but organic.

A lot of the stuff that you've learned though, like through

through building the business, Google ads is obviously big.

You have to pay for that.

955 00:33:52,058 --> 00:33:53,818 You you got to pay for the website.

But but there's a lot of stuff that you can do that

only requires time and consistency.

Consistency.

Yeah.

And you can just keep doing that and keep building on it.

If I could give any advice to a business owner that's that

they're thinking about it.

Don't just go and switch on your Google business profile, but I

can think about your company and what you stand for and the

values of that.

You think about your customer, think about what they want.

So our whole brand is built around no pressure and trust.

Yes.

So everything we talk about, the way Jake sets up the Instagram

profile and he's very particular in the way he does a

video about X many of us list and have a review post,

and it's very consistent all the way through.

Yes.

Not scrambling.

It's not messy.

That gives us the professional.

But you go what you've done.

Yeah I mean it was it was it was mad.

But like the, you know, the social profile, if you go

over to where the solutions, it looks like you've got a content

team behind you.

But it's just Jake with his phone now we've got cow.

Okay, got to mention him, but mainly Jake.

Okay.

You know, Jake was the mastermind behind all the fans.

He had a look for you.

Don't just go.

Go on.

Go.

You just sit down and think of what you want it to

look like.

Yes, I got lucky in the sense that I've got Jake that

can do that.

You know, that's his bread and butter and he knows

that.

So that's what he did.

And, you know, we're brothers.

We argue that kind of, you know, you shout at one another

and then we make up and then we go through the driving

range together.

Yeah.

And he beats me.

Drive it through happy days.

Yeah.

But yeah.

So, you know, having having that thought process before you just jump

feet first in that's that that's what I would advise.

And then you can do all those things.

I think it's just time.

Yeah.

But I can guarantee everybody that listens to this doom Scrolls.

Yes.

And you have to consciously stop yourself and go, I'm going to

do this.

Use that time effectively.

I can sit on a I go the gym in the morning,

I get up because I'm a weirdo and I go to the

gym and I'll sit on the bike for 25 minutes.

That's my time to do that rather than sit there doom scrolling.

Yeah,

sometimes I'll be on the bike for half an hour, and I've

sat there and I've got capped off loads of stuff.

Yeah, I do need a break from work, but you know, I'm

also one of those folks that when people start on the weight

machines on the phone, and I think it's quite cathartic as well

to create personal brand posts, I think.

I think it's nice to get your thoughts and opinions out.

One rule I do you have for my LinkedIn personal coaches?

No, no way I.

Okay.

All written.

Yes.

I will not use AI to write my post.

Yeah, because I just don't think it's authentic.

I found that, you know, in my time using

LinkedIn in general, there's like a few things that I don't

know because the algorithm gods don't like.

Update me on kind of what's going on on social media.

I can and I can only take information from other places like

us who maybe are guessing as well.

So I've always had that thing of like, I don't think we'll

ever really, really know.

But we can lean in towards like specific bits of advice.

But AI, LinkedIn doesn't like scheduling, it doesn't like as much

as organic.

And I've always found that if a thought pops into my head

at that time, that's the best place.

That's the best time to put it down.

When I've tried to force personal brand posts on LinkedIn,

I'm going to set myself an hour or two hours at the

start of the week, and I'm going to schedule all of my

posts.

I feel like I end up sort of like just reaching for

stuff that's not that relevant.

Whereas like if a thought pops into my head, I'll put

a post out on it and it always does way better.

And because because it's like raw and I'm excited about it and

it might not even make that much sense because I'm so excited.

I'm like, okay, this is a thought and a feeling.

Do.

A quick video was if I go, here's the things that I

learned as a creative director over the last six months.

And I'm like, no one gives a shit, you know what I

mean?

Like, then you got there.

This is the test.

Most people fail.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

I try and just do like little and often.

So like yesterday we were out with Jack for the day.

So when I got home I was like, oh that was

wicked.

And about that and I'll just put that in my schedule

rather so because it's kind of putting this potion on the weekends.

Yeah.

So I try and do use those ideas and then schedule it

in then as opposed to just writing.

I'm still writing while I'm thinking about it.

Yes, but I do.

I give myself that time to do it.

And I look at my camera roll sometimes.

No.

Oh my God, like when I'm on site.

And I got really excited about them or for, for and through.

I'll do a video myself and I post that of like, this

is the damage it can do because that's not passionate about.

And I think what's really interesting for the audience when it

comes to personal brand on LinkedIn, I'm a LinkedIn nerd.

LinkedIn is my favorite profile.

I know a lot of people hate LinkedIn as a platform.

It's my favorite.

Instagram's great because it's because it's creative and expressive, and that's great

for brands and stuff like that.

From a personal brand perspective, especially if you're like a B2B type

business, like I was, LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is great because you can make a difference because it's so

corporate on there.

Like people like us can really make a difference to people's feeds.

But the, the, the thing I love about it is it

can be raw.

It's okay to post a phone video.

I've always been a bit weird about, well, in the same

breath that you guys have a very consistent brand and visual identity,

you know, everything's kind of going out looking similar, feeling similar,

sounding similar, all at a high level.

So I've always had this thing of if it's on a phone,

it's not a good representation of the brand for me for,

for as a production company especially, but for, for me

personally, that's fine.

It's great if it looks, if I, if I can get one

of my team to go and film a little bit of content

for me, but I can grab one of these cameras and

twist it sideways and press record, or I can just grab my

phone and then just post it straight away.

I'd rather do the phone from the videos.

Yeah, just from LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And I'm like, it'll be.

I think it was a loft one day and I just

took a video because I wanted on a really like this is.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

The next minute I went to a network and someone just walked

over the other day, just started a conversation, and then we ended

up getting some work.

I love that.

Well, I need we need to preface grafters because I most probably,

probably won't even know exactly what grafters is.

But grafters is a networking, kind of event that happens throughout

the UK.

This specifically focuses on people in the construction sector.

So a lot of people heard have heard of other networking events

that are like generalist things.

Once a week you turn up, you have your breakfast, you do

this kind of thing.

Similar ish format, I would say, but a little bit more relaxed.

And you can only have a seat in there if you're in

the construction industry.

Just about got into grafters as a creative agency for the construction

industry.

And and that's how we met initially.

1145 00:40:58,445 --> 00:41:01,965 I'm desperate to get the guys from grafters in because I think,

I think a lot of, small business owners and service providers

and construction and sleep on networking.

Yeah, definitely.

Grafters has been really good for us.

It's we're very niche.

So I'm very lucky there's not really anybody else does.

What we do takes us.

So we've been able to visit quite a few.

And it's not just been it never comes overnight.

Takes a while.

You've heard that reputation.

Oh yeah.

Make those connections.

Speak to those people.

Have a laugh.

Yeah.

Play better golf.

I was a bit of fun.

So, yes, you win the work.

We've had a few jobs out of it now, and we've got

a good reputation in there.

But it's also what other people can do for you.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's interesting.

Yeah.

I was like.

1174 00:41:48,964 --> 00:41:49,803 And he sought him out.

Yeah.

He saved his fortune.

That's really.

Yeah.

It's not only is it a great marketing tool going to these

networking events and stuff, if you have the time and things

like that.

You know, if you're a one man band, it's like, like really,

really struggling.

It's quite difficult to sort of think about that hour and a

half, two hours out of your day on a particular week.

1187 00:42:11,443 --> 00:42:15,723 But I I've seen, I've seen the benefits of it from,

especially from a, from a trade point of view.

It's definitely worth looking into.

And I think, you know, it's really you see businesses in there

that are turning over like 5 million.

The guy, the guy that's in there is like the owner of

that business.

And I used to go to like BNI and they'd be a

guy named like, why the hell are you still here?

Like, surely this is not that worth.

If you like, you've you surpassed the threshold of what B and

I can do for your business.

Like you're turning over serious money.

Your clients are huge.

Be still and still going.

And I'm like, there must be a reason.

Well, it's it's the get back to people buy from people

they know your friends with you and you know where where where

the big contacts.

1207 00:42:59,081 --> 00:42:59,841 It's not what you know.

It's you know, sometimes and they know what you're going to do.

And I think the thing I like about grafters is everybody in

that industry in sorry, in the network is very particular about protecting

their reputations.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, if you're going to get referral, they're going to care

because we've all been stung by subs in the past or like

bad referrals.

Yeah, that one bad job where you didn't take off and you're

messing with your hands.

Yeah.

In the network now.

Yeah.

It travels fast, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't be without it.

That's cool.

I'm going to try and get you the graph of those guys

in.

It's a, it's a topic for another conversation.

But networking and for me like when I started networking real early

days of like freelancing like 22 year old, that that generated

quite a lot of business for me.

If I was clever, I would still go to stuff like that.

And if, if I, if I wasn't like, I like, I just

get bored really quickly.

So I'll do a thing, get really excited about it and then

drop it like mega ADHD.

I'm on to the next thing.

And so like I'll do these things doing really well.

But there was the one time that I stayed really consistent with

networking.

It did generate a lot of revenue, but also, that revenue,

like even when I quit the networking thing, I was still

getting referrals from ages ago and like one of those referrals was

like 20 grand, you know, like, and it was like from this

guy who I never thought would be a good referral partner,

just put me in touch with somebody else.

It's absolutely mega.

But in terms of like getting where it's a really good segue

into that.

We talked about the shop front build that shop for if you

could choose one or the other leads or shopfront, you would build

the shop front first.

Yes.

So if somebody says to me they can get me a logo

lead, but in terms of in terms of actually bringing the work

in, you know, like third parties, not, not not the stuff that

you guys are doing to bring the work in.

But the third parties, things like Checkatrade and stuff like that.

Can you talk us through those?

Like what?

Like what kind of things are you on?

What's working, what's not like?

How have you optimized like give us an overview of like what

that looks like for in terms of work business coming in.

So basically this is coming in.

There's one master at that.

If, if that sort of thing is in, that's okay.

Without question.

Everyone knows it.

Like everyone should be on it, right?

Yeah.

We're very lucky.

So I probably not from from LinkedIn.

And we were just chatting.

We joined the platform and dev said how

you feel about being on a strategic appearance?

And I was like, yeah, what's that?

Basically just means that you've got an account manager.

So we, I was like, yeah you got that because I'm a

bit like yeah we'll give it a go.

Yeah.

Especially because you already trust you already on there anyway.

Are you trust the brand right.

Yeah.

So you know we we don't really get a lot from anywhere

else from the other platforms if I'm honest.

We don't.

We're on there for visibility more than anything.

Yeah, but of SEO or whatever.

Yeah.

Check or trade is being phenomenal.

Okay.

And I am going to give her a plug because she is

ridiculously good.

But Vicky, our account manager.

Okay, so Jambu, if you are watching, you're not.

We're not losing her.

She's staying.

But Vicky is has been awesome, okay?

She's gone above and beyond for us.

She looks at our profile all the time.

Why don't you try this like this?

Can we try this?

We went out in golf with her actually, yesterday.

But having making that step into that platform.

And then because we we're lucky in the sense that we've got

the time to do it.

Okay.

Well, Vicky takes a lot of that time away from us in

terms of not sucking the time actually actually work for it and

makes that time.

I don't think I understand the platform that well.

Would you have to do on Checkatrade so we don't have to

do a lot.

Okay.

We so we at first our profile admittedly wasn't very good.

Okay.

So then when talking about shops on Probably Guilty, they're just

banging on and just well you can't optimize every platform that you're

on right.

Like to the EMF degree you have to pick what's important.

Yeah I'm going to do that.

So our check platform has like a nice picture of all as

it's branded.

It's got then we've got three different subcategories five different categories now.

And I will upload every day.

Those images are not going to do but I replicate them with

the file name of trade and trade.

That amazing.

It takes me two minutes.

Not a big job.

I'm just consistent.

Yeah.

So then when we're on the platform, we get chats, we

get leads, we get inquiries, you know, and Jake Brands then comes

into Checkatrade because people can often change from a website and that

will also generate as leads.

1339 00:47:54,913 --> 00:47:59,153 But to be honest, it is people down there.

Since we went to strategic accounts and we did the initial sign

up and that was just pay and you'll get these things.

And then when Dave gave us that introduction and then, then

we saw that actually yeah, this was well, but it worked well

because of what we also do with it and what they do

for us.

So he takes all that time away from you'll go, yeah, we're

not doing this anymore.

You're going to do this right?

Vicky, I trust you.

I just want to see the results.

So she's like the Vicky's like your, like, marketer within Checkatrade.

In some respects, it's almost like having somebody works there for you.

Okay, you're doing this.

And then she will go and do that for us.

She is very good.

I mean, all the people there.

So, so Hale and all the people there that was met

have just been really nice people and go and see the others.

But we really want to gel with them.

And because they see what we do and we can't reputations everything,

it kind of reciprocates back.

Yes.

So we go down there.

We've done a few times now to the main office and we

sit and talk with them.

We're working on a few other exciting projects which I'm not allowed

to talk about.

Okay, so we're working on some really exciting stuff with the

guys down there, but I think they just do the value that

we bring and they reciprocate that back.

What, like I say, is when you get the good people like

that, you want to hold on to them and work with them.

Yes.

And they really do spend a lot of time looking at our

profiles.

You can do that.

But we'll take that time away from you and we'll do that

instead.

So it means that I can just focus on running the business

with JP.

Yes, because I'm not being sucked into doing all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

And you just you do minimal effort, consistent work on there.

What was the service called that you mentioned with with Vicky this

strategic strategic account.

So like like I assume that's like an extra paid kind of

thing and stuff like you've just grown anyway.

Yes.

When we moved over, we put the budget and it grew anyway.

I don't actually know if it anymore.

Oh, really?

We're on what's called pay as you go.

Okay.

So we get we we get leads come in and we services.

We obviously like Vicky will say you need to be

doing this, this and this.

We don't get many complaints.

You know we do that.

Look at what we do.

But if we do have any problems she's on our you know,

she is obviously that's about what's happened.

She'll go and fight the corner or she'll say, no, you shouldn't

have gone out.

But now I don't think so.

So you've had a massive that's that's made a novice improvement

in, business leads or whatever.

Since you went to what is the strategic strategic accounts like?

So would you say that's if you could recommend that to, to

other business owners, like owners and business service providers, like would that

be across the board?

Everybody should have this or that.

You got to get to get to a certain point to get

to that.

I would, I suppose it depends on what you would say, whether

they can.

It's not for me to comment.

I wouldn't be without it.

Okay.

Yeah.

So there's a high it's a highly recommend on that one.

Whether it will work for one man band plumber I don't know.

Okay.

I think so, yeah.

But you've got to be on the platform.

You've got to be speaking to those people.

You've got to make that decision.

Yes.

You know.

So Vicky, or come to me and she got that.

I can do this.

And why don't you do this?

So I have a good hour with the other day, but she'll

come to me prepped, which is a breath of fresh air.

Yeah.

She's done all that groundwork and goes.

Right.

These your options?

You can either pick nothing or you can pick option one, 2

or 3.

Which one do you want?

Brilliant.

And picks up wicked.

Okay.

Brand new for me.

Like I've never discussed Checkatrade as a as a marketing tool, but

okay, you need it.

And we we love them.

We love working with them.

And I would recommend you know well any construction trade if

you especially in the domestic market is no brainer.

Yeah.

Because you've got a bit highly domestic isn't it.

The work that you guys do.

So that's massive.

You went from did you start local like as a business where

like was all of the work, let's say in the first six

months we were you focusing on like local business or did you

instantly go, no, let's go everywhere.

We don't go everywhere.

We go to where we know.

Okay.

So we focused on and this is about understanding the niche of

your brand.

So we know the bricks that we work with because all the

houses were built at the same time in that area.

We know the weather conditions.

You know what they were made from.

You go to different areas.

You might have sandstone, you might have different types of building construction,

building pathology.

So we take a holistic approach at every building.

Well, so we we literally went into what areas do we know

we can make a difference on it?

And not too much risk because we don't know what we're doing

as such.

That's interesting.

So we look at the housing stock and we know that brick.

Yeah, we know these mortars.

We know this type of build.

We know what the characters are going to be like, what the

building and I will I'll plug in.

The best bit of advice I got as well was from the

PCA when I was down there, and it was part of

the training there, and they said to the trainer, Steve said to

me, the the best bit of a battle is a building is

only as good as the last person that worked on it.

Okay, so from a company we take that housing stock with that

mindset, right?

Let's go look and take it apart.

But we also like to put the average when we know the

people in our.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

So the North basically the north I can't say you'll get the

shot but the so

this is new for me, I don't even think it's relevant to

marketing.

This is more a business question, but I guess I'm thinking

like the the you guys know what, you guys can predict

what's going to be happening based on an area because, you know,

roughly the brick type and the types of builds, they are based

on geographical location.

That's how it's how detailed you guys are from a marketing

point of view.

You want to work a business, go into that detail because you

make your life easier.

Absolutely.

No.

I'm just fascinated with that thing of just like you, you can

predict if a house was built an amount years.

You know, those those houses there, they were there were built over

here with this brick, with this kind of cavity.

We we can we can predict kind of what's going to happen

and we kind of know what we're turning up to.

I did not know that was the thing.

That's mental.

Yeah.

So it's from a business point of view, the best thing we

can do is stand outside and look.

Yeah, you can see loads.

We're looking for patterns.

We're looking for this.

But the understanding the construction site Adam Neil Marsden associates who

pivotal for me in my surveying career.

You know, as much as we learn on the job, I kind

of reached out to him and he was nice enough to get

him out a few things.

So show me some extra things.

And he, you know, then when we get that experience, obviously I

got my dad, which I'm working with.

Yes.

For so long in, in these areas.

Yeah.

We we went this is the profile of building we want to

work with.

And we know what's going to happen because this is the year

it was built.

So we know it was constructed to this level with these materials.

So the chances are likely that this is going to be the

issue.

That's mad.

So we can go out to a lot of buildings now and

go, well, without assuming that if it's still the same, because we

want to return buildings to what they were, because they were built

in the same way.

Yes, everything's changed since windows we've had homes have been sealed for

for the emission regulation.

They forgot that we're more space creatures.

So we've got these mold issues in.

So we've got to think about how we get that building to

operate as it was built.

Yeah.

As opposed to working because we want it to work with

look at loads of different things like that.

But we're going into all right, I will have to talk about

this off air because that's crazy.

And there'll be there might be some like carpenters just switching off.

But I'm fascinated by stuff.

But but so there are certain areas that you target because you

prefer to work in those areas.

Right.

How do you how do you target those.

Like how do you get the work from those specific things?

Like what strategies have you put in place or what?

Okay.

So obviously Google we will do we will do posts based in

Warrington.

So we will do like a plan that says X, Y and

z.

We'll have postcode targeting.

Check JS trust a trader.

And in our Google business profile it says we work in the

area.

Okay.

Amazing.

You just advertising.

We work in these very specific areas.