Category: Chairman’s Blog

I often talk about how technology can help supercharge growth for businesses of all sizes. Once you find the right software or platform for you, the results can be dramatic.

Two years ago, plumber Luke Taylor was working for an insurance firm. He had been at the company six years and had itchy feet. “I had always wanted to run my own company,” he tells me. “I decided it was time to have a go.”

He and a colleague took the plunge and fitted their first bathroom as independent tradespeople in February 2020. “Perfect timing,” he jokes. The pandemic soon struck, leaving Luke and his partner high and dry. Later that year, his partner moved away, so Luke decided to start his own company, Leeds-based Cloud Plumbing & Heating.

Anyone in the trades knows that it can be hard to get going as a new company. You have no track record, no word-of-mouth recommendations, and no money to invest in marketing. Luke’s solution was to use Rated People, the trades platform, to drum up new business and make a name for himself.

“You sign up and pay a small monthly subscription and then you pay per lead,” he explains. “We were winning 70% of all the bathrooms we pitched for, and in that first year we landed around £100,000-worth of work.”

Of course, a platform like RatedPeople.com can only help accelerate growth if you do a great job. “We have 38 reviews on RatedPeople.com – and all are five stars,” Luke says. “That’s been a major factor in our success.” Customers soon started recommending Cloud Plumbing to their friends, and the business began receiving lots of inbound enquiries.

“I was really fortunate that there was a massive trades boom last year,” he says. “People couldn’t go on holiday, so they had some money to spare. And they were spending a lot more time at home, which made them want to invest in new kitchen and bathrooms.”

I met Luke after he did some work for my father-in-law. The quality of the craftsmanship was second to none, so I asked to meet him, and we got chatting. To help expedite growth further, Luke decided to use BigChange to automate his processes.

“I was spending at least two hours per job on creating invoices, attaching them to emails, and chasing payments manually. It was so inefficient,” Luke says. “I was creating each document in Microsoft Word!”

Luke’s business is going from strength to strength. “In October 2020, when I started the company, there were just two of us, working out of a van I borrowed from my dad. And now we are a team of six with three vans between us,” he explains. “We started using BigChange in January, which has been a game changer for us, helping to streamline our operations. I used to spend hours on paperwork and now it’s all automated, which leaves me free to focus on growing the business.”

Luke has recommended BigChange to other companies in his network, and has brought his subcontractors onto the platform. “We use one plumber for our maintenance work. We used to send details of jobs over via Whatsapp and we’d go back and forth. We got him a BigChange licence and he’s loving it!”

These two technology platforms have helped to revolutionise this start-up, and allow Luke to grow faster than he ever anticipated. “I’m aiming to get to 10 people and 10 vans,” he says. “We’ll get there pretty soon and BigChange will be integral to that growth.” 

It’s not just the founder or founders of a business who determine its fortunes. The people who join along the way, believe in the vision, and add their own sparkle to the strategy, are just as vital to its growth and prosperity.

This is why I believe it is so important to hire for attitude, promote from within, and give people the opportunity to bring their best selves to work.

When I met Peter Holmwood nearly five years ago and heard the story of how he had risen through SES Home Services, starting on the tools, to become customer service director 15 years later, I was reminded of this phenomenon: the people who join our ventures can be transformative.

I’d like to tell you a bit about Peter, his extraordinary impact at SES, and the power of the intrapreneur.

SES Home Services is a home emergency insurance provider, part of the water utility SES Water, which serves parts of Surrey, Sussex, Kent and southeast London. 

Peter joined the business straight out of school, having completed his A-levels.

“The plan was to go to university and study construction management,” he says. “But I decided to take a gap year and to join SES, which would give me a strong foundation in a trade, and a deeper understanding of buildings, plumbing and heating systems.”

Just three months into his new role, Peter decided that university wasn’t for him after all.

“I signed up for a plumbing apprenticeship instead and, in 2003, started my three-year course to become a qualified heating engineer.”

Once Peter attained his qualification, he spent five years on the tools, installing and replacing boilers.

But when he tore his cruciate ligament, he had to think carefully about his future.

“It was a bad knee injury,” he says. “When I came back to work, I was put on light duties and started surveying properties instead, giving customers estimates for new boilers or upgrades. That was how I began to migrate away from the tools.”

It wasn’t an easy transition. “I was in my twenties and worried that customers would struggle to look past my age and see me as a capable engineer,” he recalls. This only hardened his resolve to provide an excellent service. He quickly found that if you showed customers that you had heard their concerns, and recommended the right solutions for their property, you won their respect.

“I never worried about trying to hit targets or make more money on a sale, I stayed completely focused on how we could help them. If another company had a better solution, I would be honest about it. That’s how you build trust.”

Peter Holmwood, SES Customer Services Director

This approach saw Peter rise swiftly through the ranks of the business, and soon he found himself managing a team. Today, he oversees 75 people.  

As all leaders know, it’s easy to be a manager but it’s really difficult to be a great manager.

“As an engineer, you could see the impact of your work every day – when you left a family warm in a home that had no heating before you arrived, for example,” he says.

“In a management role, it’s very different. Successes build gradually over time. You have to talk to your team, find out people’s struggles, and work out how to support them. It’s a much longer game but I now find it extremely rewarding.”

Peter has been an absolute champion of innovation within SES. He introduced the company to the BigChange platform four years ago, migrating away from paper-based processes and an archaic PDA system.

“BigChange has revolutionised the business,” he says. “We love that we can benefit from the learnings drawn from multiple industries through the platform and that BigChange never stops developing and improving the system.

“We have improved our first-time fix rates so that we now beat the industry average. We have also improved our planning processes using the insights the platform collects around travel times and job durations. We are always looking for ways to drive efficiency and JobWatch data is vital in achieving that.”

Peter isn’t done yet. He’s already helped SES diversify into different customer types and sectors, and he is now helping the company enter the renewables space.

“We hope to save customers a lot of money with new energy-efficient solutions,” he explains. “Prices are rising steeply right now, and we want to help our customers afford the future.” 

Peter’s meteoric rise through the business means that he is extremely keen to support and promote his colleagues throughout the business. “I feel that I have paved the way for others to progress,” he says. “My time on the tools was vital as it helped me relate to different types of people and understand every single part of the business.”

As for the degree in construction, Peter has no regrets. “There is so much I want to achieve here. The way I see it, I’ve been on the longest gap year of all time.”

The recent train strikes are causing absolute chaos across the UK. I believe it’s time to radically rethink the role of unions – and to accept that striking has had its day.

The three-day strike, which will have caused six days of disruption across the UK, saw tens of thousands of Network Rail staff down tools. Only half of Britain’s rail network is operational, running a skeleton service. The dispute centred over pay and redundancy packages – Network Rail wants to cut between 1,500 and 2,000 frontline jobs.

I hate to state the obvious, but Network Rail is still reeling from the pandemic when almost nobody used its services and passenger numbers plummeted. It only survived because of enormous government handouts, which were required to keep the freight trains running, carrying food and medication across the UK.

The Covid-19 crisis took the whole world by surprise – no one could have planned for it. Look at the international travel sector, which lost $6 trillion over two years. The businesses that were affected by the pandemic can’t just continue with “business as usual”.

There have to be cuts and consequences. Passenger numbers remain muted and are likely to remain so in this new world of “hybrid working”. No amount of striking can change the facts: for the organisation to survive, it has to evolve.

Unions must change

It is time for the role of unions, therefore, to change. So often, strikes achieve nothing – they simply disrupt services for the blameless public.

More effort should be made by the unions to foster a meaningful dialogue between staff and company bosses.

Strikes have begun to feel like a kneejerk reaction when demands aren’t met, even when the organisation is unable to meet those demands.

Yes, inflation is rising, and times are hard, but they are hard for many people across the country; the average salary at Network Rail stands at £45,000, compared to an average UK salary of just £26,000.

Network Rail’s CEO, Andrew Haines, makes £585,000 a year, which is a sticking point for many of the workers. I understand why this is a hard number to see when you’re fighting for a better redundancy package. But this is the nature of business: the top executives earn more because they are responsible for the strategy and direction of the business.

At BigChange, the strike made a significant impact. Most notably on our summer soiree, which we spent months planning and was to bring together everyone from across the business for the celebrations. People struggled to get to the party. It might sound trivial to some, but it was heart-breaking.

Boosting employee engagement is essential

I believe that unions are a relic from the past. They should be replaced with an employee engagement committee, which is in regular dialogue with the senior leadership team.

If this kind of system were in place at Network Rail, there would be no call for strikes because communication would be ongoing – there would be no surprises – and every single person in the organisation would have a voice.

This is not some utopian ideal. It’s a system we already have in place at BigChange. We call it the Big Voice. I set up the department a few years ago, and Joshua Levin took the helm a little over a year ago, and now chairs the committee.

The aim of the Big Voice is simple: to drive positive change across the business. At least one representative from each team meets the Big Voice committee twice a month via Teams. Everyone in the team knows to pass on ideas or concerns to their rep, and then these are all communicated at the first meeting of the month.

At the second monthly meeting, the proposed changes or ideas are put to the CEO Richard Warley and COO Jo Godsmark, and we have found this model works brilliantly.

Last year, we did a massive rethink of our benefits package as a result of a Big Voice proposal, improving sick pay, parental leave, and more.

The final package is one that both benefits all our colleagues and allows the business to continue growing: win/win.

I fear that if a union had been involved, we would never have reached such a sensible consensus.

Employers respect their workers

In this day and age, most employers respect their workers. Most organisations have an HR People team and there are opportunities to sit down with managers to discuss grievances or new ways of working.

We’ve come a long way from the days when people were sent down the mine by autocratic leaders who ignored health and safety concerns.

The world of work has also changed dramatically over the last 50 years. The “job for life” is dead, and people now move companies every five years, on average. Companies that do not listen to their staff will ultimately lose their top talent.

It’s time to bring unions into the modern era, and update the way that they engage with organisations because the system clearly isn’t working in its current form.

Throughout history, the best bosses have always led from the front. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to wage war with Pompey, the ensuing civil war culminated in the bitter Battle of Pharsalus in 48BC.

Caesar was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred – his forces were being defeated. It was only by grabbing a shield and marching to the front of the line that he galvanised his legions to resist Pompey’s forces. They turned the tide and ended the four-year struggle with a decisive triumph.

In 2022, most modern bosses are no longer found on the battlefield but in the boardroom – but the lessons from ancient times are as valuable today as they have ever been.

Sitting out in the open

You need to have a rapport with your team, and you need to spend time in the mix with your colleagues to stay close to the inner workings of your business. This is why I am such a fan of an open-plan workspace, where leaders sit beside colleagues not in their own offices.

Mike Bloomberg, the serial entrepreneur and United Nations special envoy, recently posted on LinkedIn about his commitment to sitting “out in the open”. 

He said: “In sports, the coach is on the field with the players, giving directions, drawing on whiteboards, huddling during timeouts, motivating and inspiring — and encouraging someone who made a mistake. The same should be true in business.”

The first CEO I saw working in an open-plan office was Archie Norman, back when he was CEO of Asda. I was there to pitch my speciality bread business and it was just extraordinary to me that his desk was in the centre of this massive office floor, and all his papers and books were there on his desk. That was in the early nineties – he was a true pioneer.

When I started BigChange, I knew I wanted to be on the “shop floor” too.

At Masternaut, my previous business, I had my own office. It was a glass office to make me more approachable, but it didn’t go far enough – it still walled me off from the team.

The legendary football manager Kevin Keegan OBE once told me that great managers put their arms around people, metaphorically speaking. You have to be human; you have to be in the detail. You can’t do that from behind glass.

Benefits of being close to the sales team

When I started BigChange, I sat with my colleagues in sales and marketing. I wanted to be next to the marketing and salespeople because that is one of my core strengths – a place where I can add value.

Sometimes, I would overhear someone talking about a prospect, and realise I knew that person from the past and could help make an introduction.

I may have bad hearing, but I always seemed to pick up on snatches of conversation where I could be helpful! Or a colleague would ask advice about how to target a particular sector, and I would make suggestions.

One of the real benefits of sitting with sales – with the “cash register” as I used to call it – was that I could hear where sticking points were in our processes. If something was taking longer than it should, I would be able to step in. 

These insights were invaluable when building the business, and I believe that every leader would benefit from similar exposure to the day-to-day triumphs and challenges faced by team members on the front line.

The fact that my team would hear me on the phone, and be privy to my daily pressures, also helped foster a culture of transparency. If I needed to make a confidential call, I could use a meeting room, but in general, I preferred to be open about my role and the inner workings of the business.

The world of business has changed dramatically over the last decade. Old-fashioned ideas about organisational hierarchy and leaders who rule with an iron fist have gone out the window.

It’s been a great pleasure to see these changes sweep through the workplace. Teams must come together to be truly effective and great leaders foster collaboration and conversation.

It is heartening to see leadership ideals come full circle.

We are heeding the great lessons from the past – those prized by the most admirable of Roman emperors – even after two millennia. 

In my experience, when entrepreneurs become successful, they begin to think about how they can give back. They start thinking about the impact they can make on society, on the next generation of entrepreneurs, and their local communities.

For many years, my purpose in life has been twofold: to build meaningful businesses and to do all I can to have a positive impact on the world around me.

Luckily, there are many channels out there for entrepreneurs seeking to do good: you can channel a percentage of profits to worthy causes, make personal donations, and even become a start-up investor to encourage the next wave of entrepreneurs.

But, today, I’d like to talk to you about another route to impact. 

The importance of time

Sometimes, as a business builder, your time is worth more than money. Your experience, insight, your contacts, your knack for seeing solutions to complex issues – that is a currency that has the potential to accelerate the growth of an organisation far quicker than cold, hard cash.

This is why I have started giving my time away to businesses that I really believe in – for free.

I recently joined MoreLife, a company that supports people to live healthier lives, as a strategic adviser and board observer. 

MoreLife takes a holistic approach to help its customers, through weight management, giving up smoking, healthy cooking and more.

It’s a cause that is close to my heart, both as someone who has constantly battled with my own weight over the years, and through concern for my son Joseph, whose learning difficulties mean that he struggles to make healthy decisions.

I met the founder, Professor Paul Gately, many years ago and wanted to get involved – but could never find the time.

After moving into my chairman role at BigChange, we started talking about how I could help him with growth, sales and marketing, and I’m delighted that I’m now actively creating strategies and plans with Paul to help achieve all his goals.

Proud to be supporting a passionate business

When you invest your time, as an entrepreneur, it is so important to be passionate about the business that you are supporting. I couldn’t be more impressed by all that MoreLife has achieved to date.

They helped 5,500 people in Manchester alone last year, and many of the individuals they serve come from deprived areas.

It may sound strange but when you tackle physical health, the impact on mental health can be significant, but MoreLife also believe if you tackle mental health, physical health returns too, with results such as helping long-term unemployed people get back into work and giving them the confidence to pursue their dreams in life.

I’m particularly moved by MoreLife’s successes in childhood obesity, giving kids the tools to stay healthy their whole life long. You can read some of the stories on their case study page.

My focus as an adviser at MoreLife

Right now, my focus at MoreLife is on a few key areas: helping to set up an incubator within MoreLife to champion the company’s technology projects and grow the whole proposition; helping them do more with their data, and creating a sales function (they still don’t have a single salesman in the business).

Eventually, I would like to help MoreLife roll out a series of kitchens where people can come and learn how to make healthier meals.

For any business leaders out there who are considering supporting a business in this way, I thought I’d share my learnings so far.

Be prepared for your time investment to be front-loaded. It may take quite a few meetings to get under the skin of the business in the early days and to start creating momentum, but once things are up and running, you can usually drop your time commitment to a couple of days a month – most of us can afford to spare that.

If you give your time for free and don’t invest in the business, it’s easier to give your advice without being seen to have an agenda, which helps maximise your impact.

Finally, know your strengths and limit your advice to the areas where the business needs support – MoreLife has an outstanding team and I would never interfere with the services they provide or presume to understand their customers better than they do.

There are so many benefits to giving your time to exciting businesses. Thinking about different problems and issues is invigorating, and you learn so much – you can sometimes apply these insights to your own venture. But the main thing, for me, is that when you start making a difference, it just feels amazing.

So, don’t delay, lend your entrepreneurial nous to a great business that wants your support – you won’t regret it. 

I’d like to tell you a bit about why I believe the Queen is a true inspiration to all entrepreneurs.

I am a royalist through and through. I know that not everyone feels the same way, so this is a fair warning in case you want to click away now.

It all started when I was six years old. I was in Aberdeen with my parents, who were working up there, and the Queen’s yacht, the Britannia, sailed into the harbour. She stepped off the gangway and I caught my first glimpse of her. That was back in 1968.

Over the years, I have followed her exploits – both as a supporter of entrepreneurs and as an entrepreneur in her own right.

Whether it’s through the Royal Warrant – a mark of Royal approval given to small artisan brands and major corporations like Kellogg’s – or through her Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, which recognise the companies that are changing industries and driving value for the UK economy, the Queen’s support for entrepreneurial endeavour is clear.

The Queen brings value to the UK economy

The value that she brings to the nation in terms of tourism – estimated at more than £500m a year – and as an ambassador for British brands is extraordinary.

Many people underestimate her business acumen, but the Queen runs a multi-billion pound business, which is made up of property, trusts, leisure attractions and farms. It is estimated that her property assets alone are worth around £13bn – these include Regent Street and Ascot.

You could argue that it’s easy to make money from inherited wealth but her estates at Sandringham and Balmoral are profitable enterprises in their own right.

The Queen has chosen to grow organic produce, such as wheat and oats, rent out cottages to visitors, run tea rooms, open farm shops, and even licenses the rights to the artwork and photography in the royal collection.

I would like to add that while the Queen isn’t required to pay tax on her earnings, she voluntarily pays both income tax and capital gains – as does Prince Charles.

The Queen is an asset to the UK’s business community

I’ve been lucky enough to meet the Queen on a couple of occasions. Back when I ran a bread business, I won the contract to deliver to the newly-opened Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds.

At the launch event, I pushed my son Ben to the back of a line of dignitaries who were meeting the Queen. She wished him a happy birthday – he turned 10 that day.

I was so impressed by her quiet gravitas as a leader. I got the impression that if she wasn’t a reigning monarch, she’d be running a multinational operation.

When BigChange won a Queen’s Award in the Innovation category a few years ago, it was the highlight of my entire career. That award is the greatest accolade given to a British business – it’s like being knighted as a company.

I cannot quantify the impact that award has had on BigChange, from the impact on morale to our ability to win bigger contracts and clients.

As we celebrate 70 years of the Queen’s rule through the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022, hanging bunting and baking cakes, I will reflect on the impact she has had on my life as an entrepreneur.

I truly believe she is a national treasure, and an asset to the UK’s business community. God save the Queen.