Your Brand Isn’t Your Logo: How Manufacturers Build a Business People Trust - Lucy Rennie

Phil: Shan't

Lucy Rennie: stop putting out content for content's sake. Stop doing things without knowing why you're doing it.

Phil: It's just such woo-woo, isn't it? It's like this, you need to build your brand. What's your brand? Well, it's an intangible

Hayley: My big takeaway is that it's gonna happen anyway. So you might as well as be intentional about it.

Lucy Rennie: it's like reputation. If we're not being intentional about it, somebody else is going to do it for us.

Phil: what do we want our customers to be saying when they buy this car,

Hayley: I always feel like, I'm going to be bothering them, asking them all these questions,

Lucy Rennie: Firstly, they love it because you're actually giving a shit.

Phil: we just You spend a fortune trying to get a lead, and when you go out there you find they're out to tender with three other people,

Lucy Rennie: So build a trusted brand, get people shouting about you and Bob's your uncle.

Phil: The mic drop.

speaker-0: So if I was to kind of and I think this goes towards your your what one thing of building this trusted partner brand.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: If I'm gonna approach my staff today and ask them, let's say three questions and then I'm gonna approach my customers and ask them three questions, what questions should I be asking them to to kind of get this divine this information?

speaker-1: I think very often we've got a tendency to overcomplicate this and overthink it. And very often we'll do a survey and we'll people will come up with like 10, 20, 30 questions. And the you know, I mean I've got ADHD, so the idea of filling out 30 questions already puts me off and I don't want to do it. So very often what we do is we call it a a pulse survey. And really there's just kind of two or three main questions that we want to ask that will give us an understanding. of of where the business is at. So one of those would be, are you proud to work for the business?

speaker-0: It's right in the feels, isn't it? Yeah. Straight away right in the feels. I like this.

speaker-1: Yeah. And you can either go yes or no and get a straight answer, or you could scale it on a scale of one to ten, how proud are you? How satisfied are you in the work that you're doing? And then the third one would be, would you recommend working here to your friends or family? Those give you a really good kind of pointer as to where you sit. And what I would normally do with, you know, my SME clients is we'd then implement that. either quarterly or every six months or ev even every year, depending on, you know, where they're at in the journey. Because you've got then got a marker in the sand that you can then measure and then you can work towards it. So in a way, in the beginning, if you get people going, Well, I don't really care and then okay, but at least we know and then we can do something about it.

speaker-0: Really good and completely opposite to what I thought the questions were gonna be.

speaker-1: Okay, interesting. What did you think they were gonna be? That's interesting.

speaker-0: I thought they were gonna be what do you think provides the most value from what you do? What what do you think customers think of you maybe? Or kind of along those lines, what what do you most enjoy in the role? Those kind of things.

speaker-1: What would you want do? I'm just thinking of that. Yeah, I think I'm giving by myself some time so I can come up with those questions. But I think just on those, sorry, just quickly going back to the employee ones. I think a great question to ask is do you know the role you play within the organization? So they know because if you want to have a team working together as a team, and especially in manufacturing or in a larger organization when you've got 20, 30, 40 more people. You can't have people just turning up and just doing a role, but also for their own well-being, they need to know the role they're playing within. And until they know that, they're not going to think as a team. So it's really important to help them to understand that and that and the value, you know, whatever role they're playing, everybody's got a value add there. And it's being able to highlight that and showcase that. For customers, I think it's more about the satisfaction. So the quality of the product or the service. And then whether they would recommend you. Did you know that 84% of all B2B decision makers start by asking for a referral or a recommendation? So actually being able to track that, would they recommend you is really key. And then maybe something about quality of service. It's how to measure the loyalty, the retention. Do they see themselves changing supplier within the next 12 months or are they happy working with you? You know, so really kind of tangible because then you can get so much from that. And even if they say yes, they are actually going to tender, at least you know, then you can do something about it, you know, or i if they are saying yes, we are looking at other things because of a you know, X, Y, Z, you've got that knowledge then. So then you can, you know, start to unpick it or do something about it.

speaker-2: When we went back to the beginning, Lucy, when you started talking and you started talking about a trusted brand, this is a really stupid question probably, but how do you know if you've got a trusted brand versus just a brand?

speaker-1: I think the reason why I talk about building a trusted brand. So let's re-engineer it backwards. Let's go back. Reverse engineer it, sorry. So we can build brands. Everybody can do that. And we and I think a lot of the time when we start a business, we're we're quickly doing things, we're putting ourselves out there, we're building logos, we're doing lots of stuff. And again, it goes back to that leaky bucket. The way of measuring that for me is customer retention, because if you haven't got a trusted brand. If people don't trust you, they're not gonna stay. They're not gonna come back. They're not gonna buy again. They're not going to. So somebody might buy your product or engage with you wants to try you. But if actually they've not had that great service or they don't trust you again, or they lose that trust, then they're not going to. So being able to I so I'm always talking about lifetime value of a customer. And and how can we kind and that links in with the leaky bucket is how can we make sure that we're retaining, we're doing everything that we can so that people actually do come back, and then measuring it through word of mouth and referrals and recommendations. I talk about having like invisible trust factors, because we do this subconsciously as consumers anyway, in terms of what we look for and and what it is that it takes to to to buy from a brand and to really depending on the type of brand and the products and services that you are providing, you're either commodity where it might be just quick and there's a low, low barrier to entry. So you the trust doesn't necessarily need to be there in the first instance. But when you've got maybe a higher ticket product or service or where, you know, some of my clients were, you know, we're talking millions of pounds worth of of deals in terms of, you know, longer term contracts for that to shift. there's a lot of things that have to kind of come into play for that bigger customer to trust, you know, the smaller customer or the supplier. So I think it's it's measuring it in terms of obviously sales, retention, both customer and employee and recommendations. So for me it's about future proof in your brand. It's the one thing you can do to create that sustainability is become the go to and trusted brand. And there's loads of things behind that that we can we can talk about. But

speaker-2: Do you think with manufacturing businesses, what mistakes do you think they make or do you see them making when it comes to brand? Because I always think brand always feels like this invisible thing that is really hard to touch, create, to... If you think about marketing... assets so you can post on social media, you can create an advert, you can do, it's like a tangible thing and it's out there. Whereas like the brand thing is just invisible. So I always feel it's easy to get it wrong and to sort of not know where to start with it. what, just asking one question instead of 10 questions, Hayley, what's the mistakes that you see being made by manufacturing businesses when it comes to branding? or brand, not branding. Somebody recently educated me on brand and branding are different things.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's interesting. So I think you've kind of summed up the mistakes, if I'm honest, in your question. So for me, the the mistake that manufacturing businesses, SMEs will make is exactly that, is they think of brand as marketing and they will go, right, we'll bring in a marketing agency and or we'll bring in an apprentice or we'll we'll start to create a marketing campaign. And they'll kind of come up with maybe some social media posts that talk about the products or whatever. But actually, if we want to create a brand, we have to go two steps back. It's like that song, you know, where you go two steps forward and three steps back. We have to actually start on the inside. And that's the bit where very often I'll get someone will get in touch and and they'll say, can you come in and and and do that thing that you do with with the brand, like you did with All Tac or Tube Gear or you know, Jeff Gosling or whoever. And I'm like, yeah, I can. And then they're always like, because what I'll say to them is actually we've got to s we've got to go backwards. We've got to start with, okay, what's the vision? What's the purpose? Why are you doing it? What's the mission? And then really look at the values and the foundations and, you know, what's the value add and really kind of build those foundations that are ultimately the the foundations of the brand. It's a bit like you wouldn't put the shower curtain up in your bathroom if you hadn't built the the walls of the house and put the bath in, you know? And so having those solid foundations in place that actually demonstrate who you are at the heart and why people should trust you and and you know what's important to you and you know the vision for the business without having that in place, it's really hard to then actually come up with the campaign and start telling that story. And I actually believe that in terms of like selling and promotion, if we've got the brand right, we don't need to do that. We're actually telling a story and documenting what we're doing and educating people and create and adding loads of added value so that it just becomes that go-to place. So a lot of the brands the the SMEs that I work with, instead of going, come and buy our cable or come and buy our product, what we do is we actually explain how the product works. You know, what goes in behind it, why they should trust this one, what are the quality aspects that they need to be looking at if they're going to compare this cable with a another competitor's cable? Or so we're actually educating and giving that value rather than just kind of saying, you know, we've got 10% off today kind of thing. So that's the bit where, yeah, the mistake I think is jumping in, giving it to somebody who's maybe just doing marketing and doesn't actually get the business.

speaker-0: I think that probably is the sense of overwhelming. Most business owners are quick, sharp, fast, you know, make quick decisions, and probably would put the shower curtain up before the running water was on because you know the running water means plumb in and it means we've got to get the water. And we bla blah blah blah but the shower curtain, you know, I can buy that today, pop that. And I think that's why we buy some blogs, or because it's a tangible thing that we can see, and there's not that sense of overwhelm of. Yeah. I'm gonna bring Lucy into this business. I know that we make sprockets. I don't really know what's she gonna ask my stuff, how do I feel about how do you kind of how does somebody know that they're in that position where they need this kind of support or this how well they need to go on this journey? What are they feeling, what are they seeing? What's the kind of the the red flags or the green flags or whatever we'd like to call it?

speaker-1: Yeah. Great question. so I think a lot of time, so a a lot of the business I work with, they've been going for quite a while. So they've maybe been maybe second generation, third generation businesses. and they're one of the those kind of brands that or those businesses that you sort of look at them And you might think, they're a bit tired, or, you know, they're the c on the outside that it's a bit old fashioned or, you know, they've not done the website, they've not really done anything about marketing for twenty, thirty years, but they're occasionally putting out a a Word document catalogue or or whatever. And they've got a bank of loyal clients, they've got, you know, they've got a business that that works. And very often what happens is they'll come to me because actually They're realizing that either it's a new generation coming in and they want to take off or they want to reinforce it or they want to kind of make sure that actually they are future-proof in the business and kind of, you know, thinking about the long term. or sometimes it's also because the competition has actually taken over and you can see that they're losing sales because actually there's other businesses who Are doing things differently, who are making maybe shouting about things in a different way. Very often it's the ones that are shouting, aren't the ones who've got the best business. It's just they're better at shouting and talking about what they're doing. And that can actually kind of knock you into thinking, actually, we need to do something now. We've been ticking along, it's been okay, but then actually we need to we need to sort something out because sales are teetering off, or we can see others coming up on the horizon. Or, or maybe also, you know, they they're thinking, gosh, AI's coming. We're in a VUCA world, aren't we? The world is constantly changing. There's no kind of normal anymore. So really what manufacturing businesses should be doing is anticipating and preparing for the future and thinking about what is coming up and how can they be preparing for that and what should they be doing in order to do that. And brand is absolutely at the heart of that. because the more you can create that trusted brand, the less you need to worry about the competition and the other things that are coming up because you've got that loyal base of of fans really and customer base. So yeah, that does that answer your question, I think, about where what they're looking for and why they might come to me.

speaker-0: Yeah, w or or you know, not necessarily could but where they'd start this journey. I think you made a really good point in that a lot of the second generation, third generation owners maybe don't understand that full that why of where where the bus but what they are is a lot more savvy and a lot more ambitious than the original owner. Sure. And they're wanting to build and that's probably where they are and we see it all the time, you know, buying in these new marketing departments and the banging a load of adverts out and stuff, but they haven't done that initial piece of saying, Why do people like working there? You know, here's Bobby, he's been here sixty years. Why does Bob come in every morning? Why does he get out of bed? So I think, yeah, it's a really good point.

speaker-1: Think a great example of that would be my client Ortac, who they basically make c curly cables for big trucks, you know, in between the cab and the trailer. exciting stuff like EBS coils and things, but they also make like bespoke cable for like helicopter pilot helmets, things like that. and they are a third generation business, but they came to me in 2019. And up until then they'd been about 1.6 million ticking along. They were great business in the UK. And it was the the third generation was the wife who'd been there since she was 16, so Sally, she bought it with her husband who came into the business. And he sat me down and he said, Right, I need to look the part because I wanna play with the big boys. And so what he wanted to do was he wanted to take the brand, so the Autop brand that was you know, it was doing okay, but he wanted to be the go-to cable manufacturer for the likes of DAF, you know, Scania, Volvo, these bigger truck companies. And so he was exactly that. He was like, come on. So I I gave him a strategy and I said, right, this is what we need to do, and we need to start on the inside and build the values and all of these things and and and work from of telling the story and all all the things I've just talked about. And Dave went, because he he'd been a like a sales manager before and he was like, that's that's boring. That's not quick enough. Where's I knew? That's Dave. And I had to, it was a great test for me in terms of testing, do I really believe in my approach and what I'm doing? Cause I had to hold my nerve and say, yeah, this is really, really important. We have to start here. It's a long game, it's like a runway. Yes, we can go quick if you want, but actually, what those businesses will do, the bigger ones that are watching, they'll just go, playing at it, they're just putting out posters. There's no real substance. So when they come to visit you, or even if you do open the door, but they open Pandora's box, they're gonna shut it again because there's no actual real foundations in place. And so Where are we now? 2026. So now seven years on, we've built the brand in exactly that way. So from the top with the values, from the inside out, with the four pillars, and really talking about helping customers succeed and and agile and educating and doing all those things. And now they're an eight million pound business and they're working with the big boys and they've got, you know, they're working all around the world and they are the British manufacturer now for cables. So it really, really does work. And Now, yes, they're on TikTok and they're doing the things, but they're not doing silly dances. They're actually getting the staff to talk about what they're doing. They're explaining things. They've got c clients coming in for training days and it just changes the whole approach to business from the inside out. And it so I think the key is it's it's not necessarily looking at it as marketing, it's looking at it as future proof in your business and thinking about how you're communicating. with all aspects of your business to to really build that brand that people are just like, Yeah, why would I why would I go anywhere else? You know, it's all tac it's an all tac cable I need, you know, and that could be the driver on a truck of the client or the big boss. It's who are we talking to and what are they looking for?

speaker-2: It's a great story, isn't it? A great success story. There's a few things I love about that. One, I love how ambitious they were to start with and they knew exactly where they wanted to go. Good on Dave for that. No,

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: no, I bet not, I bet not. I think the other thing that came out of that then is the length of time. So this is not a small feat, is it? It's a long... It's a long process and it is an investment into the future of your business. You talked about a lot of things and know, the kind of the shape of it, the values, the mission, you have to go back, you have to do this. If somebody wanted to start doing this because they're like, you know what, there's a gap, we're not doing this. Where do you actually begin? Like, because that can just fit like, I know sometimes, I'm not a manufacturing business, but brand is important to every business, truthfully. It's the same principles, isn't it? And it's how you... Where do you start? How do you begin doing it? What are the initial steps, practically, that Phil and I could go away in our businesses today, or anybody listening could, and start doing that?

speaker-1: Okay, it's a really good question. So it starts a bit of a cliche, but it does start with the end in mind. And that doesn't necessarily mean exactly where you want to be in 10, 15 years, because we can't predict that. However, we do have a North Star. So we know, you know, why are we doing what we're doing and where do we want the business to be, even if it is in five, 10 years' time, do we what do we want to be known for? So we're really nailing that vision and that ambition. And then working backwards from that, understanding the key blocks. This is why I wrote my book, is because very often we can we bypass all of these things and then actually it falls down because we haven't got them. So I will be looking at getting real clarity on who you are, why you do what you do, who you're helping. So who is your ideal client, your customer avatar? And you might have different avatars or different customers for different products or services. That's okay too. We don't have to have just one. Actually getting under the skin of them and understanding their business, who they are, what they want from you, what matters, why they would buy from you. And then working backwards from that is okay, so how are we going to put that in place and how are we going to make sure that actually we're communicating in a way that attracts those kind of clients and that helps them to stay with us. So building that customer experience. So once we've understood who our ideal clients are, it's really important then to think about okay, so how can we make sure that we're delivering in terms of clarity to them to help them to to know why they should choose us. A great exercise that I do all the time with my clients, well, a couple of exercises that would be really good actually for people listening or watching. So first of all is understanding or asking yourself if you were a fly on the wall, And you could hear your ideal clients talking about you and your business. What would you want them to say? And what would you not want them to say? And that's a great starting point because it helps you to kind of understand, because it's hard to say, I want to be the go-to for, we don't really know that, but actually tangibly going, well, what would we want them to say? If they if we could hear them and they were either talking about us to potential clients and they were saying, you need to speak to Dave because whatever, what do you want them to actually say? And then what not want them to say. And that very often it's the not the what you don't want them to say, which can help you feed in. Because I think with branding, it's it's you like you said earlier, Haley, you can it's hard to control what that is. It's really hard to kind of know and name it. But I think it's like reputation. If we're not being intentional about it, somebody else is going to do it for us. somebody else, you know, people are gonna make up their own mind or somebody's gonna kind of talk about you in a way that w however way. So yes, we can be intentional. So if we want customers to s talk about us and refer us and say this is the go-to brand because I don't know, they go above and beyond because they are quality is through the roof, because they are environmentally looking after, you know, they they're on it environmentally, they've got engagement through the roof, they've got brilliant team. They, you know, or Or maybe that they're just reliable. You know, it doesn't have to be either like glossy and all those things. It could just be basics, actually. What is it that makes you want to come back again and again and again? And like for a cable, you want it to be reliable, you know, that's part of it. And quality and all those things. So really understanding that I think helps you then to to move forward and then start to build a communications plan in and around that that helps you to to Once you've got those key blocks in place, you can say, well, okay, so how am I going to educate? How am I going to communicate this with the wider audience, with potential clients, with partners? Well, really simply, let's let's make four pillars. Let's go, okay, what are the four key areas that we can communicate? So it might be right, I'm going to talk about my products and services, what they do, how they help, all of those things. I'm going to talk about behind the scenes the business. I'm going to talk about why you should choose me and not a a different supplier. And then finally, maybe it's why should you care? And and actually that's a great cause we can come up with loads of USPs of like why is my product better? Actually why should they care about it?

speaker-0: That was I think that was phenomenal. I think we've got two huge steps that anybody can take today. One, the internal staff survey and some questions for customers. And then two, I really did love that fly on the wall analogy because what do we want? And I think that's something great that again we can discuss with our staff. You know, when you hand that cable over to the customer, what do you want them to think or say? Or when their friend asks them about it in the pub. Why did you buy that? And it really hit home for me how we used to think of Tesla as being that absolutely and you knew the brand a little bit like Apple, didn't you? You knew you knew when you were buying that, that actually you were buying this phenomenal product that was cutting edge and they were gonna do everything they could and then they kind of float away from that. And you can feel that even with our small businesses, that it's very easy to float away from that because we don't go back to what do we want our customers to be saying. When they buy this car, we start to think about how can we do that tenp cheaper? How can we shave a bit there? What can we do there?

speaker-1: And really it's about how we want to make people feel, which will then go into how, you know, why they say what they do. And it's that emotion. So if we want them to we want them to know that we care about them, so that's why you need to go and do a survey, because you're showing that you care about them, that's the real reason.

speaker-2: Yeah, it's like that's like a reframe, isn't it? Because I always feel like, I'm going to be bothering them asking them all these questions. But actually thinking of it that way, you actually care. You want to make it right and make a difference. That's a brilliant, brilliant way to think about it. So I'm going to finish, Lisey, with some quick fire questions, if that's OK. Are you ready? So, what's, as it's the What One Thing podcast, what's one thing every manufacturer should stop doing today to do with their brand?

speaker-1: Just stop putting out content for content's sake. Stop doing things without knowing why you're doing it.

speaker-2: Okay, number two then, what's one thing they should start doing?

speaker-1: Be more intentional about what you're doing and think about why you're doing it and what what yeah, what you're trying to achieve. So ultimately what do your customers need from you? What are they thinking and how can you make them feel and know that you care about them and make them want to come back for more?

speaker-0: What's the biggest thing manufacturers are wasting money on right now when it comes to brand?

speaker-1: outsourcing to marketing or or branding agencies who don't actually get the business, they're just creating marketing for marketing's sake. I really believe you should invest in your in-house teams because that's again, it's the inside out, it's that's where it starts. That's the that's who knows the business and and helps them do it. marketing agents are gonna hate me, aren't Now and I don't mean that they're not all bad to

speaker-2: I'm going to die.

speaker-1: do it properly, I understand what they're doing rather than just a one size fits all. Sorry, I don't mean that I have got a lot of good marketing agents that I can recommend any

speaker-0: I think though Lucy, and I think this is a lot about how we are when we first stop as businesses. If somebody offers us some work and we say, You need to tell me your brand, you need to tell me your four pillars, and they say, Listen, I'm really busy at the moment. We've got a shed load of cables. I've got fifteen orders going out. Do you want this five thousand pounds a month or not? A lot of businesses just go, Yeah. Do you know we'll we'll we'll kind of we won't half arse it. But we will try our best to make the pillars for them. And I think I've seen that disconnect where the marketing agency's got this and you think it looks wrong, but you just think, Pfft, I have not got the time and effort and you think it's the marketing agency's fault, but actually it's your own fault for not knowing that you needed to come to the part with that. And maybe their fault for not telling you that you needed that to come to the

speaker-1: 100% that. Yeah. It's it this this is about the owner of the business. It's their responsibility to make sure. Yeah. It's marketing agencies are great if they've got all the insight and you can really invest that time. but it actually can be really detrimental to the brand. It's better sometimes to not be doing things tokenism and putting things out there just bec be you know, with no substance. Less is more. So if you're not gonna do anything, if you haven't got time, less is more. go back, you know, and and and and really sort of start slowly. and just just FAQs. There you go. What are the questions your customers are asking you every day? There's your content for the next three months. Just capture those questions and answer them through content on socials or on your website.

speaker-2: I love it. That's a great nugget, isn't it? Isn't it? So, Lucy, if people want to connect with you or reach out to you or are thinking, I want to work with Lucy. How do they do that?

speaker-1: So the quickest, easiest way is I wrote my book. And my book was based on all of this because I was so sad for businesses every size, spending so much money and time and energy doing things that actually wouldn't have an impact if they didn't have the foundations. So my book is a great starter just to really revisit those foundations. My website is lrcoms.co.uk, so you can find out. a bit more about how I work like as a non exec or with SMEs. So what I tend to do is I'll go in and more with the strategy, partnering with the owners or the managers, and then I'll mentor the in-house team. So I used to have an agency until COVID, so I was that marketing agency doing all the doing, but actually realize there's no value add in me doing that. It's much better for me to mentor and support the in-house team as they grow the skills and kind of develop that. So the the owner or the the business. leader gets to sleep at night because I'm watching out and then we're doing it intentionally, however it's their team that are actually implementing it. So from a cost and a value add perspective, that works really well. And then I have a club for small business owners because I'm dead passionate about small business and I think we should all be doing it and supporting each other. And it's really lonely and you know we we've we can't do it all by ourselves. I don't believe in competition. I think we should all be helping. So I've got a club called the Future Poo Club, which is online predominantly where we get together, there's accountability, we share good practice, we get focused, we help with strategy, and then we have a a monthly meetup in Whaleybridge. So that's really the three areas where you can work with me. But everything's on the website and yeah, sorry, I could talk for hours and hours about mine. But I do. But yeah, thank you so much.

Phil: What was your big takeaway from that, Haley?

Hayley: My big takeaway is that it's gonna happen anyway. So you might as well as be intentional about it. I loved that because it's, yeah, it's true. Well, Lucy said it's true, so it must be true. No, but I think it is true. And if you think about it, people, it's like, just as a human, isn't it? People are gonna form an opinion about you regardless of what you do or how you do it. So you might as well as be intentional about it if you want to be. If you want to be seen a certain way.

Phil: And one of the things when when you go to a party or you go to the pub or you go to a networking event, the people that are most well liked are the people who are themselves. And I think that means and a lot of people walk into it naturally, but that means the people who know who they are to then be themselves.

Hayley: Yes, yeah.

Phil: So I don't think you can be your brand without knowing what your brand is. We can kind of be, and I suppose it's we talk a lot in the IT world about grey paint, that everybody in IT is if essentially selling grey paint. You know, we're we're all very similar, but actually we're not, and it's how to transfer the knowledge that we're not similar without going, Hey, do you know what we're the best? Everyone else is rubbish, we're the best we've got we we're the wacky guys or we're this or

Hayley: Yep. But that's where the intention bit, then that's where the intentional bit comes into it, isn't it? Because you are who you are fundamentally, but it's how you then become intentional about trying to help other people see you in the way you want to be seen, or showing them who you are authentically.

Phil: Yeah, and that I think and that is about promoting your best bits, isn't it? If you're a really good sprinter, you don't want to try and promote that also you can do a bit of the long jump or the high jump or whatever. You know, you want to promote the bits that are strong in your business and the bits that you're good at and you want to attract people who value those.

Hayley: Yes, yes, what was your big takeaway?

Phil: I had a couple. I've got to put on my big girl pants and ask the team and ask customers those one to ten questions. Also have a meeting with the guys and do the fly on the wall. One thing you're definitely better at in your business than I am is having that away day. And I think some of the fact that we don't have an away day is it is tricky because of the nature of our business and that we need to always kind of be switched on. Also, it's very tricky to have an away day when you're not sure what you're doing yourself and you're not sure what those questions should be. And having that chat today with Lucy was really good because there's some of the starter questions that we can ask.

Hayley: Yeah, I think. The away day thing is one of those things that you just need to do. then, cause you start it, you do it, and then next time you make it better or you change it, you just need to like get on and have it. And they've been really, they've been really, really good. That's a really crap word to describe it, but to bring the team into... suppose it is part of the brand part of what Lucy was talking about but to bring the team on the journey and into you know Corbar is not Hayley, Corbar is us delivering a service to our clients and they're very much part of that. lot of the time they're more the part of it than I am because they're the ones doing a lot of the doing. To them I feel like it makes them feel really valued but I haven't actually asked them that so I am gonna ask them.

Phil: Also, to go political, the thing that people complained about with Keir Starmer is that his ministers didn't know what journey they were on. And I was listening to Alistair Campbell and he was saying, under you know, the perfect Labour government back in the day, everybody knew we're trying to bring equality down and bring social mobility up. So you had that here's what we do. Does this decision go with it? If I need to make this decision. And so is that customer first? Is it security first? Is it and so we're giving by having those values to our staff, we're letting them make decisions. And if that decision's not correct or we don't agree with it, if they can justify it by saying, Well, Phil, our our first value is customer first, and so I went and drove Maggie to the airport, then we go, Okay, right, maybe we need to rethink or maybe this is but they have followed our ethos.

Hayley: Yeah, look at us, we sound like we actually know what we're doing Phil, running a business.

Phil: I think as with every single one of these podcasts, the execution is king, isn't it? The knowing what

Hayley: Yes, yeah, yeah.

Phil: you're doing is relatively useless if you're not able to implement it and if you don't go out and execute it.

Hayley: Yeah, I was looking through some pictures on my phone the other day and I'd written down on a piece of paper and took a picture of it because obviously it's very important. He said put time in diary to do thing, actually do the thing. That sums it up, that's what you mean isn't it?

Phil: Yeah, and if you have found this episode useful, if you implement anything off this episode, we would absolutely love to hear from you. And if you have enjoyed it, please feel free to recommend what one thing to your friends, to your colleagues, to other business owners to help them drive their business forward.