The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Founder Story: Raising The Roof On Small Business Growth with Entrepreneur Ben Foulkes. How to Build Trust, Demand and Think BIG (& Stop Thinking Small!)

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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A single sentence on a wall changed everything. Ben, the founder of Kempton Installation Services, walked into our Inner Circle meeting ready to blame the weather for a quiet order book—and walked out with a different story. We dig into how he stopped thinking like a small business owner, doubled down on what actually worked, and built a six-to-eight-week pipeline without praying for rain.

We explore the surprising hero of his marketing: a trust-first “killer flyer” that beats flashy tactics. In a market plagued by scepticism, Ben’s piece leads with clarity—top customer questions answered, the real team on show, recent reviews, and a short founder story. After iterating, it scaled from 10,000 to 80,000 drops and outperformed every other channel. That decision to choose substance over sizzle didn’t just fill the diary; it filtered for serious buyers and sped up sales. Alongside that, we unpack the harder decision to hire—bringing in operations and sales to protect momentum—when fear might have said “cut.”

The human threads matter just as much. Ben’s childhood built a voice that can stand alone; his dad’s perspective supplies grit when things wobble; his partner’s decisiveness balances his instinct to ponder; his daughter reframes success as kindness and joy. Those experiences shape the leader behind the rota, the quote on the wall, and the way the phone is answered. Expect practical, repeatable lessons for any service business: identify channels that consistently deliver, tell the truth better than your competitors, and create capacity before you hit the ceiling. Success, as Ben puts it, sits on the other side of fear—and ownership is the bridge.

If this resonates, follow and share with a founder who needs the nudge. And if you got value from the show, leave a quick review—it helps more builders, makers, and doers find the mindset and methods to grow.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

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Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of The Good Listening to Show, your life and times with me, Chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told. And where all my guests have two things in common. They're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors, a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 54321, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. So it's all to play for. So yes, welcome to the Good Listening to Show, your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. And we're in. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And as normally say, thrice welcome, hang the consequences. This is a very special founder story episode of The Good Listening to Show Stories of Distinction Genius. It's the show in which I invite founders to talk about their entity. And this is the wonderful Ben Fawkes from Kempton Installation Services. Good morning, good morning.

Ben Foulkes:

Thank you for having me.

Chris Grimes:

Who's driven up all the way from Birmingham to be with me here in Bristol in the FutureLeap Studios? And just to blow some happy smoke in position, Ben, Ben and I are in something very, very helpful and profound, which is called the Entrepreneur's Circle, run by the legend that is Nigel Bottrell. He runs something called the Inner Circle. Ben and I met a year ago because we've been working on the sort of rhythmic acquisition and development of our businesses over the last year. And over the course of that journey, Ben has had an absolute breakthrough. And so I thought it'd be very, very exciting to get Ben of all people. Because at the end of this show, I don't doubt that Entrepreneur Circle will want to have him stuffed and mounted in the foyer of their swanky new office buildings in Birmingham as a sort of happy customer because of the path you've been on. We will get onto that, but you are a roofer extraordinaire, and uh it's absolutely wonderful to have you here, Ben Fawkes. Thank you very much.

Ben Foulkes:

Thank you very much. I am extremely excited to be here. Slightly anxious, but uh excited to tell my story.

Chris Grimes:

Lovely. And together we're gonna get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do. Yep. And in fact, you're so lovely, in any case, that's just a fact. Ben Fawkes, as you will discover, is a lovely man. After we've recorded, in the return for a sandwich from a wonderful place called Sandwich Sandwich, nom nom nom nom nom, Ben is going to escort me. Well, I'm gonna escort him to my house and he's gonna have a look at my roof.

Ben Foulkes:

Win win.

Chris Grimes:

Win chicken dinner. And in fact, Stan, my son, who's 18, he's also put in a pre-order for the nom nom nom sandwiches. So I'll be turning up. Don't worry, Stan, it's coming. It'll be there at half past twelve. Ben Fawkes, welcome to the show. If people don't have a reference or frame of reference for you, um, what's your favourite way of saying what Ben Falkes and Kempton Installation Services does?

Ben Foulkes:

Okay, so we are a roofing company based in the southwest of Birmingham, and we install and fix any roof we can, predominantly domestic customers. Uh, the business has been up and running now for nearly eight years. As you previously mentioned, we're part of the entrepreneurs' circle, so I've been part of the entrepreneur circle, I think, for the last nearly three years. We've got a team of 12 people within the business at the moment. We are exponentially expanding the business, so things are extremely exciting currently. And our job is to try and take the stress out of people who have got leaky roofs.

Chris Grimes:

And if I may say, we're off to the Kempton races, gallopy, gallopy, gallopy, gallopy, gallopy. Because of the of the um several sessions we've had within the inner circle this year, there was an a real epiphany that I noticed you were having. And it's it's um the very clever way that Entrepreneur Circle have thought this through. They've got some extraordinarily powerful legends on the wall. I don't mean just legends of of entrepreneurship, but literally wording that helps us all. And where you sit in the Swanky Inner Circle hub, you sit you were sitting, by happy coincidence, and I'm not sure if they obviously planned this, you were sitting in front of a sign that says, The worst thing you can do as a small business owner is to think T-H-I-N-K like a small business owner. Do you want to just tell the story of what happened for you this year and why it was such a revelation?

Ben Foulkes:

Oh yeah, so that was that date is ingrained on my brain. So that was the 20th of May of this year. Every couple of months, Chris and I, and probably nine or ten other business owners, get in a room and we all kind of brainstorm our businesses. And I had been considering not coming to this session for the plain simple reason our business had struggled to get a rhythmic acquisition of customers. It was the meeting was on the Tuesday. I'd booked a fabulous holiday for me and my family on the Monday. No, sorry, that was on the Friday. We were going out on the Friday. We had no work booked in for the following Monday. I thought the last thing I needed to do was sit in a room with other people to tell them that I got no work. So I debated, I debate on whether it was the right thing to do. Reluctantly went to the meeting and was, shall I say, a little bit down in the mouth. I wasn't, I didn't come across as positive as maybe I should be. And uh, the guy that hosts this and the owner of Entrepreneur Circle, a guy called Nigel Botchell, really picks up quickly on your language and on the way you are coming across. And I think it's fair to say I was a little bit negative.

Chris Grimes:

And you were very worried about the weather, which is part of the wonderful story.

Ben Foulkes:

Well, yes, absolutely. The the problem that I thought I had, which I now don't think I've got, is that the weather was absolutely fantastic, as everybody will know if you live in the UK. We had probably five or six months of dry weather. But of course, for a roofing business, roofers or a roofing company love lots and lots of rain in the night, and then for it to be nice and dry in the day, so we can get up, all the phone calls come in, we can get out and get on with the work. And so I might have mentioned the weather a few times more than I should have. And I got let's just say I got put in my place by by a Mr. Bottrell who let's say dragged me over the coals and he asked me to look over my left shoulder. I at the time was getting a little bit frustrated with the fact that I felt like I was being made to look a bit of a fool. So I looked over my left shoulder, not knowing what was on the wall, and there's this huge sign which Chris knows it must be what 15 foot wide by about three or four foot deep, and it says the words the problem with a small business owner, he thinks like a small business owner. Now, just to give you a bit of context on that, what I had said previous to me looking over my left shoulder was I was thinking of laying off a couple of the guys, we were gonna maybe pull back on a bit of our advertising, and Nigel's reply to that was that's exactly what you should not be doing at this time, you shouldn't be going into your shell, you should be looking bigger, and it is all your fault, you dare lay anybody off. And that really was a massive turning point for me and my business. And instead of looking at your business in a negative way and thinking you've got to scale back, in times like that, it has taught me that actually you need to be looking at the bigger picture. And there was a conversation that was had within the inner circle with uh another one of our business, shall we call them colleagues, who was going into a factory very early to do menial tasks. And the group was asked, or Nigel asked the group, what would Richard Branson do? And another one of our members sarcastically said, Well, of course, Richard Branson would wake up early, go into the factory and start printing some t-shirts, which is exactly what he wouldn't do. And this got me thinking that the problem with business owners, small-minded business owners, they focus on the menial tasks instead of looking at the bigger picture. So, one of the things I do now in my little mind is I imagine what Richard Branson would be doing if he had the same problems that I did. And since that point, my business has exponentially no pun intended, but gone through the roof. I'm all over that pun.

Chris Grimes:

Because this is raising the roof on your business by no longer thinking like a small business. And a bit like the analogy of using a drone to get up and look at all the potter roofs of the land, it's a bit like you've got a helicopter view now, and you don't care about the weather anymore, which is really fantastic.

Ben Foulkes:

No, absolutely. So we we've got a couple of marking strategies that are working really well for us. So what we've we've done is just doubled down on those, and now I don't want the rain. No, I really don't. I want it to be nice and dry so we can get out there because we have got a steady flow of customers now which constantly keep calling us up with work, which I find unusual because I've run this business for nearly eight years now, and I've never really had a pipeline more than about two or three weeks ahead. Yeah. And I'm finding now that we are six, eight weeks ahead, which is an unusual position for our business to be in.

Chris Grimes:

And if I may say, I have in my hand a piece of paper, and this is something else you've done, which is called the killer flyer. And I know that you curated this over several months. Do you want to just quickly talk about the story of that too?

Ben Foulkes:

Yeah, so there's a big trust issue within our our industry, and we get a lot of, shall we say, rogue traders that aren't honourable and don't do a great job. And that's a double-edged sword for us because we pick up a lot of competitors' work from shoddy workmanship. But the other problem that it gives us is that it's difficult to build up trust, and whenever we knock on somebody's door, somebody calls us, they're always questioning whether we're the real deal, and we wanted to try and combat that. And so we came up with an A5 size flyer which is folded down to A4 size, and it's got lots of detail about our company, who we are, it tackles the biggest 10 or 11 questions that our customers constantly ask us. It's got reviews on the back that we've had recently from happy customers. It's got my founder story, just a little bit of history about how I started in business and how I got into roofing. This has had a profound impact on our business in the fact that we feel now that this does a lot of the hard selling for us.

Chris Grimes:

And the very clever disposition with this is that we're talking huge volume, as in I I think it's about you'll tell me the amount, but I'm I've got in my head at least 10,000 per run.

Ben Foulkes:

Yeah, so we do we do 40,000. We started off with a test of 10,000 initially. Yeah, that didn't quite work. We tweaked and changed the flyer. Still, it was only a lukewarm response we got from it. What we found was we we put a little picture on the back of our team of roofers. There's there's a six team, just a simple picture I took with my phone, yeah, lads standing outside the van, and then we put my story in there. Yes, and that has incredibly had a huge difference. The other thing I'll mention, Chris, is that there's a lot of detail on this, and I think if I got this through the door, I'd probably just bin it off. But people who are serious about spending thousands of pounds on the roof, that is absolutely key. And what that has done, it's done several things, it builds up trust before we even get to the doorstep, it weeds out the messes, so it only really starts to market to money to people that are serious about having our work done.

Chris Grimes:

What I also think is profoundly effective about that, it's a bit binary. If you want your roof looked at, you're gonna read it cover to cover. If you don't, you can chuck it over your shoulder, and then the next time it comes around, you know, weather, notwithstanding, whenever you next get a problem, there it is.

Ben Foulkes:

Yeah, absolutely. I never thought my business would be based on a flyer, but this is foundational for us. I thought I'd be coming up with some smart, jazzy, techie internet marketing strategy that I could brag about. But no, the old-fashioned way seems to be working well, and just back to your point as regards to the amount that we put out now. We we started off with 10,000, we found that the third version of the flyer is the one that really started taking off, and so we had 40,000 of those printed, we've had them distributed, we've had a couple of rounds of those go out, but the response from that has been incredible. It's outstripping all the other marketing strategies that we've got, so we are now doubling down on it. So from this month, we've just started putting 80,000 flyers out. So we so far from laying people off, you've actually raised the roof and you're probably taking on more people now. Yes, we are. We've just employed a new operations person, she starts on the 20th. We're just about to take on two new sales guys, and they will also be starting on the 20th. So this is unfamiliar territory for me, but incredibly exciting, and we are building a really cool team. And what our aim is to try and provide a service that is second to none. We want to try and be the go-to roofing company in our area if possible.

Chris Grimes:

And when I sat listening to you describing all of this in the context of the inner circle, I thought, damn, he doesn't live in Bristol because I would absolutely so that's why I've got you coming round to my house because you are just literally the trusted roofer as soon as I meet you.

Ben Foulkes:

Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris Grimes:

Wonderful. So talking about the funky sort of internet solution to a founder story, this is where Chris Grimes comes in with the founder story. So this is going to get deeper now into the story behind the story of being Ben Fawkes. So if I may, let's get you on the open road of the curated structure of the Good Listening to show. If you've not seen this before, where if you've been, I've done about 270 of these monkeys, and this is a founder story, and there's going to be, as usual, a clearing, a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 54321. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. Hurrah! Anyway, where is what is a clearing for you, Ben Fawkes? Where would you say you go to get clutter free, inspirational, and able to think?

Ben Foulkes:

Ah, good question. I suppose my happy place would be my home. We are very lucky. We we moved into a lovely little house in a lovely little area nearly eight years ago, and that is my sanctuary. We live in a very quiet little cordy sack tucked down in the bottom of the corner out of the way. I've got a little office downstairs in the front room, and I can shut that door, lock the world away, and that's where I, for want of a better phrase, beaver away and plan and plot my life and my business. And is that the hub of Kempton Installation Systems? Actually, no. So Kempton Installation Systems is based in an area called the Black Country, specifically Cradley Heath. So we have just moved from a four-man office down into a six-man office just down the end of the corridor. So we I'm very fond of the Black Country people. I actually was born and bred in an area called Hailzone. So that's right on the border. Did you say Hellzone? Hailzone. That's different. Yeah. Yeah, it's my accent. So that is right on the border of Birmingham and Black Country, and a proper Brummy would call me a yam yam. Okay. Yeah, but a yam yam is somebody from the black country. But a proper yam-yam would say I'm a brummy, so I'm neither here or there. And where do the pooky fucking blinders fit in amongst the people?

Chris Grimes:

Yes. Which is the accent is lovely because of course it's very regionally specific too, which is fantastic. So your serious happy place is your own man den within your own house, which is lovely. And is that where you've got high-tech stuff? And is it a classic man den just talk us through?

Ben Foulkes:

No, it's not a classic man den. It is a room with a desk and a computer, it's got a vision board on there, so I stick all my little notes on there and that my targets and goals and my top ten list of things I want to achieve. It's got a little cabinet on the side, it's got a few pictures of of uh family and friends. I've got a couple of sporty pictures of Gaza volleying the ball in against Scotland when we built a Scotland 2-1. I think it was in the Euros qualifiers, maybe. And I think that's pretty much it. Very simple but cozy and and it suits me down to the ground.

Chris Grimes:

And that's where we're gonna base it. Now I'm gonna arrive with a tree in your clearing, which is a little bit disruptive, I get, but it's a bit waiting for Goddoesque, a bit deliberately existential because of my acting background. And I'm now gonna shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. Okay. How do you like these apples? Do you want to catch an apple? See how you do it catching. Yeah, I'm alright. I was decent at rounders. And this is now a lovely juicy story ex sorry, a storytelling exercise called 54321. You've had five minutes, Ben Forkes, to have thought about four things that have shaped you. Three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and I'll mention some squirrels at that point when we get to it, and then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you andor your business that you'd like to tell us about. So it's not a memory test. So what would you say four things are? The idea being that round about once a decade something pretty seismic will have happened to you. So what shaped you?

Ben Foulkes:

I suppose one of the biggest things that has shaped myself, and maybe not a lot of people know this, is that I was born into a very religious background. So I was born into the Jehovah's Witnesses group. Okay. And that was a very different upbringing to let's say what my daughter's got now. We were very strictly religious. We would have church meetings on a Thursday, a Tuesday, and on a Sunday. We would go, I'm sure everybody's had this at some point, knock on the door, you open the door, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, we used to do that. And that the difference being now you've got a roof as fly. You've got Kempton. Let me tell you, if you can sell the Bible, you can definitely sell roofing. Um, and so being part of that, I'd had lots of positives and a few negatives. And let's stick to the positives. And what being part of that group did for me as a young lad, you would be asked to maybe read a couple of pages of the Bible and then try and describe that to a group of maybe 200 and 250 people. And I I suppose as I've grown up, I that has kind of carried through, and I've always been relatively confident, I think. I'm not saying I'm good at it, but I've been relatively confident at speaking in front of people, and that it gave me structure to my life, it gave me kind of rules and regulations that we all abided to, and in that regard it had a it had a really positive effect on my outlook. And and what I mean by that was that Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas, they don't celebrate birthdays. As a kid, we weren't allowed to go into assemblies in the morning, so five or six years at primary school, we'd be sitting in the class. When I say we, my sis I've got two sisters and a younger brother, so that'd be obviously being different classes, but every morning we'd spend 20-30 minutes on our own five or six years. So feeling different by definition. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes if you had a standing teacher, you'd have to stand up and go, miss, I can't go into assembly because I'm a Jehovah's Witness. And that has really taught me to be able to stand on my own two feet and not follow the crowd, and uh it's taught me that I can do without because we'd go back to school after Christmas and people to be talking about the Christmas presents and the Star Wars things and the He Man and whatever it was, and and and we didn't have that, and I never really missed that because we never really had it. Yeah, but what it's done to me as an ad or It's learnt me that I don't need to it's taught me that I don't need materialistic stuff. I can stand on my own two feet, I can run a business.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah.

Ben Foulkes:

If the for want of a better word, the uh shit is the fan, then I can deal with it.

Chris Grimes:

Or periods of austerity or whatever it might be. Yeah, absolutely. And then may I ask what happened in terms of the family, sorry, familiar, sorry, family shift whereby your parents brought you up in that way, but it sounds like reading between the lines, you don't bring either up in the same way.

Ben Foulkes:

Yeah, correct. So we we we left what they call the tribe's witnesses when I was around about 12, so I was born into it, and and that that has a profound effect on you when everybody's moving in the same direction, everybody you socialise with believes in this one thing. When we were 12, we mum and dad decided to leave that. At the time, I didn't realise, but my mum and dad were quite wild when they were younger. And we I was brought up in this idyllic religious life. The grass was cut every weekend, we had lovely flowers in the garden. Mum was a stay-at-home housewife, the house was immaculate. My dad had a job in a factory, used to ride to work on a moped, everything was neat and tidy, we had structure, we had regularity, and when we came out of that, my mum and dad were very young when they uh had me, they were early 20s, 21. Are they still both with us? They are both with us, they're not together currently, but they are both here. I'm lucky to have both of them uh uh around. And they let's just say we went from one life to another. My dad had a bit of a colourful background when we were teenagers, and I saw two different sides to life.

Chris Grimes:

And i do you want to say a bit more about what happened to your dad to make that transition happen, or maybe you don't?

Ben Foulkes:

Dad was made redundant when I was about 12 or 13. He set up his own window cleaning round and he did that part-time, and he should we say he had sticky fingers and he he had a colourful background, should we say. Sure. And that was a very different way of life to what we were brought up in. I'll be honest, at the time when I was a teenager, I was so happy to get out of this religious kind of thing. But I suppose my point is trying to bring this story full circle is that we had an idyllic life and then we had a very chaotic few years.

Chris Grimes:

So both sides of the tracks were experienced.

Ben Foulkes:

Absolutely. Um my my dad then kind of got himself straight and focused on his window cleaning round. I then got into smoking dope and went to college and got thrown out. My dad dragged me by the scruff of my neck up the stairs and was not uh entirely happy with me, and that is when he dragged me on his window cleaning round. Oh wow, and as an 18-year-old lad going out with your dad in his uh knackered old Ford van with ladders on the top, does your street cred no good at all whatsoever.

Chris Grimes:

Though may I say the van you've turned up with today, your own Kempton installations van with a ladder strapped on the top, looks very swanky indeed.

Ben Foulkes:

Yes, thank you. And it doesn't have a broken roof like my dad used to have. Yeah, didn't have a crap wing screen, and it doesn't have a blowing exhaust. So, yeah, times are very different now.

Chris Grimes:

It sounds like the perfect genesis for a roofer to have started off as a window cleaner because you're always shipping that is approaching the roof.

Ben Foulkes:

I work with my dad then, just so we're clear, me and my dad have got a great relationship, and uh uh as I I have with my my mum, but me and my dad are best buddies. Oh, we are.

Chris Grimes:

He's 72 years of age, he's lived a life which sounds fantastic and profound. Yeah, absolutely.

Ben Foulkes:

None of us are perfect. This is my second thing I was going to come on to. My dad has really helped shape my life too. What I love about my dad is he just does not worry. I will very often go around to his house, oh dad, I've got I've got this problem, I've got and he'll go to me, Have you got a roof over your head? I'll go, yeah. He goes, You got food in the cupboard? I'll go, yeah. Because you still got that flash motor on the drive. I'll go, yeah. Because there's the heating on, I'll go, yeah. He goes, Well, what the you know you goes, I had all the problems that you had with four kids and no money. Get on with it. And my dad really brings me down and sets me straight, and he has really helped shape the person I am today. If I may say, it's a bit like your dad's always footing your ladder. Yeah, absolutely. I like that. But he's a bit he's been a big influence on me, and like I say, I think if it weren't for my dad, he beasted me from when I was about 16 to 20 on what I should and shouldn't do. He just wouldn't relent, he wouldn't give up. I was starting to get into a bit of trouble when I got into my teenagers and graffiti and smoking dope and one thing or another. He put me on the to the straight and narrow, and we've had an amazing relationship. I feel very lucky to uh have the relationship I've got with my mystery.

Chris Grimes:

And I I love the authenticity of your own Wartson and all story because of course it's just wonderful what you're describing. Thank you so much. So we we're still in the shapage.

Ben Foulkes:

Would you like to say anything else that shaped you? Yeah, I would say definitely my partner Joanne. Joanne and I have been together for 15 years. Joanne's got a very different view on life to me, so she's a little bit more risk-averse than I, but she's a really quick decision maker. Yeah, I like to ponder over things, take my time. So I think, oh, should I do that? Should I do this? And she's very intuitive.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah.

Ben Foulkes:

Uh so Joanne's had uh a big impact on on my life for sure. She's also one that doesn't worry too much about what people think of her. She'll say a spade is a spade in no uncertain terms, and so that can provide me with with fun and pain of equal amounts on some days. And then, of course, the fourth thing I would mention that shaped me is my daughter Eva. She's nearly 11 now. Joanna and I struggle quite a bit to conceive a child. We miscarried five times. Wow, and so that that was difficult. But Eva came out of all of that. But when you struggled to conceive and have a child, when they finally do come, it is pretty cool. And so Eva is our inspiration. Just a very, very quick story. I didn't settle down until I was about 39. I was ready to kind of settle down and have kids with my early 20s, but I got let down quite a few times by ladies, shall we call them, or women. And so when I got to my 30s, I was like, stuff this, I am done. So we we came to the party late, but we are very grateful to have Eva. I think we mentioned this earlier, didn't we? Um my daughter's nearly 11, uh, going on 21, and so that is challenging. And every time I mention that to people, I say, Oh, you actually, she's a teenager. So we've got some fun and interesting years ahead, I think. What a wonderful shapage. Thank you so much. Now we're on to three things that inspire you, Ben Fawkes. So oh, good question. Again, I I don't want to go on about my daughter too much, but she does she's a complete inspiration to me. I try not to have kind of favouritism towards her, I try and look at her in a kind of fair way. But the two things I wish for my daughter to be is kind and happy, and she's both of those. She's incredibly sweet, she's energetic, her vivacious kind of energy is infectious, and it's brilliant to look at the world through a 10-year-old's eyes, and and she is really an inspiration to me.

Chris Grimes:

I know she's called Eva, but it's very inspirational having uh the daughter of a roofer who's called Eve. See what I did there.

Ben Foulkes:

Yeah, so for sure, Eva's an inspiration, and the other thing uh I guess is what inspires me is the world around us and nature. Uh, we the Eva and I were driving back home uh only a couple of nights ago, and we had this beautiful sunset. Yeah, we get sunsets in Birmingham, believe it or not, and it was this amazing sunset, so we stopped, we drove back up the hill, she got a camera out, and we started taking shots, and and I just love anything to do with nature, and then in inspiration as regards to business. I I'd actually spoken to my partner about this, and she said one name to me, Malcolm. And Malcolm is a guy that used to own a UPBC company. Uh, he approached our business 20 odd years ago and said, Would you like to run our cleaning department? Because I used to run cleaning businesses many years ago. And um he started off from scratch, lived in the two up, two down in the inner city of Birmingham. He created a business, and within about 10 years they would turn over five million quid a year, and that business still runs to this day, it's 35 years old now. He has sailed off into the sunset and it runs itself. And I suppose he, without me really realising it, he was a big inspiration to me business wise. I used to look at him and think, Wow. And what's Malcolm's second name? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. But I just he is Malcolm. Yeah, Malcolm from Rydale Windows, if I'm allowed to say that. You are? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So they they they're based in a similar area to us, southwest Birmingham. But yeah, business wise, he was a big inspiration to me. Is he still in touch? Are you still in touch? Yeah, no, we are actually. He's very good friends with my dad. He's probably early 70s now. Yeah, yeah. Um, so he's moved away, he's been abroad for probably the last 15-20 years. He runs his business remotely now. So yeah, he's he's uh he's got the life. He's taken the roof off his own business. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Grimes:

The sky's the limit, as they say. If you haven't got a roof, the sky's the limit, quite literally. Brilliant uh influencings as well. Thank you very much indeed. And now we're on to the squirrels. Uh, what are your two squirrels? This is borrowed from the film Up, where the dog goes, Oh, squirrels. We've all got our things that never fail to stop us in our tracks and distract us, irrespective of anything else that's going on for us. So, what are your squirrels?

Ben Foulkes:

For me, I always get distracted by a good sports game. I was relatively sporty when I was younger, and uh I can't but help if there's a if there's competition on the TV, I'm all in. It drives my missus mad. She said anything to do with the balling, that's it, you're gone. Even down to I like it to try and keep fit. I I go jogging a couple of times a week, do a little bit of weight training, but not much at all. And uh, even if I'm driving down the road, I see a jogger and I'll I'll I'll stare at them, just see how fast they go and what they look like. They're big, tall, fat, slim. And that's a great sort of dog squirrel, the idea of a bowl, because you're always you're always playing fetch in your own head with a ball that you can see. Fetch, fetch, yeah, correct. So, yeah, anything to do with sport, and I I'm all in. Love watching the Olympics, love watching the footy. I got into the I never thought I'd get into women's rugby so much, but they've just won the World Cup and now their newest, biggest fan. Yeah. So yeah, anything to do with sports, Chris. Great squirrel. And I'm all in on that. That's a great squirrel. You're allowed a second squirrel. I'm gonna say this is probably gonna upset the missus. I'm probably gonna get in trouble for saying this, being far too honest. When I hear about a pair of high heels behind me, I can't output look. I can't. That is the true. And sometimes they're not a pair of high heels, a big bloke could be wearing them like, oh shit. But um that's that's that's me being brutally honest. Joanne, sorry. That's just that's a lovely human thing. The click click clicking on the background.

Chris Grimes:

And if she's holding a ball, then when Yeah, well, yeah.

Ben Foulkes:

If she's running along with uh a rugby ball, then yeah, win-win.

Chris Grimes:

And I think Eve being the tempt so the Adam and Eve, I'm talking about tempting, temptation, anyone in heels with a ball.

Ben Foulkes:

It's gonna be somebody you're Adam and Eve.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, Joanne will be dressed in a rugby kit and eyes when I get back. That's wonderful. And now we're on to one, which is a quirky or unusual fact about you, uh, Ben Fawkes. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Ben Foulkes:

I'm not very comfortable with saying this, but I think one of the things that a lot of people don't know about myself is that I don't mind an afternoon snooze. I'm there. I'm I'm there. I don't mind an afternoon snooze, and I this is not something recently that's happened to me. This is something that I've probably done since I was early 20s. I get incredibly tired when it gets about three, four o'clock and my productivity goes down like you wouldn't believe. So I enjoy an afternoon snooze. It's incredibly important to me to have a snooze at least two or three times a week. I actually put it in my diary to go home and have a snooze.

Chris Grimes:

Um I'm sure that's incredibly helpful for anyone watching. I'm right there. I I'm a samurai power napper, and just 20 minutes is all I need, 20 to 40 minutes.

Ben Foulkes:

Okay. Sorry, it's not about me, but No, no, no, no, I like that. I'm glad that you're on board. I I thought you were going to look at me.

Chris Grimes:

No, no, I'm I'm Captain Cheeky Knapp, whereas my wife Janie gets a migraine if she tries that.

Ben Foulkes:

Well, I've mentioned this to a couple of my friends before now. We're going out on the weekend actually with some family friends, yeah. And the the the wife of the family friend knows us very well, and apparently Joanne had a conversation with her, said we'll meet up at five, and the family friend said, Will that be too early? Because Ben's going to need a nap, isn't it? I actually thought it was very abnormal of me for many years. Yeah. So what I purposely made sure I didn't have an afternoon nap for about nearly three years, yeah. And I just could not work out what was going on with me. My mental health wasn't very good at all. Yeah, I went to the doctors and explained my feelings to me. I just said I'm just not happy. He offered me antidepressants, which I refused. So this went on for quite a few months, and then someone put me in touch with uh and a holistic doctor. So I went to see the holistic doctor. She said you're quite low on magnesium and zinc, and she went through lots of different things, and then she got to the sleep thing. We stumbled across this accidentally, and uh she said, you know, what has anything changed over the last months, few years? And we we I thought actually, I've not had a snooze for a while. And I said, But I you know, I'm running a business, I'm busy sleeping in the day, just not it doesn't suit. And I'll never forget this. She said to me, Ben, everybody is different. She said, Some people are tall, some people are short, some people can run fast, some people can't, some people are thin, some people are fat. She said, Some people need eight hours, some people need six, and some people need an afternoon snooze. And so honestly, true story, at the time I was window cleaning uh with a couple of guys, and I the following day I I went to work, I got home, got myself in bed, had an hour and a half sleep, and I woke up and thought, oh my god, this is what I needed. And that honestly, it for my own mental he even to this day that makes a massive difference to my productivity. I can just focus, I can think clearer, I can solve problems easier. And so I guess that is my guilty pleasure, shall we call it. And I commend you for it because I'm I'm right there. Yeah. So the optimum time for you is an hour and a half, is it? Well, no, actually 30 to 40 minutes I can do, but I I suppose an hour is kind of the the actual secret kind of We have we have shaken your true majestically, if I may say.

Chris Grimes:

Now we stay in the clearing, which is still in your lovely man den at your house. And uh now we're going to talk about alchemy and gold, uh, and go where you like pertaining to Kempton installation systems as well in this regard. But when you're at purpose and in flow, what are you absolutely happiest doing in what you're here to reveal to the world?

Ben Foulkes:

I I suppose I love more than anything socialising. I love being in a group of people, I love contributing to a goal or an aim or a purpose. I'm lucky to be able to do two things that I really love now because I'm do all the sales for our business. We've got a team of 12 people now, so not only am I helping lead a team to a common goal, common purpose, I also go out and do the door-to-door sales as well. So I'm helping people solve issues. So I suppose, in answer to your question, in a nutshell, socialising, helping people, I would reluctantly say I'm a little bit of a leader. I ran a men's football team for nearly 18 years. Uh we got promoted once, we won two or three cups, which was pretty cool. I've now passed that on to two younger guys, and and they've now last season got promoted into the bottom tier of I think it's the West Midlands Regional League. Yeah. So if they get promoted eight seasons in a row, they'll end up in the Prem. So you were there at the beginning. I won't be I won't be funding that though. So yeah, I guess socialising and and and being part of a team is my is my happy place. Wonderful. And now I'm going to award you with a cake.

Chris Grimes:

Hurrah. So do you like cake, Ben? Love a cake. Carrot cake. And that's sort of a that's a dog toy carrot cake right there. So a carrot cake shall be yours. Now you get to put a cherry on your cake, and this is the final storytelling, suffused metaphor. What's a favourite inspirational quote? It could even be the worst thing you could do as a small business is to think, but maybe not.

Ben Foulkes:

I'm just no, absolutely that is what is your favourite inspirational quote? That that has got to be right up there, Chris. Genuinely, I that has got to be up there for me. Being a small business owner and thinking like a small business owner is a fatal kind of issue that small business owners have. You and I know from being in the inner circle group that if you think like a small business owner, then you're not gonna go far. And so that I we I've had that laminated and printed and put in our new office, and I've put the date in the right-hand corner. Just reminders of the date because that was your epiphany. Ah, that's the 20th of May, 2025. That was a Tuesday. Someone's gonna check that, it's gonna be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's bang on right. I love it, and it's so appropriate you've had it laminated. Yeah, yeah. But a cut a cut a couple of other quotes, and it is similar to that, is success is the other side of fear. Success is the other side of fear, and when you're worrying about something and you think you can't do it, and you back out maybe you should push on because if you push through that fear, which I've done recently, you get to the other side and you think shit, actually, it's not quite as scary as I thought it was gonna be. And so that that is a profound one for me. But one more I will add to that. We grew up with a group of eleven guys when we were younger, and we all used to meet on the stag car park at seven o'clock, no mobile phones in those days. So seven o'clock every night we did that for about six or seven years. If you weren't there for seven quarter past, we'd be gone, and that's it, you'd miss the miss the buzz. And so we called ourselves the Stag Eleven. Um Stag is a pub car park, is that right? Stag is a uh a pub car park. Yeah so we were really tight as as teenagers. We went on our first Abitha holidays when we were 17, 18, hired mopeds, got into all kinds of scrapes, and we have all drifted, we've settled down, we've had kids and moved away and one thing or another. We keep in touch, but we only ever meet up in groups of two or three. So what we'd said we'd do is we're all 50 this year. We said we'd meet up, do something. Because so in November we we all met up and decided to go to Pamplona to the ball festival, do the running of the balls. Just very quickly, they let 10 balls loose through the streets of Pamplona. You're standing in the road and you have to leg it for your life. It's pretty scary, but very exhilarating if you can come out alive, which obviously I have. But what was great about meeting up with those group of friends after all those years, it was we just within 30 seconds of meeting them, we just slipped back into what we were like when we were kids. And there's so much history and there's so much banter, it was just amazing to spend that time with old pals. And one we got back from that holiday, and my one of our friends sent us uh we're on a WhatsApp group, he sent us a message, I'm sure he didn't make it up, but it was pretty cool. And it said something like True friendship endures distance, time, and silence. And I thought, wow, that's pretty cool, and that's exactly what we have. We don't need to speak for. Maybe months or years at a time, we don't need to see each other, and when we do meet up, it's just like we've never been away. So, what I would say is if there's some friends or family members you've not spoken to for a while that you really click with, I I would encourage you to get in touch with them because three or four days that we had away were just super cool, and what we decided to do is meet up every 12 months now. So we're going to go to the Tomatina Festival next year in Spain. Yes, that's the tomato hurl. Well, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's what we've got booked in the diary for next year. And is the squad all still there? Yeah, pretty much. With all 11 of us, we're still live and kick in. I think out of the eleven, I think seven of us managed to get away for a few days. Hopefully, we can get the other three or four members on board for next year.

Chris Grimes:

And how appropriate that it's a squad of eleven, which is your dream football team. And also, as you're called the stag, it's it you you're born to go to stag events. And there's a it sounds very filmic the idea that you'd meet sort of in the in the dusk light in the stag car park every night, seven o'clock. Yeah. And I love that.

Ben Foulkes:

That sounds very yeah, that's very cool and romantic. But if I'm honest with you, we actually met outside the carpet shop in the doorway because I had a bit of a shelter, it was usually raining. So not quite as glamorous. But yeah, I'll take that.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, it's a great story. Wonderful. So, what we're ramping up to now in a moment is to talk about Shakespeare, to talk about legacy and how you'd most likely be remembered. But just before we get there, as you've experienced this from within now, this is called Pass the Golden Baton, please. A bit like they don't like it out with Mr. Menring. But is there anyone in your network who you might like to pass the golden baton along to?

Ben Foulkes:

Uh yeah, I think my dad has got an amazing story to tell. I'd like to pass the baton on to him. He is the father of four children. I don't think not them aware of he's got any more than that. I hope not. Anyway, he's led a very colourful life. He came from nothing. He met my mum. They were very young when they settled down, they moved away from their kind of lives they grew up in. And my dad's got some cool stories, so I'd like I'd like to pass the baton on to him. And what's his name? His name's Barry, Barry Faukes. Barry Faukes. Yeah. And I I've just realised I've been pronouncing Fawkes wrongly. It's Falkes. No, well, that's probably my accent. Fawkes, Fawkes, I've been all called all sorts.

Chris Grimes:

Barry Fox. And and um, extraordinarily uh by happy coincidence, as you well know, I'm in the inner circle trying to develop the idea of what's already out there called legacy life reflections, which is to use this structure to record that that story of that precious someone for posterity. And if I may, that sounds like the perfect sort of lens in which to wrap the story of Barry in as well. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you. That's a really generous bat and pass. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And now, inspired by Shakespeare, all the world's steed and all the bitter wibbid Billy players, how, when all is said and done, Ben Fawkes, would you most like to be remembered?

Ben Foulkes:

Uh I think I would like to be remembered as a good, kind, inspirational guy that said it the way it was and was brave enough to go for his goals, I guess.

Chris Grimes:

There'll be one more important thing for you to say in a moment, but just a couple of announcements. If you've enjoyed the show and the format and would like to have a conversation about guesting yourself, then the website for the show is thegoodlistening to show.com. If you'd like to join with me on LinkedIn, you can. I know you're going to get into trouble because you're not on LinkedIn at the moment. What are you playing at? Correct. I think Nigel Buttrell had a few things to say about that. So, yes, uh, you can't find Ben on LinkedIn, but you can find me on LinkedIn. And then also the really exciting thing that I'm at Entrepreneur Circle and I exhibited about this at the recent uh Entrepreneurs Convention a couple of weeks ago. I had an exhibition stand about legacy lifereflections.com where my own father Colin Grimes, who died a year ago, was a very willing guinea pig for the idea of, without any morbid intention, recording either your story or the story of that precious someone for posterity, lest we forget, before it's too late, using the unique and what's been called thoroughly enjoyable storytelling structure of what it is you've been observing today. So um, I've been Chris Grimes. Most importantly, this has been Ben Fawkes from Kempton Installation Services. As this has been your moment in the sunshine in the good listening to show Stories of Distinction and Genius, Ben, is there anything else you'd like to say?

Ben Foulkes:

I I guess the one thing I I would add all through my life I've doubted myself and I've worried needlessly about things that probably don't matter so much. And so if there's any one thing I would finish on is for me I put a lot of doubts in my own mind, but life is very short, and I I would say stress not, worry less, go for what you want, enjoy your life. We'll all be gone very soon, so effing go for it.

Chris Grimes:

Barry Falkes will be proud. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Ben Falkes. I've been Chris Grimes. Thank you very much indeed. Good night. Good night. You've been listening to the Good Listening to Show with me, Chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how, care of the series strands at the Good Listening2Show.com website. And one of these series strands is called Brand Strand Founder Stories, for business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do, and then crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the clearing. And don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.