It's time to watch or listen to the brilliant Tim Williams, Co-Founder of Go Geothermal; as we journey through the multi-layered realm of leadership, business growth, and the stirring world of renewable energy.
Discover the secret sauce of cultivating a winning culture within your company and why a dose of humility might just be the most powerful tool in a leader's arsenal. Listen closely as we unpack the significance of embracing challenges from talented team members and how this friction is a springboard for progress.
Step into the art of business relationships, where personal tales and customer psychology interweave to create a tapestry of authentic connections. In this exchange of stories and strategies, learn how my own entrepreneurial spirit turned café encounters into bustling business opportunities and why aligning with partners who share your values isn't just good ethics—it's good business. We'll also reflect on the importance of delegation and recognizing individual strengths for the empowerment of your team and the health of your enterprise.
As we close, the conversation turns toward the compelling call for environmental responsibility and sustainability in today's corporate world. We explore the tangible impact of influential figures and the emergent generation's demand for genuine ecological action, emphasizing that businesses must now match their environmental rhetoric with tangible practice. Tune in for an episode that promises to stoke your imagination and perhaps, ignite a flame of inspiration to lead with purpose and passion in an ever-evolving green economy.
Please subscribe to the channel for more content! Theo James are a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK. Please call us on 0191 5111 298
It's time to watch or listen to the brilliant Tim Williams, Co-Founder of Go Geothermal; as we journey through the multi-layered realm of leadership, business growth, and the stirring world of renewable energy.
Discover the secret sauce of cultivating a winning culture within your company and why a dose of humility might just be the most powerful tool in a leader's arsenal. Listen closely as we unpack the significance of embracing challenges from talented team members and how this friction is a springboard for progress.
Step into the art of business relationships, where personal tales and customer psychology interweave to create a tapestry of authentic connections. In this exchange of stories and strategies, learn how my own entrepreneurial spirit turned café encounters into bustling business opportunities and why aligning with partners who share your values isn't just good ethics—it's good business. We'll also reflect on the importance of delegation and recognizing individual strengths for the empowerment of your team and the health of your enterprise.
As we close, the conversation turns toward the compelling call for environmental responsibility and sustainability in today's corporate world. We explore the tangible impact of influential figures and the emergent generation's demand for genuine ecological action, emphasizing that businesses must now match their environmental rhetoric with tangible practice. Tune in for an episode that promises to stoke your imagination and perhaps, ignite a flame of inspiration to lead with purpose and passion in an ever-evolving green economy.
Please subscribe to the channel for more content! Theo James are a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK. Please call us on 0191 5111 298
Hello and welcome to another episode of the manufacturing leaders podcast with me Mark Bracknell, managing director of Theo James recruitment. On today's episode we welcome Tim Williams, the co-founder of Gojo thermal, based in New Naples. I couldn't wait to interview Tim. I had the absolute pleasure of sharing the podcast stage with him recently on another podcast and I knew I want them on my show and he was excellent.
Speaker 1:There was so much in this episode. We talked about Gojo thermal, specialized in ground and heat pumps, and we talked about that in detail, both educationally. So you're going to learn a lot about that subject, because it's very, very important also that the sustainability renewables in its entirety, but also how businesses and also people domestically can help to save money and use grants. So this is an episode you're going to learn a lot about the subject, which is really important a lot less than to be learned. But we're also talking depth about the core of this podcast, which is obviously management. I learned a lot about what makes a good leader the humility side, delegation side. We're talking detail about the early years of Gojo thermal, tim. It's also some great funny stories about those early days and the lessons to be learned as well, and just everything along the way. So this was a real enjoyable episode, probably one of my favorite MD episodes of all time and one I know we're going to learn a lot from.
Speaker 1:So please sit back and watch or listen however you like to do so and please, please, please, like and subscribe to the show. It really means a lot and it helps me get even better guests in the show. So thank you very much. Hope you enjoy the episode. Excellent, so I will welcome Tim. As I said, I go straight into this podcast. Same question. I ask every single person that start the episode what does being a me sorry apologies what does being a leader mean to you?
Speaker 2:Morning. Mark, thanks for having me on. I think being a leader means many things to many people, I guess, whether you're being led or you're a leader yourself and I've had some time to think about it, as all your guests have, and I suppose where I've got to with it is, I think, first and foremost, being a leader is it's vital to inspire and absolutely create a winning culture, whether that be in a sport or be in a business. In my case, I think it's very important to be inspirational to the team around you, and when I say inspire, I mean give people something to aim for. It's very, very broad brush, but it's important in the culture of a business.
Speaker 2:I think one of the other things that gets overlooked is and certainly like a lot of people in business, you don't start with a team around you. You start from humble beginnings, and that was very much the case for myself and Sean. Being a leader wasn't even on our radar because we weren't leading anyone. It was us and it was us. So as you get into the journey and you have a degree of success and you're looking enough to have people working for you and around you, I think one of the things I've come to realise painfully, I would admit that often your best employees are the ones that, as you see it, cause you the most tests, and I've learned, if I'm honest, the hard way, that you need to be pushed.
Speaker 2:And good people are your business, and the ones that are the most capable and most gifted are often the ones that push you the most in terms of testing yourself, and they will question your ideas, your thoughts not necessarily in a negative way, but it will test your resilience as a leader and your confidence in your plan, and that's something I think I would definitely tell people who are in this journey or going forward, who hope to be successful. It's very important, once you've got the people in, to listen to them and not always agree. Sometimes you can be clever about how you adapt their good ideas. You can make a bit of fun about it. If you fall at a meet and it's somebody else's idea. You should never, ever not give them the praise and credit for their ideas. But I think how you model it into your business is really important. So, yeah, that's been a amongst many surprises. That's been a big surprise.
Speaker 2:How important that is having had time to lead people and I think also this is debatable but for me, one of the most crucial things about being the leader of any organization is to never be satisfied, always be wanting the next thing, never be afraid of evolving. It's an uncomfortable place to be a leader and if it's not uncomfortable, you're not doing your job well. You need to be constantly paranoid, constantly thinking how can I change this, how can I evolve it? And it's a very unsettling place If you want comfort and a more of the same scenario in a work role, you're definitely not a leader.
Speaker 2:They're the main points and then the last one, I think, which is arguably one of the hardest, because the final line we all battle when we're leading is confidence. But I think humility is massively underrated within a business. I think people feed off the personalities of leaders and if they don't see them as having a sensible level of humility and humbleness, despite whatever they've achieved I mean, obviously there are people that have achieved enormous success on a stratospheric level and keeping that humility, when there's so much pressure to change that are subtle and not obvious, it's very, very important to remind yourself that you're just a person, as you were at the start and you should stay like that. So humility is a big one that is very, very important to keep.
Speaker 1:Love that. I completely agree that humility piece for you. Has that mindset changed over time? Because you'll be a very different leader today than you were when you first started taking on people. And sometimes people struggle young leaders, new leaders with that. I have to be a certain character and then potentially come to realise that I don't actually need to be myself, and people didn't see that. Do you go through that transition yourself, Would you say?
Speaker 2:I think everybody wrestles with being a leader of people as the team changes. Obviously there's more of them if you have any success. Different people come in, different blends of characters that you're not used to dealing with, and I would. I think other people have to answer whether I change. I think I definitely haven't changed as a person, my core values. You have to change some of your weaknesses that inherently are with you, as they are with everybody, to adapt into your role. Your core personality doesn't change and you have to be genuine. People see straight through it if you're anybody else, but you have to adapt in a work environment some of those weaknesses that may be detrimental to the business. I can give you examples of that, but it's again. It's a final line between being yourself, being honest. You have to show vulnerabilities, but not a weakness in your leadership role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the difference, and I can't be agree, so yeah, people do struggle with it.
Speaker 2:I think when you're younger it's even harder, because when we're younger, obviously we're not the finished article. I always think about being in your 20s and your 30s as being like a brand new racing car that hasn't yet been refined. You're incredible and you'll never be that fast again, but you haven't had the refinements, and that's a massive bonus when you start in a business. But it's also something that will lead to challenges, because you like that that get refined as you get older. You just get far better at doing a lot with less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great analogy. The vision one's interesting because everyone starts a business for different reasons, whether that's an opportunity that presents itself or whether that's something they want to be. The vision can you mentioned there when it was just you and Sean. It's a very different thing because you'd not need to motivate or lead anyone and that vision might not necessarily have been as important as it was then, as it was now, but however your business is, one has real purpose. So it could be very different for you than it would be for me to say. You know, as an owner of a recruitment firm has. That again was the almost a time where you went we've got a team now we need to have vision, or is it the same vision that's carried through from day one? What do you say?
Speaker 2:I think I think that well, again, a very difficult question to answer, but a valid one. When, when you start with an idea and a, you know, an embryo of a business, you're so lost and driven and just completely absorbed in in the end goal of success that, if you're honest, you don't even give a second thought to bringing people in. And then when it happens, it kind of happens because it's a necessity to actually cope with the business growth. Once you've kind of had five years of bringing people in and you reflect back, that's when you start to have a light bulb moment and go hang on a minute. We actually using the team around us to the best of our abilities.
Speaker 2:And that's something that I personally struggled with because, back to your original point, when I got into business, it was nothing to do with having a team around me. It was very single minded and it didn't involve other people, even though I was. I was sensible enough to realize that nobody has success in most businesses on their own and you know, amazon wouldn't be quite what it was without the people around them. You know there's a limit to what one human being can do, so it's kind of obviously going to have to do it. You don't focus on it at the start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and go do your thermal brilliant business, and probably at its most exciting time, at the moment, which we'll talk about later yeah, unique times, yeah. Yeah, and nearly 15 years obviously. Since this, though, I am sure a lot has changed. I love to go back to that. So what led you to start in that business? Was that something you'd always planned? Was it an opportunity? How did it come about?
Speaker 2:From a business perspective. I'd always, since being a teenager at school, I'd always been obsessed with business and wanting to have my own business and at the time I don't think I really knew why I wanted a business, but I knew I did and I can't. I genuinely can't put it down to anything other than I always loved the idea of getting something and selling it and I knew early on I was very natural at that selling role. I like people, I like being around people and I think daft as it sounds, I had a. I remember going to an afternoon once at a local windmill where I was brought up, where they were selling bags of flour, obviously, and I was invited by a friend who said look, will you come down and help? When I was going to be lifting things and doing things and there was an old guy selling flour and they were bringing lots of people through and visiting the windmill and I was thinking he's not very good at that. So I said you know, can I have a go? And he was quite clever because he said, yeah, you have a go then, if you think you've got a tip.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I got involved in it and I was quite good at it and I knew. I knew that I wanted to do something like that. But that kind of cemented the fact that if you deal with people in a certain way, even to greet them as they walk through into the, into the shop, that elicits a different outcome. And I liked the fact that how do you judge a person? And the more standoffish they were and the more resistant they were to actually buy something in that windmill, I thought, well, that's yeah, let's see, let's see what is going to get their attention.
Speaker 2:And even then I knew that I could do that and I thought, well, if I can do that, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as I know I know how to do that I can. I can create an environment where people will want to engage with what I'm talking about, whether it be, you know, a bag of flour, or whether it be a car or an air, whatever it is and I didn't know at that point it was going to be in renewable heating. I mean moving a little bit on. I was always very interested in the environment, even back in the 80s.
Speaker 2:I do like technology mixing with what, what science can do, and I'm not scientifically or gifted scientifically or in in in any of those sort of useful professions, but I knew I could relate to different people at a high level, a low level in terms of knowledge and right right through to everything in between. And just quite because I'm not trying at it, it's quite natural for me, for whatever reason that's. That's something that we gifted with, that's probably my, my gift, that we're all given at birth. You know we've all got different gifts, haven't we?
Speaker 1:Do you think for you that's almost like a curiosity about the psychology of people, because what you're talking about I'm sure it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure that's what I mean. The parents were both not from a business background, were very much involved with helping people and I think a lot of it probably subconsciously rubbed off although I'm very different to my parents in lots of ways. That definitely rubbed off and it. And, of course, when you're younger you don't realise that those things will help you in later life because every situation, whatever your career or path, you're going to be dealing with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. How does that impact you positively and negatively, regarding when you're in your own business in terms of dealing with people? I guess a lot of that for you is is relying on your own internal mechanism to the psychology piece in terms of can they work for? Can they work for my business? Are they going to be right? Is this something I want to do business with? Is that something you're always considering, or less so than the data analytical piece? What do you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, three parts of that, in terms of customers or people I work with, or the data. I'm a Virgo and whilst I'm not into these star signs, virgos are very analytical by nature to our, to our, to our positive and our detriment. So I am I am quite interested in the numbers. That's true. In terms of customers, I have had a very black and white approach to customers and suppliers of the business since since we started. Really, my view is very much if people have got the same value set and ethos of how to do business, you will quickly form a natural bond with them anyway, and what you learn, probably a bit slowly, is that if you try and put too much resource and effort of your own time into customers that will never see things your way, you're basically wasting time that could be spent far more productively over here, and it's a very hard thing to walk away, especially when you're selling things. It's a very, very difficult thing to do and you automatically go into the human emotion of our or failed because you know Joe blocks doesn't want to deal with me, but they will deal with that customer over there. Well, sometimes it's just because Joe blocks gets on really well with that person over there. It's not a negative in you. Sometimes it's because you do something that really irritates them and that you know that's you and you're not going to win. So go and spend your time over here where somebody does like you and you will win. And that that's the lesson I learned in the first sort of three or four years particularly. I'd already got a lot of those things formed by working for the people anyway. So I'd learn on their time if you like, but I guess harder.
Speaker 2:As you mature into a business, because obviously the opportunities get greater, you're more critical of yourself, because you're more of a rounded individual and the more you're more down your journey, so you think better you know you push yourself harder, you're more, you're less forgiving of yourself, so that gets even harder. But you have to come back to ground zero and go hang on. What did you learn at the start? And it's still applicable Don't, don't try and change a scenario that will never change because you don't meet in the middle. On. An ethos is matter with businesses, businesses. If you look at any business, I would challenge you to find a business that doesn't have a spiders web overlapping their ethos. When they buy from a company a lot that you'll always see an overlap either in the management or the people that work there. You very rarely see total opposites working together on a weekly basis because they won't gel and it always comes back to people again.
Speaker 1:And 100%. I completely agree and that comes out to you the values within the business. Is that a piece that you've looked at as a business? What are our values? Do we hire against that? Do we work with people within that? Is that something conscious or more subconscious for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think if again, if I'm brutally honest about this journey I've been on where I doubt undoubtedly and also Sean, my co-fan had lots of skills and passion where we've had to learn from others, and definitely had to learn from others in the last five years, is when you're managing a team of people. The skills that require a very, very different. I would openly say my natural skill set is not managing and getting the best out of people. I've worked for enough people to know there's a lot better people than myself. I know my skills, I know my strengths and it isn't necessarily getting the best out of individuals. Where I do think I'm capable is I'm good at appreciating good managers. I understand when people are good at their roles and I think I've got far better in the last couple of years at letting that control of how the teams are managed go to other people who are better at it.
Speaker 2:We've undergone a lot of changes in the last 12 months as a business, partly because of this, and I'm sure a lot of businesses that start with one or two people learn the hard way, as we did, that what works when you're turning over a million pounds or less doesn't work when you're sort of growing exponentially and you've got 20, 25 people. It's not the same cultures and you have to evolve. Like I was saying earlier, you do have to evolve. Now we have been smart enough to evolve. But that again back to your original question. I just think sometimes you have to know your limitations in business as well and bring that skill set in. You can't always change to what you need to be, you know what?
Speaker 1:I've quite recently come to, that realization, exactly what you just said there, and it's really empowering. I've came to this realization that what are my strengths? I think when you start a business, you do everything and you have to do everything, absolutely you have to. And then you almost organically become a bit of a jack of all trades and then you start to hire people, you start to delegate, but you still probably keep all the things you think you should keep hold of because your title is MD, director, whatever it is. But the minute you give responsibility to someone and you see them do it better than you and then you realize that that's okay because you're doing something else which is better your skill set it's such an empowering feeling.
Speaker 2:I've quite recently into that. It's like a millstone, literally like a millstone coming off your neck. Because take your example you maybe give a role to take care of an area in your business and you think no one else can do it like me. And that's true, they can't. But you know, here's the thing Sometimes they come in and they do better than you. Exactly that's empowering, I agree, because you realize that by letting the pressure go from your sort of work desk, you've actually made the business better and you've lowered your workload so you can focus on something else. So fantastic what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a lot of people can learn from that that. You know, even if you put into leadership roles, you just mean you need to do everything. Do you know what I mean? It might mean you just need to delegate better and play to your strengths and you're not always practicing your weaknesses. I think I've found that job as well. Just, I'm not good at this. I must practice. Practice for actually sometimes just accept it and just keep honing in your on your skill set and do what you're good at. Yeah, yeah, completely. I like it. I think I started those 15 years ago because I think it's sometimes quite nice to reflect and what was it just life? And see the pan stuff. Was it good? Did you have a plan? What was it like? Was it just you and Sean?
Speaker 2:just first year. Well, it was from an embryo of an idea from myself. I kind of had a literally one of those moments in life where I was working in a role on the road, driving around looking for opportunities, and I was very much the junior in that team in the pipeline industry and I think I took apologies to you, mark, I think you've had to hear this story before, but yeah, I was driving around one week Monday morning I got called into a customer that we didn't yet have asking me to. Well, basically, I sat down and the guy says look, I want to buy some of those. And he pointed at this pallet and it was full of these black pipes. Nothing strange about that. We sold polyethylene pipe work. I said, well, what is it? I've never seen pipe in that orientation. He says, well, you put it down a hole and you put cold fluid through it and you can heat your building from it and cool your building from it. I says, say, that again.
Speaker 2:Anyway, a big conversation ensued over an hour and a half. Again played to my strength of being interested and likely talk to people and, luckily for me, the gentleman was very chatty and I said look, I don't know if we can get this for you, but we certainly make polyethylene. Leave it with me. And I literally remember driving out of that yard where we had these drilling rigs thinking that is a business, that is going to be a business. And I knew I always wanted to be a business, since I was in business and from a teenager and I had this passion, as I said so. But I always wanted the idea and it was like I can't explain. It was like a higher power just planted this thing in front of me and said that is going to be a business and I just knew. Then it was like this overwhelming sense of I found it. Anyway, that was the easy bit. The next bit was in the early days of the internet. It was kind of 2003, 2004 time and I was looking around saying, does anybody else do this product? And there were companies in sort of the Nordics that were selling bits and bats and thought yeah, okay, we'll have a look at this. And a few months I thought, right, I've definitely got something. I know this is going to happen.
Speaker 2:But I was having a chat with Sean, my now business partner, and we were up in his house at Sedgfield at the time and we were literally chatting over it as friends do over a beer, and he said look, this is my idea, what do you think to it? I think it's got legs inside. And he just instantly said, yeah, that's a great idea. And literally from that we just said, right, well, let's do it, let's go for it. And the thing that he doesn't realize was more important. It wasn't the fact that he could bring an element of finance to it, because relatively it was a low amount and we didn't invest in the right things.
Speaker 2:Anyway, as it turned out, it was his belief and his belief to come into it and work at it and self-assuredness that was the important thing. And then the two of us got together and then it was a very you know, it literally formed in October 2006 officially, but it was a very, very slow start. We put the slow in slow start and the industry was very immature. And we found out quickly that the idea was good. But, yeah, the timing and, as you know, in business timing is important. Yeah, it was quite early.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and do you find because now everyone's talking about renewable sustainability, efficiency, all this cyber stuff but that feels quite recent, you know, very recent to some extent, but that won't felt recent for you because obviously you've been in this world for so long what do you think has been the transition between people changing their mindset about this versus, you know, 10, 12 years ago, where I imagine there's no education behind it at all?
Speaker 2:No, I think, especially if I take it to the UK. I mean, the journey the UK has made is incredible when you actually sit back and look at it, which I rarely do. To be honest, I should do more, but you know, I think the only thing I can remember around the time we were setting this up was swampy and looking after, you know, looking after trees and changing themselves. There was a little bit of a movement at the time where they got a lot of coverage and people were like well, what are you doing? A tree over is what you're playing at? And then, over the kind of sort of certainly 2010 onwards, there were a number of government initiatives driven by the science, but also the politics, but also a kind of a real realisation from the scientific community, if you like. That was getting good coverage from David Attenborough.
Speaker 2:Again, it always takes the media to sort of put it in front of the general public, and I think a lot of people started to slowly but surely wake up to the fact that we can't just keep doing more of the same as a world and not expect some damage to be caused. And whilst it was definitely as much anti-climate change as in, no, it's always happened. The climate's always changed and there's always been this and there's always been that. Once the science got to a point where it was irrefutable to most reasonable people, that's when a lot more media came in, a lot more politicians came in on the bandwagon and then a number of things kind of gained momentum, but it was. They were slow and subtle.
Speaker 2:These things never come at once from one area. There's lots of little stakeholders, such as David Attenborough with his TV shows, such as, as I've said before, the Greta Thunberg effect. Later on, it just takes these quite, I don't know, seminal moments where it changes everything and then they all link up and that I think then, when you combine it with some of the extreme weather we've experienced in Europe and further afield again over the last 10 years, people have joined the dots up. The general public are not daft. The thing about the general public is we're all trying to get on and do our bit and live day to day, but sometimes, if enough comes in front of the general public, that's kind of grabbing their attention. They start to start listening. It's you know, everybody wants to do the right thing and everybody wants to live a better life, but you know you're lost in day to day life a lot of the time, so it takes big events sometimes to draw the attention in.
Speaker 1:Apologies for interrupting this podcast for a very quick 30 second picture of my business. Leo James are a specialist in manufacturing and engineering recruitment search firm based in Seaham in the Northeast. If you're looking for any staff or new opportunity yourself from a semi-skilled level, write the way up to C-suite executive and please get in touch. We have a specialist consultant in each discipline ready to help. I'm extremely proud of what we've built over the years and I'd love to extend that service out to you. Thank you, enjoy the podcast. Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1:I think if you look at the average Joe or even the average business, a lot of people want to do that, want to do what's right and want to do what's right environment. But sometimes there has to be a catalyst to change financially in that sense. So I think the advantage you've got the hair is as well that a lot of companies and people will start to realize that you help the environment. They're also helping their pockets in the long term because obviously everything your energy, et cetera is getting very expensive. So again, do you think can you almost pinpoint a time in the business even though it's been quite sort of changes where there was almost like a step change to go right. We're on the bit of a journey. I can see this trajectory is now accelerating quicker than it has been for the last six, seven years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I suppose it's different for everybody in this industry, but one of the things that from our side, particularly with our customer base at that time I think why I kind of realized I mean, I know I realized because I celebrated the moment on a personal level which a lot of people should do more when they were at their own businesses.
Speaker 2:You're very good at not marking your milestones when you do have some success, and myself and Sean have been very poor at it, if we're honest.
Speaker 2:But I remember when the domestic renewable heat incentive was announced, which effectively was by far the most generous that had ever been launched in the Western world or anywhere in the world and it was going to give huge amounts of money to homeowners to put that technology in.
Speaker 2:That was a game changer for our business because we were very domestically focused at the time in particular, and when you were looking at a market that was suddenly gonna go to a homeowner right, well, you could put that oil gas boiler in or you could earn the best part of 35,000 pounds over seven years doing something different and, as you'd expect me to say, it rocket-fuelled the industry for lots of people not just us, obviously and it made a huge, huge difference to the industry and it meant investment then started to come and confidence started to come. So that was around sort of 2011 time, that sort of area don't quote me on that but it was a huge, you know. But it was a bit later, but it was a big turning point for us. Yeah, I can remember that. And then lots of things happened in succession after that.
Speaker 1:For those people and I'm still thinking there'll be a lot of them, and I was one who have little to no knowledge of what heat source ground but all that good stuff does in the business, because I still think it's the education piece which hopefully in this podcast we can do. How would you describe what they do and the benefits? Apologies for asking a picture. You said yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, heat pumps. When we formed it, it was very much oriented towards ground source heat pumps, not air source heat pumps, and of course we do both now. An air source, from a volume point of view, was overwhelmingly gonna dominate Europe in terms of sales of heat pumps, just because they're so applicable to many more situations. Air source and they are capital outweighs. They are lower capital outweighs. That's just the fact. Unfortunately, whether you're you know, I'm a purest of ground source but I like both technologies. But yeah, that's the facts of the matter. But I mean, to anybody that's never come across a heat pump or how they work, the analogy that gets rolled out a lot is the fridge freezer. Most people have a fridge or a fridge freezer at home and it's literally that technology in reverse. You put your hand at the back of a fridge freezer. It's very hot. Again, it's the same technology. It's using latent heat, that's, from the sun, whether it be in the air, whether it be in the ground, whether it be in water, and we can, using gases and compression and expansion. We can use refrigerants, natural refrigerants, man-made refrigerants. We can laterally it's been much more natural refrigerants because of their lower global warming potential. We can take that latent heat which is there free, which is recharged every day through rainfall, from the sunshine, and we take a very low-grade heat, using science, and take it to a higher-grade heat within your home using that heat pump, which essentially is compression and expanding that heat and making it hotter at the point of delivery when it comes into your house. So again, a very crude analogy you get a bike pump and you put your finger at the end of an old-fashioned bike pump. It gets hot, it's compressing, so it's a mixture. It's a very old science. It's been around for hundreds of years. All that's changed is the technology. As science has moved on, has got better and better and better. So one of the things that I find quite nice is that when we had very early days heat pumps, they were using natural refrigerants because they didn't have man-made refrigerants. And now we've gone full circle again and we're going back to natural refrigerant because they let far less damage into the environment. So it's an interesting cycle we've gone around.
Speaker 2:But of course the technology bears no relation in terms of how sophisticated it is now. But it is the same science. You know ground source, you put a low-temperature fluid through your garden and because of the rule of physics, it will actually pick up that heat as it goes around the garden, because heat is drawn to kulf. That then comes back into your heat pump. It's elevated even more from that low-temperature pickup to a useful heat at, say, 30, 35 degrees up. It goes right through to showers at 40, 45 degrees or 50 degrees, depending. If you're a lany yeah, not really, they do that lany's do tend to like the showers hotter, I find.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's really really clever, but it's not new technology. It's just it needed the landscape around it to come away from fossil technology because of the damage it did. I mean, if people want to go into the real science of it, there's lots of good little videos at LinkoFAR website, the gogeothermalcouk, and there's also lots of good YouTube clips out there that will show it in graphic. I mean, I find it much easier to look at a graphic where it shows what each gas is doing in each stage and compresses and yeah, it's. Yeah, there's lots of ways to explain it, but that's essentially what it's doing. It's solar energy being utilized.
Speaker 1:And if a manufacturing firm or a commercial building, for example, use that technology, then it's obvious they would also save financially on the energy side. What do you say is that Totally.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think one of the most exciting things and the thing is to remember is that with a heat pump, if you take a commercial gas boiler or a gas boiler in your home and you put a kilowatt of grid energy into that, so one kilowatt in you are gonna get typically less than one kilowatt of useful heat out. So that's where you get your 100% efficiency upwards. So you've got one kilowatt going into your boiler. Even on a brand new state of the art boiler from day one, when it's running very efficiently, you might get 95%, even less, back out of it. You take a heat pump and put a kilowatt of energy in, even a sort of a lower performing one in air source, you're gonna be getting 200%, 300%, right up to 500% efficiency, depending on the weather, depending on what's happening, what temperature it's going out of. I mean it's important to differentiate efficiencies with what's called a SCOP, a seasonal coefficient of performance. That's where it goes throughout a whole year. So you've got heating seasons and summer weather in there, so it looks at the whole heating season throughout an entire year. So I'll try not to get too into the technical side of it, but one thing I can tell you very definitely is. If you buy any brand of heat pump, obviously I'm brand bias to my brands, but you will be putting in something far, far more efficient. It will have anywhere between 200 to 500% efficiencies from day one and that will not drop off Significantly through the life of that heat pump. It will alter depending on all sorts of conditions and weather. It'll never drop below a certain level. Far, far more efficient. And one of the nice things about the technology is if you put in a factory, for example and factories often create heat or Some kind of byproducts so many examples I can give you where you take that wasted byproducts or heat like a water that's used to cool something, and then it's taken away, we can put our heat exchangers in that water, take that wasted heat and put it back into your heating system. So what was once wasted using fossil technology so using gas to heat up some water or to just some water that was used as a cooling bath, we can then take that heat and put it into our heating system. So you then use in what was wasted as a useful source of hot water or heating, and that can be done on a massive scale Right down to a relatively small scale. It's got so much Sort of adaptability and I think cooling is the big one that everyone's seeing now.
Speaker 2:Over the last few years Cooling has become so important. We look at the southeast of England in the summer I mean last year here in Nottinghamshire we have 40 degrees that cooling potential on the heat pumps that we've got. We can get a passive cooling and active cooling on heat pumps, so underrated Can't do that with gas boilers. You know this. This is a huge advantage. So there are there are so many areas we can help businesses and homeowners that they won't have foreseen. And you know the technology within the heat pump controls. Compared to a normal boiler it's on a. You know it's on another level, what it, what it can do. So there's there's lots of subtle differences that are not so well known.
Speaker 1:It's it's fascinating and it's obviously an absolute no-brainer for particularly manufacturing firms as well. Who you know and I've got a lot of them have got targets to meet by by time lots of grants available now and lots of Incentives which obviously out.
Speaker 2:If they want to make reach out to our business, we can put them in touch with those Agences that have got the the money is available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that action stuff and I'll put your details on back there's. I think this all links nice as well with what we can't judge on a little while ago, with With the purpose of a business and actually whether you know the purpose of your business is is brilliant. And imagine when you are hiring people. Then it's a, it's a great thing to sell because they're part of something which is, which is a real movement and change. But actually if you are, if you work for a man, a manufacturing or engineering company or any form of company which has this type of technology in, then I think companies are missing a trick not selling that as part of their business because no, we spoke before about it and you mentioned, you know, brett Stomberg.
Speaker 1:Those are people who probably, when she first came out, was almost a bit of a who's this, she was a bit of a joke, but actually the movement she's created and people underestimate the power that she's given a generation of people Younger than us who actually really care, don't don't sort of pretend to care, they actually really care about this sort of stuff, which is brilliant and it means that there will be some actual change. I think generations you know after, you know before, that Probably just too late down the line to really, really truly care on mass, but I think companies have got an opportunity to sell that purpose. Is that something you think about when you, when you're hiring? You know that that sort of vision to people, people bought into that, I think.
Speaker 2:I think your points very, very valid. In terms of the generation now, or far more Of Greta Thumbler's age definitely, and and younger are far more engaged with what's happening in the environment. Apart from the obvious, they need to care because they're gonna be around a lot longer than us. I think they are just genuinely much more engaged with what's happening worldwide with the environment than we then we were perhaps, so that that really fuels the movement definitely. And I think governments and political parties, you know, ignore that their peril definitely. I mean, you've only got to look at what the Labour government sorry, labour government, what Labour are doing in opposition to be. You know they're very focused in a way that no other previous opposition party looked at the environment. That's, that's not an accident. They know that there's a lot of votes there and also it's, you know, so high up the political agenda for all parties now you cannot ignore it. So it's that that definitely helps.
Speaker 2:When I'm looking at bringing people into the business, I think I'm looking that we can sell. The field would factor very easily because you know we're not selling cigarettes or something harming. You know, we're selling something that's taking carbon out the atmosphere and it's making the world a better place. So it's very, it's very good to have that when you sell in the dream. I think I think of it more, if I'm honest, as a business owner, in terms of the huge amounts of industry and business in the UK that profess to be very environmentally focused and you can read their corporate mission statements, and I'm you know I'm cynical by nature, but I'm also getting on a bit now, so I'm even more cynical. I'm always interested to see what business is actually investing these mission statements and corporate statements as in if I look behind their marketing and go right, okay then. Well, so you've got 11 factories in the UK. How many of those have you looked to be costed out, to switch, and how many have you actually changed and what have you actually done to actually even cost them out? And that's a very interesting practical thing that we can all do when we buy things and I would urge all people to do that when they're buying products day to day, especially your daily products. You know if you're buying a particular deodorant every day have a look behind and see what those companies are actually doing. Don't look at their marketing. Look at what they're doing. It's very easy to find information out with the Internet and it's quite interesting to see who's doing something, who's talking about it and that, as you rightly hint at, mark, is what affects change.
Speaker 2:You know, I've, in a good way, I've seen a lot of companies want to do the right thing now and they want to engage with industry in the renewable sector to see how they can improve, which is very encouraging and it's the right thing. But government, I still say we've got a way to go, government sticks as opposed to carrots, and I only have to look to next year with the new build and what legislation is coming in. You know, regrettably, business, when all business is bottom line focus. I understand how the world works of course I do, but business sometimes needs a little bit of kick as well as a help, and I think there's a lot of help out there now. But sometimes I'm a bit frustrated with with big business and small business that sometimes you have to lead a little and go right rather and wait for this incentive or wait for this state. Let's come out of our pack and go. Let's be the first chocolate bar manufacturer to do this, or let's be the first deodorant company to do this, rather than wait until they have to will be scared to, and there's too much of that in business. I think that's something that Greta Thunberg again we mentioned. She's been very clever in the fact that she's allied herself to certain corporate businesses who've been very clever themselves to go right. We like what you're saying. We'll get on board that because there's a lot of business to be won by those businesses.
Speaker 2:And if they get on board the green agenda and that, you know I'm not talking greenwashing, I'm talking practical steps to change their infrastructure, that's where we can all improve. I'm not holding I'm certainly not holding us up as the Holy Grail. You know we've got electric cars, we've got a lot more electric cars than we ever had. That they're expensive more expensive to run if you don't charge them. You know at home or at base. But you have to practice a little bit about what you preach. So it's what we can all do day to day and I'd urge all business leaders particularly to put pressure on their middle management to go out and see what they can do to make the companies more efficient, where they can make savings. But imagine what the marketing can do on social media once they've made those changes. You only have to do a little bit and it's great. It's great PR. You know, just do something genuine and get great genuine PR from it.
Speaker 1:Love it. Excellent stuff. That's a great way of putting it. I normally have a guest question this days, but I forgot to get it, which I do sometimes. However, I like to. The curiosities got me here now. When we spoke before this podcast, there was a couple of things you asked me to ask you, so I like to pick one of these I've got well, you can pick which one which which could be a good story tell. I've got Hamilton Story, lorry Driver, cafes and Meeting Point or Credit Cards. So what we have in here.
Speaker 2:Well, when you had a little bit of a chat about the podcast before, I thought some things that might be a little bit, just a little bit light hearted interest really. Yeah, I mean, on a journey when you set a business up from scratch, there's a number of things that happen that you know when you look back at. Quite funny really. But one of the ones that certainly happened to myself and Sean was that when you start a business, you're always trying to put an image out there that you're bigger than you are because you're you're. You're rightly paranoid that you know who's going to deal with a tin pot little company that's running from a front bedroom with nothing behind. You know, everyone has to start somewhere and there has to be a bit of creativity at that point. Now, one of the things we used to do in the early days was mainly because we had nowhere to meet anyone. But when we started to get a little bit of interest from you know big suppliers, we were very mindful that we couldn't bring them to a, you know, a front bedroom of a domestic house and go. Of course we're serious, you know we're, we're the real deal, we're going places. So one of the things we used to do and this is a little tip, for people are starting up is we used to quite often create the image that will meet you and then a local cafe, because it just be nice to get out the office. It's. You know, it's crazy. At the moment we just can't hear ourselves think so. That probably went on for about 18 months, when you know actually there's tumble we bought across the office and the phone never rang. So that was that's one little tip I've got, and interesting suppliers quite liked it because they were used to having sterile meetings in offices. So it worked in a way we didn't foresee really.
Speaker 2:So that was one. And the other one was when you're trying to be too clever for your own good, and we used to make I think from memory it was, I think we called it something like far field towers or something we'd come up with. We'd make, we'd mix the address up of our, our home business enough. So it looked like a real business, but it wasn't so much that the postman couldn't find it. And of course, what we hadn't let it slide for was when we started ordering things.
Speaker 2:Not everything in daily life goes, you know perfectly when we were ordering things from. It was actually from Germany, because their market was a lot more mature and so a lot of products had to come from Germany at the time still still do, in fairness but we we put a delivery on and we hadn't really thought about the fact that we might be ordering us, you know, a couple of boxes or something. But other people were ordering other things in other markets on 40 foot lorries. So of course, one day was getting up and everything was fine and I wasn't there at the time, but Sean was sort of holding the foot and, yeah, he was looking at me and this big foot trailer pulls out and before he knows it there's a guy pulling a high up off the back and he's driving up his driveway and obviously the neighbors are thinking what's going on?
Speaker 2:here, I mean told him we're not running a business from there. But these, you know, these are the things. I think my favourite one was I told you about the Hamilton one when we were so lost in the early days in building the business up. And you know you get phone calls like you don't now but from members of the public. You were pioneers at the time. Looking back, they were pioneers, they were going. I'm so glad you've opened. I can get a hold of her. You know, as my colleague says, a left handed dude off a ground source. I've been looking to get one of these and now you're open, I can get one.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of the time we didn't have half the things up on our website, but we knew we could get them, or we tried damn hard to find them. We just had to hook people in, obviously, and they come on and we'd be talking to people. So, as a result, we'd speak to lots of homeowners who were and I wouldn't advocate this now they were installing it themselves with their local plumber, but they wanted to be involved and we absolutely don't advocate that now, but at the time it was there, we were learning, so we'd get a lot of homeowners. Really that was not an unusual. Anyway, we were getting a call from about I think it was about 2007 time. We were getting lots of calls from a Mr Hamilton secretary and they'd come on and this lady would be very polite, say, can I put you through? To Mr Hamilton? We're like, yeah, the phone hadn't run for three hours, so yeah yeah, point in three hours.
Speaker 2:He'd come on and say hi, it's Tony, are you all right? Yeah, I'm all right, and we'd be chatting away about what he needs and we're sending these things out. That went on for about 12, 18 months and never thought of anything of it. And then, about two years later, we got a call from an installer saying right, I need some bits for some maintenance at this house. And I was like all right, yeah, where are you working? He says well, I'm down at Lewis Hamilton's dad. And I was like I want to see a dress. I'll put the address in our company. And he was like you know any other moments you think, oh my God, yeah, we had no idea who it was.
Speaker 1:He was to wriggle first thing over the bits for it.
Speaker 2:And he was such a nice, such a nice gentleman. He never said who he was, he never said what it was about, he never asked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is how I feel really silly saying it now, but at the time it was just, we were just so grateful for his business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a testimony that should still be on the website if it's not to be.
Speaker 2:But there you go. I mean, we've since supplied quite a few sort of household names and brands which I wouldn't go into, but it's interesting, there's quite a lot of, you know, what I'd call big A list of stars who are very passionate about the environment, who do put their money where their mouth is, in fairness to them, and then good for them. Really, you know, I think people do care in the main, and you know we all get sick of people preaching online and telling us not to do this and not to do that. But it's nice when people are doing it under the radar and you know we see that sometimes.
Speaker 1:So it's good. No virtual signaling, yeah. And you know what I love about those stories as well. I was like I can resonate with them, but it's making sure that people enjoy that journey. People enjoy the journey of when you're too strong and too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong, too strong. And these little tips to you know they want to make your business and they want to make your culture, and do you know what I mean? It keeps you grounded, keeps you humble, and you've got to do what you can do just to earn living, to get to any star. And that is the just feel at a time, looking back. They're the fun bits, aren't they?
Speaker 2:They are. I think, although it's very stressful and I mean nothing prepares you for giving up your day job and getting yourself. You mentioned credit cards. I mean, I, you know, one of the best bits of advice I was given when I was going around my customers at the time before I'd left my job. And then I was lucky because I met a lot of entrepreneurs who set their own businesses up and I was their account manager. I listened, I was, you know, I did give them a lot, of a lot of weight when they gave me advice. I've always, you know, I've always liked listening to people's advice who have done that journey. I, you know, I've got a lot of respect for people who have done it. You know, went before me. I listened to a lot of what they said, but one of the guys was very sort of adamant. I was like quite resistant at the time. I was like, no, no, I don't like credit cards, I don't want to get credit.
Speaker 2:No, no, listen to me, tim. He says get yourself a credit card plural and you'll need them. I was like, well, you will. Anyway, of course, it was right and yeah, you know you need to manage your household finance when you're not getting any money coming in. And then at the time it was like God, he was so right. But yeah, you learn a lot and I think it's a shame that some of it's lost because you're so stressed and driven to get the business to be successful. You don't enjoy enough for that journey at the time. Looking back, yes, there was a lot of stress and there was a lot of pain, but also there was a lot of things that you know you can never repeat again and they were kind of moments in your life you'll never have again. So it's good to try and enjoy it sometimes. You're right, mark.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll put you in agreement. Well, I've got some quickfire questions to end. You might not have seen who was the best manager you ever had and why.
Speaker 2:I've ever had that I've worked for. Yeah, I'm not sure if he's alive or gone. I hope he's alive. I did pump into him about 10 years ago locally but I worked for a polymer company when I was a teenager and he was very old school. His name was Keith and he couldn't have been more diametrically opposed to me as a fresh out of school kid and he'd been in sort of industrial sales for all his all his working life and he gave me a lot of good grounding in an export sales role at the time and I was straight out of school clueless but yeah, he sort of imparted wisdom in a way that I didn't appreciate at the time and he would be my standout manager. I would say Nice.
Speaker 1:Biggest influence from either business, entertainment or sport and world. Anyone you've ever taken an influence or motivation from yeah, we've all got different people on me.
Speaker 2:I mean this is a strange one. I'll tell you, I admired a lot George Michael because, particularly since he's died, I was reading something about how much he did for good, having achieved phenomenal success, and I really respect the fact that he did so much out of the limelight and out of the, you know, below the radar. And now no gain for him other than the sheer joy of passing that success on to people who are less fortunate. I really admire him for that. I mean, I was like a lot of people. I like some of his music, not all of his music, but some of his music.
Speaker 2:But I just think as a guy, as a person, I think he was a really good person, you know, flawed like everybody else, but just a really good. You know it's too easy to get that well, not sorry, it's not easy to get that phenomenal success that he got, but to do something worthwhile at the end of it is or during it is just so admirable in my opinion. But yeah, business leader wise, I think you could take many, many people in the UK that you admire, but I don't. I don't think I have one person that I hang my hat on. I think I think, as you get older, what you do find probably disappointingly, is that a lot of your heroes have flaws that you really don't like, and often the most incredible people who've come with the hour, come with the man or come with the woman. They're actually very flawed when you look beneath the surface and that's kind of disappointing when you're older.
Speaker 1:Flawed and sometimes bitly unhappy in their life, and the you know Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a realisation that I completely agree with.
Speaker 2:What drove them was a very strong thing that also made them quite miserable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that Three things or words that make up a good leader. What do you say?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good one. Three things, or three words, drive, imagination and and relentlessness.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah. So we're like imagination wants a great one as well. Best book or audio book podcast that you've ever read what would you listen to? Anything that you'd recommend.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question, isn't it? Best book One book I've enjoyed just for the sheer fun of it was Round Island with a Fridge. It's a basic tenement of the book. It's a long time since I've read it, but it was basically a guy that took a fridge literally a fridge round island and saw how far he could get round travelling with a fridge Nice, finally, a highly entertaining book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, love it, excellent stuff. And just for the business now, look, I know we haven't had a chance to really touch on it, but I know it's been a very exciting time. You've got acquisitions, loads of stuff happening. What are the sort of plans for the business and you moving forward next couple of years? I imagine you're just at a stage where it's getting very, very busy. I know how exciting the plans are, so it's always a sneak peek of what you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest thing from the well, from the business perspective, since we were acquired in August 21 by the Nebe Group, ultimately through the Anatech Group, there's been a massive change in the ambition. It's took it onto a new level and obviously we're involved with a lot more, with a lot more conversations in Sweden and we've got a lot more partners involved now. So a lot of changes in terms of the scaling up. We, like every other brand, want to capitalise on this huge explosion in the UK, so we're taking on a lot more sites, buildings, people, investment in the offering to our customer base and we're having to go up not a gear, but 10 years, and we're in a very, very aggressive, focused market. I think the thing that's changed beyond all recognition for me is seeing it in the early days, where you can count on the amount of brands that were even interested, whereas now we're into the hundreds, if not thousands, of brands that want to be part of this huge opportunity.
Speaker 2:In the UK, for example, and it's took competition onto a stratospheric level. It really has, and there is nowhere for the meek and mild left now. It really is a case of you have to get it right. You have to be getting things right now or you will be left behind, and that's something that there's no getting away from. It doesn't matter how big you are, how small you are. If you are not at least as good as, if not better than, the competition around you on a number of levels, you will be left behind, because the competition is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Love that Excellent Look. This has been a real pleasure, tim. I've enjoyed it. I knew I would do. I had a pleasure of sharing the podcast stage with you previously for Teeside Universe.
Speaker 2:Likewise, Mark.
Speaker 1:And this has been good fun. I knew it would be. Look in terms of the people listening. There's so much to have taken from this. I think the people take a lot from you and we talked about human rights and you're obviously very humble, but you're a leader where people would enjoy working for and the culture you can see that trickles through right down to the business, which is amazing. But you nailed it before as well that we are such a pivotal time in history in terms of the movement making. Now I think hopefully people just listen to this will have got some good tips and advice of what they can do, both in the business and both at home, because it's never been more important. And, like you mentioned, why not move on something where you've got grants, because those grants aren't going to be there forever? So I think it's a great stage and definitely Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think just to finally say there that not just ourselves, there's a whole industry out there that's wanting to help, but there's never been as much support financial and knowledge wise as there is now. So, whilst the need for change has never been bigger, there's never been as much help as there is now. So it's a great time, whether you're a business or a homeowner, to delve deeper really, and there's lots of help available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand. So thanks so much, Graeme Pleasure.