14 - Walking the Talk - Outdoor Meetings and Honest Leadership with Mark Lebus

What do a garden shed, four daughters, and a fleet of arctics have in common? 

Mark Lebus. 

In this episode, Mark shares how he built his renewable heating business from the ground up, why walking meetings matter, and how patience and perseverance paid off. 

From leading a team in the countryside to launching a fast-growing sustainability consultancy, this is a refreshingly honest and inspiring story of growth, values, and backing yourself.

Connect with Mark and his work:

🌱 Explore sustainable energy solutions: www.LCEnergy.co.uk
🌍 Learn more about the journey to Net Zero: www.5DNetZero.co.uk

🔗 Follow LC Energy on LinkedIn: LC Energy
🔗 Follow 5D Net Zero on LinkedIn: 5D Net Zero

📸 Instagram – @lcenergy
📸 Instagram – @5dnetzero

🎙️ Edited with precision by podcast editing master, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

⏺️ Got feedback, a question, or want to be on the show? Leave me a voice message by CLICKING HERE – we might even feature it in a future episode!

✨ Subscribe, follow, and share with anyone who’s growing their business between the bells.

🔗 Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rebeccanewenham
🌐 Learn more about Get Ahead: getaheadva.com

Transcript

Once again, you are in for a real treat. I've had a wonderful opportunity to talk to Mark. 

Mark is our first man on the podcast, and came to me because he'd heard one of our podcast episodes and was really keen to get involved and you will hear how he started his business from a garden shed. He's got four daughters and how he navigated them, just doing work, putting proposals together and keeping out their way, I think, as much as anything. And fast forward now, I think nearly 18 years, and he's got hugely successful business with a large team, but it's interesting how he communicates with them. 

A lot of walking outdoors and yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation. And Mark shares some really interesting key lessons and a fab homework assignment. So, I think you're going to really enjoy this one. 

Well, Mark, welcome to Between the Bells. Thank you very much. You are my first boy. 

I'm thrilled to have you on here. And I love the fact that you'd listened to Vicky's podcast episode and were really keen. So, now I've got another boy lined up for a couple of weeks' time. 

So, you're trailblazing, I think is the word. Well, what a privilege. You know, absolute privilege. 

Yes. So, what I'd love, Mark, is if you could just share with our listeners your business story, because I know you've given me a little overview, but I'd love you to share that with us. Yes, of course. 

So, I founded my renewable heating business, LC Energy, back in 2007. It was a partnership with a couple of gentlemen called James and Richard from Land and Water Group, an environmental engineering group. And then more recently, we launched our sustainability consultancy, the 5D Net Zero business, which I'll explain a bit more in a minute.

My background is that I live in West Sussex. I have a wife, I have four daughters, most of whom have left home now. More of that in a minute. 

A dog, some chickens, and of course, the usual assortment of rural wildlife that come to and fro when you live in the countryside. I began my business at the age of 40, actually, after a career in the sports industry in London, mainly because I had a strong urge. I wanted to do something myself.

My father and both my grandfathers all ran their own businesses. So, I suspect there was some heavy DNA involvement in my decision. The early days were quite tough, very basic as you would expect of any sort of new business, partly because the renewable sector at that stage was quite new, and partly because I had a very young family at the time. 

All the kids were under the age of 10. And my first setup was a tiny shed in the driveway where if you stood up, well, if you could stand up, you could touch both walls with left and right hand simultaneously. But I was in the shed mainly to keep away from the noise of the kids, or probably actually more likely to stop them from having to try and stay quiet, which is always a difficult task when they're all under 10 years old. 

Very nerve-wracking period in those early days. I'm sure lots of your guests have the same experience where you try and get a business established. And all the overheads were quite low because I was broadly in the garden shed, really.

Negotiating my first contracts with spiders and red ants crawling over the laptop was quite an experience. It was also, I think, exactly the same time that the first iPhone was launched. And technology perhaps was a bit simpler at the time, but it puts a context around exactly when it was back in 2007. 

Just moving on briefly to today, the business is now just over 18 years old. We have a staff of 21, a fleet of arctics, depots across Southern England, and our own office in Bramley. Renewable heating. 

Our sector continues to be part of decarbonization of heating. And the sustainability consultancy is growing rapidly as more and more businesses recognize that everyone has to pay a part in reaching net zero by 2050, which is a UK legal requirement for us all. So that's in a very brief nutshell, me and my experience from the shed to the office, as it were, a little bit of background on the business. 

Yeah, I love that. What stage did you get the office then, Mark? Was it a few years into? We've been there for a couple of years. So we rented for a long period of time, firstly in Albury, and then across in Shear at Netley House, which is the wonderful grey one listed building, just on the side of the North Downs opposite Shear. 

And then we upgrew it and needed more space. And so we purchased an office in Bramley, just south of Bramley. It's very old, sort of grey listed converted barn, which is lovely. 

And it sits right on the edge of the South Downs link. So the car park, you can go from the car park straight on long walks down as far as Cranley or Horsham, if you so desire. But it's right in and amongst the rural environment, which is super. 

I remember you saying that you like taking the team out and doing sort of walking meetings and things like that, which I really like that idea. Yeah. When the weather's nice, and it has been pretty much like that for the last few months, it changes the whole dynamic of working with the younger team in particular.

You're not sitting in an office where me being the boss and the MD sits in a room and everybody sort of listens a bit more. But actually, when you're on a walk, it levels a playing field. And that's really what I want, is that the team feel that they can be very open to making any contribution. 

They like any ideas, any sort of challenge to thoughts and processes or whatever. And actually, the networking seems to have actually done us some real good. No, it's interesting. 

I've got with my LinkedIn local hat on, we're doing a network in a couple of weeks. So that lends itself to the same sort of benefits of actually those where the fluid conversations happen. It's rather nice.

I think also, just on that particular point, if you're in a conference environment, there's a tendency to speak to the person in the chair to your left and to your right. And quite often, you can't get away to speak to other people who'd like to. But on a network, it's so random that you can move between people and you can pick up with somebody else's conversation. 

You can contribute, you can stop, you can walk off or whatever. And actually, it creates a much more fruitful networking opportunity. Yeah, no, fruitful is a very good word. 

Yeah, no, love that. Thank you. So if we move on to our quickfire question, Martin, so have you got any favourite tools or lessons that you would like to share? And I'm sure you've got a lot.

Well, it took a bit of thinking, actually, if I'm being honest, that in terms of tools, I've got two in my mind. One is that I have something called a Remarkable, which is an electronic writing pad. Oh, yes. 

Yeah, I keep seeing people with them and I keep thinking, should I go down that route? It took a little while to get used to it, but I absolutely love it. And it uses a sort of pencil that feels like you're writing in pencil on the screen. And you can draw, you can sketch, you can write, and it converts the written word to text by typing text, as it were.

And you can then email it to as a PDF to anyone in the meeting or yourself or whatever. So it becomes a very, very straightforward way of transferring meeting notes and information and drawings and things straight into our sort of online storage and email system. And the other is my EV. 

I have a Volkswagen EV, which I absolutely adore. I don't want to be one of those blokes that rattles on about electric vehicles, but I love driving. And this ID4 Volkswagen is by far the best car I've ever owned. 

It's just, it's an absolute joy. No, I love it. It's funny. 

We've just got a Fiat 500. I've got a little convertible electric one. Oh, I love it. 

I love burning people off at the lights. They all think I'm living forever, but it's just amazing. So, oh no, I love those. 

They're remarkable. Absolutely. I've had a number of good friends of mine that have got them. 

And I keep thinking, actually, I've got, I love writing. And I agree with you. The pencil feels like you're writing with a pen.

Yeah, it's very straightforward, very simple, and actually feel it's a comfortable write as well. But I've also wrote down a couple of other things in terms of routines and key lessons, if that's of interest to you, because not being on the school run anymore, I don't have that sort of opportunity to do the drop off as it were. But I think what I find now, particularly with this sort of so much information going through one's mind is I tend to jump on my turbo bike every evening. 

It's a fantastic detox in the day, a break from the office and home, etc. But I also don't want to be that bore that only ever talks about work to his wife. And so, if I can get on the bike, it allows me just to de-stress from the day. 

And it's about half an hour most evenings. And it's my routine. It's become my almost like this bridge between sitting in the office and actually being at home and being, I hope, a nicer person when I get home.

The other thing I wanted to add was the sort of key lessons. And for me, there are two things, patience and perseverance. I think particularly in our world of sustainability, changing behaviour is kind of the number one objective. 

And that takes time. But don't give up. Things do take time and don't give up. 

That would be my sort of key lesson, I think. You know, I love that because it's so true is that it's very easy to sort of get frustrated in the world of, like you say, fast changing. We assume we're going to see results immediately.

But actually, sometimes it does take longer. And I think that can be frustrating. I love the idea of the bridge between, because I will often take the dog out for a walk on the Downs or something, just sort of clear my head. 

And then I'm not, like you say, boring Martin too much with other, yeah, what a mission service. Oh, no, that's really interesting. In terms of your bell ringer moment then, Mark, have you got the single most important? I have. 

It's sort of split into two parts, really. The thing that I think is most important is employ people you like to work with, and essentially people that are better at their role than you are. I think there's very good reasons for that because you're spending virtually half your life with your team in one way, shape, or the other during the course of a year. 

And you absolutely won't have time to do their job as well as yours. And so for me, I think if you can find the right people, and it's very tricky, eventually you'll get there. But if you can find the right people, and they are better at their role than you can be at their role, then I think then you've got a winning formula. 

Yes. And that's very much, interestingly, my proposition with my guest head and my outsourcing agency. That's what we do. 

We match the perfect person with a client. And it's about finding those experts, isn't it, that you know will do the job far better than you, far quicker and efficiently. You'll certainly kiss a lot of frogs along the way because it's inevitable that it's a bit of luck when you stumble across somebody who's looking for a job exactly the time you're recruiting for that role. 

So it is quite a bit of luck. But I think that's essential if you can find that people that you think are going to fit with you and you fit with them, et cetera, and it works both ways. I think that's such an important part of creating a successful business and team. 

Yes, that evolves over time. I love that. Thank you. 

I know you're not doing the drop-off anymore. Ah, yes. And I guess you almost covered your favourite routine would be your evening one. 

Anything else you wanted to add? Well, sort of. I think I have a morning routine as well, which is a little on the sad side, really. When I get to the car in the morning, I normally have, by the time I've got from the house to the car, I've been weeding the drive one weed at a time. 

And it feeds my compulsion for tidiness, I think, particularly at this time of year. And so I find that virtually every morning between the front door and the car door, I've picked up half a dozen weeds on my way to getting into the car. It's a compulsive thing, I think, maybe. 

I like that. What do you do with the weeds and sling them? They normally go in a sort of one of those blue trug-type things. So I leave that outside the door. 

And as it gradually fills up over the week and in the weekend, I can deal with it. You feel like you're making progress, don't you? You're making use of your commute to the car. Yeah, exactly.

So we've finally reached probably my favourite bit always, Mark, which is the homework assignment. So what would you like to leave us with as your homework assignment? There's almost too many things to sort of consider on this. I'm not a particularly good reader, but I think reading probably is one of those things that I would try and persuade people to do as much of as they possibly can. 

I have so much that I read during the day that I tend to not have time or inclination to read. But moving on from that, I think that the two things, two most important rules of thumb for me, the first is back yourself. If you're going to do this, have the confidence to back yourself. 

And there'll be plenty of times when you doubt it, and people will tell you you're not going to succeed or you're not going to work it out. But I would start with back yourself, absolutely back yourself. And the next thing is it's later than you think. 

It's a phrase that I often use in the course of my business, that if you're not careful, it really will be too late. So it's later than you think. Get on with it.

Yeah, absolutely. You're so right. Often you can sort of get into that mindset of thinking, oh, well, I'll do it at some point or there's plenty of time to do it. 

And it's having that confidence to just get on with it. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah, yeah. One will make mistakes, but I think that's part of the learning process.

And again, backing yourself means that you have the confidence to move on from a mistake. I think the world of professional golf seems to have, you know, is a good example of that. And when a professional golfer makes a bad shot, they can bury it and the next shot is fine.

And in a way, that's the sort of metaphor for life. You know, things will go wrong, but back yourself to crack on and keep going. It sounds a bit smug and trite, but it's, you know, after all these years, I think those are probably the most important things I would go with.

Oh, no, I really, really value that, Mark. Thank you. And it's been lovely to hear your journey from the garden shed to, you know, to the awesome business that you're running now. 

And I've really appreciated you sharing those top tips. And I know we can all relate to elements of that. So thank you for being my first boy. 

I've loved it. Perfect first boy. Oh, no, lovely. 

I really loved our conversation and I hope to get to meet you in person someday. I'm sure. Rebecca, thank you very much.