Talking Wise
The podcast about logistics, self-employment, and what it actually takes to scale without the wheels coming off.
Talking Wise
Episode 7: Wise x Vanaways: Van sourcing made simple
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sourcing vans shouldn’t slow your business down - but for many logistics companies, it does.
In this episode of Talking Wise, Dan Richards, Deputy CEO at Wise, sits down with the team from Vanaways to unpack what’s really happening in the van market - and how growing businesses can cut through the complexity.
We explore the real barriers stopping businesses from getting vans on the road - and how the Wise x Vanaways partnership is helping remove them.
Without that van, they haven't got a livelihood. Yeah. And some of these people are paying nearly £2,000 a month for the vehicles, for the insurance and for the service of maintenance. And we've been demonstrating savings of like 40 to 50% at times. People talk about stealth, stealth taxes. This is like a stealth pay ride. Yeah. You've still got the vehicle, you've still got the asset. You're taking up more money while you're rolling around and you're buying your vehicle as well.
SPEAKER_03You know, no dispect to these companies, but they're getting fleeced by leasing companies because they know they've got to have a van and they don't see a way of actually becoming and getting an affordable solution, and you guys are able to provide that.
SPEAKER_02If they don't go through Vanaways' tier one credit offering, we've got about 50 other lenders as a finance brokerage where we credit broke into.
SPEAKER_03It will take ages to get a new van on the road. Absolute bollocks.
SPEAKER_04The price has turned up on money. I don't want to sound weird or anything. You do sound weird. Yeah, you do sound weird. I've worked for a company called Van Ways and we've just, it's like, yeah, we've inquiring, but you haven't contacted me yet.
SPEAKER_03I was like, no, no, the message really is in two weeks, you can go from inquiry to driving that vehicle and potentially have saved a fortune. Absolute fortune. I mean, you know, the relationship's so strong. You invite me to your Christmas party. Chaps, pleasure to have you both. So we've got Liam from Van Aways and James from Vinaways. Do you just want to start off with a quick introduction to Van Ways and Vinaways and yourselves and your respective roles?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, sure. So I'm Liam Nicholas, so I work as the Business Development Director at Van Aways. So I've been there just over three years. Um, Van Ways has been gone for 10 years. Yeah. So we're an online van retailer selling around five to six thousand vehicles a year, and we're looking to grow our business. We've invested heavily recently into technology, into people. And we're on a journey at the moment where we're just trying to get to 10,000 vehicles a year. So working with you know plenty of large organizations, partnerships are much like this one, yeah, which is gonna help us get there. Yeah. So when I started at Van Aways, it was only 22 people working in the business. I think we're at about 75 now. Wow. Multiple sites across the UK. Yeah. Um, we were just in fact named one of the fastest growing businesses in Europe by the Financial Times. So, you know. Exactly. I mean the publication like the Financial Times to mention us, and that's two years in a row. So we are now the I think it's the fastest independent UK automotive business.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, so two years on the trot. Two years on the trot. So yeah, that that that's pretty much us in a nutshell. We sell vans and James provides the finance for the vehicles that we sell. So introduce yourself. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02James from FinAways. So we're the in-house specialist commercial finance brokerage, which work in partnership with Van Away. So we're part of their group. And FinAways was created about a year ago now. We celebrated a year last week, actually, to be able to offer faster decision making and more bespoke finance packages to Van Ace customers. Yeah, it's a critical part of the van buying process now is finance. And you know, uh Liam and all his team keepers very busy with all the vans that they're selling. So being able to offer that bespoke consultative approach for a finance brokerage in-house is um hopefully aiding growth for the Van Ways journey.
SPEAKER_03No, for sure, yeah. So it's it's interesting, right? So I'm obviously I'm hosting today, but I'm gonna do a bit of talking myself. Yeah. Uh so uh we were connected, Liam, bizarrely, I think you know, sort of five or six years ago by another DSP when you were working for a Van Ways competitor, which we won't plug today because this is all about this is all about. Um but uh it was a post actually you put out about a DSP that you'd done some vans for. Yeah, what that called my card. Seven-day services. Yeah, so I know that you're um you're a big LinkedIn user, uh, and I'm trying to get better at you as well. I've got inspiration from you, mate. Um, so um we'd obviously started uh Wise Advantage, which is our sort of supplier programme, and we're trying to bring the very best suppliers together. I've seen your post and I thought, you know what? I I'll I'd I'd seen you about before and I'd seen you name floating around LinkedIn. So I thought I'd reach out, obviously, very cold, sort of very cold approaching what we promote a banaways. Prospecting, yes, I did my own my own prospecting. Uh and I think you know, I sent quite a speculative message, and you come back saying, I said it might be of interest, and you went, You piqued my interest.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, do you know what it was? It was so just to the point. Yeah, and I think a lot of people on LinkedIn and prospecting in general, you know, they go a long way around about doing it, just get to the point of it. It's gonna be a yes or a no at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_03So me and you had like a five-minute phone call, and you were like, Wow, that's like this sounds actually really interesting. This was yeah, it was a big part for for me, and I'm sure it goes to you, is you have to like the people that you're gonna be partnering with, right? And I think the the vibe that I got from you and James and Chris straight away was I can work with these guys.
SPEAKER_04And that's exactly what we all said, you know, when we first came here a couple of weeks ago when you're in the other offices, yeah, and we were just like, Yeah, this this company knows what they're doing, they've got a captive audience, which is our target market. You know, we have to make something out of this.
SPEAKER_03No, for sure, yeah. And I think you know, moving on to why I thought that van aways were a great partner does sort of lead perfectly into the FinAwe stuff because I think you know, you guys are one of the biggest van suppliers in the UK, so we knew that you'd have the economies of scale to provide to get the cheap van to get the cheap vans from a retail perspective. Uh, and we've got the volume of drivers and the and the customers on the other side, so we both had the volume side, but yeah, the missing part of the ingredient almost, and I describe these sort of scenarios as a bit like a Rubik's Cube, you've got drivers and vans, then you have finance, right? And actually, it's okay, you can have drivers and vans, and you can click clicking them around because drivers always need vehicles, but they can't finance them and pay for them, then you you're sort of up a up a creek about a paddle, right? Absolutely, and I think the combination of Banoys and Finoais together is what makes this a bit of a match made in heaven for our personality.
SPEAKER_04And do you know what? It's yeah, fun you say that. So, like I said, Van Oise has been going almost 10 years. So within the last sort of four or five years, we've onboarded a load of tier one funders, if you like, Lloyd's, yeah, Mobilize, Motonovo, and many others, 10 to 12. Um, they're all great funders, yeah, but there is criteria that you have to hit as somebody who's applying for finance, and a lot of these people being a tier one bank, they do want two years trading history, for example. That's a big barrier in our game, especially in your world, you know. Within the logistics and courier world, um, there's a lot of new startups, especially that were born out of COVID, and they don't have the trade in history, they haven't got the two years behind them, they're a growing business, they might not be profitable, and a lot of the tier ones don't really like that, they like stability and they're very risk adverse. And you know, this is with Finnaways come on board.
SPEAKER_02I mean, like this is the is the turnkey operation. Yeah, the whole product is available. You've got the every single make and model full of vans. Now, what we can do is we can find any finance product to suit the business. Yeah, we take a consultative approach. Yeah, Lynn goes in, sells the right van, the right make, right model, make sure they're happy with that, and then we come in, if they don't go through Van Ways' tier one credit offering, we've got about 50 other lenders as a finance brokerage where we credit broke into. And from that offering, we're able to make sure that first we treat the customer fairly, make sure we get them the great deal, good rates, and the right package, but we've also got the banks to support that. Yeah, the alternative lending market has been growing significantly over the last um sort of decade. And in 2024, the alternative lending market lent three billion pounds more per quarter than the top five banks and their subsidiaries. Wow. So fine says it all, does it, Chris? Yeah, they're open to business, basically. Yeah, and you know, they they want they're banks, they want to make money. And um what we do and what my FinAways is creating, and Van Aways saw the opportunities, we're just connecting drivers who don't fit certain parameters with the tier ones, like him said, and we fit them elsewhere so they can get their um business critical asset on the road. Yeah, of course. That's what's important to business owners, being able to basically go, right, I've got my van, I can operate now day to day. Yeah, and um they don't have to pay excessive leasing and ironing costs.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're right. And I think you know that again, you know, and you know, even as you're you guys are talking, I get more excited about what we could potentially do. Um, because I think the thing for us is why, again, going back to that why van aways from a wise perspective, because your words their consultative approach, right? That's the key for me. So I know how you operate, Liam. I know how you operate, James. What we don't want is a one size fits all because that's not the reality of our customers. Right, absolutely. They're all different, different backgrounds, they're all trying to make a living. Yeah, uh, they all want to have the best for themselves and their families, like we all do, right? And at the moment, they're getting, you know, no disrespect to these companies, but they're getting fleeced by leasing companies because they know they've got to have a van, um, and they don't see a way of actually becoming and getting an affordable solution, and you guys are able to provide that. And our part of it goes back to our mission as a company is to try and improve self-employment. Yeah, and I just think it's clicked uh perfectly, and you know, we can stop bragging about ourselves now. No, absolutely. I think it's you know what we've done is we've combined as wise vanwise and finouise to actually put something in front of drivers that can make a serious difference.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, like with these tier one lenders. Well, they're quite rigid in what they offer. Some of the you know, um initiatives that these challenger banks are putting in place. There's things like a VAT deferral. Not everybody's got VAT to put up front.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So James working with the lenders can speak to the lenders. We're profiling every driver individually, by the way. This isn't a one-size-fits-all, like you said. Yeah, this is bespoke or having conversations with the drivers on your platform. Some of these conversations are lasting an hour. They're going into the underwriters once you've given them the pricing on the vehicles. James's team is writing a you know, bespoke tailored stories, narratives to then send to the lenders who are taking, you know, a sort of flexible approach on lending these people money. Like you said, that van is a workhorse. Without that van, they haven't got a livelihood. Yeah, yeah. And some of these people are paying nearly £2,000 a month for the vehicles, for the insurance, and for the service of maintenance. And we've been demonstrating savings of like 40 to 50 percent at times.
SPEAKER_02These banks are really supportive because of the offering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The data that we're able to provide, that the structure that we're able to say, well, introduce firewise, that the DPD contracts, yeah, the buying the van put van away is one of the most trusted suppliers in the UK. These banks want to get on board and support you know the wise clients.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but ultimately as well. I mean, the banks are there to provide finance, right? They don't want money sitting in the in the bank's account, they want it out and working. Early the interest, right? So it benefits everyone ultimately. They want to place it. I and I get it from their perspective, they want to place it, but they want to have some confidence it's gonna get repaid.
SPEAKER_04And this is the thing as well with the lenders that we've got on board with this, that you know, the risk profile and all the rest of it, we're still very, very much a cheaper option. The drivers end up owning an asset at the end of it instead of giving it back to a leasing company, yeah. They're looking at payments made on previous payments to leasing companies or providers of vehicles and taking that and putting it in one sort of package, if you like, and saying, actually, if you can afford to pay 1800 pounds a month to 2000 pounds a month, you can sure as hell manage 500 to 600 quid a month, own an asset at the end of it, and if you don't pay for any reason, if you lose your job or you're off long-term sick, unable to make payments, you know, there is provisions in place for that. And there is also, you know, from the lender's perspective, from a risk aspect, they can just go and get the asset and remarket it. Because the discounts that we get from the manufacturers are so big up. Mean a van on the second-hand market, it's still a very valuable. After 12, maybe 24 months. I'm not gonna say you're always gonna make a profit or break even, but the minimum, you know, the risk is minimised by the different discounts to what the market is actually commanding for vans right now. Yeah, and we see all the time, you know, we're getting offered bulk deals from manufacturers where they've got a cancelled order of, say, 150 of a certain type of vehicle. Now, Van Awes has got a database of 70,000 people, and that's growing daily. You've got a database of what 200,000 drivers. Yeah. We can remarket these vehicles straight away, or we can market these deals that the manufacturers have got sat around, like I said, cancelled orders or over-ordering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We've got an outlet for these manufacturers, so they're on board with it as well. So you've got manufacturers at one end, dealer groups in the middle, van away's and wise working together, Finnaway's doing the finance, the lenders on board with this whole consortium, if you like, yeah, to help these owner drivers save fortunes. And that is, as you said, that's your mission. Yeah. Improve self-employedness. We're enabling drivers to take home more money than they've ever taken home. An extra seven, eight grand a year, you know. Yeah. Effectively, people talk about stealth, stealth taxes. This is like a stealth pay ride. Yeah. You've still got the vehicle, you've still got the asset. You're taking home more money. Well, you've already done buy new vehicles as well. That is a great point because a lot of the vans that these operators are driving in from these parcel delivery companies, they used vehicles or they're not exactly fit for purpose. You know, we're having multiple conversations right now with drivers who, if they want to take on a route with one of these providers, they've got to take an electric van. A lot of these drivers don't have the infrastructure at home, they don't have the time or patience to be charging up a vehicle. Yeah, of course. And a lot of these other providers of vehicles for the parcel companies have made pledges to shareholders to net zero and all that stuff. Net zero. So they're not buying diesel anymore.
SPEAKER_03So that's where we fit in and just dovetail so nicely. No, it's great. It's it is it is uh it's perfect, chaps. And I think it goes back to that sort of you know, match matchmagging sort of doesn't it? So I know it's great. And then Liam, obviously, we spoke quite a bit here. I don't want this to sort of get lost actually, but yeah, we spoke a lot about uh so far about owner drivers and what are benefiting them. But I think it is important because we spoke about one this morning, right? You guys help obviously fleets as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I know again that consultative approach goes across that as well. So Liam, from your perspective, yeah, what would you say are when you're dealing with a fleet? What's what's the van away's difference almost? What do you guys offer in terms of USP for these fleets as well?
SPEAKER_04Well, I we sell, like I said, five to six thousand vans a year, and a lot of that is made up by big blue chip organizations, or some of the uh biggest lease companies in the UK are buying vehicles off us to service their clients' needs. Okay. So I'd say one of our USPs is you know, we just make things convenient. Uh you don't have to go out and sit down with multiple manufacturers, multiple funders, multiple uh providers of vehicles. Yeah. We keep everything in house. He's a big benefit, yeah. You know, our agnostic approach with the manufacturers, you know, we could be selling five different brands into one business, for example. They don't have to go and have five different conversations. Everyone's time poor in 2026, especially. Nobody's got time to shop the market. Yeah, we've done the hard work already. Yeah, it's we shop the market daily. We've got our team in Bristol who are constantly talking to manufacturers, yeah, trying to find the best deals, placing orders in advance. Yeah, we're about to place an order for 1300 vehicles with one manufacturer. Jeez. So that should see us through 2026 with that one brand. Then we've got another brand which we're talking to. We've just had one of the largest manufacturers in the world start in Van Aways last week, who were very much interested in working with us, yeah. Hopefully enhancing discounts available to particular projects like the one that we've got at the moment with yourself, which is with DPD. Yeah. So you know, DPD, what, 10,000 drivers? Yeah. All the vehicles are leased from DPD to the driver network. Yeah. So what we're looking to do is just forward order speculatively for these drivers that we're always going to have a long wheel base option for them, decent and electric. Yeah. And we're happy to put hands up to that. You know, we make commitments, yeah, but we also have outlets for electric vehicles. Yeah. And I think it's important to mention that because at the moment there's a ZEV mandate in place, which has been going on for years, and it's, you know, it's around over over 20% of vans registered this year have to be electric. Really? So the manufacturers, if you're going to buy a hundred diesel vans, you have to take 20 electric minimum. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, obviously, electric vans, they do work in certain locations, right? I think the city's bags like that, they're amazing. We see they're always saying I mean, DPD delivered to this building maybe five times a day. And I would say four out of five of the vans are electric. Yeah, yeah. And it suits these sorts of locations, right? But you are right. It does, yeah, but you are right. I mean, look, you know, you need to have those options, and some drivers, like you said, the infrastructure's not there because necessary for them.
SPEAKER_04So you know, we sell a lot of construction, for example, and I've got a customer who's got a thousand vehicles on their fleet. They want to place an order for 260 vans this year, diesel. But the manufacturer's saying you have to take electric. They don't have the means to take on those electric vans. Yeah, of course. Come to Van Ways, let us order the vehicles on your behalf. We'll take the electric. You have the diesel. You can place the electric 70,000 different businesses within our database.
SPEAKER_03That's a really good point, yeah. Um, no, it's and I think Lynn, just on this, and I've heard, you know, but uh let's let's go best case scenario on this one, right? I'm not putting you chats on the spot there, so I'm sorry. You'll have bad trees for that. But let's go um because I think this is one of the things that I'm actually don't know the answer to this, so I'll be interested to hear. Okay. From inquiry to get in a vehicle, right? So let's say um let's do let's do two quick scenarios. Okay. Single driver. Yeah, if he does everything that he needs to do, because that's obviously one of the challenges they do everything that needs, especially on your side, James. Um, how quickly can we go from inquiries on the road in that new in that new vehicle? And then let's talk about a fleet that's got 20 drivers. Okay. Does that change too much? Let's go single driver first. What does that look like, Liam? Doesn't change at all. Okay.
SPEAKER_04In fact, uh yeah, I mean the the team we've got in Bristol, yeah, absolutely fantastic back office service. You know, I've got a particular admin person that works on my deals only. His name's Joe. And a massive shout out to Joe because he's been instrumental into our success over the last couple of years.
SPEAKER_03Go on, Joe.
SPEAKER_04So owner driver inquires online, yeah. Within 15 to 20 minutes, he'll get a call back off somebody in the office. Now we've got Bristol, where there's 25 salespeople. Yeah. We've also got Brigenda, where we've taken on 10 salespeople, so we're in South Wales. Yeah. We're going to be growing and probably around here somewhere in the Midlands, taking on another 10. Yeah. And it's like I said earlier, you know, we're all about growth. Yeah. We've got the foundations in place, we've got an amazing team at Bristol who manage this on a day-to-day basis for us. We just want salespeople now to cope with the demand. So driver makes the inquiry, salesperson speaks to him. We've now got technology in place, which Chris has invested a lot of money into, yeah, which allows us to quote the driver on multiple funders, on multiple funding types within three clicks of a button. Right. Whereas before, we'd be logging into different systems, to have a login for one bank, login for another, login for another, having to type the vehicle details or selecting drop-downs of the right vehicle on each platform. They all come back with different prices, right? Because all these lenders got different risk appetite. Yeah. So we could do this now. On a click of a button, it pulls up in front of you pretty much four or five different options. We can then send it on WhatsApp to the driver, or we could send it to email, or we could do both.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So whilst I'm on the phone talking to somebody, now within five minutes, I can give them the vehicle they want, the price that they want to pay, because we could mess around with you know deposits, turnbacks, my page. And I can send it on WhatsApp. Now on WhatsApp, he can open that on his phone. He can actually amend the quote himself if he wants to, because what we found when we send quotes on a PDF, 15,000 miles a year, for example, so we can actually only 20. And that slows the process down. Only I can then access the system. I have to resend it to him or her. And it just starts the process again, essentially. So we're taking people out of the market within one phone call now, which is you know a game changer for us.
SPEAKER_03That is incredible.
SPEAKER_02We've got you on board that you have uh created for the DPD um project. Yeah, yeah. Drivers can upload pretty seamlessly all their PDFs on there, which we need for the banks. Yeah. So their three months of bank statement is pretty standard. Yeah. But typically they need to provide a self-assessment or their last set of file accounts. That's all uploadable on the portal. All the data that we need is collected and collated in one reference point. So that means literally get the bank quote across onto this portal, and then you can send it across to the plethora of lenders that we work with. So as Liam said, in 15-minute conversation, you can gather everything you need for us to then put in a finance application via Bannerways Direct or through the FinAway subsidiary within 24 hours. And then decisions, depending on the business, the strength within how long it's been trading, can be anything from within an hour to 24 hours. Sometimes it can be a little bit longer because the banks ask a lot of information. But we we can bring this whole process down into a basically 24 to 48 hour period if things are provided correctly and things go smoothly.
SPEAKER_04And I say once you've got the acceptance, it's just a case of a PDF gets sent out from our CRM system, the person who's buying the vehicle signs it. Yeah, that then gets sent into our admin team to process, and depending on the manufacturer, some manufacturers seven to ten days on the road. Jeez, some manufacturers are a bit longer. Vans are sat at ports, they need to be PDI'd, they get you know, the accessories need to be put on the vehicles. Yeah. And then what we do is we'll onward deliver anywhere in the UK free of charge. So we don't charge if we're delivering to Solihull, yeah, Aberdeen. You know what? Abadine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What always Abadene? Abadie do what? Actually, you said something. I thought Say Abad clean. Say Abadine. Shout out to Aberdeen.
SPEAKER_04Shout out to everyone in the Aberdeen depots, especially through this DPD initiative. Yeah. Because words obviously got around, right? We've done these deals to uh one owner driver who's saving hundreds a month. They're then telling their colleagues, peers, if you like, within these networks, who were then ringing us and saying, Look, I know you sorted him out. Can you sort me out?
SPEAKER_03No, it's great.
SPEAKER_04And the the the snowball effect is is incredible.
SPEAKER_03It's the viral impact, right? So and I think so for me, and I think this is really powerful, and because we'll we'll slip some of this up as sort of uh little segments. And I think the key thing for me here is uh, you know, if there are you know uh whether you've got a fleet, an owner driver, if you feel like you pay more for your vehicle than you should, yeah, the message really is in two weeks you can go from inquiry to driving that vehicle and potentially have saved a fortune. Absolute fortune. It is it's a true one-stop one-stop shop solution. And it's and it and it's also so for me personally, I think you know, and this is so we had some interest we've got some interesting data on this. Our average driver age is 27. Okay, right. And actually, I know that I'm not 27, unfortunately. I wish I was, um, but I know that I like to do things myself now. I think you've got to that salad survey ever where actually, no offense, Lee. I mean, I'm I'm a salesman. I've just turned 40, I think. I wasn't gonna watch it. I'm a I'm a sa I'm a salesman at heart myself, yeah. Right, but I actually don't want to, when I'm purchasing something anymore, chat to a salesman for 30 minutes, right? I want quick FAQ answers, yeah, but then I want to be able to look myself and make my own amendments. And I think you guys have absolutely nailed that with that self-serve option because actually I can chat to you, you can get the key information from me. Yeah, it bounces over to the self-serve option and then are able to amend it and fiddly with it as much as as much as they need to to get to the right price for them, right?
SPEAKER_04Most people have done their shopping online anyway before they're making these big purchase decisions because you know, but whether you're buying a car, whether you're buying a van, probably the second largest purchase or lease you're gonna ever make in your life behind maybe buying a home or you know, of course, a trip around the world. Now, uh what we noticed as well, a lot of people who are visiting dealerships, the demographics changed. The majority of people are over the age of 40, yeah, uh walking into the dealership who like the old school approach, and there's nothing wrong with dealerships. We need dealerships, right? I love going into the dealership. I've recently gone into Tesla, had an amazing experience, Tes drove the vehicle that we're looking to get as a family. Yeah, and I loved every second of it. But like you said, there is there is people who just want to do everything online, they don't want to visit multiple sites because that's time consuming. Yeah, we're all busy people. I think what we do, we just free up time for everybody. And it goes back to the conversation we had earlier about fleets. Fleet managers have got probably 45 different things that they need to manage at what any given time, especially when you're managing multiple drivers.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04When they've then got to go and research the market, they've got to find the right vehicles, they've got to speak to multiple people, like that time out of their day, they're never getting back. Of course, yeah. And you know, any time invested back into the business to help the business flow, you know, as well as it can and operate properly, yeah. We give that time back to people.
SPEAKER_02It's about walking hand and hand with technology, allowing people to go for a very quick user journey, yeah, choose what they want, provide the uploads that they need to provide, and then exit if they want to. If they want a more of a consultative approach and want to pick up the phone, we're available.
SPEAKER_03That's clearly courses for courses, right? People want different approaches, and I love that about you guys, it's not one size, sort of it's all really.
SPEAKER_04Well, I was speaking to people on Saturday evenings during, you know, having my spaghetti bolognese with a family and my miss is going after.
SPEAKER_03But you're a bit tapped, mate. You're a bit tapped. I know that value already. You're a bit oh, yeah, like Sunday.
SPEAKER_04I spoke to a blunt for like half an hour. And funny enough, we've just uh I say we, my wife just ordered some Huel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. PD have got the contract for Huel. And the price has turned up on the sound weird or anything. You do sound weird. Yeah, you do sound weird. I've been working for a company called Van Aways, and we've just, he's like, yeah, I've been calling, but you haven't contacted me yet.
SPEAKER_03I was like, no, no, no, I'm just you know what though you will get in a standard money now because I always started doing that, and I had a driver come to my door um and he was like, ah, you uh for what I've done to say I'm one of the fans, I wasn't just I was like, Yeah, yeah, why not? I use your app, I love it, blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_04You know, just that one example. Like if I've drove up here today from Hertfordshire and I've seen probably 30 vans on the road which would have got the DVD low, and I'm thinking, I've probably spoken to you at some point in the last two weeks, and you just have no idea.
SPEAKER_03But I'll do this thing which my missus really hates, is whenever I see one of our customers' vehicle on the road, I salute the uh this. I get my kids taking pictures of vans fucking prospect. Yeah, and prospects are voice myself my voice note, uh AJ Couriers. Yeah, that's what we used to do.
SPEAKER_04When I was working for a rental firm, this is back in 2015, dictophones. Yeah, dictators. I'm driving around with the dictaphones saying all these businesses, and they because I talk quite fast anyway, I'm sat in the I'm trying to write them on the covering my own writing, and I'm like, oh, that's a waste of process.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes when we're on the road, uh it's a long journey. We'll go past the company. If they've got their mobile number on the van, I'll call them up. You've got a ring number. I'll call them up. Like, are you stuck on the M6? Because I am as well. You've got a 20-play, do you need to upgrade them? Yeah, have you got you've got time? No, no, I'm busy now. No, you're not.
SPEAKER_04It's like the biggest cheat code in the world because when you've got a van, you can see how old the van is, you can see them making the marble, you can see whose van it is, mobile numbers, email addresses. Like if you're not prospecting those vans when you're out and about because you're stuck in traffic or whatever, you are leaving money on the table as far as I'm to the whole salespeople get on the road and take out those vans right. At one point, I think I've got 26,000 vans in my camera roll. Jeez. That is very sad. But it's my living, it's my job.
SPEAKER_03And this is the thing, right? Go back to that personality fit. The passion's got to be there. If you're not passionate about these things, that's what I love about this whole thing. Doing anything, there's no point passion, then. No, you're right. And I think, James, your passion really comes across in what you do. And I think, you know, you've mentioned a couple in in conversations that we've had, but I think let's go drill down as this for a minute. Yeah, you I know you've got scenarios where you've got people that have come through that maybe on paper their their credit worthiness maybe isn't quite there. Just can you just give us one example of maybe something that you think you've looked at and you've gone, even maybe you thought this might be tricky, but you've got it through. Because I think that'd be good. I think again, there will be people that listen to this, whether they're fleets or whether they're single owner drivers, that think, I'll never get the finance. Oh, this is such a myth.
SPEAKER_04This is one of the biggest myths. Do you know what? It's not maybe not a myth because people have gone to the TL1s or they've gone into a dealership. And they're from the cloud, yeah. The dealership's selling their own finance. Of course they're gonna do that. They've got penetration targets to hit, yeah, and they want that customer sticky for life. Yeah. When they get rejected at the dealer, then of course they're gonna think, oh, actually, my credit's not very good. They kind of give up on the idea, and maybe they'll just go and do something else or rent a vehicle from somewhere. Yeah. The conversations like that you're having at the moment, and you know, we've like I said, we've had over 600 inquiries. I think we've managed to speak to about 500, and that is bringing in reinforcements from our sales team. Yeah. So at the beginning it was just me. And like one day there's 96 inquiries, although, yeah, Chris, I think we need a lena. I'm gonna help you, please. So we brought on all these other salespeople, but as I'm speaking to these people, you're understanding, okay, they they might have CCJs, they might have adverse credit history or no credit history at all. And yeah, some examples that you've got are mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_02It's really interesting because all I think the DPD model did, and they did exceptionally well, was enable drivers to come in and take that sort of self-employment, you know, bring that ownership into the individual drivers. Yeah, and that worked. And what we're finding is that uh these drivers were working uh for DPD through the package that they had, where the lease was just provided through them. Uh and when it comes to ownership, it has to be looked at from a business perspective. So the banks are assessing these individuals, and sometimes there can be quite a lot of adverse credit, but some people may have not understood the impact that their actions uh had when they were younger, taking out credit cards and missing payments, etc., on getting credit for businesses later on in life. You know, life happens. Yeah, of course. So what we're able to do is talk to the customer and it's best to be honest. Yeah, tell us up front exactly what you what the problems are, maybe even provide your credit profile to us so we can analyse and assess where the problems are, and even take an approach like, well, if you got that sorted, we can then have a better chance of getting finance over the line. That's the route we take. And the banks are working with us to enable us to go, right? Well, there's XYZ problems, if these can be resolved, or an explanation provided over what happened. Sometimes it could be something as simple as a CCJ for a parking ticket you had, yeah, which got sent to an old address, or a phone bill which went to an old address. And these are really sort of like explainable problems. Of course. So we we had a driver who um won't name names at all, but there were multiple CCJs. He's um in a few payment plans because he's trying to fix the problems that he had because he wants to grow his business.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we were able to explain to uh the sort of alternative lending market that yes, there was these problems, but here's the evidence, here's the rationale, and you can clearly see this is a business critical asset. Yeah, this is this is their life income. It pays for everything. This is how they earn money as an individual. Yeah, you know, they're going to be paying the ban finance. And with that sort of comfort from it's a business critical asset and the explanations on the adverse, we're able to get drivers over the line. And even with the tier three challenger funders, the drivers are still saving money. Yeah. Because we're able to offer sort of the heavily most heavily discounted vans in the marketplace and then tailor our finance packages to make sure that it works.
SPEAKER_03I think that is the key bit. So, you know, I've I've asked these you know questions in this order for a reason. Yeah. So I think we're dispelling some big myths here. So I think myth number one, uh, the time it takes to actually get one of these vehicles on the road, right? So that thought process of oh it'll take months and I ain't got time and actually it'll never happen. Or the people that are going, I won't apply because my credit's bad. And I think those two myths are really important. So I think first thing is it's not a long process, and van a wise make it super simple. And actually, don't assume because you've been declined before that you're gonna get declined again because Sphinwise take a consultative approach. And I think those are the key for us.
SPEAKER_04They are the key better, absolutely, and it gives people, you know, seven to ten, fourteen-day turnaround. It gives people time to plan because these guys are still in a vehicle, they've still got to sort out off-hiring it, yeah, and they might have bills from the provider where they have to pay for excess mileage or damage. Yeah, just gives them a little bit of time to understand what the future looks like in the next sort of 30 days, if you like. So people want 30 days because they know they're gonna get paid again, they have got a little bit of damage on the vehicle that they're gonna give back. Yeah, so you know, even though we can get them approved straight away and offer those stuff, we can also just we we work around the driver and what works for them. So we don't say you have to take it within that time frame either. It's well, you need it in July. Well, we'll deliver in July, it's fine, we'll order it now. But you've also got as well with uh with the the finance options, which has not been mentioned yet, like even though they've got the CCJs, even though they've got adverse credit history, or maybe not even trading history, and I think DPD said it, you know, this is an industry first. These banks and challenger banks are working off the basis that if the driver can show the last three months' payment to DPD in this example, yeah, they're using that as a strength towards the application to say if only mortgage lenders did the thing, right? That's the thing, you're renting paying two, three grand a month, especially around London. Yeah, your mortgage you'll pay 1500 quid. You're gonna say 1500 quid, it's like computer size, no. Yeah, course, yeah. And this is such a rigid process. The mortgage lenders out there.
SPEAKER_03Let's get more sound up, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, we can do it. How shall we do it? Yeah, so right.
SPEAKER_04But it it is innovative because it's I don't think it's been done before the lenders on board based on the fact that it's a workhorse, it's a tool for the job, and without it, there's no income.
SPEAKER_02And like you said, the key component is the remittances. What are you doing per month? You know, what what are you earning per month? Some of those money. You know, there's some fantastic figures. Yes, and you know, there's they're still getting decline from these tier one lenders because that it's it's a computer that says yes or no system sometimes. And you just need to be able to go, right? Well, here's what they're earning, here's the ban cost, there's the serviceability and affordability, is able to evidence it.
SPEAKER_04And do you know what? Do you know what the best thing about this as well? So this lender is so flexible with upfront payments. Yeah, a lot of people, especially the products that we saw, like higher purchase, for example, where you pay the VAT up front, a lot of these people won't be claiming VAT for three months. Yeah, we're working around each individual on a like I said, on a bespoke basis to help get them what they need. So we've got it's incredible. No percent up front. Yeah, well, sorry, zero zero deposit, yeah, and then being able to pay VAT in month three whilst you've claimed the VAT back in the first place. Yeah, I've seen one recently where they've actually funded the VAT over the term because they didn't have the VAT to put up front, but he wanted to own the van. Now that guy's gonna own that van after five years, he's got an asset which is worth something. Yeah, of course. Well, we could buy an exchange van and put you into a brand new van anytime during this term. Well, you go the four or five years, once the van's paid off, you're just it's just a moneymaker. Of course, yeah, no, definitely.
SPEAKER_02One of the structures we're finding, which is really useful for the fleet as well, is seasonal payments. Like drivers don't know that this is even an option. Yeah, nobody knows. I didn't even know. I've been selling vans 15 years. Seasonal payments. The seasonal payments, it ties into your um business's sort of needs and demands. If you're busy in say just November or December, yeah, when you've got all the deliveries coming for Christmas, your turnover is going to be higher. And what you might find that maybe in January and February, you might drop off ever so slightly, which isn't a problem if you're a sole trader and you've got one van, you can probably stomach the fluctuations. But if you're a fleet with 10 or 20 vehicles on, your turnover drops significantly. So all of them you've got the fixed rate same payment for your mu for your vehicles on your vans. What you can do is tailor it, so you pay more in the November and December when you're earning more money, and you drop it off during January and February when you're not turning over as much. So there isn't as much impact on cash flow. As we know, cash. So in the courier sector, is you've got to make sure that there's cash flow headroom. It's one thing that cripples a lot of businesses is they don't manage that cash flow. So we come in and we talk to them and say, Well, look, if you do this over 20 vehicles, we can make a two, three, four thousand pounds saving per month on your whole fleet just to make sure that you're not gonna hit any any any problems in making any payments.
SPEAKER_04Wow, that is incredible.
SPEAKER_02No, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_04Like I said, I've been doing this a long time and I didn't really know that was a thing. Of course. I didn't know VAT deferrals was a thing, I didn't know funding VAT was a thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And at the same time, you know, not everybody wants to own a vehicle. No. Well, the great thing is with Annaways, we can offer you a finance lease, we can offer you a contract hire. And we're working with a couple of rental companies as well to offer a flexible rental solution. And that also plays a key part in if somebody wants to order a specific vehicle, be spoke to their requirements, and we do have the option to factory order from anywhere we like, that could be 12, 14 weeks. Now they might need to be giving DPD a fan back, or anyone on the Wise Advantage platform might be in a position where they're coming to the end of a lease. Yeah. So you offer an interim solution, we offer the interim solution, and you know, we can offer yeah, every single make, every model, every size. Yeah. So they're never without a vehicle. Yeah. Not having to wait for the factory. So again, that's another sort of when I say one-stop shop, we're offering the van, we're offering the finance, we're offering alternative solutions if the vans aren't available for whatever reason. Yeah. But we haven't even spoke about the service maintenance, tires, breakdown, MOT service that we also offer. No, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_03The insurance. The insurance link up with HRIB that we're doing.
SPEAKER_04And you know what? They have been fantastic. We had a saving yesterday, in fact, of 1200 quid a year. Now it doesn't sound like a lot, but when it's over a five-year term, that's right. It's a lot like six, seven grand in his bank. Again, it's a stealth pay rise. Yeah, that's right. Putting them in a position now where they're putting more money in the bank as opposed to giving it to a leasing company.
SPEAKER_03So and I think that moves nicely on to sort of looking ahead, I guess. So, you know, for for me, you know, I really see the future of this relationship is integrating as much as we can from a data perspective to make that journey even more seamless, right? So I know we've spoken, it's a bit on us at the moment, actually, but yeah, we hold a lot of the information for the drivers already around like proof of address and some of them that we're in the pay chain for, yeah. Even their payment history, you know, we've got drivers that have been paying for two, three years through the platform. We know exactly what they've been earning over that period, and we know what they've been paying for vehicles over that period. So actually tailoring it even further and making it even more simple, and even really, I'm thinking this is more for us than the drivers at this stage, but proactively reaching out to the drivers and saying, Did you know you could be able to do that? Well, they could have proactively reaching out to people because we wouldn't be sat in this room today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think also hanging out the phone calls. Yeah, it's right, yeah. But no, you're right. We want to yeah, I I see this partnership as a proper integrated extension to each other's businesses as opposed to just another partnership where you're throwing referrals around. That's more than that. Some hit, some don't. There's not really a consistent flow of anything, some things plateau, some things just die in the water. Yeah, like this partnership is you know uh it's now created a core business within Van Aways. Yeah, and like I say, we've brought in new people from the sales team to manage it.
SPEAKER_02We've employed three more brokers at to help support the lead flow. Right. Because there is that synergy in the partnership. Yeah, you how many drivers do you have on your system? 200 or 250,000. That's what I mean. We could all you know.
SPEAKER_04We could take a like we could have what a thousand drivers per salesperson to look after, manage, and build relationships with.
SPEAKER_03So imagine if we could get even 50,000 of these drivers with some of the savings, we could be saving millions and millions of.
SPEAKER_04Well, it would be it would be that'd be hundreds of if not a million over at the moment from what we've done. And within a short space of time, like this was launched. I say launched as well. It hasn't been looked at. It hasn't been launched, I don't know. It's just been like split warm out. Yeah, yeah. Spoken about a conference with all the service champions across the UK because of you and your big mouth.
SPEAKER_05We've had to go and build a website, we've had to build the CRM system, spoke to DPD and Van Aways and WIs.
SPEAKER_04We've had to go and invest in technologies, we've had to deploy three people, as you said, had to bring 10 salespeople in. But we've done that within 48 hours. No, it's crazy. So, yeah, the technology you guys have got is absolutely incredible, and being able to do what you do for owner drivers is you know, it's exceptional. We're very fortunate we've got a fantastic, if not an amazing in-house development team who can make things like that happen quickly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think again, I think that flexibility. So I was actually saying this morning, like we've worked with since we launched Wise Advantage, we've worked with lots of different suppliers, or we've spoken to a lot of different suppliers. But I think again, you guys match our ethos of being quite dynamic in the way that you work. You know, we want to get it.
SPEAKER_04We can just Chris will make things happen straight away. Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's his business, independently owned, like I said. Yeah, you don't I've worked at PLCs, I've worked a corporate, things take a long time, they have to get signed off by multiple stakeholders and senior management and leadership.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, I worked in a place once where to get a discount in place for somebody, you have to get signed off by a committee. The committee only met once a week, like on a Friday at two o'clock.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04By which time, you know, pace kills deals, in my opinion. Things have to move fast, otherwise, they just stall. No, yeah. Momentum gets lost, and people get bored or they go elsewhere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's the that's the big distange, right? Massive. You say that momentum bit is is really key, right? Yeah. Um momentum's everything in this game. So guys look up. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, well, I'm looking I'm super excited about the future of this. Oh, yeah. So excited.
SPEAKER_04Sat in this room today and being able to have, you know, the conversations that we're having with the people that we're having because of the relationship that we've built. I mean, you know, the relationship's so strong. You invite me to your Christmas party. Well, you know you know, mate. It was absolutely incredible. So I already felt like you know, I I felt valued by you and by your team, and everyone's been incredible. I mean, built a great relationship with your BDMs already. I just feel like we haven't even like started dipped our total report and stuff. This is the most exciting thing for me. Yeah, and this is what I'm looking forward to. And the fact that we've got Finnaways on board with James. Like James has worked with Van Ways for like 10 years, pretty much from day one in a previous role. Yeah, so you've been on the journey and you know our business inside out.
SPEAKER_02I I saw Chris and Adam when they're about four or five employees, yeah, and this is what they've grown to now. And I think that's one of the appeals to FinAways is to join into the Van Ways group was the dynamic nature of it. Yeah, that was the big appeal. Well, like Liam said, things get done and they get done quickly, and you need speed and momentum. It's the most important thing. Absolutely, definitely.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant chaps. No, great. So I just want to end on a I think we've already covered these as we've been going, but let's end on some real quick myths, right? So I think let's dispel these right at the end, right? So you give me one line on these. Okay. Uh it will take ages to get a new van on the road. Absolute bollocks. Myth. Myth mythable. If you've been inclined For credit before, you're gonna get declined.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. We work with loads of lenders who can overturn what tier one decision makers would make. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And we've seen that enough times in the last three weeks to know that the model that we've got is absolutely I wouldn't say bulletproof, but as close to bulletproof as you can get for people in a position where, as I've said, adverse credit, not enough trading history, they might have just left a job working in TK Max, for example, to go and work for DPD. Yeah. But we're able to speak to these people, and like I said, as long as you get an understanding of everyone's individual situation, there is room for putting you into a finance agreement with one of the lenders that we're working with. Yeah, yeah. And it is absolutely incredible to be able to offer that service. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Final myth, Liam. Okay. A new van is more expensive than a leased van. Buying your own van is more expensive. Absolute myth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it depends where you go, I suppose. Of course. If you do want to get the most competitive vehicles in the market, whether it be a purchase or a lease, then come and speak to Valloway. Shaky plug, cheeky plug time. Yeah, yeah. No, come and speak to us because we're here to help businesses, whether you're a one-man band, SME, blue chip. Yeah. Like I said, we cater for everybody. Of course. We've got relationships that have gone back many, many years with my, you know, multiple manufacturers across the UK, dealer groups, dealers, all of our friends working dealers. You know, we've got the relationships. Of course. We can get deals exclusive into the broker market, which maybe you wouldn't be able to get if you were to walk into a dealer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So honestly, come and chat to us because I'm pretty confident there is something that we can help you with. And if we can't, there's definitely somebody that we know that can.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. Yes. I think it's a really great way to wrap up, chat. So I think you know, the the three to recap, three myths. If you've been declined before, it doesn't mean you get declined again. New vans are often cheaper, actually, because of the structure that you guys can can put them in. Uh, and just because um don't think it's going to take ages to get on the road, I think it's the key. And they're the things, right? Yeah. Time and money, and almost fear, almost. So, you know, break the fear barrier. Don't worry about the time because it's that's that's a myth. And actually, you can save yourself a lot of money. So I wouldn't want to do that. Why wouldn't you want to do it? Yeah, trust the process. I love that, yeah. Watch off of on a wise coming soon. Chat's been brilliant to have you on. Thanks very much. Um it's uh absolutely 25 weeks. Let's do it. Cheers for us. Thank you.
