1840 Podcast - S1 Ep 1 - Welcome to the 1840 Podcast

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1 2 3 4 Hi everybody my name's Paul Bullivant and I'm your host for today I'd like to welcome you to the Howarth Timber and Building Supplies 1840 podcast  over the course of the next few months what we'd like to do is share some of the stories from our 184 years as a Builders Merchant as well as talking to some of our suppliers and our customers and talk about some of the key issues of the day that are impacting the Builders Merchants industry now with this being our first episode we thought

 

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the best place to start would be to add some context as to why we're sat here doing a  doing a podcast so we're going to talk about our journey from initial concept and initial idea of doing a podcast to actually being sat here in front of microphones and cameras and lights recording and also covering the big question of why on Earth would a builders merchant want to do a podcast it's really not what we normally do but here we are trying something different and  we want to talk you all

 

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through that so to want we do that today I'd like to welcome our first two guests to our podcast on our first ever episode and I'm delighted to have with me Gavin Knowles and Steve Hudson who run our marketing team  and just to settle your two's nerves shall we start with a nice easy simple question  we'd like to introduce yourselves to our audience which I hope are out there listening to us so if you like to introduce yourselves a little bit about yourselves your careers and what

 

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you do for Howarth Timber you start  so I'm Gavin I'm the head of marketing & digital for Howarth Timber & Building Supplies I've  been here for the best part of seven years  I look after all things kind of marketing digital marketing like SEO and paid media  as well as the eCommerce kind of road map  and developing the app out  as well as the customer service team and helping out the branches on that side of things okay and before you joined how what do you what did you do so

 

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previously I worked  to be fair I've probably had a good 15 16 years in the merchant Industry started out when I was 21 for a company called Builders Superstore which is  pretty much what I  do now but a very small scale and starting out and I also worked at XL Joinery which is  a supplier in the industry so I've kind of been at both sides of the table which is quite interesting any experience in any other Industries yeah I worked in a training consultancy firm for a number of

 

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years which was quite a different world altogether  but it's nice to be in a product world where you're selling products rather than  just making up kind of training consultancy really and when you moved into Builder Superstore was it the job or was it the building industry that appealed to you  it was mainly the job  but it's just one of those things I think everybody who kind of lands in the industry just ends up sticking with it and you end being there for life

 

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or you're out quick yeah that's good so you've done what 17 years you're reckoning probably 15 16 yeah that's cool Steve over to you yes so I'm Steve been working with Howarth for  eight years now so I'm Design and Brand Manager  my background's a little bit different to Gavin  I started out in graphic design that's why I went to doing  so yeah after uni got a few jobs in little Studios and things like that  and then got a job in an internal marketing department  and

 

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that's where the sort of getting embedded in a marketing team started so I was there 10 years I moved on which was a totally different industry sort of manufacturing it's a group of companies one of them was a travel company as well it was just a bizarre little setup  and but yeah it was an international company and it was it was great experience and that's where I sort of learned all about marketing it was sort of teaming up the design and the marketing side was great I then went to

 

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work on a sort of rebrand of a global insurance company which was  again totally different so and then entered the world of Builders Merchants which was totally different again I mean try explaining tally tickets to someone not in it's totally different how did the move come about then to come to Howarth  I just moved where wherever would take me really but yeah it just I took on the role at Gallagher's the insurance company it was a fixed term contract to deliver this rebrand and

 

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then the Howarth opportunity came along which was different and quite close to home it was used to pass it every day on the way to college when I was there had no idea how big a company it was  so yeah it's interesting so again you moved for the job rather than moving to come into the building industry exactly yeah the fact that it was building industry which that's the beauty of marketing really is that you sort of can transcend any industry and kind of

 

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the principles are still the same but are there are there any massive differences then in marketing in the other industries that you've worked in compared to the building industry or is it is marketing I mean well with the insurance company I mean legislation on that was crazy like you know everything had to go through people to get approved and stuff  you know sort of financial services and stuff so yeah I mean there's I quite like the freedom of coming into an industry where it's

 

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like yeah you know it was it was very rough and ready and it was different and it was yeah it was different good journey okay I think there's a difference between the service industry and rather than products and it does have a little bit of  well difference when you have to Market stuff but ultimately it's pretty much the same thing so the principles the same principles of marketing that you'd apply in insurance or in training of other same in a Builders Merchants it's the

 

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seven PS at the end of the day let's have a quick marketing lesson the seven PS I don't think I could actually take that one off got it remember if I had to guess I’d probably say six come on let's do with  Price Product Promotion Place People Process Physical evidence very good for that one did you I did not that last one all right that's good okay so let's get started so there's two things on us to talk about and that will kind of set the scenes and the

 

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foundation of what we're going to do with the rest of this podcast so I want to tell the story of how we've got here so where we how we original ideas came up and the journey that we've gone on to get actually sat in here today and then try and talk about the question of why would we commit our time and effort into doing a you know into doing a podcast so that they're the two main questions for today for us but before we do what I would like to know from both

 

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of you is as you're sat here now this minute under these lights looking at me how do you feel and I ask that because however long we do this for I'll always remember the first day we moved this from a random idea into  into kind of reality and the three of us were sat in  the conference room in Wakefield and I said to you right I've got the idea for the first episode and it's going to be me with you two and I've never seen so many averted gazes and heard so much silence in my life and it took

 

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quite a bit of pushing for me to get you into here because all you would both say is oh I can't talk I can't string two words together I just can't do it but you know here you are so what I would like to understand from both of you is right now this minute in this very moment how do you feel Stephen  nervous is the one word to summarize it I mean it's not something we've ever done before that's half the beauty of it I mean lights everywhere like we budget won't stretch

 

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to a makeup teams the shine on the head you know but the idea of getting us on film now was a horrible one and you know I think we'll all be glad when this moment's over but yeah it's good fun is it I guess so it's nervous but excited yeah let's you got to try things haven't you so yeah that's good I think I would probably share the same  you know what Steve said nervous and ultimately quite excited about something and where more men behind the curtain sort

 

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of thing you don't kind of wheel us out for  glamour projects and there's always that kind of back of your head of  what does the business care about marketing side of things but it's kind of what you said earlier it's all about telling stories and sharing your so yeah that's a really good point about marketing about telling stories and you know that just dates back to the days of the caveman sat around the campfire doesn't it that's how that's how stories were

 

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you know were shared I'm delighted that you're both here because you both you know you both say I'm not good at talking and I'm with the guys in the background but you know I think you're really good talkers and you’ve got good stuff to say and you speak very well so I'm on a personal level I just want to thank you two for coming on this and for helping me in this vanity project to  you know to do this I suppose having asked you how you feel it's probably only fair that I share the

 

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same  and you know what I feel exactly the same nervous and excited  and I think that's good because you two when we first started talking we like really oh no we can't we can't we can't and just because I do maybe a bit more public speaking than you do that just goes along with the job it doesn't mean that I don't feel exactly the same and it's only from standing up and talking in front of people that you kind of get used to controlling those nerves that are within

 

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you and know that you can get you know get around them so thank you both for coming I think the thing is he's trying to just get your head right like we sort of trying to figure out what you're going to say but it's just it's just a chat into it really it's just the fact that we're in you know it's a little bit different and you know you're getting filmed but no it's it is just telling stories like you say that's cool right so let's move on to those two key

 

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questions want to talk about our journey from that faithful morning and we’re sat around that table to actually being sat here and then go on to why would the builder’s merchants want to do a podcast you know all the things that that we could do to market ourselves where does a podcast fit into all of that so do you want to start talking about that just explaining that journey that we that we went on and the ups and downs and dead ends and whatever well I think I mean all kind of it

 

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stemmed from  internal communication we've been doing a lot of things about how we can improve you know just general communication to the branches and everybody else and we sometimes a little bit guilty of using  kind of old fashioned stuff like newsletters and in print and emails and stuff to kind of get this message out and one of the things that I always think is an absolute shame is that we do these branch managers conferences every year and we have these fantastic stories and

 

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we don't get in you know people trying to tell you to teach you how to suck eggs or you know how to sell or you know big inspirational people we asked our branch managers to tell the story of you know how they can share best practice or something and one of them that always sticks in my head is Rob Bailey okay and Rob  he's he was a branch manager he's now a regional manager and at the time he was talking about his experience of being a new branch manager to Howarth and he had these great

 

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slides on it and one of them was about you know him trying to be a super man and trying to help out everybody around the  the branch he just ended up doing everyone's head in and it tried a few different things and eventually found out that he was this farmer and he was trying to grow and you know this Gardener to try and grow his team to being the best people and it worked and he found himself and it's one of those like nice little stories and I think that's kind of the theme today is

 

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stories that actually in that room of branch managers it resonates a lot but it resonates more with yards people with you know ABMs with sales execs and it's their journey to become a branch manager and it's all kind of a guilty thing of not having that information out to people in the business and I think if I actually both now what your favourite kind of  you know story from conference you you'd each have one yeah so  is that a question are you asking it can be a question yeah

 

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okay on my job to catch you to on mine would be mine would be when  Kevin Parr interviewed Nick Howarth and got Nick talking about himself nothing work related and Nick dropped into the conversation that his favourite hobby is underwater Polo a sport that we just never knew yeah you know existed so it was a really good way of learning of through a story learning things that we just didn't know  before and that again that's always resonated with me have you gone  I think similar learning about the people

 

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Cause I don't have a particular story and that was really interesting I'd never even knew that sport existed but  sort of we did it at Harrogate as well got  a few of the few of the managers up and you know like Owen was in a he's in a band and things like that and they're the things that cause everything's work work work that when you get to where the stories behind people and you've got something else to talk to them about it and it just puts it those conferences worthwhile cause you're

 

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getting together and learning about the people you work with so no one story but that's what  so I guess the point there that you're making is that we that there's such a lot of stories everywhere in life not just in our business but within our business there all these stories that we that we struggle to find a way to share beyond a meeting with a fixed number of people 100% And then this could doing something like this could be our opportunity to spread those stories

 

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further 100% And I think that's where this all kind of came from cause you could be the best manager in the world you could be the best communicator in the world but you can never get across you know Nick's passion or you know yeah  Rob's kind of personal experience across to things and then that's what kind of makes podcasts a little bit different is you have that kind of dynamic and interpersonal which just kind of resonates and have that kind of funnel down throughout the whole the

 

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whole business so  to me all started out with that internal communications but going back to your bit of you know the whole marketing side of things and actually we did  and ah about whether this would you know go over to the customer side of things and actually it should do really because we're not talking about facts and figures and numbers we're talking about people's stories and we've got 184 years of people's stories that we're actually not a faceless corporation

 

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we're Howarth we're a family business with family values and actually we have people in the business that care about staff and customers so it's a natural nice way it's completely fluffy I'm not I'm not going to say it's not  but yeah I think it's the way forward and the technical side of your question is you just see it more and more like you know this is the way the world's going there's more people  wanting fast communication you know the

 

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busy people especially in branches and you need to grab them grab them in like eight seconds or something did you ever think as we as we've gone through this journey because I remember perhaps over the last couple of years as once or twice I've when we've been just nattering without any great thought we've just been chewing the Cod and thinking what we could do I've said to you I'd really love to do a podcast at some I was maybe talking about something that I'd listened to or heard and I'd

 

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said to you I'd really love to do a podcast but we could never carry it off and I don't think we've got anything to you know to talk about and then it was only that fate when  the Yorkshire podcast Studios where we're we recording today happened to get in touch with you offering the services that and you sent it I remember you sending it to me and the minute I saw it I was like this is it this is the moment come and we started talking about

 

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it and I I've kept saying to you I can't work out whether there's something in this or it's just a vanity project cause I fancied doing it I want you to be really honest cause you are nice people did you ever think at any point oh what a stupid idea this just isn't for us for me no  I think one thing that we need more of is content I think we've got these fantastic stories in the business and there's one thing you've always said over the years is you can you can do the

 

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best marketing campaign you can do the best promotion in the world but if Billy under the counter don't believe in it and it put it out it doesn't go anywhere and I think we've got these stories to tell and you're naturally the host of our conferences so you've got someone to believe in it and that's 50% the way of doing anything and I think you naturally will get people to come out of their shell on these podcasts so for me I have complete faith in it Stephen you're normally very honest and very

 

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straight yeah I mean the same I think the  moment where we're talking and is it good is it bad and when we sat down we came through air and 20 minutes  we'd got about 20 episodes lined up of things that actually oh that'd be brilliant to and you know I've been working here eight years and you know talking to people you know who people don't normally see and they've told us great stories in doing like the newsletter that we do the network you know you've got stories

 

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that'll never see the light of day and you know if you if you manage to get some of them out here like remember Steve B in Wakey telling me about  we've got to have some of the stories before certainly  you'll have to do that before but like getting a forklift for Nick's car because of the flooding or something like you know his new Jag or whatever it was but yeah it was there's some amazing stories that that you think yeah there there's total need for it and then you know the

 

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suppliers that we've got to talk to we have like Landscaping days you know the there'll be new products that we can sort of promote or talk about on here not necessarily promote but just explain and so there's lots of scope to sort of build you know a proper library of things and one of the things I always think I when I first joined and they showed me that  hardback book we've got hard back book haven't I think it's available on Amazon for 20 quid or

 

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something Howarth Timber through the years or something and this is just a little bit of an extension of that and it's a different way of communicating those stories to and you know maybe in 180 years time people be looking back on these and sort of you know shambles yeah yeah but are you two  are you two clear exactly what we're trying to do here and who we're aiming at I think so it's improving our internal communication of business and getting our message and story across to

 

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our customers yeah I mean we're not trying this isn't trying to sort of sell anything it's an extension of the newsletter if people want to get snapshots and I think in terms of communication it like feeds into our sort of social strategy that that we'll be able to put little snapshots of our of these hopefully someone will say some interesting things we might be picking the bones out of this one with me and Gav but  you know we'll get loads of little stories that we can then pitch on

 

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reels and obviously that you know 50% of the time spent on Instagram is on reels and this is ideal for sort of creating that kind of stuff so I'm pleased you two are confident that you know where we're going this because I have to be honest that's the one thing as we've gone through this from first all talking about it to now really struggling to nail down exactly what I think we're trying to do with it so I love a podcast I like the idea of it always wanted to try it I think

 

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we've got a lot to talk about as a business I mean if you add up our years of Builders Merchants experience you said eight you said about 15  so that's 23 I know I don't look like it but I'm this old but I am that old I've done 38 you know years in Builders Merchants I  started when I was 18 so that's 38 plus 23 what's that 50 that's 61 years so even between the three of us we've got 61 years of Builders Merchants you know experience so in terms of have we got

 

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things to talk about within the industry that are that kind of pertinent and of interest well yeah  I'd hope  I'd hope we would have and if you think about some of the colleagues that we know in the business you know they've got more than you know that we that we've got here so within the business this all this experience all these stories and people of to stories be interesting as soon as he starts getting out there you'll know straight away won't you because people are I listened

 

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or you know it was interesting or it was rubbish so as soon as you know we sort of out there in the world you'll hear pretty quickly how it's gone with but I'm sure people will enjoy sort of tuning in a an ex colleague of my wife he' started a podcast on LinkedIn he just he wrote about  his journey with it and he talked about the false start the bad recordings the bad editing the dreading to hear his own voice on the  you know on the thing  but in the end in kind

 

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of coming to the conclusion sometimes you just got to start things and be a podcast or anything in life sometimes you've just got to get the whole thing  moving and then and then my final little one of these examples when he posted it obviously people had commented  on it and somebody had had left a comment for him and I thought this was brilliant I'm going to use it all the time now you can't learn to drive in a parked car I think that's that you know that that ss it up so we

 

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might not know exactly where this is heading is it internal is it  is it is it external  We've good stuff to talk about and there must be people out there who are going to be interested in it and we'll just make it work as we  you know as we move along in terms of a builder Merchants doing a podcast has it got a place in our roughy tufty industry somebody's got to be interested is it out there I think  I like I say it is a really fluffy kind of thing to do with podcasts  I had a quick nosy

 

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before  I came in here and there something like 350 million active listeners to podcasts internationally which I'm not saying we're going after that one  but I think if we if we just tell the story and we work on kind of internal Communications that somebody out there in externally might be interested whether it is suppliers  or just our customers but it's  it's an interesting one Steve any thoughts  I think it there is a place for it I think and that's one of the

 

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exciting things is that we don't know of any others that are doing it as well so it's quite nice to be on the forefront of yeah doing it and on the let's see if it let's see if it goes but yeah I think there is a place for it there's a place for any kind of communication with that we've just had the engagement survey and that was one of the people that people wanted enhancing and could couldn't work any better could it you know oh well actually we just we're working on

 

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that we're doing a podcast so I think I think there is a definite place for it so have you have you any  hopes and dreams about how many people might watch or like and subscribe Gav so we've got three families if we get three families with watching and liking and subscribing it's a result we're doing well excellent right  I wanted to talk now about our logo and our naming of the podcast which is all your work as head of  Creative Design and brand do you want to just

 

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talk through how you came up with yeah well the obviously we've been around 185 years 1840 was when we when we started and we used that for our 1840 trade and cash credit accounts okay  and it made sense to sort of team it up and have the same kind of feel and that's what branding is just keeping everything consistent  why is that why is that important it's the promise to your customers that they know who you are what you're doing we don't want people to see this podcast and wonder

 

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what you know is it yeah so it has to be we wanted it to stand alone he didn't want to be just Howarth Timber podcast Howarth Timber Building Supplies podcast it need wanted its own feel  to run with and it gives us freedom to go down any avenue we want with it really  but yeah give a nice bright and lively feel for hopefully a bright and lively podcast that when we asked you to when we asked you to come up with a logo as always you came up with that really quickly I'm always

 

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amazed at how quickly you can come up with ideas so you're clearly very creative and it's been part of your career all the way through can you teach creativity or is it just a natural trait  I  think there's a bit of both really I think it's like anything I think you can get better like just thinking about I talked about the conference in Harrogate where we had can't remember his name who illustrated that's it yeah that's it teaching you how to illustrate to get

 

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across your ideas so I think I think everyone can work and develop the creativity  but I guess yeah I mean it's what I studied and developed and you say come with things quickly I guess that's part of the experience of my career is that you can do it and as soon as you say stuff and as soon as you get on the same wavelength as the people that you're working with that helps that you I know what you want you know you know where I'm coming from stuff so that's part of being in a marketing team

 

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as well is that you sort of get on the same page and you what do you think hampers creative thinking wearing a tie is probably the first one yeah you can't be creative in a tie it's  just it stops you I think I think  why is it why is the ties it is for me any no I think I think I think you're right it's very generational isn't it so my generation you were brought up with shirt and tie your generation which is a couple down from me is not you know so it's definitely a thing why does it

 

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stop creativity I think it's a it's an interesting question really because it's more sometimes if you're too busy that's when creativity goes out the window because you end up just doing the routine and it's quite interesting sometimes my best creative ideas are like when I'm sat on the tube or I'm on a train I thought you were going to say toilet then and your brain is just completely shut down it's starting to think because you're not thinking about the next job that you

 

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need to do so to me that's when you can be the most creative is just taking some time out your day to just be creative is our is the Builder's Merchant industry creative enough I appreciate that's quite a broad brush question I think it is quite creative I think  it's probably not the most innovative technology wise  but it's getting there you know we Steve mentioned it earlier we still use tally tickets and we still do things a bit old fashioned and you know we

 

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process money on a computer that's probably as far as we kind of get but it's massively developing and there's lots of people in the industry in in both Fortis or NNBS or  you know the BMF that pushing things forward okay and I think we are I think we are really creative in how we do things where would you like us to be with the podcast in six months time what would good look like  I think we would have had a variety of people on it I think  obviously we've got Nick and he's

 

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lined up to come on here but I think good looks like getting the other stories like we've been talking about and touching on so the people in the yard the people there's so many people who've been with us for like 40 50 years and they've got stories to tell and obviously this you know that this is alien to us sitting in here but you know it's quite a nice thing to sort of get those stories and those people in front of the cameras and get shine a light on those kind of so I

 

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think just having a variety of people from across the business to sort of tell their side of stories yeah good do you know what the probably the best example of success would be if you go to a branch and somebody mugs you off about the podcast because that means they watched it and I always think that we've we pretty much we every been marketing if somebody criticized something it means they've read it they've done something or interacted with it and I think that's the

 

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key to it is have a bit of banter because that's the entire industry is all about camaraderie and taking the Mickey  but hopefully that will encourage people like Steve says to tell the stories have you any concerns that nobody's out there watching and listening to us hopefully on this one this one no but yeah I mean the will do as soon like you know  as soon as we start sharing the like the shorts on Facebook and stuff I think I think that's another element of it like you

 

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don't even almost have to listen to the full podcast so as soon as we start breaking this up someone said a little snapshot I mean I  see things on Instagram on YouTube  and you feel like you've watched a full episode of something but you haven't you've got the key bits three key elements and that's what  you take away from it and because of we know what our following is people will see those because we'll put it in front of them if they tune in and listen to the full thing or if

 

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not to worry yeah do you have any concerns no I kind of share Steve's views I think we've got a lot of characters in the business and I think people will tune in to see those characters  you know whether it's you know Rob or if it's you Paul those kind of people I think there's a lot of respect for those people and I think it'll just be interesting that's the end of the podcast section of the podcast I've got four quick fire questions for each of you here okay this wasn’t in the

 

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Pretalk this we have to find something so that we weren't too structured with it they're just they’re four things about you as people and if they work I'm going to keep it in with everybody that we  you know that we talk to so it's just I'm just guinea pigs yeah you're just the guinea pigs so if you can answer them anybody can answer right favourite part of your job  quick fire oh yeah sorry creativity coming up with something like creative like you don't know what you're

 

00:33:27

coming to yeah the if I get to design anything that's a that's a good day for me and that's a bad day for the company Steve the most difficult part of your job  someone will always have a problem with something you do they'll always you can't please everyone basically oh that's a good that's a good point but you don't have to please everybody do you comes to things like design but yeah and it's not just design it's like any

 

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marketing initiative we come up with or whatever I think  it's always going to be a challenge to please everyone and you you've got to focus on the ones that you can how do you feel when somebody criticizes one of the designs you've done  they're probably right no well with that in mind when I was criticizing this I said can we change it all you said was no no no no you got to be for the right reasons got to be for you don't mind other people criticizing you but no you get yeah

 

00:34:36

basically bugs so if  if we launch something on the web while the app and something breaks that's it's a stressful day that's very good thanks for not copying he's got time to think about his What's  what's the most crucial trait somebody would need to do your job I think commercial knowledge and just awareness  you know just to expand on what you mean by commercial knowledge just it's more like because we have budgets and we do stuff it's easy to say yes to everybody in the business

 

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and make friends but you need that kind of commercial awareness that actually is it the right thing for the job is it going to produce something that's going to return something or help someone and we always say in marketing you know save time make life easier make more money for our customers and it's got to be about that rather than you know making friends with people that's good so you're breaking the mould of the stereotype of a of a marketeer all being about colouring in and crayons yeah

 

00:35:37

excellent doing good stuff Steve  I think been able to read between the lines as to what people want sometimes people why are you looking at me saying yeah but sorry interrupted yeah no people have got an idea and it's trying to see what they want without them knowing in fully what they want so you're trying to piece it together yourself so  that's a big skill to build like it that final one then can rest best piece of advice you've ever been given it either could

 

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be work or it could be you know at home something personal do you know what there's one I can't remember where I got it from I feel like it was  Simon and it's people don't remember what you said or how you said it or when you said it they just remember how it made them feel okay and I think  it's a really good one for me because I manage the customer service team and we get you know there's obviously people might complain about something or if we do anything marketing

 

00:36:36

Wise It's always that  message of how does it come across you know don't always follow script how is it going to make someone feel at the other end and it's a bit like Rob's story from earlier I can't quite remember everything he said but I remember how it made me feel when it when it ended yeah I like that  I think it came from you this I don't know  it's the rule of thirds always sits with me because of what we do and it's quite relevant for this one

 

00:37:08

because podcast you know you can't please everyone so a third are going to be positive about it a third are going to be neutral indifferent and then a third are going to be negative and you know sometimes you want to hear the negative ones but if you focus on those positive ones and you know like you said someone will say something bad why are they doing this why but you can't listen to that noise sometimes just focus on the good bits that's good and that that's something that was something

 

00:37:39

that was shared to me by one of my old managers Mark Collier  who is no longer with us unfortunately when I worked at Grafton and he said  you can break any sit situation where people involved into those thirds and he said the key always is when you're facing a big challenge around people in those groups is all you've got to focus on actually is getting converting 50% of the middle group into what you're looking to do because then you've then you've got 50%

 

00:38:13

of the total part I think it's a good you know it's a good piece of advice that was shared with me so I'll please you yeah continue it's really relevant for this isn't it yeah all right that's great well thank you for that I hope it's not been too  painful for you was it thank you for having us it's been horrendous every minute I think you've spoken more today in this than you probably have to me in the last you know two years so maybe you'll be coming back so just to

 

00:38:41

just to wrap this episode up we're hoping to release an episode every couple of weeks  and we've got three more episodes  ready to  ready to roll we've got Nick Howarth  joining us to talk about some of the news from the business but perhaps more importantly to talk about  the history of Howarth Timber and his recollections of the business as he as he went through his life so kind of what were his first recollections as a child of  of the business we'll be talking to Paul Ferns and Jang Yunis

 

00:39:23

from our Oldham Branch they're going to talk about the history of Oldham their career journeys and what makes a good branch so our branches are absolutely pivotal to the whole of our business so on a on a regular basis we're going to pick a branch put the spotlight on them  in an episode and bring a branch manager and  one or two of their colleagues into  to talk about the branch and then we've got an episode with Rob Bailey and Cameron Reed who are long-term branch managers of

 

00:39:54

ours but have recently been promoted to regional managers and we're going to talk about how they've managed that transition from a branch manager to a regional manager and part of that conversation will end up  talking about insecurities and impostor syndrome  and about wondering why on Earth am I here this isn't for me which is probably pertinent for the three of us as you know as we've been sat here today so to close  I just want to say thank you well thank you to you two for coming to

 

00:40:28

join I think you've done really really really well I think it’s gone better than we thought it would maybe let’s go watch it back first I've not been looking at the time but I think we've maybe done more than 15 minutes see didn't set the bar very high that's good  as I said we're going to try and release an episode  every couple of weeks when I was looking at  some facts and figures about  podcasts it said Apple have got 470,000

 

00:41:01

Active podcasts on their site  but 50% of them have got less than three episodes so if we can have more than three episodes we're in the top 50% of the podcasts so that's all right  and it also says that if you can get 32 downloads in your first month you'll be in the top 5% of podcasters so there's our there's our two aims  thank you for listening and watching I hope there's somebody out there to have listened and watched otherwise we're wasting  our time  I do feel a bit

 

00:41:37

there's definitely imposter syndrome when I say what I'm about to say but my kids said I've got to say it  if you've enjoyed what you've seen like And subscribe and it would be nice to find a like and a subscribe from beyond our three families and if you want to follow us you can find us on most of the socials LinkedIn Instagram Facebook we've got our own website  and if you want to email into us with any comments or thoughts you can do that on: 1840pod@howarth-timber.co.uk

 

00:42:14

but we'll put all of those  into the show notes and that's it I shall quit while we're ahead draw this first episode to a close thank you both for coming thank you for watching Yorkshire Podcast Studios thank you for producing this and one final big thank you is to Alex at Adept who  has been a great source of comfort and  information for us along this journey so cheers Alex much appreciated thank you very much 1 2 3 4 [Music]