Derek Barrett: Balancing Craftsmanship and Content Creation for Business Growth
Derek Barrett, founder of Derek Barrett Design Limited, joins The Build Up to share his journey in bespoke furniture making and how social media transformed his business. Starting with a foundation course in Ireland and earning a BA in furniture design, Derek took an unconventional path into cabinetmaking. His early experiences managing large projects taught him valuable lessons about efficiency, investment in the right tools, and running a streamlined workshop.
In this conversation, Derek opens up about how Instagram became a game-changer for his brand. A single viral post reaching over 20 million views shifted the way he approached digital marketing, helping him connect with a wider audience and attract new clients. He reflects on the challenges of maintaining engagement, the importance of authenticity, and the balance between showcasing craftsmanship and growing a business online.
Listen now and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review!
Transcript
Hello and welcome to The Buildup. This is the podcast for marketing
Speaker:in the construction industry. I'm
Speaker:Dan, the creative director at Dissident. We've been working with construction brands for
Speaker:a number of years. It's an exciting and rapidly evolving industry, and
Speaker:that's why we created a podcast dedicated to the weird and wonderful world
Speaker:of construction marketing. I'll be speaking to leading brands, other agencies,
Speaker:creatives, influencers, and startups. This is the
Speaker:resource I wish we had when we first started out in the industry. Thank
Speaker:you for being here and welcome to The Builder. Welcome
Speaker:to The Buildup. I'm Dan, the Creative Director at Dissonant. We're a social first
Speaker:creative agency that works with construction brands to create hard hitting
Speaker:content and social media marketing. Yes, I did it, Key.
Speaker:And today I'm joined by Derek Barrett. Thank
Speaker:All the way from, where was it again? High Wycombe. High Wycombe. Yeah, up in Hampshire.
Speaker:It turns out there's like almost no one locally that
Speaker:is a viable guest, apart from who we've got
Speaker:on a little bit later on, Scott DIY. Thank you so
Speaker:much for being here. I really appreciate it. Just a quick shout out
Speaker:to Key, because he's back on the Keyland cam, he's back from his cruise.
Speaker:You got suited and booted, and I'm right in saying you were the youngest person
Speaker:on that cruise as well. Yeah, pretty much. We
Speaker:got some cracking, we got, we did some podcasts for one of our
Speaker:clients this week and there was, we
Speaker:had the Keelan cam on for no reason. There
Speaker:was no point in having it on because that wasn't a feature but it just, it was there
Speaker:so we had it on. And there was like so many great shots of
Speaker:him yawning and just not being, not being interested. So
Speaker:I'm going to try and build some sort of like highlight
Speaker:reel of just Keelan just being like, coming up really close to
Speaker:the camera like falling asleep. I like that. Absolutely brilliant. I've
Speaker:gone off topic there. Derek, thank you so much for coming. For the
Speaker:people who perhaps don't know who you are at this point, could you give us a little introduction
Speaker:Yeah, no problem. My name is Derek Barrett. My company is Derek
Speaker:Barrett Design Limited. We set it
Speaker:up back in 2017. And yeah, we make
Speaker:bespoke furniture, freestanding, not as much. We do
Speaker:do freestanding furniture, but anything cabinet related will
Speaker:do it. So a lot of residential more so than
Speaker:commercial. So, home bars, mostly
Speaker:wardrobes, walk-in wardrobes, wow factor, understair storages,
Speaker:things like that. So, that's mainly what we kind of work
Speaker:on. How did you get into kind of that area? Would you
Speaker:call it carpentry joinery? No, you see, this is the thing, I don't class them as either. I
Speaker:class myself as a cabinetmaker. So, I've come in slightly
Speaker:different to maybe a lot of the people, usually a
Speaker:joiner or chippy, or they worked on a building site and they've been
Speaker:asked to do a wardrobe. And before they knew it, they're like, we like doing this
Speaker:side of the things, cleaner and blah, blah, blah. And then they
Speaker:become a furniture maker and they make fitted furniture. So I've
Speaker:come in from a different, um, avenue. So I did a year after,
Speaker:so I'm dyslexic. So in Ireland, uh, we did a year in
Speaker:Galway, uh, called a feet tack level course, which was back
Speaker:in, my God, now I'm going back, 2001. And it
Speaker:was just a foundation level course of doing furniture,
Speaker:touching on restoration, hand cut joints and
Speaker:making furniture. And then it was a one year course. You
Speaker:could go on to college in Ireland, but there was very few courses in
Speaker:Ireland doing it. So we looked into over in Britain and
Speaker:there was one in Scotland and one down south in Buckinghamshire. Uh,
Speaker:we, we found out there was a girl that had done our course in Buckinghamshire. So
Speaker:we organized an interview and before we knew it, um, we
Speaker:got the interview. I got accepted, but not for 2002 for
Speaker:2003. So I took a break and went to Canada, enjoyed myself and in Canada for
Speaker:nearly a year, worked in a sports shop and did, um, and then always
Speaker:said, if it didn't work out, I'm going back to Canada. Um, but
Speaker:started the, I did a university degree course. I got a BA honors degree in
Speaker:furniture, um, in Buckinghamshire, uh,
Speaker:doing, um, the furniture and graduated in
Speaker:2006 and then went into working for the real world
Speaker:as they would say. But at that stage I was probably, I don't know, 22. 23. I
Speaker:did that for a little while. At the time, the building boom was in
Speaker:Ireland and all that kind of stuff. So decided to move back
Speaker:to Ireland and got a job with a furniture maker, which
Speaker:was slightly different. It's not in Ireland. There is a bespoke,
Speaker:but you'd want to be near the cities, go to Dublin, things like that. But
Speaker:I was in the country. And so I
Speaker:felt I did it for, did a big project in Ireland, decided to
Speaker:move back to England in 2010. And then ended up
Speaker:going back into employment and stuff. So I had a company, yeah, I
Speaker:set up a company in 2007 and
Speaker:ran it for three years and decided to close it and move to England. So
Speaker:I think it was the best decision I ever did because I was too young, I felt, when
Speaker:I set up that company. And what
Speaker:I know now, I hadn't a clue back then when I was running a limited, we were doing
Speaker:a half a million pound project in a hotel because what was happening in Ireland,
Speaker:they were pumping so much money into tourism rather
Speaker:than the the housing estates and stuff, which were popping
Speaker:off left, right and center. The government were like, if the builder can put in a
Speaker:million pound and build a four star hotel, we'll give you
Speaker:a million pounds. So all the builders were like, oh, I'm going to build a hotel now. And
Speaker:we, we knew one of the builders. And before we knew it, we
Speaker:were told we were going in to talk about a reception desk and ended up getting the whole
Speaker:contract at 22 years old. And it was, yeah,
Speaker:stressful. So that's the way I look at things now. So when I get like a
Speaker:six, seven bedroom house, I go, well, I've just done 44 bedrooms. And
Speaker:it's easy. Like, you're never going to be as stressed as you were then. So
Speaker:I kept at it, worked my way up in different companies. And
Speaker:yeah, we ended up making the leap after being a
Speaker:workshop manager at a company. I always did stuff on the side and
Speaker:the customers would always say, look, why don't you do this for yourself?
Speaker:And it was before my second one. born, like child was on
Speaker:the way. And I was like, if I don't do it now, I'll never do it. I can do what I'm doing now when
Speaker:I'm 50, 55. Uh, that's the way I looked at it. And I said, look,
Speaker:give it a couple of years, see, let's see how it gets on. But I
Speaker:always pride myself in my fitting skills and how fast I fit. And
Speaker:people used to know, there was a lot of companies out there that would go, how do
Speaker:you do this so quickly and clean and all that. And
Speaker:so I thought maybe my service would be. the fitting side of
Speaker:things and that. And I was
Speaker:going to set that up as a fitting option for companies, high-end bespoke companies.
Speaker:You can hire me, I'll come and fit your furniture. And but
Speaker:then it just grew into my own business. Amazing. From there, like I just
Speaker:do my own stuff and that. So I never really had to go down that avenue, which was great.
Speaker:Do you find that, because you mentioned, I think, did
Speaker:Do you feel like having that kind of experience is
Speaker:what you need to make a quick go, a
Speaker:quick success out of a business? And I know that when
Speaker:I was early in my career as a freelancer, well, I
Speaker:worked in a couple of studios before I went to and built my
Speaker:own thing up. I remember coming out of university just being
Speaker:a photographer, which is sort of my background. You
Speaker:know, I wouldn't have ever been able to go into like freelancing and owning
Speaker:my own business from that point. But as soon as I worked my way up to being
Speaker:a studio manager, that was that was the
Speaker:thing, because I had so many other bits of experience that I could go like,
Speaker:I think I heard one of your podcasts, you were saying something about that. And I think
Speaker:it was very similar to you. because I said it as it was. And that
Speaker:was the problem. I was, on paper, I was a bad workshop
Speaker:manager because if you messed up, I told you you messed up and that
Speaker:Yeah, I'm notorious for my foul mouth. So a lot of my team, especially
Speaker:Kind of. I'm the same. And I haven't, I was just starting an apprentice and
Speaker:stuff. And I'm always been told by the, you can't do this, you can't do that. But
Speaker:that's what it was like. And I, I was never trained in it. I was just, I
Speaker:went from a, head cabinet maker to now being a workshop manager
Speaker:and then thrown in the deep end and having to, or
Speaker:like now start to worry about has the stock is up
Speaker:to date, is everything up to date and that without any training whatsoever. But
Speaker:what it did do is it gave me some of the principles and the guides to
Speaker:when I set up my, like when I set up in 2017, I felt like I
Speaker:knew my plan, how I want to get this efficient and the
Speaker:workshop running smoothly and that. And that's what
Speaker:we've been working at. And through Instagram, it's shown over the
Speaker:years because a lot of people, I get messages a lot of the time going,
Speaker:you've grown so quickly and fast. And it's just about investing
Speaker:in the right machines at the right times and stuff like that. It's
Speaker:And, you know, we talk about this a lot in in
Speaker:what we do. The efficiency
Speaker:is where the profit comes from. The creativity is
Speaker:the thing that we do, but the efficiency, how you can get that
Speaker:creativity to that customer in the quickest time
Speaker:possible, that's the most efficient and with the least
Speaker:amount of waste in terms of admin time, that's where
Speaker:your profit comes from. A lot of that is investment in
Speaker:Absolutely. Like we, I've always had a, so
Speaker:from day one, I've always had a pallet stacker. So the sheets come
Speaker:in onto the rack and then you would use the pallet stacker to
Speaker:remove the mouse. You're not hurting your back bending over all that. So
Speaker:had a pump one at the beginning, invested in a stand on one and now
Speaker:have a side forklift and that. where a lot of people wouldn't even
Speaker:consider investing in those. But at the end of the day, your back is
Speaker:everything if your back goes. So that's the start. So then
Speaker:we moved into the edge band, which has
Speaker:been a game changer. I think it was 2019 I did that jump. And
Speaker:that was, I call it like printing money. It's so, you've turned a
Speaker:day's work into 15 minutes and you're literally ready to build it
Speaker:after it's edged, where you would have a whole day set aside just
Speaker:to use the contour or the old fashioned
Speaker:iron and stuff like, but trying to explain that
Speaker:to people that that is, probably the two most biggest, the edge
Speaker:band are a decent saw and that. And then we
Speaker:then moved on to, we have a couple of solid wood machines, which we use
Speaker:not as often. And then we invested in
Speaker:a vertical CNC, which was last year
Speaker:with Homag. And that was, that speeded up the process for
Speaker:the time consuming bits like shell pins, hinge holes, making
Speaker:up jigs and stuff like that. I
Speaker:don't know if it was the right decision. It's the only
Speaker:thing I look back on and go, should
Speaker:I, is it actually cost, like, as
Speaker:a big, so it's something I look back on and I go, I don't know
Speaker:if I made the right decision, because it is a big outgoing, like
Speaker:it's the, like, HOMAG is the Rolls Royce of the CNC world
Speaker:and stuff, but I'm still
Speaker:very hands on kind of thing and that, and I think we can, We
Speaker:just can't make a singing dancer, not computer illiterate, as you would say. And
Speaker:I feel like you have the right people, you could, you could make that do
Speaker:But because, uh, we have that a lot in, in, in, you know, we
Speaker:have tons of pieces of, of, of software and
Speaker:pipeline systems and, um, team, uh, project
Speaker:management systems. And I'm like, we spend hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker:pounds a month on these kind of pieces of software that make us more
Speaker:efficient. And we probably only use about 7% of their ability.
Speaker:And like, jeez, we could, we just need someone to come in and implement
Speaker:I feel like there's all these new apps I see a lot of people on
Speaker:Instagram promoting, PowerApp and Tradeify and
Speaker:all this stuff. But it's like, I know I'll invest in it
Speaker:and then I won't use half it or But like you said, if someone came around
Speaker:and sat you down and literally went through you, it
Speaker:would make a such a big difference to, to, to, cause
Speaker:I do need, and that is something I need to improve on is the invoicing. We're
Speaker:still very old school. We're still say PDF on Word and stuff.
Speaker:It's what we know. Um, like even coming down to SketchUp and
Speaker:stuff where we do our drawings, we're still, I can draw very
Speaker:quickly, but I draw in a 2d form and pull to life. So it's
Speaker:always drawn to scale. but I don't group and component and
Speaker:do what other people do, then that can press send to a
Speaker:cut list optimizer and it automatically does it. Where I find
Speaker:I can do the drawings really quickly, but then I spend my time then doing
Speaker:the cut list myself, which I personally feel you
Speaker:can pick up any errors when you're doing it by
Speaker:yourself, where if you accidentally draw a line the wrong place on
Speaker:the SketchUp, doesn't look it and you've imported it, you've just cut a piece of
Speaker:material. That's the SketchUp. And the computer's not done anything wrong, it's
Speaker:I think at some point that a process has got to feel right as
Speaker:well, hasn't it? You know, I think that there are, there are certain elements of a business where
Speaker:you think, yes, I could, I could implement this and it'll be more efficient, but
Speaker:it doesn't feel right. It just, this isn't the way I want to do it.
Speaker:I think at some point, eventually you have to go, well, I'm just going to not do that process
Speaker:That's it. And I've tried. I'm all for trying things.
Speaker:And a lot of people get stuck in their ways in our industry. And
Speaker:they're like, we just do it this way. And that's the only thing. And I
Speaker:never want to say you're doing it the wrong way. If it works, it works kind of
Speaker:thing. So I found that We've
Speaker:tried. We work with Lamello. We have an
Speaker:ambassadorship with them and we use a lot of their fixings. But
Speaker:what we found was we went down the route of Lamello and our drawer boxes. We
Speaker:can run them on our CNC. We thought this will make our training
Speaker:easier for the staff because I can just put it in, press play, and it comes out
Speaker:the other side, done. But then it comes down to cost. And
Speaker:then you're like, well, these are about 80p to a pound of fixin. We
Speaker:got four of these per drawer. We've added four pound onto each drawer.
Speaker:We've got an average of four to eight drawers per job. Where
Speaker:when the Craig, the pocket holes grew, was it actually Less
Speaker:strong? No. Was it more complicated? The only thing was
Speaker:actually holding it and screwing it together. But once you've mastered that, it
Speaker:was a lot quicker, a lot faster and a lot cheaper to build. And
Speaker:you still got the same structure, strength and stuff. So we've gone
Speaker:from doing that to doing this to realize, and let's go back. Because
Speaker:when I worked at these other companies, they used to overcomplicate things
Speaker:so much in the manufacturing of building a box. At the end of the day, all we do
Speaker:is we build boxes. We're just screwing boxes together. We
Speaker:were doing ones where you put three biscuits into it, you were countersinking it,
Speaker:then you were going in with a pilot and then in with a fiber 50 screw.
Speaker:So that process, we've gone down to three screws now in the
Speaker:side, and you can't tell me that's less stronger than what
Speaker:it was before. Oh, but the biscuits hold it better. I'm like, if
Speaker:you can't hold two bits of material together, you're in the wrong business kind
Speaker:of thing. It was like one time I saw a drill online which had a digital
Speaker:level. And it literally, as you're holding it, the green dot would
Speaker:float around until you're like, that's how you're doing it. If you can't hold
Speaker:a drill straight. And the amount of people we get in our workshop that cannot
Speaker:hold a drill straight is mind blowing. And you think it's such
Speaker:a simple thing and you've got screws going this way, screws going that
Speaker:way. And you're like, but to us it's easy, but
Speaker:It's muscle memory, isn't it? Yeah, it's like, it's so funny,
Speaker:because we have to sort of be like, every now and again, we have
Speaker:to be models in our own productions, don't we, Key? And the
Speaker:amount of times we screw up, because we're just like, We're
Speaker:just, we're not used to holding these tools. And, and
Speaker:it's like, you've got to do like four or five different takes until you get it right.
Speaker:Because you just like, you know, you can see, you can see the outtakes, like
Speaker:me or Keelan have gone to like screw something and she's like, what? And you're like, damn.
Speaker:And it's one of those things that you want, you want, when you get like a close up of like a screw going
Speaker:in, you want it to be perfect. And it just go in.
Speaker:And even to the point where, like, we're
Speaker:getting We've got quite a lot of big brands
Speaker:on the books at the moment, and we've worked in the construction industry for,
Speaker:I don't know, let's say five years in total. So
Speaker:we're getting very familiar with specific processes and specific things.
Speaker:Up until the other day, someone, it was actually Werner, wasn't
Speaker:it, actually said, you know, you've got the wrong
Speaker:drill. And I got this Bosch green, uh,
Speaker:drill, um, uh, like a little combi drill. And
Speaker:I'm like, this is the one I paid a lot of money for this. It seemed, it seemed like, you know, it
Speaker:seemed like it was, it was the right fit. I'm like, I'll buy this and this will be great. And
Speaker:And I'm like, damn, I didn't know. I've been using it in so many productions, but
Speaker:it wasn't, we did have a Ryobi before then. So not, not, no
Speaker:Yeah, it's, it's, it's a cheaper route, but like my workshop, I've got about
Speaker:four or five Ryobi drills just to do a simple process.
Speaker:Like, why am I going to spend £300 on a drill that just does one little thing?
Speaker:Riobi is Milwaukee. Milwaukee, yeah, this is it. I love saying
Speaker:So you can't throw shade on them too much, can you? It's like Fiat and Ferrari. Yeah.
Speaker:I think the problem that I had, because if you go back far
Speaker:enough, there is content of me putting up, like doing
Speaker:DIY projects for our brands with
Speaker:Riobi. And the problem was it was just, it stuck out like a sore thumb. As
Speaker:soon as you saw the Riobi drill, you couldn't focus on anything else because of
Speaker:I had a picture I remember years ago I put up on a story and it had
Speaker:a marquee put up and it had my
Speaker:tower stack of Festool, my trolley
Speaker:Festool, my Festool, the MFT, and
Speaker:then the pen gun, Ryobi. And everyone just
Speaker:talked about that. that one thing. And I'm like, you realize
Speaker:that like the rest of the stuff you're not even saying, but you're slagging me just
Speaker:because at the end of the day it did the same job. And that's the way I always say
Speaker:about these, these brands and that there, there's, there's, yeah, there's reliability and
Speaker:stuff. But at the end of the day, it's not necessarily the
Speaker:tool, it's the blade. It's like a plunge saw is a
Speaker:plunge saw, but if the blade isn't a good blade, it's still doing, it's
Speaker:a spin and water at the end of the day. So there is money to be saved. People
Speaker:starting out don't have to go down the massive expensive
Speaker:route, but there's the things with the perks with now
Speaker:with Merca and Festool is, is the, they'll,
Speaker:Which is a massive that does do all to Makita. And I don't think
Speaker:Milwaukee, as far as I know, are doing anything like that. So
Speaker:if you've got a thousand pound chops or twelve, fifteen hundred pound chops, so that's
Speaker:something like a hundred pound and they'll replace it for you if it gets stolen. And
Speaker:that's with no insurance or nothing, just registered with them and stuff.
Speaker:And I've just heard I've just been with Makita And
Speaker:they're doing the same. They said, it might sound like we're copying Festool, but
Speaker:I was like, who cares? You're still offering it. Like that would make me now
Speaker:But this is the thing. It's like, it's like the first person who ever came up with insurance and
Speaker:then someone else goes, well, we're going to do the same thing. It's kind of like, it's, it's
Speaker:But it's Instagram. Everyone's like, it's not the Derek Barrett way. It's a lot of
Speaker:just people say, oh, that's a Derek Barrett trolley or Derek Barrett. I've
Speaker:seen it somewhere. It's not, it's just that I may be the first person that you've seen
Speaker:it. And people slag you for that. But it's something, everything's
Speaker:There's no new ideas. No, no. But
Speaker:I mean, speaking about, speaking about social media, Which
Speaker:is kind of the reason why I brought you on this Derek, I
Speaker:thought it was a really important thing. We've had guests on here from in-house
Speaker:in big brands, other agencies, content creators,
Speaker:who you class to be influencers. And
Speaker:I put a post out on Dissident Socials the other day. And I
Speaker:said, who's doing incredibly well on social
Speaker:media, but not to gain recognition from
Speaker:necessarily their fellow tradespeople and craftsmen, or
Speaker:to get recognition from the brands, who's doing it to actually to
Speaker:promote the work that they do for their customers. And
Speaker:I had at least a few people mentioned your name, I was familiar with
Speaker:your work anyway. And so
Speaker:now, this was the big thing. I'm, I'm,
Speaker:I'm constantly having communication because I work kind of
Speaker:brand side as a marketer and as a creative with
Speaker:influencers who are looking to do pay promotions with other
Speaker:brands and stuff. I really love that. And
Speaker:so when I look at their social media presence, for the most part, they're
Speaker:not really marketing towards their customers. And quite often, they're
Speaker:slacking off their customers, which is hilarious. I have seen that.
Speaker:And I think that's brilliant, because that's not what their social media presence is
Speaker:for. But I got the impression your social media presence is
Speaker:primarily to show the work that you
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because we I
Speaker:always found that some of our workshop videos do better than
Speaker:some of the finished pictures and stuff like that, because what customers,
Speaker:they see the whole thing, like they see from either a site visit, and then
Speaker:the customer then can watch your stories and see the furniture being cut,
Speaker:see it going up, see it in its raw form, and then it comes down,
Speaker:gets sanded, gets sprayed. We have got in-house spraying in
Speaker:our workshop, but it's, we rent that space out to a
Speaker:sprayer. So that's why you don't see a huge amount of the spraying
Speaker:happening because it's not my content. Um, uh,
Speaker:but it's all done in-house, uh, and then they get to see, um,
Speaker:like I said, we, we were notorious for getting in and
Speaker:getting out. We're all about get as much of the work done in the workshop as
Speaker:possible and then get into customers. So I don't want to be one of these people that's
Speaker:in a customer's house for a week. I just want to get in one day and
Speaker:get back out. Yeah, we are doing bigger projects now, which
Speaker:have anything between three to six
Speaker:rooms, which we do have to give a little bit more time. But
Speaker:we, we did a job not far from here last Christmas. It
Speaker:was a big job. It was 17 projects in one house and
Speaker:it was in Utah. And that I loved it.
Speaker:I've just built off the energy. Like I was I was doing stupid o'clock
Speaker:nights and stuff. But we couldn't keep doing
Speaker:that. We couldn't do that continuously. And I know my staff probably wouldn't
Speaker:hang around if we did that. But I drive
Speaker:off it sometimes. But like I said, this year, I feel like I've took a
Speaker:little bit of a backseat, booked more holidays and
Speaker:had stuff to look forward to. So we were still paying
Speaker:wages and rent and the electric's gone up now, which is
Speaker:one thing we're looking at. We need to be wary of and stuff like that. But.
Speaker:I've still survived the year and still have money in
Speaker:the bank where I feel like the last year
Speaker:we, we felt like we had more money, but then we got hit with corporation and
Speaker:it's all that kind of stuff. So I got a big corporation coming up in January. I've
Speaker:just been paid a big quarter and you just sometimes ask yourself, what
Speaker:am I? I'm just a glorified tax collector. That's it.
Speaker:Uh, yeah. I think you got to be. to make any
Speaker:real decent money in a clever way, you've got to
Speaker:do some pretty shady tactics a lot of the time, haven't you? And I'm not familiar
Speaker:My accountant, I kind of sometimes wish he would say something, but they're so
Speaker:like, they're like, why are you telling me stuff? And April,
Speaker:and you could have told me I could have bought something the month before and it would have
Speaker:helped. But just advice. I'm not saying shady, but like if you're going to
Speaker:buy a van, buy it in this time of the year and stuff and plan. Tell
Speaker:their clients now to be planning the next three months,
Speaker:rather than say it a month in advance. I remember the first time
Speaker:getting hit with the car. Because what happened was I spoke to a builder when I set up
Speaker:the company and I said to him, I said, look, I'm going out on my own. What should I do?
Speaker:Should I go as a sole trader or a limited company? And he said, look, the
Speaker:bracket for limited was like, or not limited, VAT registered, 80,000, I
Speaker:don't know, something like that. And he said, like a kitchen, a
Speaker:good water, like it's only three or four of them before, you know, you're already at that. So
Speaker:I said, right, I'm just going to go limited from day one. And that's the best thing I
Speaker:think I could have done because I got used to being limited.
Speaker:and the VAT and everything. And all my customers got used to
Speaker:that from day one, where I find a lot of people go sole trader
Speaker:and then they, then they have to go limited and then into our
Speaker:VAT register and then limited and their customers are used to the prices and
Speaker:then you're going back to them and then it ends up on cash talking and stuff. And
Speaker:I, I, to be honest, I have to say in the seven years I
Speaker:had thought I was going to get a load of those cash, cash, because that's a bit like that
Speaker:in Ireland. A lot of like, oh, can you do for cash? Where this
Speaker:country, they just respect it. We've got to pay our tax. We've got to pay our VAT kind
Speaker:of thing. And I could say only probably one hand, there
Speaker:was probably a conversation never had. But one thing, you can't get
Speaker:rid of it. You can't use it. You can't use it. I can't even go
Speaker:to Greg's now and buy with a £50 note and buy something. They won't accept it
Speaker:and stuff. And it's impossible to sometimes. Last time I
Speaker:I was just because I don't, although recently, this is nothing
Speaker:to do with the podcast, to be fair. I'm going to say it anyway. I only
Speaker:became an adult recently and got a wallet. Because
Speaker:I haven't had a wallet in like, I don't know, I feel like since I
Speaker:was a kid, but I will have had one. I think my last wallet was like a Quicksilver or
Speaker:something like that. But I've only recently got
Speaker:a wallet. But before then, I just I never had cash. And
Speaker:everything was on my phone. My cards were kind of like attached to my phone and
Speaker:stuff like that. Last time I had some cash, it was to go and pay for like a tattoo. and
Speaker:had it in my pocket, went to I think WH Smiths to get
Speaker:some water, got something out of my pocket and just all
Speaker:that cash just went on the floor. And that's like, so
Speaker:I hate it. I hate carrying it around. It's a nightmare. But
Speaker:going back to the social media side of things though. loads
Speaker:of experience, set up on your own, doing great. At
Speaker:what point did social media become a big, a thing for you? Yeah.
Speaker:So like when I started out in the airport in
Speaker:2017, I went with Checkitrade. So I was on Checkitrade. back
Speaker:when it was good. It was owned by Check and Trade before they sold
Speaker:out. And the thing with Check and Trade, I think it's great for electricians and
Speaker:plumbers because it's shorter lead times. Furniture
Speaker:makers, we have longer lead times and stuff like that. So it wasn't beneficial after
Speaker:a year. So, but by that time I had a good few jobs
Speaker:lined up. One was in Cockfosters and a woman at this job in Cockfosters said,
Speaker:look, you need to get yourself on Instagram. And it's about this week, I think seven years ago,
Speaker:I only started Instagram. And back then, of course, you had a couple of
Speaker:personal pages that would forget your password and you'd get locked out when
Speaker:you set up another account. So I said, right, I'm going to set one up,
Speaker:set it up. And I just kept plugging at it and posting. And
Speaker:then over the year, I found out that I figured out
Speaker:that stories are worth more than the posts. Because if
Speaker:you're not consistent on the stories, you're not going to come up
Speaker:in them top bubbles. So you need to be coming in the top five, six bubbles at
Speaker:the top of any page. Because no one's going to go, 10 bubbles
Speaker:down. They're just going to go on their Instagram, click on the first few, watch a few stories and,
Speaker:uh, and that's it. So if you're consistent, you'll always
Speaker:be coming up if they're regularly watching. Um, so
Speaker:my views can vary quite a lot, uh, daily. And I, even when
Speaker:I'm on holidays, I'll always, if there's only one, I'll repost
Speaker:something in the stories just to keep that current. Um, so
Speaker:stories was a big thing. I remember hitting 1500 I
Speaker:don't know, was it over a year? And then I remember doing a giveaway at 5000. But
Speaker:it took me three years to get to 10,000. So people
Speaker:think it happened overnight. And then I kept at it and at it
Speaker:and it gradually kept building, building up to about 50,000 it
Speaker:was. And that was my target for that year. And around August,
Speaker:I did a post that went viral. I
Speaker:think I went. Oh, my God. 9 million,
Speaker:20, 20 million, 20.4 million views on
Speaker:just an understairs wine storage with remote control glass. So I
Speaker:saw that one. Yeah, that one just blew up. And my Instagram,
Speaker:I've literally a picture of my watch and it's just like for
Speaker:literally five or six days solid because it went all over the world. I was getting
Speaker:inquiries from where is your showroom in New York? Can you do work
Speaker:in Dubai? I'm like, you're telling me you can't make four cross boxes and
Speaker:stuff. And but literally, yeah. And overnight,
Speaker:like within two weeks, I probably went close to
Speaker:100,000. In two weeks, it was from from around 50. And,
Speaker:and then I get in the comments. And yeah, there was a lot of because
Speaker:what was happening was, you know, these home pages, they they,
Speaker:they, they ask you, do you want to put, pay us, we'll put
Speaker:it on our page. They were already just using it. They weren't even asking me
Speaker:for permission. I had, um, Ladbible and a few fix and
Speaker:stuff messaged me and that, um, I even signed something
Speaker:with Ladbible, but I never seen anything from them and that. But, um,
Speaker:I think if I, If I knew, if I felt like I did it
Speaker:now, I'd know how to market it a lot better. And I could
Speaker:probably, because that's the problem with Instagram. It's going 20 million. There's people
Speaker:out there with loads of views of silly little tricks of hammering
Speaker:a bit of four into glue. Everyone's doing it and getting 14 million
Speaker:and that. But the, you don't
Speaker:get paid. And that's the problem with that on Facebook. And
Speaker:I only learned that in the last couple of years. Like my Facebook followings, I
Speaker:think two and a half thousand. You see when it's weird because
Speaker:on Facebook, you've got your number of Facebook and then you got a hundred, I'm
Speaker:nearly 145,000, two and a half thousand. This is like such
Speaker:a contradiction. But,
Speaker:but you do get paid for paid ads and stuff through Facebook, which I've
Speaker:talked to like James Stone dresser and a few people on that. It's
Speaker:meant to be the one, isn't it? It's the one that none of us want to be on, but actually it's the one
Speaker:that it does generate. And some people get loads of work from Facebook, but I've never
Speaker:ended up generating it or that. And then next
Speaker:year, I'm, I was just talking there, I was, I'm hoping to do
Speaker:a little bit more. I've, we've took on the whole building now. So we've got
Speaker:like a room like this, we've got a room that we do hand finish and
Speaker:Rubio and that, but it's, it's a dry, dust free room. And
Speaker:I'm trying to do it make it look kind of nice and then maybe do
Speaker:it as a backdrop for some YouTube videos and stuff and explaining. Because
Speaker:I've just signed up, I'm working with a light company now and
Speaker:that's going to be exciting. And we've come up
Speaker:with a good contract for that. And I want to start doing tutorials and
Speaker:teaching people how to do LEDs and where they can buy it and how
Speaker:So, um, specifically aimed at trades or for that would that be more
Speaker:Yeah. They've always been like a kitchen, but they want to get more
Speaker:into the furniture industry for buying it. Um, but
Speaker:going back, like I said, it took me three years to get to 10,000. Uh, then
Speaker:I did that, um, in 2022, it
Speaker:jumped up and then the comments were like, Oh yeah, watch this. It's going to drop down
Speaker:now. You're going to lose about doing. And that was my goal was to
Speaker:never let it drop. And I used that as my momentum and
Speaker:I got up to 110, got up to 120, 130. And
Speaker:then I got to one, my goal of this year was to get to 145. And
Speaker:my God, it's been hard work. I've been stuck at that 144 and
Speaker:I've been up within a hundred of it. And then I've
Speaker:nearly lost about 900 and I've gone back up to
Speaker:700. And it's just the line, I was talking to Scott DOI about
Speaker:this today. the algorithms, everything's changed. What
Speaker:was working so many years ago isn't working now. I don't
Speaker:know if it's blanket bands or you're using, definitely down to the
Speaker:music can be a massive thing. So I've just done a really nice walk
Speaker:in wardrobe and I think I may have used a song that
Speaker:was kind of like, subtle kind of nice, whatever,
Speaker:but it's one that was probably done a year ago or something. It's
Speaker:literally done 2000. Like I, I, I class
Speaker:anything under 10,000 as bad. Uh, and views. Yeah.
Speaker:And this is like stuck around two eight or my last post
Speaker:of just a, about a momentum, like a motivational one
Speaker:is like 30,000 and stuff. Uh, But again, you
Speaker:could get like 100,000 views and then you go on the insights and
Speaker:you literally generated no followers. Yes. But you're getting loads of
Speaker:views. So the views won't mean F all unless you
Speaker:you're generating the followers. But for me, I
Speaker:would say three quarters of my following are trades. So I
Speaker:do a lot of share, a lot of tips, a lot of tricks and stuff. But it's those percentage
Speaker:that are clients that is
Speaker:the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm doing what I love and I'm getting the right
Speaker:clientele that usually comes to
Speaker:me and go, look, we want to work with you. It's just if your timings are going to
Speaker:work for our build or whatever. And what I find is the more you put
Speaker:out there, I think one of the best things you could do is a Q&A. And
Speaker:because the number one, number one questions you get in a Q&A is like, oh,
Speaker:what's your lead time at the moment? And then before you know it, you say like five, six
Speaker:months, you see your phone light up because they're like, oh,
Speaker:I had already met up on mine. We were working with you, but we haven't actually reached out to you.
Speaker:And our build is finishing March. So we need to be letting you know
Speaker:now. And it gives them that kick to give you that call. And
Speaker:last night we just had a big job moved in January. Um,
Speaker:which actually leaves us quite a little bit blank for January. And I'm like to
Speaker:my wife, I was like, Oh God. So I just put up a post going, we've just had
Speaker:a slot come up in January and I've had six calls already today. But
Speaker:that's the power you got. People are watching you that want to use you, but
Speaker:That's really exciting. It's great
Speaker:that you've got the massive lead times and it's amazing that
Speaker:you can keep this kind of momentum going. In
Speaker:terms of the viral posts, which I've seen, it is really incredible. I
Speaker:think it's pinned at the top of your Instagram, isn't it? So it's really cool. Go
Speaker:and check that out if you haven't seen it before. Was that, was
Speaker:that, was that a one-time thing? Like from, from there, were there
Speaker:Did it get... So what, what was the main thing on that was probably nothing to
Speaker:do with me. Yeah. It was the remote control glass, which was done
Speaker:by a company called, I think the Office Glass People down in London. I
Speaker:was just fortunate that I had done the work inside and
Speaker:I did the video. Like the video that went viral wasn't even finished. There
Speaker:was a gap above the door. But that's what happened. It went viral because
Speaker:people had like, oh, he has two remote controls in his hand and
Speaker:the spindles on the stairs are not great. And I'm like, there's nothing to do with
Speaker:what I've done. But they caused controversy. And that's what
Speaker:like TikTok and things do. But then I went and posted a
Speaker:video of it all finished and that and it probably got 60,000, 70,000. Like
Speaker:it just, it was one of those things. The music was right at the right time. I hadn't
Speaker:planned it. It was just a quick video. And it's just one of the things, sometimes
Speaker:overthinking something is pointless. Just do it. And that's why we
Speaker:say it either work or it won't work. So spell a mistake. You
Speaker:say something slightly wrong. Don't, don't re-record it. Just post it
Speaker:We were talking off air about the fact that we'd had
Speaker:a conversation about the fact that I was trying to
Speaker:get verified. I was trying to get dissed and verified and I did it kind
Speaker:of in the wrong way where I sort of verified it as an individual rather
Speaker:than a business. So it ended up changing to Daniel Moore and
Speaker:having my face on it, which I didn't want, even though I've kind of become the face of diss, which
Speaker:I didn't intend to be. So
Speaker:we were trying to figure out kind of like, sort
Speaker:of doing that kind of thing. Why have I got into this topic? What were we talking about
Speaker:just then, Derek? You'd mentioned
Speaker:the video, you didn't, oh, so yeah, sorry, the
Speaker:spelling mistake thing. When I came out of
Speaker:that, I was like, I managed to get unverified
Speaker:so I can change it back to Disson and take my face off the bloody profile. So
Speaker:I had to change the name back to Disson, I spelled it
Speaker:wrong. And then I was
Speaker:like, and Ayesha, our marketing manager, said you
Speaker:spelled this wrong, you need to change it. So I tried to change it
Speaker:and it's like, you can't change it in the next two weeks. I'm like, bloody hell,
Speaker:I can't do anything right with this, with this profile. So I just had to take
Speaker:the name off. It was like, you've got two options, you can either leave it,
Speaker:or you could just have no name on Instagram. So I've got no, we've
Speaker:got no name for two weeks. And But in so were
Speaker:there certain things that you learned that you've learned through that post
Speaker:which sounds like it was like a one-off fluke everything was kind of right there was all
Speaker:the right elements are there but there was I imagine there wasn't an intention to be
Speaker:In your sort of experience since then before then
Speaker:and after Are there certain things that
Speaker:That work better than others? Yeah, so there's, you
Speaker:definitely see, looking through my page, you'll see the
Speaker:ones that hit like close to a million or are
Speaker:always like secret doors, hidden doors, smart
Speaker:things like pull out things that you wouldn't expect to pull
Speaker:out from certain places and that. And that's why customers sometimes come
Speaker:to me and stuff is like we had one where we
Speaker:did a job in Harrogate and they had an under stairs and
Speaker:they had a dead space that would happen under the stairs because
Speaker:we had drawers coming out underneath the angle. And then I was like, well, let's do
Speaker:a pullout rather than put a wire basket. And so that was kind
Speaker:of the theory. Like you could put like a kitchen pullout thing. I was like, why don't
Speaker:I make it? So just put ball bearings, have that drawer came out,
Speaker:went over and these came over. Then you had two drawers come out and
Speaker:that did really well. And then we do a lot where the back of
Speaker:alcove units, not alcove, loft wardrobes, so
Speaker:the ceiling goes down quite a bit, there's no point going in
Speaker:too far with the wardrobe because you'd have no height. So
Speaker:you bring the wardrobe forward but then the back of the wardrobe just slides and
Speaker:a simple little thing like a sliding wardrobe runner, that's
Speaker:all it is, but it sits flat against. So one security And
Speaker:then you get the negative post going, oh, you take all the clothes out to get it. I'm
Speaker:like, yeah, but how often do you take your Christmas decorations down? How
Speaker:often do you go on holidays? Fair do to you if you go every week. But the
Speaker:suitcases you're not using, put them in there. And then you just
Speaker:know it's a matter of take a few clothes out, get your fluff out. And that's
Speaker:easier than going into the loft. Because a lot of houses nowadays, you are noticing
Speaker:they're getting less and less loft space because they're going into
Speaker:the roof with the plaster and all that. So they're actually losing a lot of
Speaker:storage. So Um, I enjoy, I
Speaker:enjoy stuff like that. Enjoy, um, challenging and coming
Speaker:up with ideas of, um, especially like space saving thing.
Speaker:We did a really cool one with a, a bed, um, that
Speaker:turned completely round. That was a shelving unit on the other side and
Speaker:that did really well as well. But yeah, things that are like house,
Speaker:uh, secret storages and stuff like that, they always do well. A
Speaker:shaker wardrobe's a shaker. That's what I always say to people. a shaker wardrobe
Speaker:is a shaker wardrobe. It doesn't matter if it's a five piece door, if it's plant
Speaker:on, if it's foil wrapped, it's going to look the same in a photograph. But when
Speaker:we got married, I said to my wife, I said, look, why are we buying
Speaker:loads of real flowers for them to dye? And I was like, well, I'm just going to buy a
Speaker:load of silk flowers and have them on the thing and we can sell them. And
Speaker:you don't smell a flower in a photograph, like flowers and stuff. So
Speaker:it's just like, just if it looks the part and does the
Speaker:part and it's not going to fall apart kind of thing, why not try
Speaker:But the, so the, the, what you're, what, what you're
Speaker:sort of saying here is the, the, the viral
Speaker:nature of the stuff that you've done that's been really successful. It
Speaker:isn't about a particular technique in terms of, how you've created
Speaker:the post and, or a, or a trend is very much the
Speaker:Yeah, you're showing, at the end of the day, you're showing other
Speaker:people to, to, to mirror the same thing. Like, well, if
Speaker:you're the way I look at it going, if you're one of the first or
Speaker:got the, like, there's nothing I worked in a
Speaker:company, there was a trolley at this company and we ended up making,
Speaker:I had a template of it and I carried it on and I met 12 of
Speaker:them in my workshop and they went literally everywhere. I
Speaker:can guarantee you, you go to any furniture workshop, I can pretty
Speaker:much 80% guarantee they'll have that design, that trolley. But
Speaker:it's become known as the Derek Barrett trolley. It's not my design,
Speaker:but it's where they're seeing it. just people making it
Speaker:and then going inspired by Derek Barrett or we've got a
Speaker:Derek Barrett trolley. Then I, and I say, that's the one thing I say to a
Speaker:lot of people is tag and tag
Speaker:everything, at everything and tag everything in every post. You can pull them tags
Speaker:off if you don't want to fill it up with tags. You can slide them off and they
Speaker:still stay on it. So if you got a DeWalt or Makita, tag DeWalt,
Speaker:tag Makita, whatever, slide it off if you want. Then if Makita go
Speaker:and repost it, they've got more, you've got 500 followers,
Speaker:they've got 30,000 followers. There's 30,000 people that may see
Speaker:your workshop and go, that's an actual nice workshop, I'm going to follow him. And
Speaker:before you know it, where I see all these posts and there's no tags on
Speaker:them and I just think it's a waste. But going
Speaker:back to Yeah. And
Speaker:then one other point I wanted to make was people say
Speaker:I don't have time to do pop stories and take pictures
Speaker:and stories. But what I always say is take pictures through the day. But
Speaker:don't you don't need to be this person that's posting at 10 o'clock posting at
Speaker:12 o'clock. Also, it's better if you're on a site and
Speaker:you turn up and you're there at eight o'clock. You take a picture at
Speaker:eight o'clock in the room and then you take a picture of it
Speaker:being built, take a picture of you putting some LEDs in, take a picture of the
Speaker:end and then do a real But post all
Speaker:those pictures at 6, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the evening. And
Speaker:put the time. You can click the time. It'll always remember the time it was taken. So
Speaker:you're not lying. So you're showing that we did do this in the day. But
Speaker:then that'll run from 7 o'clock till 7 o'clock the next day.
Speaker:So you pretty much get two days of views where if
Speaker:someone posted staggered pictures through the day, by
Speaker:1 o'clock the next day, two pictures are gone. to make sense. And
Speaker:no one's going to follow a story. So they want to see, oh, oh,
Speaker:Really nice. Genius. Yeah. Just simple. You create almost like your own, like,
Speaker:Yeah. Post everything at one, one five minute slot or whatever. And
Speaker:then there's loads of little, skip, skip, skip, skip. But it's
Speaker:just, and that doesn't take, 15 minutes.
Speaker:I say like I go home, I park outside the house and I'll do 20 minutes in the
Speaker:van before I go up to the house, the kids and stuff. And or
Speaker:before I leave the workshop, I'll just sit there and I'll do all
Speaker:my posts and then it's done for the day. But try not to let one
Speaker:lapse and then have nothing there. Yeah, that's the key thing. Trying
Speaker:That's really cool. It's interesting. It's very similar to how there'll be
Speaker:certain times where we want to post something. on the
Speaker:fly because we've got the time but a lot of time if especially if we're on like a skeleton
Speaker:crew on a particular production and a
Speaker:lot of the time we're shooting our behind the scenes content on
Speaker:our cameras like on our pro gear so we're not kind of
Speaker:like pulling that off the off the camera to go to a phone
Speaker:to post like the same day it's gonna it's gonna happen at some stage over
Speaker:the next month but that's not a big deal but the stories uh
Speaker:it's very much like if we're on a production that's on
Speaker:location. Um, if it's, uh, if it's for
Speaker:instance, if it's me and Molly on this particular production, um, I'm
Speaker:just like WhatsApp all of the stuff that I've shot. She's got all
Speaker:the stuff that she shot. I've watched a WhatsApp to her. She's
Speaker:going to edit them and put them on the stories on the, on the drive home. You don't want to
Speaker:So if you post it, you're driving to Redden with Molly to do
Speaker:a video at eight, seven in the morning. And
Speaker:then you post another one at 11. People are
Speaker:going, well, I'm waiting now till 11. I'm going to forget about it and never going to
Speaker:go back. But if you post it all together, then it's a story. Oh, that was
Speaker:when they were, oh, they write. Oh, they did. Oh, they're already on their way back at
Speaker:six o'clock. They've done really well. They've edited it and they've done all the photographing. That's
Speaker:That's a really good tactic. I like that. And again, time saving, isn't
Speaker:it? You know what I mean? No one can be on the ball all the time. So if you could
Speaker:just put in these kind of systems where it just becomes
Speaker:automatic, you know, just to kind of do that kind of thing. So let's
Speaker:take it back. So you've gone, you've done incredibly well off this, first
Speaker:of all, to get to the point where you can make a post viral. I
Speaker:guarantee you if you hadn't have already built up that great following it
Speaker:wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful. You've got to put that work in
Speaker:initially to get the right people to share it at the right
Speaker:times and that kind of thing. So you've done incredibly well at this and
Speaker:you're progressing, you've practically doubled your your
Speaker:followers in that period of time. Did that make a big difference to
Speaker:Yeah. So I feel that I became more
Speaker:known for understairs wine storage and stuff, which
Speaker:to be honest is So we had a lot of people asking
Speaker:us, because that glass is not cheap. So like you're looking
Speaker:at nearly, I think five, five and a half grand for a triangle bit of
Speaker:glass. And a lot of that scared a lot of people off. So I
Speaker:say, look, I'm happy to do this part for
Speaker:this amount, but you can get the guys to come in and do the
Speaker:glass and it's entirely up to you. Or we can offer you one
Speaker:without glass. Sorry again. You
Speaker:can do one without the glass or we'll do
Speaker:one with just normal glass and we'll make the frame. So we've done a lot of them. So I
Speaker:like doing the understairs, one with the LEDs, two
Speaker:with the oak. It's really easy. It's Rubio.
Speaker:It's handy to do. It looks, it's attractive on your Instagram
Speaker:because it was for years I was doing very white.
Speaker:It was white units with white internals. And
Speaker:it wasn't until I started to work with Finza and the
Speaker:MDF board company with the melamines and stuff that I
Speaker:started to introduce walnuts and oaks and stuff. And then I
Speaker:was paying a guy to do my LEDs and then I wanted more controls. So
Speaker:I started to do them myself. And LEDs, starting
Speaker:now, I feel like a lot of trades out there is like, It's one of those things
Speaker:they shy away from, one for cost and the extra labor, but it
Speaker:sells. And something with an LED on
Speaker:someone's Instagram is going to attract someone's eyes and click
Speaker:on it rather than, like I said, a white basic shaker wardrobe. Like
Speaker:I said, it could be anyone. It could be sharps or whatever. It's a hook, isn't it? Yeah. You
Speaker:just, I always say you're better off, your first picture on
Speaker:Instagram in the furniture industry is better to have the doors open
Speaker:then they are closed. I'm fortunate that I get quite a lot of walk-in
Speaker:wardrobes with outdoors, so it's already a wow factor. But
Speaker:all these people posting pictures of these doors closed on a shaker
Speaker:wardrobe, and it's like, I'm not clicking on that. Where
Speaker:if the doors are open and the customer sees, where they've done the
Speaker:shelves or they've done the hanging for long hanging smaller. And
Speaker:it's not just a double hanging rail. It's actually they put a divider in. They thought
Speaker:about how many long clothes to have. They got a place for the ironing board. They've
Speaker:they've done awesome shoe drawers. And this guy's thought about
Speaker:this. It's not just a rep coming around going, this is what you
Speaker:can have. Only this, only this, only this. We are bespoke. The
Speaker:reason people come to us is we're not Ikea and things like that. We come
Speaker:up. It's our ideas. And that was the big thing in 2020 with COVID. I
Speaker:was, I just think back the first three years, how many times
Speaker:I was going around to houses, quoting jobs and stuff, wasting time and
Speaker:doing drawings and then never hearing again from that customer and stuff. And
Speaker:so my youngest that was born the year I started in
Speaker:September, she had a heart condition. So I was like, I'm not chancing
Speaker:it. I'm not going out to these houses, catching COVID and then finding
Speaker:out that the job's never gone through and my little one's got sick or whatever. So
Speaker:I just started saying, because a lot of the time it's in our own heads, we
Speaker:were like, sorry, no, email over what you're looking for. I'll
Speaker:do a quote. If you're happy, it's 10%. So
Speaker:I do a 10% quote. Until that money hits my bank account, we're
Speaker:not ever going to meet or I'm not coming out to you to discuss because
Speaker:my ideas are worth, like, that's why people come to me. Or
Speaker:I say, look, if it's a big job, 100 grand, 150 grand, I say, look,
Speaker:come to the workshop, meet me in person. I'm happy to show you around, show
Speaker:you what we're and I'll sacrifice my time for that. But at least I
Speaker:know they're willing to sacrifice their time. And it's
Speaker:never one time I think someone said, I'm not coming out. I expect you to come around
Speaker:for free kind of attitude. But a lot of the time it was like, yeah, that's fine. That makes sense.
Speaker:10 grand job, thousand pound. And that's one thing I would say to a lot of
Speaker:makers out there is is 10 percent is a good round number.
Speaker:for a deposit, these people that have 250, 350 pound fixed rate prices,
Speaker:it doesn't work on a 20 grand job. That's fine on a three grand
Speaker:job, but there's a lot more work in a 20 grand job than there is in a three grand
Speaker:job. So 10% is reasonable for the client and
Speaker:you to go has enough money in that if it doesn't go ahead to
Speaker:cover my drawings and my time. And that was the
Speaker:biggest learning curve of 2020 for me. And I've never looked
Speaker:back. Now we get so many deposits ahead with
Speaker:10% deposits and then we get the 50 and the usual depending on
Speaker:It's interesting, we do the 50% model, but, but
Speaker:the not necessarily the quoting stage. So
Speaker:we're typically figuring out a solution, but we
Speaker:always ask for money first, in terms of like, what's your budget? Like,
Speaker:I think that's a crucial part of the kind of things that
Speaker:we do, because people, people like our clients, not our
Speaker:clients, but Some potential clients are a little bit scared to
Speaker:say what their budget is. A lot of the time they don't know, so they've not given it enough thought. That
Speaker:means they're not that serious. They're coming
Speaker:out for ideas and suggestions and they're
Speaker:not doing anything wrong. But I'm like I can't, I
Speaker:can't, I can't think on
Speaker:a particular project, I can't start working stuff out until you tell me how
Speaker:much resource I can put into it. Because a lot of clients… Well
Speaker:because I can make a film for two grand, maybe not two grand, that's
Speaker:probably… I could do for some, for the right client I could make a
Speaker:film for two grand, it wouldn't be… very extensive. I
Speaker:could make a film for 20 grand and I can make a film for 200 grand. They'll
Speaker:all kind of do the same thing but just at very different levels.
Speaker:So, but our kind of like rates to
Speaker:some extent are fixed, like we work everything out of a standard rate
Speaker:of production time, resource, editing time,
Speaker:um pre-production planning all that stuff's kind of like worked out
Speaker:um with a with a standard rate so i think a lot a lot of people are kind of
Speaker:concerned that um if i could have done a film at 20 grand
Speaker:um and and then they say well we've got a 200 grand
Speaker:budget i'll go yeah it's 200 grand but i'm doing the same amount that's not the case
Speaker:and finding that you're putting all the numbers down, working it all out, and then find that
Speaker:you just wasted all that time when they had a two grand budget in their
Speaker:Exactly, which happens all the time. The worst thing I've had, and
Speaker:every now and again, I fall for it, because I think, oh, it's probably worth it. They're
Speaker:pretty cool. Let's say we haven't got an idea of budget, but
Speaker:we're looking for this. I'm like, cool. Here's some, and I won't put a
Speaker:lot of effort into it, but this is kind of roughly what I'm thinking. I'm not going to
Speaker:do any planning for you. I'm not going to do any creativity. But this is kind of what we've
Speaker:it's probably going to be about 40 grand for this, for this, what you need to
Speaker:go, that's our budget. I'm like, you told me, you told me you didn't have a budget. You
Speaker:can't just tell me your budget. I was like, what's your budget? Like 20 grand,
Speaker:like tell me that in the start. And then we'll be able to, I can make something
Speaker:It's so frustrating. We're never going to stitch anyone up on price because
Speaker:it's, it's just, it's not in our nature. We don't, we don't do stuff like that.
Speaker:But it just means that if you need a film that's, you know, let's say it promotes
Speaker:a particular product, well, I can do some really cool stuff
Speaker:in the studio and get out on location and do some influencer marketing if
Speaker:you've got the right budget. But if you've only got this budget, we're going to have to prioritize one
Speaker:of those three. And it's going to have to be on a skeleton crew
Speaker:as opposed to a crew with a full lighting package, makeup,
Speaker:you know, all that kind of thing. We never use makeup. I don't know why
Speaker:I said that. I'd like to. It'd be cool. No, we have Molly. Molly
Speaker:gets her powder out every now and again if you're looking a bit shiny. It's
Speaker:an interesting kind of, it's an interesting thing, the budget thing.
Speaker:So like I said, I got a lot more inquiries for understair storage
Speaker:and stuff. Like you said, people didn't have that budget. They
Speaker:just saw it and wanted it, but then they realized what the kind of cost would be. But
Speaker:I know if I want more walk-in wardrobes
Speaker:or understairs, which are my two favorite things I do, I
Speaker:just do a reel and post it, and I get inquiries. And it works really
Speaker:well. Because the understair standard storage is
Speaker:There's a lot of people doing it and they can do it very reasonable and priced and
Speaker:it's a functional piece. It's not something I ever really want to
Speaker:get into. I do get asked sometimes, but it's actually more time
Speaker:consuming. And it, because things like stairs are like 900 deep,
Speaker:the customers don't realize that's not a standard sheet size. And then you
Speaker:end up using a sheet per side where a 600 wardrobe is
Speaker:designed to be two halves. And, um, And there's people
Speaker:out there, but I couldn't do that. I couldn't go and put a 550, 600 unit
Speaker:under stairs when I know there's dead space behind it. That would kill me.
Speaker:And it's that kind of thing. So, but
Speaker:no, yeah, it did really well for me and I just was
Speaker:delighted I didn't drop off. And I kept, kept
Speaker:at it. I used to set myself goals every like six months, like Easter
Speaker:or Christmas going, I want to be at this. And then what I
Speaker:find is if you set yourself a goal, you'd be looking at the algorithm, not
Speaker:the algorithm, but the gate to see what was working or wasn't working and
Speaker:pushing it a bit more. Like I said, this year I've taken
Speaker:a little bit off the accelerator and concentrated more on
Speaker:just getting the workshop. We've, we've grown in size, not,
Speaker:not people, but in the unit. So we've got a better flow.
Speaker:We've got space. We've got everything. We've got a storeroom now. We've
Speaker:got goods like stock. Everything's like. managed really
Speaker:well. So if we did want to take on more staff for that,
Speaker:we've got a good flow and it's easier to train people and
Speaker:To put that infrastructure in ahead of time before you before you grow even further. If
Speaker:you could put If
Speaker:you could look back, I'm really intrigued from
Speaker:the perspective of like if I was in the space
Speaker:of somebody who's like sitting around 50,000 and they
Speaker:want to get to 100,000, you've practically done that in
Speaker:one post, which I know that it's
Speaker:easy for me to say that because actually it's all the time you've taken to get to the
Speaker:50,000 that's allowed that post to be successful. Financially
Speaker:though, if you could put a number, like percentage wise, like did
Speaker:it make a big difference to you in terms of like, we got more work out
Speaker:Yes, I would say we got slightly
Speaker:higher clientele. Okay. On the basis of anyone
Speaker:that can afford to have an under stairs wine storage in the
Speaker:front hallway is a different kind of clientele to, I
Speaker:want storage for my kids shoes and stuff like that. Nothing wrong with that. And
Speaker:it, The
Speaker:job, like I said, in Utah, sir, that was a crazy
Speaker:amount of money. Yes. It was the first time ever my wife
Speaker:was like on the laptop. She works in the office and she was like, they
Speaker:want to know where to park the helicopter. Oh, wow. It was never
Speaker:like that. It was just like, OK, I've just done the they've
Speaker:got a 20 car garage and Ferraris
Speaker:And she found me on Instagram just flicking through and like that, the
Speaker:understairs. And I want to work with this guy and,
Speaker:um, lovely couple, really good. They own a big company
Speaker:in, um, Utoxer and, um, uh, I respect
Speaker:them and they respect me. And that was the big thing. I had a big job this
Speaker:year in Beaconsfield and the, we
Speaker:just ran into loggerheads with the customer after deposit and everything was paid. And
Speaker:he said a few things and I was just like, do you know what? I'm
Speaker:giving you a deposit back. We're just not right for each other because I can
Speaker:see that this is going to be stress and the final payment is going to be stressful
Speaker:Exactly. And I've learned, I've, I've turned down way more
Speaker:work this year than I've ever done. Like one
Speaker:job in Chelsea, which like literally they got recommended
Speaker:and they were begging me, like begging me, the, the, the furniture package. was
Speaker:3.2 million. Not that I was going to do the 3.2 million, but they wanted to
Speaker:spread the furniture between a few companies because if one company,
Speaker:but one company of course was, they were happy to do the whole thing.
Speaker:But the building firm who were paying it were, didn't
Speaker:want to put all their eggs in one basket. But it
Speaker:was, it was treated too much as a commercial business,
Speaker:a commercial thing where it's like the You have had targets to hit and you
Speaker:get charges and I was like, no, no, no, this is right. I want to deal with the one
Speaker:on one like me. I'm making something for you. I don't be talking to an interior designer or
Speaker:an architect kind of thing because it's just too many cooks in the kitchen and things
Speaker:get missed out. And that's why I work better with the
Speaker:client directly. I understand what they want. They trust me
Speaker:And this, this sort of ability to be able to pick and choose your clients
Speaker:allows you to make those decisions and not be in a situation where,
Speaker:you know, it's easy for people to say, you know, I can turn down work when
Speaker:you've got enough work. And you have to get to that point
Speaker:And like, I'm seven years now in business, like, I
Speaker:think like when I was three, four years, I was more, I was so
Speaker:impressed with the, the whole, um, where I
Speaker:had got to. Like, bar the CNC, I haven't grown
Speaker:a little bit in the width of the workshop. There's not a
Speaker:massive difference, but what I got done in such a short
Speaker:paced time has made it easier for hiring and taking on. And
Speaker:the best staff that I have now, have found me through
Speaker:Instagram, where I've tried all the other avenues, the
Speaker:ads, the LinkedIn, not LinkedIn, but whatever it
Speaker:is, the search engines and stuff. Indeed, and all that kind of thing. Yeah. And
Speaker:it just never works. No. Because they don't. I want you to know what
Speaker:I'm about and what I do and what my principles are. And I
Speaker:want you to come and learn. So
Speaker:we've started an apprentice. That's the new thing since September. He's 16. And
Speaker:he's from Wrightcottwood, the college in Oxford. And he's,
Speaker:yeah, so he's just trying
Speaker:to get used to that side of things. So we, we had to up
Speaker:our scale with the, you know, the usual like the fire extinguishers, first
Speaker:aid, signing books and stuff, a little bit of red tape, but to
Speaker:within reason that it still doesn't feel too red taped. because
Speaker:Yeah, we don't even like doing work experience anymore, do we Kay,
Speaker:because they're just a nightmare. There'll be like work
Speaker:experience with adults, no problem at all. Like if they want to come and
Speaker:do a little bit bits and bobs, but Yeah, from
Speaker:schools and colleges and stuff. I'm like, nah, thanks. Like, it's just not worth the
Speaker:Yeah. Well, it's crazy, like, because you're like, he's blocked.
Speaker:So he's one weekend, he's in now one week next month, and he's
Speaker:got to have four hours a week doing his own thing. And
Speaker:he's on his phone doing, like, is he on his phone?
Speaker:Is he uploading the college stuff? You don't know. It's like,
Speaker:actually, for £6.50, it's actually, you'll do really good
Speaker:Oh mate, it's, it's, it's tough because yeah, you're expecting, you're expected
Speaker:Which is, this is a topic for a difference now. I think, I think you're
Speaker:great if, I think apprentices should be paid decent wages.
Speaker:But if that's the case, then it needs to be some sort of subsidization from
Speaker:Oh, I was saying to my wife's like, have you looked into it? I think it's like, you
Speaker:get £500. I was like, what's that guy who barely covers their
Speaker:There's PPE. I swear there
Speaker:was a time when they would like, you know, practically get their wages like
Speaker:half funded. And now it's like, you can't even get their education
Speaker:fully funded. Like, you've got to pay a bit of that. And, you
Speaker:know, it's probably showing my age now. But I remember my, you know, my brother in
Speaker:law, you know, I remember when he was in, He
Speaker:was an apprentice. I think he got paid £2.50 an hour, you know, or £2 an hour.
Speaker:I left university with a BA honours degree in furniture. I was on
Speaker:£6, £6.50 and that was 2000 and I don't feel like it was
Speaker:that long ago. But But
Speaker:yeah, what you had to do, what you were expected to do, you're given a
Speaker:little sketch and you had to do the cut list. You had to do the drawing. Now I'm doing
Speaker:all this for them. And yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker:Different world. I love, I like the idea of apprenticeships doesn't work for,
Speaker:it currently doesn't work for our business model because. There's
Speaker:no sweeping the floors you can do here. Technically, technically, you
Speaker:could, I suppose, but it's not really a big part of the of
Speaker:the job when it comes to social media going really well.
Speaker:And to summarize, not only is it is it benefited you financially,
Speaker:but it's also allowed you to have a little bit more freedom in the business and
Speaker:have and freedom to make specific decisions. Are there
Speaker:any other marketing channels that you use other than, we're talking
Speaker:mainly about Instagram at this point and social media and stuff like that. If
Speaker:we take social media sort of almost like out of the equation at this point, are
Speaker:there other marketing channels that you actually don't
Speaker:get enough mention in terms of the way that you bring in
Speaker:Sorry, not really to be honest. Like
Speaker:I said, I was on Checker Tread at the early years. I probably gave up
Speaker:that in 2018. And And
Speaker:then in 2019, 2020, I think
Speaker:I set up a, well, I had a website and
Speaker:then I paid someone in Newcastle, I think it was, to do up on
Speaker:WebAhead to sort me out a website. And
Speaker:it's really good, but the thing is I had to link it
Speaker:with my Instagram because I didn't have time to be going on and uploading pictures. So
Speaker:like the pictures now I think are linked to my Instagram. It's a
Speaker:good write up, it looks professional, it looks good, but everyone
Speaker:that pretty much 90% of the people that call me say, one,
Speaker:we found you on Instagram, two, we've been recommended, we've
Speaker:been on your Instagram. And that's the first thing I say to them, look, have you been on my
Speaker:Uh, I was like, I don't want to have to sell myself. Like I've already, like, I've
Speaker:done all the, what I need to do. That's your portfolio. That's my portfolio. That's me. And
Speaker:there's videos of me making the furniture. It's not just a bought
Speaker:in from China or whatever. Like I put a lot of that. And I always say
Speaker:to people like, you need to make it personal.
Speaker:Uh, like. you are your brand at the end of the day.
Speaker:Like you're, you're, I always say to every, like I still, my favorite
Speaker:part, one is the design and then two is the fitting. Like I still, there's a
Speaker:lot of makers out there, a lot of furniture makers that do not like the fitting side of
Speaker:things. They love the making, they love the workshop. They hate going on site and
Speaker:Um, so I'm happy now to give the making side to my guys. Um, pretty
Speaker:much become a workshop manager again, uh, unknown to myself. And
Speaker:that was one thing that I find has made
Speaker:it a little harder for my content because now I
Speaker:find myself, I'm in the office more, I'm doing the SketchUp drones, I'm
Speaker:doing the, I'm going out to customer meeting that where, where I
Speaker:was always doing a bit of the, the making and stuff. I could always set up a tripod,
Speaker:set up a camera, do a time lapse and stuff. So now I rely
Speaker:sometimes on the guys to send me pictures or a time lapse
Speaker:or something. And, um, it's one of the stuff I pick up
Speaker:on and go, you're wearing trainers and that. That bit
Speaker:is literally over fun. It's
Speaker:trying to train them to be, to understand what to look out for
Speaker:and stuff. But yeah, that's the hardest thing is
Speaker:to, is to, I, I literally seem
Speaker:to be doing my content now at five, six o'clock in the evening when everyone goes.
Speaker:Like if I get something sent out by a brand and I want to
Speaker:do an unboxing or something, I'll do that rather than do it when there's people
Speaker:around me. Yes. And that, um, but yeah, no,
Speaker:um, mainly Instagram, mainly socials for bringing in clients. Like
Speaker:I said, we got the TikTok, we got the, we got the treads and
Speaker:I have, uh, I think I've got, 1300 on
Speaker:YouTube, but I'm not consistent with the minutes yet. So
Speaker:the workshop video seems to have done really well. And if I could probably do another
Speaker:one of them at Christmas and then try and make it once every
Speaker:week, if not every two weeks or something. You choose its own beast. I
Speaker:don't know how Mark does it with two days a week, like Wednesday. And
Speaker:I heard him when he said it on the podcast, I was like, Once a week is tough going,
Speaker:but twice a week is literally. And he keeps up with his other
Speaker:social profiles. And he's literally on the tools. It's
Speaker:As well as all the other networking stuff he does. It's not like he's like, Um,
Speaker:you know, it's, it's mad, you know, he comes and does stuff like this mid, you
Speaker:Um, it goes and, I was delighted when he was one
Speaker:of the interviewers, when I did the trade legends thing. And, uh,
Speaker:it was just made us so much more at ease and stuff. And he's a great,
Speaker:yeah. Cause we, he was the captain, we'll say the captain for the, the
Speaker:tool theft thing we did in London. And then I think you had, uh,
Speaker:Pape. Screed Pappy. That's where I
Speaker:first met him. He was on our side.
Speaker:Really good guy. Yeah. We speak relatively
Speaker:often. Who knew? Who knew that I would be the guy that's
Speaker:speaking to all these, you know, like part of the, I'm
Speaker:like a fraud because I'm not the least practical man ever
Speaker:in my life. I'm such a fancy creative. But
Speaker:But it's a bit like James the stone dresser, like I'm watching the guy chip
Speaker:on stones and are like electricians and stuff. And they're like, it's amazing what
Speaker:you find you want. You're watching and you find interest in
Speaker:that where it's lovely to hear customers and other
Speaker:tradespeople saying, we always check in to see what you did that day
Speaker:or see how it turned out. Like it's like a TV. Like
Speaker:the best one is when the wives are actually following me. And they turn around and
Speaker:they go, oh, have you seen this? Like, that's Derek Barrett, I know him, kind of thing.
Speaker:We, I can't remember, there was, yeah, it's amazing. It
Speaker:is a community, isn't it? This kind of like, trade social media
Speaker:and you get, we, you know, we get people sending us
Speaker:accounts all the time, not just in the, in
Speaker:the particular community, but people outside, like my, My
Speaker:wife's cousin's fella, basically my
Speaker:mate, he'll send me the people that he's like, this looks like
Speaker:a really cool guy for the podcast. I'm like, he's already in. He's already coming in. Or
Speaker:we work with him with one of our brands or something. People outside of
Speaker:the sphere find them. I remember when, I think
Speaker:someone sent me the, he was like, I think it
Speaker:was the same guy. He's like, I watch the Ball Builders content all the time.
Speaker:And I'm like, why? You've got nothing. Your work
Speaker:isn't even close to being a trade. It's just
Speaker:funny and entertaining. And yeah,
Speaker:it is absolutely mad. Is there anything that you've done that's completely
Speaker:flopped? I'm trying to think of like, because we're
Speaker:getting to this picture now where it's like, OK, you can build your following.
Speaker:We've started to build up some tactics. We've actually talked about some
Speaker:of the stuff that you do that's actually been really successful for
Speaker:you. What I'd like to know is learn from some of your mistakes, if
Speaker:you've made any that are just like, you know what, this doesn't work for me.
Speaker:Well, there are like sight mistakes where you've
Speaker:completely messed up the measurement or something like that. I think one of the
Speaker:worst ones was during COVID. There was a
Speaker:lot of scenarios that came into it, but I
Speaker:went off a learning curve, went off a customer's size.
Speaker:And when I went round to to measure
Speaker:the room when it was fully built, because it was COVID and it was hard to get up.
Speaker:She was pregnant. We had to climb up a ladder outside in the rain during
Speaker:March, into March or whatever, to go up and measure the room. And I noticed the angle was
Speaker:completely wrong. And I concentrated all my time on
Speaker:the angle that I never took a basic measurement of the height. And
Speaker:they had told me that it was 2.3 and it was actually
Speaker:2.030. So when I went to install, I went to lift up the unit, but it
Speaker:ended up being I had, like, I
Speaker:was like, right, something's not, I need to reset here. Read,
Speaker:looked at my draw and how can I get around this? Problem solving, as
Speaker:you would call it. And, um, I managed to still turn around in the
Speaker:two days and do all the alterations on site. And then
Speaker:it was one of those things where it was the biggest F up. But yeah, but
Speaker:still was able to fix it. But going back to other things, investments
Speaker:What about specifically about marketing? Like if you could, if because
Speaker:we talked about perhaps your that, you know, the posts that
Speaker:do incredibly well for you and and what's working for you on
Speaker:social media. Are there particular tactics on social media that
Speaker:you've sort of given a go or you sort of think, I want to try this
Speaker:I've I've I have tried like the jokey
Speaker:ones and stuff sometimes. And they have done within reason, like
Speaker:still good numbers and stuff. But it's kind of like sometimes you
Speaker:look back and cringe and you go, why did I do that kind of thing or jumped on
Speaker:the bandwagon kind of thing. I I
Speaker:like to now, I've kind of got into a rhythm on a, if I can, on a
Speaker:Sunday is to do like, if you can get a good, like motivational
Speaker:kind of thing. And then all I do is just do a dump of workshop videos
Speaker:and people seem to find those quite interesting. And one just went out
Speaker:Sunday and that's done really well. Um, but
Speaker:yeah, I, it's not that anything's flopped.
Speaker:Uh, I'm all for like, just do it, just have
Speaker:a go. You'll always get a certain amount of views, but
Speaker:it's if you start overthinking it and think, oh, should I, shouldn't I do it,
Speaker:just do it kind of thing. I do find
Speaker:when I go on holidays and
Speaker:I do like, I'll put up a couple of pictures of my wife and kids
Speaker:and stuff. You do feel it drops because they,
Speaker:but it may drop. because of
Speaker:the people that are not interested in that. But at the end of the day, there's never
Speaker:a client out there that's never going to like seeing that
Speaker:you have a personal life and that. So don't let you don't take that
Speaker:too much to heart. It's because that could be like tradies gone. I
Speaker:just want to see the furniture. I just want to see the tools. I don't want to see. So
Speaker:You can, you can pay sometimes too much attention to the numbers, can't you?
Speaker:And especially from a marketing perspective, so influencers,
Speaker:let's call them, I don't really, it's what you're kind of like one of those weird,
Speaker:I classify it as more of a creator, like, yeah, short sharing my,
Speaker:but I get, I kind of get the thing that your
Speaker:content isn't necessarily to get the attention of brands, necessarily.
Speaker:It just happens to have accidentally done that. Really, your focus was
Speaker:on getting clients, which makes you not necessarily an
Speaker:influence, just a really good marketer. I
Speaker:would say, if you've got a marketing agency or
Speaker:a marketer that's looking to do a
Speaker:lot of work and happens to go viral on social media doing
Speaker:They're not necessarily an influencer. But it's a bit like, I would like, I'm known on
Speaker:Instagram for, it's usually when I go for fits, I try to just do it when
Speaker:I go for fits, it's like go for a Greggs. He's gone
Speaker:for Greggs, you're sponsored by Greggs, I'm trying. That would be great.
Speaker:But what you don't realise is then come Christmas or a customer, they'll
Speaker:give you like a 20 quid Greggs voucher. But it's because it's embedded
Speaker:in their head that Derek Barrett likes Greggs. And I saw
Speaker:Danny Madden doing it where he was rating his
Speaker:customers for tea and biscuits. And it was,
Speaker:oh, you shouldn't be doing that. But they all stepped up their game. They're coming
Speaker:in with Victoria sponges and stuff. And he's like, well, why not? It's a
Speaker:bit of fun. Because we do say it quite a bit when we're
Speaker:on site. I go home and I go, that house is worth three million. And
Speaker:we're there three days and they didn't offer us one cup of tea. And
Speaker:it's, it's amazing how the little thing like that can have such an impact of
Speaker:like, you're just the worker kind of thing. And,
Speaker:or you can't use the toilet. That's the worst one. Go to a customer's house
Speaker:and they won't let you use the toilet. And it's like, I had one time I
Speaker:went to Cambridge and I was like, why didn't you tell us this prior
Speaker:to getting here? And they said, no, sorry, the toilet is out of action for
Speaker:trades. And I'm like, it's like, you don't want to be finding that out.
Speaker:But there was one thing on- It wasn't a personal thing, it was just to trades in general. There
Speaker:Just us coming in and we're all very clean, dusty boys down,
Speaker:the usual, like we're really, we pride ourselves and all that. But
Speaker:yeah, she must have had bad experiences. Yeah, but there was one thing
Speaker:I heard on fix one time and it's something I had to put, I just put in my terms and
Speaker:conditions, you know, when the energy peaked up and it was the energy crisis and stuff
Speaker:like that. And there was customers now charging, like
Speaker:saying to tradespeople to take off whatever their
Speaker:smart meter was reading because they had used so much
Speaker:of the electric. in a day. And there's stuff that you don't even think about
Speaker:to put in your terms and conditions that I have now that we will be using your
Speaker:electricity when we're on site to charge our batteries and that.
Speaker:Because they were arguing going, charge your batteries in your own workshop kind of thing. And
Speaker:if you're there for two days and they're used to spending 10, 20 pound and
Speaker:then it's gone up to 50, they were like, well, you owe us 40 pounds. So can you take that off
Speaker:the bill for our electric? And it's amazing, you don't even think of these things.
Speaker:So it's just other things to think about. That's so petty. I've
Speaker:never even considered stuff like that. Although I do feel, yeah,
Speaker:I want to buy that Festool, the power stack. And
Speaker:plug it in in places like that and charge it up and then I can charge all my batteries in
Speaker:But yeah, festival. Festival are the ones aren't they?
Speaker:I just bought their air purifier and it's
Speaker:amazing. I like, I have no regrets getting it. Like it's, it's,
Speaker:it just sucks all the fine dust out of the room when you're working. And
Speaker:because I am one of these people that will, if I'm in this room, I'm working in
Speaker:this room. I am not doing that and going up and down those stairs outside
Speaker:to cut. I don't care. We'll sweep up at the end, but it's just that fine
Speaker:dust that floats around. So with this new thing now, it
Speaker:just takes all that dust away. And it's, it's definitely going
Speaker:Key, this is the first time I'll ask you, have you, have you
Speaker:got any questions for Derek? Is there anything specific that we've talked about? And
Speaker:or anything that you think I've not covered in this episode? Specifically,
Speaker:centered around like, Derek's kind
Speaker:of relationship to social media marketing, specifically to
Speaker:I think you've asked some good questions, to be fair. I just wanted to get you more
Speaker:involved. Yeah. Yeah. How did you go
Speaker:from, like, how did the transition from getting
Speaker:more clients from just word of mouth and stuff to,
Speaker:Yeah. So like I said, with Check A Trade, I was relying
Speaker:on that for the first year or so. And then then eventually I
Speaker:was getting more inquiries coming through the social media network
Speaker:that I had. I was And I made the decision
Speaker:that I don't necessarily, because what was happening was people were still inquiring through
Speaker:check a trade. But like I said, they wanted everything done in a week or two weeks,
Speaker:three weeks kind of thing. And they just think you're doing nothing and just waiting around. It's
Speaker:more like a Facebook marketplace kind of DIY to come around because
Speaker:it was like fitting Howden's kitchens benchmark. Nothing wrong with that. But it wasn't
Speaker:a route I wanted to go down. But
Speaker:one thing I was going to say was what I used to do on
Speaker:bank holidays, like Christmas, Easter, things like that, I'd always
Speaker:do a boost on social media like Instagram. So
Speaker:if I knew one, if I knew a picture or something
Speaker:I had just done, like a walk-in wardrobe looked amazing, I
Speaker:would put 30, 40 pound and just boost it for six days, seven
Speaker:days. And you would see a good reward come back on that. But
Speaker:now, have you heard about Apple? What they're doing now
Speaker:is they're charging, they're charging Instagram. So
Speaker:we're paying. So where you were paying 40, 50 pound on
Speaker:Instagram to do a boost, Apple are charging you 50 pound. So it's
Speaker:cost double the amount what it was. And it's not, I
Speaker:just can't justify it. Because Apple are basically saying. You're
Speaker:going to use Apple pay or whatever to do it. They have their, their
Speaker:charge of about, I think it's like, I don't know, 40, 45. It literally is
Speaker:double. Because I had someone mentioned to me and I was like, not when I did it.
Speaker:And then I went to do a 50 pound one and they wanted 90 something pound
Speaker:for a six day just to run an ad. And
Speaker:so I just declined it. But what Instagram said there is on
Speaker:Facebook, you can now put credit in Facebook and then
Speaker:you pay through Facebook. But it's. it's kind of like that
Speaker:Oh, I see. Because I'm like, we run ads all the
Speaker:time. I've never heard of this kind of like doubling up. But what you mean is if you're on
Speaker:your phone trying to boost a post on your Apple phone, you're going
Speaker:to have to charge. If you're on Android it'd be... I don't know. Maybe. I've
Speaker:I nearly only did it a few weeks ago because one guy in our group said that
Speaker:he wanted to run a hundred and fifty pound. He does kitchens and
Speaker:stuff like big cost kitchens and stuff. And he was going to run a hundred and fifty
Speaker:pound to run it for a certain amount of time. And they wanted three hundred pound. in
Speaker:charge, like the £300 altogether for the £150, where it
Speaker:was always like, if I want to put £30 down, I'll put £30 down. But
Speaker:now it's getting to where it's the taxes
Speaker:Yeah, but something to keep an eye on. Yeah. I think we're about
Speaker:running to the end of this, Derek. It's been fascinating. It's
Speaker:been really, really cool to hear about your story and also how
Speaker:it relates. Not necessarily to, can I get this brand deal? Can I get
Speaker:this? Although those things I think are happening anyway. But it's
Speaker:really about, I just want to do more work. I just want to get more customers,
Speaker:more clients, and better work. And it seems like that's working incredibly well
Speaker:That's it. brand person
Speaker:or person that's doing it, like people don't realise the
Speaker:amount of brands you turn down as you take on and that. So
Speaker:we pretty much all like want to work with the, I
Speaker:always find the ones with the lower followings, they'll end
Speaker:up like taking whatever's coming kind of thing that where
Speaker:I don't rely. Sometimes like I'm getting stuff and I'm like just
Speaker:sitting there and it's like, what will I do with that? I've
Speaker:just ended up giving it to the guys sometimes and that, but If it's
Speaker:something we can use, we're now working with some other brands
Speaker:and stuff. So no, it's good. And that's why Emma,
Speaker:I started speaking to Emma from Limitless this
Speaker:year or beginning of this year and stuff. But after the installer show and
Speaker:And hopefully we can continue on and stuff. But it's just that like
Speaker:her, her whole thing about let the creators
Speaker:do what they do and then I'll deal with it. Because it is, we've done stuff
Speaker:with HIPAA and Troy and things and the amount of emails back
Speaker:and forth. And it's just like, I don't know what they want. You tell me
Speaker:what they want and I'll do it. And then I'll know. And translate all of this information.
Speaker:She's doing a great job. Last thing you guys need is more admin. Yeah,
Speaker:that's exactly it. And that's where she comes in. It's great. What's next
Speaker:What's like next couple of years? Like, have you got any like
Speaker:plans? Like you mentioned a little bit about YouTube and stuff like
Speaker:Yeah, well, I said it this year, but again, I'm saying it
Speaker:for next year kind of thing. But I'm all or nothing. If
Speaker:I don't feel like I can do, put it in,
Speaker:like if I'm, I've just joined a PT in a gym. I've
Speaker:been like 11, 10 years where I haven't gone back to the gym. because
Speaker:I knew I just couldn't give it. So this year I've gone back and
Speaker:I've been religiously doing it and stuff. So I
Speaker:just I need to know that I will give it 100% and then
Speaker:I'll go for it. But carrying on doing what
Speaker:I'm doing. I'm a big fan of like trying to own
Speaker:what I have and not have like massive finances and stuff. I'd
Speaker:love to know like if I had to close up tomorrow I don't owe
Speaker:loads of people and stuff like that. But I don't know, maybe
Speaker:five years and might be back in Ireland. I don't know. It depends. The kids are always
Speaker:like wanting to go back, even though they're born here. But,
Speaker:um, you fancy Canada then? Oh, I'd love it. But,
Speaker:um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to know. We've, we fixed
Speaker:the mortgage for a couple, a good few years now. Thank God. Uh, And
Speaker:we'll let that, and then the whole mag, like I said, is four years left on
Speaker:that. And then we'll make decisions. But it was never, I've
Speaker:never done this business to be something I could sell or
Speaker:I'm not an entrepreneur kind of thing. I just want to, as
Speaker:long as I can have a holiday and I can pay people's wages. And you love
Speaker:what you do. And I love what you do kind of thing. Like I said, I always said when I'm
Speaker:in my fifties, I can always go back to it. I know I can
Speaker:go to a job tomorrow if I had to kind of thing. So it's
Speaker:not a long term goal necessarily, but as long as I can do it
Speaker:Never say never, but I, you know, I
Speaker:couldn't even fathom selling dissident. First
Speaker:of all, I don't know if anyone would want this ragtag group of miscreants. But
Speaker:I just think, what would I do? I get
Speaker:stressed going on holiday because I just want to speak to
Speaker:my team and see what's going on. So
Speaker:I don't know what I would do. I'd have to consult or something like that. Is
Speaker:there anything that I've missed, Eric? Anything that you feel like I
Speaker:should have asked you that I haven't, that you think, I've got this little nugget
Speaker:No, not necessarily. No, all good. just,
Speaker:I'm like at the moment, like if you, if you interviewed me a year or two years ago,
Speaker:I would have been like, oh yeah, it's flying it. But
Speaker:at the moment, like anyone, I'm still trying to figure out what Instagram wants,
Speaker:what the algorithms are. It's all changed. It has dramatically changed. Like
Speaker:I said, I've been up and down a good few hundred. And
Speaker:it's different for me because I was so used to always being on the
Speaker:plus side and stuff. There's no right or wrong answer.
Speaker:Does it stress you out when it's not
Speaker:going well? Does it bother you? It bothers me
Speaker:within reason a little bit when you usually you know why
Speaker:or that didn't do well or something like that. But then
Speaker:you hear things about shadow banning and stuff like that or you've used a
Speaker:song maybe that was maybe. I have noticed that I use CapCut quite
Speaker:a lot and I think CapCut has a lot to do with TikTok. And
Speaker:because I may be uploading CapCut videos to Instagram that
Speaker:could have an impact on the rather than just
Speaker:using the Instagram is own. Instagram's
Speaker:own software and stuff like that. So that's something I'm
Speaker:looking into now. It's just hearsay and rumour though,
Speaker:isn't it? That's the thing. It's like people say, don't use hashtags and all
Speaker:this stuff, but just use them. They're there, just
Speaker:use them. Yeah, don't get mad. One guy told me, I saw at the Materials
Speaker:and Finishings show, I was on a Q&A about social media. And
Speaker:one of the tips that everyone took away from was one old guy said to
Speaker:me in Beaconsfield, he said, look, when you build a shelving unit, it goes hashtag
Speaker:shelfie. And I was like, huh? And I couldn't believe it.
Speaker:It's like back when he told me about it, it was 2.5 million
Speaker:hashtags. Now it's 3.5 million. But if you do hashtag fitted
Speaker:furniture, hashtag cabinet maker, it's not even close. But
Speaker:you don't even think. So if there's shelves there, then you just hashtag shelfy. And
Speaker:it's massive. And it's just things that you don't... And sometimes the wrong spelling
Speaker:in a hashtag can actually do you better. Because you pop up in places that
Speaker:someone's done the exact same thing. I misspell, as
Speaker:And I still, to this day, I don't know what our URL
Speaker:is. on dissidentagency.com, isn't
Speaker:it? Is that right? Yeah. I was on a podcast and they were like, where can
Speaker:we find you? I was like, I don't know. I honestly don't
Speaker:Mine's sometimes D Barrett design and it's Derek
Speaker:It just, it turns out what I've done is I've just, I've bought all of the
Speaker:possible dissident URLs now and just they all, they all point towards
Speaker:Derek, thank you so much for coming. It's been an absolute pleasure. Really, really insightful conversation
Speaker:about social media and using it to get clients
