Your Eco
In this episode, we talk to Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally.
We discuss how to plan your content so you don’t miss important times, how your employees can be brand advocates, the Kaizen approach of continuous improvement, and why you should ‘be more buffalo’!
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00:00:01 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hi, I'm Chris, founder, senior brand designer and growth marketing strategist at Haus of Hiatus brand Growth Studio, who wants to document innovative and disruptive ideas from successful small to medium sized enterprises. Tell startups to get strong market position as quickly as possible.
00:00:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
In this episode, we talked to Nick Spicer, former Army infantry officer, to disaster responder and founder of Your Eco B-Corp company that delivers renewable energy installation services in Newport and retrofit markets, which has helped to plan your content. So you don't.
00:00:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Miss important dates.
00:00:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
How your employees can be brand advocates and why you should be more Buffalo.
00:00:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hey, Nick, mate, it's nice to have you on the House of Haters podcast. I realised it was only recently. We spoke about your dogs. We only recently we spoke about your. It's like the biggest audience we've had like months anyways.
00:00:59
Yeah, dogs turned up. Sorry, yeah.
00:01:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Thanks, Cody, you're up in the numbers.
00:01:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I mean it's.
00:01:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It yeah, it was only only what, like, two months ago? One month ago when we were chatting about the the Alaska Kayak Canoe Expedition with nothing on here.
00:01:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I.
00:01:20 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Wanna talk about that anymore?
00:01:24 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I definitely want to hear about that. You know other tales adventure podcast at some point, but right now obviously want to talk about your your day job, the, the, your.
00:01:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Or eco company. So I guess rather than rather me doing a bad job at introducing it to you, can you can you tell me a?
00:01:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah. Perfect.
00:01:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Little bit about your eco.
00:01:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, of course. So your eco was founded in 2016. It's a renewable energy company, very much focused on the design, supply and installation of solar and battery storage systems across the UK markets and dabbling a little bit overseas on some weird wonderful projects on that side, which is always.
00:02:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Always interesting and.
00:02:05 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know good fun and yeah, that that's sort of it, I guess in a nutshell and I suppose we'll talk about it more over the coming over the coming minutes.
00:02:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Well, I mean I I guess probably just to give the listeners a bit of context. So we met through Team Rubicon UK, which is now react, disaster response charity and and it was it was before the Hurricane Irma response. But I think we actually met in person in was it Barbados. I think you know maybe about 12 hours.
00:02:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yes.
00:02:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Discussing, you know, discussing the the the main way which you brought out and the the situation at the time.
00:02:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So I guess your echo would have been going on around about that time anyway, or was it an idea kind of? Was it something you were working on the background cause it?
00:02:50 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
No, it just started really. It was very much in its infancy. We started it in July 2016 and I'm just trying to think when we went out, it was 7 years, seven years, wasn't it ago?
00:03:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It it was 2017, it would. It was about now.
00:03:06 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It's 2017. It's been running for about a year then.
00:03:07
And.
00:03:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, but I mean, like, so whether they, whether they come from, had it grown, did he get any seed funding for it? What was the what was?
00:03:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
No, no seed funding, completely self funded and it remains so today. And actually it was interesting having it. We were at an awards night the other night and someone was having a chat to us about that and.
00:03:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes.
00:03:24
Yeah.
00:03:29 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and they were talking about investment and what does it look like and what do we need? And I think one of the things incredibly proud of is that, you know, we've achieved continued doubling of growth year on year and all all of it being self funded without external capital or you know debts or loans, which has been a real achievement in itself considering.
00:03:49 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, we sort of last year we turned over 5 million and we're probably on for nearing 10 million this year. You know, so to do that from a self-sufficient perspective is something incredibly proud of really and how we've achieved that. But in terms of sort of where the idea came from.
00:04:04 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I I I remember studying a lot of taking a lot of modules focused on sustainability whilst at the University of Leeds, so I was doing a geography degree ahead of during the military and and I knew it was something that, you know, really interested me and and felt was important and I think you know as time went on, you know, leaving the military, I I still felt.
00:04:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
A real desire to continue to do something purposeful and impactful, and I think post military that was one of my main drivers and you know linked back to university and the sustainability side and then really looking at this decarbonisation of the energy market and that net zero approach.
00:04:29
OK.
00:04:40 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And I think merging those together really brought about the notion of Yuriko and the journey with taking it on.
00:04:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In terms of a business, I think it it's one of those where we've tried to be a bit of a sort of client side energy consultancy, if you like. Umm, helping clients understand you know the problem they're trying to solve, you know you know and that is obviously looking through you know deployment of solar PV and systems there. So you know understanding their demand and how it will integrate into their built environment.
00:05:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Looking at their drivers and goals.
00:05:14 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and the return on investment that yields and I think the guiding principle we've adopted really has been keeping things simple. So it goes back to that collaboration and investing in meaningful partnerships and really wanting to be trusted advisors and building those relationships you know and and it's a real strength of rapport and trust with our clients.
00:05:31
Yeah.
00:05:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And working in an honest.
00:05:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Aligned manner and there's probably a lot of buzzwords I guess at this stage. But you know it is trying to bring that together. And so for me it it's you know, a lot of our work is in agriculture and that's personified this approach really in many ways. But you know it's pulling up at a chair at the farmhouse table to discuss the energy needs of a a family owned business or farm.
00:05:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, through to jumping on a tractor and, you know, discussing their requirements in the field, you know, I've been everything from, you know, I say selling solar. But you know, I don't use the word selling because actually we don't have any sales team at your eco it. Yeah, it still remains just me.
00:06:13 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and it's actually sort of an operation in their business. So that's understanding our clients. And so you know, if you're out in a combine harvester for two weeks, then yeah, you know, we'll drive in the field and jump in with you and have a chat on the way round. And you know through to donning a hard hat or a high fish jacket on a construction site, you know, and understanding that the challenges of our commercial.
00:06:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Science and that's very much been the focus here in the UK. As I said, there's also been some other sort of really wonderful works overseas. We're currently still doing quite a bit in the Caribbean and we've worked anywhere from.
00:06:46 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, the Congo and Nepal involved in solar systems and all that links back to Team Rubicon and those areas. But you know, it's that working internationally, delivering social impact on sustainable development projects, I guess.
00:06:52
Yes.
00:06:58 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. And I think, sorry, yeah. No, no, go. No, go on.
00:07:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Sorry. Yeah, just say really. It's trying to become an advisory role in relation to.
00:07:08 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, practical applications of, you know, these renewable energy systems see it's a market that's still very much been in its infancy. I think one of the challenges of the market has been, you know, low barriers to entry and all that entails. And so whilst you know never using the term influencer, which is probably something that you know the world of social media uses.
00:07:29 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Although people often take the mic out of me saying that, it certainly by no means you know is that an approach, I think it's just wanting to become an advocate and I think in.
00:07:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In a sector that in some ways is without it, is in its infancy and without leadership and you know advocacy, it's trying to fill that role a little bit and help guide it. I think there's that. What's that book? There's that great book, isn't the legacy on.
00:07:39
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:50
Yeah.
00:07:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The New Zealand All Blacks, so if you've read it talking about.
00:08:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes. Yeah. But that yeah, yeah.
00:08:00 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The.
00:08:00 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Leadership and you know, and and they talk about leaving the shirt in a better place than when you found it. And I think that's one of the the things that we seek to do at your eco but also certainly for myself personally. I'm trying to do.
00:08:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, both from a client and industry perspective. We're just wanting to make sure good stuff's happening for by good people and good works being done. And that's, you know, being that altogether really that's that's certainly the notion of your eco. And I guess as a business, you know the mantra for us is very much people, planet profit.
00:08:23
Yes.
00:08:35 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And, you know, dissecting that down, it's looking after your people because, you know, we're blessed with an amazing team of people.
00:08:42 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
But empowering those people to do amazing things is is quite something spectacular in itself. But also in turn helping other people wherever you can. The planet is obviously at the core of IT carbon reduction. You know, the fight against climate change and all of these good things. You know, we often say, yeah, you know, we're playing our role in the fight one panel at a time, you know, in each panel.
00:09:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Lay down is, you know, saving carbon.
00:09:05 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, buy through a renewable.
00:09:06
Course.
00:09:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And then profit. And you know, I said people profit shouldn't be a dirty word. You need to make profit to exist as a business.
00:09:14 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes.
00:09:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, but in making profit you can also do great things and probably touch upon that in due course on the likes of we set up a a charitable foundation called Reduce our carbon. And you know by making profit, we're able to support these things. You know we'll often.
00:09:27
Yeah.
00:09:27 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Work open book with our clients.
00:09:29 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and actually one of the first comments is look, we're happy to work open, but but if you expect us to do it for no money, then you know we're not gonna. We're not gonna entertain this or actually we don't really want to work with you because you know we've all got to make, you know, profit in order to stand still, move forward and invest in people, invest in teams and everything you need to make your business better and continue to grow.
00:09:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Now one of the one of the kind of the USPS that I was, I was kind of really wanted to highlight actually is that you're B core certified company, which is obviously means it's been very stringent vetting process of obviously your processes, your systems you know and so and so the profits you know it.
00:10:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like like you say he it's reinvested renewably and obviously to A to you know to to those standards. But I'm just, I'm just trying to picture kind of like how it originated was it was it kind of you I guess I'm I'm literally just picturing you in in remote Paul jumping some solar panels around you know to to to fit them like I.
00:10:29 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I'm just trying to picture how how did you do this without any fun seed funding cause it it's it's pretty extraordinary now given the turnover and the the place it's in.
00:10:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, I think there was a bit of putting your proverbial on the block and saying, hey, I believe in this and we're.
00:10:44 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Gonna.
00:10:44 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Make it work. And so I think there's a.
00:10:45
Yeah.
00:10:47 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Of you know the first first couple of years, barely it was able to draw anything from the business, but I think it was, you know, whatever savings we had cobbled together was trying to use those to in essence fund the business. And obviously as as you gain projects and they come through and you know you talk about that word, profit actually it wasn't really profit, it was just money.
00:10:53
Mm-hmm.
00:11:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It was enabling us to do more, so you know it's it takes a very long time before you know a business becomes profitable and actually really, you know, is able to pay its way because.
00:11:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:11:19 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
As you know, founders entrepreneurs call it what you will. You've got to start them thinking of employing staff and bringing people on, you know, and your commitment or the commitment to people in the business is, you know, making sure each month they are paid on time. And that's considered and that's one of our priorities and always has been, you know, your employees have families and everything else and your commitment to people.
00:11:25
MHM.
00:11:34 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:11:40 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know who come and give for you each day is making sure that they're enumerated and looked after and their needs and desires are taken care of and and ultimately you come behind that. It goes back a bit to that Sanders principle are serve to lead, really.
00:11:51
Good.
00:11:53 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In it and you know often talk about that they need to serve to lead. And you know what that looks like in in.
00:11:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Terms.
00:11:59 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Of running a business. But yeah, the big the big core thing for us was was just a a non-negotiable and was something we needed to do, I guess. Well, not even, I guess. I know we, you know.
00:12:01
Yeah.
00:12:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It and it's.
00:12:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Actually quite challenging. I was talking to someone about this or there was a conference.
00:12:14 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Can't remember where it was in Bristol A.
00:12:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
While.
00:12:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Ago and they were talking about becoming a big.
00:12:19 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And there was a a chap you know on stage talking about Beacon. And he was he was one of these cool marketing ad guys are worried about and you know it was him and two mates who clearly we're running this business and and great and brilliant. You know they were like yeah you know we're big core it means a lot and all all.
00:12:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
All the challenges for us and I thought.
00:12:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I mean, come on, there's not. You know, there's challenges, but they.
00:12:42 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And you know, you think we're an operational business and at time we've got 20 team members driving around the UK in pickup trucks, towing trailers, moving materials around. Yes, we're delivering sustainable projects that reduce, you know, save carbon. You know, the equivalent trees planted and all these good metrics.
00:13:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
But what I have to remind people is that isn't our carbon, that's our clients carbon. So you know that carbon.
00:13:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know we is owned by the client, you know that's what they're measuring in metrics. You can't double account for carbon. So actually we looked at it and we said look we we've got a challenge here we you know we've flown to the pool to deliver solar. That's kind of almost defeated the object. So you know it was something we've taken really seriously and.
00:13:15
Mm-hmm.
00:13:29 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I recognise.
00:13:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Is, you know, it's the imperfect perfect in a way. But we moved to having to offset elements of that. So you know from an office we all work remotely. We've got an off grid converted 40 foot shipping container that we you know run you know from solar panels completely off grid and we use it for meetings and offices and a bit of a hot desk.
00:13:51 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Meet clients there. You know? So that was sort of one of the first steps. You know, you've got your recycling and all those good things that you're doing and trying to understand if you need to make the journey or not. But you in essence still have a level of.
00:14:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Problem that you need to deal with and so for us we looked at how we might go and offset that and you get to a number and you go cool. That's quite a big number. How do I deal with that? You know, people like, you know, there's all these trusts or offsetting companies and you look at them and they say ohh pay so and so a month to offset your carbon and you say well actually if we use X tonnes of carbon a year and they say, well, that's equivalent to 5 or 10 lbs.
00:14:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Month you go great. That seems good. And they go. Yeah. Keep paying £10 a month and you've offset your carbon. Well, actually, that's only that year's carbon. So technically you need to take out another subscription the next year. And all you're really doing is kicking the can down the line. You're kind of financing your.
00:14:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, there's the key mapping.
00:14:37
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Right.
00:14:40 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Problem, you know, and maybe it's going to take you 200 years to offset your carbon over the next 20 years because you know you're financing it over 20 years or something. So it it's a bit of a false reality when you look at it. So we said, well, no, actually, if we're gonna be true to our roots, we need to do it properly. So anyway, we accounted for our carbon and.
00:14:40
Yeah.
00:14:50 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:14:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Interesting.
00:15:01 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Into quite a scary number. Wow. I say scary. No, but you're not. Not as scary as I'm sure it is for many, but you know it it we ended up.
00:15:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Working and delivering these trees over in Central America, where we've been working with remote hill farmers who have got issues with soil erosion because of, you know, the the water run off and everything else and actually live under the sort of.
00:15:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know the UN poverty line. And so actually we worked on an agro forestry model where we gave them fruit trees to plant. Now fruit trees have a lower offset rate if you like.
00:15:37 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
But to the individual or the beneficiary, they have a much higher value because if you think an orange is and actually you know Tim Edwards is out there with Andrew who run runs the charity for us in Central American, you may remember Tim from TR, Tim's now one of the trustees. And so we're delivering something called Project Orange at the moment.
00:15:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And in effect, we're taking all the oranges from our communities and we're sorting the logistics out to take them to market, to sell them for a higher price because what normally happens is they grow the fruit, they can't get it to market. They're in remote areas. Someone comes along and says, hey, I'll buy an orange off you for, I don't know, 1P equivalent or something and they go, yeah, I'll take it anything. And there's 500 oranges gone for a pen.
00:16:16 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Me. Whereas actually if you take them down to market, you might get 5P8P7P10P whatever it is. And so we're now organising the logistics, taking all of them to market, selling at scale to get the volume and then passing that uplift back to the communities.
00:16:18
And.
00:16:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Uh.
00:16:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Which has been a really interesting sort of cooperative model, and that's where we've gone. And so, you know, what we did is going back to we we took this agro forestry approach and I think it cost us £15,000 probably to offset our carbon footprint, but we built a you know a small forest of fruit trees and that is our.
00:16:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:16:53 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Carbon sequestration.
00:16:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Asset if you like. You know, because we looked at those trees over the, you know, lifespan of them, we looked at failure rates. We actually commissioned a few interns from Queens University in Belfast for some extended periods and doing some dissertations and real studies on this to understand the rate. So we, we'd applied some data.
00:17:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
To it. And yeah, so that's what we did. We and therefore we offset the carbon on that approach and and we've since set it up into rock. So reduce our carbon which is now a charitable foundation registered in the UK where we continue with that approach. But we're also building smokeless stoves because actually it's quantifiable, I mean.
00:17:35 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You should see some of the stoves they're building.
00:17:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
At the moment.
00:17:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and these old stoves smoke inside.
00:17:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. So I guess just.
00:17:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So I guess just just to.
00:17:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. So just, just, just so so I can I can make sure I'm I'm understanding it started off in the kind of solar panels market and it kind of expanded into.
00:17:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You kind of this this other cooperative model and then kind of products. So it's essentially products and services now by the sounds.
00:17:59 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Of it? Well, I think your your Rico, your eco in its purest form is you know is installing products for our clients. We decided we wanted to do something about carbon and keep living that.
00:18:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Where is it?
00:18:06
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:12 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, planet people plan.
00:18:13 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Profit mantra. So use use profit to make sure we were doing the right thing which fueled into B core and everything else and off that came the charity which is reduce our carbon which Andrew now runs over in Nicaragua. And so that's been great for us doing that and you know that's moving on and you know as I said Tim's a trustee you know wife Amanda trustee and Megan.
00:18:23 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
OPS manager and really building that out and we now continue to donate 1 1/2% of all our contract values or our turnover, I guess same.
00:18:42 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Thing to rock in order to make sure not only we as a business are carbon neutral, but that are actually installations are and and that's making sure that you know at best they're carbon well. At best they're carbon positive or carbon negative. Rather at worst they're carbon neutral.
00:18:45
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:52
Yeah. Yeah, it's Florence.
00:19:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and that might be and that allows for delivery. So a lot of our deliveries will come from, I don't know, Swindon, Bolton wherever it may be, the Midlands. And So what we've really done is applied the maths to say, OK, if we send a team down at 3 down to Cornwall to deliver a project or.
00:19:03
The.
00:19:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
To I don't know, Yorkshire or the Midlands. You know how much carbon might they use in towing a trailer down there and taking their cars? You know what does 2 lorry loads of kit look like? You know? What does that look? And so 1 1/2% covers that requirement when we've worked it out. Hence we've made that commitment. So you know we're a carbon neutral business, but actually we wanted to go further.
00:19:33
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Make sure.
00:19:40 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Our installations and our direct supply chain are also carbon neutral carbon negative. Now we've not necessarily gone all the way back to, you know, the mining and the refinement and everything there which you know is is you know people can always pick fault and say ohh yeah, but you're not doing this well you know. But you know we're trying our part where we can really.
00:19:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You're able to do.
00:19:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, I guess.
00:19:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Of course, yeah, yeah.
00:19:59 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. No, I mean it, it does get me on to kind of the my kind of my next question was I want to kind of understand like how do?
00:20:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Your customers.
00:20:05 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Find you cause obviously in making this podcast we wanted to document how established, successful companies are. You know attracting clients and what startups can do to.
00:20:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Kind of.
00:20:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
What the what size we can do to use the same tactics to obviously help them get to profitability or or just out of that. You know that runway as as things. So I guess if you you've thought do you know how they they kind of find your company?
00:20:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Or is it just? Well, I'd like to hope so.
00:20:33
Happens.
00:20:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I think you know we're we're pretty much now.
00:20:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
100% referrals and direct inquiries. As a business you know which is great because when you.
00:20:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Oh wow, yeah.
00:20:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Actually delve into that and look at where your leads come from. It's that referral network and actually we can chart all of our projects and where they've come from and where expansion has come from, be it.
00:20:52 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In sectors or.
00:20:53 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Regions, but I think as we're growing, one of the things we're realising is you know actually it is an Omni channel marketing strategy because you need multiple touch points with your clients.
00:21:04 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
So even if you know you have a referral from someone, they still want to kick the tyres and check you out somewhere, you know, and that's across the channel. So you know you need to be on all the platforms and making sure your.
00:21:04
Yeah, it is.
00:21:09 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yes.
00:21:15 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Credible, but also, as we're growing, we're also realising that it's great, you know, works coming through the door and that's brilliant. But you also want to make sure you're building out your pipeline. So it's one of the things we're still continuing to push now. And Amanda, we never want Amanda help help me set up the business back in 2016. My, my wife and you know, she's been working way.
00:21:33
MHM.
00:21:35 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
With, you know, Fortune 500 experience I guess, but we've.
00:21:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Brought her. You know, she, her and I. We made the call for her to come back in to really help kick us on to the next level. It's probably fair to say she she runs the business and I'm I I'm the sales guy at the front and the face of it. Maybe I'm the face. She actually runs it. But that's been great and it's been one of the things we're really looking at is how we build out.
00:21:50
You're.
00:21:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The face.
00:21:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know the marketing plan and you know the PR side of the business. So LinkedIn has been very integral to that, you know, and I think LinkedIn as a B2B tool is super.
00:22:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
From a networking but also being able to showcase real time what you're doing and where you are and daily, daily drum, there's actually a really good brand agency I follow and they gave a guide to almost engaging daily on content and I actually diarize all my content each week. I I've never quite worked out if there's an algorithm for times or not.
00:22:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes.
00:22:31 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
So it normally just goes out in.
00:22:32 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The morning but.
00:22:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Each day I pretty much try and post each morning, so I'll either you know, find myself with a bit of time and schedule out a few days in advance, or you know there early in the morning. First thing I do when I wake up is try and pump it out and I think it's just that daily.
00:22:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:22:47 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Daily drum beat or rhythm and you know a lot of people are probably fed up of, you know, seeing Nick Post again, you know. But actually the reality is I hear someone go. Ohh. I keep seeing you on LinkedIn or you know what I saw what you did on LinkedIn and you know they might not have liked it. And you know we're we're not gonna be judged by the number of likes or anything there.
00:23:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, it's interesting, who sees that? And I suppose if one person likes it or engages with it, someone else might see it, who it might spark something in their mind. So I guess you never know the true impact on us, but that's always the challenge.
00:23:14
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:20 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Of marketing and PR. Quantifying your spend is probably one of the greatest challenges. Yeah, you know, they they often say, isn't it? Marketing's the quickest is it? Marketing's the 1st to go or something, you know? You know, in a.
00:23:24 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Your reach is actually.
00:23:27 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah, the other like.
00:23:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, that's that's what I saw during the pandemic. Yes. Yeah, that that was kind of put this on the pandemic.
00:23:34
Business.
00:23:35 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, but actually.
00:23:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah. And and.
00:23:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
That's a real threat because actually you need it there because if you cut off your marketing and PR, you're not continuing to expose your business and people need to see you're still there and active.
00:23:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:50 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
But you know, drone strategy has been something quite useful for us, and I think, you know, all our stuff is on the roof, you know, so it's actually able to demonstrate where we are. There's also cost saving measures to using drones in some of the initial surveys rather than access, you know, from health and safety, minimising people going on the roofs and using drones. But, you know, that's certainly been part of the strategy.
00:24:06
Yeah.
00:24:13
We.
00:24:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So obviously you get those unique shots of obviously your products and service by by incorporating drone video and photo into your, I guess your content because it sounds it sounds like it's it's kind of mostly organic from those referrals, but it's augmented by content marketing. I think the top of funnel type stuff, isn't it to get the?
00:24:22 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah.
00:24:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah. And I think in the.
00:24:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I'm not there.
00:24:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Age of the iPhone? You know anyone can create their own content. And so I think it's just understanding how you use the the power of it. You know, I was.
00:24:39
Good.
00:24:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
So my Uncle Francis gave me Uncle Jeremy gave me a a great piece of insight, and it's almost like a a bezel for your iPhone that holds it stable. I can't remember the name of it, but you know, it enables you to create videos on your phone moving around if you're recording something. And these types of developments are really able to create quite a powerful content generation team.
00:25:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know in turn, whereas everyone can be you, you know, the guys and girls on the pointy end in the field or wherever they may be, you know, they can create this content and pass it back. And you know, there's that internal hunger isn't there for content, but everyone is now a content creator.
00:25:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:17 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Later, you know, and some of our best content has been we were doing a big commercial project, very large one just before Christmas and there facilities manager stopped me and sort of called me to chuckle because he said honestly, he said I couldn't believe it. He said, you know, it's the middle of December and there's ten of your guys.
00:25:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes. Yeah.
00:25:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
On the roof and they're singing Christmas carols. And you know all we can hear inside the factory is Christmas carols. And, you know, for me, you go. You know what? That's your eco team. And. And actually it was Shane Blakey. And.
00:25:52 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Rick, you know, probably the the leaders of this, you know and they've recorded, you know, A Christmas Carol on the.
00:26:01 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
12th Day of Christmas.
00:26:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Whatever it may be, you know on the Advent calendar of Christmas and you think brilliant, you know what, what great bit of content, but also great to see the guys having fun but also.
00:26:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:12 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know great for a client to go cool. This is your business and where you are and you know so the guys and girls are also, you know, the advocates of the business and the brand faces and represent your brand. And I think that's what we've tried to be that everyone is a brand ambassador.
00:26:26 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
One of the things which I'm definitely seeing a lot more of these days, and especially with bigger companies, is they're seeing their employees are brand advocates like you just mentioned there. And so it's actually stimulating more investment into a into an organisational culture because they know that those employees will be either a good ambassador or or not. So good ambassador for their, for their brand and that's.
00:26:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Obviously, if you've got, you know, three staff. It may not have a big, big effect, but if you're a big, say, telecoms company, for example, which employs thousands of people, they realise that actually that's a big net effect on brand awareness and brand perception, so.
00:27:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And it it's good that you've nailed that that thing early.
00:27:04 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, I look, I think everyone is a brand ambassador or you or they can be or you want them to be. And so for us that's what you know we've tried to facilitate and and our culture is everything to us and and you know more than that our people are everything to us actually and you know the people, planet profit people rightly comes first because our people are at the fore of.
00:27:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:27:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Who we are and what we're about. And you know, I we are blessed with an incredible team.
00:27:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
At your eco and you know people are our finest assets and really make us who we are, I think and we've gone from you know minimal headcount. You know we're now up to a team of about 20. And as I said, you know with a pipeline of work that's over 30 million and a turnover of 5 million going on for 10. But.
00:27:49 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and that's all facilitated by our people, really as the brand ambassadors and custodians of us because they are the people who have the interactions with us.
00:27:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Clients and as a business, we operate across the sectors. I mean we do a lot, we do a little bit internationally. We do a lot in commercial businesses across farms and also interestingly private estates and country homes which is you know in many terms high net worth celebrities you know living out.
00:28:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In the rural areas.
00:28:19 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Do a lot of work in the Cotswolds of.
00:28:21 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
States and down here in Somerset.
00:28:23 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And you know, our guys and girls are interacting with people that they might have seen on television or on the radio or whatever it may be. And, you know, it's they are the custodians of a brand, but also they're people who can pull up a chair and have a chat like a a normal human being. And, you know, have that personal engagement. And I think that personal approach.
00:28:30 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
If.
00:28:38
Yeah.
00:28:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Is what I hope personifies us and we are about people and people are our greatest assets and that brand I think comes so much from it.
00:28:54 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, this stimulates another really interesting conversation that I've been thinking about a lot about recently and that's kind of veteran owned companies in that I think veteran owned companies are good for a number of reasons, but not only because we understand kind of what motivates people. I think better than your than your.
00:29:14 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Your average entrepreneur, obviously, notwithstanding, you know some some really, really great entrepreneurs aside is that I think when you when you come from serving in the military to then starting your own business, actually you do, you do put people, you know high up if not first.
00:29:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And you know in in a lot of the instances, don't you? And I think we, I think we we're kind of quite good at actually building that corporate culture which has a knock on effect of brand perception and brand awareness, positive brand perception.
00:29:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I think you're completely completely right there. I mean, you look at the military and the military's, you know, people are the greatest assets in the military, but it's also, you know, when you look back at the military that, that culture from your team, you know, be that a section or a platoon or a company or a regiment, you know, battalion, whatever it might be that.
00:29:48
Hmm.
00:29:59 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know that has its own.
00:30:01 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
UM spirit or ethos? You know the camaraderie that comes with it. But you know, that's about often people doing. You know what they don't wanna do? You know you're on a cold, miserable, wet day on exercising Catterick in the middle of, you know, or the Brecon Beacons in January, waking up at the crack of dawn.
00:30:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes. Yeah.
00:30:20 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Going ohh my this is not where I want to be, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And plan actually to laugh about it afterwards and you know, but also to do that people do it for each other. They do it for the.
00:30:23
To go.
00:30:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Teammates, you know, they talk about the military as a band of brothers and all those things and you know, business is no different. We often talk about having each other's back. And, you know, it's important to have each other's back. And one of the things we've really tried to champion.
00:30:47 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Is.
00:30:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
We we use the saying internally and actually probably one of the most we use WhatsApp a lot for our communications.
00:30:54 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Just cause it's easy and probably one of the most used.
00:30:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Emojis is the Buffalo.
00:30:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And and we talk about be more Buffalo, you know the hashtag be more Buffalo and actually it's it's something we've really championed as a value of the business and we we we have something we use Slack actually and one of the things we do each week on a Friday is that we have Friday matters and actually we recognise people for things they've done throughout the week.
00:31:17 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Teammates and colleagues, you know, cause it does go unnoticed and be more Buffalo is certainly up there. We also talk about Kaizen and be more Kaisen and you know, Kaiser nice, how you continue to improve, but the be more buffaloes an interesting one.
00:31:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Period.
00:31:30 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
This.
00:31:31 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, if you look.
00:31:32 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
At the difference and I you'll have to look at the link I think posted it.
00:31:35 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Before, but there's a.
00:31:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Chap can't remember his name. North American. It's focused on the difference between cattle and Buffalo and a storm.
00:31:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
In effect, when a storm is brewing, the cattle turn away and this might not be 100%.
00:31:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
True, but you.
00:31:49 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Know broad brush.
00:31:49 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It where it is the cattle basically try and outrun the storm, but you can never outrun the storm. So you're constantly in the storm.
00:31:58
Yeah.
00:31:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The Buffalo, however, puts its head down and charges to the storm and breaks through the other side and in doing so, they sort of, you know, I suppose, as the US military would say, embrace the suck. And you know, they they sort of pull on the agony blanket run towards the pain. Hug that agony as my old.
00:32:11
Really.
00:32:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Commanding officer used to say.
00:32:20 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And you know, they get through to the bright sunshine much quicker. So, you know, we talk about being more Buffalo and actually, you know, as individuals and as a team, that's our approach. Sometimes you just gotta put your head down, embrace it, run towards the problem, deal with the problem and guess what, you're on the other side a lot quicker.
00:32:36 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Get to the side of it. Interesting. I use I use a personally. I've, I've. I've never heard the be more Buffalo approach, but it makes obviously a lot of sense. I use grabbed the nettle a lot more because obviously it's like you know something you don't really want to do. But you know it will be it will be.
00:32:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You you know better if you just do it and just, you know, just go.
00:32:54 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Ahead and grab the nettle I.
00:32:55 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, but why do you why?
00:32:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like the the.
00:32:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Do you? Why do you wanna grab a nap?
00:33:01 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
At least with people bubble like you.
00:33:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Can't help the storm and.
00:33:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You gotta run through it.
00:33:04
It's.
00:33:07
Got a survivor.
00:33:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I'm not. I'm not grabbing the nettle for no reason.
00:33:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like convincing of the you can you, you can obviously obviously cook nails and.
00:33:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Stuff, can't you? But no, it's certainly.
00:33:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's it's fascinating cause it's, you know, I hear more more of these kind of Stoic sayings more often. I'm like, thinking, you know, I wonder which actually write a book about this stuff because you, you see kind of this stoicism popping up in All in all industries and all sectors. You know, I think definitely what we saw probably over the last five years.
00:33:34 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
There's this, this real kind of growth towards startups and entrepreneurial.
00:33:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Entrepreneurism and and then he kind of, you know, almost saw this growth in in similarly in in Stoicism quotes. But yeah, I seem to hear new ones all the time now. And I'm like thinking it'd.
00:33:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Be kind of.
00:33:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Cool to document these sometimes I guess for probably a project for you know for another day, but I like the the be more Buffalo.
00:33:59 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That's cool.
00:34:00 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and there's so many, it's great. Is it because you know, it's it's fascinating. There's so many of these. One of the ones I I I use a lot and we talk about people and going back to people here and.
00:34:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Brand is I was driving back from London early in the morning. I for for all my sins, I'm a huge Arsenal supporter in the football and I must have been driving back from the Emirates and London in the early hours, you know, post midnight. I think we'd remember it was we'd lost to Liverpool and gone to this cup match thinking we were gonna win as you deflated came back.
00:34:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
There we go. And I listened to this wonderful podcast by this lady and I cannot remember. I think it was on the High Performance podcast. Can't remember her name, but the line that's really stood out with me ever since. And again there's another line. We try and embed is it's better to have a hole in your organisation than an *******.
00:34:40
OK.
00:34:52
And.
00:34:53 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, it's.
00:34:54 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Become a litmus test for us.
00:34:57 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And so, you know, if often we're looking at recruiting or we have a need, I'll say to the guys you know and and have this with you know Rick Walters, you know a lot you know Rick Rick sits as our site supervisor manager across our projects and I said to it like hey, do you want the hole or do you want an ******* you know because if you can't.
00:35:17 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Find the right person. Your question is, do you keep the hole and plug it yourself and maintain the culture?
00:35:22
Yeah.
00:35:25 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And that positive, you know team ethos or do you fill it with an ******* potentially and dilute your culture and your brand and and everything that goes with it. And so for me that's another good you know litmus test we have and another one of these statements or sayings as you like, but you know it's a good.
00:35:45 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, it's a good litmus test as, as I said, you know what hole or an ******* are they gonna be more Buffalo and be the right.
00:35:51 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Person you want in the trench next to you.
00:35:53 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. It's, it's, it's fascinating. I could end up literally talking about kind of stoicism and this, this sort of approach in business.
00:36:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, for for next, next hour or so, but I I realise that obviously people come to listen to for kind of marketing and branding stuff, so I'll, I'll, I'll kind of steer us.
00:36:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Back what they don't wanna just hear us.
00:36:13 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Waffle on for?
00:36:14 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
An hour of rubbish.
00:36:17
Sorry everyone listening.
00:36:21 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Anyone listening? We had the job, at least at the beginning.
00:36:21
No.
00:36:24 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's double the double the audience. What? So I'm trying to. I mean, I'm just said like, how? How was the, how has the company kind of changed its tactics over there since you sat in 2016, you know? And it it was.
00:36:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Probably you and Amanda, I don't know. Marketing on on LinkedIn or raising awareness on LinkedIn or through in, you know, person to person meetings or like, was there anything else? Did you, did you find kind of any other avenues which were good for, you know, for help growing that organic awareness cause obviously marketing it is, you know, it's difficult at first, isn't it, you know what to do?
00:36:53 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah.
00:36:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I mean completely, you've got to adapt, don't you? You've got to, you know, stand out in the ever changing marketplace. You know, we talked about drones. Drones have been very useful to show our scale as we've grown. And, you know, the increasing size of projects we've.
00:37:09 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And delivering, you know. So actually to show that capacity like you know, we drones as well, we also a lot of what I try to focus is how you integrate renewables into the built environment in a seamless and aesthetic aesthetically considered manner. No one wants to see garish on the panels adorning the landscape or on buildings. So it's trying to show.
00:37:29 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Symmetry or or what? That potential beauty in the eye beholder can look like. You know by considering the acid aesthetics and how.
00:37:35
Yeah.
00:37:36 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
We deploy so, but you know for us as well and how we adapt and change out I guess is you know talking in numbers, naming and tagging products, brands, people reaching out, you know all of those things that help that reach and push it out and the numbers associate.
00:37:50 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So that you're talking about partnerships, sorry.
00:37:53 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, I mean, it's all, it's all a partnership. It's yeah. And that's with suppliers, clients, teams, you know, whoever it may be, it's it's ongoing partnerships at every.
00:37:54 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Is that that?
00:37:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
For.
00:38:00
Yeah.
00:38:02 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Level we've really tried to leverage the people, planet profit. You know the business with purpose. And you know what we do here is purposeful, but it's built from a passion in, in its business with, you know, purpose, passionate, purpose, whatever you wanna call it. You know, it leads back to be equal. We're an ISO accredited business. You know, that's given us the sort of.
00:38:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:23 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Global kite mark of quality if you like.
00:38:26 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And you know.
00:38:26 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:38:26 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And it's making sure we're continuing to be at the fore of quality in the market.
00:38:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
We've also saw partnerships on the media side from, you know, global manufacturing companies we work with. You know, the likes of Tesla and Solar Edge and Q cells, all these big global brands and how we support them in the UK. We've been fortunate to do quite a bit of work increasingly on TV, struck up a good relationship with.
00:38:51 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Sarah Beaney several years ago and do a lot more work supporting her now. And I mean we're we're sort of talking, talking most weeks about this, that another or a new project or what we're looking out for and so supporting her and what she does on you know the renewable.
00:39:05 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And you know, being a sort of sustainability consultant, if you like for her and her work has been great. And I think that's obviously been a a very good channel. You know, the armed forces covenant and making sure that we're tied back into the military environment and, you know, the Veterans network has been really important Chambers of Commerce and pushing out in the region there, low carbon development group.
00:39:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Here.
00:39:28 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, along with, you know, going back to our work with, you know, reduce our carbon or, yeah, agroforestry stoves impacting community, you know, on the frontline of climate change it it's just been really important for us to move with the times, but also making sure our work is meaningful and you know is purposeful.
00:39:38
Yeah.
00:39:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:39:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and all of that.
00:39:49 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, comes back to.
00:39:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, I guess it does seem very well to the next question in terms of what do you think of what do you see as the the main challenges for trying to grow as a start up in terms of in this current climate, it's obviously the post pandemic, the the cost of living crisis you know would would you say to a startup say focus on partnerships first or focus on their social media?
00:40:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Or, you know, kind of how would what would be your advice for them?
00:40:17 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The honest problem or the the challenge, and I guess the honest answer is you gotta do all of them.
00:40:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
In in.
00:40:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It's the the A A the age-old analogy of, you know, throwing muck at a wall and seeing what sticks, you know, in the beginning you have to be everything to all people. You know, you don't necessarily where you think your product might fit or your service might fit, might not resonate with your client.
00:40:43 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Place, but actually it might create an opportunity elsewhere, so you've kind of got to be a little bit of a all things to all people. I guess you've got to do all of it, which is a challenge and I think.
00:40:44
Yes.
00:40:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, in setting up a business, founding a business, becoming an entrepreneur, whatever you want to call it, the reality is it's so consuming. And again there's, you know, couple of interesting people, you know, on your social media, in the realms, who talk about these things. And the reality is it's not easy and there's not a work life balance.
00:41:16 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I'd be lying if I said in the early days there's a work life balance. You know, people seem to want to run a business that fits in with their.
00:41:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
They're great.
00:41:24 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know what? What they want to do and you know all of these things, and I say my business is vocational. Right. And and it is because for me, I've tried to make it vocational. One of the biggest things I I talk about as well is I never want anyone who works with us to have Sunday scaries, you know, no one should be here going to work on a Monday on a Sunday, let alone throughout the weekend.
00:41:44 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And so, you know, I want it to be something people can find vocational. And it's something that we believe in and it's therefore a positive environment. But, you know, actually the reality is it takes a lot of hard work and if it's something you're passionate about, then that's wonderful because.
00:42:01 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, I say to my clients, you know, and the team my phone is on 24 hours a day, you know, and it is, you know, one of the guys, Rick Paul, Poor guy, broke down the other week, you know, on a Friday night, broke down driving back from someone with a trailer. And, you know, we're still on the phone at 12, one in the morning, you know, having a chat, you know, checking alright and just.
00:42:21 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Shooting, shooting the ****, I guess because you know you gotta be there for everyone. And I never turn my phone off, and I probably hold Christmas dearly for this because actually, Christmas is the one time of the year where I can turn my.
00:42:23
Yeah.
00:42:34 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Turn off and actually have a proper break. The rest of the time. My phones on holiday, wherever it is, because the reality is you're constantly on and you've got to be everywhere. And if you're founding a business or setting it up, it's you that's front and centre of it. I think one of the the best bits of advice I would give to someone early is you as the founder.
00:42:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:55 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Become the problem in the business for a lot of circumstances because you are the block or the barrier, and I think a plan to remove the owner manager from every decision, be that with delegated authority or empowerment, is something really important, you know to put.
00:43:06 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, I agree.
00:43:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Place and you know that goes back to the the, you know, the the notion around hire people who are better than you, especially in your areas of weakness. Yeah. And if you can hire people better than you and you trust implicitly, then fantastic, you know, they can get on with it. But, you know, we've also looked at things like, you know, the Kaizen approach and continuous improvement.
00:43:32 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and again, Kaisen eyes is another one of those terms we use across the business and we recognise people for how do we make this better? How do we do what we're doing more efficiently, more effectively? All of these things that in an early stage, you need to look for continual refinement because you're never gonna get it right from the start and you're constantly.
00:43:52 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, trying to turn the wheel to get there. I remember once. I remember it vividly. Actually, I was in Newcastle ahead of a mate from Sanders wedding and there was a magazine photo and a magazine.
00:44:03 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And it was. And it was one of these. Not a map, but a sort of comedy cartoon if.
00:44:08 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You like sketch?
00:44:09 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And it was it said something like life of the entrepreneur or something, and the guy had run through every brick, wall, head first, smashing every wall, and he was on, I don't know, let's call it 30 wall #38. And by wall 39.
00:44:23 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It's slouched down and it's gone. I'm out. I'm done. But behind that wall was was the pot of gold.
00:44:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah. And I think the point is there's a lot of brick walls. You're gonna have to run through to get there. Yeah. There's gonna be a lot of pain along the way. And, you know, talk about the scars, the bruises, you know, warts and all that you have. You know, there's gonna be weeks where you're like, I just need this over. So you've also got to embrace the the highs because.
00:44:36
Yes.
00:44:47
Yeah.
00:44:50 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know when the highs and those great moments come, they're there to celebrate and champion. We just had a a summer festival party, if you like. A few weeks ago for the.
00:44:58 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Team loose loosely linked around me turning 40, but we had a it was a great opportunity to have a big party.
00:45:05 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
For the team.
00:45:05 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And it was wonderful. We called it the festival of success just to celebrate where we were and all we've achieved. But yeah, I mean how, you know, challenges. Yeah, there's so many cash flow systems, chaotic workflows, noise.
00:45:20 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, it's all of those things, but I think you've got to go where your customers are. You know, that's the thing. Go find your customers in their natural habitat because you know that's where they're probably most relaxed and and bring order to the chaos as early as possible and expand the net far and wide and, you know, continue to refine it.
00:45:36 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yay.
00:45:39 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, if you're going fishing, you never. You might have a hunch with a fish are, but you know, in fishing, they're probably where you least expect them. So be prepared to pull in your Nets and take them elsewhere.
00:45:50 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, it's interesting that you say, actually use metaphors because we use in the creative sector. We use a metaphor of like catching a wave where sometimes you can sit in one place, you know, thinking the waves are gonna come and then actually realise you're you're actually miles off and, you know, and obviously, then you've got to paddle to get to actually where the where, where you see the waves are. But.
00:46:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's it's so funny that you hear the same kind of across all the sectors. You hear the same thing.
00:46:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, is that you? You got to be very general at first. You then got to niche down when you see an interest or kind of like a a bite or wave and and then and then kind of work to to kind of reduce those pain points for the, you know, for that that sector you're serving.
00:46:30 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah, we all have the same problems, don't we? We all go through the same things no matter what industry you're in, no matter what you're doing, everyone has the same challenges, problems, risks, and all of those. And it it's trying to spread yourselves around to understand those and how we can mitigate them. But you know, the other thing I think that comes from all of.
00:46:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:46:47 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It is, you know, whether you call it leadership or, you know, being the founder. It's a lonely place.
00:46:56 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Great. Yeah.
00:46:56 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It it's a lonely place and there's a lot of soul searching and late nights. Oh my God. Am I doing the right thing here? What's going on? How do I improve? What do I do? Yeah. And, you know, sometimes all we can do is do our best and you know, hope that.
00:47:11 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Our best is.
00:47:12 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Good enough. But actually by doing our best and trying to do it with a degree of educated planning and decision making.
00:47:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Can certainly improve chances of success.
00:47:21 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, mate.
00:47:22 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Well, I I guess before before I let you get on to to start your day's work. Have you got any any final words or advice for for startups in, you know, in what they're doing in their growth? Any. Yeah. Any Nuggets for them?
00:47:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Right. Where do we go with this? Look at the whole journey. The upward trajectory is there. So look at the whole journey and where it may take you.
00:47:50 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And plan for the best, but plan to fail. I think the the military you know, always taught us to remember it. Send us the seven question estimate. How can the situation change and as part of that there's always a. So what question So what or I might have to do this. So what might have to do that and you create a series of actions on.
00:48:10 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I think we were always told no. No plan survives contact.
00:48:13 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
With the enemy, and I think that's as true as it is in business or any walk of life, no matter what you plan. Be that with children business. Well, your personal life, your best laid plans don't go the way you want them. So be prepared to go on a for tangent and have a series of actions on. But look at that whole journey.
00:48:14 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:48:33 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know and understand where it might go because you know there's an upward trajectory to be realised.
00:48:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:40 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
I think the other thing is I don't know if you've come across Brené Brown.
00:48:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes. Yeah, good does some really great quotes, isn't she?
00:48:46 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Yeah.
00:48:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
She's great and her podcasts are brilliant and and one of the things I really like is she talks about taking advice from people, getting their ***** kicked in the arena. And, you know, we we often talk about, you know, that famous comment of the man stepping into the arena and it, you know, and it's about stepping into the arena.
00:48:58 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:49:07 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
You know, and that in some ways is the biggest challenge, isn't it? Taking those steps and take, you know, if you wanna follow your dream or your visions go and actually, you know, seizing that opportunity and putting yourself out there and stepping into.
00:49:18 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
The arena. But the reality is there's a lot of other people getting their ***** kicked in the arena, you know, so take advice, learn from people's mistakes, learn from people's.
00:49:26 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Success.
00:49:27 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
It's all there to be realised and it's all great stuff because ultimately knowledge is power and you know, experience is what we draw upon in everyday.
00:49:38 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Decisions whatever we're doing.
00:49:41 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
And I suppose the last one would be remiss of me not to say, but be more Buffalo.
00:49:48 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Head towards the storm, take it on and you'll be on the other side in the sunny green pastures. New before you know it. So yeah, be more Buffalo. That is my final part in common.
00:49:48
What is this?
00:50:02 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Brilliantly on that. On that note, we'll we'll finish it there. Thank you so much for for the insights on your on your journey, mate.
00:50:08 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's been fantastic.
00:50:09 Nick Spicer, former Army Infantry officer turned disaster responder and founder of Your Eco, a B-Corp accredited company that delivers renewable energy installation services in the new build and retrofit markets both in the UK and internationally
Cheers mate. As always, lovely talking to you and yeah, catch up with you soon.
00:50:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It was really great chatting to Nick and hearing his fascinating story of how he grew.
00:50:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Your eco.
00:50:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You want to hear more about his brand? Check out the accounts and links below and we'll see you next time.
