The TPM Podcast The TPM Podcast

This week podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Alex Tatham, Managing Director at Westcoast Limited.

“Be the leader you would want to follow”

Today we hear about the Alex’s journey and how it lead him to be the Managing Director at the UK largest IT company Westcoast Limited. Starting off working his way up to a senior management level in accountancy at Ernst & Young. The main objective that was given to Alex at Westcoast, was to grow the business to £4 billion pound, starting at £600 million. Such an extraordinary task required tremendous amounts of effort, wisdom and determination. In the episode you will hear exactly how he took on that challenge and how he and the staff at Westcoast have been operating to achieve it. (There has roughly been an 800% grown over the 12 years Alex Tatham has been Managing Director!).

“what are your opinions on a 4 day working week… well I want a 6 day week!”

Alex mentions one of his regrets is not getting into sales sooner, since he was in accountancy before. Whilst he admits his days at Ernest and Young were great Alex reveals his true career path in life was always working in sales. Sean and Alex also discuss the current affairs surrounding Covid-19 and “Freedom Day”, now everybody is faced with something new to fear, being “pinged” by NHS Track and Trace. We also speak on the inequalities there are within the IT service industry and how Westcoast Limited are removing those stigmas and changing the norms in the industry, especially in regard to the woman- man ratio within the “The Channel”.

From servicing 5 machines a day to 5,000. We take a look at Westcoasts exponential growth and how being a privately owned business with good finance has helped expand the business massively. In today’s episode we see find out about Alex’s views on working from home, hearing that he would rather people be in office to create the energy for high levels of productivity as well as interacting and enjoying speaking to staff. Mentioning bell ringing after any big success has been temporarily stopped because of Covid-19. Alex goes on to give us an inside view on what life is like at Westcoast, discovering there isn’t a “open door policy” because there aren’t any doors or secluded offices where senior staff work, all the sales team including Alex and Joe sit at their desks in the office with everyone else. Giving employees the opportunity to ask questions and seek support.

(Fun Fact Alex and his wife Sue, are the first ever married couple to come out of the show “Blind Dates”!)

This week podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Steve Phillip Suicide Prevention and Workplace Well-being Advocate and Founder of The Jordan Legacy.

Today’s episode we hear about Steve Phillips experience and The Jordan Legacy Foundation. Listening to his story of the day he had one of the worst calls anyone can possibly get. 4:22 pm, Wednesday December 4th 2019, Steve answered the phone to his Son’s girlfriend crying later informing him that his 34 year old son Jordan took his own life…

“Every 40 seconds someone in the world takes their own life” - World Health Organisation 

Steve later set up The Jordan Legacy with the hopes to achieve 4 main goals 1.To improve the mental health and wellbeing of individuals.

2. To reduce feelings of social isolation and increase community spirit.

3. To improve support structures within organisations to improve staff wellbeing and quality of life.

4. To support a societal change in culture from ‘what you have’ to ‘who you are’ being most important.

Steve now goes to global businesses to help and inform them about how to recognise and tackle bad mental health amongst staff, supporting them with issues regarding wellbeing in the workplace. Even mentioning his talks with architects that design certain buildings in order to prevent suicides from occurring, similar to the nets placed on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

We also mention the British “stiff upper lip” mentality within UK society. When it comes to opening up about failures and personal problems building up affecting our mental health the UK tend to reserve and bottle up their issues. Taking a look at how the UK education system doesn’t give you the correct skills in order for dealing with hardships and failure. This has resulted with many young people being unable to speak their mind and feel comfortable to bring up certain topics to family and friends in later life. Even till today, its still obvious that the new generation of young people are still affected, hearing about the conversations Sean and Steve have both had with younger members of staff, being distraught mentioning they are a “failure” because they haven’t got a sports car, house etc (even though they are only 21). There has been a recent trend on social media, where people are portraying their lives in a warped exaggerated way where the majority see the minority’s Lavished luxurious life and start to think that’s the goal/ the norm.

“50% of mental health issues in adults are formed during their younger years between the ages 7-12”- Steve speaks on how we still have a “Victorian old” education system, in regard to teaching the same curriculum as they did many years ago. Sean and Steve Speak about what they think should also be taught to children in order to help them with tackling issues in life, suggesting if a child’s mental health or trauma can be helped at a young age then there would be a significant reduction of poor mental health cases in adults. Sean also mentions how in the US their culture allows them to seek more help. As suggesting help such as therapy in the UK isn’t always met with an open mind (as stereotypically people in the UK are much more reserved about their feelings and thoughts than the US).

19th July Freedom Day or Fear Day? We hear both Sean and Steve’s opinions on the Covid-19 restrictions being lifted. Talking about how its necessary to get back to normality. For many reasons like the re strengthening the UK’s economy but also in order to allow people to socialise freely, which has proven to be aiding people’s mental health.

This week podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Mark Averill Co- Founder at ‘AV IT Media.

"If England win, I’m giving everyone the day off”- Sean talking about the England vs Germany match and how it was a major win for England.

From talking about internal struggles to past job roles making you feel like you are in a rat race struggle. Hearing about the differences in customers and how they treat you as an individual. Mark reveals when he was working in sales for a BMW garage he had car keys thrown at him, he had ex derby players wives throw tantrums and make immediate demands.

“If you do a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life”

Can you remember the last internal event you attended in person?

Later on down the line we talk about Marks time with The Derby Conference Centre, speaking about Marks hobby and passion for videography and photography becoming his work, mentioning while he was doing Sales at the DCC he spent some time broadening his own network speaking to clients about doing video shoots for them. As Sean and Mark speak about Marks career, they mention how the automotive industry is very close knit allowing him to be in the same network as hundreds of potential clients. Looking at how Covid-19 and the pandemic has made the industry flourish since people cannot go on a holiday abroad, Mark has seen there have been an increase in car sales but is still weary of how long that may last for as we have seen this past two years be extremely unpredictable.

We also hear the a videographers perspective of going to events like weddings and festivals with lots of consumption of alcohol but being the sober camera man watching everything unfold and catching certain situations on film. Mentioning a current topic of Matt Hancock's resignation from Health Minister. 

“We are all living in a world where attention is finite now”

In this episode Sean asks Mark about the challenges of this year and the pandemic, hearing that many events have been postponed or cancelled. Having the potential to really damage Mark’s business, as he recalls April and May this year everything went silent with events and shoots. Since AV IT Media do photo and video shoots at majority of events in the East Midlands we hear about how its effected the business and how its effected Mark. However, its not all doom and gloom, to our surprise its revealed that AV IT Media has grown substantially within the past 6 months with the football back and many events opening back up.

“Our hashtag is lets have it and that’s what we live and breathe by”

Mark and Sean also get into the discussion of schools and the educational system not really teaching children about the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, instead they give you the mindset that you need to work for someone forever, when in reality you have the option of learning a skill or service and create your own business.

Today we also hear about Mark’s daughter, potential future DJ, picking up one of Mark’s old passions when he was a teen and taking it to the next level doing sets at multiple events in front of a 300+ audience. She has also been contacted by Sam Divine to do a song together!

Later on, in the episode we hear get into the debate of the 4 working day week and whether it would work or not. Going over giving people an extra day to recover from work stresses or making the workplace a good environment for everyone to enjoy. Sean speaks on doing the “7 weeks of wellness” where everyday the staff engage at some point throughout the day to do a group task or activity together, Sean argues that incorporating things like this and pre pay day pizza are the little things that any business can do that can have a detrimental effect on staff morale. Giving back to high achieving teams may give them a sense of recognition as well as a brief distraction from work life stress.

This week’s podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Rasmus Vilain Dell EMC Product Manager at Kimbrer Computer.

“Happy employee’s, happy customers”

Growing up in a small village in Denmark, driving around in modified mopeds and cars, to tinkering with IT equipment in a local electronics shack. We hear about Rasmus’s thoughts on the mergers and acquisitions occurring within the IT industry and how it can be positive, as it gives you the opportunity to redevelop relationships with current clients and partners to establish your businesses network. We also hear a lot about the Kimbrer spirit as Rasmus gives us an inside look at how he motivates and elevates his teams, whether its verbal appraisal or treating the office to steak dinners. We also look into the importance of growing your business at a steady pace so the business itself can keep up, as one massive threat to any business is recruiting too many people and expanding so much so it becomes unmanageable, both physically and financially. Rasmus mentions the clients he has turned away, because they wanted to slyly resell refurbished hardware parts and pass them off as brand new.

“if you done what you have always done, you’ll get what you always got”.

We later hear about what Rasmus has to say about work life hearing that finding time for yourself to do the things that energise you so you can go back to work feeling refreshed, such as his passion for motorsport racing and cars. Speaking about his dream life when he retires, heading to the countryside and have a workshop to tinker with cars and suit them up.

This week’s podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Steven Van Belleghem International Keynote Speaker, Author, founder of Nexxworks and partner of Intracto.

“It’s the friction hunting mindset”.

Steven researches the future of customer experience and researching the customer behaviour in the digital world. We begin with hearing Steven’s dream career/ position when he was a teenager, admitting that he aspired to be being the CEO of Disney to turning up to present a talk to a room with one single person in the audience. As well as playing a small part in the Dutch version of Cars 3. We hear the stories of being a keynote speaker, hearing about the demand increase of talks throughout the pandemic virtually. We go through Steven’s 10-year journey in his career with 1250+ keynote speaking presentations done, travelling all over the globe presenting to hundreds of people on stage.  Starting with his professor saying he should be a keynote speaker, once speaking with his parents he decided it was the career for him. Steven recalls his first big international presentation was in New Orleans, but whilst on the plane over he stumbled into a Belgium professor who had a start-up company called “insights consulting” (A online marketing research company). They chatted and drank multiple mini bottles of wine, and by the time the plane landed, Steven secured himself a position in his company, doing research in how people were using the internet (in 2001). This began Steven travelling around the world presenting that market study and the results, gaining more skills and experience.

Years later we hear about how Steven received a call from Microsoft about doing a preshow presentation for Steven Ballmer (who at the time was CEO of Microsoft). Excited for the massive opportunity he came up and presented a talk titled “The Conversation Manager” (talking about how social media changed marketing communications). This was a massive hit with even people at the event speaking about Steven’s presentation, this later became a bestselling book in Europe written by Steven.

In today’s episode, Sean and Steven get into several topics, from scheduling to get things done but also ensuring there is time to spend with the family. We also dive into what makes a good leader. Bringing up Steve Jobs, when he was running one of the most profitable companies (Apple). But does that make him a good leader, we discuss the route through and separate facts from fiction.

We also here about how Covid-19 has affected Steven’s keynote speaking schedule. Initially expecting it was “game over” when Covid-19 put a halt to doing shows/ speaking around the world, however this was not the case… The demand actually grew for keynote speakers through webinars and online video presentations. Steven admits his first webinar he felt uneasy due to the unnatural setting of staring into a web cam presenting without any feedback/reaction from the audience. Mentioning a revelation he made was news presenters speak to a camera in front of millions without a live crowd reaction, and still do a great job, this motivated him to do his best in the first couple months of the pandemic. After his first webinar online, Steven speaks about how he did not know the reaction it would get, to his surprised the virtual webinar presentation was a success. Thus, Steven’s empty week filled up and he was as busy as ever.

This week podcast hosted by Sean Price of Velez Managed Services is with Gary Parson Managing Director of Talk Staff.

“All I need to know is the heartbeat of the organisation still strong”- Sean talking about the importance of positive communication from HR with all staff members.

Today we hear everything about the full-service people agency inside and out. Starting with the very beginning, Gary packing up and moving 100 miles away from his home in Wales to England, Derbyshire and set up Talk Staff. Sean and Gary get into the remote working vs. office debate, which is better? Does it affect productivity levels?

In today’s episode we get into serious topics such as the war with depression, common with many business owners growing their business as Sean and Gary discuss the weight of running a successful business and how the achievement of the business has an indirect butterfly effect on the people in the business. Identifying majority of people’s mental health has worsened throughout the pandemic, seeing many people clutching at virtual meetings to stay sane, Sean mentions how Velez Friday night drinks suddenly became a virtual event through Microsoft teams, because people missed the human interaction so much, he saw people being on a call from 4pm till as late as 2am. We also discuss about Tesla’s Elon Musk announcing he has Asperges, discussing that many of the amazing entrepreneurs and businessmen and women may have mental disorders.

We also get into the topic of a business culture, looking at the importance of your workplace being a positive environment regarding poor reviews left on glass door from ex-employees. Questioning whether it is a reflection of the business or if the individual had a bad experience.