Business Growth Isn't About Sales, It's About Empathy | Jason and Nicola Threadgold Funeral Directors Interview Most businesses say their service is what sets them apart. Very few get publicly recognised for it.

Jason and Nicola Threadgold did, in an industry where trust is hard to earn and every family arrives at the worst moment of their lives. In this episode of the Business Growth Podcast, powered by ActionCOACH UK, the husband-and-wife funeral directors explain how they grew from one funeral home to five in 12 years, built a team of 30 and won a customer service award. Their answer is simple and hard to live by: stop selling and start solving people's problems.

What You'll Learn:

- Communication Starts With Listening: Nicola breaks trust down into listening, caring, understanding and going beyond what people expect.

- Be Impeccable With Your Word: Jason explains why doing what you said you'd do, on time, is where trust is won or lost.

- Solve the Problem, Don't Sell the Product: Why every customer arrives with a problem, and why treating it as a challenge to exceed turns clients into lifelong friends.

- Working as a Husband-and-Wife Team: How one comment in the wrong tone taught them to work as equals, not manager and employee.

- Scaling With Research: Census data, age demographics and getting the model right before opening a new location.

- Knock on the Door: How asking owners directly landed them 3 buildings, including one that took nearly a year to come through.

- Cross-Training Your Team: Why everyone learns everyone else's role, and why an administrator has stepped in as a hearse driver.

- The COVID Cashflow Lesson: Why even a funeral business felt the pinch, and why you need to know your numbers inside and out.

For Everyone: Audit the promises your business makes and keep every one of them. Then send one team member to spend a day in another department and see what changes when they come back. Whether you're running a family business, leading a team or planning your next location, this episode shows why care and trust are the foundations of growth. Subscribe for weekly conversations with business owners who've done it.

This episode is sponsored by Yes Foundation UK, helping 12 to 22 year olds build confidence, understand money and develop real entrepreneurial thinking. Find out more at yesfoundation.org.uk.

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Business Vision - From Nursery Fire To Empire | Andy Nimmo Muddy Boots Nurseries Interview Most business owners get so buried in the day to day that they can't see where the business is actually heading. Andy Nimmo built Muddy Boots Nurseries by learning that lesson the hard way, more than once.

Andy co-founded Muddy Boots Nurseries with his wife Anna 15 years ago, starting from a combined household income of £18,000 and a dream of reaching £60,000 a year. Today the business runs multiple sites shaped around outdoor adventure and childcare, after surviving a building budget that ballooned from £450,000 to £1.2 million, a 3am fire that shut a nursery down overnight, and a near-bankruptcy caused by not understanding the difference between profit and cash.

What You'll Learn:

- The £18k To £60k Vision: How a back of a napkin income goal became the founding plan, and why having any clear number beat having none at all.

- Why Vision Gets Bigger As You Grow: How the plan evolved from pure survival to a 10-nursery ambition, using Gino Wickman's Traction and EOS to set a 10-year target.

- Purpose From The Infinite Game: How Simon Sinek's book reframed growth as an ongoing standard to keep raising rather than a race against competitors.

- The £450k Build That Became £1.2m: What happened when the first nursery build blew its budget and nearly got shut down by the bank.

- Profit Versus Cash: How acquiring a second site without understanding profit versus cash nearly bankrupted the business.

- The Five Pillars Of Systemised Growth: Team, customers, quality of care, environments, and finances

- the framework Andy uses to scale.

- The Hire That Changed Everything: Why bringing in a dedicated finance director, years later than he should have, was the most transformational decision Andy made.

- Daily Numbers Beat Annual Numbers: How moving from once-a-year account reviews to daily habits let Andy course-correct before problems became crises.

Whether you're weighing up your first hire, wrestling with cash flow, or trying to work on your business instead of in it, Andy's story is proof that setbacks don't disqualify you from building something exceptional.

Sponsored by YESS Foundation UK: this episode is sponsored by YESS Foundation UK, helping 12 to 22 year olds build confidence, understand money, and develop real entrepreneurial thinking. Find out more at yesfoundation.org.uk.

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Lead Forensics - The Five Building Blocks Behind A $50 Million Business | Henry Braithwaite

Most founders think a big business needs a big city, deep pockets or a genius idea. Henry Braithwaite proves otherwise. In this episode of the Business Growth Podcast, powered by ActionCOACH UK, he breaks down the five building blocks he used to scale a business from zero to $50 million, out of Portsmouth, with no outside investment.

Henry's first business, a student magazine, folded within six months because he and his business partner forgot to sell any advertising. They spent two and a half years in telesales before building a marketing agency that grew to 330 staff and sold in 2017. Henry has spent the 15 years since building Lead Forensics into a business with around 400 staff, roughly $50 million in turnover and about 5,000 clients worldwide.

Henry Braithwaite's Background:

Henry Braithwaite co-founded Lead Forensics, a Portsmouth-based software business now around 400 staff, close to $50 million in turnover and about 5,000 clients across the UK and US, with a plan to reach $100 million next. He built and sold a 330-staff marketing agency in 2017 after cutting his teeth in telesales, and now calls on outside advisors to see what the next stage of growth looks like. Four of his team have been with the business for 20 years, and 60 for over a decade.

f You Haven't Started: List every lead channel your business could use and test each one properly before ruling it out. Write down the playbook for your busiest process so it doesn't live only in your head.

If You're Already Scaling: Set a three to five year target, break it into a 12-month plan, quarterly goals and weekly actions, and run a short weekly all-hands so nobody spends a week working on the wrong thing.

For Everyone: Coach your team on self-management and clean to-do lists, and build a culture where problems get reported the moment they're spotted.

Whether you're finding your first customers or working out what comes after $50 million, Henry's five building blocks apply at every stage. Subscribe for weekly conversations with the entrepreneurs building the UK's best businesses.

Powered By ActionCOACH Business Coaching: The Help You Need to Grow Your Business:

https://business.actioncoach.co.uk/

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