Liz Allan [00:00:01]:
So on today's episode, I have got Chris Bingham, and he's from he's the CEO of Greenarc. God. Let me get my teeth. I've got a podcast producer who knows that I sometimes fluff at the beginning. Tom, I fluffed again, so I'm going to start. Is it is it GreenArt Limited or GreenArc and it's GreenAct Limited, isn't it?
Chris Bingham [00:00:21]:
Yeah. So GreenArc dotcom is what we'll be using, but that's fine. GreenArc Limited is fine.
Liz Allan [00:00:26]:
Right. Okay. I shall start again. So on on today's episode, I've got Chris Bingham, and he is the CEO of Greenarc Limited. Now he's actually based in my old home hometown of Halifax, which always gets me really excited. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for joining me. It's it's brilliant to have you on here.
Chris Bingham [00:00:48]:
My pleasure. Good morning to you.
Liz Allan [00:00:50]:
So you've also you are also the chairman of Crags Energy Group and the CEO of LCM Environmental, and we've just been having a chat before we started recording. How many businesses do you actually run?
Chris Bingham [00:01:03]:
So in terms of my day to day, Green 80, 90% of my focus. I'm also chairman, as you rightly say, of LCM and the Cracks Energy, and they're run by Some fabulous management teams who are far better than me at winning businesses anyway. And, yeah. So
Liz Allan [00:01:22]:
Harmony. Come on.
Chris Bingham [00:01:23]:
If you look
Liz Allan [00:01:23]:
at the 15. Only 10
Chris Bingham [00:01:25]:
or 15 companies. I've I've got a various interest in, but, but, but, yeah, I learned some time ago that as an entrepreneur, when a business reaches a certain certain size, the person that was good at getting it started is often the thing that holds it back, So I keep out of the way. So I bring in really talented people to run them for me, and then I go on to the next thing that's exciting and new.
Liz Allan [00:01:47]:
But that's good hate. That's the main thing, isn't it? If you recognize these things, if you recognize that, then and you know you've got good people involved, then they'll let they'll, you know, they'll run with it, and it's been your brainchild. But, yeah, you just step back a bit.
Chris Bingham [00:02:00]:
Do you know what? The honestly, the most fulfilling thing about running a business is He's he's having an idea, a kind of an ethereal picture in your head. Mhmm.
Liz Allan [00:02:09]:
And
Chris Bingham [00:02:09]:
then you start it,
Liz Allan [00:02:11]:
and
Chris Bingham [00:02:11]:
it's It's it's always difficult. Every business have started. Every business we've got involved in has been difficult. It's hard work. It seems so slow to start, then Then it starts to pick up pace. And then very quickly, you realize that you you you've got to find the high quality people, Better people than you. And, if you do if you don't, then I think most businesses kind of plateau. So I think for me and it's it's a it's a learned thing I've learned over the years.
Chris Bingham [00:02:41]:
You you the problem is you can't hire those great people, start because you can't afford them. So most businesses re there's lots of fairly day to day basic work needs to happen, and the founders got it up themselves. The then there is a point when you can start to bring people in and and and I think if I've got a talent, as well as having come some sort of ability to see where things are going, it's Finding really great people, and I've got a team around me that are exceptional, far better than I am. And I say that people people think I'm being Kind of, you know, I'm not really they're really nuts. It looks better than me. And, Yeah. That's why the business is thriving because of them, not me.
Liz Allan [00:03:20]:
Bless you. Well, hey. If you can admit that, that's brilliant. But let's start off with just saying, what does Greenock do? You do lots of things, don't you?
Chris Bingham [00:03:29]:
Greenocks, I'll give you the, the full answer. Our role in life is to ease the world's transition To clean energy. So we have a, a bunch of customers, across the group who have been buying Various oil services and oil related products from us for the past more than past decade, and our job is to starting with them, Help them transition from setting fire to, in essence, fossil fuels and move down the journey towards cleaner energy. Help them understand where they are, what their own journey is, and then help facilitate that journey and help them derisk it, I suppose, as as we go.
Liz Allan [00:04:11]:
And on your website so I'm gonna just read a little bit of this on your website, and you are the only ones that I've ever seen. So please contact me if you've got one of these. But there's a manifesto on the Greenark website, which is greenark.com. And it says heat, light, transport, power. Humankind has created a few things more transformative, emotional generators of comfort, safety, connections, and progress, the pillars upon which We have built modern life, the raw materials of which increasingly threaten it. Coal, oil, and natural gas still working their shift, getting their hands dirty and doing their bit. Now it's time for us to do ours, and that's only part of the manifesto. So if you're listening and watching this, I really suggest that you have a look at this because that itself.
Liz Allan [00:04:59]:
That's what actually brought me to I I I do do quite a bit of research when I'm looking, you know, when I'm I know that I'm gonna speak to somebody. But actually, that's what made you stand out, Chris. Looking looking at your manifesto, it's talking about, you know, life's dependent on you know, lives are dependent on it and so do lively livelihoods, and it's just so pertinent, so important. What made you what made you do that?
Chris Bingham [00:05:26]:
Well, actually, when we when we came up with the concept of Greenock as a business, and it and it We took 2 of the businesses that we already owned and amalgamated them and rebranded them as Greenock to become our our our platform to pivot away from the oil industry. What What became clear was if we we talked about trust before we came on air. If we're going to help customers, we're gonna guide customers through this journey. Most of my customers, it doesn't matter whether they're consumers, whether they're businesses, are totally and utterly befuddled by all of the noise out there about the the terms of degree. Not helped, I should say, by, you know, various authorities chopping and changing their mind.
Liz Allan [00:06:10]:
Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:06:10]:
And so So so it's quite daunting for customers. So therefore, the only way, realistically, we're going to be able to be credible in this space is if we can generate trust. And therefore and and this is an environment where there's a lot of greenwashing and a lot of people saying one thing and doing another. So therefore, It became evident and clear to me. I needed to have a brand, a platform that people engage with, on and credit generated trust. More than just transactional, yeah, we we sell stuff, we buy stuff. So I actually approached, An old university friend of mine who also went to Sheffield Poly as did Okay. And she runs she's a A very successful marketing now with Versace, run her own PR business.
Chris Bingham [00:07:00]:
She now runs a business that that, in essence, creates brand platforms. Now Hu and I did marketing together when we're at university. I didn't know what she was talking about. So she sat me down and took me through the process of if you're gonna do this, you gotta go through it's a quite a big process. The output or one of the outputs is the manifesto. And, actually, what you just read out is the script for a film that we just had produced,
Liz Allan [00:07:23]:
which
Chris Bingham [00:07:23]:
is about a minute and a half long. And we agreed it needed to be not quite Hollywood, but it needed to be really high production quality. And powerful. Because it because he's got to trigger emotions in people, not just transactions. If you think about the great brands, they all have a an An emotional resonance, and that's what we're trying to build. But to do that, you've then got to operate in a certain way. You can't You can't go out to the world to say we're gonna do the right things. We're gonna help you, and then behave in a different way.
Chris Bingham [00:07:56]:
It it it it you very, very quickly found out. So for us, it's been an important part of sets setting out who we are internally as well as externally. That manifesto is there as a I think, Kelly is my, ex uni colleague who wrote it for us and her team. It's a North Star. It reminds us what we're trying to do. And if we find ourselves veering off the path, then we it can bring us back To make sure that we we we stay focused on what we're trying to achieve.
Liz Allan [00:08:23]:
It's it's really just that just reading it is really powerful. And like I say, I I think I think it's something that more businesses, if they're not doing it, need to do because it's more than just a paragraph on your website, isn't it? Or a little, you know, sign up in your in your office saying this is what we wanna do. This is what you've done is you've written something that's that means something.
Chris Bingham [00:08:48]:
It does. And it's not. It wasn't a simple process. It it wasn't something we just sat around in a few coffees and thought about it. There was a lot of Work went into the wording. One of the things that that, the guys who built it for us and helped us kind of develop it is Don't just take bits of it. It works as a manifesto. So don't my marketing team were desperate to chop it up and throw it on Twitter.
Chris Bingham [00:09:11]:
No. You can't. It has to Stan, which is why the the film's so important because it in effect, that is the voice over. What you just read is the voice over. And the image is amazing. The music's amazing, and And it just captures people's imagination. So, yeah, the film's not been released as of now. Well, we're now into October, but, it's coming out within the next couple of weeks.
Chris Bingham [00:09:30]:
I will, I I would it's worth a watch.
Liz Allan [00:09:33]:
I will definitely definitely watch that. So so we were talking before we started recording about the size of companies that you're helping. You're easing them over to decarbonization. So so predominantly, you originally were working in kind of the in the oil sector, weren't you, as it were. How how did you decide to pivot, and how do you I know you've kind of said it, but how do you pivot other companies and ease them over like you were saying. What do you have to do to do that?
Chris Bingham [00:10:06]:
So what let me What triggered us first? So as well as the oil businesses, which we have 3 groups, we also my wife and I run a commercial property business. And about when we first started one of the, services companies in oil, we also started doing solar installs because it seems this is back in 2010, 2011. It seems sensible to me that if we're selling oil, if we then sold solar panels, this is the commercials, we could reduce the amount of all the customers need, but that seemed a good thing. And just as we're getting up to speed, we did quite a few in stores. The government completely changed policy around feeding tariffs, and it literally chopped the knees out of that industry. And I was in the room in Birmingham when the minister announced the change in the in the rules, and there was visual horror around the room as that entire business model it was terrible to see thousands of business were bust. It was at that point, I decided I wasn't going to invest my money into an industry that was so Exposed to a political win.
Liz Allan [00:11:11]:
Yes.
Chris Bingham [00:11:11]:
And and largely kept out of it for a few years. What I did do, however, was implement it myself from my own property business. So we installed a bucket of solar panels. We installed, Biomass pellet boilers, a pair of big ones, big commercial ones. We put air source pumps in. We bought some hybrid cars. We bought some electric cars. Partly to figure out what it was all about.
Chris Bingham [00:11:32]:
And I've always believed that's the best way. It's just just go and do it yourself and figure out what the what I didn't do was have a plan. I did it literally by the same just writing checks and just buying stuff. So I didn't sit and look at our stock point. I didn't measure where we didn't measure the impact. I just literally did a load of stuff, which is a bit embarrassing. I'm I'm supposed to be good at running businesses, and I should know that if you're gonna make an investment, it should have an investment case. It should have a set of measures, set of criteria.
Chris Bingham [00:12:03]:
We didn't do any of that. The consequence of not having a plan was of the projects were really successful by luck, and some were terrible. I mean, we wouldn't have known. So the solar panels actually worked true, and the biomass boilers were an absolute car crash. I mean, they were tearing them out because it was just they were horrific to to to operate Expense wise and and practical wise, what it taught me was, if you're a business and you're gonna invest in green stuff, You should never be doing it for the wrong reasons. You shouldn't be doing it for because it looks good, or I think I ought to. That's that's not a justification for expenditure. And any any CFO or FD worth the soul will throw you out of the room if you came in with that proposition.
Chris Bingham [00:12:48]:
So what you have to do, This is where this is our starting point as a business is is understand where you're starting from. So you need to do a piece of Carbon accountancy for want for a better term, where you understand where where your start point is. Then you need to understand what your motivations are, why you're doing this, What is the business case for these investments? And then you need to set projects that can deliver those those returns. And I would I became ever more of the view probably 2014, 2015. What became clear is we built Quite a considerable, array of businesses all predominantly in the oil and, services of products. But if I didn't pivot, they had a shelf life. You know, by 2,000 or 2015, the direction of travel had become pretty clear. We knew where we were going.
Chris Bingham [00:13:40]:
Nets it was 8 it was still the Paris conference, accord at the time, but What then became net zero. And I was trying to figure out how do I take an oil bill or 3 oil businesses And pivot them into green for that term. And the conclusion I came to was there are things we could do Around all distribution, so we're now one of the largest HVO suppliers of in fuel, which is a fossil free, diesel alternative. We do a huge amount of work outside of the oil industry in our services business, but the business that really entered itself was what is now Greenock, Which is a which was which was a a fuel card and a a a a brokerage business for fuel UK wide. And that lent itself to being one that I could utterly transformed into being a business, a a way of taking customers on that journey.
Liz Allan [00:14:31]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:14:32]:
So we undertook to we ended up selling the fuel distribution business to the Staff, so we call it an employee trust. So we created a trust which the staff are beneficiaries off, and that's over time, they then get to keep all the profits, which is great. The, the services business is run by a complete separate CEO who runs that. I'm I'm thankful for that. It's Fantastic business. And my time and the other guy's time that's spent on on Greenock. And what we're trying to do is, If we if we look at when you talked about the 3 markets before, so I see the market for the green transition in 3 sides. The people spending almost all the money today, so October 23, are corporates and public sector.
Liz Allan [00:15:16]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:15:16]:
They have the money. They have the, incentives. They're being told by and large to do it, and they're doing it. That's where the vast majority of spend is. And the people that are engaged are the large, consortium houses, big players, and that's largely what's happening. The the commercial SME space, if you like, which is huge, Is now starting the last 12, 18 months to start to need to invest almost exclusively. The reason they're investing is that their large corporate supply chain I'm mandating it.
Liz Allan [00:15:48]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:15:48]:
We talked about this for a year 18 months ago. You could take a a contract for public sector, Took a few boxes to say, yeah. Yeah. We're doing we're doing green stuff. Yeah. Don't worry. And that would be enough. Over the last 12, 18 months, that's changed.
Chris Bingham [00:16:02]:
So what we're seeing now is You have to have a very clearly defined, strategy for decarbonization if you want to play in that space. So, consequently, a lot of our customers are now coming towards going, we we need a plan. We need something that will stand up scrutiny of a of a of a corporate or a public To buy, can you help us put something together that's coherent and and and demonstrable? And and that's what we do. Our 3rd sector, which is the domestic homeowners, which we have a lot of because of our oil business, the amount being spent is tiny in comparison. Now it may look like there's lots of solar panels on roofs, but there are 30,000,000 homes and a tiny portion of those are currently going down the green room. And that's actually slowing if anything at the moment due to cost of credit, cost of living generally. So the hotspot for me is in that SME space. They're the people that have got an incentive to to invest into into green.
Chris Bingham [00:17:00]:
They need to understand it. The individual decisions are pretty complicated, but there's a lot of them. There's a lot of factors take into account. And my my mantra to my customers is don't just rush in and buy stuff like I did. Don't just throw a green stuff at the wall because you'll waste an inordinate amount of in of investment. And that's particularly in this marketplace, in this time Is is a tragedy. So be clear about what we're doing. Have a plan.
Chris Bingham [00:17:27]:
Understand what your starting point is. And then if you want us to, we'll help you on that journey. We'll Take you down the route to electric cars and solar panels and batteries and heat pumps and and whatever else is needed to get you to wherever you you wanna be.
Liz Allan [00:17:40]:
I love the fact that you are we talked about that we gave we talked about the word entrepreneur, and I kind of think of myself as an entrepreneur, but you are definitely You are would you call yourself a serial entrepreneur?
Chris Bingham [00:17:53]:
Yes. In this in this on the notice before, that the higher educated you are in business, statistically, the less likely you are to start a business because you know that the odds are unbelievably stacked against you. And as someone that did a business degree out of my wife with we think we've probably started 50 or 20 businesses over the last 20 years. This that says something about us that we, You know, what were we thinking? I but I also think about to my point before. I think the reason that So the word entrepreneur, when I when I was so I'm in my early fifties. It was always a slightly kind of dubious word when I was younger.
Liz Allan [00:18:32]:
Was it?
Chris Bingham [00:18:33]:
Before to this world before the kind of it became a popular thing. An entrepreneur was or a businessman was slightly slightly spiffy. And, Well, as I think now, it's it's it's quite a you know, people I I've I've won entrepreneur of the year awards, the Halifax career awards, that kind of stuff, and it's very yeah. It's it's I'm I'm very proud of that. I think the thing that differentiates entrepreneurs from Well, I've got proper business people. I'm not very good at winning businesses. Absolutely. It's absolutely true.
Chris Bingham [00:19:06]:
I'm I'm good at starting them. I'm good at I'm good at seeing them where it could be, and I'm quite good at selling the vision to other people. And that's the key thing is getting those people on board.
Liz Allan [00:19:14]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:19:15]:
I I can't I I do very little on my own as my staff will tell you. But, you know, what what how do you get those people in that have got the ability to execute the plans, deliver the plans? And, Fortunately, I have 200 people around me that are really good, and and I think that's been the secret, which is why I'm a senior entrepreneur because It gets to a certain size, and then I back away. Right. Sometimes I sold them. In the in the past, I sold businesses because I was no longer, You very quickly go from being the the thing that turbocharges the business because the anchor, the albatross.
Liz Allan [00:19:47]:
Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:19:48]:
And that's quite an important thing to recognize, I think, as entrepreneurs is is well, at which point is does your show's life end? And then either get out or get other people in. Either way, keep just keep up the way.
Liz Allan [00:19:59]:
But where does it stem from? Is it does it is it from is it from the fact that, when you met many when you met your wife, I mean, it must or or was it something were you one of these so I'd say so my my nephew was, started kind of Washing Cast for money when he was about 13. Do you know what I mean? And things like that. You know? Are you are you kinda and he's definitely an entrepreneur. Would you say that yours was yours was that long ago, or was it when you met her?
Chris Bingham [00:20:27]:
Always been fascinated by by I didn't realize it at the time, but I actually find biz building business quite a creative thing.
Liz Allan [00:20:37]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:20:37]:
Like, world's worst Artist, painter. Tell me. Play a bit of piano, play a little bit music. But for me, my creativeness is in this bit. Took me a long time to realize that. So I think I've always had this this desire to build stuff,
Liz Allan [00:20:54]:
and
Chris Bingham [00:20:54]:
this is
Liz Allan [00:20:54]:
the way
Chris Bingham [00:20:54]:
I could do it. It It is true meeting my wife was a was pivotal because she came from a very entrepreneurial background. My parents, to be fair, run their own businesses. So I suppose I've always been around small businesses, family owned businesses. And then I but my first job As a student at Sheffield Poly, was with Hewlett Packard, down the road. And I remember walking into their Their offices, which at the time was brand new at any corner, and it was like walking into a spaceship. Very sadly, recently knocked out, but it's now old and clunky. But in the in the early nineties, it was like walking into you you know when they when you when they, Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, they walk in it, And it's just and I saw that's what's like what it's like for me working into a business environment.
Chris Bingham [00:21:41]:
And I'd spent most of my life kind of going through the motions a little bit, whether it was at School or is it in, in my university? I was always I was always kind of middle of the pack. I was a little familiar. I didn't I didn't really I never felt the need to be the best at anything. I never wanted to be bottom either. The moment I walked into work, I worked into a work environment, a sales environment that I knew nothing about, it It was intoxicating. And from that day on, I was driven to be the best I could be. I always because I got into a job in sales after that, And I love the sales job because I think I'm fundamentally lazy or difficult to motivate, should we say. And so the great thing about being in sales is that every single year, the clock gets zeroed.
Chris Bingham [00:22:23]:
In fact, every single month, the clock gets zeroed.
Liz Allan [00:22:25]:
It's not
Chris Bingham [00:22:26]:
getting I found that Really freeing. And I always want to be the top of the list. And I think that that brought out the drive in me. So I think The worst thing my wife will I'm sure confirm this is true. I'm I'm at my worst when I'm not when I'm not busy or there's no stress or there's no There's no kind of jeopardy around. I need a little bit of risk to get me going, which is why when the businesses are kind of built, I lose interest, just because I can no longer doesn't feel scary to anyone. I need to be in an area that's a little bit chaotic and a bit, Nobody's quite sure what's going on, which you're not meant to be around.
Liz Allan [00:23:08]:
She's obviously put up with it for a while.
Chris Bingham [00:23:10]:
She's yeah. So I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll told this story before, but when we first got together and we kinda sat and said, I want we wanna be in life. And we said, oh, we wanna we wanna But a farmhouse in the middle of the the malls, which we have, and I wanna have lots of children, which we have, 3 children, and we're gonna build businesses. As you said, this Just I'm I'm up for it. There are 2 rules. I'm like, okay. We've got rules. That's fair enough.
Chris Bingham [00:23:33]:
Rule number 1, you can't put the house, our family home, on the line for our businesses. 2, you can't become an MP, Which was a bit left field. Okay? I'm I do like politics, but I'm completely non party political. I have no interest story about politics. Should I ask I just I know what you like. I I don't need to get my girlfriend. Anyway, I can tell you over the 20 years, one of those 2, I've actually stuck 2, which is I've never become an MP. We have put the house on the line probably 8 or 10 times because, ultimately, to start a business is the only security you've got.
Liz Allan [00:24:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:24:13]:
I actually I did it with her knowledge, by the way. It wasn't just something I didn't didn't tell her. So but I think that's the That's the bit that most people don't appreciate. You know, I've got friends whose businesses have failed. It's catastrophic when that happens, And it happens lots of time.
Liz Allan [00:24:29]:
Mhmm. And a couple
Chris Bingham [00:24:29]:
of them obviously, something like 1 in 3 businesses fails in the 1st year.
Liz Allan [00:24:33]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:24:33]:
The ones that survive, 1 in 3 of those A dead end of 3. So 50% of businesses don't make 3 years.
Liz Allan [00:24:39]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:24:39]:
So if you're gonna start 15, 20 businesses, the compound probability of one of those going is quite high. So I would manage not to, but but when it just go wrong, it is awful. And every single business we have started Has gone through a dreadful patch without fail. Whether it was her children's nursery, which was very successful, but had its tough times, all of our businesses have. And I think the key thing about entrepreneurs, the ones that ultimately go on and build these businesses, Is that they just stick at it.
Liz Allan [00:25:15]:
Mhmm. And
Chris Bingham [00:25:15]:
that persevere, that willingness just to keep going. And then all something always seems to come up, but it's hard. And the implications of it going wrong are awful. And I think bringing it back to the green kind of the businesses that are in this green space now, one of the things that worries me Is that partly because of political shenanigans and change of parties and change of policies? There's a whole raft Brilliant young businesses out there who were totally dependent on a market they can sell to. That market keeps shifting a little bit. Same thing we saw back in 2010, 11 when the feeding towers were chopped with no notice at all. And we see it again now with changes in policies. Let's be honest.
Chris Bingham [00:25:55]:
If we end up with a different government come the early part of 2025, all those policies could change again. Yeah. I think it can change between now and then as as the politicians Chop and change, and what have you. If you're a small green business desperately keen to grow, but almost always running out cash, you need something you can build against. And I think there's gonna be a lot of damage done to those fledgling businesses because they don't have a market that's that's that's Being managed in a way they can actually prosper. That's great, Shay, and to our detriment as a country.
Liz Allan [00:26:27]:
I totally agree with you. But how so in that case, If you if you're in this kind of market, which, you know, people that I talk to, we are you know, everybody is. Is it about keeping on pith you know, looking at things and pivoting or having, you you know, multiple fingers in multiple pies. Do you think it's that?
Chris Bingham [00:26:50]:
I think well, inevitably, there'll be winners and losers, and that's that is a good thing. Yeah. Generally speaking, the market is awash with EV charger points. K. If you go to any of the events, you'll just see a load of them. Nothing can't survive. They're just they're just not not enough differentiation between them. I agree.
Chris Bingham [00:27:09]:
So they've got to figure out what differentiates them from the other people selling a 7.4.
Liz Allan [00:27:15]:
Yeah. Their USP.
Chris Bingham [00:27:16]:
Exactly. And so for us, as Greenock, that was all about the manifesto. It was all about how we position ourselves. It was all about how we operate. They've got to do the same thing. I do think that the businesses that are best able to survive the next, let's say, 5 years. So I think it's gonna be 5 years before A lot of these these industries kinda crystallize and start to become business as usual. The way we decided to do it is we have underneath Greenock, There is a fuel car business and a fuel distribution business.
Chris Bingham [00:27:50]:
We still sell diesel transits as well as electric transits. What it gives us is a constant revenue stream and a natural hedge so that it doesn't matter to me too much how fast My customers go. The ones that as they move, I'll just sell them different things. So That that's my strategy is have fingers in pies, have something that is naturally a hedge against total exposure to green. That's not always possible, but I think that's important. And then I think the whole entrepreneurial willingness just just to keep going.
Liz Allan [00:28:26]:
I think
Chris Bingham [00:28:26]:
a lot of the companies that survive will be owned and managed by people who are stubborn. Bloody minded. That's what it takes. If I look at the people that I know that have succeeded, they typically have a I don't know how I'm gonna fix this. It's just gonna well, I'm gonna fix it somehow.
Liz Allan [00:28:43]:
Just gonna keep going.
Chris Bingham [00:28:44]:
Just keep going. I know we Yeah. Having our early days, my wife and I.
Liz Allan [00:28:48]:
You know,
Chris Bingham [00:28:48]:
there have been times when we've had credit cards Maxed out. We have literally no wiggle room at all. We were hanging on by a thread. Somehow, you just keep going.
Liz Allan [00:28:58]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:28:58]:
And then, Hopefully, it doesn't always.
Liz Allan [00:29:00]:
And and
Chris Bingham [00:29:01]:
the same way it doesn't, it can be catastrophic
Liz Allan [00:29:03]:
for
Chris Bingham [00:29:03]:
families and marriages and all that kind of stuff. But but I think that's what what the winners will be. Yes. The ones with the best product, but not always. The ones that understand their customers, the ones that are able to cut their cloth accordingly, The ones don't go too soon, a lot of it is look. That's the other thing. Mhmm. We talked before about entrepreneurs and Anyone that runs a business that doesn't recognize that look is a major factor for everybody, whether it's, you know, Apple or Amazon or my business or anybody else's business, look is always a factor.
Chris Bingham [00:29:40]:
Now, yeah, you can you can help by Grabbing luck when it comes along and making the most of it, but you there are brilliant businesses by brilliant people who just got the timing wrong.
Liz Allan [00:29:51]:
Yeah. That's
Chris Bingham [00:29:52]:
what happens. Right? And Adapt this. And it's obviously a.
Liz Allan [00:29:59]:
Give it a second.
Chris Bingham [00:30:10]:
So I've just been told it's alright. There's no.
Liz Allan [00:30:15]:
Tell him you'll have to cut that last bit out. I've got that was hilarious.
Chris Bingham [00:30:21]:
Just to hold my notifications, I didn't think to turn on the firewall. God. Sorry, Troy.
Liz Allan [00:30:27]:
And I've just laughed so much. I dribbled all down my face, which is clever, ain't it? Oh my goodness. So it is it is about being at the right place at the right time, isn't it, Business.
Chris Bingham [00:30:40]:
And I think it is. And and I think all I'm saying is I think that it's important that we as entrepreneurs and businesses have a level of Recognition, and I'm humble enough to say that we may have been successful. Look has always played a part. And so so I think the green business that will survive will be the ones that are the good products, the ones that are differentiated, the ones that Potentially have secondary streams of revenue that can keep them alive. And it may not be glorious. It may not be sexy. It may not be where you wanna be, but sometimes You've gotta keep the wages flowing. You gotta keep the back bill being paid.
Chris Bingham [00:31:14]:
You gotta keep the ramp paid. And and I think having some form of secondary income stream, Particularly that's different to your core business is is key. I had a software business 2003, 2010, and it took us Almost all the time the business was alive to create the software. Meanwhile, we did some fairly, well, I would consider, bog standard telemarketing services for other companies Just to keep us alive.
Liz Allan [00:31:39]:
Yes.
Chris Bingham [00:31:40]:
That wasn't when we were sold ever wanted the software, but it took us 3, 4 years to build the software. And in that time, we had to have a what some might consider to be a boring, boring income stream. That was a great business, but but it wasn't what Credit
Liz Allan [00:31:56]:
value.
Chris Bingham [00:31:56]:
So I think sometimes you've gotta be you've gotta be to compromise. You've got to be able to flex, bend, react, and and that's difficult. And Difficult.
Liz Allan [00:32:07]:
I I was gonna no. No. No. I was gonna say it. And and just and spot the things that you need to do to make your business better as well. He's so so my my background is is kind of in business improvement, and it's really difficult in in kinda I I you know, this is being honest to people listening and watching as well. You know? It's really difficult kind of trying to get get people interested. Because if you talk about improvement, it makes it sound like You are telling somebody that they're not doing something right.
Liz Allan [00:32:43]:
And, actually, it's it's not that. I suppose in in a way, it is. But majority of it is about saying, right. Okay. What you're doing is great, but what you need to do is look a little bit further afield because and and, you know, you need to be looking at things slightly differently. Because if you don't because I've I've I've noticed this a lot with the kind of the the green sector as it was. You're calling it. I'm gonna go with that, you know, the phrase.
Liz Allan [00:33:15]:
So decarbonization sector. That everybody is so into pushing forwards, marketing, marketing, marketing, selling, selling, selling, selling, tenders, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, that actually I've even had somebody say to me, you know, we've not got time to kind of look. We've gotta look forwards. But, actually, if you don't look sideways, both ways, then you might find something that bites you on the bum. You know
Chris Bingham [00:33:44]:
I also think that it would protect the manifesto. That was brought to us or to the concepts were brought to us by external experts Who knew knew more about that than I did.
Liz Allan [00:33:55]:
Mhmm. And
Chris Bingham [00:33:55]:
I think, again, there's a there's a need for a level of humbleness within owners that they you don't know everything. And what are the downsides, particularly for smaller businesses? And this is the thing I found much harder when we were smaller, Well, as the owner, you tend to hear what you want to hear because people tend to tell you what you want to hear.
Liz Allan [00:34:16]:
Yeah. So, consequently,
Chris Bingham [00:34:17]:
no one's holding you to account. Whereas if you pay somebody externally to come in, they're they're coming in to tell you that they're they're they're not you know, you don't you don't employ them. And I think that's one of the big challenges of of small business owner management is how do you break the The omnipotent power of the OLEC and influence. And I've shown this in the past, you know, I'm I'm very positive. I'm I can't be overbearing, believe it or not. Again, my staff will confirm that, I'm sure. So so, actually, the people I value the very most, And I've now got a whole team of them who basically will tell me
Liz Allan [00:34:56]:
no. Yes. Exactly.
Chris Bingham [00:34:59]:
Oh, actually, Chris, we didn't do this. Do you know? So so and I think that's where the external support and advice comes is is something with a different set of eyes that That isn't isn't sitting there and elevates the the cold face going, just think about this and this and this and this sort of stuff. Are people that reject that? I don't know. We don't we we're the experts of what we're doing. Really? Are you?
Liz Allan [00:35:23]:
You can't tell. Honestly, so I've worked I've worked Cross. Since I lived in Halifax on, you know, I said to you earlier, I moved down in 95. I worked with lots of sectors and lots lots of businesses, and there is no business that I've worked with that wasn't wasn't perfect. Do you know what I mean? There's always imperfections. And and and you're right. And I think it goes back to what you said earlier about that word trust. Mhmm.
Liz Allan [00:35:47]:
You know? It's about trust internally trusting your staff, but also trusting that somebody else externally will come in and be honest and not just not just be honest, you know, because so so even you've talked about pivoting. I mean, I'm kind of pivoting currently. So from from sort of improvement on the training side to back to what I was doing originally, which is kind of consultancy, which has that kind of another connotation when you say Consult, and he's like, oh, give me your watch, and I'll tell you what the time is. And that's not what it's about. It's more about kind of support support services, but it's about, you know, companies trusting that they can bring somebody in externally to look internally and and actually not be there to just grab your money, you know, to be they'll they'll be there to support you in the you know, that's what I'm trying to do. I want to support companies moving forward in the same way that you do, but it is it's you've gotta be, open enough to that, haven't you?
Chris Bingham [00:36:48]:
Yeah. But you gotta and I also think the way that the consultants deliver it. Yeah. One of the reasons that the the, you know, the idea of giving the watch, I tell you the time, is because too many consumers do that.
Liz Allan [00:37:01]:
Yeah. I know.
Chris Bingham [00:37:02]:
To go back to my trust thing, actually, you know, we spent an inordinate amount of money creating the whole brand platform piece. I knew I was working with absolute professionals that I trusted, partly helped by the fact I knew one of the 2 owners. Mhmm. And, but it was a big leap for us, a big leap of faith. We we we we've spent more on that marketing concept for what's still a rare to small business compared to anything I've ever spent before across by the businesses. But I knew I needed to do it, and I knew I needed someone I trusted to help me do it. So so I think the key thing is that that whoever's bringing into the business has to have that trust Of the owner or whoever's paying for the work. And then but also the people receiving it have got to embrace it.
Chris Bingham [00:37:44]:
Now to be fair, my guys did completely, which is really important. But I think it's very difficult. We obviously, we're doing consultancy in the form of Carbon Accounting Consortium. Yes. And, you know, my my general line to my customers is you can do this yourself if you wish. Yeah. It's not that difficult, but you've got nobody in your organization that's qualified to do it or has done it before.
Liz Allan [00:38:06]:
How do
Chris Bingham [00:38:06]:
you know that's right?
Liz Allan [00:38:07]:
What's the
Chris Bingham [00:38:07]:
point doing it? It's getting me wrong. It will be cheaper and the upfront to do it yourself. But, actually, for relatively small cost, I can guarantee to do it properly And we got plan out at the end of it. So I think that's the thing is I also think when people have a good experience of consultancy, They're much more willing to do it again. I think part of the problem is there are too many, watch merchants out there What that does in the same way that it's it's it's a, again, a parallel issue, I think, in the green Industries is that people selling a green solution because that's what they sell.
Liz Allan [00:38:46]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:38:46]:
I I sell solar panels. You need solar panels. You know, the looks for looks for a nail. That is the wrong way around. That is that's putting the car forward. So it should be What is your what where are you? What's your need? What's your requirements? And then helping them understand what that that is. Yeah. So
Liz Allan [00:39:08]:
No. It's good. Like I say, I think it sounds to me like the level of trust that you're building within your especially like you're saying about with the SMEs because because of the fact that, the major like you said about them before we were recording, you know, the majority of money is is going into into big corporates, isn't it? And so they're investing in ASG and everything. But you've but the number of of of SMEs is massive in the UK anyway, isn't it? So so that's that's
Chris Bingham [00:39:40]:
Do You know what? There are only I'm sure this is right. I'm creeping from there's only 2,000 companies in the UK with more than a 1000 employees. Tandem. Corporates are tiny in the in the proportion of organizations in
Liz Allan [00:39:53]:
Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:39:54]:
UK. And then you've got 6,000,000 ish Small businesses. Now a lot of those are single traders and so
Liz Allan [00:40:00]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:40:00]:
I'm talking about gargantuan numbers compared to corporates. It's just that the corporates are very big, And they have a lot of influence, and and they're also driven by different factors. So if you are if I was the chief executive PLC, god forbid. I've got to adhere to my investors' ESG requirements, which is why I'm doing it. I've got to do it. Legally, I've got to do it. I've got my choice. If I'm the chief exec of a a business that provides catering services into hospitals, for instance, I'm a regional player.
Chris Bingham [00:40:31]:
The reason I'm doing it is my my primary care trust that are contracting me are making me do it. It's a different set of different set of requirements, But if every bit is real. Mhmm. And if I don't have those those things in place, I won't win any business. I think it's only just becoming we're still in the early early stages of adoption within the SME space. Yeah. Hence, to me, that's exciting because I know there's confusion. I know there's, you know, lots of people doing stuff not necessarily for the right reasons.
Chris Bingham [00:41:05]:
And they might be doing the right thing, they may not. And so my again, my big driver is to say, slow down. Look at it. Understand it. Relate it back to your business. Stop doing stuff because you think it's the right thing to do. Yeah. Terrible, terrible reason for doing stuff.
Chris Bingham [00:41:20]:
So as a consultant, that's what I'm saying to people It's look. Just measure it
Liz Allan [00:41:25]:
And gone.
Chris Bingham [00:41:26]:
On that, tie up the strategy, then crack on and invest. And you know and you know you do the right thing that you're gonna get the returns.
Liz Allan [00:41:33]:
Do you think that that your have your SMEs started wobbling a bit more since the since the kind of the u-turn, you know, recently with the with the government with regards to kind of the manufacturing Petrol and Diesel Cars. Because I know you so you've got Greenark Vehicles, haven't you as well? But, obviously, you're involved in EV charging as one of one of the parts, haven't Do have you noticed any of the any of the SMEs starting to rethink it again and going, oh, well, we've got an extra 5 years, so maybe I won't do it quite like this way.
Chris Bingham [00:42:07]:
No. I actually see that more and more in the domestic homeowner space.
Liz Allan [00:42:12]:
Right.
Chris Bingham [00:42:13]:
Largely, the people that are doing it in In the business environment that committed to it. So the big one is doing it. So that hasn't changed. I think in terms of the announcement, The the the the petrol to diesel so petrol to hybrid thing is largely a red herring because they didn't actually change the, percentage of vehicles that the manufacturers have got to produce. So by 2030, manufacturers have got to produce 80% of their vehicles as electric anyway. So It was frankly, I think, political rhetoric more than Yeah. Change. And the reality is the majority of manufacturers in the European market We're building around the EU, which is 2035 anyway.
Chris Bingham [00:42:52]:
So
Liz Allan [00:42:53]:
I
Chris Bingham [00:42:53]:
think it was more worrying, I think it sends out a message which is far off the gas, which may have looked at the right thing, but it's it's constantly chopping and changing. So I go back to being a pragmatist. I don't. It doesn't matter to me so much what the what the policy is. I just need it to be fixed, and then we can work out it. What whatever it is, we'll deliver. But stop chopping and changing it, and it's gonna chop and change again between now and the election and probably again after the election. So I think where it It changes sentiment more.
Chris Bingham [00:43:26]:
It's in that domestic, you know, but, actually, it's just a tiny market. The number of people buying electric cars Privately is a tiny number that's shrinking. A lot of people that are putting electric cars into businesses is a chunkier number that's growing. Yeah. And it's great because of people needing to have coherent strategies and wanting to retain their staff and give their staff The benefits are the tax benefits, but the vast reason that people are buying electric cars because of the tax benefit on the benefit card. That's what's trying to get. You know, the people that are doing it because it's the nice thing to do, you can count on one
Liz Allan [00:44:04]:
hand. Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:44:04]:
Doesn't mean they exist today, and they're absolutely right to do that. That's what I'll do. And I think that's what's driving a lot of the private car acquisition, but it's tiny. It's it's it's not even a rounding error in the bigger scheme of things. And so until the until that moves into the domestic space and we start seeing more more carrot stick, I don't think there'll be a huge change in that space.
Liz Allan [00:44:31]:
Yeah. So what what would you like to see happen over the next kind of 5, 10 years then.
Chris Bingham [00:44:38]:
I think the big the biggest blocker To the migration, to the transition is itself, actually well, there's a number. 1 will be we're woefully short of skills, And that's gonna be all acute. Part of the problem is a lot of the skills are trade based skills. And Over the last, well, 50 odd years I've been alive, the trade just basically kept has been a a fairly stable environment. Mhmm. So The apprenticeships traditional apprenticeships where a plumber or a PT engineer would have a a a a an apprentice work with, and then they get, That's fine. We need a massive increase in skills. We need a massive increase in in numbers.
Chris Bingham [00:45:22]:
That model no longer works. So we've got to come up with an answer for mass apprenticeships. That that means corporate involvement. That means new businesses putting investment into getting High levels of skills and retraining the the the, the workforce that are there. Getting people much more comfortable with software. And So so it's a it's a very different, mindset. So I think skills is a huge issue. The second issue, I think the biggest one possibly is the inability of our large institutions around energy distribution.
Chris Bingham [00:45:57]:
So that's National Grid and all of the The DNOs, the old electricity boards, we knew them, who managed the networks for us, they still work like public utilities. And so I know you have the grid surf chief exec kind of a few weeks ago. I've heard him, you know, Kind of berate the fact that they got a load of grid surcharges sat in service stations wrapped in in strip in shrimp because he's got enough power to drive them, which is insane.
Liz Allan [00:46:28]:
Yes. It is. Totally.
Chris Bingham [00:46:29]:
And that that was gonna get worse, a lot better. So that the only thing that's gonna change that is political will. Yeah. So everything comes back to ultimately the willingness of Whichever political party is in power at any one given time, being willing to give an absolute clear steer to everybody involved that this is the direction we're going in. At the moment, we've not got that. I'm not convinced necessarily, by the way, assuming there's a change in government, which seems to be likely based on the polls, compared to 2025. I don't know how how more willing they're gonna be to tackle some of these enormous issues.
Liz Allan [00:47:05]:
Mean it. Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:47:06]:
Right. The long term and and, unfortunately, The systems that we're working are not long term mindsets, and energy is just one example of a lack of long term planning
Liz Allan [00:47:17]:
and thinking.
Chris Bingham [00:47:18]:
We end up with Short termism. Well, that's not that's what will hold us back, and I think we're gonna see more and more more and more frustrations as people, Particularly, you start getting on to mass domestic take up. People suddenly find that they can't have an electric charger at home Because the grid around their housing estate is already maxed out. Yes.
Liz Allan [00:47:38]:
Now that
Chris Bingham [00:47:39]:
that will happen. You know? Unless there's a massive shift in mindset in the In the in the infrastructure, that's gonna become a problem. We're only seeing it at the high end. That's gonna get worse as it as it grows. And that's That's a problem for me. So it will all come down to political will. We need clarity. We need long term planning that we can all work to and invest in.
Chris Bingham [00:47:59]:
We don't need knee jerk. We don't need I don't actually care what the policy is. As I said to you before, I'm not an evangelist for green. I can't because then I'm not That breaks with the trust. I'm there to help my customers on their journey.
Liz Allan [00:48:11]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:48:12]:
It really helped me if I could see where the road map was gonna be and and not have, You know, political chop chopping and changing, which then makes it very, very difficult for all of us to to figure out stuff.
Liz Allan [00:48:23]:
Yeah. I was I was listening to, I don't know, another podcast, Diary of a CEO, where and it was, they were talking about, short termism on there and and kind of how how it was actually, creating mass massive issues, but and I I'm not I would never say I've never ever said I've been a political person in my life, but, Actually, some of the some of the, things that have happened over the last few months few years have kind of bothered me a lot, especially being living in a house where I'm married to a professor of climate science. Do you know what I mean? It it makes it makes me kind of Yeah. That's that's a whole another conversation for us here. You know?
Chris Bingham [00:49:06]:
Take take the party policy out of it. The the reality is we have the same problem with, and And it and it's happened over multiple generations that I've been, you know, looking at how politics works. This There's just a short window that any politicians got to to implement bad news to create upside.
Liz Allan [00:49:25]:
Mhmm. That how can you
Chris Bingham [00:49:27]:
get social care, health service, Education, military security, power, because they all involve long term investments that your you as a politician who signs a check won't get the benefit for. Worse, your opposition might get the benefit for.
Liz Allan [00:49:44]:
Mhmm. Now
Chris Bingham [00:49:44]:
we all know this is true, but So that's what worries me is how do we, with the systems we've got in place now, make investments in in long term networks, whether it be nuclear power, whether would be offshore wind, inshore wind, solar. Whatever it's gonna be, we're gonna have to make those investments as a nation because otherwise, we cannot Decarbonize the grid. So the current policy of the government is that we'll decarbonize the grid by 2035. Gotta tell you, from what all I read, that It's a really big challenge. Really big challenge. Because we're not making this decision. We haven't made decisions in the last decade to support that shift. I think the current, Labor policies to pull up forward to 2030, I can see no way, based on everything I see, that that is In any way credible.
Chris Bingham [00:50:29]:
I think they have to run back on it because that's where we're now. End of 2023, so that's 6 years away. Well, if you think about what needs to be done to remove the 40 odd percent of energy that's created by gas, which is what it means, They're just not tough. These things just take too long to build. And we're getting grid grid limited, all that kind of stuff.
Liz Allan [00:50:50]:
So So
Chris Bingham [00:50:50]:
I think that's the biggest single challenge we have as a nation, and and it can't be any different. I'm not as I'm afraid of other countries, but But, you know, I think it's a a perpetual problem we've got, which is that's gonna hold us back. That's gonna slow us down and frustrate people that want to make that move.
Liz Allan [00:51:07]:
From what from what I understand because I've I've also interviewed, Graham Cooper who used to work for National Grid, and he's now over in the States. But from what I understand, The state's, grid connection is is probably on it's in a more difficult situation than we you know, than we are in the UK.
Chris Bingham [00:51:27]:
So in the last, what, 2 months, I've been South Korea, and I've been to America and Canada. And Particularly America and Canada are, if not 5, 10 years behind in general sentiment. You know, you I I would it would different in California, but I was in the northeast. You walk into you sit in any any town, and all you see is thousands of f 150 pickup trucks, v eights.
Liz Allan [00:51:53]:
And
Chris Bingham [00:51:53]:
you realize how far how how far we've come in terms of our change of attitude towards electric cars and And and Greener Technology. They are a long way behind. So I you know? And I suspect if this is perfectly possible, we end up with a Republican, in the White House in early 25, which is next month's June. That could slow down even further. So Yeah. I I you know, they're they're the sort of macroeconomic things that, are will affect us. It's gonna affect sentiment. It's gonna affect the ability of of of the global network to be able to make these changes.
Chris Bingham [00:52:30]:
Yeah. It's it's I've never felt so insecure about that level of stuff. It's never really mattered. For most of the time I've been working, Kind of geopolitical stuff has largely not been that much a factor.
Liz Allan [00:52:44]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:52:44]:
Now it is. Mhmm. Not almost all of the technology that we're implementing for the green transition is Out of China. If for some reason that's broken, if for some reason China stops shipping us certain powers electric cars, that's it. Nothing grinds to halt. Literally, goes to halt. There's and we saw this during COVID. You know, we couldn't ship an electric car for the best part of the year.
Chris Bingham [00:53:05]:
Yeah. Why? Because they won't be made because components weren't being made. We've had impact from the Ukraine war. I don't doubt there'll be impact at some point from the issues in, In Israel and and in Gaza. So all of that's bubbling away. It's affecting oil prices. It's affecting confidence, sentiment, inflation, all these things. That that they're all, you know, macro things that we as business people could do nothing about other than be aware of it and just keep keep an eye out.
Liz Allan [00:53:31]:
Eye on it. Yeah.
Chris Bingham [00:53:32]:
Affect us.
Liz Allan [00:53:33]:
Yeah. Exactly. So just to finish off then, if people are interested in who would Who would you like to speak who would you like to speak to about what you're providing at Greenark? Who are your, the comp you know, the companies that you would ideally like to speak to, and where would they be?
Chris Bingham [00:53:54]:
So anywhere in the UK. Mhmm. I think there are 2 main strategic drivers that I see because it's true of my own business. The two reasons that I see people wanting to To invest significant sums into this journey are people that are that need to do it because to drive business. So they've got customers in supply chains where they're being told me that now all very soon, you're gonna have to have a credible Green transition plan that's measurable and provable and not just tick box, tick box, tick box. So businesses that have got that need, I can help them with that, or my team can. All people that are looking to and the other area where we are investing heavily is in Bring electric cars because of the tax benefits
Liz Allan [00:54:41]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:54:41]:
Into businesses that probably don't have any company cars right now, But I've got a bunch of relatively well paid high taxpayers. So we're doing a lot of works with lawyers and accountants and architects and, you know, that kind of stuff, where, Actually, having an electric car is as close to a financial no brainer. The reason it's important for the business As opposed to individual, is it's a way to attract talent. That's why we do it. Why do I have why do I run a scheme? I've got 35 electric cars in the car park outside, because it's a way of me attracting the brightest talent that I can get my hands on.
Liz Allan [00:55:20]:
Yeah. And it's
Chris Bingham [00:55:21]:
it's it's it's only part of a of a package, but it's It's you know, we've got people here that have got, you know, a brand new a lot of the Chinese cars that are coming in a much, much better priced, there's one called a funky cat.
Liz Allan [00:55:34]:
Yeah. The aura.
Chris Bingham [00:55:35]:
But they're absolutely price point wise. They're applicable to loads more people than I still don't think you could justify 1 privately because without a tax breaks, they're hard to justify. But with the tax breaks, they're amazing. So people that are looking for, support would help to provide that sort of benefit to their staff or someone who wants to understand their journey. I mean, fundamentally, Our job is to go into a business, sit them down, take them through a process of saying, where are you now? Help them understand their journey and then come up with a bunch of projects that can move them down that line.
Liz Allan [00:56:12]:
And if you
Chris Bingham [00:56:12]:
wanna work with us, that's great, but if you don't, that's that's That's their choice. And, this is a long term thing. This you know, very few businesses will come to us and Reached the end of their journey in less than probably 4 or 5 years. He's taking that long for a lot of these technologies to to play It's all about where should they be investing their money and why and what the returns are.
Liz Allan [00:56:34]:
Mhmm.
Chris Bingham [00:56:34]:
But it's very much a business driven set of decisions, not a Idealistic investment. Because I don't think that stacks up. People won't do that. People would just pay lip service to it.
Liz Allan [00:56:45]:
Exactly. Tick box exercise. We don't want that, do we? So so where's the best place if people are looking to find you? Where's the best place? Is it through the website?
Chris Bingham [00:56:56]:
Go to greenark.com. In the next week or so or 2 weeks, the the manifesto film will be there in all its glory, when it's been finally signed off and released. And so yeah. That'd be best placed. And and all the contact details are there. Yeah. Just click a link to the team. Phone the team.
Chris Bingham [00:57:11]:
Let us know who you are and where we you know, the one of the things that I'm determined as this is this is a business that will reach out via marketing and messaging. I'm already seeing, you know, external telesales hitting Southern Palace, for instance. It's the complete wrong way about it. It's all about card for, horse before the cards. That's not the model we're trying to do. We're trying to basically go out there and send the messages, Doing things like this, explaining what we do, and ask people to come come to us, and then we'll talk to you. So, you know, that's that's the best way for you to get hold of us.
Liz Allan [00:57:47]:
Brilliant. Okay. So I'll also share any of your social media links and things like that, if that's alright.
Chris Bingham [00:57:54]:
That's brilliant.
Liz Allan [00:57:55]:
Well, listen. It's been really interesting talking to you. I'm just
Chris Bingham [00:57:58]:
Thank you very much.
Liz Allan [00:57:59]:
Yeah. Thank you. No. No. You weren't talking. No. It was good. It was good.
Liz Allan [00:58:05]:
No. Thank you ever so much for your time. Really, really appreciate it. Like I say, I'll share all your links and everything when the podcast goes out live. So Thank you, Chris. And to to everybody else, I'm gonna say I shall see you next time. Goodbye.