#12 Liam Toms: How Grapevine Became Employee-Owned and Found Its Voice Again

In this episode of Stake & Soul, Barry speaks with Liam Toms, Communications and Engagement Manager at Grapevine, the Dorset-based managed IT and telecoms provider that transitioned to 100 percent employee ownership via an Employee Ownership Trust in March 2023. Two and a half years later, Grapevine was named EO Rising Star of the Year at the 2025 UK Employee Ownership Awards.

Liam talks about coming into Grapevine from a marketing and academic background, what the EO transition actually felt like from the inside, the imperfect path of building governance, a Co-Owner Charter and a comms rhythm that works, and the things he tried that didn't land first time round.

What's covered in this episode:

• How Grapevine evolved from a 1991 mobile reseller into a B2B telecoms business, then a merged IT and telecoms provider, and why a trade sale was rejected in favour of EO.
• Liam's unusual route in via Bournemouth University and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership, and why feeling like an outsider initially helped him during the transition.
• The communication of the EO announcement itself, the shift from a board of five directors to two, and how an Employee Forum became an unintended training ground for future senior leaders.
• The evolution of governance at Grapevine: a Trust Board with a rotating founder seat, an external trustee, an employee representative, the disbanded forum, and the open question of what comes next as Financial Freedom Day approaches.
• The tension between paying larger profit shares and reinvesting in headcount, working patterns and team wellbeing once the deferred consideration is paid off.
• How Liam reinvented internal comms, from a weekly Monday email to a browser homepage progress bar tracking the deferred consideration payoff.
• Bella from Salad's advice that has stayed with him: "you need to do things differently for people to realise that something has changed."
• The creation of the Co-Owner Charter, inspired in part by Rubicon's house rules, and why it sits closer to a contract people make with themselves than a company policy.
• The deliberate language shift to "co-owners" everywhere, the short-lived but useful "we includes me" reminder, and why language matters more than it first appears.
• The peaks and troughs of three financial years post-transition, the surprise uptick in inbound enquiries, and the question of what story Grapevine tells once EO itself becomes "wallpaper."
• The uncomfortable but honest reflection on the colleagues who may never fully embrace EO, and why that is not a reason to stop doing the right thing.

Quickfire highlights:

• Employee ownership is: empowering.
• Biggest EO surprise: the community, and how generously people share without expecting something back.
• Book (sort of) recommendation: You Are The Media by Mark Masters, a newsletter and community Liam credits with reshaping how he thinks about marketing and audience.
• Confessional: a moment of honesty about the first couple of years at Grapevine, when the company was changing faster than he could keep up with, and the long road from "drowning" to finding where he could contribute best.

Barry and Liam also touch on transaction, transition and transformation as three distinct phases of an EO journey, and why the last one only really becomes visible looking back.

Disclaimer:

The following podcast is intended to be of a general nature, will not be suitable for everyone, and should not be treated as a specific recommendation. We recommend taking professional advice before entering into any obligation or transaction.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, my name is Barry Vaughner, and I'm your host on today's episode of Stake and Soul, the podcast that's dedicated to demystifying the world of employee ownership. Stake refers not just to the financial or beneficial ownership, but also to the vested interest, the sense of responsibility, and the feeling of belonging that comes with being an employee owner. Soul is all about company culture, the values, the shared purpose, and the human connection that are amplified and shaped by employee ownership. Seoul is the company's silent language. Join us for series one as we sit down with business leaders and CEOs who have successfully navigated their journey to employee ownership. It is my pleasure to introduce to you today Liam Tom's Communications and Engagement Manager at Grapevine. Based in Dorset, Grapevine has spent over 30 years evolving from a mobile provider to a full-scale managed IT and telecom service provider. However, its most significant transformation occurred in March 2023 when the company transitioned to 100% employee-owned via an employee ownership trust. This move was so successful that Grapevine was recently named the EO Rising Star of the Year at the 2025 UK Ownership Awards. Well done for that. Liam, I'm sure we'll come on to that in a minute. As the founders approach retirement, they faced the classic dilemma: sell to a large trade sale buyer or find a different path. They feared that a trade sale would lead to consolidation, the erosion of their unique culture, and the potential loss of long-term staff, some of whom had been with the company for over 25 years. Pete, one of their founders, said, for Grapefine, becoming an employee ownership trust just felt like the right thing to do. And EOT offered the opportunity for long-term stability and for the company's values to continue for the years to come. So, Liam, welcome to Stay Console. Great to have you with me today.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Thank you, Barry. You've had some fantastic guests on the show so far. So, yeah, very honoured uh that you've taken the opportunity to include us in this.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Great to have you winning that uh uh amazing award. So, as a um communications company, I guess today we'll dig in a little bit into the communications. What does good communication look like in a in an EO business? It'd be good to talk about that and engagement as well. But before we do that, just an opportunity really to hear a little bit about Grapevine. How did the company start? Uh, your specific role, um, yeah, what what do you do? And then we'll move on and talk a little bit about what precipitated the change. Obviously, in the introduction I've just read out, there was a a number of um options that probably the directors at the time looked at, but it'd be good to just hear from your perspective the the Grapevine journey, when you joined and what you do as a business.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

So we're about to turn 35 uh as a business. Um I'm not sure we've got time to cover all 35 years today, so I'll give you the condensed version. Uh Grapevine started in 1991, uh, around the time that mobile phones were becoming a more uh common commodity, both in business and in the consumer market. And uh Brian, who founded the company and then brought Pete on board, uh, had had some experience in the mobile industry as it was was coming up through his infancy and decided to start his own business, uh, which became Grapevine. Now that ran for about, I guess, 10 years through the 90s, as mobile was becoming more of a prominent thing. Uh, and then they realized that there was a bit of a change going on in that sector, and that a lot of the networks were actually planning to open their own retail stores. So Brian and Pete sold the chain that we had built up across the South and Southwest and decided to go more predominantly B2B. Uh, and that didn't really need the on the high street um front shop window for uh for businesses. So uh obviously there was a there was a big cost saving there um with that. Uh so yeah, moved more into the B2B space, then over the I guess the next 10 years got closer towards the um the advent of um cloud telephony uh and and VoIP phone systems, so it became a more broad sort of holistic telecoms provider. And then when I joined the business in uh September 2015, it was about a week before we acquired an IT company. So they could see that the writing was on the wall really in terms of IT and telecoms beginning to merge. So the 10 years that I've been involved in the business that bring us up to where we are today have been very much um merging those two in terms of what we have going on behind the scenes, but also in terms of the offering that we have for our clients, who may be at different stages. Some may still have a legacy IT provider, some may have a legacy telecoms provider, uh, but doing our best to become a one-stop shop for our clients.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Sure. And and you were in academia, I think, before joining Grapefine, is that right? I was. What was your own background, personal background?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

That's how I got to know Grapefine actually. So I uh graduated from Bournemouth University. I did a degree in advertising and marketing communications, as it was back then. And there was an opportunity to uh to come on board in a role about, I guess, a few months after I graduated, to help one of the academic groups there set up a commercial arm to the group there to work with both uh local businesses to provide marketing consultancy for the type of businesses that maybe wouldn't be able to go straight to a marketing agency, may not have those budgets, and may need a little bit of handholding in terms of knowing what it was that they were actually going to ask for in terms of support from a third party. So there was that side of it. At the other end of the scale, we were doing a lot of outsourced uh research coming from uh agencies that were predominantly London-based, uh, that had much bigger clients like ITV, Channel 4, Toyota, Samsung, uh to name a few, who liked the academic perspective that the university could provide. So I had an interesting role because I would be at ITV with their heads of research one day and then on an industrial estate in rural Dorset the next. Uh, but I loved that mix, it was fantastic. And Grapevine were one of the regional clients that I had. Uh, they had had a KTP project previously, which stands for Knowledge Transfer Partnership. So they already had a relationship with the university and were looking to do more once their KTP associate had emigrated to the US. Um, again, I'm probably going into a bit more detail than perhaps your listeners need to hear, but it explains how I came to know Grapevine because um essentially I was doing a lot of um outsourced bits and pieces to help bridge that gap between uh their KTP associate emigrating um and what came next. Uh now I didn't expect that that would be me joining the business, um, but things changed at the university. Uh, there were shiftings of budgets and stuff, and um the opportunity came up to work in-house, which I did initially part-time whilst I was still doing some teaching at Bournemouth University. Uh, and then in 2016, I joined Grapevine full-time because things were beginning to pick up as we'd acquired the IT firm, and there was a bit more um that was required of me at that stage. So I thought, why not give it a go and see? I hadn't had a traditional marketing role at that point, um, other than the marketing that I was doing for the scheme at BU. Um, so yeah, made that made that jump across to Grapevine, still maintaining some good links with the university, uh, still regularly there um today. And yeah, that's that's sort of how I came into working with Grapevine. So it was a it was a really unusual route into the business, and I still for a while sort of saw them as a client more so than as an employer, um, because of that relationship that we'd had previously. But it it gave me a unique dynamic with the team there uh because I felt that I could act somewhat impartially uh because I already had that relationship with them as a business, and I think that probably lent itself quite well when we came to the EO transition, because I still felt as if um Grapefine wasn't uh wasn't mine per se, and that I was um supporting them in what they were attempting to to achieve with the business, and then we we became employee owned, it sort of finally um changed that for me to to feel like I was you know um I had a stake in the business. Um but but I still I still feel um you know uh almost like one cog in the machine rat rather than you know um having total oversight of what's going on there. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And so when when you joined the company, was there any discussion around um the future of the company in terms of succession when the directors were going to step down, any thoughts of um conversations around trade sales and EO? What what was the sort of uh discussions in the early days, and then what led up to the decision to go employ owned in in March 2023?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

I'd say there certainly wasn't when I first joined. Um, Brian had recently retired when I actually came into the the role in-house. I'd known Brian when they first became a client of mine. So I had a bit of a relationship with him, but didn't know him as well as, say, uh James Spinks, who was the um the sales director at that time, and Pete, who was managing director. Um by about 2019-2020, it had reached a point where there was some talk of what the future might look like. You know, we we'd managed to go through that transition of um bringing the IT business on board and and and integrating that team. Um, and then it was a you know, what what where do we go next? What's the next steps on this? Then I think COVID um derailed those uh thoughts um quite massively. Uh and I think as all of us probably felt in March 2020, who knows who of us is going to uh to come out of this either as employees or as businesses? It was just so unclear at that point, wasn't it? So I guess we we got back to a um a sense of normality somewhat, I think, by about 2022. Uh, and then towards the end of 2022, it felt as if a lot of decisions were being put on hold, uh, and it wasn't quite clear why. Um, I began to have some concerns about what may happen. Um, but by very early into 2023, uh, the announcement was made that we were becoming employee-owned, uh, and that was quite a big sigh of relief, actually, um, but also really exciting because I was aware of EO through Salad, who were a client of ours. They'd become EO a couple of years earlier, uh, and it sounded like a really cool thing to do. And a great fit for Grapevine. I just, I don't know why I never expected it was going to happen. Um, and and now we're three years in. It just seemed, it does seem like such a logical fit for us. I think we were quite um well suited to employee ownership in terms of the the nature and the and the culture of the business. Uh, it just I don't know, is someone said to me once that you know things take a long time to happen, and then when they do, they happen really quickly. Uh, you're surprised how quickly it does. And and I'd say that was true with with Grapevine. It it didn't look like anything major was going to happen, and then and then it did.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah. Was there much explanation given to you as the leadership team or as the business as to what why the decision had gone down the way it did in terms of deciding to go down the route of employee ownership as opposed to trade sale? Was that ever formally explained, or was it just almost presented as this is what we've done and this is all the good reasons for doing it?

SPEAKER_02 11:41

A bit of both, I'd say. Um a fair amount of the latter because it was a decision that had been made, um, and they were looking to make the completion uh within a matter of days from when we were told. Uh, but the explanation that was given was you couldn't argue with it, really. Uh, with the, as you as you alluded to in the in the intro, the the number of people that had been with the business for as many years as they had, um, it it just made sense to uh both uh uh secure their futures but also reward them for the amount of time that they put into the business. And and I think at that stage there perhaps wasn't a clear or obvious you know uh option of who could they sell this to in the in the company as individuals. So EO was the was the second best option, I guess, in that respect, in in terms of making sure that it stayed in um safe and familiar hands. Uh I would argue that actually it's the better option, um personally. Um but yeah, I it so it it it I didn't question it at all when we were told. I I was just so excited at that point, really, because I think after a couple of years of probably we all felt a bit like this as marketeers during the pandemic of not really knowing what to say or to who or to what extent because you it was just really hard to know what would land at that time. So I I'd really been treading water, I felt, for a couple of years. So I was sort of rubbing my hands when uh they they taught us about the EO thing. So I was like, this is great, this is like a you know a new chapter for for the business's story, uh, and something for me to go back out to the local business community and further afield to to kind of try and put us back on the map because I think we've fallen off quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Right. And and how did it generally land? Once the news broke, um, did you were you told individually or did um the directors get you all together? How how what was the communication process around the actual announcement and what that meant meant? Because I guess for certain people um they immediately scurry away and start looking at what does it actually mean to become employee-owned? Because it is a is a concept that maybe as the head of communications in the business.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

So we were told individually. I wouldn't say that was the case for everyone in the company, but it may be that some of our frontline teams were told as a group, uh, but I know for a fact that those of us that have been with the company for a fair period of time, and I guess at that stage I've been there for seven or eight years, uh, we were told individually and given the opportunity to ask questions, you know, and sort of had a have an in-depth conversation about it all. My role shifted quite a bit at that stage. I I was on paper marketing manager up until that stage, and and still was uh immediately after the transition. But I was invited to be a part of what then was called our employee forum, uh, which consisted of me, uh, my colleague Donna Fletcher, who'd been with the company since she joined as an apprentice in '93, uh, and Rossino, who had joined us, I think, the year before. So he was relatively new to it. And we kind of put together this, well, they put together this team sort of cherry-picked, knowing that they had a good mix there of old, new, and you know, somewhere in the middle, which was me, uh, but also that I was bringing that um communications uh skill set to to really sort of reinvent our internal comms. Because until then, most of what I was doing was more external facing. Uh, I often joke that I would see more of the people that I would see at networking events than I did of my colleagues, um, because I was I was just a lot more outward-facing in terms of my role. The employee forum helped us for a period of time to get across uh what was um changing in the business, what that looked like for people, uh helping to uh deal with any questions or any concerns that people had, uh, and just and just kind of supporting the the board of directors, which at that point shrunk from uh five to two uh with that um communications piece there. I think after a while of doing that, I realized that my role had shifted and that um I wasn't doing so much of a traditional marketing role anymore. So I came up with this uh job type of communications and engagement uh manager uh in part to kind of recognize the the broader mix of what I was doing, both internally but also externally, um, because I was doing a lot more in terms of uh communicating, conveying what employee ownership was, what it meant, what we could offer to the communities that we were part of, uh, than just being more product and solution focused, which I'd say my role was a bit more uh prior to the transition.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Right. In terms of um uh it was a big change, I guess, in terms of ownership structure, but it also felt from what you've just said like a big change in leadership structure. You that you had five directors, you're down to two. Did did the three immediately leave the business at the point of becoming employee-owned? And then how has how was the leadership team? Because I know you then joined the leadership, you were part of the formal leadership team. How how did that process um take place? And and again, for listeners of the podcast, any particular areas of that work really well or we'd do it differently next time, how how did that whole leadership transition process work?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

So, Brian and his partner Hillary, uh, they were retired anyway. Um, when they um when we made the transition to EO, they stepped down from the board immediately, as did Pete. Uh, the only difference with Pete's role is that he then became a consultant for the business, mostly because of his client base that he had, and that we didn't want to um to alienate that audience too much immediately because it would have been quite a uh a sudden change for him to have left the business entirely. So he's still working with us. Um, you know, he's slowly working towards his well-earned retirement, um, but he's doing some great work uh helping us to bridge that gap with with those businesses that are predominantly based in the southwest. Uh so where most of our operations have now centralized to our office in Pool, we still have a satellite office uh just outside of Bath, which is where uh Donna, who I mentioned before, our other director Ed Lewis uh and Pete uh a couple of days a week are are based. Um so for that first year, as we found our feet, it as I'd say it was just the the two directors and and still is, um, but I think we realized that they needed more support because they as we keep saying that they went from five to two. So in I think it was late 2024, going into 2025, uh, because we announced this, I think our AGM last March, uh, we'd formed a senior management team, uh, and that consisted of well consists of uh the two directors, uh myself, Donna, and our other colleague Ed Shaw, who's been in the company for oh, I'm gonna get this wrong. I think he's been with the company for 28 years, but it I'm supposed to be the yeah, I'm supposed to be the like the the company historian, and I'm pretty good at it, but off the cuff, I can't quite remember. I'm sure he'll listen to this at some point and um yeah, resent me for not remembering, but yeah, it it it must be it must be nearly nearly 30 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Sure. And and what was the process leading up to that transition? Had had you as a new team, you you've got quite a lot of um a number of directors that were um quite key to the business perhaps in the past. Um how did that transition take place in terms of was there a formal coaching program for you in terms of taking over and running the business? How how did you all feel at that time when the announcement was made? Clearly that that then precipitated further leadership changes. Did what was the training in place? Did you all feel um able and and confident to take on the leadership of of the business from those that had previously set it up?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

I don't know if it was deliberate or not, but I think possibly the employee forum that was established was a kind of um on-the-job training exercise for Donna and I. Yeah, I I I think so, because we it was really difficult because as you know, with EO, there there is no um definitive rule book. I used to say there is no rule book, but people have written rule books. There just isn't a definitive one, is there? Um and neither was there for how we would do our employee forum, or or even that we had to have one. I think it was recommended to us that it might be a good idea. I know other businesses have um councils or or similar uh functions, um, but we didn't really know quite what we needed to do. And so Don and I who we we did we hadn't actually been that close, we hadn't worked that closely together before. Um and it was a really good opportunity to get to know her as a colleague. Um because we found that we just started to pick up some rocks that hadn't been picked up in the business for a long time and have a peek at what was underneath. And it's surprising what you find, you know, good and bad sometimes. Um, but there was a lot of things that just hadn't been addressed in the business for a long period of time. So we were finding that we were getting quite um in the in the depths of looking into those things, uh, and then began to run uh consultations with individual members of staff as kind of one-to-ones or two-to-ones, if you prefer, um, to just sound everybody out a little bit to see where they were at, because we hadn't really had a sort of um formal uh appraisal function across the board um in the business for for a few years. Uh again, something that sort of fell to the uh to the side during COVID, really, where we were all kind of fragmented and working in different places, mostly from home. Um, so we spoke to people and and we heard their thoughts and their concerns. And you know, uh, and their ideas for the business, and and started to consolidate those and kind of um create a collated report of um views and themes and and and ideas across the business. Very quickly we realized this doesn't feel like we are supposed to be doing this, and we were we were sort of um having a little bit of imposter syndrome because we felt that we were overstepping the mark a little bit in terms of what we were, what our remit was as a forum. For Ross, who was a new member of staff, I think it was difficult for him to kind of come on that journey with us because he just wouldn't have had the the confidence or you know, and I'm I'm talking about Don and I haven't limited confidence in in some of what we were doing there. Uh so yeah, it it was difficult at times, and and you you you sort of felt a little bit concerned when you were going to the board of directors with with some of this stuff that we'd um you know gone away and uncovered, because you know, some of it was was difficult listening, uh, and and some of it was you know an ideas factory that we perhaps didn't have the resource to be able to respond to. So yeah, it was a bit of a balancing act, but I I think it very quickly um gave us that crash course in what a senior role might look like. So when we got to the end of our tenure and we we we we plotted that we would do two years in the employee forum and then let that cycle on to somebody else. So when we finished that, it I guess it put us in a good position to be able to step into the the senior management roles. Uh and Ed, our other colleague, he is on the board of trustees as well. So he he'd had a similar experience to us, but on that side of things. So yeah, I guess we were a logical um set of three to add into that senior management team.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Interesting. That I mean that that takes us nicely into sort of the whole corporate governance and how the business is now run as uh as opposed to how it was run before. And you you've mentioned that the trust board was introduced. What what's the structure now? How how does that how does that work in terms of main board, trust board, sort of um partner council? What what's what what's the structure and and do you think it's working as well as you would like it to be at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 24:14

I think we've relaxed the structure um somewhat in in the last couple of years. I think as we came into this, I think we were almost a bit too regimented with it because again, you you sort of feel like you need to be doing this the the unwritten but considered correct way. Uh so we of course we we still have a board of trustees which consists of um a rotating role for a uh one of the the founders, which would either be uh Brian, Pete, or or Brian's wife, Hilary, um, and and they do a year each and it sort of cycles between the three of them. Um we've got an external trustee who is our company um accountant, and uh Ed Shaw, my colleague, who is our employee representative on that board. Uh then we've got the the board of directors, which consists of James, our managing director, and Ed Lewis, our technical director. Uh we we disbanded the forum um because we when Don and I had finished our um our tour of duty, so to speak, uh, on that, it was difficult to know who to pass the reins on to. So we pivoted a little bit and had a um social committee um for a year or so to kind of maintain that um that culture part of it. Uh, and now we're at a stage where we're we're looking to what that next evolution might be. Um and it's interesting, isn't it? Because you know, the the best laid plans, you know, we every time we think we've got that set up correct, um, you know, we we we we turn another page in in this book and and and and start a new chapter and and realize that it needs to evolve again to kind of be fit for purpose. Um and as we end um the um as we near the end of of paying the uh deferred consideration, I I think we want to we kind of want to get that right for what that needs to look like when we when we've reached financial freedom. Um and and and almost not trying to reinvent the wheel too much at this stage because we'll probably want to change what that looks like again when once we get to that point. Um so yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, and that's given us a uh a perfect view of of how the business is governed. And in terms of the sort of uh topics, I'm not sure if you'd be familiar, in terms of topics that the trust board have looked at and are looking at, how how does the governance between the main board and the trust board work that sort of relationship? And uh are you essentially just relying on the reserve matters in the trust deed in terms of things that the trust board are signed that sign off on, or are there additional powers that you've sort of given to the trust board to make sure that they are genuinely being responsible for sort of putting the beneficiary owners first and foremost?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

I'd I'd say that's probably a corner of the business that I don't know too much about, um having having not been involved with uh with either board uh discussions. Um but I would say that it's probably fairly um relaxed, as as I was saying before, uh, in terms of that relationship between the two boards. I mean, being a company of of 24, it's it's not it's not a huge business to have to govern. Um and and I think that relationship that we have with our external trustee, who, as I say, is our company accountant, um, Ed, who's been with the business for a number of years, and uh the rotating founder role, um, I think they've got a fairly good handle on what's happening in the business day to day generally. And and and probably those uh those trustee meetings at the moment are are fairly straightforward um in terms of of just keeping uh a watchful eye over what's happening in the company. But I don't think we've had much of um of concern or of particular note in in our journey so far. Uh I the only thing that we have had is a couple of um uh issues relating to uh just just changes with our accounting and and stuff that that that maybe made a bit of work for for those teams um in the last couple of years. But please report that that's all been uh addressed now. Uh so yeah, I I guess the the question for us is again, it's it's reaching that point of financial freedom of of then saying, right, what do we want the board to be able to do for the company? Um and starting to figure that out a little bit more um looking forward rather than where we're at currently.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

In terms of you mentioned Financial Freedom Day, um, you know, you're in a fortunate position if you've got that insight, because for a lot of EO businesses that still feels like quite a long way off. But are you starting to discuss within the business what that looks like and what the implications for um the business are once you hit that magical date?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

I think it's becoming a bit of a um an informal shopping list at the moment of things that we'd like to do once we have that money to invest in the business. I guess one of the big things is in terms of future um dividends, uh, you know, profit share for the team, and and making sure that while we're you know, we are championing that as a reason why we're doing this and and encouraging people to um to stay on board with with the with the company in terms of you know the benefits that are down the line. Also trying to work out what's the trade-off in in terms of you know paying out versus um investing in the business to ensure the quality of work-life experience is is is good for for our team. You know, we we don't want to grow the company to you know triple figures in terms of our headcount, um, but it might be nice to have five to ten more people um within the next few years, uh, which we would be able to afford to start to look to do. Now, that number of people would um ease some of the pressures on on our teams, uh, but also you know, opportunities like nine-day work in Fortnites may be uh may be an option. So it's trying to figure out you know what's important to the team and and and starting to have those initial conversations with people. Um, because as as much as you know, financially, I'm I'm sure we'd all appreciate that uh that bonus each year if if possible. Um, if it's at the expense of you know our um working lives, then then yeah, I think that needs to be needs to needs to be considered. And and and I think we're we're we're starting to communicate that to the team through our um our regular correspondence and also our annual uh meeting that we have with our co-owners, which we just had uh beginning of this month, um, to to map out what that looks like, what that you know, what that what those potential scenarios are, uh, so that they're not sat there thinking for the next couple of years, you know, we've we've got um you know big payouts coming our way, because it may be that that doesn't suit everyone or the majority of people, and and that we need to be a bit more nuanced in in what does work for the whole team.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, it is a really interesting one. Um, I don't think, as you s have said a few times, that there is no real EO playbook, or albeit I guess there's a developing um best practice out there. Um but yeah, when you get to that point in time, I guess in the absence of good communication, which is your skill set, there could definitely be an assumption that um, well, they know what's being paid out by way of DC at the moment, just divide that by 24 happy days, we're all going to get super bonuses. But as you quite rightly say, um being paid more is one thing. But actually, if um if people are still having to, I don't know, come in at weekends or stay behind in the evenings and stuff, actually bringing in additional team members may certainly be uh the right way to go. And I do think there will be a developing sort of body of knowledge around how to do Financial Freedom Day well. And certainly some of the conversations I've had with a few businesses that are either there or rapidly approaching it, is sort of looking at it from a number of different sort of stakeholder perspectives. So um maybe an amount gets um allocated to sort of bonuses and benefits, um, which is you know clearly one of the benefits of being employee-owned, but also certainly in our business, it's focusing on building our um fortress balance sheet, as we call it, at Paradigm Norton. So, you know, making sure that we've got the reserves to weather the storms. And then clearly new CEO or the leadership team coming in, they're also wanting to grow the business. And it's how you hold all those three areas intention. And I'm sure I think there, you know, there's a careful balance there, but there isn't a lot, a lot of actually inf information out there on how you do that. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see how that transpires in Grapevine. Often in EO businesses we talk quite a lot about owner mindset and um what does it really mean? How does it how does an EO business differ to a non-EO business? And probably you've given that quite a bit of thought as a as a comms and engagement manager. But in terms of speak if we were to speak to some of your team today, do you think they feel the business now feels quite different to how it did in 22 or in the lead up to 2023? Has there been significant changes where people genuinely feel I do now feel like an owner, I feel more uh engaged, more able to put forward ideas, or as often is the case, that may have well been the culture of Grapevine before you became a EO. Has there been a change? And what are the sort of things that you, as the Compton Engagement Manager, are looking to do to get that high level of engagement and start to see some of the outcomes that we know can come through as a result of being employee-owned in terms of productivity, efficiency, engagement, etc.?

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I think we're getting there. I think if you were able to show everyone a snapshot of where we were in 2022 versus today, I think they'd see the difference. I wonder, um, you know, and and looking at this on a individual by individual basis, uh, whether everybody has noticed how far we've come in in that respect. Because I think it has been quite incremental. I think out the gate with the transition, you're very excited, or you have some people in the business that are very excited that get it immediately. Um, that then for everyone else, it's a bit like you know, they're watching you run around um, you know, uh championing what has happened, but they haven't quite got there themselves yet. And and they need to see uh some of the change happening before they can imagine what further change might look like. And and this is where um I, you know, and I I perhaps need to be paying um uh uh what's the word I'm looking for? A uh an amount of money to to Bella from Salad. A royalty is the word I'm looking for, for the advice that she gave me uh when we first spoke um post-transition about you need to do things differently for people to realize that something has changed. Uh, and that has been the mantra that's been rolling around in my head for the last three years. And the problem is you can't do too much change at once because it will just freak people out. And I think we at times did try to do that, uh, did get mixed results, and and kind of had to go back to the drawing board. Whereas I think now we've had the three years, and my god, how quickly that time's gone. Um, we've done lots of bits and pieces along the way and and sort of uh incrementally, you know, uh built that up to the point that, yeah, when I look at it now and that the kind of the suite of things that we do as an EO business in terms of you know our annual group meetings, which again for a company of 24 seems a bit grandiose, really. Uh, and we don't call it that, we call it the Cohen's annual meeting. Um, but it's funny this year people have started to refer to it as the AGM. Um, so I think they're getting it, they're getting what it's supposed to resemble, uh, even if we're doing it in our own uh sort of slightly more humble way. Um so yeah, it is taking time with it, and and I think there's been points where we've been frustrated, and and I think we've got to a stage now where we're we're kind of saying to ourselves, look, just don't be frustrated about this, don't be disappointed, because we have achieved a lot, and there are um some challenges that we still face in in terms of bringing people on board with um with how excited the rest of us are, but focus on the positives. Um, some people will sadly never get this, um, and you know, not to worry about that, because it it if if anything, it only um dampens your own enthusiasm. Uh and but at the same time, not to stop doing the things that we're doing because we're we're doing them because it's the right thing to do. You know, we if everyone had turned up to the uh the co-owners meeting at the beginning of the month and been you know nonchalant about it and hadn't had anything to say after, then you know the the the gut reaction might have been, do we bother doing it next year? No, we're definitely going to do it next year because next year might be different. You know, by next year, other you know, a few more people may have it may have clicked for them. Or, you know, fortunately, we did a very good response this year, and hopefully we'll have an even better response next year. Um, so it it is, it's just it's being in it for the long game yourselves. Do you know if if you are one of the people that are enthusiastic about it, that understand it from the outset, is is just realizing that there's going to be days where you you do question, you know, is it just me? Is it you know, and and unfortunately I know it's not just me in our business, but I expect there are some other examples where because of the nature of the company and and the work that they do, it may just not resonate with with with teams. Um so yeah, sorry, I've probably gone off on a few tangents there, Barry.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

That's so interesting. I mean, your your co-owners' meeting is an interesting one. What what sort of information do you communicate there? Um is that quite transparent in terms of PL, this is how the business is doing, really giving the beneficial owners a real sense of yes, we are owners and and quite rightly we need the information. So that's that's one one question is around what you communicate. And and secondly, um communication preferences or styles is I think is an often an interesting one. Again, here we do insights profiles, and you know, if I'm thinking about the blues, you know, those that love spreadsheets and the detail, they will they want information presented possibly in a different way to the to the greens and the and the and the yellows, the people people, you know, the the ones that are more people focused. How have you um how do you communicate information uh in Grapevine? And how do you essentially tailor it to different people's sort of preferences?

SPEAKER_02 39:13

So, in terms of the Ko Owner meeting, we've done that, we've done three of those now. The first one was an hour long and we managed to condense everything into an hour, which which was quite nice and punching and worked well. The second year we we got a bit ahead of ourselves and and tried to incorporate updates from every area of the business, and it just felt a bit bloated. So this year we scaled it back to to really kind of get to those key bits because I think you can overload people with information, and you know it last year. I think we we it went to about two and a half hours long. We got it back to an hour again this year because and that that may seem like uh almost impossible task to to boil down a whole year's activity in an hour, and it is, but that's okay because you can have appendices and you know and and stuff that go into further information, and and that's kind of been a bit of the the the approach that we've had now with with sharing information. You know, we we used to each month send uh send around the uh profit and loss report, but you know, I'm not a numbers person, I'm not a a blue category person. Uh I'm not sure what what colour category I am, but I'm I'm words more than numbers. Uh so for me, I need to be told what do these numbers mean? Uh a spreadsheet of numbers is just blinding uh for me, unfortunately. Uh so we have things like we have a a progress bar on the um main intranet page that everyone has on their uh browser every time they open their browser at Grapefine. And it shows like a loading bar for like a download, uh, and obviously there's a little bit of an IT connection there, how far we are on the transfer rate for paying off the uh the the deferred consideration. Um and every time we get a little bit further, we add another bar onto that thing. So it's it's looking like a download from uh uh 2002 when it when it took forever to download one song. Um so it is going slowly, but it is getting there. Uh but everyone's seeing that every time they're opening their browser. So it it's little things like that. And then if people want the further information, we can provide that too. We you know, we don't hide away any of that stuff. It it's there for people that want it, but we're almost giving the digestible part of it, and then if there are people that are keen to know more, they're quite welcome to know the majority of what's going on across the business within reason. Obviously, there's some stuff that's confidential that relates to individuals, but yeah, it it's just making sure that we don't throw the whole kitchen sink at people and instead just just give them the uh the pieces that we think are most key for them to continue uh to sort of look ahead with with where we're going. Um but I I mean I send a Monday email, um, which started as a quarterly email and then somehow became weekly. Uh, but I'm glad of it. And and you know, I I don't think I've missed many weeks since we started. I think the only ones that we do is we have a break uh over the Christmas period when there's just not really a lot to say other than Merry Christmas, have a nice uh few days off.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Listen to your weekly um update. What sort of stuff are you communicating across the business there?

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Sort of anything I can find, really. Um, and and sometimes, as with any um news outlet, there are quiet news weeks. Um, and if that's the case, I I have a a bank of regular things that is worth updating people on or reminding people of, you know, how to uh raise an issue or an idea in the business. Um things like our volunteering days that everybody has an extra uh day of annual leave to dedicate to a um charity or uh worthwhile course um that they they want to support. Um things like that so that it it never goes out and feels empty. Um but the other stuff that will come up will be, you know, I'm trying to think in what was in this week's edition. So we had um some good press coverage from our colleague George, who'd done a guest talk uh that had made our local echo, which was brilliant because we don't we don't always get a lot of uh press coverage in in the in the local newspaper, so that was good. Um it had a uh invite to Sam Moles's uh EO Knowledge Share, um which is coming up next week, I think it is, uh at the time of uh of talking, although probably by the time people hear this, there'll probably be another one because he does them each month. Um but yeah, inviting our our team to that, and then there's an in-person event that Salad and Coda are hosting uh and inviting people to attend that as well. Now, our take up is never you know 100% across the board on those things, but it's important to us that we include those opportunities for people to go along to these events. Uh so that's why they're in. Included there. In other weeks, it might be a reminder of some of our health benefits that we have and some of the discount platforms that we've got access to. So it is quite a broad mix of news, news, news stories, but also reminders of things that we're doing as a business that are either benefits or part of the overall mission of employee ownership.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Sure. Do you do team surveys from time to time in the business to sort of gauge where you're at in terms of engagement with various things? Is that something that you routinely do in the business?

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah, we did one after the AGM last year. There was a lot of questions that we wanted at that point to ask people, in some ways to gauge where their understanding was of EO, but also of how the business was performing. But this was the one that we snuck the question into what do you value about grapevine? And that was always done deliberately with one mind on we're going to use these responses for developing our co-owner charter. But we knew that if we'd gone to people and said, look, we're going to do this charter, you know, what do you want to have on it? It might have just paralyzed people a little bit in terms of knowing what to contribute or what to suggest. So we asked that question almost quite um calmly, quite, you know, it's just it was in the mix of everything else that was there, in hope that we would get a fairly genuine response from people. And the responses that we got were probably the best responses that we've had to any question we've ever included in the survey. Uh so we were lucky that we had some good stuff there to work with. Uh, and then what I did was um was basically went through all of the responses and looked for the common themes and wrote, I think, about seven or eight points that made the the Koaner charter. We didn't do a survey immediately after the AGM this year for time uh reasons, but we will do another one at some point, probably as we reach um uh as we lead up to EO Day. I think that will be the the sort of the time frame of that. We don't want to do too much at once, and and doing the survey immediately after the AGM was just a lot happening at once for everybody. Uh, but we want to include a question that now says, you know, please review the the Koaner Charter. Is there anything that you feel that we've missed or that anything that you feel that should be uh amended in in the charter? So I think that will provide provide an annual opportunity for us to to update that too. We published the charter on EO Day last year, and I think the intention will be that if there is a revised edition, that it will be an EO Day um release again this year.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

What led up to the what was the catalyst for the charter? And I know when we chatted, you thought that that was quite a significant part of you winning the award, the actual formation of bringing this charter together. So, just for listeners, what was the catalyst for it and what what is it and what benefit have you seen in the business? I mean, you've already mentioned that, but you know, how has it achieved the outcome that you hoped it would?

SPEAKER_02 47:03

There were two things. The first one uh relates back to the consultation that Donna and I did when we were running the forum, uh, which is when we spoke to everybody, um, you know, and I and I I wrote down um what they were saying and and and kind of created a uh a document that that gave an overview of what was important to people across the business and if there were any concerns or things that they felt that we should be doing, that was included in that too. But the problem was I went a bit too academic on it, and it was almost it was difficult for anyone to really digest, probably myself included. Um, and when we then asked people to kind of rank the themes that were included in that, I just think people were a bit baffled by the kind of overload of it all. So I knew that that had sort of worked, but hadn't quite got to where I wanted it to be. So that was sort of on the on the bench, so to speak. Then we happened to see that uh Rubicon, who um another EO business based down here in Paul, they had in their foyer a I think it's called House Rules. Uh, and when we were at the conference and won the award, I uh mistakenly referred to it as their uh Ten Commandments, which it's not, it's not quite that uh um uh heavy-handed, shall we say, um, but it is a a consensus on what is important to them as a company. What do they is it's the visions and values thing. And you know, I'd heard a lot of companies talking about needing to establish their visions and values, and I'd even give in a guest talk um for Bournemouth University on our visions and values, uh, and they were the the participants on the course were writing their visions and values, and they were looking for me to give some insight on what they should write. And I had to say, look, we don't have that articulated or or documented in any way. You know, it when you are a small company, you kind of know what the visions and values are. Um, and yeah, it just it felt to me that every time I saw a set of them written out by a company, they all just look quite vanilla. Do you know what I mean? It and maybe they should, maybe they should be, you know, maybe there should be some some common factors across all businesses. But I don't know, I feel like you could just change the names or the or the branding on on every each each set that I'd seen, and it you wouldn't be able to distinguish one from the next. Uh so I knew that we had to do something around that. Um, I liked what Rubicon had done because it felt a little bit more authentic, a little bit more genuine, a little bit a little bit more them, but we didn't want to copy them exactly because that would have been uh unfair. So we we took a fair amount of inspiration from what they did there. Um and I'd say probably met in the middle from the the kind of the very wordy academic thing that I've done before and their very succinct set of rules that they have uh and and came up with the charter, which you know we want to put it on a wall, but the problem is it is still a bit too wordy, so we've got to find a way to to kind of present that in a way that I don't know, maybe it just needs like an infographic or or something like that that represents the different points because I don't want to just put a wall of text on on one of our walls in the building. It just feels um from a design perspective, it feels a little bit strange to do that. But yeah, I'm really happy with where we got to with it. And and someone asked the question once, you know, have we had to use it to um to put anybody up on not adhering to to what the charter is? And unfortunately, you know, we hadn't at that point and we still haven't. And I hope we don't have to, because I don't see the charter as being a contract with the company. You know, people have an employment contract for a reason, you know, and that there's certain um, you know, things that that we we hope people adhere to in that and and disciplines disciplinary procedures if they don't. You know, the the charter is more a contract that the individual is making with themselves and the rest of the team uh to to be a good team player, to to kind of you know recognise uh EO and and practice good EO. Uh and and I think for even you know, still some of our team, once you put that EO badge on it, sometimes it does kind of feel a little bit inaccessible to them. You know, folks that haven't been to an EOA event or the conference, um, you know, it still mystifies it a little bit. And and I think that's why we were quite keen to have the co-ona term become something that people recognise internally. Um and and for this to be something that that has a nod to EO, but we'd almost look to do it regardless of whether we had become EO or not. Do you know what I mean? It it would have taken that place of having a visions and values set articulated. Um, I just prefer this approach to a, I don't know, uh a design by committee and boardroom set of visions and values that that people haven't been involved with. This is a this is a co-created document. Um, and and hopefully everyone that said something in that survey can see a piece of that in this document, um, whether I've quite articulated it as they they meant it or not.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

You've talked quite a bit about co-owners, and and for me that goes to the importance of language, and I often talk about um that we've never really talked about staff or employees, but I always reference employee owners because that's what they are. Has there been any other changes of language that you've introduced into Grapevine to try and just reinforce that we are all in this together, we are all genuine owners, or is that the main thing you talk about when you put meetings and things together, like your co-owner meetings and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 52:44

We we had a phrase that we um you you're just reminding me of this now, and I and I wonder what happened to it because it was quite good, but it almost felt a little bit negatively, I'd say it felt a bit preschool. Positively, it felt a bit Ted Lasso. I don't know if you've seen the show Ted Lasso. Um, but we we kind of wanted to have um just a real simple sentence that was we includes me, right? Because that was the bit that I think people were missing at the beginning of our transition, is that when we talk about us as a company, often folks were imagining a set of people, and and I guess that goes back to when the company was run by you know uh uh the the owners of the business, as it were then, that it was their business. So so people were working for them, perhaps more so than working for the business. So we had to kind of like break down, like dissolve this idea that when you when you say we, that you are part of that, that we is not like happening in another room or another office or another set of people that you that you're not part of. Um so that that was something that we were using for a little bit. Um and maybe we ought to bring it back because I I think it's quite good. Um simple, but yeah, I guess the concern was, you know, is it is it being a bit patronizing to people? And and I think we've got to a better place with that now. I mean, I was just in the office yesterday and I'm I'm amazed at how you know little bits of upkeep around around the office are just happening. And I and I feel bad because I deliberately try not to get involved, um, because I want other people to to to feel that they can contribute too. Um and you know, and again, I'm someone that's in the middle of this, you know, I wasn't a owner of the business, and and I'm and I'm you know part of the senior team, but you know, I I'm in the same position as everybody else in in this as a co-owner, so I should be contributing on on these matters as much as they are. But if I kept stepping up through my excitement and enthusiasm for this, I'd almost be doing them a disservice. You know, that suits me because it means that I can be lazy and sit on my on my seat whilst everyone's doing uh the upkeep of the office. But I sit there and I'm proud of it. I'm I'm proud that people are doing these things. You know, um a colleague from um I was I was based on the the ground floor. A colleague from the first floor came down uh and said, Oh, I've got the the replacement legs for the sofa. I thought, brilliant! Like, you know, he he he recognised that there was an issue with with one of the sofas that we've got in our um uh in our lounge uh in the office and ordered a new set and was gonna fit them. There was an issue with the front door. Somebody else had ordered the WD-40 and one of them was going out to to spray the door. Like these are all things that are starting to happen by clockwork now. They weren't a year or or two years ago. We it was still having to be quite top down. And and I know this this fits the category of kind of teas and toilets that that is jokingly referred to within the EO community of, you know, it's more than all these things, but it is also these things. You know, these are the bits and pieces around the space that we occupy uh throughout the week that that do need to be um uh maintained and and and kept up together. But regardless of what they are, it's the fact that people are feeling that sense of ownership of it. Um so yeah, I I've gone again, I've gone off on a tangent, sorry, but back to the language thing. Um yeah, that that was I think at that point we felt that we needed that uh that sentence to try and reinforce it. Um and I can't think of any other examples off the off the top of my head, but the Koonas one was a big one. And I mean we've we pretty much to the point of um it becoming propaganda, we we've used Ko-Owners everywhere on everything. It gets that branding, um, just to reinforce it.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

It does take a while though, I think, in terms of you do need to do a lot um in terms of making bringing these changes. I think that's important. Often a lot is said about um the impact of becoming employee-owned in terms of engagement performance of the business. Have you seen an uptick in terms of performance at Grapevine since 2023 as a result of that? What you've just talked about, really, which is that deeper engagement, people going, don't worry, I'll sort that out. Has that um come through in revenue and profitability, or have there been other more challenging issues out in the world that we see today that have led to revenues and profits and things going the other way? Do you have a do you have a sense of that?

SPEAKER_02 57:24

Yeah, I mean, we've had um a bit of uh feast and famine in in the last few years, which which is in some ways, I mean, obviously we'd all like to have permanent feast, wouldn't we? Um but it's been quite good to teach everybody what business looks like, you know. Um we had a really good first year. Now that was because of the knock-on effect from COVID. You know, a lot of our um proposals that we had in the field were being sat on for maybe a year or two, uh, and then a lot of that business landed in 2023. So from the point of transition, we grew as a business in terms of our uh turnover, you know, a fair amount in that first year, and we're able to pay a profit share at the end of the first year, which again was great to be able to immediately show that there's those those benefits. Then the second year, it was just like everything kind of got thrown at us that year. Um, uh, in terms of, you know, we we work with a lot of third parties in terms of the services that we provide. Um, some of them are very big organizations, and I think you know, from time to time they feel the pinch of of um the economy, and that then has a knock-on effect on us. So we got to the end of our second year, and it was a bit like blimey. We've we've sort of managed to get through, but it wasn't as plain sailing as the year before. Now it's flipped again, and and the last year that we just had has been brilliant, and and and we've our turnover has grown again. So I guess hopefully the people that have been on that journey from when we first transitioned to now can see not necessarily a pattern, but can see that there's peaks and troughs to this, um, and and that some years are going to be better than others. And you know, if you if you divide the the good times out across all the years, then we're doing okay. You know, we were able to pay a profit share uh this um this year just gone. If you combine those two years and divide it across three, everyone's still done okay for for three years there. But I think the the key thing for us is that it's probably given us um a sort of renewed confidence um in terms of our position as a business. I think we were, as I said, we'd we'd fallen off the map a little bit in terms of uh people knowing who we were and and and that we were here and what and what we do. Uh and I think that was in part because Grapefine had been around for so long. I mean, when you've been in business for 30 years, I always joke that you you sort of become like wallpaper. People have known you and known you long enough to forget you. And if if you don't have something new to say, you just kind of get forgotten about. So it's given us something to go back out with. I think the EO story is such a positive one, and we've had some um some fantastic wins along the way with um obviously the award at the end of last year. We actually won a uh Best Place to Work award um within our first year. So that that sort of helped with the momentum. So even when we had that tough year in between in 2024, we still had some good stories and some good um just goodwill, I guess, from from our contacts locally that that there's just there's a there's a buzz around the business again. And you know, without giving you know exact figures, I can see that translating to inquiries, you know, for years messing around with search engine optimization and all these little tips and tricks of things that you think this will do it, this will be the one that suddenly we we see an uptick uptick in um uh inquiries for our website. And lo and behold, it took um transitioning the whole business to a totally different model to to kind of crack that really. And I guess the concern that I've got now is you know, what happens when this part of the story becomes wallpaper? Do you do you know, you know, the the that we may be reaching the end of being able to tell this story and what's the next one that we tell? So hopefully, as we get to the point of um, you know, completing and and and hitting financial freedom, then we can think a bit more uh about okay, what what what story do we tell now? You know, what what do we do as a as a business now? And and I think that the it's not a niche per se, but I think the thing we've discovered in a lot of companies that are discovering is that it's reimagining what a business can be and what it can mean to people that are employed by it, isn't it? You know, what we do is so I mean, crikey. I think the the introduction of Chat GPT at the end of 2022 um was was quite um well-timed with with everything else that happened here because immediately the the era of content creation, in in terms of everyone trying to position themselves as being an expert in their field, got turned on its head, didn't it? You know, anyone could write the same article that you're gonna write about a product or solution at the click of a button. So immediately it just made me think, well, why bother? You know, and I abandoned a strategy that we were working on to build this knowledge hub uh for our clients because it's like it's everywhere. This this information is everywhere. And in Kwikey, we don't even get past Google now, do we? Because we just look at the AI search result and that gives us our answer for things. So, what are we saying as a business and what are we what are we offering beyond the actual service that we offer? Um, and I think employee ownership was a was a really good fit, but there's other things that we've explored in the last few years, things like living wage uh uh affiliation, um signing the armed forces covenant, uh to you know to commit to um you know uh employing people that have have left the forces, um, all little things like that that are out there, you know, B Corp is one that we we keep sort of looking at and thinking, are we gonna go for it? Maybe we will. Um, but but but things like that that become stories to tell uh as a business. But as well as having that um benefit of giving you something to talk about, you're actually doing some good whilst you're doing, you know, it's not it's not just it's not greenwashing, you know. You're not you're not just saying it so that you've got a nice PR piece, you're actually doing that work too. You know, we we've we've increased the amount of um uh work that we do with charities, partly through these volunteering days that everybody has, which was introduced in 2023. But also, you know, we have a a charity that we're supporting who have a uh they they take a percentage of the sim cards that we sell that are branded uh with our own um our own name on. You know, things like that it's for a marketeer, like it's just made my job, to be honest with you, quite easy. Because these are good stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Yeah, very powerful. Yeah, I mean we we've um been a B Corp, you probably should know for a long time. So maybe that's another another conversation we can have on another day. But certainly for us, I think being a B Corp and the sort of five pillars that you've got to work on over time lends itself beautifully to an employee owned business. I think the two the two sort of models fit incredibly well together. You've been really um open and honest. I've really enjoyed our conversation. There's a question I typically ask towards the end, which is is there anything that you coming onto the podcast, knowing it was a stake and soul EO podcast, thought, Barry's bound to ask me that and we haven't covered it. Is there anything in Grapevine that you do that you think for listeners, or we should just talk about that as we wrap up the podcast, or have we pretty much covered what you envisaged we would have covered?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

I think so. I I guess the one that is um an uncomfortable one for me that people ask is is you know, what do you do with the folks that that aren't coming along on the you know, the um the EO um enthusiasm journey. Yeah, I'm trying to think of another word other than journey, because I think journey gets a bad name, doesn't it? It gets used quite a bit, but yeah, journey is the word really. Um because I I don't have a good answer for that. And I think we're fortunate that in their own way, most of our team are now um are getting it, you know, and and and are are changing the way that they see the business. But you know, we've got to remember that, and this was the case of our company, nobody nobody entered into this. Well, I I'll correct myself there. Some people did because we've employed some people since we became employee owned. But even still, when they set out to find a company to work for, even they weren't looking to enter an employee ownership trust. Not that I know of, anyway. Um, maybe one day that will happen once EO becomes. So um well known in in uh in the uh the marketplace that people will seek out employee-owned businesses. You know, it should I ever have to move on for any reason from Grapevine, I would want to work for another EO because for me it's like there's no going back on that now. But but for everyone else in the company, you know, they didn't enter into it, they entered into a job, they were expecting to come, you know, do their do their work and and leave at the end of the day and be and be paid, you know, for for that uh contribution that they've made. To say, you know, there's an additional expectation of you now, but the benefits are greater. Um, I just think it's it's a big ask to to think that everybody is going to get that immediately. Um and and I think as probably you do, Barry, like a lot of EO businesses that you speak to, that's the thing that they are wrestling with, isn't it? Is how do I get everybody on board? And and and maybe 100% isn't um realistic, but you know, 80% is a is a is a good outcome. Um and and and and then it's about working towards getting to that 100%, and maybe you'll you'll never get there. But like I said before, you know, it's it's still the right thing to do. You know, if we were to say, okay, so we're gonna concentrate on these 80 the 80% of people, and the 20% we're never gonna try and engage them again, that would be wrong, you know. That we we still have to to to invite them to be a part of what's happening, um, and then ultimately it's on them to decide.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

Um yeah, no, I I completely agree. Um interestingly, when we talk to new team members here, I guess they would and we asked them what what uh fascinated you about Paradigm Norton or why did you want to join us? I mean, they would they'd immediately go to culture and the website, they'd talk about our strap line of money matters, but life matters more. They they're they like that. But actually, when you start then drilling into that a little bit more about what what is it about the culture that you like or that you sense from perhaps initial meetings or looking at the website, it's it is two things. It's one the fact that we're employee-owned, and the other is the fact we're a B Corp. And they they really come through strongly in the in the interview process when we're bringing in new partners. But to your point about do you ever get to 100%? I don't think you do. And it feels like for me, like lots of change processes, you often end up with a group that are, I would always say they're your real advocates. You know, they really love EO, they're bought into it. You've got that, and I don't know, in the past I've talked about, you know, perhaps that's a third of the business, so far as that's about 30 people. You've then got 30 people who are enthusiastic but perhaps not raving advocates, and then you've got a third that are not necessarily detractors, but it's sort of I joined Paradigm Norton to do a good job, not necessarily to get engaged in joining a trust board or a partner voice group. And I think if you can, if you can gradually move the percentages, so you end up with rather than a third as advocates, you end up with 40% and gradually do that over time. But I think it does take time. And I I have done one of my blogs about um the sort of transition through an EO business of you start off with the transaction, you then have the transition. But actually, what you're really looking for is transformation. And I I genuinely believe that takes time, and businesses really have to work on that to get to that point where you are bringing that, not necessarily as I say, doubting um third, but the group, the group that are not particularly initially supportive, it's just bringing them on that. And I can't think of a better word than journey for at the moment in terms of uh what that stands for. That's really helpful. Yeah, I mean yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:51

There's some things, you know. I I love that I can s be, you know, slightly self-deprecating about some of the things that I tried that I can now say didn't work. You know, I I perhaps wouldn't wouldn't be um so honest about that, or wouldn't have been so honest about it at the time, because it was the only thing that I tried. Um so you're right about I I like those um those those free T's there because that that that's right. It it transformation um sort of only happens really when you look back at it, doesn't it? Really? You you know, you you can be transitioning, but transformation is is kind of the is the um is the end of that, isn't it? Um and and yeah, I think that's why it's quite nice to to have these conversations and kind of reflect on on that, because yeah, looking back, there are yeah, missteps along the way. But um, yeah, to be able to show those people that picture back in 2022, I mean I think it would blow everyone's minds, my mine included. Um I just I didn't think we'd get to here. And and that that excites me again because it makes you think, well, where are we going to be in another three years once we've hit financial freedom, hopefully within the next three years, um, and then we have that money to invest and and and kind of you know just just starts a new um chapter. Yeah, chapter's another one that gets overused.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

A couple of just uh final questions that we ask or I ask all all guests and um uh towards the end of the podcast. So fit finish the sentence, uh Liam, for me if you would. Employee ownership is empowering. My biggest EO surprise was the community. Okay, interesting. Do you want to just expand on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:36

Community is a nice yeah, we've been talking about words that are being overused. Community, everybody now and their dog wants to start a community. Uh, and I'm fortunate to be part of some other communities that uh I was involved with pre-EO that probably didn't even know they were a community per se. They were just groups of people that got together regularly that had shared interests, um, that now um are happy to kind of use the community badge because it's like we're doing this, this is the thing that everyone's supposed to be doing. Um, I just didn't, although I knew of a few uh companies that had become EO, I didn't uh realise um in advance how how big a thing it was. I remember at the at the first conference I went to, which was the 2024 one, uh, at the dinner event, I was sat next to um Neil Palmer, I think that's his name, from Field Fisher. Um, and he was telling me that he's like, Yeah, he said I've been coming along to these for about 14, 15 years. He said it when it first started, it was just someone stood on a soapbox in the corner of a room. And I was like, my God, I just had no idea that this had grown up through um in in such a way, uh, and obviously as we now see the the snowball effect of um the pickup of uh the number of transitions to EOTs and EOBs in general, um, that yeah, it it's it's crazy, but I just I didn't know that everyone would connect in such a um such a kind and selfless way, you know. It it it's incredible, but you know, we're all in business, um, you know, you you kind of expect that people are gonna want something out of uh their you know their generosity, uh, and often they don't. But yet we are seeing opportunities that are coming to us through the EO community. So I think when you go into things and you don't go hard sale and you just go to to be um you know uh contributing to to a positive thing, everything just kind of falls into place nicely anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:34

So yeah. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think the um EOA do an amazing job there and the EO community more generally, but I think it is a sort of you reap what you sow. And I think a lot of people tend to go to these events and things wanting to give out, and if you do that, you also at some point receive at the same time. So no, I'm totally with you on that. Uh I don't know if you're a book reader, um, but often I like to share a book. It doesn't have to be an EO book because there's not all that many out there. But any books, uh business books in particular that have inspired you along your along your journey, using the journey word again?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

I will confess that I don't read a lot of business books. Um I tend to be a bit more non- bit more fiction, sorry, rather than non-fiction. Uh what I tend to do is read a lot more um uh newsletters from uh from different people. And one that I'd say has has changed um how I look at uh business in in general is You Are the Media. Uh and and Mark, who is behind that, has actually written a book uh which I've never read uh because he is when he wrote it in 2015, it sort of became um uh irrelevant as soon as he'd finished, as soon as it went to print, uh, which is why he hasn't written another book since and instead writes weekly uh around this theme of to be honest, it has evolved into being about community, but to begin with, it was more about um having a owned approach to media. So rather than feeling that you need to have um press coverage, uh that you become your own uh press outlet, um, which Barry, you've done with with this podcast, you know, and and it's a good example of it, is that you know, you, for example, and I'm sure you've been on people's podcasts, but let's say that you wanted to to to talk and be on a podcast, but you know, it's difficult to find those inroads in into that. That the advice is start your own, you know, don't don't don't wait for the guardian to um invite you onto their podcast, you know, take the guardian on, you know, do it that way. Um, and and that has in Mark's right and it's sort of evolved more into once you do this and once you become uh a media outlet of your own, that actually the you you start to build a community because what evolves around it is a um you know an audience that isn't just a passive audience, they sort of put back in as much as they they give out, similar as you were saying with the uh with the EOA. Um so yeah, I think Mark was a little bit ahead of the uh the game on some of this. Um, and I'm yeah, yeah pleased to be able to call him a friend now. I mean, he he's from the local area, uh, and you are the media events are the most vibrant events you can go to. So it's yeah, it's a it's a newsletter that's published every Thursday, but we have um monthly lunch clubs in uh Bristol, uh Pool, and London, uh, and then an annual conference called Creative Day that happens here in Pool. So yeah, uh I've broken the rules a little bit there. It's not a book, but it's as good as a book, if not better.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

Yeah, perfect. Thank you for sharing that. We'll put that in the show notes. That sounds really interesting. Uh, to wrap up, we have a leadership confessional. Okay, but you have some choices here. You need to choose from one of the three following: a moment of honesty, so that could be uh decision regret, a moment of self-doubt, so that's a moment of honesty, an unfiltered story, so that could be um uh story about a difficult setback for your company or um someone you've had to fire in the past, or a secret struggle? Uh imposter syndrome, balancing work and family, uh, etc. Do you have one that immediately springs to mind a moment of honesty, an unfiltered story, or a secret struggle?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:27

This is quite a big one. I'd say that when I came into the role at Grapevine, I thought it was going to be easy. Um, and that that was in part because the work that I was doing for them was was fairly straightforward at that point. Um, and they knew who they were as a business. When they see this is okay back to talking about Grapevine as they, but at that point to me, they were they. Um when they uh acquired the IT company, everything changed overnight. It went from being a um uh a reselling business, you know, reselling mobile contracts to becoming a service provider. Now that is culturally, structurally very, very different. Um, and I did not realise what I was getting into, um, and ended up getting involved in all sorts of things over the 10 years that I've been with the company that in hindsight probably set me up quite well for the role that I have now uh within the EOT. Um but I'd say for the first couple of years, I I wouldn't say I was drowning, but I just don't feel that I was doing particularly good work. Uh and and you know, and and bless the the team for supporting me during those years, but I I almost feel like I could just and maybe maybe the those years were important because you know on reflection you learn a lot, but uh they almost amount to to to nothing to to me in a way, because I just I just felt that yeah, I I really felt that it was um yeah, that I was kind of drowning in it, that I just wasn't getting any traction. That networks that I thought that we could be a shoe in for, it was more difficult to crack. And yeah, it the the first couple of years I I I don't even know if I call it imposter syndrome, it was just outright, what on earth am I doing? Um, and it started to get easier when the pandemic happened because it sort of pulled things into focus a bit. And then I think by the time the EO transition happened, it was like it was a big payoff for all those years of of figuring out what this company is, how it's changed, what my role is, how I can contribute, you know, not feeling that every day I need to be a marketing manager, uh, and actually just looking for where I can contribute best and and just each day running towards that and just supporting on that activity. And in a small business of 24, I think that's probably the best anyone can do uh within reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

Sure, brilliant. Thank you. Lovely moment of honesty there. Thank you so much. So that brings us to the end of the podcast. There's some absolute gems in there. Thank you for your uh everything you've you've shared, really, in terms of the grapevine journey, your story, um, the highs and the lows, what you're working on. I think there'll be some real inspiration for other EO businesses. So, yeah, thanks for your time and uh hope you have a good rest of your day, whatever you're doing. Thanks, Liam.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:17

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Barry. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

I hope you have enjoyed today's episode of Stake Consult. If I've piqued your interest and you'd like to hear more of our journey, or you're interested in finding out more about becoming an employee end, do reach out to me on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

This podcast is intended to be of a general nature, will not be suitable for everyone, and should not be treated as a specific recommendation. We recommend taking professional advice before entering into any obligation or transaction. Paradigm Norton Financial Planning Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.