Digital Business News Network: Recent Episodes
Good Business Podcast
Innovating with SafeKab’s Gavin Johnston 🎙 In this episode we hear from Gavin Johnston from Inverness Taxis and the recently launched innovative transport safety app SafeKab. Gavin has been involved in the transport industry for 28 years and it was great to all about his approach to business, customers and leading by innovating. https://youtu.be/4QogzCzBB4Y What … E17: Innovating with SafeKab Read More »
Embracing Emerging Working Styles with Alan Gowie 🎙 In this episode we hear from Alan about the operation behind IVTwo full serviced offices based in Inverness. Alan and the team provides private, ready-made office space to a range of businesses, from start-ups to corporate satellites, on a flexible basis. The innovative use of office space … E16: Embracing Emerging Working Styles Read More »
Building a purpose led business, Donnie Macleod 🎙 In this episode we hear from Donnie about Macleods Organics, his family business founded in 1998. Donnie talks to Danni about his family’s proud history of delivering 100% organic produce across the Highlands and what it truly means to put the natural environment at the heart of … E15: Putting Organic at the heart of Business with Donnie Macleod Read More »
Transformative Support with Jenni Donnelly, The Oxygen Works 🎙 In this episode, Danni speaks with Jenni Donnelly, the General Manager at Oxygen Works, a Highland based centre of excellence, with oxygen therapy at its core, providing transformative support to individuals living with long-term and complex health conditions, empowering them to live their best lives. What … E14: Transformative Support with The Oxygen Works Read More »
Good Business with IDM Group Scotland Founder, Iain Macphail 🎙 In this episode, Danni speaks with Iain Macphail, the founder of IDM Group Scotland, the parent company to both IDM Safety Solutions and IDM Energy. Iain discusses his entrepreneurial journey from starting with £500 during COVID to winning Business to Business Services Start-Up Of The … E13: Good Business with IDM Group Scotland Read More »
Making an Impact with Ross County’s, Duncan Chisolm 🎙 In this episode we hear from Duncan about the enthusiastic efforts of the Ross County family to strengthen ties with the community, from opening their doors wider to fostering deeper connections. It’s a lively discussion about the club’s passionate journey towards making a bigger impact both … E12: Ross County Football Club Read More »
Building the Product: A conversation with Ben Hosie, sfG MentorNet 🎙 Join Danni as she dives into the inspiring Good Business journeys of sfG MentorNet and Product Manager, Ben Hosie. From identifying a niche to harnessing customer feedback to craft a standout product, this episode shines a light on the challenges and rewards of establishing … E11: sfG MentorNet Read More »
The Story Behind Cairngorm Group: A conversation with Chris Dowling 🎙 Dive into the captivating journey of the Cairngorm Group with Chris Dowling, the Joint Managing Director. From its humble beginnings by a riverside shed to navigating global crises and innovating with energy-saving home products, discover the story of a family-run business driven by faith, … E10: Cairngorm Group Read More »
A conversation with entrepreneur Scott Murray from CRU Holdings, a collection of different businesses with some in the hospitality and the travel sectors. The one thing they all have in common, however, is the quality they deliver, each and every time. “We review each business on a weekly basis so we can see where things … E08: Cru Holdings Read More »
A talk with Craig and Cheries Dutton from WildTrax, the Land Rover outdoor adventure hire business, about their motivation, innovation, and pursuit to provide excellent customer service and experience. “It’s an incredibly rewarding industry. It’s because people are always so happy. The guests and the customers are happy whether you’re running a kayak rental company … E07: Wildtrax Read More »
Ronald and Scott Gordon of Gordon Timber discuss the long history of the family business and the innovations and good practices that have made their Nairn sawmill business a resounding success. “They say that manufacturing in the UK is dead. But we are here in the north of Scotland and very proud of the fact … E06: Gordon Timber Read More »
A conversation with Duncan McCallum from The Ledge Climbing Gym, set to be the Highlands adventure sports hub for the growing mountain sports community, setting a national standard for bouldering, climbing, and adventure sports training gym facilities.
“It's all about supporting people that really suffered over the last three or four years. The pandemic and the lockdown and how it affected kids have highlighted the issues of mental health and how important good mental health is for everyone.”— Duncan McCallum, The Ledge
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: Who or what has influenced you most in your career, do you think?
Duncan: People who give up their time. My own personal journey with this project that we're working on in Inverness, it's been a long, long time coming. I wouldn't have gotten to the stage it is at now without an enormous amount of sacrifice by the small team that I have around me. So, I think you need to be passionate. I think you really need to know your subject. I'm not into the making of money side and am much more interested now in building community and making sure that you've got a legacy that's true to the roots of what you're trying to do.
Drew: Let's talk about the actual business itself. How is that going to work in the future?
Duncan: Inverness has about 80,000 residents. But then if you look at the catchment area of the inner Moray Firth, it's coming up to about 137,000. So, we've got a really big pool of people, although they're very dispersed.
Drew: People in rural areas are more likely to travel further anyway for these things.
Duncan: They are. And if you were looking at a town of 50,000 in central England where you've got lots and lots of climbing walls, that model might be slightly weak, but I think we're probably looking at about 150,000 - 270,000 people within our functioning one-hour’s drive, which is going to be our evenings’ visitor. Then you create ambassadors, and those ambassadors can go back into the community and then it rolls on from there. So, it's quite a long-term project, but it has to be supported by the strength of the commercial offering at the start.
Drew: So, you've got a timeline now which says that you're building works ongoing and you're looking to launch early 2023 and you must be thinking about recruitment now — why would people who are not already working for you, why should they come and work at the Ledge?
Duncan: We want to make sure that people buy into the vision of what we're trying to do. Everybody comes into an adventure sport from a different direction, but they all have one key thing. It becomes a passion. And if you can share that passion with a five-year-old kid who's coming in for the first time.
Drew: Exactly the answer to who's a great employee for you. That's someone that shares that passion. This podcast is about good business and getting to the heart and soul of business. What's at the heart of your business?
Duncan: Passion, enjoyment, fun. I think it's pretty creative. If you look at how we are going to approach what we're trying to do. I think one of the reasons that we've been quite successful in raising the social funding at the moment is that we're looking at a very well-known problem but coming at it from a different angle. It's really important for us to offer something that's slightly different that takes them away from the standard governmental delivery of a service. It's about being part of something that creates a lovely group of individuals back in the community.
Listen to the full Podcast to learn more about The Ledge charity, its vision and its values, and how they will positively impact the community.
A talk with Jim Mackenzie from the car dealership, Dicksons of Inverness, an independent business in a sector that's dominated by national brands, and the importance of internal communication within the business.
"I think the heart is the internal communication within the business, right from the top, right through the business. We make sure that everyone knows very quickly what's going on. Be it good or bad, they're aware of it. We don't like rumours. So, I think the heart of the business is we work from the director’s side through the management structure, into the other members of staff very quickly. And I think that's the answer, we’re in effect we're one body and we communicate within that body very quickly." — Jim Mackenzie, Dicksons of Inverness
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: It must be challenging, not to get crowded out by national marketing. It must take more independent thinking to compete. How do you tackle that?
Jim: I think in the early days of the motor trade everything was advertised through the newspaper and press. It was difficult then because some of the larger companies had a much larger budget than me and could plaster the papers with adverts. Things have changed dramatically over the last 10 years and I was lucky enough to get into the digital world quite early on and went on a course, out with the motor trade, that taught me about AdWords and Google etc. Now with our budget, which is still fairly high but nowhere near the size of the national companies, we're able to compete now locally because we can pinpoint our market through digital advertising and that's made a huge difference to us.
Drew: Your customers are coming back time and time again. But nowadays there's more likely to be a 'conscious consumerism', an approach that is now at an all-time high. Customers are more likely to be driven by a commitment to making purchase decisions, have a positive social, economic, or environmental impact. Tell us what your business does to offer a conscious consumer something different.
Jim: I think in the motor trade that’s quite a simple answer — we've moved into electrification and we've had to, we’ve had no option. We would have anyway, as a number of businesses in town have. I think the problem up here in the Highlands is we we're a bit slow in getting off the mark with that, but it's really taken off now. Probably a third of our demonstrators we run on electric vehicles, solar electric vehicles. Another half will be hybrid vehicles. And within three or four years, we won't have an option anyway. We're going to have to run electric vehicles and we're delighted with that. The biggest challenge now is getting the points within the area that we can charge these vehicles and make them work properly for us.
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about Dicksons of Inverness and how they responded to the Covid pandemic by successfully implementing social distancing measures to protect their staff and customers.
Peter Doherty and Holly Morrison of Inverness Kart Raceway discuss the giving back social enterprise aspect of the business as a mentoring charity, by providing young people with new skills and future job opportunities.
"We tend to employ people that it's their first time job and they're young and enthusiastic. No experience to then go on to bigger and better things through the training that we can provide for them here." — Holly Morrison, Inverness Kart Raceway
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: In this episode, we're looking at the subject of good business and giving back, and we're doing that with Inverness Kart Raceway, a company designed around providing young people with new skills and future job opportunities. Tell me a bit about your business here.
Peter: Well, our business is running go-karts. We are a social enterprise. Our parent company is called Day One, a charity, a mentoring charity and they help young adults that maybe lost their way. We help them back on track and we'd give them, I wouldn't say a lifeline, but we're certainly a point in the right direction with a mentor.
Drew: Holly, what would it be you like most in the business?
Holly: I think it’s seeing young people grow, we tend to employ people that it's their first time job and they're young and enthusiastic. So, seeing them come through the door. No experience to then go on to bigger and better things through the training that we can provide for them here. And just exposure to work really.
Drew: You talked about the personal challenges that you faced to get this set up in the first place, what were the real hurdles for the business to overcome for you to get to where you are today?
Peter: For the first few years it was a honeymoon period. It was brilliant. And then it started to level off. And so, making sure that the charity had money was always at the forefront. The bottom line is always at the forefront of every meeting we ever have is how do we get on, how is the bottom line?
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about Inverness Kart Raceway and the charity work the sports centre is built around.
A talk with John Harvey McDonough of the Speyside Distillery, a small hand-built distillery nestled in the foothills of the Cairngorm mountains. Widely acknowledged to be the prettiest of all Scotland's distilleries, Speyside still manufactures whisky the traditional way.
"What we wanted to do was to embrace the local community and to make sure the local community was aware that an international success story, which is the Spey brand, was on their doorstep." — John McDonough, Speyside Distillery
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: Originally a barley mill and croft dating back to the 1700s, after its closure in 1965 it's been subject to long-term and sensitive restoration and has been converted into a single malt distillery, which started producing spirit in 1990. Quality, tradition, community and family are the components for business success according to John Harvey McDonough. Indeed, his business is driven by family history. As in 2012, he realized his grandfather's dream of returning to distilling when his company Harvey's bought Speyside Distillers.
I asked him how important family values are to him and to the business.
John: I think it's integral to the success. I worked with IDV, with Diageo now, and I learned about brand marketing, but the core of our business is the ethics that my grandfather fed into myself and my father and my sister. So, the family element of that is absolutely critical and we stick to those family ethics and family drives. And that resonates I think throughout the Spey family now, the bigger family, which is all the people that work with us and help us.
Drew: The Harvey family have long established roots in the whisky trade stretching back to 1770 when John and Robert Harvey founded and operated distilleries in Glasgow. In the 1800s, the families established a distillery on Islay, which was eventually run by William Harvey until hit by a fire closely followed by William's death in 1936. How much of that Harvey family intergenerational drive for quality, played a part in where Speyside is now?
John: It plays a lot, so that the Harvey's family go back to 1770, built Yorker Distillery and Dundashill Distillery in Glasgow, both of which have gone, but in 1881 built Bruichladdich in Islay. My grandfather worked as a whisky trader; his wish was that we could come back into distilling. So, I'm pleased that we've been able to fulfil his wish with the Speyside Distillery. And it’s just honing the family ethics again, and the desire of the family to produce really high-quality single malt whisky.
Drew: In time the distillery itself also became 'Lagganmore' for the TV series 'Monarch of the Glen', popular for its depiction of the fictional community around it. But in the real community Speyside is investing heavily in the local area. For example, setting up The Snug, a high-end retail and tasting experience in nearby Aviemore. How is that going?
John: It's going pretty well. That's been very successful from day one. And what we wanted to do was to embrace the local community and to make sure the local community was aware that an international success story, which is the Spey brand, was on their doorstep. We wanted to embrace the distillery and expand the awareness through The Snug. So that's been very, very successful.
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about Speyside Distillery and the family traditions which are the backbone to the business.
A chat with Richard Jones and Sarah Mackenzie of the Farmer Jones Academy, a community interest company which is on a mission to inspire young people into careers by delivering training and development courses in farming, food and drink, personal development and business skills.
"People had lost this connection between the food on the shelf and where it had come from. So people would go into the supermarket, pick a pack off the shelf, not have a clue what was in it, whether it was any good for them, it just looked all right. And they would take it home and eat it." — Richard Jones, Farmer Jones Academy
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: The title of this podcast episode is Good Business Nurturing the Next Generation. Tell us a bit about the setup of Farmer Jones Academy. What's the driving force behind the business model as well?
Sarah: Working with [local food producers] and knowing the issues that they were experiencing — a lot of it came from the skill gaps that were present in the sector. And that was actually hindering their ability to grow. I think from that we could see a gap in education. With the producers at the later stage, we had to really delve deeper and start educating young people and getting them excited about their food from a very early age. And I think making that accessible to everyone, especially in rural locations where accessibility to courses can be difficult. So, I think we really wanted to make sure that everybody had access to education and food and drink and an understanding where their food comes from.
Drew: It's clearly been a challenging journey to get here. What's been the biggest challenge or obstacle you’ve had to overcome?
Richard: On the back of working with Nairn Academy, where we developed and funded our own first masterclass, Skills Development Scotland spotted that and came to us and said, would you like to formalize this with us and offered us a contract with food and drink technologies. Which is basically years, five and six in schools. And the idea is that they get a full background and everything from the beginning of the food journey, right through to serving it up on a plate or taking it into a supermarket. The business has developed on the back of that.
Drew: Tell us something that people wouldn't necessarily know about the company.
Sarah: I think for a start a lot of people don't actually realize that we’re a not-for-profit organisation. A lot of people don't get the social enterprise, a lot of people either assume a sort of charity or they assume you're a private business entity. Actually we do both, we run a business and we make profit.
We invest it then to help disadvantaged young people. I feel like a lot of people don't actually realize that even with the cafe we quite often have to say it's actually a training cafe and then everybody goes “So what does that mean?” It's giving young people that real life experience and learning on the job which I think is really important from a vocational point of view. But also, I think for us, it's putting our money where our mouth is: we are trying to inspire a generation and say you could start up your own business in food and drink. We can actually say, well, we're doing it. And we can do it with them. And I think that's a really nice thing to have.
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about Farmer Jones Academy and the passion for what they do.
Matthew Farmer of the GlenWyvis Distillery explains how the business has grown through community ownership. The distillery was funded in a very unconvential way, which provided a unique challenge in the early days of the operation.
"It was entirely crowdfunded. And I think that when people hear that, they're like, ‘Oh, like a portion of it was crowdfunded or something’. No, it was entirely crowdfunded." — Matthew Farmer, GlenWyvis Distillery
Podcast excerpts. Interview by Drew Hendry
Drew: In this episode, we're looking at the subject of good business through community ownership. And we're doing that with GlenWyvis, a Highland distillery funded in a very unconventional way and hearing about the unique challenges they face. I'm delighted to be joined by Matthew Farmer. We want to hear about how GlenWyvis was created through community ownership and your own journey to running it. What can you tell us about that?
Matthew: The distillery itself was started in 2015. When GlenWyvis as a community benefit society started it was all crowd-funded. And it was a very easy decision for me to throw a little bit of money into that pool and become an investor and get my t-shirt and all that. I was walking around with my ‘I own a Scottish distillery’ t-shirt and all that kind of stuff.
Drew: You talk about owning a tiny part of it. Of course, it's a really interesting, funding model that's been put in place for GlenWyvis isn't it.
Matthew: Yeah, it was entirely crowdfunded. And I think that when people hear that they're like, “Oh, like a portion of it was crowdfunded or something”. No, it was entirely crowdfunded.
Some people put in more money than others, of course, but the way the community benefit trust works is that everybody has an equal vote, one member, one vote. We are very reliant on our membership for funding and we would never have been able to get to where we are today without every single person, all the way from the £10,000 investors, all the way down to the £250.
Drew: Well, of course, those are the people who've invested the money to get started up, but the other people investing their time, the people that work here, the team that you've got, how important is it that they're invested in the vision, the goals of the distillery?
Matthew: Because you have such a small team everybody influenced the quality of the end product. If your distiller doesn't care about how good the whisky is, you're not going to end up with good whisky.
Drew: What are the biggest challenges of your business right now?
Matthew: The biggest challenge is probably funding. When you are a community benefits society, banks won't really touch you because of that. So, we have to go through some fairly unconventional means of raising money. And of course, whisky just in general ways is a fairly bad business model for the first 10 years.
You're filling all these casks, but then you're not selling them. They're just sitting there and accumulating and accumulating and accumulating and getting more and more expensive. So even in the best of times, the whisky industry is quite an expensive one to start. Never mind if you are trying to do it from this pool of funding that you're raising from the community.
Listen to the full Video Podcast to learn more about GlenWyvis Distillery, the unique way it was crowdfunded and the intricacies of managing a community ownership business of 3,500 people.