Simcott Renewables case study: a £350,000 Kings College opportunity from a TNW introduction

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Yeah. Darren, do you want to introduce yourself again? I know we've already done this in the past, but maybe just a quick recap from where we were. Yeah. My name is Darren Ford. My company is Simcott Renewables.

We work with you guys now probably pretty much since you set up. And have thoroughly enjoyed it and the results have been very very positive. How long would you say? Well, I mean that's that's been about year. How long has it been? Like a year and a half pretty much.

I think you you had like one customer or something like that when you when you popped up in an email or something like that. And yeah, I remember speaking to you guys thinking, "Yeah, I think these guys are going to get it. I think they I think they know what they're going to do." Which is unusual because most marketeers that we speak to are just bullshitters. But yeah, I'd like to touch on that. What sort of experience do you have with other people? Oh, horrendous.

So we've investigated all sorts of different types of marketing. So, we've done email direct marketing campaigns. We had a guy there that promised us oh I can't remember what it was x number of leads over over the winter period because it was a heating campaign, electric heating campaign. We never reached the target. Every now and again I still get a heating lead pop into my calendar from where where the campaign's still running because we never reached the target. people with social media telling us they're going to get us a million leads on social media.

That's just a load of bollocks. That's just the biggest load of bollocks ever. And yeah, just other people saying that they can, you know, improve the website and stuff. There's a lot of people out there. I don't know why everybody wants to be a marketeteer, but there's a lot a lot of people out there and they seem to spend most of their time emailing me or trying to get in contact with me to say that they can massively improve my business and they can't. Yeah.

And how would you say that we sort of differ from that then? You have a very clear you have a very clear idea a very clear vision for your business and what that involves and what you focus on is the work. So you'll try everything. your try. You you know, I'd imagine you've been through as many different iterations of trying to get leads for people as there are options to try, but then you stick to the ones that work and and the results show. You know, the leads that we have have been with decision makers.

The leads that we have have been people that have intent. The leads that we have from you have been have progressed. Basically, commercial is a slow burn business. It is not a fast burn business. So, but I mean the the big one for us is you put us in contact with a company called [customer name]. They run all of the building maintenance for Kings College University and King's College University Hospital.

It's pretty much one of the first ones she gave us. So we're a year in now. And we are waiting for a PO to be issued from their maintenance department at King's College for £350,000 worth of solar onto hospital buildings. That would be very nice when that comes in. Not a bad little gig. Yeah, I think that's I think that's the thing, isn't it?

It's really trying to hone down on on what works and then just sort of like slowly scaling it up. Like like you said, the commercial is a long burn in terms of sorry, slow burn in terms of it does take a long time to get the deals in the line, but when they do come in, the much bigger contract value and the time and effort you put into this one contract will lead to so many more. You know, it's it's the relationship you build with that company in which then gives you more tender and opportunities into the future. So yeah, I'm glad to hear you've obviously got that deal line, which is exactly what we want to see. And I'm sure there's a lot more send me send me send me your invoice as soon as I got the purchase order. Love it.

And yeah, so how do you think that sort of like helps in comparison to like other lead gen agencies? Do you think like something like our service is like worth investing in from just like a complete ROI perspective? Oh, gotcha. So how are you different? One, you can talk to you. You know, very often you'll have you'll have some sort of saleserson come in and try and sell you it and then you get some sort of account manager and the relation they just the relationship isn't there.

So, one, you can talk to you guys which makes a massive difference. Two, the team that you see the people you seem to be surrounding yourself with have the same passion and drive that you guys have. So the quality of lead that is coming through, you are very pragmatic about the quality of the lead. You build for what works. You don't bung you up with a whole load of crap and then say, "Oh, by the way, you owe us thousands of pounds for nothing." so you you you know, you're very pragmatic around around that. You know, if it's a good lead and it works, sell up.

If it's if it's not, then we'll move on and we'll get you we get you work that works. So h having you guys as part of our team for one of a better choice of words makes us stronger and makes everyone in the office feel better because we know that what we're going to be working on is quality and we're not just time wasting and not just working with time wasters. Yeah. Perfect. And that's that's exactly the way that we see it as well. If you can't even quote for the customer when you've had an appointment for them, then you know we don't see that as something that we should reap the reward from because that's just a net negative.

You know, it's a net negative for someone in the situation. You want it to be a positive situation for both parties and fair for both parties. So yeah, that's exactly the way we see it. And you know, I guess to sort of top it off then, would you would you recommend us to other installers in your area? I I do I do frequently is the answer to your question. So yeah I you know yeah is no I'm keeping you myself.

Yeah. No I I mean there's other there's other parts of our business that I've recommended you to. We haven't managed to take that forward yet. But yeah I would recommend you to to everybody else. Hopefully they don't use you and I can just keep it to myself. But, you know, that's how it is, you know.

Awesome, mate. Well, I appreciate your time and yeah, we'll catch up soon. Yeah. Cheers. Okay. Thank you.