Advertise on podcast: The Build Up

In the second half of this 2-part conversation, Simon Bowler — the North Yorkshire carpenter behind one of the biggest construction accounts in the UK — gets specific about the business of being a creator: what a brand deal actually costs you. He explains why he turned down countless tool brands for years and waited for Milwaukee, because once you pick up one battery you're in that ecosystem for your whole career — and why saying yes to one PPE or clothing brand quietly shuts the door on every competitor watching. He's blunt that content creation is a business, that money is most of the point, and that what brands are really paying for isn't the one promoted post but the organic content that keeps the audience there. And he makes the case for sweat equity over flat fees — “I'm sick of not being a millionaire” — admitting the one deal he wishes he'd taken a stake in was Big Wipes. He then flips it round for the brands and marketers listening. His advice: watch a creator for months before you approach them — one brand studied him for six months before the first email — find the post that blew their account up, then check what they actually learned after it, because a big following off one freak viral hit is a red flag. He's candid about what gets the audience's back up: the scattergun approach of posting one product to a thousand small accounts, last-minute turnarounds, and tool reviews that smell of a payday. Along the way he covers why aspirational content beats tips, tricks and hacks (“that's attracting a DIY audience, not a trades one”), the first 0.7 of a second that decides whether anyone watches, and the £50,000 Milwaukee van giveaway he built around a single bleeped swear. It's a straight look at how the brand-creator relationship really works from someone who sits on both sides of it — and a reminder that there's no magic pill, just hard graft over a long time. Follow Simon Bowler: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonbowlerltd TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simon_bowler Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonbowlerltd YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@simonbowler1 Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Big Wipes (bigwipes.com) Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don't miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

Everyone in construction marketing tells you to “be authentic” — Simon Bowler is one of the few who’s held onto it with 700k people watching, and this episode is about how he’s done it, and whether that audience actually does anything for the business. A former car salesman turned master carpenter who builds bespoke gazebos and garden rooms — with two Harrogate Flower Show Golds to show for it — he’s grown one of the biggest construction accounts in the UK by doing something simple: filming the work as he does it, and never pretending to be something he isn’t. He’s sharp on why some posts fly and others flop (it’s nearly always the hook), the homage video that bombed and taught him to stay in his lane, and why he still shoots every brand collaboration like the brand’s watching — because it is. He’s also honest about the hate that comes with reach, the people sliding into his DMs to sell him followers, and the paradox that a trade creator with hundreds of thousands of followers still isn’t taken seriously by parts of the industry. He closes on the marketing itself — why a brand needs a vibe, not a personality, the biggest mistake he sees marketers make in construction, and why brands don’t need engagement, they just need to be seen. It’s part one of two: the story and the craft here, the brands-and-marketing one next. Follow Simon Bowler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonbowlerltd TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simon_bowler Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonbowlerltd YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@simonbowler1 Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Big Wipes - bigwipes.com Stay connected with dissident creative agency https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast.

In this episode of The Build Up Podcast —Tom Milham of TCM Air Conditioning Services opens the books on how a one-engineer business actually finds work. He started his apprenticeship at 16 and went out on his own six years ago; today roughly 70% of what he does is subcontracted, and he is not afraid to say so. There is a stigma about it in the trade, and his answer is simple: he is feeding his family, the money is coming in and the customer gets a good service. What he and Dan pull at all episode is how you market your way out of that dependency when the budgets everyone talks about online are numbers a small business will never have. Tom is refreshingly straight about what has not worked. Eighteen months paying a lead generation service produced nothing usable — the one enquiry he remembers was somebody wanting a hole drilled through a wall for a portable unit’s hose. Dan matches him with the £12k dissident put into Google ads that came back with nothing, and an agency who mentioned afterwards that it takes about twelve months to kick in. A couple of hundred quid boosting a Facebook post was just as wishy-washy. What has worked is the unglamorous stuff: Screwfix Live and the Installer Show, cards handed over and passed on, and Instagram — where at least 80% of his subcontracting work comes from. The idea at the centre of it comes from his tattooist, who fills a feed with black and white work and then wonders why nobody books colour: only show what you want to do. Tom is caught in exactly that trap, because a feed built on his own face on the tools is why contractors ring him and homeowners do not. Along the way he and Dan map what each channel should actually be doing — LinkedIn for facilities management, Facebook for domestic, Instagram for the trade, TikTok for apprentices — and get into the £2k-to-£15k website gap with nothing in the middle, the mismatched logos on the van, why construction’s one-up mentality will get you thrown to the wolves over a detail in the corner of a photo, and the free marketing nobody is doing, starting with the sign-written van most tradespeople are still sleeping on. Plus the two things he would tell anyone starting out: charge what you are worth, and get used to other people making their problems yours. FOLLOW TCM AIR CONDITIONING SERVICES Website: https://tcmairconditioning.co.uk/ Tom Milham (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/tcmairconditionigservices/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tcmairconditioningservices/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tcmairconditioningservices/ Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

In this episode of The Build Up podcast, Ryan Jones — managing director of SLG Agency, the construction marketing specialists now top of the CMA agency league table, and The Build Up's first-ever returning guest — comes back two years on to argue that AI is the biggest chance marketers have had to do the job properly. His problem with how the industry uses it: they reach for efficiency and more output, when the real prize is using AI to understand their audience well enough to earn a seat at the board table. Ryan makes the case that efficiency and innovation pull in opposite directions, so cutting time and cost quietly kills the space you need to think — and with only about a third of people who call themselves marketers formally trained, he sees a reset on offer. He and Dan get into synthetic data hitting roughly 90% of the accuracy of six-figure research (SLG won best use of AI at the CMAs for it), the “cost of dull” finding that a boring B2B ad has to spend 600% more to land, and why only about 14% of paid-social spend actually works. Along the way he covers SLG's Horizon 2026 report — four years of data now — where brand awareness has overtaken leads and marketers say buyers are harder to reach despite more channels, the 95:5 rule (nearer 99:1 in construction) that makes the first brand recalled the one that wins, and the post-it note he thinks every marketer needs: “they don't give a shit.” It's a grounded, numbers-first argument for using AI to understand people rather than replace them, and a reminder that whoever can't show their value is the one AI puts in trouble. FOLLOW SLG AGENCY Website: https://www.slg.agency/ Ryan Jones (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjonesslg/ SLG Agency (LinkedIn): https://uk.linkedin.com/company/slg-agency Horizon report: https://www.slg.agency/horizon/ Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don't miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

Hope you enjoy this flashback episode, originally aired 14 Oct 2024. In this flashback episode of The Build Up Podcast, host Dan Moore, Creative Director at dissident creative agency, sits down with Ryan Jones, Managing Director of SLG Agency, to explore the evolving landscape of marketing in the construction industry. With over 12 years of experience at SLG, Ryan shares how his background in PR has influenced his approach to brand strategy and client services, emphasising the importance of positioning and audience understanding. Dan and Ryan dive into the value of research and data-driven strategies to inform creative decisions, the challenges of navigating client expectations, and the significance of brand guardianship. They also discuss the need for adapting to modern marketing practices in a traditionally conservative industry, while celebrating the potential for innovation and creativity in construction marketing. Together, they encourage listeners to embrace bold ideas and strive for excellence in their campaigns. Follow Ryan Jones: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjonesslg/ Explore SLG Agency: https://www.slg.agency/ Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don't miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, Aaron Worrall — co-founder of Weather Wise Solutions, the family-run damp, mould and condensation specialists in Newcastle-under-Lyme — shares how he took the business from £4,000 and a kitchen table in August 2024 to £1.75 million turnover in its first year, now forecasting £3.5–4 million with a team of 33. It started with a £20-a-day Google Ads campaign a friend set up as a favour, on one condition: don’t touch it. From there Aaron leaned into the channels most trades sleep on — Google My Business, Google Local Services and Checkatrade — building a shop front rather than chasing leads. Aaron makes the case that most construction businesses have it the wrong way round: sort the brand, the customer journey and the three things every customer actually wants — turn up when you say, be honest, do a good job — and the work follows. He and his brother Jake have racked up millions of organic views (mostly on Instagram, filmed on a phone), while being honest that they can’t fully attribute what social does for the bottom line — they post for trust and visibility, not vanity. Along the way he covers why he won’t listen to the "experts" in the comments, how reinvesting every penny into better materials protects the reputation, the Checkatrade strategic-account setup that hands the legwork to an account manager, and the conversation with his dad — a mortgage guaranteed for six months — that got him to take the risk in the first place. It’s a grounded, numbers-first look at growing a trades business on almost no marketing budget, and a reminder that the shop front beats the lead chase every time. Follow Weather Wise Solutions: Instagram: @weatherwiseuk_ LinkedIn (Aaron Worrall): https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-worrall-cstdb-75593795/ Website: https://weatherwiseuk.co.uk/ Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, Lee Fuller — a bricklayer of 21 years turned marketer and founder of Level Up Media (Trade Accelerator) — explains why almost everything tradespeople are being sold about lead generation has it backwards. He tells the story of building Thames Valley Brickwork from a standing start to £3 million of enquiries in year one on organic LinkedIn alone, with no paid ads, and how an accidental detour through film school and content-led marketing turned into a full-blown agency almost by accident. What sets Lee apart is his starting point: he’s a tradesman who learned marketing, not a marketer trying to learn construction — and he argues that difference is the whole game. Lee makes the case that leads come at the very end of the process, not the start — and that turning the taps on before a business has its messaging, positioning and sales process sorted is the fastest way to lose money and torch a reputation. He’s blunt about the two things trades get wrong (starting with talking about themselves — "no one cares until they care"), why every marketing campaign needs a villain, and why you should phone the clients who nearly bought and didn’t. Along the way he covers speed to lead and video sales letters, the fixed money mindset that has owners scoffing at a £12 CRM while chasing another £600k in revenue, and a contractor who fixed his messaging, added a few systems and walked into a seven-figure exit. It’s a refreshing, no-nonsense counter to the "get you leads" agencies flooding every tradesperson’s feed — and a reminder that the real work is knowing what you’re actually trying to build. Follow Lee Fuller / Level Up Media: LinkedIn (Lee Fuller): https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-fuller-3013aa188/ Instagram (Level Up Media): https://www.instagram.com/tradeacceleratorltd Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, Luke, the Walsall plumber and gas engineer better known as Blue Bulldog, shares how he turned a one-man plumbing and heating business into one of the trade’s most recognisable names on social media. He reflects on the early days of filming his work — from a boiler swap in the loft to a tap replacement done through the wall that racked up 2.5 million views — and how showing the job as it really is, mess and all, built the trust behind his following. Luke discusses how he’s utilised Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube to grow his audience and win work, highlighting the importance of consistency, authenticity and knowing exactly who he’s creating for rather than chasing viral views that never reach the customers in his area. The episode explores influencer marketing within the construction industry, the value of genuine engagement over vanity metrics, and why he turns down brand deals — including free products and even a free Turkey teeth clinic — when the fit isn’t right. Luke’s insights into keeping his integrity, building long-term brand relationships like his City Plumbing ambassadorship, and why the best brands win by building community rather than listing features provide a fresh perspective on the crossover between the trades and digital marketing. Follow Blue Bulldog Plumbing: Instagram: @bluebulldoguk TikTok: @bluebulldoguk YouTube: Blue Bulldog Plumbing Stay connected with dissident creative agency: https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!

In this episode of The Build Up, Dan chats with Mark Morris, Marketing Manager at Thomas Dudley, recorded live at The Installer Show. Mark shares how the 110-year-old British brand continues to stay relevant through loyalty-building with plumbers, standout product innovation, and bold marketing moves — including sending their Quantum siphon into space. They also talk agency relationships, the power of a great brief, and how Thomas Dudley uses social media and reputation to connect with merchants and end users alike. Whether you’re in-house or agency-side, this one’s full of takeaways for anyone working in construction marketing.

In this episode of The Build Up, Dan speaks with Scott Jones, founder of Stair Guys, about how he's using artificial intelligence to radically transform his construction business. With a team of just three people, Scott has managed to generate over 6,000 website visitors a month, attract 20–30 qualified leads each week, and replace the equivalent workload of more than three staff members using AI tools that cost under £500 a month. What’s most surprising is that Stair Guys doesn't manufacture staircases—yet they rank among the top four staircase companies in the UK thanks entirely to AI-driven SEO and content strategies. Scott walks us through his complete AI toolkit, from creating blog content that genuinely ranks, to producing customer quotes and 3D renders in under a minute. This conversation is essential for business owners, tradespeople, and marketers working in traditional sectors who want to grow without continually expanding their team. Scott shares his perspective that AI is the great leveller for small businesses, along with a refreshingly honest take on the learning curve, the mindset shift from chasing revenue to buying back time, and the privacy challenges that come with adopting AI tools. From automating compliance documentation and building case studies from Zoom transcripts to training AI for tone of voice and quality control, this discussion shows how even a tiny team can compete with industry giants when they harness the right tools. Whether you're excited about AI or deeply sceptical, this episode offers practical, down-to-earth insights into how AI is already revolutionising traditional industries like construction.

In this episode of The Build Up — the go-to podcast for marketing professionals in the construction industry — host Dan (Creative Director at dissident creative agency) welcomes Lee Wilcox, co-founder of On The Tools, for an unfiltered, inspiring conversation. On The Tools has grown into one of the most influential platforms in the UK trades scene, with millions of followers across social media, a dynamic media arm, and deep roots in the construction community. But its success didn’t happen overnight. Lee shares the full story, from his early career drifting between jobs to the late-night conversation that sparked an idea for a recruitment app. What followed was a series of unexpected pivots: a viral Facebook page, a chaotic merch business run from his mum’s living room, and eventually, a full-blown media company that now helps brands authentically connect with tradespeople. This episode dives into: The origin story of On The ToolsThe power of content and community in construction marketingThe failures that paved the way for successHow to build an audience before a productWhy humour, honesty and relevance win in this industry Whether you're a marketer, founder, or creative working in the built environment, this conversation is packed with insight, practical lessons, and the kind of candour that’s rare in business podcasts.

In this episode of The Build Up, host Dan, sits down with Russell Payne — third-generation tradesman and host of The Talking Tradesman podcast — for an honest conversation about the mental health crisis within the construction industry, and the role brands and marketing can play in driving change. Russell shares his powerful personal story: from growing up on the tools and running his family painting and decorating business by 17, to facing struggles with mental health that ultimately pushed him to become an advocate for change. What begins as a deeply personal narrative expands into a wider discussion about how the construction industry, particularly those shaping its public voice through branding and marketing, can help create a culture where vulnerability isn’t a weakness, but a strength. Together, Dan and Russell explore the opportunity that brands have to go beyond surface-level messaging and build genuine connection by engaging with real issues like mental health. From championing authentic stories to creating safe spaces for open dialogue, Russell explains how companies in the built environment can use their platforms not just to sell, but to support, and why that matters now more than ever. This episode is essential listening for marketers, brand managers, contractors, and anyone who wants to use their voice to build something more meaningful in construction. The Talking Tradesman: Spotify YouTube This podcast is produced by dissident creative agency, the original disrupters of construction marketing. This podcast is born out of our passion to create conversations that push boundaries as hard as our content! If breaking rules and standing out is your thing, we want to hear from you... dissident link tree

In this episode of The Build Up, host Dan (Creative Director at dissident creative agency) sits down with Ben Russell — founder of Russell Interiors, part-time carpenter and decorator, full-time fireman and family man. Ben started his business just 18 months ago, and in that short time, he’s been making a name for himself through smart, scrappy marketing and a whole lot of hustle. We dive into how he’s building up his brand while managing a packed schedule and what’s working for him as a startup tradesperson trying to stand out in a competitive market. From Facebook group hacks to trade show networking, Ben shares the marketing tactics that are actually moving the needle — all without a big budget. We also talk about the power of honesty in branding, balancing multiple trades, and why referrals are still king in the construction world. Whether you’re just getting started in the industry or looking for fresh marketing ideas for your own business, this episode is packed with practical tips and real-world insight.

In this episode of The Build Up, host Dan, sits down with Dan Czerwinski, Sales and Marketing Manager at fischer fixings UK. They dive into the fascinating evolution of fischer fixings, a German brand, as it localised its marketing strategy to succeed in the competitive UK trade and DIY markets. Dan shares his journey into the construction industry and the importance of understanding both sales and marketing. He discusses how fischer transitioned from a technical, product-focused approach to one that resonates with consumers, tradespeople, and DIY enthusiasts alike. Discover how fischer’s rebranding, including new packaging and logo design, played a critical role in building consumer trust and standing out in a crowded market. Dan also explores the key differences between marketing to tradespeople and DIY customers, and how localisation and tailored strategies have been essential in driving their success. Join us for this insightful conversation filled with industry tips, branding wisdom, and a closer look at the challenges and opportunities in construction marketing.

Derek Barrett, founder of Derek Barrett Design Limited, joins The Build Up to share his journey in bespoke furniture making and how social media transformed his business. Starting with a foundation course in Ireland and earning a BA in furniture design, Derek took an unconventional path into cabinetmaking. His early experiences managing large projects taught him valuable lessons about efficiency, investment in the right tools, and running a streamlined workshop. In this conversation, Derek opens up about how Instagram became a game-changer for his brand. A single viral post reaching over 20 million views shifted the way he approached digital marketing, helping him connect with a wider audience and attract new clients. He reflects on the challenges of maintaining engagement, the importance of authenticity, and the balance between showcasing craftsmanship and growing a business online. Listen now and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review!