S6E8 'Growing sustainable business communities', with Vu Digital 🔆

With 10 years experience working with purpose-driven businesses, our eighth guest of the season is not only an industry veteran, but a delightful human to welcome to the show!

Dom Cooper is Director of Vu Digital, who deliver positive change for organisations and small businesses.

Based in the UK's top 'Hippie Town', Totnes, Dom and his team work with purpose-driven businesses to purse economic goals, while also reducing their environmental impact. Talk about win-win!

Not only that, but Dom is an expert on all things BCorp, having successfully gone through the rigorous accreditation process for Vu Digital.

And so we were delighted to have Dom join us, as the second Devonian of this Series, and chat to James all about:

🌱 How growing up in Totnes influenced Dom's outlook on life and relationship with the environment.
🏭 Why Digital Emissions would be the world's fourth highest polluting country.
🅱️ The challenges, and benefits(!) of becoming a BCorp.
😔 The dark side of Digital - offshore agencies and poor working conditions.
🧒 Why the younger generation are buying on values, not price.
... and much more! ✨

Dom shared SO much wonderful advice and great lessons learned from the frontlines. It was an honour to have such an industry leader on the show. We hope you enjoy the episode 💚

About Dom Cooper:
Dom, is a Director of Vu Digital, who are on a mission to create a network of organisations that are doing purposeful work.

Further Resources from the episode:
Twitter: /vuonline
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dom-cooper/
Website: https://www.vudigital.co.uk/
Planet Mark: https://www.planetmark.com/
Positive Nature Network: https://www.positivenaturenetwork.co.uk/

Music credit: bensound.com

https://ecosend.io

Creators & Guests

Host

James Gill

CEO of GoSquared

Guest

Dom Cooper

Dom is a Director of Vu Digital, who are on a mission to create a network of organisations that are doing purposeful work.

What is The EcoSend Podcast?

Our journey into the world of being a truly climate conscious business. Join us as we talk to fellow entrepreneurs, founders, marketing folks, and campaigners to help us build our new product, EcoSend: the climate conscious email marketing tool.

S6E8
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[00:00:00] Chris W: Welcome to the EcoSend podcast. Be inspired, educated, and entertained by the world's most ambitious leaders putting climate at the top of their agenda.

[00:00:16] James Gill: Hi there. Welcome to another episode of the EcoSend podcast. I'm thrilled to be back. I'm your host, For those of you new to the show, the Ecosend podcast is a weekly podcast where I talk to wonderful, inspiring leaders who are doing a bit of good in the world, in the world of business, in the world of marketing, in the world of design, all sorts, and this week I am thrilled to be joined by Dom, and Dom is a director at Vu.

[00:00:45] com Digital. Vu Digital are on a mission to create a network of organizations that are doing purposeful work. I'm very excited to tuck into lots of good topics today with Dom, including things like B Corp, digital sustainability, community building, and all sorts. So, hi Dom, welcome to the show, how are you doing today?

[00:01:06] Hey, James. Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Yeah, I'm doing alright. Awesome. Awesome, Dom. Good to hear. And you are, you're in a, you're in quite a cool part of the world, aren't you? You're down, down in, is it in Cornwall you're, you're at, at the moment?

[00:01:19] Dom Cooper: Nearly. Next door. Nearly. Next door. The jam and the cream on the scones the wrong way round or something.

[00:01:27] I always forget

[00:01:28] James Gill: which way

[00:01:28] Dom Cooper: round it is as well. I do as well, but my preference, which my wife tells me is wrong, is that I have jam first and cream on top. And I think that might be the Cornish way, but I'm not sure. Oh,

[00:01:40] James Gill: is it? Oh, okay. If anyone's listening or watching, please answers on a postcard. It's a lovely part of the world anyway, Dom.

[00:01:49] So I'm, I'm very envious. Yeah, yeah. Please do tell us all a little

[00:01:53] Dom Cooper: bit more about what you're, what you're up to. Great. Yeah. So I, I'm Dom from Vu Digital as we've recently rebranded. We've been around for about 15 years and we do. Brand development, work, websites and marketing, primarily digital marketing for small businesses.

[00:02:12] We are a government supplier now. So we're on various government frameworks. We work with charities and third sector organizations. And like you say, what we like to call purposeful organizations that are for profit. So that's people coming at it from a social or environmental angle, as well as trying to make a profit.

[00:02:32] James Gill: There's so much already to unpack from all of that. I'm very excited to dig into some of these I mean for a start congratulations on Running the business for 15 years. That's that's a huge achievement in its own right. .

[00:02:44] Dom Cooper: Yeah. So I've, the business was not founded by me, but my business partner has been in for the full ride.

[00:02:51] He was there at the beginning. We are, we are joint business owners now, but I've been doing it 10 years, which is quite long enough. So

[00:02:58] James Gill: a pretty good effort there. Dolby pretty good. , yeah, he's in for a bit longer. Amazing. And and so clearly, you know, I mentioned B Corp at the start, but, you know, very into sustainability and, you know, hence one of the big reasons why we're talking on this show.

[00:03:15] So tell me about your journey into like, into better business. What's, what's taking you on that path?

[00:03:24] Dom Cooper: Yeah. So probably if I, if I rewind way back to, to sort of the journey of you we I originally came into the business when it was situated in Totnes Totnes is a beautiful old market town in Devon for those that don't know, and it's generally.

[00:03:41] It quite proudly considers itself the sort of hippie capital of the UK. I grew up and went to school in Totnes, and so did my business partner, and there's a sort of commercial hippie vibe to how we go about doing things, I suppose. It was pretty weird. Part of our formative years being at school there, and then working in Totnes, it kind of seeps in and Totnes does loads of great things.

[00:04:07] You know, at the moment, there's a, there's a huge amount of great work going on in sort of biodiversity and proper farming and things around Totnes, but also they did things like the Totnes Pound. To help keep money within the economy, they famously throw people off the high street. If they're a big corporation, they want local sustainable businesses or in and around them.

[00:04:30] And so that stuff seeps into the psyche. So yeah, we, we probably. From the start to a degree, we were putting that stuff first, but trying to also grow a business and, and make money. And it really, I don't know, probably. For the first five, 10 years of the business, it was just trying to evolve, do good work, get the right clients.

[00:04:57] Sometimes the relationships were good. Sometimes they were more challenging as most businesses go through the first few years. And then maybe between somewhere between five, 10 years, we started to sort of unpick our values and who we were really good fit for. And then the last Probably 5 years of the business, it's really been about putting those values 1st and communicating it.

[00:05:22] And as we started to sort of unravel that onion, it enabled different lines of questioning around how we structure the business, how we make those decisions. And, you know, the terrible thing about. You know, digital and the Internet now is that it famously is, is quite responsible for a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.

[00:05:45] And, and there's a, there's a quote out there. If it was a country, it would be the 4th biggest polluter in the world. And we now got AI. Being layered onto that, which is consuming huge amounts of energy. So it's only going to go 1 way. And meanwhile, at the same time, huge amounts of data is being stored in big server farms and never used 90%.

[00:06:06] I think it's something like that and loads of websites springing up that that don't receive any traffic that all need. Storing on service. So we started, you know, unpicking some of those things, circling around our values, trying to understand how to do that. And probably the, the, the main sort of big change for us was, we had, one of our members of staff at the time was married to someone who worked in measuring.

[00:06:34] Carbon and carbon output. She's called Dr. Jillian Alka, and she's off now, you know, many years later, she's around you know, off to events with the UN and all sorts. She's off in to Europe and various other places doing quite high demand work. Conferences talking at very high level. She came to our little office in Totnes to sort of unpick everything and start measuring what we were doing.

[00:07:01] And we basically worked out that we were pretty good. The office used most of the energy that we were doing. And the best thing we could probably do is move. To a, to a more sustainable way of working. And then we've been using Planet Mark to measure our carbon ever since. So we've been on this journey of discovery and that led us on to, to B Corp as, as well and, and various other things followed after.

[00:07:29] James Gill: That's such a, so interesting to hear that, that journey, Dom, because, yeah, it sounds, it sounds like things very much organically developed over time. And, you know, it wasn't like, It's quite refreshing, you know, to just hear like, when you started all the, all that time ago, it wasn't like, initially set up to be this extremely opinionated or, you know, we're going to be very purposeful in everything we do from day one.

[00:07:54] It's, it's something that's organically developed over time and you've found your, your feet doing that. And I, I'm interested as well, maybe, maybe in a bit we can unpack some of the like, Maybe challenges of like, and benefits of that, but also challenges and I guess maybe that it does come into sort of the topic around Becoming a a B Corp and and I guess You know, I've spoken to a few people on this podcast about when you start out you kind of, if you start out thinking you're going to be a B Corp, which maybe companies do today, then I guess you can kind of get a lot of stuff in place from day one.

[00:08:33] But for a business that's already been operating, perhaps even like yourself, maybe for like a decade or more, then I would imagine there's quite a few, a few challenges there of applying that, but yeah, it'd be good to hear like for, for Vu, what, what it was like becoming a Beagle.

[00:08:51] Dom Cooper: Yeah. So I think reflecting on some of your points there, I think sometimes we have an approach to certain things where we feel like there's, there's a start and an end point to fix something.

[00:09:05] And to take, you know, something like a brand and say, that's it, done. You know, ultimately the marketplace will change, time will change societal perspectives. Everything will shift and therefore the way that your business evolves around that will, and the way that the brand needs to communicate will change.

[00:09:28] So, there's certain things where we talk about future proofing and various things like that. And I, I think we have to be. Ready to flex and move, you know, we, we were, we're reflecting on view online 15 years later going online. That sounds a bit rubbish because, you know, like at the time, probably online was really cool.

[00:09:49] And, and so that's not really a new thing now, is it? You know, back then it was just about websites. Social media was in its infancy, you know, the world was a very different place and we've certainly had to move and find our feet with that. And. I did I did a seminar a few weeks ago where I talked about five stages of branding and there's this sort of startup phase where businesses are running around trying to do everything for everyone.

[00:10:16] And, you know, lots of organizations start there and we did too. And, and you just want to please everyone. You're not quite sure what you're all about and you go through a process of understanding the right kind of client and then your USPs and you can start communicating slightly differently and going, Oh, we work well with these guys.

[00:10:34] And then you can go through being a bit more targeted and then eventually you can move towards the business being self sustaining financially and, and aiming towards, well, what is it I put back? What does the business actually stand for? You know, what do I get up to do every day? What impact do I want to have?

[00:10:54] And all of those kinds of questions circle you to a completely different place. And the moment you start putting those questions before the financial decision making is the moment that you start having that line of B Corp thinking. And that's what's really powerful because it can move you into a place of, okay, if I did it this way, how would, what would that look like?

[00:11:21] And we feel like when we think like that as business people, we feel like we're going to miss out on something or it's going to be an expense. Instead of thinking about what would this layer on top. And our experiences has been great because we found by going down these little rabbit warrants, they've actually layered things on top of the business and brought unknown rewards.

[00:11:46] But also, also some challenges too. So, which you did mention, so it, you know, does for those out there who, who aren't a B Corp and maybe scratching the surface of this, you know, There are some things to be aware of it, it's going to take time. B Corp is a tremendous framework. There's, there's sort of five components to it.

[00:12:06] And, and they're not just about making money in governance. They're about people, community, all sorts of, all sorts of elements. And it's going to take a bit of time to do. There were two, myself and my business partner, Richard, Probably spent a year on this, not, not inclusively, we're still on the tools a little bit doing some work, but probably, you know, sometime every week for a long time.

[00:12:32] Yeah, it's also fairly expensive. I think you, you have to go through the process and, that's about a thousand pounds and you have to renew and do that for a few years. So I think all in, you know, you're, you're probably looking at about 5, 000 pound investment over a few years, which if you consider it just an, another accreditation that your business might be going after, it's going to be on the, on the top end of expensive.

[00:13:00] What I am starting to see now, which is quite Cool is, you know, the moment you say you're a B Corp, you know, I've stood up in networking events and people have clapped when I've mentioned it, people realize how much hard work goes into it. It's the movement itself is now far better seen than it was even a year ago when we started.

[00:13:20] I talked to people about it and they were like, Oh, B Corp, what's that now? It's like we're, we're a digital marketing B Corp. Oh wow. That must've been some work. You know, different conversation.

[00:13:31] James Gill: We've been through, through some things together.

[00:13:34] Dom Cooper: That's right. Yeah. The other thing is you're going to have to make some fairly permanent decisions.

[00:13:40] What, one of the one of the things we did very early on, because B Corp weights a lot of points towards is change your articles of association. Yes. The way the business is fundamentally structured. And it will lean into you creating quite a sort of, well, for us, anyway, our, our journey was quite a policy driven organization from we had good policies and procedures in place, but we really had to align them with social and environmental values, you know, and we, to live that when you've got a team of people working with you, that has to eke into policies and procedures so that you can evidence that that will continue to happen.

[00:14:20] James Gill: Sure, sure. Yeah.

[00:14:22] Dom Cooper: There is also a naughty list. For B Corp, they've got certain things, as you can probably imagine, they don't like you being associated with the arms industry and people in energy and gambling and all of those nasty things. Now, luckily, we didn't have too many clients like that, but for, for some who might have chased a quick buck over longevity, it might be.

[00:14:48] Be quite a difficult thing to say, actually we might end up not being able to work with people that we're quite dependent on from a financial perspective at this point. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why it's so exclusive and also so few people actually get through. I think there's only about 3000 in the UK and only 33 percent passed.

[00:15:13] So there's an awful lot of applications that don't make it through. And. I also think that's probably why it has this perception that, that it's hard work and, and a really credible thing to do.

[00:15:26] James Gill: Yeah, it's such such an honest and you know, transparent take on, on B Corp there, Dom. I really appreciate that because, you know, I think, I think for many small businesses sometimes I think a lot of people would probably like to be a B Corp, especially those listening to this podcast.

[00:15:45] But sometimes it's not always clear, like how many challenges there could be getting to that point, what the costs might be, the time it might take, you know, sometimes it's easy to live in this bubble and think I want to build a good business. Like I want to do all the right things. But sometimes there's You know, you quickly realize there's also very real world fires to put out when running a business.

[00:16:09] There's very real world customers to win or keep and retain. And sometimes it's very easy for that, that doing good piece to take a, at least a second second place to some of the urgent challenges of running a business on a daily basis. So it's, it's very refreshing to hear your, your take and, and, and to hear of, of, You know, some of the benefits as well.

[00:16:34] I was curious if on the, you know, especially on the, the client base side, did you have to say goodbye to any clients or did you, did that cause any Difficult conversations with anyone there.

[00:16:47] Dom Cooper: There was one. Yeah, we, we've been supporting for a very long time an organization called Water UK and they oversee all of the water companies across.

[00:16:59] The, the UK weren't quite sure about that is a very big organization. We've always been very proud to be associated with them because of the work they do to help everyday people understand a bit more about water usage and be transparent about their reporting. And we've done an awful lot of work with them to help them do that in the best way possible.

[00:17:21] But as I say, I'm, we haven't gone, there's been ethical and moral decisions taken as a business and individuals to not pursue conversations around clients that were already ring fenced in the naughty list. So for organizations that are out there, With with with good standards, actually, all it will do is is help support those and reaffirm that you're in business for the long run, you're doing the right things already.

[00:17:53] And that's really great. And for those that aren't, who are looking at it as a Profile exercise that have maybe gone after some of the the naughty list bunch they've got a real decision to make and that's that's what bco does well because it's basically saying you're gonna have to live these Values guys, you know You can't you can't sweep that under the rug and have our accreditation and all the good that comes with it without making Making the compromise of doing those things that are right

[00:18:20] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, you have to live and

[00:18:23] Dom Cooper: breathe B Corp.

[00:18:24] James Gill: On

[00:18:26] Dom Cooper: the plus side, you know, the, like I say, the perception shift from, from people that, that we've had has been beyond what I expected. Really? B Corp is massively in demand, the process from the point of application to getting assessed, my, my feeling was they were totally oversubscribed at the moment.

[00:18:47] You know, the movement itself, I think, has picked up immensely over the last few years. And obviously they want to protect their standards and keep, keep that. As at the same level that it is while still being open to people coming in. So that's been a huge bonus. We, we've had people coming to us at a different level of inquiry.

[00:19:10] So new leads for business last week, we had a closed tender inquiry from a very big charity. Which I don't think, you know, As as a government supplier, we get involved in frameworks and we get to go out and pitch for work effectively, but I can't think of a time where we've had an organization of of that size come to us with a closed tender, which is basically saying, you know, we're looking around for people who have certain set of values and we're offering you into that in a circle to to have a have a picture of working with us.

[00:19:45] And so that's a lovely thing. It also helps you firm up. Really your, your mission and vision and purpose. Like I mentioned earlier one of the things that we've done, which is really cool. We, we have an AGM, which we've been at as really small micro business and an AGM seemed like a really crazy thing that we didn't really need to be doing.

[00:20:06] But what we did was we, we pulled together a group of people to represent those five. Core values of B Corp on our board. So even though we don't have a board, we had people there that would say, okay, can you hold us to account on the people that we work with? Can you hold us to account on the environment, the governments, the, all of those areas.

[00:20:29] And the other thing I would say, even if you didn't go through the process, the framework itself is incredible. The questions are so well structured, it makes you go looking under rocks that you might not have thought to do within your business. It makes you put values ahead of profits and things like that.

[00:20:51] As an example, to sort of showcase that and then showcase the and that we get. So we. The framework says, put some percentage of your profits back into one of our chosen suppliers of, of charity effectively. So we looked at the 1 percent for the planet thing, which You know, it was, I think, a Patagonia initiative originally, and we found a local organization who are fantastic, called the Devon Environment Foundation, and we put some money back towards them now, because of that, we then got invited to 1 of their events.

[00:21:29] And because of going to their events and being involved with them. We've helped them put money back into local organizations, which we're now seeing springing up and we're making friends and getting connected with organizations to do with this charity. Now we wouldn't have gone down that rabbit hole to get to those people and, and find them without going through that process of using the framework.

[00:21:53] So it really is a fantastic thing. I have to say.

[00:21:57] James Gill: That is, yeah, that's incredible. It's, it's incredible. The kind of the knock on. effects and consequences of it. And, you know, I, I think the more and more I speak to people who have gone through the process, not just a B Corp, but the live and breathe and embody those, the values of B Corp at the very least.

[00:22:16] It, it, it is totally, I rarely hear that it's been a load of work and there's been no financial or business benefit. Like there's always Of course the benefits that you get from being a values driven organization from waking up every day feeling good about what you're going to go and do at work. But I think I, I just hear more and more these incredible examples of where it's been better for the business.

[00:22:43] It's put them in touch with new clients, new opportunities. It's connected them with companies that are better suppliers. It's made them more attractive from a recruitment perspective. And I just, I just think it's, yeah, it's very. I feel very inspired when I, when I hear these, these stories and very motivated you know, for, for other businesses like going on this journey too.

[00:23:06] It's, it's pretty, pretty exciting.

[00:23:08] Dom Cooper: And actually I, I wouldn't be here today either because the process of getting to meet you and being a part of EcoSend was a part of looking through our suppliers. We are, well, we were a MailChimp partner. When we were looking at under that particular rock, we were looking for a sustainable email marketing.

[00:23:28] There we go. You know, as it's impact

[00:23:32] Chris W: when you're doing email

[00:23:33] Dom Cooper: marketing for potentially, you know, a hundred clients and they might have a mailing list. of thousands each, you start to realize the impact of the emails that you're sending and you know, they trust your voice on who should we use to send our emails.

[00:23:46] And that snowballs over, you know, those things happen over time and you realize actually this is now quite a big thing that we're doing and if there's a few grams of carbon for every email that we send, then we can be working with suppliers who care about that and that want to offset that and do something about it.

[00:24:02] James Gill: Yeah, that's, that's actually, I genuinely, I didn't realise that Dom, so that's, that's actually really heartwarming to hear and I, I guess it does take us quite nicely on to another topic I know that you were keen to talk about, which was sort of the wider digital sustainability topic, because, you know, while I've got you, who's Working on websites, working on email campaigns for so many clients.

[00:24:24] It's it's a good opportunity to touch on that. It's, it's something that maybe B Corp itself doesn't particularly dive into too much in their own questionnaire. But I think I've seen it from a lot of B Corps where, You know, you see the sort of the badge on many people's sites about how You know, the carbon calculator kind of score and and how polluting a certain website is.

[00:24:47] So, and I know that's been something you've been caring about with, also with your rebrand and the new site and everything. So, Yeah, I was keen to hear how that's, that's been, and how that those conversations maybe have gone with clients as well.

[00:25:00] Dom Cooper: Yeah. I think to, to sort of unpack those bits bit by bit, you know, in terms of the, the, the phrase itself, you know, it's not something that is well known, but something I think is coming around the corner.

[00:25:15] There's been a phrase that sort of. You know, top levels of, of government around digital transformation, which is sort of getting up to speed. Largely, and something that doesn't seem to exist that I want to explore is digital sustainability transformation. So instead of looking at making it better.

[00:25:37] What's the parameter for better, because surely we should be taking into account the impact of what we're choosing as better. And so I'm kind of keen to try and understand, you know, organizations from top to bottom. So, firstly, obviously. Lightweight websites, renewable energy hosting, these are things you can change.

[00:25:59] There will be certain email providers for your operational email, not just your marketing emails that are greener than others trying to unpick and work out these things. And then make recommendations is something that I'm not sure is really happening. And that's what we're really keen to start exploring and progressing as, as a service offering.

[00:26:20] But also just bringing that into people's awareness. the tenders that we see on government portals aren't quite weighted towards it. There is the, the CSR stuff where there's, there's corporate social responsibility, but I would love to see at procurement level, people taking this stuff into account more.

[00:26:37] And Whilst I'm on that, one of the things that we unpicked to take the environmental stuff and park that for a second is the social side of B Corp. And one of the things that I found out when we were exploring this supply chain was offshore. In digital, it's increased in the last four years by nearly 70 percent and is something like 12 billion a year, maybe more, goes offshore.

[00:27:07] Now, that's fine as long as offshore work is being done. One transparently and delivered fairly and our concern is that these people where the work's going, this digital work, is going to people in poor working conditions, people that aren't paid what they should. And that is driving down the prices here.

[00:27:33] So I only found this out when my small micro agency was undercut on price by a massive London agency. And you think, how is that possible? And, and it was possible because they've got an Indian office and you think, well, this is just not, if the tender they won, if it's a massive government organization, What is the PR expense of them being found out that there's slavery conditions behind a digital offering?

[00:28:02] You know, this, this is something that would would ruin organizations reputation and is not perhaps being communicated transparently from top to bottom. So, if procurement teams said. We need to ensure that firstly, it's hosted on renewable energy and all of the good stuff, but also is going to be delivered by competent, well paid people, all of those things, then we would have some slightly different frameworks at the moment.

[00:28:28] Those, those, those tender bids are often structured around competency of work and showing that you've done it before, rather than how you would deliver it now. Yeah But I think yeah, one of the things that is coming. I think there was a thing in the BBC. They were looking at going through their supply chain.

[00:28:47] This is the really hard thing when you start measuring carbon is you have to go through your supply chain. And so when you're a tiny little micro agency in Devon, and you're trying to ask Amazon. What the carbon impact is, you know, they don't really care. They don't have the capability to break down the tiny bit of the world that we access of theirs and say, here you go, Dom, here's a report.

[00:29:12] You know, so it can be quite difficult to do that. And that the big corporations are trying to do more. And I think we're going to see some regulation around that over the next sort of 10, 20 years. And that. Brings me on to another thing that we're doing called the positive nature network, which is about connecting organizations who are you know, values based around the environment and one of the things that we see happening there is if.

[00:29:40] Big corporations are looking for suppliers who are already measuring and reducing their carbon, then they're going to have them as preferred suppliers. Which means if we create a network of people who are all looking to reduce their carbon, it should create work for itself. Because if we're all having to show our supplier's impact as well as ours, we're going to favor working with organizations who are taking the time to measure and demonstrate their carbon reductions.

[00:30:09] James Gill: Oh, that's, that's incredible. I, I will definitely, is there a website for the positive nature network, Dom? Yes. If there is, we will make sure we link to that in the, in the show notes, because that sounds like such a brilliant idea and initiative.

[00:30:23] Dom Cooper: It is as it sounds positive nature network. co. uk, Google it, you can't, you can't miss it.

[00:30:28] And yeah, do it. It's an on, well, it's a mixture. Of online and what we call field events. They're local to us at the moment, but what we're really hoping to do is create a community of people who are passionate about putting things back locally and setting up. Our field events might be going and planting trees or going and volunteering at local charities.

[00:30:50] And we set up events and try and recruit local businesses to get involved, sponsor those and come along and get their hands dirty. That. Works from the perspective of connecting with nature. It also supports those organizations doing the great work. And I know you did some apple picking recently, didn't you?

[00:31:08] Yeah.

[00:31:09] James Gill: Yeah. The community orchard up in, in North London. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So

[00:31:13] Dom Cooper: it's that kind of stuff and it, and it feels good. It's good for the team. Everyone feels like they've put something back and had a nice day. It's very connecting from a network perspective because you don't have to pitch, you just naturally talk about what you do.

[00:31:26] Absolutely. Right. And also, we found the reach to be quite large. We've got people in America, across Europe. So we're doing online calls to make sure everyone has the opportunity to come along, do a bit of a knowledge share, meet new people and connect. So yeah, we'd welcome you and any of your listeners along.

[00:31:44] You can go on to the website, sign up and you'll get information only about the events that are coming up. And then if you like them, you can sign up and come along.

[00:31:52] James Gill: Oh, that's incredible Dom. Yeah, well count us in for sure. We we've after our apple picking the other week We've we've definitely got a taste of this.

[00:32:01] It's but as you say everything you said there It's so true. Like we we do as a team on our side. We do quite a few days like that and honestly every time It it just yields so many benefits for us as a team, like, you know, the people you meet, just getting outside in the fresh air, many people working in front of a computer every day, you know, when you get outside into nature, it's such a wonderful time to just reconnect a little bit, take a breather, but also get inspired.

[00:32:33] And I think everyone comes back the next day, just feeling, feeling transformed when we do days like that. So, That sounds brilliant and to hear you bringing more people together to do that just sounds, sounds awesome. So I'm very excited for that, Dom. Thank you for sharing. I, I realize we, we are already over time, but I didn't want to finish without you did have a few little bits of advice or, well, you've already been sharing a load of advice, but there's a few tidbits that maybe you wanted to share, Dom.

[00:33:01] I wanted to just give you a little bit of a space to, to share anything you wanted to before, before we wrap up the show. It'd be great to hear anything. Anything you want to

[00:33:10] Dom Cooper: good question. So, you know, I suppose in, in summary of today's conversation, it sort of comes from unpicking your values and putting those things ahead of profit making decisions, perhaps in a very sort of blunt business way.

[00:33:30] Now your, your listeners here today, they're here for a reason and they're interested already. They've made a commitment. To come along and, and, and absorb more information around sustainability. So whatever it is you can do to move that forward and bring some different ideas to the forefront, go, go and do that.

[00:33:51] You won't be disappointed. As I say, it will be more of an and and instead than an instead of. So that's gonna massively help the next. Generation coming through the younger generation. Now, there are already stats to say that our generation are buying on values, not price. Right? But if you think about someone like Greta, you know, her generation coming through and the younger generation coming under her, you know, it's going to be.

[00:34:21] unacceptable to be just a profit making organization that people want to align on values. They want to feel part of a community. And if you want to be a business that performs well in, in those marketplaces, you're going to have to be able to communicate what it is that you do other than just selling things.

[00:34:41] And if you do stay in that space of just thinking about profit, then you're going to be. Pulled down on price because you can't communicate what the value is of, of being chosen for you over someone else. So, I think the best people that do that are Patagonia, absolutely superb. They've, they've done a fantastic advert, which basically said, don't buy this jacket because they don't want to sell stuff.

[00:35:09] They'd rather repair and reuse. There's a fantastic documentary called The Shithrop. I think I'm not quite sure how you say it, but it's not a pleasant word anyway, but the documentary is fantastic and it's talks about the challenges of creating products in a world where they're trying not to be commercial anymore, effectively, and the challenges of waste and life cycle and circular economy and all of these things.

[00:35:36] It's online. It's free documentary. It's absolutely fantastic. But they've given. 140 million, they created the 1 percent for the planet thing, the amount of impact as an organization, they can talk about, you know, they are properly community activists and they can now advertise to not buy their products.

[00:35:56] What kind of a world is that when you're in business, you know, so that, you know, I think that's I would encourage people to try if they can to get to that level of community thinking. And of course, community engagement, lots of that, as you well know, exists around newsletters and keeping in touch, but also getting out and forming authentic relationships.

[00:36:18] And when you think about what the authentic relationship in your business is, it's very often not the thing that you sell. Yeah, yeah,

[00:36:27] James Gill: Dom, I'm, I'm so inspired. I just want to go off and watch that documentary, check out all of these causes and organizations you've been talking about. I, I can't thank you enough for just such a wonderful show today.

[00:36:41] It's, it's truly been inspiring and so incredibly humbling to hear how much, how much impact you're having and how much work you're doing. As, as, you know, as an agency in, in Devon over, over the, you know, just the amount that you're doing as, as a small team is just it's just really, really inspiring and I, I, I'm sure many people listening to this are going to be.

[00:37:05] Going away thinking I can do some of that too. I want to be a bit more like Dom. That's I want to run my business a bit more like Dom. So I I really really appreciate it Dom. Thank you very much for joining, me today.

[00:37:18] Dom Cooper: Thank you so much for having me on James and honestly, it wouldn't even cross your mind that you would think Think like that, or anyone else would think like that.

[00:37:26] We've got so far to go on our own journey. And everyone is trying to do their bit on theirs and it's inspiring to meet you and loads of other people all doing these things and circling around it. And yeah, it's been, it's been really fantastic. Thank you for having me on today.

[00:37:41] James Gill: Thank you, Dom. That's awesome.

[00:37:42] That's awesome. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. And if you want to go find out more about what Dom's up to, we'll make sure all of those are linked to in the show notes. And also, you must go check out the new website, VU Digital. co. uk and check, check that out. It's been a labor of love, I know.

[00:38:02] So yeah, please do, do go, go show your support to Dom and the team over there. And, and if you've enjoyed today's show, you know what to do. Please do give it a like, give it a five stars, give us a comment, or even just get in touch and let us know. And if you think it could be useful for anyone else, please do share.

[00:38:19] share this episode on because yeah, we'd love for more and more people to be hearing these wonderful stories like Dom's. So thank you for listening and we will catch you on the next one.