Another Crazy year 2023

Well this week we are filming the podcast after another crazy week on a Friday night. 

Let’s do this! Helen has had a week of numerous breakfast meetings and a jampacked good week had by Chris. Although Chris is upset that this weeks camera angles are slightly off as this week he didn’t put his markers in place for when he returned the cameras back to film, but does anyone notice or does anyone even care!? Probably just him!

2023 has been a crazy year for everyone really… This year we have really appreciated the relationships that we’ve grown with our customers and getting through another strange year in business. The aftermath of another summer has allowed us to reflect on yet another rollercoaster year. 

So far it’s nice to share the journey with like-minded customers and be open with each other along the way. 

Chris always said he felt it in his waters at the start of the year that 2023 was going to be a tough one and to get ready to knuckle down. And boy was he right in many ways.

Yet again we both become a bit silly and giggle about the random jokes shared from shooting stars where the cast would say random words and jokes which we reminisce about together. We must stop digressing and get back to business. Most businesses we speak to have said similar things this year have such as that patterns have changed and it seems harder to earn your money these days. 

Coming back to work in September after the summer break, a lot of people feel refreshed, and it seems as if everyone in business has come back to life. Is it like this for everyone? 

It’s been humbling and genuinely true. We have some special friendships with our customers and appreciate the honesty we can share with them getting back to normal life for business and personal after Covid and Brexit, but what is the new norm and what are the new patterns? How do you plan and forecast your business now? Some businesses totally grew whilst some crashed in Covid but surely that same pattern cannot continue at the rate it did for everyone. 

Marissa from Safty Forward was kind enough to share our podcast a couple of weeks ago about how she resonated with it. This meant so much to us to hear from someone we both respect in business and personally, what an inspiration and lovely person she is. This is why we want to share our honest thoughts along our journey to resonate with those who have been or going through a similar business journey.

We discuss how we are all ready for Chris’ meals on wheels whether it’s using his new cooking tray for a bbq for his video equipment. It’s not quite clear what his shelving on wheels is for all we do know is that it’s cheaper than an actual video carrying cart so Helen is happy with that. 

Chris gets overexcited about discussing his videography equipment and what they can do. Helen has to bring him back to reality and that he could buy everything he wants to, but does he really tell her everything he buys and how much it really is? Perhaps ignorance is bliss here! Maybe Helen has pulled the wool over Chris‘s eyes from time to time with her fashion purchases, often coming home with more clothing from work that she claims is a sample, but ends up on her back the next day this week!

Helen and Chris give a shout out to the Taylex group who are a brilliant team of people to work with and who they have worked with for a number of years now. They also filmed with Karl Clark, the owner of the Taylex Group earlier this week. He’s such a great guy. He took all the filming in his stride and was such a natural.  We will shortly list the link to the final video we did with him and the team. They also run Expo supplies and Londis stores if you need an exhibition display speak to these guys. 

Chris had office envy when they visited Taylex Groups head office in Halesowen. In contrast to this they speak candidly about some rare feedback from a customer this week where they respectfully advised that they hadn’t heard back from us in a timely manner. Helen addressed this as she was quite mortified by it, but also wanted to completely take this on board and speak to Chris about what processes they could put in place at Thread A Pixel to ensure this kind of behaviour does not happen again. We will always take any feedback on board. If it means we can offer a better service for our customers then we have to learn from our mistakes. We all are human after all and we are pleased to say that our customer felt that they could share this with us and give us the opportunity to put it right. The customer isn’t just a customer to us but a partnership. 

It’s not long before we get back onto sayings and getting them wrong. It’s good to talk. A problem shared is a problem halved. 

Chris discusses why do people call each other mate, he’s not sure it’s for him when it’s someone he doesn’t know but Helen just thinks he’s not very friendly all do time and is being a bit of Victor Meldrew!