E041 - Naeem Arif from NA Consulting & United Carpets

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So, Niamh, welcome to the Green Element Podcast. Thank you so much for coming along. We know each other through the High Profile Club, which is a PR, really interesting PR club that I became a member of last October, November. And I don't know how long you've been— how long have you been a member of it for?

I think September, so similar time.

And we're not really here to talk about that, but we're more— we've connected through that, and through that connection we've understood what it is that you guys do in your organisation and how you work. And I think you're writing a book at the moment on the cohesion of staff and how you treat your staff, and it fits very much in the briefest of what it is we're trying to achieve at this podcast of helping people understand what it is that they're doing and how to do it. So could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about who you are and your businesses, etc., please?

Yeah, definitely. Well, look, first of all, Will, thanks for inviting me on. I'm quite looking forward to this. So my name's Naeem, Naeem Arif. I run 3 businesses. I've got a consultancy, which means I get to work with some great global brands and some smaller businesses. And the other main business I have is a carpet and flooring business called United Carpets. I was born just outside Birmingham, and my businesses tend to be around the Midlands, so I'm quite a local boy.

Okay. And so, take— how do you think— you've written this book. What's the book called?

So this is my 5th book. It's called Customer First. It's all about why organizations should think about their customers first. And the reason why I think it's relevant for your discussion is, you know, one of the big quotes early in the book is, stop chasing turnover and profit. And think about customer satisfaction. Because when you get really happy customers, the money will come. And the way, you know, millennial mindsets, Generation Z mindsets, everyone's changing. You know, people are more interested in more than just your products. They're interested in what your organization's about, what you do for society and the environment. And I think businesses need to start paying attention to that and bringing it into their story playing.

Okay, and so what would be your first steps if you were a small business listening to this podcast and you— what would you suggest you do to start off with, with understanding where to get to where you would want them to get to?

I think the last couple of years we've seen a lot of high-profile businesses go out of business because they've literally just disconnected with their customers. That can happen for a lot of reasons, but nowadays, because there's so much competition, so many alternatives, that businesses are checking that what you're doing is environmentally friendly, ethical, have you got a good service record. So like, you know, Uber had a big footprint in the UK, all of a sudden news breaks about how they treat their customers, their suppliers, their drivers, and suddenly Uber's global expansion goes on hold. And it's just a classic example of what can happen. So if you are an existing business or if you're a new business, we always talk about really thinking about your customers, what they believe, what they think, what's important to them, and start understanding that. And if you can get that angle, for instance, where you think there's a gap in the market because in a particular industry or a service area, people aren't doing things ethically, or if they aren't, you know, environmentally friendly, or if they aren't looking after their employees, you can jump into that space and you can really sell that story. So that's something people should really, really think about when they're either setting up or if they're in business and want to, you know, go to another level, grow turnover, grow expansion. That's a great place to start, I think.

Okay. And I'm not wrong in saying that everything is connected, i.e., I remember you were talking about how you communicate with your staff in the carpet shop and how often you guys meet and how often you go out. And that must play a part in the whole process because If you've got happy staff, you'll get happy customers, and they will try and do a better job.

Yeah, 100%. I think, you know, when you're a solo business or a very small business or a family business, you know, we started off as a family business, it's really easy for 3, 4, 5 of you to be really entrenched in the values and the ethos of the business and the objectives. But as you start growing and as you start getting staff involved, those guys have got different objectives. You know, most of them probably just want to go home. Most of them have got career aspirations and things like that. So for them, to get them aligned to your organization values and to get them involved, it's really important to have that two-way conversation. And especially when you've got probably people from different backgrounds or with different career aspirations and ages, I just think communication, communication, communication is massively important, and two-way as well, not just communicating down, get their ideas and feedback.

And as you've grown, is it much harder to— I don't know, you've got 20-odd staff, is it that much harder? I mean, is there stuff that you can do to preempt anything going wrong, or is it Should you just feel, find your way through understanding and making sure that you have got cohesion and just, you know your staff, therefore keep that in mind and grow with that in mind, or are there certain things that you could say, actually, think about that?

I think when you're a smaller organisation, let's just say there's 5 of you in the organisation and you've got one bad apple, it's a big percentage. And when you're 20 and you've got one bad apple, you can sort of COVID people. When you're growing, you sort of want to recruit people who are all-rounders, or you want people working with you who will, you know, turn their hand at a multiple bunch of things. And as you grow, you know, for instance, we recently took on someone literally just for cleaning, you know, just for cleaning the store, whereas 12, 15 years ago when we first set up the carpet business, we all did it, I did it. So I think as you grow, everything changes and you've got to be ready to change. But remember that your staff are the ones who are the real assets for your organisation. If you recruit well, they're a massive accelerator. If you recruit badly, if you're unlucky, they can be a massive poison in your organisation. And you know, really bring out the negative in everything and in yourself as well, because you then don't trust your staff or you don't trust that person, or because of that one person, you're sort of double-checking people and clamping down on people. But when you've got great people, you know, they can run things themselves. And that's the thing to be thinking about when we're recruiting and growing. A little bit of luck, But, you know, try and give people the opportunity to grow and try and recruit well if you can.

And do you personally recruit everyone or do you have other people doing it for you?

Yeah, so there's 3 directors. I mean, we're focusing on the carpet business here. There's 3 directors. There's myself, my mum, and my dad. And I do all the recruitment. In fact, I've always done all the recruitment in this business, just thinking about it. For some reason, and I don't know, I think maybe because I've spent a lot of time in the corporate world and worked for lots of other people, it's just, I guess I've just taken that role on. My parents have always worked for themselves in business, so very rarely have they worked for anyone else, so I guess it's just happened that way. It's not that I feel like I'm a great interviewer, it's just fallen that way in our organization.

Yeah, okay. I'm just wondering because I was speaking to a CEO of quite a large company recently and he actually does all the final interviews. And because it's not that he's a control freak, he was very open to say, I'm not a control freak, but actually if we want to have good people and that fit our culture, it's not hard for me to spend an hour with someone because that hour is so important. in order for our company to grow and for us to— and I found that really interesting that he put his— everyone's got to prioritize everything and he put the priorities. I mean, they've got 250, 300 staff actually, so it's not a small feat. He's obviously interviewing almost weekly for people but felt that it was really important.

But in that situation, it speaks volumes about the kind of culture You've got a very big organization. You know, 250 people is quite big in any scale. You know, it's not a small organization. But it speaks to me about the culture. It speaks to me that if I was being interviewed by the CEO of an organization with 20, 30, 50, 100, 200 people, as your example, it tells me that I feel that the CEO will want to know me personally.

Yeah.

And that would make me feel good. I'd be willing to sacrifice some things maybe to join that type of organization.

Yeah, that was my thought, that it was— it's not often you hear that, is it, in larger organizations, which is why I thought I would bring it up. And it's just, it's another way of doing things. And I think, so your consultancy business, you work with a variety of different organizations. I would imagine you see a variety of different cultures within those Yeah, so just to prep the answer, so the last—

well, since I'm 45 this year, so since I was 21, I've worked in— I worked for PwC, IBM, worked for lots of organisations, so really got to see some very big clients, got to see the way things run. It's very interesting how different industries have different mindsets. I spent a lot of time recently in sort of manufacturing, spent a lot of time in retail. I spent a heck of a lot of my 20-odd years in public sector. The way people treat people is very different, and I think that reflects in those organisations as well. You know, at the moment, one of my bigger clients, they're going through a massive redundancy phase, and it's well publicised on the news, and We're seeing from the inside, from the projects we're running, we're seeing those human roller coasters. But, you know, at the top, the board are responsible to the shareholders. They've got to do their job. And then as you come down the layers, everyone's got to do their job. And yeah, it's unfortunate when it happens. But yeah, it's sometimes a difficult situation. to deal with, but people have got their jobs to do there, I guess, and they've got to get on with it.

Yeah, yeah. So I'd like to talk a bit about the environment. I know we've talked a lot about the social and culture and stuff within an organization, but from a sustainability or from an environmental point of view, do you feel that's creeping into businesses? Have you seen it So I'd like to ask you on the carpet side whether people are buying more environmentally friendly carpets, 'cause I've recently just bought a load of carpets and it was a big, obviously a big factor for me and I did. But just wondering on the carpet side and then on the consultancy side, whether you're seeing it.

Yeah, to be honest, we don't tend to get people ask that question. We've been in business about 15 years now in the carpets business, it's our 15th year coming up. We do on average about 100 to 120 orders a week at the moment, so we get through a lot of carpet. It's very rare that we get asked about the environmental factors about a carpet, which is interesting because you can have wool carpet and you can have synthetic carpets, and obviously wool carpets are made from wool, so there is an element of maybe animal products in there or well-being of animals. I don't think anyone's ever really cared about that or asked me personally. But no, I mean, people don't consider very much on the carpets and the flooring and the bedside. We don't get many questions about the environmental or the ethical sourcing on that side, no.

What would be interesting is to— I wonder if it's a bit of chicken and egg. whether you put up a few posters or items around and just, have you thought about the environment? And look at these type of products. And then in 6 months' time, go and look at your orders and see if the orders have changed and whether the pattern has— you've ended up with more environmentally friendly products. You as a team aren't selling it, but you're putting that idea into people's head? I don't know.

I think if we did that, I think it would be another differentiator. I think sometimes there could be 2 carpets the same, and the customer's very close, you'll have that on that. And I think there would be customers who might be tilted one way or the other with that kind of messaging. And I think obviously there is the, let's try and do the right thing for the environment anyway, because it's our planet and our future generations, we don't want to leave them with a hospital pass or a bad situation, but I think genuinely that would be important to people and if we had something like that, it would probably help sales.

Yeah, absolutely. And then, so on the consultancy side, going into different organisations, have you seen a cultural shift in sustainability and environment. Thank you very much for listening to the Green Element podcast. We really value your opinion, and we're wondering if you could take part in a survey that helps make this podcast better, please. www.greenelement.co.uk/podcastsurvey. I hope you enjoy this episode. Different organizations. Have you seen a cultural shift in sustainability and environment?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, if we go back to the sort of the manufacturing side, manufacturing things and, you know, waste disposal and being efficient and being seen to be efficient is really important. You know, I've seen organizations promote the fact that, you know, The levels and the volumes of waste they output and the reuse, you know, that's a very definite thing that organizations will promote and use, and especially now with social media, obviously last 8, 10 years, definitely people will use those things as the way of getting people's attention to say, you know, buy our tin of paint instead of this tin of paint because we are ethically sourced, or we, you know, we don't harm the environment, and we don't just churn out waste. I've seen it in many industries, many, many industries. But the interesting thing for me on this is the fact that how much, I'd say in the last 3 or 4 years, it's revitalized. I remember, you know, being at school 20, 25, 30 years ago, it was a very important thing, the environment and don't waste things. And I did chemistry at university. So we'd look at process maps and how can we reuse things and catalytic converters and all these things. It did seem to go away maybe 5 or 10 years ago. But in the last few years, I think it's come up again where, again, organizations are very proud to say that they— take coffee shops, we ethically source our coffee, or Body Shop or people like that. A lot of companies are talking about this more. And can I ask you another question? When you say that, are you also talking— what about things like, you know, sort of gender and ethnic diversity and things like that? Because I'm seeing a lot of that as well at the moment, you know, it's a big drive at the moment to say we want to get more females into management positions, we want to be seen to have a more diverse workforce, so we've seen a lot of that as well.

I think there's a cultural shift going on. I think that sustainability and The environment has kind of kick-started a shift that was already happening, and I think the sort of people that look at climate change and understand it and try to address climate change and try to address organizations' environmental impact are the sort of people that are empathetic to what else is going on within an organization, be it the cultural bit. ethnic diversity, or, you know, we at Green Element, I mean, we're a B Corp, and through that we have understood a lot more about how it all fits together. And I definitely think everything goes hand in hand, particularly in that space, which they're not really the same at all. But I think it's just thinking about other people, isn't it? We're thinking about generations, we're thinking about other people.

Yeah, what you've just said there, that little sentence, it's thinking about other people, and I'm wholehearted with that. I think it's, it's thinking about other things than just making money, you know. Um, you can dig into your millennial mindsets and things like this and say maybe that age is getting to the point whereby they are saying, you know what, We're no longer scrambling around trying to make a living, and we're no longer worried about having, you know, great things. We're also concerned about legacy and what we're going to do for other people and what we're going to leave behind. And I think, yeah, you're right. It's about what else can you do? I'm seeing a lot of that in sort of the SME markets, you know, companies who are doing great turnover and probably got 4, 5, 6 employees. I'm seeing it a lot more in the bigger corporations. Obviously, in the smaller companies, it's easy for them to switch things and move things around, so they could be, you know, looking at one cause or one charity at the moment and then add another charity very quickly or switch. But with the bigger companies, it takes a bit longer, I think, for them to get that change through.

Yeah, absolutely. I was trying— I was thinking about something when you were saying that. Completely lost my train of thought. Brilliant. Anyway, yes, in answer to that.

You see, let me just say a couple of more things. It might remind you. So, you know, a lot of people recently are trying to get onto this pick one of the UN 17 sustainability goals. We're seeing a lot of that. We're seeing People, a lot more companies giving people time off to go and spend time in the community, do some community work and things like that. So we're seeing a lot of that as well coming up as well.

Yeah, I mean, I do remember what it was within the legal profession. Lawyers or the legal law companies are really struggling to get partners now because the younger generations are going, no, I'm earning £60,000, £70,000 a year.

Brilliant.

Why do I want to be a partner? Being a partner means I have to work longer hours, I have to work all weekends, and I never see my family.

Yeah.

I'm earning enough where I am, so therefore why do I need to earn any more? And apparently talking to law firms, it's a big deal and they're starting to worry about it. And we've got to remember that millennials are age 40 and below. And every year, a millennial is getting older and older. So therefore, I mean, I'm only just outside a millennial at the age of 43. So that's a huge part of our workforce that's— with stats like 92% of millennials will buy off an ethical consumer. You know, stuff like that, you just go, We are, and of course we're seeing a shift in our culture. And it does mean, I think it's a really good thing personally. I think that it won't stop people working hard because people always worked hard. People take pride in their work. And I think people, a lot of, and particularly the older generation, I've seen that, oh, well, millennials are lazy. No, they're not actually. It's just that they are more focused on their work and they will get things done more quickly. They won't be happy to sit there and just, you know, do whatever and then pretend they're working.

Yeah, and then leave at 5 o'clock and go home. They want to do more, don't they? Yeah, you know, and I think that ties in very much with the work that you guys are doing, the awareness you're raising, because they're not just happy taking the money, they also want to know, you know, and what, you know, what else am I doing, how else am I helping people? We're seeing a lot of this at the moment with a lot of companies, a lot of organisations inviting people for mentoring, to become mentors, and I think it's the same thing again. It's people thinking, you know, we can be more than we are, we can give something back, you know, and the sustainability of future generations, we can give them more. And I think it's across so many things that we're seeing this now. It's great, you know, I wouldn't have it the other way where we'd all go back to maybe, um, sitting at home and just not going out and just seeing our families and that was it. I think it's, it's the right way to go. We're a global village as a world and, um, you know, community integration, community cohesion is massive, I think.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Have you, have you read Sapiens?

No, you know, I don't like books. I, I do all the audio things. It's on the audiobook. Is it? I'll have a look at that.

Do, do. And he talks about it as a part of the fact that we've got less world wars now and how we're much more global and how we're all working together on everything. And what you just said, global village, and it is. It's almost now us against the rest of space, as it were.

Yeah, well, it'd be interesting actually. I mean, if it ever happens in our lifetime— I mean, I'm a couple years older than you, But when you watch like a space film like the Will Smith one with the aliens or anything like that, and then it suddenly becomes the world against the aliens, and then we all come together. But that would be very interesting if that ever happens. But yeah, we've got this thing in the news recently where there's been a bit of altercation between India and Pakistan. You've would have heard. You know, my parents are of Pakistani background. I work with probably about 2 dozen Indian people, and it's really interesting how we're all just saying the same thing. We don't care. We all live and work together. You know, can we stop? You know, it's 2020 nearly. Surely we don't need to shoot each other to get somewhere. And it's really interesting how things are changing. And people say, you know, social media is ruining everything. It's not. It's actually helping us get together more. You know, I think, you know, that's, that's an important thing. Um, it helps people come together more. And again, bringing community together, bringing people together, it, it's a massive influence, I think, on a better world. But, you know, I would say that I love social media.

So how, how do you think you can influence change?

How can I influence change? Wow, okay, I think that's, um, that's a really good question. Um, I think that the thing with change is— so I've done a lot of business transformation work, and you always talk to big companies who've got, you know, 500, 1,000, 20,000, 40,000— when I was at Birmingham— of a workforce. And it's like, how do we do stuff? How can we change all these people? Or how can we make such a big change? And reality is it comes with one action, one mindset, one thought. It's one step at a time. And I think that's what, again, come back to social media, that's what social media is allowing to do. You're seeing people, especially with things like hashtags, jump onto a hashtag and go, you know, there's one goes around at the moment, it's one of the charities I'm involved with, Birmingham Youth Sports Academy, you know, making things better, making Birmingham better. changing lives. I think everyone can do their bit and be part of a bigger movement. You don't have to be in the same place on the same project, but with a connected world, we can all do our little bit, and the bigger pieces, the bigger jiggle mountain, effectively. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to try and do something each, and then that will just massively accumulate up. Do you know about this? There's, um, there's a charity, Buy One Give One.

Yeah.

B1G1. So again, that's the same kind of thing, isn't it? It's lots of people just doing something a little bit, and it's all suddenly become a massive movement. And, and that's the thing, I think that power is within everybody to do something.

They're a B Corp, B1G1.

Yeah? Oh, brilliant.

Um, so what can— what do you think one What's one thing that people could do after the podcast? What would you like people to do?

Okay, well, I'd say my big thing is about don't chase profit, chase happy customers. I'm gonna give you an example of something that happened in December, just before Christmas. We had a customer, big order, it's about £3,000, but the lady, she'd paid about half the deposit and she came in crying. And she worked for one of the— I can't remember which one it was— one of the Poundland-type shops, I think it's Poundworld or whatever. She'd been made redundant, and now it was a choice of pay for the rest of the carpets or get married. She came in, she was in tears, and we effectively— be careful when I say this because I'm gonna get people trying it all the time— We effectively gave her a bunch of the carpet for free, wished her a very happy marriage, and said, don't worry about it. Now, she then cried even more, and then she actually told, you know, everyone she knew. We got loads more customers out of it, and we didn't do it for that reason. We did it because we had a 27-year-old lady who was just beside herself, just lost her job. I think if you're listening to this and you feel like, you know, there is something you can do for somebody else, just do it. Just do it.

Great advice.

You're not going to become poorer by doing someone else a favor. You're not going to suddenly lose the whole market because you gave someone some advice. And certainly, you're not going to run out of time in your life just because you spent 5 minutes listening to someone else's problem.

Yeah.

If you can help someone, do it. The universe will give it back to you. Guarantee you.

You'll become richer anyway. If it's not financially, you'll become richer. Yeah.

You will. And you never know when that'll come back on you, you know? When we're all old and grey or when we're at a difficult stage in life, if we can all do something great, it means someone will do great for us, won't they, at one stage? It'll definitely come back to you. Absolutely.

So where can we find out more about yourself and more about your businesses, et cetera?

All right, okay. So I would say United Carpets is my carpet business. You can come along and buy some carpet off us. There's actually 80 up and down the country. One of the directors, so I only own some of it. I don't own all of them. But I would say, yeah, #NACBBF. Come along, jump on, see what we're doing, see what we're about. And to be quite honest, if you're in the area and if there's something we can help you with, we'd like to help you. Whether there's, you know, a financial reward or not, give us a shout and we'd like to see what we can do.

Brilliant. We'll put all the—

Look forward to it.

Great, thanks, Naeem. We'll put all the stuff at the bottom of the podcast on the website. Thank you so much for today, it's been really interesting.

No problem, my friend. It's good to speak to you.

Yeah, you too.

Take care.

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