Webmart is a sustainable marketing agency based across Oxfordshire, Yorkshire and London.
Back in 1996, the agency was founded by Dr Simon Biltcliffe on ‘Marxist-capitalist principles’ and is a proud B Corp with its own oxygen farm.
Webmart works with brands drive up marketing ROI through sustainable, integrated marketing campaigns with clients including the likes of Interflora, Nintendo, COOK Foods, East of England Co-op, and Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH).
Here, Biltcliffe shares how a recent week in his life went.
Monday
My day always starts at 6am and depending if time allows, I catch up with The Economist daily news briefing, have a cup of coffee, catch up with the emails that have come in through the night, have another cup of coffee and then take my dogs for a walk listening to Today on Radio 4, to make sure I’m set for the day ahead, whatever it brings!
I am incredibly lucky to live overlooking the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and so my walk encompasses both South and West Yorkshire for an hour which is a sublime start to any day.
Come back, have breakfast very quickly (tin of grapefruit usually) and crack on.
Today (Monday) is a mixture of working from home and email / calling people on a range of different roles that I partake in with Webmart, the UK’s sustainable marketing agency I established 27 years ago, to helping out a Women’s Refuge support charity, the political party I co lead and establishing a women’s prison reducing reoffending board.
Lunch equals taking the dogs for a walk up my field and having a pot of John West tuna. It’s like cat food, but it’s very quick and for me, food is fuel (the dubious joys of ‘foodie programmes’ have entirely passed me by!).
Afternoon was sorting out a few issues that we have on each of the roles and then in an early evening I was meeting up for a curry with my good friend and chair of the Barnsley Football Club charity, Dave Watson, which finishes off the day nicely.
Tuesday
Tuesday is my political day where I read all I can about politics to support my role as Co-leader of the Yorkshire Party. Yorkshire has 5.5 million people but no effective regional, or therefore national political clout. We need it to give the people of Yorkshire the best life chances so I’m passionate at driving forward this agenda and it’s an entirely new world for me so I need to put a lot of time into understanding it and how we can collaborate with other political parties to achieve this outcome and of course, electoral success.
Evening was watching Barnsley vs Port Vale where the glorious Tykes won 3-1. No better way of finishing off an evening than that!
Wednesday
Wednesday after the dog walk it is onto a Quartet meeting which is where the functional heads and myself sit down and have a chat through Webmart’s progress strategically and operationally. It gives me great joy to see the way that the leadership team has managed to take it forward into whole new areas of integrated digital marketing with a massive focus on sustainability. We have our own 164-acre oxygen farm in Scotland with an award-winning eco-lodge on it so that we can not only educate, but give people a retreat with their family. It’s an amazing place and nature is incredibly vital for all of our futures.
Then I’ve got a meeting with Lisa my incredible PA (best/most tolerant in the world) about the establishment of the employer group for HMP Newhall which is a women’s prison in Flockton that I’m chairing. If we can reduce reoffending by giving people quality work opportunities then they can get their lives back on track. It’s estimated that recidivism cost the UK economy £35 billion a year. Anything that we can do to put a dent in that not only helps individual ex-offenders and their families, but also reduces future victims and makes society a better place. I’m very passionate about this and delighted that James Timpson looped me into this initiative.
Next, I have cyber security training, which is a hugely important part of every commercial life and lastly, I take my Ducati in for a service via a meeting with some lawyers I have to see. I prefer riding the Ducati to meeting lawyers. In fact I prefer almost anything to meeting lawyers to be honest!
Thursday
Thursday, it’s a long drive south to Bicester in Oxfordshire where the Yellow Shed of Wonderment is (the name one of our clients gave to our southern HQ). We have a purpose workshop where we refresh and realign the business to our core mission of making the world the best it can be through our actions from a societal, individual, organisational and from a thought leadership point of view.
It should be fun. We’ve also got a whole team meeting with a new client that’s coming in and a mutually beery lunch with them all. It will be a full house and a deeply joyous experience as it’s always nice meeting new customers for the first time, especially when there are 20 of them!
After that, I will pop into the village down South that I used to live in and meet up with my friends there and then drive back home to Yorkshire.
Friday
Friday, I have a mixture of video call meetings, live meetings and also getting my back cracked in a chiropractor’s before heading out next week for a few days off road motorcycling in Portugal with my brother-in-law.
Also, at the end of the day Lisa, my PA, and I have a catch up about the next week of things that need doing and follow ups from this week as a standard default before heading out for the evening of Timothy Taylor’s landlord bitter at the Cherry Tree in High Hoyland. It serves the best pint in the world. After the week I’ve had it’s the perfect ending. Cheers!
