Colin Wynn Good morning Tony. Tony Tickner Good morning Colin. Colin Wynn How are you today? Tony Tickner I'm really good today thank you. Colin Wynn Welcome to Moving Matters. Colin Wynn Can you tell everyone a little about yourself and the length of time in this industry? Tony Tickner I can, well, first of all, thank you for having me on your podcast. I think it's, it's a real insight into industry and how others have done. So. I'm honoured to be on here with you. Colin Wynn Thank you very much. Tony Tickner I started, I've been in the industry 32 years. I fell into it really, you know, I was, I originally started out in the tyre game, I worked for Michelin, and one thing led to another, I was doing quite well at Michelin, and I got a job offer from a procurement company, funny enough, it sort of helped I was seeing the boss's daughter. Colin Wynn That always helps. Tony Tickner And he kept saying to me, I was 26. And I was doing rather well in Michelin, I was an Area Manager, I had a company car, you know, back then, you know, a really decent wage. And I was very, very happy in the industry I was in. But my girlfriend's father said, look, I need a hand, I've set up this little procurement company, you know, and I've got a contact in the Middle East, and they need products. He was a major buyer for McDonnell Douglas. And they run their site compound, which includes a hospital, fire station, housing, and he was responsible for purchasing everything. And he said, Look, I've set up this procurement company, and we're supplying to them. And I need a hand in sourcing anything they need. And I sort of ignored it for a few months. And eventually, I think what really did it was he said, look, I'll give you an XJS as a company car. So I jumped ship on the back of an Area Manager, another Area Manager at Michelin saying, you're really young for the position you're in. And it's going to be another 15 years before you get your next promotion. So yeah, I took, I don't know whether it was judgement or whatever. But I sort of jumped ship and thought when I go and give this a go. And I moved on to that. And it soon became apparent within a year, me and the girlfriend weren't getting on. And it didn't affect the work or the working relationship. But it soon became apparent, everything I purchased for this company had to be shipped. And I used, I got to know very well a member of staff, quite a large freight forwarding company. And he kept talking about wanting to do his own business and I said, look, you know, I did as well. And that's how it really all started. We ended up getting together in a business partnership. We went and bought a single vehicle, seven and a half tonne truck, the second hand, a tiny little warehouse because we knew we need to, you know, hold freight for a while and we were going to go into general cargo shipping. And we jumped ship. We, I put in every penny I had, he put in every penny he had, which was I think just under £5,000 between us. We went and got this truck on HP, we rented a warehouse off a sports showroom, the lower part 2,500 square feet, and we sat there and thought brilliant, we got our own company, the problem was we had no work. Colin Wynn But we all have to start somewhere. Tony Tickner Yeah. So we thought Oh, so we started as you do back in the day, then there was no email, doing flyers. And you know, him ringing up his contacts. I had a few contacts saying look if you want anything shipping, and we got a couple of orders. We soon realised, hang on a minute, there's only pence in this general cargo, we're never going to survive. And I think we didn't earn anything for the first three months. And my then business partner, a guy called Mark Nash turned around. He said, look, I did five years for Four Winds out in the Middle East, I'm going to ring my old boss out there, see if he's got anything. And he came back, a guy called Mohammed Armani. He purchased Four Winds Middle East, when Four Winds collapsed, and he said yes, but we've got a lot of work, you can do some, but it's all household goods. And that's how we started in the household goods, We thought there's a bit more money in this. Colin Wynn And was that shipping household goods? Tony Tickner Yeah, exactly. We were his destination agent, we became his destination agent. So he kindly gave us some rates that he was currently paying. We looked at them and thought, this is definitely more money than general cargo. And we said yeah, send it to us, we're clear it and we're deliver it, we got a truck and that's what we did. And for five years, the first five years, we would be constantly up and down to Heathrow Airport at that time, our little warehouse was in Surrey. And I spent all day, I drove the truck, loaded the truck, did the deliveries, Mark was back at the office, you know, in between jobs trying to find more agents. And that's really how we started. And so it was five years hard slog being on the trucks, you know, and but invaluable, invaluable learning, it really was. And from there, we slowly picked up more and more agents. So we did a lot of inbound work. And we started then getting calls from people we have moved in on behalf of overseas agents to Oh, I'm ready to move back or I'm moving to somewhere new, where you come and pack us. And that's slowly and surely how we built our company that was back in 88 we started that. Colin Wynn So can you tell everyone about your company and the services it offers? I believe you're multi Depo. How many demos do you run? How many vehicles, how many staff do you have? Tony Tickner Okay, well, we run five depots, but only three what I call operational, we use two depots for purely storage. We only have warehouseman at those depots. The other three we run vehicles out and crews out of, we currently run, I don't even know the exact number, but it's around 40 vehicles out of those three depots, and we're currently on 44 staff. Colin Wynn And is this household moving? Or is it just dealing with the shipments coming into the country, going out of the country? Tony Tickner No household moving, what we don't do is we don't do domestic moving. So it's pure overseas or European. We only do, I say we don't do domestic, we do do domestic but only for corporate clients. No, we don't do domestic moving for private clients. Colin Wynn And the name of this company? Tony Tickner Is Eurogroup, Colin Wynn The Eurogroup. Colin Wynn So you would do the odd domestic job if somebody enquired, or if I was to enquire, for example, would I just be told I'm sorry, we don't do domestic moves? Or would you pass it on to somebody else to do? Tony Tickner Correct, you'll be told we don't do them. Colin Wynn Right, so you don't do commercial moves or anything like that, it's purely household moves to and from Europe, International. Tony Tickner Yeah, we do a lot of domestic but purely for corporate clients. So yeah, as you rightly say, if Mrs. Smith from Milden Hall rung us, we would refer her to one of our colleagues. Colin Wynn What challenges have you had to overcome? Tony Tickner Oh, many. My biggest one is my dyslexia that I always felt was a problem for me, although that's got easier over the years with the introduction of you know, emails and spell checker and stuff like this. But I suppose our biggest challenge was being recognised within the industry and corporate accounts, you know, we were, I can remember when we were 26, and we went to an overseas conference, because that was the best way to meet a mass clientele. And we were very much not as being the young upstarts very, very hard to get into a recognised corporate account, it was just a matter of keep banging on those doors for months on end, years on end on a couple of them, and being taken seriously. But that's all about just being persistent. And knowing what you're talking about learning, learning your trade, and really knowing what you're talking about. And I think another thing that we were very good at in the early days, was looking at something new. I can remember when we had a number of American agents and everything was in lbs per 100 weight. Yet the shipping world was always you know, by cubic feet or cubic metres. And everything was done lbs per 100, so if you had a 20 foot, let's say container going to London, and it had 4,000 lbs, you'd price it on 4,000 lbs, yet you could have the same container with 5,500 lbs weight in it. Our costs were exactly the same. The crew costs for the day were the same, the line, all of the container was the same, the port fees were the same, you know, and the terminals were the same. So we were probably one of the very, very first companies to come up with a hang on a minute, this is mad, why don't we just offer them a lump sum container rate. And that bode us well, we designed a tariff back in the early days, which were based on all FCL to door lump sum tariff, and it didn't take very long with a bit of promotion sending out you know, getting everyone's addresses and posting them tariffs, and they would pick up on this, this is great, you know, it doesn't matter, we can do that, and we ended up picking up a lot of work from being slightly different. Colin Wynn And if you could change anything for the past, what would it be? Tony Tickner I think if I could change anything from the past, I know this is a bit of a cliche, but I probably wouldn't change anything, because our mistakes have made us stronger. And we've learned from them. But I do think one of the biggest mistakes we made in the very, very early days was not truly understanding our costs. So it's very, very easy to look up while you move a to b, it's that price because the man cost us this, the fuel cost this this the truck cost this this, it's very easy to forget about, well hang on a minute, I haven't quite calculated the office overhead, the phone system overhead, back when the telex machine cost, not purely understanding our costs, I think if I could rewind, and go back, I would have a better understanding of our costs, and we would have maybe achieved things a little bit quicker than what we did. Colin Wynn Definitely, and things like you know, a sack truck, it costs you it's an overhead cost you money. So I always say to my clients charge for the sack truck, you know, don't charge 35 quid, but maybe if you've got a sack truck, and it cost you 100 quid or whatever, you're going to have it for several years, just charge a pound for every time it's used, at least you're getting something back and packing materials is another one. The amount of companies that are just not selling their packing materials, well not actually selling them, but costing them out, I mean, we always used to have in the company I was involved with, we always used to say if you bought a pack 2, and you've got four lives out of it, every job we put it on, it was 25p, if we got three lives out of it great, we got 75p, but if we got five lives out of it, great we've got £1.25, if we used it on a long distance job, we would charge them a pound because we would know we'd never get it back. Tony Tickner Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the big things that I think, and I see with smaller companies now, and not just in this industry in a lot of industries, is they don't have a true understanding of their administration costs. It costs to put through the system a purchase invoice, it costs to raise your sales invoice. And if you are using a bank overdraft, how much does that overdraft cost you over a 12 month period? You know, all these elements have a bearing on your costs. And look at your numbers regularly. Look at them daily. You know, I'm old school here every day I do a bank rec, every day I look at our numbers because they tell you so much. And if you think you've done something, and it be and I can go back to the early days, that's good we made £150 on that, and then when we looked at the numbers, actually we only made £80, why something must be wrong. Well, if something's wrong, it's because you've not costed your overheads correctly. Colin Wynn Yeah, absolutely. And things like your warehouse have pretty much a standard overhead, it's your rental of the warehouse if you're renting it. But your actual removals, the guys might be on £10 an hour today, they could be on £11 an hour tomorrow, your pack 2 might be £2 today could be £2.50 tomorrow, your price of diesel could have gone up, everything changes, it fluctuates, so you really should review your costs on a regular basis. Tony Tickner Absolutely Absolutely. And I'm insistent here, we do it daily here. It's absolutely rigid. And you know, I'm fortunate now, I have quite a large staff, but when it was 100%, just down to me and my business partner back then, I wish I'd paid a little bit more attention to it, and then maybe we wouldn't have felt some of the pain we did at times. Colin Wynn I must admit selling software at the moment, years ago, people used to buy our software purely because of the storage invoicing run, you know you press a button and it printed legal money as we used to call it in those days and invoices would just come flying out. But we had a costing element and still do in the software. People never bought it then for the costing side, but now people want to know their costs, which is great going forward, but it's taken a long time to get here, a very long time. Tony Tickner We run a two tier system here. We still, I'm a great believer in keeping up with everything, and using these tools which will advantage you, you can look at software and say well hang on the licence fee of that is this much a year, and I can do without it, but actually it makes your job so much more easier. So we run that but we still also run files where staff have to put the profit on front of the files. So they can see what we're doing. Not only from the software, but also from the file they're handling, they're manually handling. Colin Wynn So what is your high point of been in the industry. Or you could have several? Tony Tickner I do. There's an awful lot. We move awful lot of stars from our contacts. And they're always a high point and exciting for staff to see who we're moving, we're just moving Cat Deeley back from the USA, to the UK, that's exciting to see the staff all get excited when we're when we're moving a name, you know, that they recognise. My real high points of the industry are, I have two major ones. One of them was being chosen to the management company for the probably one of the largest contracts in this country, if not the largest one. And that was I was chosen to be the joint supplier for the drawdown out of Germany for the Ministry of Defence back in 2015, when we did the first phase, we move 2,500 families over a 12 week period, back to the UK, that was mass organisation, and I was extremely proud that we got chosen to do that and more even proud that we've managed to put forward a Operational Programme that moved those families within that time frame. And everybody was delivered on time when we said, so is immensely proud of that. And my real high point of recognition, I think was being asked to be BAR President. Colin Wynn Which I have a question on that, so we'll come back to your BAR Presidency in a moment or two. Colin Wynn I see that you are a member of the Movers Trading Club. Could you tell our listeners a little about such a club? I'm aware of it, but I don't really know what it does. Is it a secret handshaking club or ... Tony Tickner I happen to be chairman of the MTC, I'm coming to my second year, end of my second year term in May. The Moving Trading Club is an attachment of the overseas group of BAR. And it's a club that, that you have to be a member of the overseas group to belong to it, and it negotiates the ocean freights with the carriers. And we run our own programme, so no moving company has to pick up the phone and get a rate from a steamship line. We've already negotiated the rates, and we have our own software programme that everybody has on their system, and they can immediately look up the current rate for the ocean freight that we've negotiated, and they have all their costings laid out there in front of them. So the only thing they have to do is pick up the phone and actually book a container with the line. Colin Wynn So how do you become a member of the Movers Trading Club? Tony Tickner You become a member of the overseas group? Colin Wynn So everybody that's in the overseas group is a member the MTC? Tony Tickner Yeah, and then you can apply to become an MTC member, and all, well, I think we're probably 99% of the overseas group members are members of the MTC club, the MTC club also monitors all the rules and regulations, to ship to and from the USA, you must hold an FMC licence, which is a Federal Maritime Commission licence, and the MTC holds that licence. So the moment you become an MTC member, if you sign up for the USA lane you become part of that licence. Colin Wynn And I take it there is a cost to join this group? Tony Tickner There is, and the cost, it's varied on on the number of containers or TEU's you ship. So we take a look at the numbers, and you fall into a band for that membership fee. Colin Wynn Excellent. Colin Wynn You are the immediate past president of the BAR, as you said, did you enjoy your time in your presidential role? Tony Tickner I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed every single aspect of it. It was hard at times, it was challenging at times, but it was so enjoyable. Colin Wynn What was so hard about it, Tony? Tony Tickner I think part of it is trying to, this is my personal view, is trying to give a little bit to everything because as a president, you are involved in literally every aspect of the BAR, whether that be the commercial moving group, the national moving group, the overseas, you know, the APG, you're automatically you know, president of the Benevolent Fund, so you're involved in everything the BAR's involved with, staffing, the lot, so I was to be able to give a bit to everything and some areas because of my knowledge, I've not been, ever been into, you know, office moving was more challenging than others and I didn't quite give as much. But, you know, one thing I was very pleased about is, I thought it was my duty and my job to attend every council meeting to get a good feel of what was going on as many area meetings as possible. And obviously, every board meeting and all the meetings that go along with running a large successful association. Colin Wynn So it took quite a considerable amount of your time. Tony Tickner Ian Studd, I think he said magnificent, Director General, he really is because not just the fact that he's an industry man himself, but he's also, and people forget, he's also a past president in his own right. And he gave me some absolute sound advice. And he said this role, we're here to help you, that the BAR secretaria, the staff are there to help you in your role, use us where you feel you need. And this job, you can give as much or as little as you want. When I got, I got asked twice, I turned it down the first time, and a few months later, I got asked again, and I just could't believe I've been asked to be honest with you. And I used to think god is, can't they really find anybody else, you know is this a stitch up. And I followed Gary Wheadon, he also gave me some great job, but he also put his hand on my shoulder and said, Tony, you will enjoy it, you really will enjoy it. And it, it's I gave me an insight into so many other people's companies and how they run, I got to know people so much better within our industry, instead of just the odd little chat, you know, I actually got to know them better. And it was just fascinating, absolutely fascinating. The one thing I did think I was always good at is I have my company hat on, but I can also wear an industry hat. And that's what you've got to do in those worlds, whether you're a counsellor, area secretary, area chairman or on the board, is you've got to take off your company hat, and you've got to put on an industry hat. And I went into it, for any roles that I've done within the BAR, I've been overseas Chairman, I've sat on councils is, if it's good for the industry, it will automatically benefit my company in the long run. Colin Wynn Definitely. Colin Wynn Is that decision, why you've joined so many boards in the past? Tony Tickner This industry has been good to me. You know, we've had our really, really we have had some, you know, terrible years and some bad years. But on the whole, this industry has been very, very good to me. It's a fascinating industry. When I was many years ago back in Michelin, it was all about, while it was interesting, no one was ever bigger than the product. No one was ever bigger than the name, this industry is very much opposite. And it's all about relationships. It's all about people you know, it's all about associations that you belong to. And the more you give, I know it's a cliche, but the more you give to this industry, it seems to be the more you get back. Colin Wynn Yeah, and again, it's one big happy family again, I keep mentioning it on the podcast, the removal industry is a family at the end of the day. Tony Tickner You know I listened with great interest when you did the podcast with Ian Palmer, you know, and Ian Palmer said something on there, which is some of his greatest friends are his competitors. And it's absolutely true. You could be a competitor, but you, at the same time, are very much friends and you use each other to your benefits. You know, so the BAR to me, really helped our company once we became a member. It gave us structure, it gave us the things that many things that I thought I knew I actually didn't know. It gave us structure, it laid out a code for us, it laid out practices for us. So it really helped our company, and one of my main decisions to serve on these boards is one it helps me stay ahead of the curve in the industry, so if I'm on the overseas Council, or if I attend an area meeting, I learned something, well learning is being ahead of the curve. And I really, really, I feel like as this industry was so good to me, it is it's really gratifying to give something back. And if something I've done or something I've said or if I've been involved in a group of people that have made a decision for this industry that helps this industry, it's got to be worthwhile. Colin Wynn Totally. Colin Wynn What one thing would you change within the moving industry? Tony Tickner Regulation. Colin Wynn Oooh, good old regulation comes up yet again. Tony Tickner Yeah. Trust me, I can go back to some of my earlier days and think, Oh, my God, another standard, another this, another that, but regulation at governmental level. Colin Wynn Oooh, that's better. Tony Tickner In the fact that, we're looked at, this industry is very much looked at by some people as being a very bottom end industry, it's not, we're in people's lives, we're in people's homes, we're dealing with very sensitive stuff that people have acquired, we're dealing with families, we're dealing with the parents and their children, you know. Colin Wynn At a very stressful time as well. Tony Tickner Exactly. And we're involved in all that. And I feel like, you know, we have a policy here, we have to have it for a number of our corporate accounts, as well, and rightly so, you know, all our staff, our background checks are done. You know, we're in people's homes. I think there should be a tighter regulation with companies that operate in this sector. I'm not knocking you know, we hear it too many times, Dan's in their vans, I was a Dan in their van when I started. And there's nothing wrong with that. There is an awful lot of very good Dan in their vans out there. But when we get into the heavy trucks and things like this, I think some of our regulations are a bit weak, you know, like the financial standings that you have to have for running this type of equipment, I think they can be tightened up a little bit. Colin Wynn So what advice would you give to a young Tony, just starting out in the industry? Tony Tickner Oh, yeah, don't do it. No, that's totally the opposite. You know, I think, young advice, I think in the initial days, don't be frightened if you see an opportunity to run your own business for one. I've never looked back on that. But I do think one of my biggest errors, as I said, and we alluded to this earlier, is know your costings, don't be a busy fool. Colin Wynn Absolutely. Absolutely. Tony Tickner And we were busy fools at times. Colin Wynn Where do you see yourself and the industry in the next five years, is there anyone ready to step into your business shoes and take over the reins? Tony Tickner I'm probably a little bit guilty here, my son Calvin, I know he's young movers, you had him on your podcast, I probably a bit guilty of holding him back a little bit. I've got him and my daughter, Calvin's 28, my daughter's 25, my daughter works here as well. And I'm probably harder on them and the other member of staff. I have a couple of staff here, aside from my kids, that have been with me almost from day one. So I hold a very strong loyalty to those as well, as well as a lot of the staff here. But I need to release the reins a little bit and put a little bit more, hand a little bit, not trust because I trust my kids implicitly. But I think I need to release some of the more day to day running of the operation to them a little bit. So I'm not ready to retire. I'm 57. And I can't see myself sitting at home and finding other hobbies. So I would like but I would like more time. I can't remember, it must be 15, maybe even longer years, since I've had more than one week holiday a year. So, I do take the long weekends, but to be actually it's time to say actually I'm gonna have a two week vacation or a three week vacation and know that the company is still sitting here. I know it would be anyway you know, the staff are very, very good. They know everything. It's my trust issues, I think. Colin Wynn But if you went on a two/three week holiday, would you be contactable on your mobile phone or would you literally say I'm going away for two/three weeks, I'll see you when I get back? Tony Tickner I go on a week's holiday and say I'm still contactable. Colin Wynn I do exactly the same. Tony Tickner And then I get, I do get, particularly from one of my members of staff, a lady here called Rachel, who's been with me here since day one, will you get off your phone, I've already done it. But I am, I've also got a young, my youngest son is only 12, so yeah, it would be nice to perhaps give him a little bit more time away with us. He's used to me working around he comes in the office here he's our filer. Colin Wynn Oh, he's now doing the job Calvin said he was doing when he first joined. Tony Tickner I listened to Calvin and I heard him say how much hated the filing, so I've got the same with Ollie, he said I'm not just coming in to do filing. Colin Wynn So where do you see the industry in five years? Do you see it changing at all? Tony Tickner We don't do the private domestic moving. So but I also see a change in that. But on the overseas moving. I think we're in the biggest transition we've ever been in our lives. You know, shipments are getting smaller, gone are the days when the telly was two foot wide, it's now slimmer than an A4 Notepad. Gone are the days when we used to have half a dozen boxes of photograph albums and CD boxes, you know everything, all of that is held on your mobile phone. Colin Wynn Yeah, which again, people don't realise, just literally as you mentioned I'm thinking, oh my word he's dead right. I mean I can't remember the last time I actually took an actual photograph with a camera or listened to an actual CD. Tony Tickner No. So if I went back to some of our very old records, we do keep a few you know, and I look at the average move might have been, you know, somewhere around about 6/700 cubic feet, that's now down to sort of 250 because so much is kept on the phone or the iPad or the laptop. So shipments are getting smaller, and we live in a more disposable world, slowly and surely everything is disposed off now. Colin Wynn I was gonna say, I mean, surely it'd be a case of TVs, washing machines, those sort of things are so much cheaper now that if you're moving from one country to another, it's pretty much better to say let's sell it before we move, then we don't have to take it, and we'll buy a new one once we arrive back. Tony Tickner Exactly. And the other one beyond that, is that industries are changing around the world. If you go back 30 years ago, you wouldn't think there were these app companies or just web design companies? These are prevalent now, and the type of employees that they tend to have are young, single, mobile, graduates plus. So they're more well I just got a bag of stuff. You know, they're not moving the home or the wife and three kids. So that has shrunk the overseas market more. So I think there's a whole realignment. And I think we've all seen it this year, you know, none of us could have predicted this pandemic, but what the pandemic has done is shown people that you can work remotely, just as successfully, with zooms, with all the meetings, you can have staff working from home, they don't have to be based in these large offices. I don't think that will ever go completely, but I think it will be reduced. So this is going to be in my view, a shrinking market. So we have to adapt to that, but at the same time look at the new developing markets, the big IT houses and that lot, which will move more people, but with smaller shipments. Colin Wynn Gotcha. Colin Wynn So what do you do outside of the industry to switch off which I'm guessing you don't do? Tony Tickner I think as a business owner, you never truly switch off. But I am a car fanatic, I've always been a car fanatic. My family have been in the garbage business, so I was brought up in and around garages, so I'm a car fanatic. I'm currently rebuilding a 14 year old Jeep, Suzuki Jeep, which was originally designed for the Australian Army and ended up on the Islands of Ibiza, for everybody who can remember we used to go to Ibiza in our teens, you'd hire a Jeep. And funnily enough, I managed to track down one, which was 40 years old, and was sold by my father's garage, and he was one of the first Suzuki dealerships in the country. So I'm doing a nut and bolt restoration on that at the moment. I also, I just love my cars, I you know, I have a couple of other cars that I enjoy using, and I enjoy my motor racing. So I am an avid fan of F1. And I used to most, before the company's came all consuming, I used to offroad race, so that may be something that I might look to get back into if I can get out a little bit more? Colin Wynn Take time off, Tony, you've built up the company, it's a success, let other people take over and just sit back, watch it from a distance and have fun. Colin Wynn And finally, I like to end my podcasts with a funny moving story. Do you have one or more to tell? Tony Tickner Oh, wow. Oh there's been a number. I talked about earlier about breaking into major accounts, and how long it takes to do it, we succeeded. We had two or three corporate accounts that had asked us to open a small operation in Paris, which we did really purely for these three or four accounts. One of those accounts was really VIP and a major booker with us, and they dealt with some of the biggest blue chip companies you could think of. They booked a move with us to move a president of a really big blue chip company back from Paris to America. And we did the normal thing, we went and surveyed the job, and all the booking was done and everything, and it was this massive Parisien house, it was gorgeous. And the Packers were there, they were packing over four days. And, we did this move, we thought absolutely successfully, and I think it was three or four weeks later, when the goods arrived in America, we got a call from the accounts and that there was a major problem. And the President of this blue chip company called them making a huge complaint about what had happened, and that we had put his wife in a very difficult position. We were due to fly out to a conference in Florida, literally the following week. So this account said we want a face to face meeting at this conference, they were going to be there. And by the way, you're suspended until after this meeting. So we were suspended of the work, luckily, it was only a week. Well we got to the conference, and been there a couple of days, and it came with time that we'd set for this appointment. Luckily, we had booked a suite, so we held the meeting in our suite, so it wasn't in public. And in from this client came the president of our client, the President, the Vice President and their particular office manager and one other employee, and they sat there and they said, right, where do we start? And we said well, you could start by telling us what the problem was. Colin Wynn Wow, they hadn't even told you that? Tony Tickner No, no, no, well, they knew cuz we're only a week out from when this problem happened. And they sat there and they said, well, when the delivery crew was unpacking the boxes, the wife was grabbing a few boxes and unpacking ourselves. And she pulled out of one of the boxes, which didn't have anything else in apart from a little bit of rubbish, some photographs of your packing crew. Well back in the home in Paris, they had a, it was such a large house, they had a small statue around this mini fountain of Eros in the main hallway reception. And the packing crew had found an old, remember those Polaroid cameras, which automatically print the picture off, and you wait a couple of minutes for them to develop. Well, they decided to take a few funny pictures and in one of those they decided to show their derriere's, putting it in the french term. And, of course what they thought they chucked the photographs in an old rubbish box to go on their van, but they'd actually packed it in the container. Tony Tickner And so of course when they told us about these photographs, the room went silent. Because they they finished by saying, and because they brought the photographs the president of this blue chip company given it to them, and they said what have you got to say about them. And the the gentleman who was running my Paris office at the time, it was dead quiet, he just looked at the photographs, he looked at them and he said, I don't see what the problem is they're not out of focus. Well, you can imagine, I'm sitting there biting my lip, and thinking this is our major account, and there's dead silence. And then suddenly the president of our client, burst into laughter. And actually broke the ice, and they decided, from there, it was just one of those things, and it was just hilarious how it came out. But yeah, talk about wanting the ground to open up and swallow you. Colin Wynn Absolutely brilliant. This industry is full of funny stories, it really is. Tony Tickner Yeah, I mean, I have to be, I have to say, obviously, we mentioned it to the crew. But even we couldn't hold a straight face doing that to them either. Colin Wynn Ahhh very, very good. Colin Wynn Tony, thank you very much for giving up some time this morning to record this podcast episode with me, I truly appreciate it. Tony Tickner Oh, you're more than welcome. And I have to say, Colin, I think what you're doing, opening up, that people can listen to people's story is fascinating, it's a real insight to the industry. Colin Wynn Thank you very much, it's something I've been meaning to do for a long, long time, COVID decided that yeah, now's the time to do it, because this industry is a massive family with lots of stories, and everybody's got history. Everybody's got history. Tony Tickner Absolutely. Colin Wynn But thank you very much for your time, I appreciate it. Tony Tickner Thank you Colin. Colin Wynn Thank you Tony. Transcribed by https://otter.ai