Moving Matters with John Payne

In this episode John Payne discusses how he began his illustrious career of over 40 years within the industry, starting at Davies Turner in Battersea, London at the tender age of 18.

John has worked in a variety of roles within several organisations during his time within the industry, including Britannia Movers International, AGS, Anglo Pacific and more recently EuroGroup. Today John has started up his own business offering consultancy services to the moving industry and has teamed up with The Red Group (probably better known as Red Recruit). John believes he can help all sizes of companies, from the single man and a van to the larger companies due to his experience.

John also offers other services, such as surveying, but will not be seen behind the wheel of a truck as he surprisingly does not have an HGV licence!

John’s biggest challenge throughout his career has been technology, it’s changed the way businesses advertise, market themselves, and more importantly the way we interface with our clients (and we take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and provide a history lesson for our younger listeners).

John would like to change the way we interface with customers today, as it is much more electronic, yet in the past it was done with more direct dialogue with the customer, speaking to them one-to-one and getting them to buy into and trust you. John believes it has become far less personal today than in the past.

John has one clear highpoint of being in the industry, and that is the opportunity to see the world, attending overseas conventions, visiting agents, and even representing BAR at FIDI in South Africa. Another of John’s highpoints is developing and mentoring other people, which he finds very rewarding, and we discuss further how to spot these individuals.

John would like the industry to be seen as a profession by the customer and would like to see some form of regulation to achieve this but believes it will probably never happen as he has seen the efforts made towards lobbying politicians and government which have always been met by a brick wall.

John’s advice to just starting out in the industry again is to have a goal and a vision and do not let anybody put you off trying to get to where you want to get to or achieve what you think you can achieve, but more importantly listen to others and learn.

John believes that in the next 5 years, for himself hopefully there is enough out there for him to for fill his career aspirations, for the industry, there maybe innovations that change the way we work (just like video surveys have in recent times), the adaptability of smaller vehicles, smaller crews and smaller operators working together will be the way forward, and on the international side moves are getting smaller and with remote working these days there is a shrinking volume of work.

Outside of the industry John has several hobbies which include golf and freshwater fishing, at home John has a lovely wife and a couple of dogs, John is a passionate Arsenal fan and follows some nonleague football, and finally John does enjoy quality food.

And as always we end Moving Matters with an interesting moving story regarding a famous female singer, and a funny moving story about a discreate move to Australia.

Enjoy!

Link to John Payne:

• Website