The Build Up is a podcast for marketers in the construction industry. Hosted by Daniel Moore, the Creative Director of dissident, a creative agency that creates disruptive content and social media marketing for some of the leading and most rebellious brands in the industry.
The Build Up is a podcast that puts a spotlight on the unique world of construction marketing.
Dan will be speaking to marketers of leading brands, other agencies, creatives, founders and influencers.
The series aims to highlight and give insights into key areas of construction marketing and provide insight for fellow marketers, founders and creatives in the space.
Simon Bowler: On The Business Of Being A Creator And What Brands Get Wrong (Part 2)
In the second half of this 2-part conversation, Simon Bowler — the North Yorkshire carpenter behind one of the biggest construction accounts in the UK — gets specific about the business of being a creator: what a brand deal actually costs you. He explains why he turned down countless tool brands for years and waited for Milwaukee, because once you pick up one battery you're in that ecosystem for your whole career — and why saying yes to one PPE or clothing brand quietly shuts the door on every competitor watching. He's blunt that content creation is a business, that money is most of the point, and that what brands are really paying for isn't the one promoted post but the organic content that keeps the audience there. And he makes the case for sweat equity over flat fees — “I'm sick of not being a millionaire” — admitting the one deal he wishes he'd taken a stake in was Big Wipes.
He then flips it round for the brands and marketers listening. His advice: watch a creator for months before you approach them — one brand studied him for six months before the first email — find the post that blew their account up, then check what they actually learned after it, because a big following off one freak viral hit is a red flag. He's candid about what gets the audience's back up: the scattergun approach of posting one product to a thousand small accounts, last-minute turnarounds, and tool reviews that smell of a payday. Along the way he covers why aspirational content beats tips, tricks and hacks (“that's attracting a DIY audience, not a trades one”), the first 0.7 of a second that decides whether anyone watches, and the £50,000 Milwaukee van giveaway he built around a single bleeped swear. It's a straight look at how the brand-creator relationship really works from someone who sits on both sides of it — and a reminder that there's no magic pill, just hard graft over a long time.
Follow Simon Bowler:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonbowlerltd
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simon_bowler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonbowlerltd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@simonbowler1
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Big Wipes (bigwipes.com)
Stay connected with dissident creative agency:
https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency
Subscribe now and don't miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!
12 Oct 2026
Simon Bowler: On Staying Credible At 700k Followers And Whether The Numbers Actually Move Work
Everyone in construction marketing tells you to “be authentic” — Simon Bowler is one of the few who’s held onto it with 700k people watching, and this episode is about how he’s done it, and whether that audience actually does anything for the business.
A former car salesman turned master carpenter who builds bespoke gazebos and garden rooms — with two Harrogate Flower Show Golds to show for it — he’s grown one of the biggest construction accounts in the UK by doing something simple: filming the work as he does it, and never pretending to be something he isn’t.
He’s sharp on why some posts fly and others flop (it’s nearly always the hook), the homage video that bombed and taught him to stay in his lane, and why he still shoots every brand collaboration like the brand’s watching — because it is.
He’s also honest about the hate that comes with reach, the people sliding into his DMs to sell him followers, and the paradox that a trade creator with hundreds of thousands of followers still isn’t taken seriously by parts of the industry.
He closes on the marketing itself — why a brand needs a vibe, not a personality, the biggest mistake he sees marketers make in construction, and why brands don’t need engagement, they just need to be seen. It’s part one of two: the story and the craft here, the brands-and-marketing one next.
Follow Simon Bowler
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonbowlerltd
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simon_bowler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonbowlerltd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@simonbowler1
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Big Wipes - bigwipes.com
Stay connected with dissident creative agency
https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency
Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast.
28 Sept 2026
Tom Milham: On Marketing a One-Man Business Without Big Budgets
In this episode of The Build Up Podcast —Tom Milham of TCM Air Conditioning Services opens the books on how a one-engineer business actually finds work. He started his apprenticeship at 16 and went out on his own six years ago; today roughly 70% of what he does is subcontracted, and he is not afraid to say so. There is a stigma about it in the trade, and his answer is simple: he is feeding his family, the money is coming in and the customer gets a good service. What he and Dan pull at all episode is how you market your way out of that dependency when the budgets everyone talks about online are numbers a small business will never have.
Tom is refreshingly straight about what has not worked. Eighteen months paying a lead generation service produced nothing usable — the one enquiry he remembers was somebody wanting a hole drilled through a wall for a portable unit’s hose. Dan matches him with the £12k dissident put into Google ads that came back with nothing, and an agency who mentioned afterwards that it takes about twelve months to kick in. A couple of hundred quid boosting a Facebook post was just as wishy-washy. What has worked is the unglamorous stuff: Screwfix Live and the Installer Show, cards handed over and passed on, and Instagram — where at least 80% of his subcontracting work comes from.
The idea at the centre of it comes from his tattooist, who fills a feed with black and white work and then wonders why nobody books colour: only show what you want to do. Tom is caught in exactly that trap, because a feed built on his own face on the tools is why contractors ring him and homeowners do not. Along the way he and Dan map what each channel should actually be doing — LinkedIn for facilities management, Facebook for domestic, Instagram for the trade, TikTok for apprentices — and get into the £2k-to-£15k website gap with nothing in the middle, the mismatched logos on the van, why construction’s one-up mentality will get you thrown to the wolves over a detail in the corner of a photo, and the free marketing nobody is doing, starting with the sign-written van most tradespeople are still sleeping on. Plus the two things he would tell anyone starting out: charge what you are worth, and get used to other people making their problems yours.
FOLLOW TCM AIR CONDITIONING SERVICES
Website: https://tcmairconditioning.co.uk/
Tom Milham (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/tcmairconditionigservices/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tcmairconditioningservices/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tcmairconditioningservices/
Stay connected with dissident creative agency:
https://linktr.ee/dissidentagency
Subscribe now and don’t miss future episodes of The Build Up Podcast!
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Spotify
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 54 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
76
Social presence
91
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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