Invite Steve To Speak

From the boardroom to the building site. 20 years helping trades and construction businesses grow.

Steve Mark has spent two decades inside the industries your audience works in every day. As a former Board Director at Vanarama, founder of We Are SMC, and host of Build to Scale, he brings real numbers, real stories, and zero marketing fluff to every conversation.

A little bit about Steve

Steve Mark is the founder of We Are SMC, a growth agency that works exclusively with trades and construction businesses.

He spent five years on the board as Brand & Marketing Director at Vanarama – one of the UK’s largest van leasing businesses serving over 50,000 tradespeople – before launching his own agency to solve the growth problems he saw first-hand.

His client results speak for themselves: he helped Videtta Heating grow from £223k to £1.3m in revenue over five years, and generated £200k+ in attributable revenue for PKB Civils in just 12 months.

Steve holds Mini MBAs in both Marketing and Brand Management from Marketing Week, and hosts Build to Scale – a weekly LinkedIn Live show exploring how trades and construction owners can stop trading time for money and start building businesses worth something.

He’s not a theorist. He’s been in the room, at board level, making the decisions your audience makes every day.

Why Book Steve?

Before running his own agency, Steve ran a print and design business that worked directly with trades clients. Then he spent five years at board level inside Vanarama, the UK’s biggest van leasing company – where he saw thousands of trade businesses up close: what made them grow, what kept them stuck, and what the best ones did differently.

That’s not a marketing agency pitch. That’s two decades of pattern recognition.

He brings numbers, not just opinions.

Steve doesn’t deal in theory. He’ll share the exact journey of a plumber who went from one van and £223k to a team of engineers and £1.3m in revenue.

He’ll show how a civil engineering company generated £200k in new revenue from marketing in 12 months after years of relying purely on the directors’ networks.

Your audience won’t hear “you should do marketing.” They’ll hear “here’s exactly what worked, what it cost, and how long it took.”

He understands the scepticism.

Trades and construction owners have been burned by agencies. They think marketing is a dark art. Steve knows this because he’s heard it a thousand times — and he’s built his entire approach around proving them wrong with evidence, not promises.

6 Possible podcast topic ideas and areas of expertise

1. From Man in a Van to £1.3 Million: The 5-Year Growth Story of a Plumbing Business

The step-by-step journey of how one plumber built a business worth something — reputation systems, conversion engines, and paid traffic that generates leads at £22 each. No shortcuts. No hacks. Just compounding systems.

Best for: Trades podcasts, small business growth shows, entrepreneurship audiences

2. Why Most Trade Businesses Hit a Ceiling - and What the Top 10% Do Differently

Most plumbing and construction businesses plateau at the same revenue year after year. Steve breaks down the three patterns that keep owners stuck on the tools and the shifts required to break through.

Best for: Business growth podcasts, trades industry shows, leadership audiences

3. Marketing for People Who Hate Marketing: What Actually Works for Trades and Construction

Your audience has been burned by agencies, they’re suspicious of marketers, and they think it’s a cost not an investment. Steve explains what works when your audience doesn’t want to hear about marketing – and why “fixing foundations first” beats running ads every time.

Best for: Marketing podcasts, trades industry media, agency-focused shows

4. Building a Business That Works Without You: The Owner's Exit Problem

Every trades and construction owner wants to get off the tools eventually. But most are still the bottleneck in their own business. Steve shares the systems approach that turns owner-dependent operations into scalable assets — and why it starts with how customers find you, not how you deliver the work.

Best for: Entrepreneurship shows, exit planning podcasts, scaling-focused audiences

5. Board-Level Lessons from the Van Industry: What Vanarama Taught Me About Trades Businesses

Five years as a Board Director at one of the UK’s largest van leasing businesses gave Steve a front-row seat to how tens of thousands of trade businesses operate. The patterns of growth, the common mistakes, and the surprising truths about what separates the businesses that scale from those that stall.

Best for: Leadership podcasts, business strategy shows, trades industry media