A Week in the Life of Kyle Hazeldine
Kyle Hazeldine is our Sales and Marketing Manager and after starting work as a telesales assistant at Midland Lead back in 2015, Kyle has worked in every area of the business from operations through to key account manager. As a valued member of the team, he has always demonstrated a strong commitment to the company’s core values of quality, service, and sustainability. We took a moment to speak to him in what turned out to be a very busy week.
Monday
I love coffee, a good strong coffee, so after furnishing myself with a hot drink to start the week off I headed off to our regular team meeting where the main discussion was around the introduction of our new transport system. After months of collaboration with Walkers Transport, and preparing our customers for a new tracking portal, it was really exciting to see it go live. Straight away both the customer service team and our customers were happy with the roll out which will see efficiencies, as orders can be tracked as soon as they have been despatched. This was a great start to the week ahead and I am proud of how the team managed the transition.
Tuesday
I arrived in the office, coffee in hand, I had an exciting day ahead meeting with a key client. This customer, who we have worked with for a few years now, recently welcomed a new team, so it was great to meet them all, one of the things I most enjoy about my job is meeting and chatting with customers. The focus of this meeting was to review their sales during 2023 and then taking the opportunity to look forward to how we can help them drive sales in 2024. We also spoke about our new online transport system, and with more than 100 branches across the UK they were really looking forward to the shared efficiencies that the portal will provide.
Wednesday
Today was an early start as I headed down to London with other members of the Young British Metal Recycling Association (part of BMRA) that were invited to visit the London Metal Exchange (LME). This was such a great honour, and I had no idea what to expect, but all I can say was that this experience blew my mind and something that was truly a spectacle.
The LME is home to the only remaining open-outcry trading venue in Europe and it was incredible to see the traders on the ring floor. For just 5 minutes per metal, they start and cease trading with some holding three or four phones, whilst gesturing to their colleagues whether to buy, sell or trade it is crazy to see this happing in the flesh, although some of it is done digitally. But what an experience and one I won’t forget; I was honoured to see how the LME is holding on as the last for old-school physical commodities trading. Lead is a metal that is influenced by these trading floors, so it was great to see the live action – I was exhausted just watching them.
Thursday
I was back at Midland Lead today to host a factory tour of our operations to the NFRC and Rowlands Roofing . We welcomed Bob Richardson and Ben Rowlands of the National Federation of Roof Contactors (NFRC) along with Andy Rowlands, MD of Rowlands Roofing and it was great to catch up with them. Midland Lead sponsored the final at Skill Build last year which is where Dave Woolley met Andy Rowlands. This sparked a conversation that led to us inviting them over so we could offer a tour around our purpose-built operations. This also gave us the opportunity to demonstrate first-hand how we approach sustainability at every step of the process throughout our business.
After a factory tour and lunch, we shared a presentation that described our operations from processing the raw, recycled lead through to the manufacturing and I love presenting the core values of Midland Lead, I am very proud of what we have achieved and the feedback from our visitors was really positive.
Friday
Another busy day to finish off the week as we held the first stage interviews for three internal and external sales roles that we are currently recruiting for. These new appointments are a crucial step in our ambitious growth plan for this year and personally, I relish this process – meeting new people and making new connections. It’s not just about filling roles; I love to build on creating a happy team that aligns with our company values.
