Results at a glance
Client Name: Manutan UK (Rachel Green)
Industry: Industrial and Office Equipment Distribution
Company Size: 2,415 employees, 25 subsidiaries, 17 European countries (Manutan Group)
Conversations Booked: 13 in three months
13 conversations booked with procurement, supply chain, sustainability, HR and inclusion leaders at UK organisations, between June and mid-September 2026.
About Manutan UK
Manutan UK is part of the Manutan Group, a family-owned European distributor of industrial and office equipment with 2,415 employees, 25 subsidiaries in 17 European countries and a turnover of 1.03 billion euros in the 2024/2025 financial year. Its buyers sit in two different parts of a customer’s business, which is what shaped the show.
The podcast is Insights for a Better Workplace, hosted by Rachel Green, Campaign Marketing Manager at Manutan UK. It is a guest interview show covering operational efficiency and supply chain on one side, wellbeing and mental health on the other.
Companies Manutan UK Connected With Through ThePod.fm
Rachel Green, Manutan UK, in her own words
The Problem
Manutan UK sells into two seats, and both are hard to reach with a sales message. The first is the buying seat: purchasing managers, procurement directors, category buyers, facilities and health and safety managers, the people who specify and buy workplace equipment. The second is the workplace seat: the sustainability, HR, wellbeing and inclusion leaders who decide how an organisation works.
Neither seat has much reason to accept a meeting request from a supplier: a sales approach asks for their time and offers nothing back.
So the route chosen was an invitation rather than an approach. A podcast gives those leaders a reason to say yes, because it asks them to talk about their own work. Manutan UK also asked that wellbeing and mental health sit alongside the operational topics, so the show had to speak to both seats.
“Over the last year one of our key ambitions has been to increase our brand awareness for Manutan UK, and within that we decided to start a podcast. We hadn’t done anything like this before.” - Rachel Green, Manutan UK
Their Ideal Client Profile
Two audiences were defined at the start, both UK-based and both working in-house at an operating organisation.
Audience A is the buying seat: procurement, purchasing, facilities and operations leaders at organisations of 51-5,000 staff or more, and it is Manutan UK’s commercial pipeline audience.
Audience B is the workplace seat: sustainability and ESG leaders, HR directors and chief people officers, and the heads of wellbeing, inclusion and culture at organisations of 100 staff or more.
Core targeting criteria included:
The Podcast
Insights for a Better Workplace is a guest interview show with one host and no co-hosts. The trailer went out on 17 April 2026 and the first full episode on 17 September 2026, with new episodes every other Thursday from then on.
It lives on its own landing page at thepod.fm/listen/manutan-podcast, and on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Every invitation is a genuine invitation to come on the show and talk about the guest’s own work, with no product pitch in the outreach.
ThePod.fm, the B2B podcast agency behind the show, runs everything around the recording, including:
Audience research and list building: Named people at UK organisations that fit the two audiences, with competitors, lookalike service providers and existing Manutan UK conversations screened out first.
The invitations and the replies: Every invitation and every reply is handled by ThePod.fm, so what reaches Rachel Green is an accepted invitation with a time in her diary.
Guest preparation and recording support: Guests are briefed before they record and the session itself is supported, so the host turns up to a conversation rather than to a production job.
A studio in the office: ThePod.fm visited Manutan UK on site to turn an office into a small podcast studio: the equipment, the set-up and the look of the space.
Editing, publishing and distribution: Each recorded episode is edited and published to the landing page, Apple Podcasts and Spotify on the fortnightly Thursday schedule.
The first two recorded episodes exist as audio and as full video, and the published episode runs just under 21 minutes. Manutan UK’s side of the work is the conversation itself.
“Aqil himself has been so helpful. He’s come to site, we’ve had face-to-face calls, email, phone, whether that’s been technical issues we’ve needed support with or questions on lead generation. They’ve been there every step of the way, so quick to come back to us.” - Rachel Green, Manutan UK
PodPlatform: how the team runs the show
Manutan UK’s team runs the show through PodPlatform, ThePod.fm’s client portal. One login holds the target list, every invitation and reply, the booked conversations, the state of each episode and the social content, so nothing sits in an inbox waiting to be chased.
The team uses it day to day rather than waiting for a monthly update, which is what keeps a fortnightly show moving: guests confirmed, episodes scheduled and content ready before the next recording.
“The platform that you use for the podcast is so easy to use. It’s a really nice platform for social content, managing episodes, managing contacts, meetings, everything.” - Rachel Green, Manutan UK
The Results
Every number below was recorded before the first full episode aired on 17 September 2026.
Outreach ran from June to mid-September 2026. The first full episode did not go live until 17 September 2026, so none of these people had heard the show before they said yes. Five of the thirteen companies booked employ more than 1,000 people, including International Workplace Group, LUSH and The Vita Group.
The Conversations
Because the invitation is not a transactional sales approach, the conversation does not open as one. A guest agrees to talk about waste, inclusion, compliance or supply chain because that is the work they do.
That shows up in who said yes. Helene Carpentier, Founder of Circular Workplaces, recorded the first full episode on what an office bin tells you about how a workplace is run. Eddie Hartley, Culture and Inclusion Partner at Comic Relief, recorded one arguing that inclusion should be something an organisation is, not something it does. Steven Wright, Head of Compliance and Sustainability at Portmeirion Group, recorded on 16 September 2026.
The buying seat is booked the same way. A supply chain manager or head of procurement is invited to talk about their own remit, not to hear about a catalogue. However, from these relationships, it's a foot in the door to companies who otherwise would not know about them.
The Outcome
Manutan UK now has a repeatable way into two seats that a supplier cannot simply request a meeting with. 13 conversations were booked and ten held in three months, before the first full episode had aired.
The useful lesson is in the lists. The audience that booked first was not the one the commercial pipeline runs through, so the procurement seat was rebuilt and sent again rather than written off.
Fortnightly episodes only began on 17 September 2026, so the published show is just starting to do its own work. The invitation is what books the conversations. The episodes are what the conversations leave behind.