John Stevenson

Founder/Director of Zero Procure - making procurement simple at ZERO cost!

I co-founded Zero Procure back in 2020 because I knew procurement could be done differently.

I’d already been working in the hospitality industry for…well my whole life. But I’d previously run a cleaning business for 11 years before I sold it in 2017.

And there’s something I noticed about procurement:

- You either did it yourself…taking time away from your core job
- You could hire someone to do it…but they only have so much buying power
- You could hire a procurement company…that will charge you a percentage of your savings
- Or you could go with option 4…paying just the supplier for your goods, but also getting the best prices

Here’s our cue to come in.

Zero Procure works the exact same as any other procurement company…but you, the customer, don’t pay a thing!

Honestly, it’s as simple as that (we get our cuts from the supplier, not you).

Sound intriguing?

Feel free to send me a message and let’s have a chat about how we can help your business!

Founder / Director

We are Zero. We're changing the way you'll procure. Forever. Born during the Pandemic, inspired to support, most definitely - here to stay.

Zero Procure makes procurement effortless, efficient and above all saves you money. We differ from more traditional procurement companies, as you, our customers pay Zero. Zero Cost, Zero Risk, Zero Contract.

Adding great value through our expertise and our vast network of suppliers, Zero Procure also provides a high yielding and low-cost sales tool for suppliers.

On a mission to make procurement Free & Simple for Hospitality Brands

Happy New Year to all my connections! 🎉

Wishing everyone a successful and prosperous 2026.

That said, this article, published on just the second official working day of the year was not an encouraging read for the pub industry and hospitality as a whole. It’s concerning when the government openly admits that “pubs will struggle with business rates.”

If you’re looking to take control in a challenging landscape, there are ways to protect margins and improve buying power:

✔️ Streamline visibility across your category spend
✔️ Secure better rates with existing and new suppliers
✔️ Access rebates and brand partnerships through our network
✔️ Pay zero for all of the above

If this sounds relevant, feel free to book some time with me:

📩 https://lnkd.in/eHSYBuP5

🔗 Article: https://lnkd.in/euXEB89W

Open article: Prime Minister admits pubs will struggle with business rates by thecaterer.com

Prime Minister admits pubs will struggle with business rates

Doug Pudney

Helping owner-led businesses preserve choice through earlier, better judgement

Most business outcomes are not decided in moments of crisis.

They are shaped much earlier.

Quietly.
Gradually.
Through decisions that feel reversible at the time.

By the time pressure becomes visible, choice has often already narrowed.

I work with owner-led businesses at that point.
When performance can still look fine on the surface, but clarity feels thinner, decisions carry more weight, and optionality is quietly eroding underneath.

Nothing is obviously broken.
But momentum feels heavier than it used to.
And leaders find themselves managing consequences rather than choosing direction.

My work is not about speed, tactics, or optimisation.
It is about judgement.

Specifically, recognising the patterns that appear before outcomes change:

🔷 when effort increases but progress does not

🔷 when execution problems are actually strategic

🔷 when growth adds pressure instead of freedom

🔷 when businesses become valuable, yet fragile

As businesses grow, complexity does not announce itself.
It accumulates.
And over time, it quietly slows decisions, narrows choice, and taxes leadership attention.

This is where slowing the right things down matters more than pushing harder.
Freedom does not come from momentum.
It comes from structure that holds when pressure increases.

That thinking is explored more openly through 𝑪𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆, a podcast examining how owners move from constrained momentum to deliberate choice.

It is applied in practice through 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩, where owner-led businesses work to regain clarity, rebuild rhythm, and restore a sense that the business is working with them again - not against them.

It is also applied through 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨, where professional firms navigate succession, transition, and acquisition readiness without losing identity, intent, or control in the process.

The same judgement is codified through 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐁𝐨𝐱 (𝐌𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐁), a system designed to surface patterns, challenge assumptions, and support better decisions earlier, without replacing leadership judgement.

Across everything I do, the aim is simple:

𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔.

When something here resonates, it is usually because it gives language to something you have already been sensing.

At that point, a conversation often helps surface what is already in play.

Business Coach & CEO

We’re fanatical about your growth, our systems are easy to implement, and we’re adept at making your journey a good experience.
Think about it. Top performers all have coaches. 
Our clients are smart and have elements in common:
• Ambitious business owners who, with us, become process driven, value obsessed, think like their customers, and very often fall in love again with their business.
• Start-ups wishing to minimise risk, scale fast and attract angel, venture, or private equity capital - our experience allows us to guide you to optimise structure, core purpose and core values, have a meaningful, well-articulated brand promise, maturing systems, a values-obsessed hiring strategy, build a high performing & engaged functional team, and become expert in understanding which of the 7 cash flow levers to pull and when. 
• Business Owners looking to grow through acquisition - the gold dust during the initial 6 months of integration. 
• Family businesses engaged in succession. Three decades of experience enables us to guide you peacefully through a potentially emotional transaction with all family relationships intact.
• Business owners who want more Time, Money & Team efficiency, to mitigate against risk, to ringfence their business against inflation, and to be well prepared for the recession.
Upfront, we must mutually answer a few questions positively. We figure out there’s no better way to discover whether we should be working together in a coaching relationship than to do a strategy session…..and the first one is on us.
Before we discuss a coaching programme, we all need to know:
1.	Is the connection right for both of us – do we have chemistry? 
2.	Can we get you to your goals faster than you would without us, in other words, will we deliver real value to your investment in coaching? 
3.	And are you a person of integrity - will you do what you say you will do?
If it’s a YES to all three, then you get to select a coaching programme, with our guidance.

Douglas Pudney

You can usually spot the difference in everyday moments.

A sales conversation where the explanation is solid,
but the buyer has already decided what they’re comfortable with.

A strategy session where the insight is sound,
but the direction was quietly agreed before the meeting started.

A piece of content that’s thoughtful and well written,
yet lands after the question it answers has already been settled internally.

Nothing is wrong with the thinking in any of those cases.

It’s just arrived late.

Front Door moments look different.

The conversation starts with something unspoken but familiar.
A tension that hasn’t been named yet.
A pattern people recognise as soon as it’s surfaced.

When that happens, explanation doesn’t need to work hard.
It’s welcomed, not weighed up.
It adds clarity rather than competing with momentum.

That’s why Front Door Thinking shows up less as technique
and more as judgement.

You feel it in the timing.
In when you speak.
In what you choose not to explain yet.

Most people don’t struggle because they lack answers.
They struggle because they keep offering them,
after the door has already closed.

#dougsview

Most people spend years trying to fix the visible parts of their business.

Execution.
Messaging.
Process.
People.

Very few ever stop to look at what’s actually being exchanged underneath it all.

Not the work.
Not the effort.
But the value.

What gets rewarded.
What gets absorbed.
What quietly leaks away.

When those exchanges are misaligned,
everything else works harder than it should.

Monday is where we start looking there.

Not to add complexity.
But to explain why so much effort doesn’t seem to compound.

Sometimes the biggest unlock isn’t doing more.

It’s understanding what’s really happening beneath the surface.

#dougview

By now, the pattern should feel familiar.

Good thinking that arrives too late.
Explanation that makes sense, but changes little.
Conversations that feel productive, yet don’t quite move things.

Nothing here is accidental.

It’s what happens when timing is treated as secondary
to quality, clarity, or correctness.

This week hasn’t been about saying things better.
Or explaining more clearly.

It’s been about when thinking actually enters the room.

Once you see that, a lot of frustration starts to make sense.

Why smart advice gets parked.
Why good content underperforms.
Why momentum quietly wins over logic.

Fixing timing doesn’t require louder voices or sharper answers.
It requires arriving earlier in someone’s thinking
than most people are used to.

That’s the shift.

And it’s the part most people never examine.

#dougsview

Up to now, this week has been about timing.

Why good thinking arrives too late.
Why explanation struggles once momentum has formed.
Why 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 changes how influence actually works.

But timing alone doesn’t explain everything.

There’s something else underneath it.

A structural reason why effort doesn’t always compound.
Why margin appears in some places and leaks in others.
Why trust, value, and decision power move the way they do.

I call it 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 (𝐂𝐕𝐄).

Every business, every deal, every advisory relationship is governed by it.
Whether it’s acknowledged or not.

𝐂𝐄𝐕 explains where value is truly created,
where it’s quietly transferred,
and where it’s unintentionally lost.

Most businesses try to fix execution, strategy, or people,
without ever examining the exchanges underneath them.

That’s why the same problems resurface in different forms.
And why improvement often feels temporary.

Timing gets you through the door.

𝐂𝐄𝐕 explains what actually happens once you’re inside.

I’ll start unpacking it properly next week.

#dougsview

Everything this week comes down to this:

Timing decides whether influence happens.
Value decides whether it compounds.

Most people focus on the second,
without ever fixing the first.

That’s why effort feels high,
and returns feel thin.

Once you see that distinction,
a lot of frustration suddenly makes sense.

#dougsview

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The Battle

John Stevenson

Douglas Pudney

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taplio

The Battle

John Stevenson

Douglas Pudney

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}John Stevenson's LinkedIn Performance

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