Brodie Savage has always had a strong association with, and an affinity for, the British Armed Forces. Not only did his brother serve in the Royal Navy, but Brodie himself played bagpipes with band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 2011 and then again in 2012.
It was through Brodie’s piping that his business Crown Medal Mounting, based in Warrington, came into existence:
“A friend of mine was hired by a local charity to play the pipes at a World War II veteran’s funeral, but ended up double booking himself and passed the job to me. When I spoke to the lady organising the funeral she told me that they had found the chap’s medals and wanted them mounted, but there wasn’t enough time before the funeral to send them away.”
As luck would have it, Brodie had dabbled in restoration and enjoyed the work. He reasoned that if he could get the medals mounted in time for the funeral, all well and good and, if not, they could always be sent off to be mounted. Unsurprisingly, he got the job done.
“It just so happened that the CEO of the charity – Warrington Armed Forces Community Support Hub – who is a former Coldstream Guards Warrant Officer and now a good friend – was at the funeral, says Brodie. “We got talking about the medals and he asked me to sort his out. After that, one thing led to another and, through word of mouth, enough orders started coming in to consider starting a business.”
At this point, Brodie was working full-time running a pub in Warrington town centre and doing medals in his spare time. This worked out quite nicely in the beginning – Brodie worked on groups of medals in his flat upstairs whilst the customer waited downstairs with a pint! However, things were about to change, as Brodie explains:
“As the demand started to grow, I knew it was time to formally establish the brand and came up with Crown Medal Mounting (CMM). It was around this time that I was contacted by a pal and ex-Grenadier Guard to tell me a friend of his would be in touch to get some medals mounted. That’s how I came to have the profound honour of mounting the medals of his son who was killed in Afghanistan in 2012, James Ashworth VC – only the 14th person to have received the Victoria Cross since the end of the Second World War.
“Since then, I’ve been able to build a solid following through word of mouth and social media which, after some strong encouragement from my fiancé, allowed me in June 2023 to quit my job as a Venue Manager and focus full-time on CMM, which has gone from strength to strength. I then decided to bring both CMM and my piping brand BCS Bagpiping together to form ‘Crown Ceremonial Services’ which has allowed me to cross-promote my offerings.”
It was then that Brodie decided to further expand the business into framing medals and creating presentation pieces, so, he took a framing course in February 2024. This reassured him that he was capable of doing this more intricate work but also made clear that he would require finance if he was to proceed. This led him to X-Forces Enterprise (XFE), a specialist Business Support Partner to British Business Bank.
“With XFE’s support, I was able to secure funding to not only purchase the framing equipment but also stock for the medal mounting, fit out my framing workshop with the workbenches and tools that I needed, and have some capital for security,” Brodie enthuses.
“The process of applying for the funding was made extremely easy through XFE’s help and I had the money in my account with a week or so of submitting my application. Since then, XFE have been phenomenal in their support, from calls with a business mentor, the workshops, networking sessions, and amazing opportunities such as the Veterans UK Expo where I was privileged to display my work to thousands of potential clients.”
Brodie’s story, like many XFE beneficiaries, is of a person who took an activity they enjoyed, coupled it with their innate enterprising nature, to create a business. With this in mind, we had to ask Brodie to share some advice for other budding entrepreneurs:
“My only advice for anyone considering starting their own business is simply to go for it. I still find it crazy to think that this is my career, but it is genuinely the best thing I’ve ever done, and it keeps getting better with every new customer and every new idea. In the past three years I’ve gone from working all hours and making a few extra quid from what started out as a hobby, to working to my own schedule, building a successful brand, and loving my work.”
Who could ask for more?
If you have a brilliant idea for a business but need help getting it off the ground, visit www.x-forces.com today
