Our Story: Why We Started Upscale Commercial
31 May 2026 • 4 min read
Every business has an origin story. Ours starts with a frustration we kept running into across Hull and East Yorkshire: brilliant local businesses doing genuinely great work, but almost invisible online.
The problem we kept seeing
A joiner with years of craftsmanship and a waiting list built entirely on word of mouth — but nothing on Google when someone searched "joiner near me." A shop with loyal regulars but a website that hadn't been touched in five years. A trade business paying for ads that nobody could tell were working.
The businesses were excellent. The marketing was letting them down. And the agencies that could have helped were often too expensive, too distant, or too quick to hide behind jargon and 12-month contracts that protected the agency, not the client.
So we built the agency we'd want to hire
Upscale Commercial was founded by Thomas Gray and George Burton with a simple idea: give local businesses the kind of serious, results-driven marketing that's usually reserved for big budgets — and do it in plain English, with no lock-in and no nonsense.
That means a few things we won't budge on. We explain what we're doing and why. We measure success in enquiries and customers won, not impressions and vanity metrics. We work month-to-month, so you stay because of the results. And when you work with us, you talk to the founders directly — not a faceless account manager.
Who we're here for
We're built for local businesses, trades and SMEs — the people who make up the backbone of the local economy. Whether you need a new website, to get found on Google with local SEO, or leads fast through Google Ads, we tailor everything to your goals and budget.
Our flagship build for Pegasus Joinery is exactly the kind of work we set out to do: a fast, professional website that started bringing in enquiries within the first month. That's the bar.
Where we're headed
We're early in our journey, and we're ambitious. The goal is to become the growth partner that Hull and East Yorkshire businesses recommend to each other — because we moved the needle for them. Every client we take on shapes the agency we're building, which is exactly why your results matter so much to us.
If that sounds like the kind of partner you've been looking for, we'd love to hear from you. Learn more about us, or grab a free website & SEO audit and we'll show you where the opportunities are.