PART TWO Neil Hammond, md of Caterham Carpets, shares how he coped with wanderlust, marriage, taking the business on and discovering how it works. By ADAM BERNSTEIN
LIVES spent in the world of flooring are rarely dull or grey and as Neil Hammond, managing director of Caterham Carpets, outlined in the first part of his story, they can be very varied.
In his time he’s gone from being schoolboy, to learning the basics, a van driver, and back to flooring. Now we’ll learn about his experiences in Australia and how he came to own Caterham Carpets.
Down under
With a sister who was aircrew it’s no wonder Neil had wanderlust. He explains that a colleague and friend of his, Simon Furber, had moved to Australia and had set up in Melbourne. ‘I must have had a bad day or two and decided that I’d get a working visa and give it a try.’ However, life wasn’t all a bed or roses for Neil down under: ‘It was all very similar to home, and we tried to get work, but ‘we felt we were being given the work no-one else wanted – smelly toilet blocks in cove up vinyl and the like. I got fed up and took a job with a hire company’ until his return home and the world of self-employed flooring.
After years of a status quo, Neil met his first wife and were soon expecting a son. Again, he says that he ‘was a little fed up with flooring and wanted to be close to home during the pregnancy. A builder friend was struggling to finish a local project and I became a skilled labourer for him’. But after a year of this work Neil says his ‘phone was ringing’ and he was back into flooring.
Unfortunately, the marriage wasn’t to last, and a separated Neil was trying to juggle work and childcare while looking to move into rented accommodation. As he tells, his parents offered Neil money to help with another mortgage, but despite the generous offer he says that it wasn’t enough.
Back to the shop
In the meantime, Neil had been working with Michael and a gang that included Michael’s nephew David. Referring to events that happened 12 years ago, Neil says that ‘Michael had landed a massive project, flooring student accommodation in Holloway. Set up under a new company, Michael was also working for Sainsburys and really wanted to offload the shop to concentrate on his new ventures’.
As Neil explains, ‘he was fed up dealing with ‘Joe Public’’.
David had already invested in the shop and was looking for a 50% partner. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure, but I was certain I wanted to make a go of something, and my knees weren’t going to take fitting forever. So, I took the plunge and joined as a partner with David.’
However, soon afterward – and before anything was signed – David and Michael had a falling out and David had left. Subsequently, Michael’s wife, Karen was diagnosed with leukaemia, and they had to concentrate on her wellbeing as well as the business.
Now aged 40, Neil was back where he had started – in the shop in Caterham. ‘The familiar staircase that smelled just the same as I walked up to the office. I was nervous, but told Michael I could manage for now and would do my best.’
One of the other employees, Lisa Ramsay, a former travel agent whose duties involved ‘sales and a bit of admin’ had to show Neil everything – ‘where to file things, how to write things up, price lists, enquiries’ – it was all new to him. But as for the public and selling, Neil says that ‘it was nerve racking’.
He continues: ‘I kept feeling that I had to explain myself and that people, who would often ask for Michael, would not warm to me and the business would just fail… I had to find confidence so would tell customers I was his apprentice and I’d known the business since my teens.’
However, he was tested one Saturday morning, following a 40th birthday party the night before. ‘I knew I reeked of alcohol as I sat in the office hoping that no-one would come in.’ But they did come in – one after the other and Neil doesn’t think he’s had a busier day since. ‘I apologised for my state and most people understood with a chuckle – they’d all been 40 once. I took a month’s takings in that one morning.’
Eventually, Karen recovered, and Michael made Neil ‘a generous offer’ to take the shop on his own and continue it’s good name.
The present day
Neil accepted and hasn’t looked back. The shop rarely advertises, ‘apart from local charity-based things like sponsoring a golf hole at the Rotary Club day’. Recommendations and repeat business is what it thrives on.
But one of the best things Neil says he did, soon after taking the business on, was to visit the Westex carpet factory. There he says that he ‘saw every process and it gave me something to talk about if I felt my words were drying up’.
Lisa is still with the business, along with part time sales assistant, Lesley, and Neil uses between two and eight fitters, depending on how busy he is; all are subcontractors.
Most of the work is domestic, but Neil does have some contract work – schools, communal hosing areas and care groups.
‘We’re trying to promote ourselves through mail shots at the moment. A lot of the care homes have been sold off and new owners usually bring their own preferred contractors. This is the same with school caretakers and financial controllers, they change jobs more often it seems and flit about looking for the best price.’
On the subject of care homes, Neil comments how trends change: ‘We used to put a lot of impervious carpets in care homes, then there was a sudden hygienic rush to change everything to vinyl. Since then, we have changed a lot of vinyl back to carpet because of safety – it’s less slippery and has a softer landing. It seems that someone is always thinking of a new reason to change trends.’
The main change he’s seen is the introduction of laminated flooring. ‘This,’ he says, ‘sparked the popularity for solid wood, evolving to engineered wood. Now most of our hard floor work is LVT.’
Neil adds that ‘none of this is great for the planet’. He adds that ‘sometimes it’s quite distressing to see how much waste a small outfit like ours generates. Things get replaced way before they are worn out generally’. He feels that recycling in the sector has a long way to go.
It’s all about attitude
However, when it comes to contract work, Neil’s found that a fast response time often gives clients confidence from the start and ‘as long as you’re in the ballpark they will go with us rather than keep chasing others for their price’. Neil acknowledges that things occasionally go wrong, but says that ‘we will always fix problems’.
And that attitude has helped him win business. ‘We won a large job – that had already been problematic – from a previous company. The client had been told that we dealt with their friend’s problem so well that she should try us. I’m glad to say all went well with that one.’
Neil’s still on the tools – ‘despite my efforts to stop getting on my knees and fitting’ but says that ‘it gets harder as the years go on’.
There are a number of reasons for his needing to fit: A fitter doesn’t show up, a job has become more involved, there is a budget so Neil assists for ‘free’, or there simply is too much work.
The company used to serve a greater area than it does now, but Neil says that ‘contractors simply don’t enjoy it’. He puts this down to traffic and journey times, congestion and ULEZ charges along with speed cameras, 20 mph speed limits and parking complications which ‘all make for an unenjoyable experience’.
He says that he can’t pay fitters enough to persuade them, so the radius is now 15-20 miles from the shop.
The business is becoming more of a family affair. When Neil was recently out on a job on a weekend – in London when there are fewer restrictions – his wife, Emma whose day job is as school learning mentor, took charge of the showroom.
As for payment, Neil has few concerns, and says that ‘we try to take up to 50% deposit to secure orders but often a little nudge for the balance is necessary’. He did have a customer who told him that he had decided to go skiing and so ‘spent all his flooring money on that… but he came good within a couple of months’.
When it comes to contract work Neil aims to ‘have a little look’ at the client and does a background check.
Lastly, in the internet age Neil is often asked why he still has a shop. In response, he believes it important. He says that ‘buying blind, you can’t feel the substance or gain the trust’.
With parking, storage, and a lot of displays, he thinks that he will still be in business in ten years’ time because ‘all that has really changed since I first walked in here is that the desks are upstairs with computers on, the card machine is electric, and it doesn’t smell of cigarettes’.
In summary, life for Neil Hammond is good. He may well be thinking that this time next year he’ll be a millionaire, but for the moment, business is lovely jubbly.
www.caterhamcarpets.co.uk
