Cherry Professional

As an introduction can you give us a potted history on you and your company please?
Hall-Fast started trading on 1st August, 2006 predominantly supplying specialist fasteners into the UK automotive industry. I left a really high paid role to start the business which was initially financed by selling my BMW and using the money to buy a Ford transit connect and the £5k left over was used as cash flow. We rapidly grew our turnover from our back bedroom and within a period of about 12 months we were turning over about £550,000.

How are you positioning and differentiating your business from your competitors?
From working in the industry for many years the needs and wants of the small and medium sized automotive tier 1 and tier 2 sub contractors weren't being met. Basically the industries all focused at the higher value so the service to the smaller people wasn't great so we set the business up on the principles of offering exceptional service and an extended product range which was available to buy in bulk quantities or small quantities. We are very competitive at the bulk quantities because of the contact within the industry and there is no comparison on the small quantities because the other suppliers wouldn't do it. One of the key strategic decisions I made prior to starting the business was to focus totally on buying from UK businesses. I expected there to be problems at the time with lead time, delivery charges, minimum order quantities etc from the traditional European/American based manufacturers and we decided we could react quicker by buying from UK sources and we have now got really tight relationships with these people. Moving to where we are now, at the height of the recession we were heavily reliant on the UK automotive industry when 3 of its 4 biggest customers went into Administration. We decided to diversify our product range and enter new markets, to this end we took on 85 new suppliers in a period of 12 months and we now have over 60,000 standard product items.

What are the major challenges facing your business this year?
Without a shadow of doubt finding decent people! I've been absolutely amazed with some of the attitudes and calibre of people that you come across. From a guy that's self-made, I left school with no qualifications and got to where I have got to through hard work and obviously developing my skills as I grew up, it really has been an eye opener and quite depressing really. People seem to be of a different mind set where they expect things and that's not the case, I don't know if it's a generation thing I really don't know. If I had the attitude a lot of people have got now when I left school I don't know where I would be.

How do you think the East Midlands is fairing as a region compared to the UK as a whole?
I think the East Midlands is an absolutely great place to be. Geographically we are centrally located, you have some tremendous companies, internationally renowned companies. I think what the East Midland needs to do more on the back of Business Link being withdrawn is to be Chamber and UKTI lead but I think that there needs to be more networking for people like myself who don't appreciate people selling to me. The old principle is that people come here to share ideas and like-minded people come along but it's not about selling, selling, selling.

What could the East Midlands do better?
You've just got to keep on looking outwardly. One of the key areas for growth for Hall-Fast was our diversification strategy. We didn't look to the UK, we look outside the UK and we now supply to over 70 countries, we've got plans in place using services of the Chamber and a significant amount of help from UKTI to expand our export markets. Coming back to the geographical area, people like the Midlands as a forefront to go to other countries.

As Owner/Managing Director what does a typical day look like for you?
Being woken up at about 3am by my lad! I just enjoy life, I think a typical day being Owner/Manager of a small but rapidly growing company is ultimately just very busy! One of the issues that we have got and a lot of companies will have when they are at our stage is with the transition of being a small start-up to being a rapidly growing company. Initially you take people on board to multi-task and then at some point you have got to stop them from multi-tasking and put them into specific roles.

What do you do outside of work / what makes you tick?
Not really got that much time for anything outside of work but I'm a keen sports fan, we are sponsors of Nottingham Rugby Football Club, I'm expecting a great season from them this year. I have a young child who is great and changed my perspective on life to a degree. I've got a good family life and we do a lot together at weekends.

If you hadn't followed your current career path what would you have done?
I would be a world champion boxer! I fought at Light Heavyweight as an amateur.

Anything else you'd like to tell us or comment on?
I've come across a lot of small companies who have started their business up, companies like yourself and Hall-Fast and numerous others and it took me 3 years to have the bottle to set my own business up and the thing that was putting me off wasn't self belief, it was not knowing how to get an Accountant, not knowing how to set a bank account up, but that's all catered for now so now is the time for anyone to be setting a business up. Being made redundant or leaving school with the right attitude, now is the time to do it.