Anonymous

Skills

Consultative selling, presentation skills, negotiation, sales team management, sales operations, product development, coaching and mentoring, business strategy development, marketing and social media campaign development, payroll management, p and l management, budget setting, auditing of operational standards, management of health and safety systems, represented Hertfordshire and England under 16 and under 18 teams playing off a handicap of 0.6 at that time.

About

I have over 30 years experience managing a variety of businesses. I joined BHS as a junior Dept manager and was quickly promoted to store manager working my way up through the store network to the role of Store Manager of the flagship British Home Stores in Oxford Street with £45m turnover, 350 staff, a 100 seat restaurant operating 24 hours a day reporting directly to the owner Sir Phillip Green on a daily basis.

I then joined Bathstore.com when the business had just 5 showrooms and manged the opening of 171 new showrooms over a 3 year period locating new sites, recruiting and training new teams, designing the layouts, selecting products for display, creating marketing campaigns to promote the opening of each new site and managing the team of contractors on site to ensure the project was delivered on time on budget. When the business reached it's goal for nationwide showrooms I then moved into a new hybrid role as Regional Sales Manager for 23 showrooms inside the M25 with a turnover of £28m managing the team of showroom managers and sales consultants to deliver sales and profit budgets and ensure they achieved other business KPI's. On average I spent 3 to 4 days a week in this role with the other days spent as Operations manager for the business based in the Watford Head Office working across all other departments of the business to define the business strategy. marketing and e-commerce marketing campaigns, develop new products, accounts and logistics of the business. I attended board meetings to feedback on behalf of the sales team on current trading and results.

Bathstore was initially privately owned by 2 owners and was then sold to Wolseley PLC before being sold again to a private equity business Endless LLP. This allowed me to see all the different ways a business could be operated to develop my own skill base.

I was headhunted in 2017 to take on a new role as Trading Director of kitchens and bathrooms at Bradfords Building Supplies Ltd the largest independent merchant in the south west with 46 branches and 18 showrooms in a family owned business that was over 250 year old. I developed a new showroom concept requiring 40% less space than their previous model which allowed 10 new showrooms to be opened within their existing largest branches over a 2 year period. To create a 2 year pay back model I designed the showrooms myself, negotiated deals with suppliers to help fund the build and managed the daily build of the new sites with contactors to ensure they were opened on time and on budget. I introduced a new staff incentive scheme to create a sales culture, recruited and developed a new team for the showrooms, devised a digital and local radio promotional campaign and social media, selected preferred suppliers negotiating trading agreements and products to display. I managed the sales and operations managers, business development managers and the showroom teams with recruitment, coaching and development of the team. I defined the sales and operations processes for showrooms creating a new sales and operations manual to standardise process across all branches. This lad to a 69% increase in sales from £6.5m to £12m with profits improved from £1.5m to £3.4m in m 6 years with the business.