I increasingly felt overwhelmed by the organisation I had been driven to build. We had the turnover, and we were apparently profitable (according to the management accounts I was presented with), but we were always chasing cash. Time to go Read more ›

The computerisation and software development programme was a disaster. The accounts programmes and head office main frame, and the hard wired screens and keyboards, all worked well enough – and my luddite accountant and his accounts team were beginning to Read more ›

A shop was found in Haywards Heath as our first franchise pilot. Paul was to be hands on with this i.e. go back to actually managing and selling. This caused a bit of a problem for Paul, who had gotten Read more ›

We had decided to get into commercial contracts, as councils were beginning to refurbish their housing stock (including replacing all of the windows and doors). We recruited Bill Reigler as our ‘Commercial Sales Director’; he was excellently qualified for the Read more ›

If the growth was to be sustained we would have to come up with ideas to recruit and keep the best managers and salespersons, or try something else. Franchising was beginning to gain traction as a system to grow your Read more ›