A Spotlight on our Wakefield branch - hear the real story from the Branch Manager, Martyn Hughes and the Building Materials Manager, Steve Baxter.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Their career backgrounds and what got them both into merchanting
- Why builders' merchanting is a long term career
- Martin's kickboxing journey, post pandemic
- Why Steve has stayed with the company for over four decades!
- The branch history and what makes it tick
- The challenges that have been faced and how these were overcome
Transcript
[0:00]
Paul Bullivant (Host):
1 2 3 4. Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Howarth Timber and Building Supplies 1840 Podcast. I’m Paul Bullivant, your host, and today’s episode we’re going to cast the spotlight on our Wakefield branch.
So I’m delighted to be joined by my two colleagues, Martin Hughes and Steve Baxter.
[0:24]
Paul:
Hello.
[0:25]
Martin Hughes:
Hello.
[0:26]
Steve Baxter:
Hello Paul.
[0:28]
Paul:
Say hello. Come on, we do know each other.
Right, let’s start at the beginning then. Do you want to introduce yourselves, who you are, what your job is at Howarth, and a bit about your career before you came to Howarth?
[0:38]
Martin Hughes:
I’m Martin Hughes. I’m the Branch Manager at Wakefield branch. I’ve been there about five years now.
I previously worked for Travis Perkins for 21 years, so I’ve been in it most of my adult life. I had a couple of other little jobs before then, one working in a sports shop and a paper round basically. So yes, I’ve worked in merchanting for most of my adult life.
[1:03]
Paul:
How did you end up working in the sports shop?
[1:07]
Martin:
I started off as a Saturday job when I was at school, and then when I was at college I had a couple of free days at college and ended up doing a couple of days in the week. Then when I left college that ended up being permanent for a year before I got my job at Travis Perkins as a trainee.
[1:27]
Paul:
Okay. What brought you into that?
[1:30]
Martin:
Just looking for a job that was more of a career than a job.
Working in a sports shop is pretty boring unless it’s Saturday or Sunday when it’s busy, and I wanted something a bit more challenging. I saw a job come up for Travis Perkins which was management trainee, and it offered a day at college with an HNC in Business, and you worked in various different branches.
It looked interesting. I didn’t really know what a builders’ merchant did at the time, and then I went down to the local branch, had a look around, had my job interview, and the rest is history really.
[2:08]
Martin:
That was 1997, and here I am still in the industry.
[2:12]
Paul:
What is it then that has kept you in it?
[2:16]
Martin:
I think for me it’s the variety. On a daily basis you’re never doing the same thing twice. You’re always coming across something you’ve never come across before.
The people you meet as well, both customers and staff, there are plenty of characters in this industry. You always have a good laugh and a good craic with people. It’s just interesting, the variety of products we deal with.
[2:42]
Martin:
One day you might be out in the yard helping the customer out or unloading something. The next day you’re in your office doing budget meetings, or it could be away at conference, or with a supplier. You don’t know what you’re going to get when you walk in in the morning, or what day you’re going to have.
[3:00]
Paul:
Have you ever thought of changing career?
[3:03]
Martin:
Not really, no. I don’t think I’d be fit for anywhere else. I’m spoiled now.
[3:09]
Paul:
Well, obviously I know this about you and it always makes me smile when I think about it, so I’m going to ask you about it. Tell us about your kickboxing career.
[3:18]
Martin:
My kickboxing career sort of started post-lockdown, post-Covid, when you were allowed to go back out and do sports. My little lad decided he wanted to go to martial arts because a few of his mates were there.
So I took him down, sat watching him for a few sessions, a night a week, and I thought this will be a good idea. I did a bit of Taekwondo when I was about eight to ten years old, so I thought, yes, this will be fun.
[3:47]
Martin:
So I started doing that and enjoyed the training, enjoyed the fitness, needed to lose a little bit of weight, which I did, and then got into sparring. That was just a different kettle of fish altogether. It was a lot more physical, a hell of a lot more physical than the actual training.
I really enjoyed it, got battered a few times, had a few black eyes, a few bruises here and there.
[4:14]
Paul:
I thought you’d be turning up here with a black eye, to be honest.
[4:18]
Martin:
If it’s filmed on a Thursday, maybe. It always tends to happen when I’ve got a meeting or something next day.
Then I entered a few competitions and ended up competing. I like to challenge myself physically as well as mentally.
[4:34]
Paul:
And you’ve gone through all the rankings and you’re up to a belt now?
[4:38]
Martin:
Yes, I got my black belt in November.
[4:41]
Paul:
Oh nice. It must have took three years. You must be really chuffed with that.
[4:46]
Martin:
Yes, I am. It’s just one of them things. I think it’s one of them things I sort of set myself a goal, becoming a black belt.
[4:55]
Paul:
Yes, nice. That’s good stuff.
And then one final thing before we move on to Steve, your movie career.
[5:02]
Paul:
Where have you been? I’ve been waiting all day for this. I’ve been stuck in traffic all morning.
[5:07]
Martin:
It’s not my problem. Half of this is missing. You better ring him in office, pal, because I’m just a driver.
[5:14]
Paul:
This is not good enough.
[5:16]
Martin:
Well, where would you like me to stick it?
[5:18]
Paul:
Well, you’re going to have to stick it over there.
[5:20]
Martin:
I know where I’d like to stick it. I’ll tell you where I would like to stick it.
[5:24]
Paul:
That’s a classic. A classic.
Just tell us about what that was.
[5:29]
Martin:
This was not long after I got to Howarth Timber. I was asked to help in a customer service video. We did a good version and a bad version. I think, Paul, that’s just the bad version.
It was sort of what not to do and what to do, and it was quite funny really, but it gets a message across.
[5:49]
Paul:
It is a really good piece of work. Maybe in all fairness we should have shown you giving good service rather than just that. We should point out that’s not your normal way.
[5:59]
Martin:
That’s not my normal way. But I think anybody who’s always been around the merchant industry understands that that does happen in places.
[6:09]
Paul:
Everywhere, everywhere.
I think most people watching it will probably see a little bit of themselves in there, or certainly maybe a member of staff in their branch that is a little bit like that.
Nice. Good stuff. Thank you.
Steve Baxter, over to you.
[6:25]
Steve Baxter:
From Wakefield, obviously, and I’ve been there 44 years.
[6:30]
Paul:
Not quite.
[6:31]
Steve:
Not quite, not quite. Next month is 44 years. First of March 1981. Forty-three years and a lot of days. Eleven months.
[6:41]
Paul:
So close.
[6:42]
Steve:
I’m so close. I’m on the borderline.
So, before Howarth, I lived in Leeds and I left school more or less and went to work, a little part-time job in between, then joined a motor spares kind of shop which did all sorts of exhausts and brake lining all the way through it.
In there I got taught how to actually reline brake shoes for trains.
[7:05]
Paul:
Oh nice.
[7:06]
Steve:
At sixteen years old, which is quite baffling really, to let me do this, this train.
So yes, I did that, and then I moved across over to Wakefield with my father and my brother, and then I was looking for work and I ended up picking this one up at Howarth Wakefield on a youth opportunities scheme , a YOP, as you called them , earning massive amounts of money, something like £21.50 a week, I think it was.
[7:35]
Paul:
So you did the big time there.
[7:37]
Steve:
I was flying then, I was really flying.
But I wasn’t there too long before they said to me, do you want to join us on the team? Which was brilliant, and ever since then I’ve been there and I’ve enjoyed every day.
[7:51]
Paul:
So 43 years. Amazing.
I think as a company we pride ourselves on the longevity of our staff, but nearly 44 years still only makes you the fourth longest-serving member of staff that we’ve got in the business, which is unbelievable.
We’ve got Dave Marshall at York who’s done 45 years, we’ve got Rodney at Selby who’s done 47, and Dave Fogg at York who’s done 54. So you’re properly the youngster in all that.
[8:22]
Steve:
I’m still in that, yes.
[8:24]
Paul:
That’s amazing. What’s made you stay so long?
[8:28]
Steve:
I feel like Martin says, the merchanting is a day-to-day job and every day is slightly different. It’s not conveyor-belt, where it’s just on and on. It’s different every day.
It might be a different customer, or a telephone call becomes different and you’ve got to go and find something else, a specialised product. Every day is different, so it’s not mind-bending all day, if you know what I’m meaning. It’s all broken up into all particles of the day.
[8:58]
Paul:
Okay. Have you ever thought of moving on during that period?
[9:02]
Steve:
Not really, no, because I’ve enjoyed what I’m doing. I’ve had no reason to think, don’t get me something else, because every day has been different and I’m learning daily sometimes as well, which I enjoy doing.
[9:17]
Paul:
And not only have you been here for 44 years, you were telling me just before we started recording that you used to bring your kids into work.
[9:25]
Steve:
Yes. Well, they were employed Saturday and Sunday, staff. Which was great. They enjoyed the work ethic of it all. They were meeting people at the same time, customers, and helping to a certain degree. I think it also set them up in good stead, being in that environment at a young age, and being able to talk to people.
[9:47]
Paul:
Yes, I say that to my kids. What have they gone on to do?
[9:51]
Steve:
My daughter has her own hair and makeup salon, and my son is like a computer analyst type thing in a company.
[10:01]
Paul:
I think there are a lot of skills we learn in our industry that we don’t give credit for. The main one being the ability to talk to people and have a conversation.
I’m forever talking to my two kids, who are just constantly on TikTok and on their phones, just looking down like this.
[10:18]
Martin:
It’s funny that because I’ve noticed with younger people that are coming through now, they tend to communicate with the customers a lot more on WhatsApp and email, and I get a bit frustrated and a bit old-school, just pick the phone up and answer. You can get done what would take five messages with one phone call for a couple of minutes, and you’ve negated five or six messages backwards and forwards, and it’s understood.
[10:45]
Steve:
Yes, it was son with his computer and phones, and my daughter’s obviously face to face. It’s a one-to-one scenario, what they want to do.
[10:54]
Paul:
It does worry me that because of social media, the ability for the younger generation to talk to people and have conversations is becoming a dying art.
I say to mine, if you can get through life and be able to talk to people and hold a conversation, and make people interested in you by you talking to them, you’ll never go wrong. You’ll just get through it.
[11:19]
Paul:
What were we doing opening on Sunday?
[11:21]
Steve:
That’s how it was then in them days.
[11:24]
Paul:
When’s “them days”?
[11:26]
Steve:
When my daughters and son were there, in the 2000s. But in the olden days, in the ’80s, there was a Sunday trading law, so we opened and all customers had to sign in to negate the law somehow. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but they had to sign in to get into the store.
[11:46]
Paul:
I suppose that was before B&Q and Wickes and places like that.
[11:50]
Steve:
Yes.
[11:51]
Paul:
Were we busy on Sundays?
[11:53]
Steve:
Yes, very busy, just selling general builders’ merchant stuff.
Well, in them days until ’84, The Village Merchant was 1984, but in the shop in the early ’80s was when we did all that. We sold everything basically in the shop. We crammed it all in, with a garden centre, a huge garden centre there. We sold records, singles, believe it or not.
[12:16]
Paul:
What kind of records?
[12:18]
Steve:
The up-to-date records of the time, the singles, the chart stuff.
[12:23]
Paul:
And you would flick through it and choose a record before you left.
Now those are proper add-on sales.
[12:29]
Steve:
Three bags of cement and a record.
[12:31]
Paul:
And a record, of course. The latest album. Good for a birthday present if you’d forgotten the birthday present.
We’re missing a trick then. We ought to bring that back.
[12:41]
Steve:
No, they don’t have records anymore of course. That’s all streaming.
[12:46]
Paul:
Because of your 44 years’ service you were featured in our company magazine, The Network, a couple of editions ago, and you talk about your special play shed.
[12:57]
Steve:
My shed, yes.
[12:59]
Paul:
Tell us about your shed. Come on.
[13:02]
Steve:
Well, it’s just a place whereby I like being outside in the garden, so in springtime and summertime it is my go-to area. I like to do the garden when I can. My shed’s where I keep all my tools and all my main things like that.
It’s full of my grandson’s stuff at the moment, but we’ll move on with that one. I know where all the tools are, it’s all linked to where I know screwdrivers will be in that pocket. It’s all laid out so I know what it is. So if it goes missing, I know it’s missing.
[13:36]
Paul:
Please tell me it’s not on a board on the wall with a silhouette of the tool.
[13:41]
Steve:
Certain parts are, not all of it.
[13:44]
Martin:
His desk has got a stapler blu-tacked down to it.
[13:48]
Paul:
Why do you blu-tack your stapler?
[13:50]
Steve:
Well, once or twice I went to pick my stapler up and it wasn’t there. So I thought, right, tack it down. It’ll be nicer to me and they won’t take it anymore. They’ll think, oh, I don’t want to take that.
[14:03]
Paul:
So what you’re saying is you don’t trust your colleagues.
[14:06]
Steve:
No.
[14:07]
Paul:
Quick, retract that statement on camera.
[14:10]
Steve:
No, it’s just a go-to place where I know it’s going to be all the time. That’s what it’s all about.
[14:17]
Martin:
Steve’s probably one of the most organised in the office for where everything is, and his filing and everything definitely.
[14:25]
Paul:
You see, that always worries me. If you see a desk that’s really, really tidy, that says to me there’s no work going on here.
[14:32]
Steve:
Oh, is that right? No, that’s not true.
[14:35]
Paul:
That’s true.
[14:36]
Steve:
You sure it’s not true?
[14:38]
Paul:
Definitely. But your shed’s just like that, everything in its place?
[14:42]
Steve:
As best I can get it, yes.
[14:45]
Paul:
Very good.
Right, let’s move on to the branch, but before we do that I want to talk a bit about Wakefield the town, or city, isn’t it?
I’ve worked from Wakefield for seven years, and I’ve never particularly paid a huge amount of attention to it other than coming to work. So before I did this, I thought I’d do a little bit of research.
[15:07]
Paul:
Some facts about Wakefield. You’re right, it’s a city not a town because it’s got a cathedral.
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire with a population of 97,700.
[15:18]
Paul:
Do you know about that?
[15:19]
Martin:
No, it’s not a real big city, is it?
[15:22]
Paul:
No. So I’m going to test your knowledge of other cities and towns and their populations just to see your understanding of geography and what have you.
Oldham, a town where we’ve got a branch. Does Oldham have a larger or smaller population?
[15:37]
Martin:
I think it’s larger.
[15:40]
Paul:
You think Oldham’s larger?
[15:42]
Martin:
Yes.
[15:43]
Paul:
Correct. Oldham’s larger. It’s got 110,000 people.
Steve, Chester.
[15:50]
Steve:
I would think Chester was smaller.
[15:52]
Paul:
Correct. It’s smaller. 92,000 people.
And the final one, Donny.
[16:00]
Steve:
Bigger. Definitely bigger. 250,000 people.
[16:04]
Paul:
Well, according to Google, Doncaster is smaller and it’s got 87,000 people, so there must be a metropolitan area you’re thinking of.
[16:13]
Martin:
Yes, it’s a big metropolitan area.
[16:15]
Paul:
But Doncaster itself is small. So you’ve learned something there.
It’s the home of Wakefield Trinity rugby league club, formed in 1873, making it one of the oldest rugby league clubs in the world.
It’s famous for fruit.
[16:29]
Steve:
Fruit?
[16:30]
Paul:
Which fruit?
[16:32]
Martin:
We’re not talking about the rhubarb triangle, are we?
[16:35]
Paul:
Rhubarb. Right, rhubarb triangle.
[16:38]
Martin:
Yes, it’s part of the rhubarb triangle.
[16:40]
Paul:
Did you know that?
[16:42]
Martin:
I did know that.
[16:43]
Paul:
You didn’t realise rhubarb was a fruit?
[16:46]
Martin:
No, I didn’t realise it was a fruit.
[16:49]
Paul:
Wakefield is located in the Rhubarb Triangle, a region known for its forced rhubarb production. The Rhubarb Triangle is a nine square mile area of farmland that includes Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell.
[17:05]
Paul:
Its 14th century cathedral has Yorkshire’s tallest spire at 75 metres, beating York Minster by three metres.
Can you believe that?
I’ve got a list of the five most famous people originally from Wakefield. Can we guess any?
[17:20]
Martin:
No.
[17:21]
Steve:
No.
[17:22]
Paul:
You don’t know your city very well.
Barbara Hepworth, of course. Perhaps Wakefield’s most celebrated citizen.
Helen Worth, best known as Gail Platt from Coronation Street.
[17:35]
Steve:
Right.
[17:36]
Paul:
No, she was born here. This is all Google, so don’t blame me.
Geoffrey Boycott, one of the most celebrated English cricketers.
And finally, Jane McDonald.
[17:48]
Steve:
Yes, she’s actually been in the branch.
[17:50]
Paul:
Has she?
[17:51]
Steve:
Yes, she has.
[17:53]
Paul:
That segment was an absolute nightmare and we shall not be doing that again.
[17:58]
Steve:
I enjoyed that.
[17:59]
Paul:
I was just trying to freshen things up a little bit.
Right, history of the branch. Steve probably knows a little bit more than me.
[18:06]
Martin:
I think it’s been there about 100 years, the branch. We did buy off what was called Evers, I think.
It started off as Evers Timber about 150 years ago on the actual site that we’re at now. It’s probably changed a little bit over time, grown a little bit, but originally the timber was imported via narrowboats which now run right along the back of us.
[18:31]
Paul:
I think Steve’s got a few stories about that, on the timber being offloaded.
[18:35]
Steve:
Yes, on barges. Not so much on the barges, but we used to offload it in the yard after the barges and then lay it out in the yard rather than put it onto the racks.
So you wouldn’t just put a pack on the back, you’d lay the timber out against the canal side so customers could come along and just choose what they wanted from there.
[18:57]
Martin:
It’s grown over the years and we do quite a lot of different things there now.
We mill our own mouldings and PARs, and we’ve got a big kitchen showroom, probably one of the biggest shops that they’ve got with timber.
[19:10]
Paul:
When was that development, the revamp?
[19:13]
Martin:
About 2018.
[19:15]
Paul:
That was a massive change, wasn’t it? Because when I first joined the business in the beginning of 2018, it was quite an old, dark and dingy area, and now after the full refurb it’s beautiful.
[19:28]
Martin:
What we did there was, we had the DIY shop and then next door we had the builders’ shop. So we took everything out of the DIY shop, totally cleared the shop wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and put it all in the builders. We still traded as a DIY in the builders. We literally sort of changed a whole branch round.
Where the timber was is now the building stuff. Where the building was is now the timber. It has literally gone back to front to where it was originally.
[19:56]
Paul:
We’ve seen a lot of change over the last few years.
Talk a little bit about the team, the people that you’ve got.
[20:02]
Martin:
We’ve got a really good team in Wakefield. We’ve got 25 staff there, varying from a couple of years’ experience right through to people such as Steve.
There’s one other that’s done over 40 years, and we’ve got three or four that are all into 30 years-plus service, then down into 20s and 15s, and then down to new starters who have just started a few months ago.
So there’s a real wide variety of experience there.
[20:31]
Paul:
How do you think you’ll go about replacing those guys when their careers come to an end?
We’ve also talked about kids nowadays maybe not communicating as well as we’d hope because of the impact of phones and what have you. How are you going to go about replacing that kind of experience?
[20:50]
Martin:
Very difficult. Very.
That’s one of the things I’ve seen change over my management career. It’s getting more difficult to get people with experience, and it’s also getting more difficult to get people that want to learn that job to the sort of depths that Steve, myself, and other people in the industry that have been around a few years have.
The internet makes things a little bit easier to research now, but going back to when I was learning how to do the job, I had people that had been in the industry 30 or 40 years before me teaching me and passing their knowledge down.
One of the things I learned was it wasn’t what you knew, because you can’t know about everything, it was about where to go to get that information. That was done by ringing suppliers and speaking to supplier sales reps and sales offices and getting information that way.
I think you take it in a little bit more and get that experience.
[21:42]
Martin:
Now we’re into the generation of either they want instant knowledge or they don’t want to know about it a little bit. It is a bit more difficult.
But again, it comes down to the guys that ask the questions. If you’ve got a person in your branch constantly asking questions and constantly wanting to learn, they’re the people that are going to replace such as Steve.
[22:02]
Steve:
Yes, but you need to know the basics of something. It’s like typing “timber” or “wood” into a computer. It’ll bring you all the info you want, but you’ve got to tell it more of what you want. You have to understand what you want to actually put into the computer to tell you what you know.
[22:18]
Martin:
I think one of the things that has definitely been Steve’s career path, and my career path, and probably most people’s , and yours, Paul , we all started off at the bottom in the yard.
We learned the business. We literally drove forklifts, loaded lorries, loaded customers, unloaded stuff, stacked the shelves, then worked on the counter, then worked in the sales office, and for me went into management.
Our generation literally came through the business from scratch. I think the trouble is with the younger generation, they want to be a manager straight away or they want to be a sales rep straight away without that basic knowledge really and those basic building blocks.
[22:56]
Paul:
I think you’re bang on. My career is exactly the same as yours, management training scheme, doing every job in a builders’ merchant to get the background to everything.
[23:05]
Martin:
The management training scheme I did at Travis was absolutely fantastic, really. You literally had to do six months in the yard, six months on the counter in a branch, and each module was done at a different branch. Three months in one office, three months in another, and then three months shadowing a manager.
Then you had to go out and find your own job within the company, or hopefully you’d impressed some manager in a branch that wanted to keep you there.
That worked really well because you got to know the business from the bottom.
[23:37]
Paul:
How do you think you can combat those generational differences though? Because our generation was willing to grind it out from the bottom and learn every job, and it’s very different now.
I can’t imagine many people born in the 2000s onwards who will ever do 44 years in one place, because that just doesn’t happen now.
[23:56]
Paul:
There’s something about on average people doing about five years in one place. Maybe even less the younger you are.
Whereas in our generation it was a badge of honour to have done 20 years in one place. Now it’s probably seen as though if you’ve done 20 years in one place you’ve maybe not learned that much, and you’d be better off having three or four jobs in 20 years to pick up different things.
Because our industry is so reliant on people having knowledge and understanding about components, because we sell components, don’t we, not just boxes, how do you think we combat those generational changes to give people the knowledge that we’ve gone through over the years?
[24:39]
Martin:
I think it’s difficult. We use online training quite a lot now, and I think that probably appeals more to the younger people rather than going and finding the information themselves.
We try and do quite a bit of face-to-face training, don’t we? We try and get suppliers into the branch on a regular basis to train staff and train our customers as well. We do breakfast mornings with customers, and then in the afternoon they might spend a couple of hours with staff going through their products and things.
I just think sometimes the patience isn’t there with the younger people to sit and learn and put that time into it really.
[25:15]
Steve:
When I first started in the DIY, I did sort of ’81 to ’84 in the shop, and then they said we were doing building materials. I put my hand up, obviously interested, and then we opened the builders’ yard up, so I went from the shop into the builders’ yard, which was a whole different array of products.
You went on courses, things like that, with British Gypsum and plaster, and we learned about it all. That’s another badge that you’ve got there, thinking right, I’ve got the shop pretty much nailed now, more to this one.
[25:45]
Paul:
I think it’s a bit of a poison chalice because there isn’t really an answer to it. You can’t fight generational change.
But I think the thing that makes a builders’ merchant a builders’ merchant is the people and the knowledgeable people, and we’ve just got to keep working hard to make that our unique selling point.
It is that we have that knowledge within the branch, and we can offer that customer service. We actually know what we’re selling, we know what we’re talking about.
[26:10]
Martin:
Yes, that is the USP of the industry really, isn’t it?
[26:13]
Paul:
It’s interesting you’re saying that. We’ve just done another episode with a customer for the first time and I was asking him what’s good about builders’ merchants and what problems do we cause the trade.
He was talking about the USP of the people. You can build relationships and they almost become a silent partner in his business because they look after him, they make sure he’s got the right products, the right quality and whatever.
He also talked about knowledge, how we get customers come in who don’t quite know, broadly know what they want, but don’t know exactly what they want, or think they want this, but when we talk to them it’s actually this that they want.
That echoes the two things you’ve just said.
[26:54]
Martin:
I think it is important and it’s definitely an industry where people deal with people.
I’ve got customers that I deal with now that I dealt with 15 or 20 years ago, some of them, and speak to on a daily basis, and they’ve sort of followed me around.
[27:08]
Paul:
That’s because they’re frightened of you.
[27:10]
Martin:
We give good customer service.
[27:12]
Steve:
Yes, and even though we don’t stock it doesn’t mean we can’t get it. No one can keep everything on the ground, can they? But if we don’t stock it, we know we can get it, we can supply it.
I did one the other month, just so, complete roof, two roofs in two houses, and solar panels as well. We got the lot. That’s the skill to merchanting really, isn’t it? Knowing where to go for that information, knowing who the supplier is.
We still, all these years’ experience, there’ll be that phone call probably on a daily basis where we’re coming across a product we’ve never heard of.
[27:48]
Martin:
I had that yesterday.
[27:50]
Paul:
Question to both of you. There’s obviously a lot of competition in every town and city. There must be six or eight builders’ merchants in Wakefield, I would think, or more if you’re putting Screwfixes and Toolstation into it as well.
What’s Wakefield branch’s USP? What makes it stand out and gives customers a reason to come to you rather than go down the road?
[28:14]
Martin:
I think the service we provide, the staff we’ve got and the knowledge they have, and the amount of product we have in stock as well. It’s quite a big branch so we can buy things in bulk and we’ve got quite a lot of different lines, quite a lot of different products, and plenty of stock on the ground.
[28:35]
Steve:
People. People.
[28:37]
Martin:
And just the service we provide. We provide a good customer service with the knowledge as well. When they come in with not a problem but an idea they’ve got, like you were saying earlier, we can twist it round and say why not do it this way? Is that easier? And they say, oh, I never thought of that.
[28:54]
Martin:
I think most customers will probably shop in a merchant predominantly because, one, they’ve got the stock, and two, they’re getting good customer service and the price is right.
I mean price is always an issue for most customers, but I think ultimately it’s how quick they get dealt with, how well they get dealt with, and making sure we’ve got the stock. I think we do that pretty well at Wakefield.
[29:17]
Paul:
I would agree.
Steve, obviously in 43, nearly 44 years, you’ve seen lots of highs and lows while you’ve been at the branch. Give us a couple of examples of one of the highs and one of the lows.
[29:31]
Steve:
I think one of the highs, which we got started with, was my children working there. On a regular basis they give me a story about the day many years ago, but I still remember some of them and what they were doing there. Steve was the line manager then, looking after one on the shop floor and things like that, and they enjoyed it.
The banter, the actual working ethics of it all, and the stories I got from them, I’m quite proud of that because they were learning on a live daily basis.
[29:59]
Paul:
That’s good.
And on the lows?
[30:02]
Steve:
I know you’re going to say there haven’t been any lows, but life’s full of ups and downs.
The only lows that I would think, which come to mind in a big field, would be when you lose a job over something that really they’ve bought a lesser product or something like that, and you think, you know what I mean, I got you the right product.
Little blips whereby you think, well, I did all that work and I didn’t get the job, and it’s a bit hurting sometimes, but you put the right thing forward. That’s the main thing.
[30:35]
Paul:
Similar question to you, Martin. You’ve had a number of challenges over the last three or four years, particularly at Wakefield. Touch on a couple of challenges, and more importantly what you’ve learned about yourself facing them.
[30:49]
Martin:
I actually started at Wakefield about four weeks before Covid hit, so I think that was my first big challenge, my massive challenge.
I remember you held a senior leadership meeting in Wakefield about Covid the day it all sort of kicked off, and I remember being asked up for a manager’s perspective on it, and I absolutely crapped my pants, basically.
[31:12]
Paul:
That was a strange meeting. That was the day after the announcement shutting down. It was a bit of a doomsday meeting, that one, wasn’t it?
[31:20]
Martin:
But again, we got over that. We shut down for a week and we reopened.
In fact, Wakefield and Oldham were the first two branches that said, can we open? Initially we did that basically as telephone sales and on a call-and-collect basis. I think we did delivery only for the first month and then call and collect the month afterwards, and then we put things into place where we opened fully a couple of months after that.
There were controls on how many people we could let into the branch.
[31:54]
Paul:
I remember how you got colleagues to come in, because I remember saying yes, you can open, but you’ve got to get people to come in. If you’d only been there four or five weeks, that was quite a task, to get them, with all the unknown that was going on, to trust you to look after them when they came in.
[32:12]
Martin:
Yes, it was. There was some staff that were very uncertain about it, and you could quickly identify them guys, and we obviously didn’t ask them because they had issues about it, which was fine.
Then there were other guys that wanted to be back at work, and it was them that initially came back in.
In fact, we actually pulled a team in. There were three or four from Wakefield, three or four from Doncaster, and a couple of guys from York as well. We actually pulled from a few different branches, which was great because you got to work with people you wouldn’t usually work with. It was quite a close team to start with.
Then we got everybody else back in and people settled down to how it was going to be until the restrictions lifted.
[32:54]
Paul:
What did you learn about yourself through that?
[32:57]
Martin:
I think being able to adapt to change, and very quickly being able to adapt. One regulation one day, relaxed the next day, then suddenly we put things back into place again, and you had to sort of change the whole shop round and the whole business round.
We had collection points scattered around the yard. We employed somebody to stand on the gate and literally let people in, tell them to only go to collection point A, B or C. It was that busy. We had that many people coming in. It was unrelenting from seven in the morning until you shut the gate at five at night.
[33:32]
Paul:
Can you believe that was five years ago?
[33:35]
Martin:
Yes.
[33:36]
Paul:
It seems a lifetime ago.
[33:38]
Martin:
Yes, it does. Like another world away.
[33:41]
Paul:
You’ve had some other challenges after that, with stuff leaving the branch and it affecting a long-term team. How did you deal with that, and what did you learn?
[33:52]
Martin:
Again, we had a lot of stuff leave in a very short period of time because a competitor opened up. That was daunting, very, very daunting to start off with.
I see Wakefield branch as my business. It’s under my care while I’m managing it. I sort of scratched my head for the first day, thinking right, how are we going to put this right? How are we going to carry on?
One thing I learned about myself is that I needed to ask for help. At first I thought I was going to have to do it all by myself, and I was drawing on the team I had around me at the time, which supported me. They all dug in deep and got on with it.
Then with the wider team in Howarth, the other managers in my region, my Regional Director Nick, you guys in commercial, everybody pulled together and we put a plan in place.
Actually it wasn’t as bad as what I thought it was going to be in the end.
[34:47]
Paul:
I think there are two important lessons about that. One, asking for help, and two, not always fearing the worst when you’re faced with something.
I think for me that’s probably one of my downfalls as well. I will try and do things by myself until I get to a point where I know I can’t.
[35:03]
Martin:
Yes, and I think that taught me that I don’t need to leave it to that point. I need to ask.
[35:10]
Paul:
Why are you trying to do it yourself?
[35:12]
Martin:
I don’t know. I’ve always been independent.
[35:15]
Paul:
Pride. Independence.
Do you think going through what you went through has taught you a lesson that will stay with you?
[35:22]
Martin:
Yes. Have a bit more faith in the people around you.
[35:27]
Paul:
You two obviously know each other pretty well. You work together really closely.
[35:32]
Martin:
Yes.
[35:33]
Steve:
I think so, yes.
[35:35]
Paul:
Right then. What’s that game show where they used to do this with husband and wife?
[35:40]
Steve:
Mr and Mrs.
[35:41]
Paul:
Yes, that’s it. We’ll be falling out that way.
Right, so you know each other very well, you work together very well. Steve, describe Martin in three words.
[35:52]
Steve:
Caring. Thoughtful. Reliable.
[35:56]
Paul:
That’s nice.
Martin, describe Steve in three words.
[36:01]
Martin:
Reliable. Knowledgeable. Interesting.
[36:05]
Paul:
Interesting? Why is he interesting?
[36:08]
Martin:
I don’t know. Steve’s a bit of a character, and I think he’s a strong character within the branch. I just find Steve interesting. He’s got so many stories to tell and things like that.
[36:20]
Paul:
They’re beautiful descriptions, actually. I think you both described each other really, really well.
Your strength, Martin, is all the personal trait stuff that Steve said to you. And Steve, you are interesting, because whenever I walk past and just say hello, you’re not just going to let me walk past. There’s going to be a story about something, or a blast from you, or I’m going to get stick because somebody’s nicked your stapler.
[36:46]
Martin:
That’s good, that.
I think me and Steve are opposites. You’re a lot more fiery than I probably am, and I’m probably a lot more relaxed.
[36:54]
Steve:
Yes, I think so.
[36:56]
Paul:
I’ve never seen you fiery.
[36:58]
Steve:
I do get a little bit now and again, get agitated if it’s not going my way.
We have three levels, okay?
[37:05]
Paul:
Yes, here we go. This is the level that the audience want.
[37:08]
Steve:
We get the three levels. First level, stern word. Second one, he’s stood up at his desk on the phone to them, giving them a more stern word. The third one is if the phone gets slammed down on the desk, that’s when things aren’t going just right, they’re going over the edge.
[37:27]
Paul:
So if I’m walking past in the shop and I see him stood up with his phone in his hand, keep out of his way. If the phone goes down hard, then definitely keep out for an hour or two.
You need a better poker face. You can’t give it all away like that.
Right, I’m going to start wrapping up. We finish with our quick-fire questions, as we do with everybody, just to learn a little bit more about you.
Favourite part of your job?
[37:54]
Martin:
Customers, solving problems, and getting things that they can’t get hold of. Just making people happy in general, basically. Getting it right.
You don’t go far wrong in life if you always try and help people. When you do that to people, the world has a way of just reflecting it back to you, and good things come your way.
[38:15]
Steve:
People, I think. Really both staff and customers.
[38:19]
Paul:
I’m not going to copy all the answers. I’ll just ask one of you here.
Most difficult part of your job?
[38:27]
Martin:
People.
[38:28]
Paul:
People? Alright. Why?
[38:30]
Martin:
Both staff and customers. I think the good bit is people, you work with some interesting people and some good characters and stuff, but sometimes people can be your worst nightmare as a manager.
Stock and sales and stuff tends to manage itself. It’s all the other associated problems that come with people. The life stuff, and just general stuff.
[38:53]
Steve:
I think only I could make my job difficult. If I give something the wrong info, then that’s made my life difficult again. If I’m late doing something, it’s me that’s created it.
So really that is part of what I will find different about the job. If I’m not on point and I give people the wrong info, because it all comes back to me. That’s how I feel.
[39:16]
Paul:
Crucial trait somebody needs to have in your role?
[39:20]
Martin:
I think they need to be honest. If something’s not going a customer’s way, you tell them the truth. If something’s not going to get delivered, you’ve got to have them straight conversations with people.
I think one of the worst things customers will tell you is if they’ve been given the runaround about when their delivery is coming or whether something’s arriving. Just be honest and truthful about stuff.
[39:44]
Steve:
And integrity, I think.
If you lie to them, or if you get it wrong, tell them it’s wrong and go along with it. At least they know where to stand. If it’s going to be two weeks away, tell them it’s two weeks. Don’t tell them it’s going to be there in a week, otherwise they lose faith in you.
[40:02]
Martin:
I think I learned that lesson very early on in my career, probably by somebody a bit older, a bit more experienced, a bit more old-school. If he got it wrong and got caught out by a customer, he literally got the bucket back at him.
[40:15]
Paul:
Yes, sir. You won’t do that again, will you?
That’s good.
And then the final one for you both, best piece of advice you’ve ever been given.
[40:24]
Martin:
Somebody said to me sort of early on in my career that if you treat everybody like they’re your customer, if you come to me with something, you’re my customer; if I come to you with something, I’m your customer, then you can’t really go wrong with that.
You’re giving that service to whoever’s in front of you at the time. If you treat people like you want to be treated, then that’s even better.
[40:49]
Steve:
Never promise something you’re not going to produce. So if you’re going to promise something, it has to happen. And when it’s going to do it, keep people on their footing.
[41:00]
Paul:
You’re both very similar, you two, aren’t you? Like chips off the same old book we read.
All your answers have been around people, respect, being honest, and doing what you say you’re going to do. They’re really good basic traits that will serve you well in any part of your life, not just builders’ merchanting.
[41:20]
Martin:
Yes. We could all sit here and talk about chasing sales, budgets and everything else like that, but ultimately if you don’t treat your people well, they’re not going to perform and they’re not going to achieve.
That is important. It’s a people business. People deal with us because they like us, or they like our knowledge, or whatever service we provide. Ultimately it’s a people business, and that’s probably why it is important to us.
[41:46]
Steve:
And if you’re not being honest to your customers and your staff, then you’re not being honest to yourself, because you know full well it’s not going to go that way. So honesty is always the best policy.
[41:58]
Paul:
Brilliant.
Well listen, it’s been a pleasure having you both. Thank you for your time. Thanks for making me smile, thanks for telling all your stories, and thanks for all the wise words.
Good luck in everything that you’re doing at Wakefield. May you continue to be successful and have some fun while you’re at it.
To you, our viewers and listeners, thanks for joining us again. Hope you’ve enjoyed the episode with Martin and Steve. If you have, it would be great if you could like and subscribe on whatever platform you’re looking at, and if you could share the message about the 1840 Podcast with anybody else in your circle who you think might be interested, that would be much appreciated as well.
So until next time, we’ll see you again. Thank you.
[42:39]
Steve:
Bye-bye.
[42:40]
[Music]