The spotlight is on – Greengates Builders Merchants
GREENGATES BUILDERS MERCHANTS COMPANY PROFILE:
How long have you been established: 28 years
Number of employees: 18
Where are you based: Accrington, Lancashire
How long have you worked with Midland Lead: Since we opened our doors
What are your future plans: We have recently bought a new plot of land and are looking to develop our new premises in 2017.
This family business has been working with Midland Lead since it first opening its doors over 28 years ago, making Greengates Builders Merchants one of our longest standing business relationships.
We asked owner Steve Pickup what has helped your business become successful.
“I believe having a happy and motivated workforce has resulted in a low turnover of staff, meaning that customers continually deal with the same members of staff day to day, year after year.
I’d say knowing over 90% of customers that walk into our store on first name terms also gives that personal touch and helps build strong relationships, usually leading to us being recommended by current clients to for new business which shows how important it is to always have your customers leaving the merchant as happy as possible.”
Steve told us how important moving with the times is and one of his major successes was joining the H&B buying group, “it allowed us to compete on price with the large nationals, but best of all, we had more communication with other merchants available to us”.
“Any good business knows how important it is to diversify with the times. And as the amount of business we have had increased, we’ve expanded our workforce, product range, and as of 2017 we will have increased our premises too.”
We asked Steve, what tips would you give to other merchants, “of course it goes without saying that new business doesn’t just come without hard work. The three key tips to success I would give anyone in the roofing industry, is to provide good customer service, offer competitive prices and have reliable suppliers especially if you don’t have the space to stock high volumes of products.”
If you would like to talk to Steve about his business you can contact him on steve@greengates.co.uk. Or find more information online on the Greengates website, Facebook page and Twitter.
