Duncan Sinclaire opened his first kitchen, bedroom and bathroom showroom in Littlehampton 16 years ago followed by a second showroom in Chichester. Rebecca Nottingham asked him for the lowdown on an average day as a busy independent retailer...
  
7am

I get up anywhere between 7am and 7.30am and the first thing I do is venture downstairs for a cup of coffee. I only live about a 15 minute car journey away from our Littlehampton showroom so after I’ve got myself ready I say goodbye to the family and head off to work.
  
8.30am

Depending on the time I leave the house, I’m normally in work by 8.30am. The showroom officially opens at 9am but our warehouse opens at 8.15am and there are normally deliveries to deal with etc. I like to get in before the showroom is open for business as it gives me time to tidy up a few loose ends and check my backlog of emails.

I’m originally from New Zealand and came over here in 1979, originally for two years but I met a great girl and ended up staying. My first job here was working for a horticultural engineering company, which I eventually took over and ran for seven years until 1987. After a couple of years in Australia and New Zealand we returned to the UK and I got a job as a salesman with Dolphin bathrooms which is how I got involved in this industry. I stayed there for about nine months until I decided to branch out on my own in July 1992. I started the business with a £2000 credit card limit and 2000sq ft of showroom. We now have two showrooms in Littlehampton and Chichester.

Between the two we employ 12 staff plus on top of that we’ve got 12 regular installers. We have four sales and design staff, and three ladies who deal with the admin side. We also have a couple of warehouse staff, a delivery driver and a contracts installation manager.
  
9am

I have a very active role within the day-to-day running of each business so no day is the same and each one brings its own challenges. I don’t have a set routine because in this business I find you do things as and when they crop up. 

Sometimes we can have a dozen or so customers in the showroom at any one time and my favourite part of the job is interacting with them. I love hearing their ideas and showing them around our displays, talking about each individual product and what they could achieve from their new kitchen, bedroom or bathroom. I’m very passionate about each aspect of the business and enjoy passing on my knowledge of the products to our clients.

The Littlehampton showroom has somewhere in the region of 75 bathroom displays, incorporated in those we have a working wet room, working steam rooms and working whirlpools. I think working displays are extremely important as it enables our customers to envisage the products in their own homes but it also means that they understand any of the special features of the product.

We also have 12 kitchen displays and five bedroom displays so it’s a very varied showroom. Because of the sheer number of displays we always seem to be updating something. We stock so many products in both showrooms so I can’t name them all but we do a lot of Daval furniture and Villeroy & Boch.
  
12pm

I generally eat lunch on the hoof when I’m working unless I’ve arranged to go out for lunch with a rep, but that’s very occasionally because normally I can’t spare the time.
  
2pm

An average day will almost certainly include putting together quotes for potential customers, liaising with my sales teams and staff in both showrooms. But by far the biggest part of my daily routine is designing. Because we have a lot of serious leads from the people who visit our showrooms, consequently, I’ve always got more than one design project on the go.
  
5.30pm

I try and leave work on time as often as possible and that is around 5.30pm when the showroom closes. But of course when you run your own business you have to be prepared to work extra hours and I don’t rule out staying after closing and it’s not unusual for me to find that I’m still here at gone 7pm catching up on things. I’m at the Littlehampton showroom the majority of the week but at the moment I’m spending two days a week at the Chichester branch because we’re still getting the business off the ground.

7pm

If I’ve managed to leave work on time, I get in and catch up with my family before sitting down to dinner at about 7pm. I don’t actually get the chance to sit down and relax until about 8pm so when I do I like to unwind with a glass of wine or a couple of beers.? ?8pm I don’t watch much tv so in the evening I like to spend time catching up with my sons and playing a few games with them on their computer, well, that’s when I’m not taking them to their karate lessons or something.

I work five and a half, sometimes six, days a week so when I do get a day off  I just enjoy spending time with my wife and kids. If it’s good weather we plan a day out if not I relax in the conservatory with the Sunday paper.

Duncan Sinclaire
Concepts Interiors
Riverside Industrial Estate
Littlehampton
Sussex BN17 5DF