Behind the Business

I was a fully trained head chef living in Jersey for five enjoyable years. I then returned to the mainland and opened a restaurant that only had a short lease, so I was looking to do something else. I saw that Tickhill had come on to the market – and so I sold everything and bought it! That was in 1982, I had absolutely no experience, but I work on impulse and instinct, and there was something in me that told me I could make it work. 42 years on – here we are! I took a gamble, jumped in, learnt on the job, and worked hard. At that time, it was Esso – and it was a site steeped in history. I think we moved to JET about 15 years ago. Mike Stevens was the Area Manager at the time, and he was absolutely amazing and did his job brilliantly. I’ve been a very happy member of the JET family ever since.

We’re in a rural village which is also a conservation area. So, any building work we’ve done over the years has been in line with strict guidelines – stone and tiled roof, different sized fonts, smaller pole sizes etc. We have a busy convenience store, dry cleaning, plus a full workshop and an MOT bay. We are a one stop shop!

My daughter works with me in the shop and my son is a mechanic and MOT tester. A proper family business. My son is also a brilliant drummer and has toured the country with bands like McFly and Scouting for Girls. In fact, he’s just come back from playing at a festival in Amsterdam. My granddaughter who’s 11 also loves coming up to the site to hang out with her grandad and chat to the staff. She even has her own JET uniform – and she’s so proud of it.

In terms of our role in the community – at the end of the day we are a rural service station delivering what the customer wants, and with first-class service. We are open from 5 in the morning to 9 at night. Plus, we provide fuel 24/7 because we recently invested in pay at the pump. Most of our business is regular customers, I must know pretty much everyone by name. We have a group who come in every morning to get their papers, we have a bit of banter, get all the local gossip. Not a bad way to start the day.

We now deal with Martin Smith. I knew him before he joined JET – so he was a familiar face.

He knows his stuff and we work very closely together. He keeps me up to speed and I really can’t fault him.

And as a business, they offer a proper one-to-one personalised service, plus their fuel pricing is always fair. If you want to speak to a senior manager, you can, and the fuel deliveries are absolutely superb – you phone up and it’s there the next day. Tanker drivers are great – it’s a smart good-looking fleet. It’s a good company with no unnecessary frills.

I’m here at 5am pretty much every morning. It’s the best time of the day because you can get all your work done without any distractions. I sort through all the orders, and the banking, I go through the workshop invoices and purchases, and then from 9am I’m free to deal with the day-to-day running of the site: meeting reps, cleaning, tidying. Generally keeping an eye on it all.

I’ve always put the customer first and tried to give them what they want. Because I’m here all the time, I can speak to customers – and if we don’t have something, we can get it in. But the biggest thing, without a shadow of a doubt, is staff. If you don’t have decent staff your site will struggle. They are the face of your business.

We had a customer who was on pump number one, and he had an automatic. He was trying to drive, knocked the car into reverse and off he went! He ended up going round the pump and smashing into the shop! That was definitely a memorable moment.

In terms of what I’m proud of – it’s really making sure the site is always at its best. I pride myself on getting 100% on the JET score sheet visits, and I’m proud that I run a tight ship and a tidy business. I want everything to be 100%.

Treat people as you want to be treated – and understand that you’ll only get out what you’re prepared to put in. It’s a hands-on job. Get involved, be present and surround yourself with good people.

It’s challenging – but I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. Make sure you look to the future and keep an eye on your customers. This is a business that changes all the time and it’s important to embrace that change.