Part 4
Home cinema was gone. In less than a month too. All sold and what little we could recover from the stock was ploughed back into two-channel. And at that time I recall it was turntables that were slowly starting to regain a momentum which surprised us. Not in terms of performance but in terms of growth. We’d expected vinyl to remain constant within a small audiophile community. But we had not foreseen the massive growth which has continued to this day.
The great news for us is that we never missed Home Cinema one jot and our lives became a lot more enjoyable. We were happier and we were more focussed. Slowly some of the customers who had drifted towards Home cinema began to drift back to two-channel. They’d lost their passion for listening to music because HC equipment was fundamentally not that good, especially when matched with speakers compact enough to go all around the lounge.
Looking back on it we realised that a lot of Home Cinema equipment had got worse. For music playback anyway. It had come down in price, higher specifications had been added to the digital side, connectivity had increased and speakers had mostly got worse and the whole thing was essentially poor when it came to playing music. Not the high end kit of course but the market for high end kit was quite small.
So once again we were about our business doing what we enjoyed and doing what we felt our customer valued. It was a good feeling and both the atmosphere and morale improved in the store in the following years.
Our staff slowly changed. We lost Ian Blay and David Coleman and these were replaced with John Kenny and Adrian Cox. Both brought their own ideas and their own character to the job and both were very liked by our customers.
Customers
I’d like to pause for a moment to talk about customers. In short they are our life blood and the reason we thrive and are in business today. Everything else is secondary. Without them we cease to exist. Satisfied customers have built our business.
When things are tough (as they often are in retail) it is customers that carry you through. Customers provide loyalty, support and repeat business if you look after them. They also recommend you to their friends. I do think a lot of retail in general (and not just in our industry) has forgotten this. Part of it is when the people who own the business become disconnected from the sales floor. They move to an office and they lose touch of what is going on. What customers are saying, how staff are behaving and so forth.
My desk is in the shop for this very reason. I hear stuff. I find stuff out. I am not “insulated” from what’s going on. It can be painful at times but for the most part I consider it vital.
Staff
We've always enjoyed social outings with our suppliers and staff. These usually involve a few drinks and a curry and have strangely become somewhat legendary, particularly our Christmas Party which has strode the Indian restaurants of Sheffield over the last 43 years. Some of the pictures in this section of our history are taken on these nights out. I don't find myself with anywhere near as many photos of our shop as I thought but they're probably squirrelled away on a drive somewhere and when I do find them I'll share.
Music
Music is the bond we share with our customers. It’s our shared passion and our enthusiasm. Despite this we noticed that so much of the day to day discussions with customers were based on specification and things which are hard to quantify. The demo room helped immensely with this but strange as it might seem, not all customers are aware that we have them or have the confidence to ask to use them.
We recognise that walking into a new environment where everyone is an expert can be intimidating. Our Fitzwilliam Street store had a lot of windows and we had to wipe nose prints off. These were left by people who were interested enough to look in but rarely actually crossed the doorstep. I thought about this a lot. I thought about what they were seeing; a lot of equipment that they didn’t recognise by brands they didn’t know. And staff who clearly did know a fair bit more than they did. If you don’t know the business and you don’t know you’ll be welcomed by someone who wants to help then that can be a situation that you won't want to enter into.
For this reason we decided to try to take the focus off equipment and engage with people about music. Music is a shared passion so it’s vital that we connect with people on the music that they love. We all talk the same language when we’re talking about music. When we bang on about specifications it’s like the teacher in Charlie Brown “whahahahahaha wahwahwahwahwah”.
In the early 90’s we started doing manufacturer events in store and sometimes out of the store at local hotels. These were non-sales events and were very low key and informative. We still do them to this day although we brought them in store because in store we have everything to hand and we can ensure we can at least produce a good sound.
Our demo rooms have never been about trying to produce perfect sound and they are not anechoic chambers. We’re not chasing perfection. To do so would be dishonest. All we require of our listening room is that it be good enough to enable you to hear the differences between pieces of equipment or systems. And for you to relax and be comfortable.
Anyway to get back on track these are the things we learned and we attempted to put them into practice with our website and later our social media output and in particular Facebook.
So our website was about music and equipment. And we tried to make it easier to browse and less techy.
The growth of online
In the mid 90’s our website was bringing us a lot of new customers and towards the late nineties it was vital for communication. In the past we’d printed a newsletter and we’d done email communications to our customers. We pulled the plug on these when we saw that we could reach people online. I’ve always felt emails and mail coming through my door to be a nuisance but visiting a website or page where I could easily get the information I wanted suited me better. I hoped customers would feel the same way and the statistics indicated that they did so we kept at it.
It’s a real boost to realise that our customers are interested in us and want to learn more about us, our history and our products. I consider it something of a privilege that you’re reading this now and have been willing to invest your precious time to learn more about the company my dad founded forty three years ago. It is only worth writing or speaking if somebody is reading or listening.
We’ve found that pretty soon it was clear that most of our new customers were coming to us as a result of something they’d read or seen online. As a result of this we put more effort into keeping things fresh and updated.
We also resumed our relationship with Naim Audio. This came about because Tony Gascoine ( a good friend of mine and director of Lintone Audio in Gatehead) rang and told me how well he was getting on with Naim and how a lot of this was down to their new rep. My ears pricked up at this and I said as much. Tony mentioned our interest to the new guy and he arranged to come and see us. We found him a complete breath of fresh air and we hit it off immediately, primarily because of our love of music. This was the sort of relationship we wanted. Once based on a shared passion and a similar one to the relationship we shared with many of our customers.
As a result of Paul Darwin’s efforts Naim Audio was once again welcomed into our store and since then we have never looked back. Sometimes a break is truly as good as a rest and with Paul supporting us and our love for the products we were off and running again.
Around this time our core products were;
Rega
Naim Audio
Cyrus Audio
Bowers & Wilkins
Spendor
Arcam
Project
Linn Products
Denon
Rotel
Wilson Benesch
Ayre Audio
There were other peripheral brands of course and our range was in flux because we always (and continue to this day) spend the quieter times listening and comparing equipment to ensure we were offering the best performance and value for money.
The internet also meant that we could sell products directly. Initially this was people seeing something and picking up the phone. But eventually our website enabled people to buy directly from us via a shopping basket system.
This didn’t (and doesn’t) apply to everything we sell and this is because contractually some of our suppliers insist we do not offer “click to buy”. We very much feel that some products require face to face demonstration and sometimes home installation. Higher end record players are a good example of this but there are lots of products that are better bought in store, where we can ensure they are right for you by demonstration.
Even today a lot of people see products on Facebook or on our website and pick up the phone. They may have specific questions and there may be a trade in or they may want advice on system matching and of course general condition and warranties. We try to provide as much information as possible but it is reassuring to speak to someone who isn’t a bot and who can answer questions and chat. This will remain the way we prefer to do business.
We felt we had the right people, the right store and the right products. And our customers seemed to be happy with what we were doing. We knew this because they would tell us so and they remained loyal.
Tougher times
One thing in business that you learn pretty quickly is that when things are good, they’re extremely unlikely to last. Whilst I am a fan of our city I am considerably less of a fan of our council. I’d even go as far as to say that they are anti-business. But during the early noughties the council repeatedly had their fingers in our eyes.
The banking crisis brought about a huge recession in retail and in luxury goods in particular. And we sell almost exclusively luxury goods. It wasn’t our first recession so we weren’t overly concerned. However the council took the opportunity to increase the cost of parking in the city at the same time. In fact they doubled it. They also took an extremely proactive approach to enforcement.
We were also told by our landlord two things that came as something of a surprise. The first was that our shop would be demolished and turned into student accommodation but that this would not happen immediately due to the banking crisis. It did forewarn us however.
The second was that the council were drawing up plans to charge vehicles entering the inner ring road. At the time we found this hard to believe because this was in 2008 before we could see the direction that eventually the whole nation would take, starting of course with London before slowly being rolled out.
In any event we had plenty of time as it would be seven years before we would actually have to move.
Sadly our last seven years were marred by the office space across the road being converted into a substance abuse clinic. We found out about this when a builder laughingly pointed out to us that we would soon be getting some very bad news. I asked him what and he told us that the site had been earmarked for a Substance Abuse clinic.
We contacted the council and they denied this. They informed me that there was a limitation on use for the property and it could not be used for such a clinic. Five weeks later the sign went up and it was indeed a Substance Abuse Clinic. We complained, wrote to the press and even considered legal action but it was a done deal and so we had to suck it up.
I can’t emphasise enough how much this move damaged our daily life, our business and even our mindset. We saw the worst kind of behaviour on a daily basis. Car crime went through the roof, as did antisocial behaviour. We had people sleeping outside the store and sitting on the steps outside whenever the sun was out. We also had an increase of theft and attempted theft within the store. I personally can’t abide people who want to steal and meanwhile are nice and are simply waiting for the moment you nip in the back for a drink. We would see people standing outside across the road watching the store. When we nipped in the back folk would appear.
Working with this takes away the joy in life. We had a large glass fronted store and a ringside seat to degeneracy and vicious violence. I get angry even thinking about it and I am so glad that part of my life is over with.
Next - the move to Woodseats.
