Читать книгу A HouseBeautiful Home Business - Emma Jones - Страница 21

Name: James and Sally Tickner, Liberty Rose Interiors Limited

Business: Furnishings and upholstery

Website: www.libertyroseinteriors.co.uk

Social media: www.libertyroseinteriors.blogspot.co.uk, www.pinterest.com/LibertyRoseUK, www.facebook.com/LibertyRoseInteriorsLimited, @libertyrose

Liberty Rose Interiors Limited was established in spring 2012 by husband-and-wife team James and Sally Tickner. James began life in the upholstery industry over 20 years ago and has been passionately revitalising furniture by hand ever since. He has also worked in the leather-trimming business to transform the interiors of many luxury yachts, helicopters and classic cars. Sally has been in the book-publishing business for most of her career and is a self-confessed spendaholic!

“We bought an old house and tried new influences and styles – Jim created some chairs for our lounge which were the envy of our friends so we decided to design and create our own pieces to suit a contemporary home and we looked for a way to sell them.”

Like many new businesses they initially struggled to think of a suitable name for themselves but after much discussion they decided to use their daughter’s name, Liberty Rose.

“When she entered our lives the one name we agreed upon (and there were many!) was Liberty Rose and the meaning of it seems to fit with the aim and scope of our business – Liberty means the power of choosing, thinking and acting for oneself, and a bed of roses is a situation of comfort or ease. In our minds, Liberty Rose is about taking something precious such as a much-loved antique chair and revitalising it – boldly choosing something exquisite which will provide comfort (and hopefully fun, passion and warmth) for years to follow.”

Liberty Rose sold their first piece to a friend! “We were having dinner at their place and they mentioned that their sofa was in need of a complete makeover. The next day they asked us to submit a quote, which we did. This then prompted us to map out a business plan and to start to think about how to generate new opportunities.”

Like many new businesses, when James and Sally initially decided to go for it, they had big dreams combined with little time and money. As a result, they created a basic marketing plan for the initial phase and worked with a friend to design an effective website to showcase their collection.

“In particular, we highlighted some ‘before and after’ pictures of a sofa transformation to demonstrate the traditional methods we use. Our original website was simple and has been easy to maintain, so we update that regularly and also use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to inform people of our latest news.”

However, they soon realised that they needed to offer potential customers a way to see for themselves how their portfolio was different from the normal foam-filled chairs and sofas found on the high street. They considered a number of ways to do this.

“We looked for a showroom in a prime location where we could feature our range of products and promote our upholstery service. After some market research we found The Packhouse, a destination lifestyle centre located in a 400-year old Grade II listed former hop kiln, on the outskirts of Farnham, Surrey. We rent a showroom and benefit from their sales and marketing abilities, which enables us to create fresh pieces for our collection, expand our supply chain and develop additional channels to market, with an emphasis on social media.”

In order to grow the business, James and Sally started to think more commercially about their products and services and also researched what their competitors were doing.

“We allocated time to visit leading high atreet stores and registered for trade fairs and assessed how to position ourselves as being better than the mass market items.”

As part of that, they considered their ethos and values and decided to focus on how to reflect that in their communication with customers.

“We decided to only use the very best high-quality fabrics, to raise awareness of the traditional and ethical upholstery methods we adopt (such as our use of horsehair) and we pride ourselves on delivering a friendly and professional service.”

Within a few months they also started to look for adjacent business opportunities to grow their business and reflect their values. They sourced a range of homeware items that complemented their collection, including silver lanterns, bespoke tables, hand-sewn floor cushions, vintage vases and pictures, and negotiated the costs to fit with their low start-up budget.

“We were also keen to build a strong brand for ourselves so we worked with a designer to create some logos and developed ways to package our smaller items. For our first Christmas we worked with a supplier to create a range of clean wax (no lead) candles and diffusers which used high quality fragrance oil that was pure and undiluted. We also commissioned our own packaging to reflect the Liberty Rose Interiors logo and style and were delighted with the results.”

At this stage in their business, Sally and James are keen to increase sales in their local market before taking their business global. However, they have started to look into the options and intend to assess the opportunities at a later date. 2013 will also see them develop new and innovative products, as well as testing new products in the form of high quality wallpapers, rugs and paints.