Storey Carpets is a familiar name to anyone in the North-East embarking on home improvements. But it could have been so different. "Heptinstall Carpets doesn't quite have the same ring does it?" says Simon Heptinstall, grandson of the founder of Storey Carpets. "People can't say it for a start." In deference to his wife's family, Paul Matthew Heptinstall retained his father-in-law's name above the shop in Roker Avenue, Sunderland, that he bought from him in 1921. As an officer in the Royal Engineers, he'd survived the First World War despite having being shot in the leg at Paschendale and spending the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. He was sent to an army hospital in Gosforth to recuperate and was nursed back to health by Jeannie Storey, who later became his wife. He returned briefly to his pre-war life in the shipyards but quickly decided that ship-building on the Wear had had its day so he invested in the shop selling new and reconditioned furniture. "He did a roaring trade in washing mangles too," says Simon. With the outbreak of war, men were called back to the shipyards so Jeannie took over in the shop and expanded into ironmongery products, which had been her family's trade. Moving forward to the 1950s, their only child, Dennis, opted to give up teaching and join the family business. "It was my dad who introduced carpets into Storeys," says Simon. "Manufacturers were just starting to make them on a broad loom. Fitted carpets were still some way off but people were putting linoleum around the edge of the room and putting carpet squares in the middle. "My dad had an opportunity to buy some squares on sale or return from a wholesaler. He bought about 50 and put them in the shop with a really low mark-up and sold them within a week. The next week he went back to the wholesaler and picked up a couple of hundred. That was the start of the carpet business." The company quickly grew into a chain of stores and attempted, unsuccessfully, to expand into West and South Yorkshire and the North-West. "We had to look at new ways to expand the business without going outside our North-East heartland," says Simon. "My father had taken a bit of a back seat in the business at this time and the decision was taken to try curtain retailing, followed by furniture." At first, it appeared to have been a successful move. "It was the 1980s and it was difficult not to be successful in retailing at that time," admits Simon. "But carpet and furniture retailing just didn't fit together. We had very big stores on retail parks selling carpets and furniture - the third of the shopfloor that was carpets was very successful but the furniture was bringing it down." At this time, Simon was studying for an MBA at Stirling University after completing a biology degree at the University of East Anglia. With plans to be a scientist, Simon the student could see what was going wrong. He says: "I never planned to join the business and my father never encouraged me, but I worked there in the holidays and the more I did, the more interested I became. "We made some textbooks mistakes at that time, like focusing on the part of the business that was struggling and neglecting our core business of carpet retailing." He joined full-time as an assistant branch manager, then became marketing manager before joining the board as a director. He pushed hard to drop the furniture, in the end selling to Kingsbury with an agreement to operate carpet concessions within the stores. "We didn't lose a single job or a single square foot of carpet retail space and we were able to reinvest the money from the sale back into the business. Overnight we went from an overdraft and making a loss to a company with cash in the bank and were back into profit the following year." With fingers well and truly burned from diversification, Simon focused on growing the carpet and flooring side. The first major development took place in 1997 when Walter Wall was born - an unashamedly "pile it high, sell it cheap"' brand selling factory seconds, reject stock and clearance lines with no fitting, no measuring and no delivery. The carpet-without-frills experience is now available in 11 branches across the North. Meanwhile, the Storey Carpets brand is marketed more heavily as a retailer offering choice, style, service and value for money. With the likes of Changing Rooms and other home-style television programmes, interiors have become a national pastime and, says Simon, have had a tremendous influence on the way people buy for their homes. Storey has responded by launching Woodland Floors, a specialist wood and laminate flooring brand. "There are very few well known brands in the flooring industry so we have had to develop distinctive retail brands," says Simon. The next step was to put Storey and Walter Wall under one roof, and this year will see all three concessions together in single stores. "This way we address all our competition and provide the customer with a vast amount of choice in one place." The company is once again expanding outside the region with openings in Mansfield, Blackpool and Dumfries, plus the first franchised stores. The group currently boasts 39 outlets, turnover of £31m and employs 310 people. Turnover increased by 25pc, year on year, in 2003. "We are an ambitious company, we want to grow and we are constantly looking at how we can do things better," says Simon. This desire to improve is fuelled by his membership of The Entrepreneurs Forum, the regional organisation that helps businesses to flourish by bringing company bosses together. Simon has been a member since its launch by Sir Richard Branson nearly two years ago. Now 39 and with 11 years as chief executive behind him, some might say there's little he needs to learn. But for Simon, the chance to share his experiences and to have his decisions endorsed by the region's most successful business leaders is a valuable resource. "Growth inevitably causes growing pains and to have access to that degree of external experience from guys who have been there, even if it's just to reassure you that you're doing the right thing, is a great resource for people like me," he says. "The retail experience of the likes of John Marshall, Sir Peter Vardy, John Hays and Dave Charlton is very relevant to our business. And even when the subject isn't retail, there are many issues in business that are similar and it's always useful to listen to how others deal with them." Storey Carpets has certainly presented its own challenges along the way, but Simon's eternal optimism, which filters through the business, means they are always ready to respond to changes in the market. He says: "We are exceptionally positive and we're trying to create a constant 'can-do' attitude. Our mission statement is very simple - to be the best and to enjoy ourselves doing it." * For more information about the Entrepreneurs Forum, telephone 0870 850 2233 or visit www.entrepreneursforum.net | 
