80. How a £5,000 workshop became a global luxury brand | Tom Faulkner

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. What happens when losing your job unexpectedly leads to building a global design business? Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Tom Faulkner, whose company started in the early 1990s, making hand-painted tables, and has since evolved into an internationally recognized luxury furniture brand.

0:46In this episode, we discuss how the business began by accident, the role of craft in a modern design company, and how a workshop in Swindon came to serve a global market. Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Tom Faulkner. Tom is an award-winning British furniture designer and the founder of Tom Faulkner Limited, which is renowned for creating distinctive, handcrafted, sculptural luxury furniture. um tom has two showrooms one in london and one in new york and he has a fabrication center workshop i should call it in swindon wiltshire so tom you're london new york swindon which i'm very pleased to celebrate um thank you for coming to talk to me i understand you're also accidental entrepreneur or you started off doing something else and then changed tack what happened tom tell story well yeah i guess like lots of entrepreneurs in a way it's kind of accidental and i think kind of luck does play a big part in everybody's life somehow but yeah but i well i once had a job and i worked for a company called chrysalis records which was um you know a well-known record company still is and um i sort of had this idea that i wanted to work in music and i i'd been trying to do that for some time and um but in my spare time i'd been kind of painting these tabletops and i developed this kind of way of putting patterns onto tables with lots of color and stencils and stuff and i and i was making from them for myself and i made some for my friends and i made a few for my mum and then one day i mean i unexpectedly i was made redundant or fired from chris's record i'm not quite sure what it was quite because i didn't in those days there was no kind of no one knew anything about the formalities of these things and i certainly didn't as a kind of 27 seven-year-old that's what happened well the boss kept he got me into his office and um he made me wait for 45 minutes while he was on the phone and then he said uh tom we've got a part company and i thought he was leaving i thought i was i'm so sad you know but it wasn't and it was it was actually me and then i remember i stood on well he made you sit there for 45 minutes before he just told you that yeah and he wasn't there's no notice or anything and i didn't know what it was i didn't know what I was might have been entitled to or anything anyway so that was fine I mean it was a bit of a blow because I'd spent a long time trying to you must be quite upset forge out this um forge this career in in music which I thought would be great um and I part of that I'd worked for a year in the Virgin Megastore you know so I'd done a lot of work towards it um anyway so I stood on a platform at Latimer Road and I did feel a bit kind of um sort of disheartened and depressed and then I thought I would have a go I'd start this um you know my painted tabletops I thought I started a business and I did and it was called I it was called Tom Faulkner hand-painted furniture but at that moment I had orders you know I had I remember I had a thousand pounds worth of orders so from various people so this was like what would be called these days a sort of side hustle side hustle yeah became your main thing yeah exactly it's my hobby and then but who were your early customers so you mentioned your mother some friends so you had people who knew you liked what you would yeah and I would refurbish their entire table they'd give me their old brown table and I can paint it and sort of give back to them in their own colors and you know this is it was good so these were like artworks they were artworks in a way yeah yeah yeah and there's still some of them exist in the world but um not many pleased to hear a few so they're particularly precious those well i i can imagine they are yeah so look after them yeah one an early time yeah so they were so my friends were buying them um oh yeah and so the important thing said i started that and i had once worked for a picture framer previously and i think that they had a kind of workshop and a and a shop they had a store in um grazing antique market and they had a workshop in one right but i really liked the whole vibe of the kind of the workshop and i was making the frames and decorating the mounts and also getting the lunch and doing these things it was a very small business so and i love the shop as well dealing with the public and and when i thought I'd start my business with the painted tables I thought I'd really start something like the picture framers I thought what a great that's such a nice kind of thing to be doing I thought I'd have a little workshop and a shop and that's sort of what I've kind of got now um it's like bigger one but you know it's kind of still what it is in essence an artisan yeah exactly making things and I really like the kind of interaction with the public and the clients and the customers but the key thing that happened for me um so i was painting the painting my tabletops it was quite a labor intensive sort of thing to do because they were you know quite involved the patterns and but it was really fun finding out how to do it how to do the lacquer how to finish them and you know i got them to you know they were very well done in the end and i really liked the kind of discovery in the craft and then i was doing an exhibition at the kind of um at the something at earl's court which was a quite a big show and i'd done other small shows like the bath craft show and things like that and um anyway so i was doing this this exhibition and um i needed a chair to sit on and my mother funnily enough had met these fabricators in it's a longer story but somehow she'd met them in in wiltshire and she said why don't you go and ask this guy peter reed he'll make he'll make you a chair because i was talking about getting a chair to sit on so peter was in swindon yeah and i know i didn't want the plastic chairs they had at the show so i thought i'd make my own one i thought how cool to make a metal chair and um so i went to see them and and they made me a metal chair and that was the first thing i made out of metal and that was kind of a sort of huge kind of moment of discovery in a way i thought what you can do with metal and how you can how they kind of manipulated it how they bent it and i thought how great maybe i could make some metal things myself so people comment on your nice chair a lot yeah so you saw there was interest yeah it was a big part of the show i mean it was kind of it looks like something yeah it looked something important um it had sort of spikes on the back which was a bit odd and a bit kind of gothic so it was definitely sort of unique yeah it was certainly unique and i mean i wouldn't recommend having a chair with spikes on the on the back but there are still some of those in existence but anyway so i anyway so that was so he said so he just made that made the chair and i thought how amazing and then i thought i could make bases to go beneath my table so i suddenly got very interested in what was going on underneath right the tables having before only really been interested in the tops so i kind of i started making sort of more kind of i just suddenly realized that tables didn't need to have four legs you could make a single pedestal or anything you could do anything you wanted underneath i didn't realize yes i didn't know anything about furniture because i wasn't that interested in furniture because i was interested in surfaces and painting and decoration and patterns so i had no kind of knowledge of the furniture world or any furniture designers or anything so i hadn't never really looked that closely any furniture it sounds Sounds like you suddenly became very interested in furniture.

8:01I became very interested in, yes, in the kind of shapes and what I could do. Yeah, I think somehow I had to channel my interests into my sort of creative, what I wanted to design. I decided to make all my ideas. I decided to make into tables, basically. So they were small scale, but that was it. and then the last thing that happened on the journey of the accidental entrepreneurship is um so i was subcontracting to this man in swindon called peter reed and he had a he had his own side hustle which is septic tank business right and he wanted to spend more time with his septic tanks so he decided i was virtually his only customer so he asked me if i'd like to take over his business in swindon and it had two employees one called nigel and one called gordon and and i thought that sounds like a fun thing to do so i took over i borrowed some money actually took bought all his machines bought the whole business for five thousand pounds right and i what year was this in this 1996 30 years so it was 30 years ago today almost fantastic congratulations yeah yeah anyway so that was a good buy that was a good buy yeah and i took and i had nigel gordon yeah and i you know i didn't had no i so then i was sort of trapped in the world of metal work i had to kind of make more things in metal and design more things because i had this workshop so i was quite committed without really realizing that you know that i was so tell me tom what happened to nigel and gordon so well nigel um still works for me still works after 30 years later 30 years later that's an endorsement um that isn't it yeah he's amazing nigel is an extraordinary person incredibly talented he had an apprenticeship at British Rail.

9:52So he did a really proper kind of, I don't know, three-year apprenticeship. So he knows everything about metalwork, coppersmithing, silversmithing, all the trades. And he's a very creative thinker. He's really an exceptional person and obviously very kind of loyal to me and the brand and what we've built. But he's still making. He's never wanted to be head of social media or anything. He's literally... Thank goodness. He's literally still making things and he does all the product development work. And if you want to know how to make something, you go to Nigel. And then there's Gordon, who was his sort of sidekick.

10:28I sometimes describe them as being like Asterix and Obelix because Nigel was like, if you know those characters. I'm very fond of those characters. Nigel was like Asterix, small, extremely clever. And Gordon was his friend who was big and strong and faithful. And they kind of worked. They were very interesting, just good team together. Yeah, exactly. And they really, you know, Nigel insisted that Gordon came with him when I was doing it. Anyway, so Gordon retired 10 years ago, I think. Yes. And Gordon's son actually works for me now, Nick Ball. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, and his daughter has occasionally worked for me, but she has now gone off to be an actress.

11:12Good for her. So there we go. Good luck to her in that career. So, but you've developed the business and you've stayed in Swindon over 30 years now. So you're obviously committed for fabricating in Britain. Yes. And you've grown your team there, as I understand. Yeah. What's happening there now? Well, we now have, I mean, in Swindon, I mean, there's, there are about, I think, 30 people in the business altogether. Or 31, I can't quite remember. There's 31 people on the WhatsApp group. That's all I know. but there's that's how you know your payroll yeah exactly but some people I mean so when you join your business you have to join the WhatsApp group there is a big WhatsApp group yeah you don't have to you just well yeah well actually why wouldn't you I suppose well yeah but some not everybody Nick Ball doesn't have WhatsApp for some reason I don't know why not but anyway so he's not on it but anyway so there's 30 so there's of those who probably there's kind of 24 in Swindon and then the others are in London so we have the showroom in London where it And that's the kind of sales marketing operation.

12:17But in Swindon, they're all, you know, that's, yeah, it's a very nice place to be. It's a lovely workshop. Did you know that there are nearly 1 million 18 to 24 year olds who are currently not in education, employment or training in the UK? This is simply not good enough. And I want to do something about it. That's why REED is launching a new initiative, giving£20 ,000 to young entrepreneurs to help them grow their small business. Visit reed.com forward slash entrepreneurs to find out more. We want to support and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs. And your showroom is in the Pimlico Road in London.

13:01It's in Pimlico Road, yeah. There are other businesses in the strip, if that's right. Oh, yeah. That are related businesses, aren't they? Yeah. Which is interesting. It's a sort of cluster of design. It's a cluster, yeah. It's one of the great streets for interior design and design. Describe it to people who may not know it. Well, it's in Belgravia, which is kind of Sloan Square and Victoria are the nearest tube. And it was, I think, in the 60s, it grew up as a kind of antiques shop, antique shop kind of street and became known for that with a few fabric suppliers. and it's slowly over the years more and more kind of design, fabric, interiors companies have opened then.

13:43It's very high end and it's actually very unusual now. I can't think of another street in the world in a way which is kind of quite like that. There isn't one in New York. I don't know of any others. And our landlords are curating it, I think, quite carefully now. But it's kind of... They want to keep it like that. They want to keep it like that. And it's also very important to somehow to the American market because the Americans are very aware of it as a street. So it's kind of quite a good thing to have a. So you made a conscious decision to locate. So we started in Lotz Road, which is near Chelsea Harbour.

14:22The design, Chelsea Harbour Design Centre to be near the interior designers. So we're selling mostly to interior designers. I mean, over the years, it's been kind of 50-50, but now it's more and more. It's kind of 80 % interior designers now. So we were in Lotz Road near to the Chelsea Harbour Design Centre. And then we made a conscious decision to move to Pimlico Road for the brand and to have a high street, a presence on the streets and a shop. But people can come and visit and have a look whether they're an interior designer or not. Yeah. And it's really nice. And it is very big. You know, the Americans like it.

14:56And a lot of Americans are shopping in the streets. And designers will bring their clients to the street to shop. And so, yeah, it's a very good place. I think this is a really interesting business model that was very common in the past. All the jewelers would be in the same district. They sort of still are, I suppose, in the Hat and Garden to an extent. But I think it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Because people can buy from multiple sources at once. They can see what's going on in the same place. I think so. Shoe shops do it, famously. Cluster. Yeah. And yeah, I think it's really good. so the cluster strategy is a good one yeah and there are and mayfair is another kind of district where there's quite a lot of interiors um galleries and that sort of thing but there's not a shop quite and also pimbledon is incredibly kind of pretty and um it's a very nice place to walk around yeah which all helps so you've also got a showroom in new york how long have you had that we've had that for about three years so that's relatively new relatively new big step big step Yeah, it felt like a big step, actually.

16:02And New York is an important – I mean, America is very important to us. And we've been selling in America for quite a long time, like 10 years, probably. So what outlets were you selling through before the show? So we sell through other showrooms. So the thing about America, there's a very kind of, I think, well-evolved ecosystem for interior design. So there are these design centers in every city. So New York has three design centers. Right. You know, we only have one in London and that's Chelsea Harbour. And I think that's the only one in Europe probably. But America has one in every big city and the design centres are full of big showrooms which have what we call multi-line showrooms.

16:45So they'll be representing 30 brands and furniture brands, a lot of them. But this requires a big space. It requires a big space. Big buildings. Yeah. So there are lots of... There's more space in America for that than typically not. I mean, the Dallas Design District design centre is gigantic. and the LA. And you're represented in Dallas. Yeah, and the Pacific Design Center in LA is the size of an airport. It's incredible. And yeah, so we are represented in LA by somebody called Thomas Lavin. We've just actually started with them. And then I think in probably eight cities now we're represented.

17:20So we're represented in other showrooms, multi-line showrooms where a small part of their offer. But each one does a certain turnover. so people listening in america can find you quite yeah exactly yeah so we're in i could list them all go on i will never quite remember them all but that's a challenge there's some of the big places dallas we're in la dallas san francisco denver atlanta chicago boston can't remember in washington or not i think we are coming soon if not coming soon um and florida and now and you've got your showroom in new york and we have our own showroom in new york so we our own showroom just because new york is such an important area as well you know this our biggest um the biggest numbers are in new york and i think to have our own space was somehow very good for the other showrooms and to have a kind of you know a foothold in america a kind of footprint helps establish your brand yeah makes us seem legit in america and i think that's important and then everybody in america is actually i mean our kind of our clients you know they're moving around a lot they are the kind of people who move a lot and they are going through new york a lot and the we might be working with somebody in denver or in atlanta you know they might have multiple properties yeah and they're definitely going to be in new york at some point sort of thing they people tend to pop through new york yeah so it's really useful and i think it's good for brand and um so how are sales in america going sales in america are good yeah i'm pleased to hear that god bless america so it's been a it's been a good good move been a good move going to america i mean it has been a good move yeah yeah definitely good and um you know they are very i mean the economy america seems to be more buoyant than the economy is more buoyant i mean there are a lot of people in america and there's a lot of money there's a lot of wealthy people a lot of interior designers and the thing the whole ecosystem the thing is if you if you are decorating your house you do have an interior designer and that's kind of quite a normal thing that's the normal in america yeah and you're guided by your designer and there are a lot of people and they might be multiple home owners and they will have one designer in new york who'll be doing all of them um and so a lot of your business is about building relationships with these individuals with interior designers yes definitely yeah yeah so that's really good we you know obviously do that.

19:41So you have a few loyal designers already by the sound of it. Yeah, that's what, definitely, yeah, we have a few who come back. So this, I guess, in the sort of business sense, the interior designers are sort of our salespeople because, you know, we sell to them and then we hope they're going to sell us to their clients. But America, yeah. Do they have a deal, the interior designers? They have a deal, yeah. They get a discount. They get a discount. Something known as a trade discount, yeah. Yeah. That's how it works, I think, generally, isn't it? And with the showrooms, anyway, there are discounts.

20:18Yeah. Galore. There are opportunities for negotiation. Yeah, that's how it works. What I find actually very appealing about your business is you've maintained your sort of hands-on artisan approach. You haven't gone to sort of grow it into a massive company. you've kept no kept it sustainable and and yeah true to its original sort of yeah not sort of completely deliberately but um that's how it is yeah i mean i wouldn't mind if it got you'd like well you know growth is good it's great it is growing now it's growing and it's grown slowly over the years and it grows a bit every year so but i suppose i'm a believer in organic growth yeah yeah and it has been like that it's been all organic um it's never been any investment and since that purchase of the workshop in swindon so that's good and i and the kind of making in england is kind of important to me i mean not i don't think everything should be made in england but i like to make things in england and i do like to kind of you know i often sometimes do talks in schools and things and i would you know i'd like to encourage uh younger people um Or to let them know that there's a career to be had with working with your hands.

21:38So I think that's very important. More so than ever, I would say, now with AI taking so many things. Well, yeah, exactly. And also, I think people are very interested in how things are made. I mean, particularly our clients and wealthy people, they're very interested in things and want to know stuff. And they love to come to the workshop and see how something gets made. and it is fascinating you know what like to know how anything is made you know a pencil yes it's fascinating and when you come to our workshop it's really you know what they do is incredibly skilled and difficult and no one really knows who gets a table they never know really what's gone into it so everyone is everyone is different in that they're all handmade everything's handmade made yeah everything's handmade yeah and handmade by human beings so you know a lot of handmade things that just are cnc controlled machines or whatever you know with us you're the finishers you know they're actually touching the pieces to feel you know they have to know how they feel to know if they're ready if they're done for people who can't see tom at the moment he's stroking testing out our table which looking at it is not handmade i'm ashamed to say but you'd want this edge to feel just right you want it to feel you're giving it the once over i can see because people So when they're finishing the work, they think, yeah, that's done.

22:57So this is very important, though, isn't it, to the customers? Yeah. You can explain how this is done. Yeah. I think it's the made in England aspect. I imagine that's quite compelling in America. I think it's compelling in America. And it's British design they like as well. I mean, English, British design. And, yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's, I mean, I love the whole Swindon. And so I've set up this workshop in Swindon. And everyone who works there in my workshop, they're not all kind of welders, in inverted commas. They are kind of people who kind of like making things and have done some welding maybe.

23:36Some are actually welders. But mostly they're kind of people who have done a bit of welding, done a DIY, worked in sort of making or building or something. but and then they come to work for me and then they learn how we make things and the the methods we use to weld and fabricate is kind of essentially what we're doing and finish and we so and we have these specialist painters who are doing the specialist finishes on the furniture and that's all unique to us all that technique is totally developed by us and we've got like 20 different finishes and they're you know they they've all learned how to make things how we like to make them and i just find it very you know i love that that exists in swindon yeah um and people they're making things which you know these i think you know beautiful pieces which are then delivered around the world and you know it's a it's a kind of i hope it's a kind of fulfilling thing to be doing it sounds it sounds like it's a sort of very specific expertise that's been developed over time yeah it is now yeah yeah because people are replaceable actually well some bits are yes why i'm worried about nigel as he's you know older than me right but he's he has to pass well he's there's lots of things he knows which um you know is good i mean he's passed most of it on and you you began as you said working with wood but is it now all metal all metal so with tables of um they have metal bases but they have wooden tops um and we have a cabinetry department as well so we so we make some we do some cabinetry and wooden tops and we make we use marble tops and glass tops right so but all the bases and all the chairs are all made of made of metal and that's do you have a signature piece we do yes called capricorn capricorn can you describe that to people ah well it's um well it's made of two big curves basically and it is a sort of classical the motif is quite classical but it's quite a contemporary table and I think that's one of the things why it's become it's one of the first things I made in metal in sheet metal sheet metal is our absolute thing that's what we're really best at so it's one of the first things I ever made and it's one of the first things Nigel made and um it's become our kind of signature piece because we're just it's it's known for it it's called Capricorn so named because it looked like the horns of a goat right which is the star sign and yeah I think what's good about it is kind of very simple and it's contemporary yet it has a kind of classical motif which people don't realise but it's kind of and it doesn't really fight with other things.

26:17Could I ask how much would one of those cost typically? Good question. I'm never the best person to ask about the prices but I mean tables on the whole they go you can get I think the least expensive table is about probably six or seven thousand and they can go up to forty thousand and it depends on the material normally and the finish. So your designers will be deciding those details and discussing with your colleagues. And it might be made of bronze. So we work with bronze quite a lot. So that would be more expensive. If it's bronze and marble, it's going to be really expensive, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, they're beautiful materials.

26:51Sure, and I imagine they're long-lasting things. Well, they will last forever. I mean, marble generally has already lasted for four or five million years. I mean, 250 million. I don't know. It's old. so it's built to last they're built to last yeah yeah important and i i mean and one of the things i love about this is a side issue about the book to last i now have quite a lot of people who who bought tables from me you know like 25 years ago 30 years ago and occasionally i meet them and they're still very attached to the pieces and they kind of talk about the dinner parties or the you know they had them before they got married and all the people they've entertained around them and and they have all these sort of memories attached to them and i think that's so i kind of really love that it's just so nice it sounds it listening to you it seems like you've sort of taken furniture to a different level you know a table's a sort of utility becomes a work of art or a part of the family's yeah that they exactly they can be history yeah i think they are in my table you're looking at it with some disdain it is not a work of art or part of our family's history but maybe we should we should replace it with one of yours one well it's very good it's very nice and it has a it does its job rounded rounded and you know you spend a lot of time around the table at home some tables we make you there you know they're the heart of the home you're doing your homework on them you're doing your emails you're doing your artwork if you're young or anyone you know you're kind of doing everything at at the big kitchen table and i love that i love that so that so your signature piece is a is a table um called capricorn it's called capricorn yeah but we have others um so are there other keys we have key design we have about nine key um designs motifs so everything i do starts with a kind of um a two-dimensional silhouette basically right so when you look at all of our designs you can see the silhouettes and we have one called ava which is a very strong silhouette made it's very kind of geometric we just made one called sky which i love which looks It's kind of like a ring almost.

28:59It's very kind of monumental and it's inspired by Barbara Hepworth. I love that collection. We have one called Papillon, which is the French for butterfly, in case you didn't know. And it looks, it sort of has veins, because somehow it's kind of butterflies. right um and the others um x is a big one exe right memphis coffee table is a hit memphis the coffee table yeah yeah right so there's like family members they've got all got their names yeah yeah and memphis has recently got a new friend it's a side table to go with the coffee table what's memphis's friend called well it's it's called memphis the side table as opposed to Memphis the coffee table but that's good it's been a very good we have a big collection but there are a few pieces which somehow stand out so you say you've just introduced a side table is it hard to predict the popularity of what's coming next so that's quite a skill isn't it deciding what you're going to produce next because it's a big investment in these items I imagine well it is a kind of skill but it's not a skill I've really acquired I don't think because I don't really never really made things kind of make what I like to make and that's what I've done mostly and when we launch a new collection it's an idea I've had and I think it will look great and that's kind of it but how many items would you make for it to be a collection you have to make a commitment well there's normally, if it's a collection it would be a dining table and occasional table so console, side table, coffee table that's enough for a collection so three pieces would be a collection right but i mean i do there's an argument for thinking a bit more carefully about what people actually want and then making something i don't know we kind of do that a bit but mostly some people say to you i'd love something that did there's a bit of that um but mostly i think that it's not bespoke is it from what you're saying we have a whole collection called avenues which is very simple kind of square frames which are very useful they're kind of square they're coffee tables, console tables, side tables, and you can have them with glass, marble, wood, any sort of finish.

31:14So they're very utilitarian somehow, but they're really nice, really well made, and they're just right. But I think what I've made over the years have been things I want to make myself. That's why I made them, because I think it looks beautiful, and I hope people will buy it. And I think if you like something, you've got to assume somebody else might like it. It's important to feel fulfilled in one's work, though, isn't it? Yeah. So if you didn't like it, that would be problematic. That would be problematic. Yeah, I wouldn't want to. There isn't a piece I'd make, apart from possibly one or two.

31:55But there isn't really a piece that I don't like. I mean, you've been doing this for 30 years. Yeah. I'm assuming that you feel very sort of connected to your work. Yeah, I do, yeah. And I think I've often said before, it's a bit like music. You know, when you hear a piece of music for the first time, you kind of, whatever, and then you hear it again and you like it. And then the more you hear it, the more you like it. Sometimes the more you hear it, the more you don't like it. But, you know, when you actually, almost everything I've made, the more I look at them, the more I think, yeah, that's actually quite good.

32:28Right. um and some you know i really think oh so it's not like you look back at your early stuff and i don't like that anymore no not really no and some of the very early stuff because that's our 30th anniversary which i might mention but um some of the very early stuff the paint the patterns and things the painted stuff i'm thinking of maybe doing something with those which for a long time i was a bit kind of embarrassed by them in a way they seemed a bit naive somehow but and because i was young but now they seem to just be part of the story and and actually i think they're you know they've got something and you know i did like them at the time so so why not yeah i think the the the story is so much a part of the yeah the product is for listening to you i mean as buying a table with this whole journey of yours is fundamental to its sort of appeal isn't it for the for the customer yeah i think so yeah i think so yeah and people and people the fact your commitment to it your love of what you do and yes feels fundamental to me yes and people do spend a lot of time choosing a table i mean it's a you know they are investment pieces as we call them yeah investment pieces sounds good so you can make a big or a small investment exactly but it'll be but it does sound long lasting they're long lasting they're made of metal i mean they are going to last for a long time i don't know if you've ever tried to get rid of a metal table but it's quite difficult i mean you can't chop you can't chop it up for firewood no that's true no one else can either no no so they are literally i mean they will last so they become family heirlooms i guess i mean in theory they'll last i mean several lifetimes many many lifetimes yeah yeah and i dread to think how many so do you have much repeat business i suppose your interior designers will be yeah ideally yeah we don't get people replacing but um we do do some refurbishments um but no on the whole and do they tend to be for home and families or do you do business they are domestic what we call residential yeah and we do a little bit for hotels and sort of more boutique type hotels and might do an entrance table or something like that but we never do kind of all of the bedside tables for a big hotel we couldn't compete and anyway yeah no fair enough so what are your biggest challenges at the moment sort of running a business that fabricates in Britain and sells in the United States I mean I can think of several things that might be yeah um well exercising your mind and there are yeah well I'm the state of the world is as it's known is one thing it seems to be um you know there's some confidence in the economy And we're very connected to the housing market, really, because, you know, people are often, I mean, it's kind of, there have been ups and downs over the years.

35:19And there have been, you know, the financial crisis was a down. And at that time, we were very, doing a lot of what used to be called show house furniture. So for property developers, and there are loads and loads of show houses being built all the time. We were always doing a table and six chairs for the something, whatever, show house. And the crash, that kind of all stopped. So all the show houses, they just stopped doing them. So that was a problem then. But now, you know, there's interest rates are high and that it's been, that's, I think, problematic. And there has been a bit of kind of clients putting things on hold, not quite sure at the moment, going to make a decision in six months.

35:59And you get a bit of that. So that's always a challenge. but I think you just feel you kind of had to ride that and hope that it will come back and you're making something that you believe in and there's the high value and high quality. How have you handled the tariffs with America? Tariffs, well for us they were kind of okay. So they weren't that high, 10%. And there's always been a line on the invoice of shipping, customers, tax, something. and in the first month we actually paid the tariffs for the customers so I think it was in April and we just we said don't don't panic we'll pay the tariffs until the end of April so that hit your margin though hit our margin but it was just we thought it would be kind of a good sort of good thing to do because I think otherwise there was a bit of a freeze on because everyone kind of panicked a bit so I think that was quite good that we did that and then it was all absolutely fine yeah and it's been fine ever since and I think particularly in America you know people say that you know americans if they want their stuff they want their stuff right and that's you know they want your stuff and the and we are it is a unique product you can't get anywhere else it's a long time long-term investment you know so i think but you know they were 10 so they weren't 45 no um so that was a flutter right um and so do you spend quite a lot of time in america tom i do yeah i spend quite a lot of time in america i've just been there actually so you spend time with customers yeah i liked yes where did you go most recently well i went to new york last week just to um see the showroom and catch up with the people that we have two people in new york only um well we have two and three in total if you don't know more but um one is uh they are yes actually anyway so i have two or three people in america but i went to new york to see the showroom and meet some clients and just do a little bit of networking um so i love to go to new york and joking apart yeah the whatsapp group yeah for a business of a certain size sounds like a pretty good idea and i mean do you put a lot of stuff on it do you engage with it quite a bit I put on things like you know if we've got a piece in a magazine or something I put that on so everyone can see it because the workshop so it's like a company newsletter in the old days sort of thing so we've had this often this divide between London and the workshop which is kind of and we have team days and everything get together but you know the workshop is big there's lots of people and they often don't know actually what's sort of happening unless someone tells them yeah you know they know they're making something for a show they don't really know what the show is or whatever so we try and let people know So we have a monthly, we have a, I think a three monthly all staff meeting where we all get together and I tell everybody sort of what the plans are, what's been happening.

38:58And then on the WhatsApp, I put on, if there's a nice Instagram post or something, I might put that onto the WhatsApp. And the main problem is the birthdays, because everyone has to have a birthday virtually every day, as far as I can see. So we've had a kind of almost a moratorium on birthdays. I think no one's really mentioned them in 2026. It's been crowding the WhatsApp group, has it? Yeah, I think somehow. As soon as you have one, everyone's got to go on, yeah. I think we decided not to do them. And then, or someone, anyway, I've hardly seen one this year. So anyway, that's what it came to be, yeah.

39:31Come and go then, yeah. Well, I suppose that's how the groups use. But like everything, we have a showroom WhatsApp group and a workshop-only WhatsApp group. Right. And, you know, who knows? There may be lots of other groups. There's probably lots of other groups. Yeah, the party group. Tom, I mean, you've described the team in the workshop. When you're busy designing, who's running the business? How does that work? Because you're very much on the creative side, as I'm hearing. Exactly, yeah. I'm known as creative director. But the other key person in the business, apart from Nigel, who I mentioned, is Miranda Kerwin, who's our CEO.

40:07And she's worked for me for 24 years. We've worked together for 24 years. and we have kind of you know she came to work one day a week on sales in 20 in 2003 or something and then she uh left to have another child then she came back and she worked another two days and three days and then she slowly yeah um so for a long time now she's been a full-time and and we me and her have kind of grown the business together so she's been a very important part of the whole journey says nigel the workshop miranda in the office and me and we're we're the three really right so you have you run it like a triumvirate in a sense except for nigel doesn't wish to have any part in running of anything because he likes making things so me and miranda and i kind of run it together um and yeah that she's been great so you've you've grown this this business organically over time do you ever looking back think maybe it would have been interesting to have taken an outside investment to sort of accelerate your growth or expand more quickly or open other workshops or go around the world i mean some businesses are very aggressive yeah um but i mean i would have you haven't done that that would have been quite interest interesting in a way but i think i'm not very in a way i'm not very business minded i in in a way i mean it's not kind of the thing that drives me i don't really know i've never wanted to make a huge business but i you know i like having a successful and profitable and secure business yes but that in a way that's kind of enough for me um fair enough so you've really enjoyed and focused on the design and building yeah and that's where you want to keep it yeah i think so i think that's really well sort of observed because why every business needs to grow at some great accelerated rate is not obvious yeah there are lots of businesses yeah continue for long periods doing really good work yeah and also i think like like yours and a lot of businesses are you know very focused on the exit so you know and i'm i am very interested in the people you know and i do really like as i mentioned before but you know the people who work in the workshop that has just been a really a real pleasure to can be part of that so you so you put people first well i'd like to think so yeah yeah i mean it sounds to me like you absolutely do and you know i think focusing on exits maybe is to the detriment of the customer it depends what you're in the business i mean yeah yeah it depends what the point is of your business i mean that is my the point isn't for an exit the point is to make the things i want to make yeah and it is to work with people i like working with and to have you know it's a pleasure to um you know work with people who feel kind of invested and valued and you know that what a nice thing to do and what a great message i might add yeah i think that's so important in terms of your future plans are you most excited about what are you looking at doing next um well uh good question well this is our 30th anniversary yeah it sounds like a big moment so we're trying to do some kind of collaborations and things for this year um so i as yet on most of them unconfirmed but that's an idea and I think when you say collaboration these sort of collabs are often spoken about in design and retail so a couple of examples would be interesting just the things you might have done in the past well we haven't done that many but ones which we'd like to do this year something with a fashion brand right so something kind of in our space in a way but not quite but has a reach of a similar kind of audience and I want to do a jewellery collaboration possibly with someone to make some jewellery and i'd like to do a collaboration with some sort of upcoming um up and coming brands and then some established brands right so i mean i think we're gonna go and i'm one with a photographer so anyone listening who might be interested yeah reaching out well you should think yeah tom's open to collaboration yeah no that definitely yeah the um i have a very good a friend in new york who's a photographer who um and we might do something with him that's just the idea i was talking about last week while I was there so doing some kind of cool he's he takes amazing kind of art fine art type photos doing something with him and so some little little things like that but otherwise I mean and the purpose of that part I mean it sounds fun but is to extend the reach of the brand it's when the reach yeah it's all about the reach because I think that's one thing we haven't been we spend a lot of time concentrating on our what we call you know our gold customers our silver customers, so we have groups of people who are important.

44:53But I think we need to spend more time just trying to spread the word and reach new people, and you can obviously do that on social media quite easily. But I think collaborations seem to me like an obvious way to do it. If you've got someone with a big following and you do something together, hopefully there will be some cross-pollination. That seems to be the way it works, because a lot of people do them. so I imagine they get upside from it. I know, it's funny isn't it how they're the thing to do. Yeah, the co-labs seem to be very popular. So you also, I understand, maybe putting something important into Swindon.

45:31Oh yeah, good. So an installation, is that right? What's happening in Swindon? Because I think this has been your home for a long time, hasn't it? Yeah, so Swindon is important to me and it's kind of often kind of slightly people don't, I mean, it has not a great reputation somehow. I'm not quite sure why it's got like that. But anyway, it's an amazing piece of the world, you know, part of the world in Wiltshire and beautiful country all around. And it is culturally not that much going on in it. But anyway, so I'm very fond of Swindon and everyone who works for me virtually lives in Swindon. And, you know, it's been a great place for me.

46:10And there is a redevelopment happening at the moment, to kind of regeneration of one of the shopping centres. And I hope we're going to put a sculpture into a kind of public sculpture into it. And I've been talking to the planners, you know, the landscape designers about it and having some ideas. And so that would be great. There's nothing I'd like more than to have a public sculpture in Swindon. Well, I really hope that happens because I'd be very pleased to see that too as I go there quite regularly. Yeah. That would be a great addition. Swindon, I'm told, is often used by marketeers as a typical British town.

46:46So the demographics pretty much mirror the country. I don't know if that's still the case. I don't know. It has gone down. It's had a tough time. Well the Honda closed. That was 5 ,000 people. A lot of people. And then I think like all towns, the shopping centre the high street is being hollowed out. but mostly the shopping centre which when I first moved there had a house of Fraser in it and a Jessup's Photographers and a Burton's Men's Wear and now it literally really only mostly has charity shops and I mean unfortunately that is a pattern that's repeated in many towns I think it's a bit like that so I'm not sure what any towns do actually to put that right but people talk about residential you need to get people to go and live in these unused office spaces.

47:43So that might be the next chapter. But that takes a lot of investment, doesn't it? Yeah. One of the... The Signal House, which I don't know if you know, Swindon Railway Station, this giant office block, which has been derelict now for 15 years. I mean, it's been empty and now derelict. It's kind of... It's so sad. It's one of the kind of landmarks of Swindon, yeah. Derelict. yeah i mean why don't they remove yeah i don't know it's sad well it's pretty big i i imagine that somebody will redevelop it at some point but i don't know but ideally into residential i suppose yeah um so in terms of your next developments in the business have you planned some new ranges as well as these well i want to do something collections of something 30th collection Yeah, I want to do something for 30 years, so some kind of a new piece.

48:39But what I'm interested in at the moment is sculpture, because I'm thinking of going beyond. Because throughout my career, my creative career, I've had to make things which are channel all of my creative ideas into tables, basically. Right. So I'm now going to start channeling more of them into sculptures. Right. So I'm interested in doing that. And we do make a sculpture, which is quite successful. And I just like to work a bit bigger and work with things. So what's the sculpture you do make? It's called Arizona. And it's kind of, it looks like a, well, it's inspired in a way by the Brancusi Infinite Column.

49:22I don't know if you know that. It's in Romania. It's amazing. Very tall. It's just a, it's a kind of geometric shape. Right. and it does very well. And I'd like to do more sculpture because I just find it kind of interesting. And is that the same customer that would be? We do, yeah, we do, exactly. So you're diversifying in a sense. Yeah, in a way. I mean, there are lots of things I would quite like to do but never quite get around to doing, you know, like limited edition collections or, you know, more art pieces. And then the sculpture might be a bit more of an art project. So I would like to a sculpture for 30 years and maybe something with one of the very earliest collections, which we don't make anymore.

50:07So to resurrect something from the past. You said something interesting about the sort of customer, that they're very fascinated in how things are made and the sort of craft involved. Is this something that's becoming more widespread? It's interesting to me. This seems to be... Yeah, I think it is. So what's happening here? I don't know. I think it is. I think because there's more access to it. There's something called, you might have spotted it on Instagram, BTS, behind the scenes. People are very interested in that. And people are showing it a lot now on Instagram. Behind the scenes. It's part of the thing, behind the scenes.

50:43How do you make this? Yeah. Some of it you don't want to kind of ruin the magic, but a lot of it is the magic, I think. And I think once you know what goes into something, You know, if you see people often come into our, well, I remember actually 20 years ago or 30 years ago, I had a shop in East London and the guy came and he said, well, it's 2 ,000 pounds for a few bits of bent metal and walked out. And I thought, well, you actually know what's gone into that. And, you know, a lot of work. And so when you see what they do and what, because everything we make starts with a few old bits of metal, you know, like nothing, a few sheets of metal lying on the floor.

51:25and something i love sometimes i go to the workshop like um there'll be loads of bits of you know metal lying sort of on the floor on the racks and they just there's bits of metal and then come back in a few yeah weeks and they've all kind of turned into these pieces of furniture whatever which are going to you know exist in the world forever and they're they've been there's a kind of there's a real magic i think in the creative process from zero to something and they really you know it and i think the more people know about that the better and i think somehow there is an appetite that's very interesting so it sounds to me you know if people are involved in making things this behind the scenes yeah sort of aspect is something that's very useful for them to consider as well i mean you've found that helpful yeah no yeah definitely yeah no it's really good and we have workshop tours so if you're a designer or a member of the public you can come along how often are they i would just whenever we people ask if they can come and then try and combine it with some other people come onto your website yeah and then we're having an open day in a few weeks right um where we are we've invited people if they'd like to come and so our kind of favorite designers and other designers fantastic so what's your web address tom if anyone wants to do that it's i'll get a hold of you it's tomforkner.co.uk right so if They wanted to join in and they could come and find you there.