Family Business spotlight: Cladspray Solutions

Last week, Birketts’ Family Business Team joined Family Business United’s Family Business Road Trip across East Anglia. As well as meeting many of the region’s leading family-owned businesses, the Team hosted a series of Family Business Dinners bringing people from the sector together to hear from family business success stories.

In this article, we speak to Tom Carter, Managing Director of Cladspray Solutions.

When and how did your family business start?

I started Cladspray Solutions just over 10 years ago. After gaining experience in the domestic sector, I could see the opportunity for offering a cladding respray service for industrial units in the region. To start with it was just myself armed with a van and a spraying machine!

In 2016, my wife Kim joined, bringing her extensive experience in marketing and project management to the business, which was growing rapidly, but needed operational guidance. Much of Kim’s work focuses on optimising operational efficiency and implementing strategic processes that facilitate our ongoing success, strengthening the company from within.

What is the biggest milestone for your business to date?

Heading into our 11th year, the biggest milestone to date has been the unveiling of our new 11,500 square foot facility headquarters. The transformation of the site, from a derelict warehouse to a state-of-the-art building and training facility, reflects our commitment to excellence and growth.

What piece of advice would you give to someone thinking about setting up their own family business?

As a husband-and-wife team at the core of the business, there can be challenging moments working together. But it’s important to remember that you each have unique strengths that you bring to the business and being open to the other’s views can enable greater growth.

As parents, we also believe that reflecting our own family values into the company can bring the team together as a greater family with similar values.

What are your top learnings from running your business?

Devil is in the detail…. sweat the small stuff. Implementing processes and systems can feel a bit alien when you started the business as the only member of staff, but it ensures that key details aren’t missed as the company grows when new staff join.

Investment in your people is the biggest and most important thing you can do as without the team you have nothing. We focus on retaining our staff by ensuring that they feel valued, regularly gathering their feedback and offering opportunities for them to develop with additional training. A team that gets on well is so important, we also want everyone to feel part of the company so all departments get together regularly for evenings out and team away days.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you have had to overcome in business?

We took on our first premises in Norwich as the COVID-19 pandemic was just emerging, which was a significant challenge for all businesses to navigate. At the time we were very worried as we had literally just taken on our first lease. Our landlord (Dencora) was very good to us by offering us lower rent for a period…we then subseqeuntly went on to outgrow the premises within six months! It was a real rollercoaster!

What’s next for you and your business?

Our focus remains on growth and reinvestment. Our relocation to purpose-built premises on Mason Road reflects our commitment to expansion and improvement. Additionally, we have recently been approved to run Train the Painter courses which highlights our commitment to not only providing quality training to our employees but to the wider industry too.

We are also busy working on our next phase of evolution with the development of a custom-designed software system. This innovative solution will revolutionise internal processes, streamline operations, and catalyse further growth, cementing our position as an industry leader in industrial coatings.