I’ve just watched episode 3 of Mary, Queen of Shops in which Mary Portas gave the kiss of life to H T Burt a family clothes shop based in Chorlton Manchester and founded in 1895. It was a tense watch as Family Forsyth waited with baited breath to see if Mary could reinvent the business which was somewhat stale to say the least and had taken £19 on the previous Monday.
It reminded me of when I had taken Lisa to a similar Gents outfitter in Braintree in the mid 1990’s to buy her Grandad a hat for his birthday. They were delighted to see us, made the sale and wrote it down on their till roll in pencil. The previous sale was the week before! The hat was presented some days later, tried on, was the wrong size so having not got the same hat in correct size a refund was offered. No sales had been made in between! They did not have the benefit of Mary’s power in making a TV programme to take them to a busy Gap store and allow them to work on the shop floor, nor get them a meeting with the editor of GQ or a buying opportunity with Hackett. So how did they do? Well in the end Adrian, the third generation of Burt to run the shop, turned from zero to hero and won the Hackett supplier account. But it was hard work on Mary’s part and I got the feeling that his wife had covered for him for many years previously. The meeting Mary held with them in the shop reduced him to tears but it did prove that taking someone to the brink can work if they can face their demons and pull through.
His colleague and head buyer Mike fared less well but did lose his comb over by the programs end, but it was Gordon who was the real star. A veteran of 33 years service with the shop he proved a revelation on the shop floor in Gap, asked relevant questions without being intimidated of the GQ editor and took the money when Burts reopened with a classy new range of well known names.
I liked Gordon from the start. He appeared comfortable in front of the camera and was proud of who he worked for. His only wobble was when it came to dumping old stock at a bowls club at bargain basement prices but at his age who could blame him. The fact that he was able to face up to change so readily and then grasp it was proof that the ageism legislation was correct. Had it not been for his age he probably would have ended up the buyer because he had the most idea of what was right intuitively rather than Adrian who had to be forced to do it.
Whether the BBC fixed it to get a lot of locals into the shop on reopening night in an effort to give the shop a chance is another thing altogether but the tills were ringing and the shop ended up taking considerably more than the previous year that week. We never found out whether a rack was left for the previous customers, who whilst being a dying breed still needed somewhere to shop on the odd occasions that they ventured out, but we did see that everyone had got back a bit of vigour for the journey on the road ahead. And that’s what they’ll need. It won’t be enough for them to slip back to their ways over time, they have to keep their youthful attitude and that will probably be difficult for Mike so Gordon needs to keep working for as long as possible to support Adrian and his wife keep the family business alive. I’d love to see a fly on the wall in 12 months to tell us if it happens.
If you missed Mary, Queen of Shops it is available on the BBC iPlayer until 30th June so do take a look it was a great business turnaround program.
The BBC are showing a new 6 part series starting 9pm Friday 14th January on BBC2 on the effects of not having a Will in place called “Can’t Take It With You“.
