Bedroom to boardroom in a wheelchair revolution

May 21 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

Alistair Houghton meets HOWARD SAMUELS, managing director of Aspect Conversions

THE piece of pink carpet in a small wooden frame is more than just an eye-catching wall decoration – it weaves the tale of how Howard Samuels and Aspect Conversions have risen from back bedroom upstarts to market leaders with global ambitions.

That carpet comes from the back bedroom of the house in Lethbridge Road, Southport, where Howard Samuels and his wife, Jan, launched Aspect a decade ago to convert and sell wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

Last month, the company launched its new WAV-Evolution vehicle, which Samuels is convinced will revolutionise his industry and move his business to another level.

With a turnover a shade under £4m, Aspect is a major player in its market, and Samuels is convinced WAV-Evolution will help it go global.

But the carpet still reminds him of the company’s early days and the envious competitors who thought he and Jan would never make it.

“In 1999, we were invited to go and see Motability in London,” he said. “In our industry, to be an accredited dealer with Motability is incredibly important because it’s a very important source of business.

“Other suppliers were at the meeting and I heard back from the branch director of Motability that one of them made a very unkind remark about me.

“They said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing dealing with a one-man band working from home’.

“When we moved to this office, Jan cut out a piece of carpet from the room we worked in, framed it and put it on this wall.

“If you’re feeling too big for your boots and want to ground yourself, it’s good to look at that and see where it all started.

“But it’s also a cheeky two fingers to our competitors. It makes me chuckle and galvanises me at the same time.”

Business runs in Samuels’s family. His grandfather opened the Punch & Judy snack bar near Lime Street station in 1956, and he remembers family tales of stars such as Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard hiding in the manager’s office tucking into plates of egg and chips away from their hordes of fans.

Samuels, a former pupil at Liverpool’s King David High School, had planned a career in banking, but changed his plans after taking a summer job at Horsemans Vauxhall dealership in Speke.

The managing director offered Samuels the chance to try selling cars rather than returning to college.

Samuels said: “He said ‘You’ve got nothing to lose. If it doesn’t work out, you go back to college, but who knows where it might lead?’

“That was a fairly pivotal moment in my life.”

A year later came an even more pivotal moment when a customer asked about the Motability scheme.

“All the guys had seen him coming with an orange badge and scattered,” said Samuels, “as at the time the Motability scheme was deeply unpopular among sales staff because the paperwork was horrendous. In addition to that, there was little margin from the deal.

“It took me six months to get that person a car, partly due to my inexperience but also because the paperwork was that complicated.”

But, despite the slow start, the “sense of satisfaction” Samuels got from that deal led him to become the dealership’s Motability specialist. Two years later, when the Horsemans group collapsed, he became a self-employed Motability consultant.

When he and Jan’s first child was born, Samuels decided to return to the world of salaried work and in 1998 joined Widnes Car Centre.

But Samuels admits the desire to run his own business never left him, and in 1998 he and Jan took the plunge and founded Aspect.

Samuels’s contacts and experience meant his business soon began its steady growth.

Then, as now, Jan directed day-to-day operations while Samuels focused on developing the business and new products.

Some 18 months after it was launched, Aspect achieved that coveted Motability supplier status, which paid those expected dividends.

In 2004, Aspect became the largest supplier of wheelchair-accessible vehicles to Motability, and in 2006 it won a Motability supplier award.

The scheme, says Samuels, has become hugely more streamlined since those difficult early 80s days and Aspect has a strong relationship with it.

Aspect’s sub-contractors convert a range of vehicles, including the Renault Kangoo and the Fiat Doblo, so wheelchair users can easily get into the car using a ramp.

Samuels says the company has designed and then modified its vehicles, based on feedback from wheelchair users.

As an example, he says the Kangoo Assist, which allows wheelchair users to move from their chair to the driver’s seat inside the vehicle, was created after a student customer said she wanted a car that allowed her to be more independent.

It was customer feedback that led to the creation of WAV-Evolution. An Aspect survey asking customers to “think Utopian” about what they wanted in a vehicle showed they wanted to travel in the front of their vehicle and to be able to get in and out more quickly.

As a result, WAV-Evolution vehicles allow wheelchair users to wheel into the front seat by means of a ramp and a revolving floor mechanism. Put simply, WAV-Evolution vehicles are conversions of KIA Sedona people-carriers – but to Samuels they are much more than that. He is a softly-spoken man, but his eyes burn with enthusiasm when he talks about his new venture.

“This will change the concept of what a wheelchair-accessible vehicle has to be. For 40 years, it’s been the same – you come in through the back of the car.”

Samuels is in talks about selling WAV-Evolution overseas, and he sees the project as the key driver of Aspect’s expansion with new ranges set to be built.

Despite his ambitious growth plans, Samuels says he expects the business to stay in its current base, tucked away behind semi-detached homes in a quiet Southport street.

There, that pink carpet remnant will always remind him and Jan of their push from back bedroom to big business.

“It may seem odd that a little company in Southport has produced something that could ultimately be a worldwide brand, but that’s what’s happened,” he said. “I have to pinch myself to believe it.”

alistairhoughton