Alistair Houghton meets DAVID FIELDING, managing director of office supplies firm Heatons

WHEN Birkenhead stationer Heatons offers its customers free cuddly toys with their orders, it’s a throwback to founder David Fielding’s first business success.

Wallasey native Fielding got the sales bug early, after realising banking wasn’t for him. While working as a stationery salesman, he started his own business selling teddy bears and trainers – and that gave him the capital to start his own firm.

Heatons – officially Heaton Stationery – employs 51 people and turns over £7.5m.

It has, says Fielding, enjoyed 14% compound growth year-on-year since it was founded in Hoylake in 1983 – and is successfully battling the recession by fighting to win new business.

The key to that success, says Fielding, is that sales staff must win the trust of their customers.

“To be a good salesperson, people have to trust that you will deliver,” he said.

“You have to think long-term. I can’t make any money selling to you today. But I can make money selling to you over the next 12 months.

“It’s about giving people the confidence that we can deliver what they’ve asked us to do.”

Fielding became a bank clerk after leaving school, but soon regretted his decision.

“My dad got me the job,” he said. “But the bank didn’t like me and I didn’t like the bank.”

Instead, Fielding joined the health service as a trainee manager.

“I did that for 2½ years,” he said, “but the bureaucracy was just so frustrating when you tried to get anything done.”

So, aged 21, Fielding joined Lawtons of Liverpool as a stationery salesman.

“I spent about four months getting a great grounding in their office learning the business before I went out selling,” he said.

“The first time I went out selling, it was the August heatwave and I was dripping in the heat. But after that, I loved the job. And I’ve never stopped loving it.”

His day job selling stationery at Lawtons and another firm had clearly given Fielding a taste for sales because, in 1980, he started his own part-time business.

He kept his day job but started selling trainers, jeans and teddy bears on the side.

It’s the bears that Fielding remembers with most fondness.

“I was selling 4,000-5,000 of those a year to a network of agents around Merseyside,” he said. “It was great fun and I made great friends.

“They were lovely, 18-inch tall teddy bears. I’ve still got one in my garage somewhere.”

Fielding founded Heatons in 1986. Heaton is Fielding’s middle name and his grandmother’s maiden name.

He was soon joined by friend Berry Carter, who worked alongside him as Heatons built its business and its reputation.

“We worked almost all the hours we were awake,” said Fielding.

“On weekdays, I would work from 9am to 6pm. Saturday I would work until lunchtime and then play rugby. On Sunday, I’d do the books.

“You don’t laugh much in your first year in business. There isn’t time to relax. But then you get a bit of control.”

Five years ago, Fielding returned to the scene of his first job in stationery when Heatons bought the former Lawtons stationery business, then called Business Essentials (BE).

“There were other bidders, but the owner felt I’d look after the business the best,” he said.

Berry Carter left the business in 2004 to sell stationery on the other side of the world.

“He left me to do the same thing in Australia,” said Fielding. “I wished him off with all the best – there were tears in my eyes the day he left. We went through all the growing pains of the business together.”

HEATONS today has four divisions – stationery, office interiors, promotional gifts and print.

Fielding says his core stationery business has performed well despite the downturn. Even before the recession began, it had begun a drive to win new customers – a move that has served it well as new custom has made up for falling orders from existing clients.

“For three years, we have been focusing on business growth,” said Fielding. “We were doing it before the market went bad. That’s paid off for us.”

The company’s print and print management division creates products from business cards to brochures.

The division saw its turnover double from £180,000 in May last year to £360,000 by the end of November.

“I think we can probably double that in the next 12 months,” said Fielding.

“We only sell print to 10% of our customers. We can’t sell to all of them, but I see no reason why we can’t sell to 50%.”

The performance of Heatons’ promotional division has also exceeded Fielding’s expectations, as companies have maintained their spending on corporate gifts.

“People have got to get out there and push themselves in this market,” he said.

Fielding says Heatons has performed well since the recession began, aside from a dip in sales from September to December. The “weaker players” in the market are, he says, being forced out – which could help firms such as his when the economy starts growing again.

“There are opportunities there that weren’t there 12 months ago,” he said. “I’m not saying the market is strong, but we have the ability to gain market share.”

Fielding founded the business and is very much a hands-on leader, keen to meet potential new clients to bring them on board. But he is keen to pass the praise on to his team.

“The company ethos has to drip down from the top,” he said. “But it also has to be fully embraced by everybody. You have to believe it and mean it.

“It’s the team that makes this business, from the polite driver to the warehouse staff to the people here in the office who can identify exactly what each customer wants.

“The customer wants more than a lot of people are offering. You can’t always measure that, but it’s about old-fashioned service.”

alistair.houghton