Charlton's big break
Robyn Jones is excited. Charlton House Catering Services has won its 10th contract, but she won't break open the Champagne until she sees confirmation in writing. With news of an 11th contract in the offing, this could be a good month.
Further excitement is in the air. Jones hears that Charlton House, the firm she founded three years ago, has been shortlisted for the She magazine Small Business Award 1994. Next Wednesday the winner will be announced in London.
Headquarters is a small office in a converted 17th-century coach house in rural Oxfordshire. It is shared by Jones, her finance director and husband, Tim, and her operations manager, Caroline Fry. It's a vast improvement on the wallpaper pasting table Jones worked from in her spare bedroom until February.
From there she struck the deal which took the company's annual turnover to more than £1m. The contract, at the new Surrey headquarters of Sony United Kingdom, started in January, adding the electronics and hi-fi giant to a list of clients which includes BUPA and Duracell.
In 1990, after several years in contract catering, Jones joined the construction company Higgs & Hill as general manager in the catering division. Just over a year later the catering division was shut down, and Jones was made redundant.
"That was when I decided to set up the firm, but I was cautious. Tim suggested we take a loan out to start the company, but that would have meant using the house as security and there's no way I was doing that," says Jones.
In July 1991 she set to work with her £50-a-week Enterprise Allowance and a £1,500 computer bought with her redundancy money. (A condition of the allowance is that claimants invest £1,500 of their own money in the business.) A further £3,500 was used to buy a car, enabling Jones to visit potential clients.
Months of cold calls followed, working from a database Jones had built up over the years. But time and again she came up against the same hurdle: potential clients wanted to see examples of other business.
"My first break came when MGM Cinemas gave me a six-month contract starting in December 1991 at its head office in west London. At the end of the six months the company was due to relocate to a premises with no catering, but I was happy take on the work."
That contract was enough to bring in others. The following March, Charlton House started catering for up to 170 people at the main training centre for Guide Dogs for the Blind in Berkshire.
"When we had our first function there, we thought we'd planned it all so carefully, but we forgot to make space for the guide dogs which have to sit next to their owners," recalls Jones. "I'll never forget trying to serve while straddling a labrador."
She quickly learnt to make room for the dogs, as well as change the water in the dog bowls in the bar and bedrooms. Then there were the doggy towels to clean after their users had been out for muddy walks and the restaurant's Healthy Dog bar to restock with chews and biscuits.
The Sony contract began as a sandwich bar service for the first staff to move to Weybridge from the firm's previous head office in Staines. The building now has 350 occupants, with a total of 600 expected to have transferred by the end of the year. Charlton House provides catering for product launches and 10 conference, meeting and boardrooms, and looks after 15 vending machines.
But its main activity at the site takes place in two catering outlets. Bento's (named after the Japanese for lunch box) serves sandwiches, rolls and Japanese snacks in a smart café-style atmosphere. Bentleys Restaurant offers a cafeteria service in an atmosphere reminiscent of a fashionable London restaurant, with stainless steel furniture, halogen spotlights and brightly coloured seating. A Japanese option is offered once a week.
So far all the contracts are in London and the South-east, and are now supervised day-to-day by Caroline Fry, operations manager since January.
"It had got to the stage where I was doing all the sales, interviewing all the staff for contracts and doing all the administrative work as well," says Jones. "Now I can leave Caroline to deal with day-to-day problems, while I concentrate on the selling, although we all do a bit of everything."
Another recent staffing change has been Tim's official involvement with the company. In April he reduced his hours at what was formerly a full-time job as finance director for an international translation company and now devotes one-and-a-half days a week to Charlton House. These are on top of the evenings and weekends he spends working there, but he now has a more defined role which he says benefits both him and the company.
"The fact that you're working in a wife and husband team is a big consideration when you're entering a new venture," says Tim. "But I'll keep my outside commitments for a long time yet. They give us both financial stability and enable me to step back from the company and approach problems with a different perspective."
"Tim brings a totally fresh approach to the business," confirms Jones. "If I've got something buzzing around my head that I can't figure out, Tim can give a more independent view."
