Girls Allowed

Me and my sisters are decorators. I project managed refurbishments of houses on behalf of buy-to-let investors and we did the decorating. We were successful enough for us to take on a young girl from Fox’s biscuit factory who really wanted to be a painter. Jane taught Louise and they became the decorating team while I concentrated on the project management.

I was looking at the mess on site. Then I looked at my decorators and they were telling the plasterers off. “Don’t leave all that mess on the floor, sweep it up.” “Go outside with your fags.” It was amazing. Well, it was refreshing.

I thought to myself ‘which is the team that never gives me any problems?’ It was the decorators. They just got on and did it and always left the place tidy. I came to the conclusion that because they were women they had a much clearer work ethic than my male contractors at the time. And I though “If they can decorate, why can’t they plaster, why can’t they do joinery and bricklaying?”

I want to create a different company, a company where people think about what they do. It’s rather like adding in the US customer service idea.

Rather than getting the job done at bargain bottom price, why not pay a bit more for a better job? I can say to people “Leave your key with my gang and I can guarantee that the job will be done, and the house will be clean.” I really do think that people will pay a proper price for a proper job.

We can’t charge low prices because we have to train every single member of staff. The skills base for women in construction is very very low. We’ve got numerous projects with housing associations and colleges who are training women at the moment.

We’ve got four women on the books, and six or seven who come in as needed. We’ve got decorators, builders, joiners and plasterers. There’s two blokes: me and my training officer, Vince Mann.

We have not got any electricians and plumbers yet because you can’t find female electricians and plumbers. We still have to subcontract that out at this stage, but that’s all in the business plan. The goal is to have some by the end of the year.

It’s a massive massive market I believe. There’s housing associations, local authorities, schools, women’s gyms, women’s associations. I never realised how big it was going to be.

The only problem I face is cash flow. Someone needs to take hold of my plan and back it and once that’s done I will be able to build the company at twice the rate I can do at the moment.