Page 15 - CFJ_Jul26

Steve was born in 1989 in Yeovil, Somerset, ‘There's a clear
where he still has strong roots, dividing his
time between there and Bournemouth, where opportunity for
his partner lives. ‘My two boys are in Yeovil,‘ he
says, ‘so I‘m kind of split between the two.‘ someone to become
School wasn‘t for him. He got a C in maths
and left at 16. ‘I was working a week after the face of AI in
I left,‘ he says. That work was floorlaying: flooring, as is
his father and uncle were already at a local
flooring business, and Steve followed them in. happening in
He took to it immediately, and hard. ‘I just
started work and never really stopped. I was other industries’
always properly grafting. Even at a young age
I realised I was working too hard for someone
else but back then you don‘t think like that, you
just crack on.‘ other shops, picking up my own jobs, building
He developed a reputation for pace without things up on my own terms,‘ he says. ‘That
compromise. Left alone on jobs, he‘d power period really pushed me into doing it properly. I
through them. ‘The boss would come back and learned everything the hard way, from scratch,
be like, what‘s happened here?‘ He ran council but I also realised early on that small business
housing projects solo: kitchen and bathroom life is tough.‘
flooring, site management, the lot. ‘That That experience has stayed with him. ‘It
probably taught me more about managing made me quite passionate about making
work than anything else.‘ things easier for people running businesses
His colleagues had a name for him. ‘They like mine,‘ he says.
called me the tornado,‘ he says with a laugh. Steve has run his flooring business, Pro-Fit
‘Flying round jobs, getting everyone else up to Floorcoverings, for about a decade but even
speed as I went. Chaos at times but we got the while it was operating successfully in the
work done.‘ background, he began to question whether it
The drive, he says, was never really about could ever deliver the life he ultimately wanted.
flooring. It was about being good at something. ‘It was a small flooring business in a small
‘If you‘re good at it, you stand out, and that‘s town,‘ he says. ‘And to get the life I wanted,
where the money is, because there‘s less I‘d have to put so much into it. The effort-to-
competition.‘ He couldn‘t switch off. Ate on the reward just didn‘t stack up.‘
go. Went to bed thinking about the next job. That thinking, he explains, was never about
‘I was quite skinny back then,‘ he says. ‘I just walking away from flooring itself, but about
didn‘t stop.‘ scale and leverage. ‘If you‘re going to work
Then, in his twenties, his father died hard at something, you might as well work
unexpectedly. Not long after, his uncle too. It hard at something with the biggest return,‘ he
shook him to his core. says. ‘With a flooring business, there‘s only so
‘Both of them spent their whole lives doing far you can push it before everything becomes
the same job in Yeovil. My worst fear was I‘d go more cost, more pressure, more overhead.‘
the same way in exactly the same place. When At its peak, the business grew into a modest
I went to the funerals, the eulogies recalled team structure. ‘We went from sole trader to
their love for their jobs as floorlayers. I was like employing people; at one point there were
– what? I‘m not doing this.‘ about four or five of us, including me,‘ he says.
It‘s not the story you expect when you ask ‘We‘ve had it bigger at different stages, but
someone how they got into flooring. But you learn over time what size actually works
Steve‘s journey has more twists and turns than for you. Too many people and not enough work
a twist pile carpet. just becomes a problem.‘
Eventually, he settled on a leaner operation.
HE next turning point in Steve‘s life came ‘Now it‘s three fitters and someone in the
Ta month or two after his father‘s death. ‘I shop; that‘s the right balance for us.‘
went on holiday with my mum, and I remember While the business remained profitable,
thinking, I‘m not going back to that job.‘ Steve says the unpredictability of income was
On that trip, he decided on impulse to change a constant challenge. ‘Cash flow in commercial
everything. ‘I texted my boss and said I‘m not flooring is a nightmare,‘ he says. ‘You can be
coming back. It wasn‘t something I‘d been busy, you can be profitable, but you might not
planning for months. It just hit me there and see the money for months.‘
then. I‘d always had the idea of working for That inconsistency, combined with the limits
myself, but that was the moment I actually did it.‘ of scale, became a turning point in his thinking.
He returned from holiday and walked straight ‘You‘re constantly in this cycle where one year
into a different path. ‘I started working for you think you‘re doing well, and the next it can 

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