The Man With the Plans
The Kitchen Store has been designing and installing stunning kitchens in the south-east for over twenty years. Millie Green of MDHUB met with Alan Margetts, Founder and Director of TKS Group, to discuss his journey since starting the business in 2004.
Despite what one may think, customers' core needs have remained the same over the past twenty years. Alan explained that trends and colours change, but people always need a core thing. For The Kitchen Store’s customers, that is a brilliantly designed and carefully installed kitchen.
With an average length of service of over ten years, Alan’s team are clearly well looked after. While recruitment is his least favourite task, he has chosen his kitchen designers and project managers with an eye for detail and excellent customer service skills.
He has also learned that getting the best out of people takes time. “I find it rewarding to go through the years with people and see them flourish.”
The Kitchen Store’s success has been attributed to not only the talents of his team but also the company's culture of growth and support.
The workplace has changed dramatically since 2004, and Alan doesn’t see things slowing down any time soon. The skillset he’s recruited for, which includes careful and efficient design skills, may soon become obsolete with the advent of new AI tools for the kitchen design industry.
“As soon as we have the right software, our designers will spend far less time on CAD. That's going to speed up the whole process for customers. Effectively, we could measure a space in the morning and present an initial design in the afternoon.” This will inevitably change the makeup of his workforce, too, with a higher emphasis on salesmanship.
In 2020, Alan founded TKS Projects, the commercial wing of TKS Group. As the commercial market is saturated with business, TKS Projects worked hard to establish itself as something different. “We don't target national house builders; we want to work with local and regional builders where relationships and service are important,” Alan comments.
While this business has added to Alan’s workload, it has also added stability to TKS Group as a whole.
“It changes the mix so we're not pure retail. This means that as the market and individual store sales fluctuate, we maintain a foothold in another part of the market.”
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Alan joined MDHUB. It provided him a safe space to share ideas with fellow business leaders and brought other opportunities to his attention. “When I first joined, there were lots of government grants around, and within our first month of membership, we received a £20,000 grant that, were it not for the regular MDHUB updates at the time, we simply would not have known about.”
As part of MDHUB, Alan has joined several workgroups where he is able to, as he puts it, “let off steam” and meet other incredible business leaders. “You meet people doing some interesting things, and I find that inspirational. You’re picking up all these little techniques people are doing and what systems they've been using.”
He has also found MDHUB’s Wildcard sessions useful. These one-off sessions, based on a specific outcome, have helped him learn about a range of topics, including sales training from MDHUB partner Stefan J Hull.
At MDHUB’s annual awards ceremony last year, Alan was able to recognise Mark Wood-Davies, Head of Retail, for his incredible support over 14 years at the company, with an outstanding achievement award in the “Best Supporting Act” category. “What I've learned from Mark is, the more that I've given him over time – and at the right moment – the stronger he's got. He knows how I’m going to respond to certain situations, and he’s physically there, diving into stores when things need to be done.” In addition, Mark is taking The Kitchen Store’s values forward without Alan needing to get involved.
Looking to the future, Alan is excited to evolve TKS Group. One way they’re doing this is by introducing a new events programme this year. A visit to the BORA showroom in Austria last year sparked the idea, and Alan is looking forward to getting the programmes off the ground. As flexible as ever, not much is off the cards regarding expansion, mergers or sales, either. Whatever happens, Alan’s excited: “It’s just part of the evolution of the business.”