In a PMF exclusive, we hear from Angela Brown, Director of the company’s latest branch in Coleshill.
When PMF visited Titan Motor Factors’ Avonmouth headquarters in June, the company teased the imminent announcement of a fifth Titan site. Although the location of the site was kept under wraps at the time, it has since been announced that Coleshill in Birmingham was Titan’s big secret.
The branch, known as AB Titan, will be headed up by its Director Angela Brown. With the majority of the Coleshill team having previously worked at large factor groups, the company referred to the set up as “totally different” to that of any of the other current Titan branches. However, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; the Titan project, in taking on teams that may have worked for large factor groups, enables the Titan team to learn the intricacies of a whole host of factors. Setting up the Coleshill branch, for example, has allowed them to learn what has worked well with this team in the past, and what they feel could be improved upon. After acknowledging the different expectations of staff working at a large factor group, Titan managment added: “When some other groups open a new site, everything is already prepared for the team. On day one, the team will walk in and the front counter is arranged, the racking is done, the stock is on the shelves, and the system and phones are set up.
“For us, this is part of the learning curve, but for the team at Coleshill, it’s been a bit of a culture shock. They’ve now got a lot more freedom than they’re used to; in their position, they have more room to develop and guide the business as they see fit. In the past, however, they’ve received more guidance on what they could be doing at regular intervals, so when that direction disappears, it’s difficult to do things on your own. To combat this, we’ve given them some helpful guidance so that they can hit the ground running.”
On its latest members of staff, the company had this to say: “It’s a really good, nice team. They’re ambitious, hungry, and driven – all of the qualities that you need in order to do what we’re trying to do. We looked at four prospective sites for this position, and we got a really good feeling from this group. As soon as we met them, we understood just how passionate they are. We’ve set up a three- to five-year plan about how we’re going to develop the branch and the area around it, and we’re very excited to see where things go!”
The right direction
After our conversation with Titan’s management, we were introduced to Angela Brown, the Director of the Coleshill branch. Since leaving her role as a Sales Manager at ECP in 2014, Angela spent just under two years at Whittaker Fleet Care before making the move to Andrew Page – which was later bought out by ECP – in 2016. She left her position at the company in March of this year and joined the Titan project in July.
With 10 staff, four delivery vans and one truck, the Coleshill branch has been kitted out to the same extent as Titan’s other sites. At the time that we spoke with Angela, the branch had been trading for almost three weeks, and she alluded to one particular reason why the branch was opened in its exact location: “If you look at a map and you look at Coleshill, you’ll see that it’s in the middle of two large cities – Birmingham and Coventry – and that wasn’t an accident! It’s early days right now; we managed to get the doors open within two weeks of getting the keys, and we’ve been trading for two-and-a-half weeks since then.
“It’s been very busy, and there is a lot to get our heads around because it is very different to working for other motor factors. Obviously, when you initially take on a job, you walk in to an established organisation; there are already staff, there are procedures in place, and there’s infrastructure, but we walked in as a team to an empty site, and it was our responsibility to get the ball rolling – to implement our own procedures, to build relationships, and to train our staff. On our end, we wanted to get everything arranged within two weeks, and it was a big push to get this done.”
Angela continued to stress just how different working as a part of Titan was to any other factor business. She added, “We’re trying to do it all for ourselves, and this is part of the Titan project. It’s an employee owned scheme, but some of our team haven’t done anything remotely close to this before, so in a way, it’s almost like we have to sell the concept to them before they can go on and sell to our customers. Everyone has settled in well and we’ve hit the ground running. We’re where we need to be.”
