“I would look for a new store that was to let and negotiate really hard with the landlord. We’d order the stock, have a grand opening, get a cake in the shape of a bed, invite the mayor to the launch, then move on to the next site. It wasn’t really a plan, we just did it.”
While Clare didn’t plan too far ahead, he had no doubts Dreams could become a national brand.
“I actually imagined that the company would grow to even bigger than it is now. I wasn’t doing it to just run one shop. A proper entrepreneur is never satisfied. I’m always thinking, ‘there’s someone else in that rich list that’s got more money, or someone that owns more stores’. That’s what gets me up in the morning.”
Dreams now delivers 6,000 beds every week, from its 100-strong fleet of vans. “It’s a necessary evil,” says Clare who describes distribution as the company’s biggest challenge. But ever the customer service enthusiast he can turn even his biggest hurdle into a way of making the company stand out.
If a Dreams driver delivers your bed in the rain, he’ll put on a special pair of slippers to avoid leaving a messy trail. “You’ve got to focus on customer service if you want repeat business,” evangelises Clare. “The slippers cost us virtually nothing but it’s all the customers can talk about after they’ve had their bed delivered.”
The same rules apply to his attitude to staff. “Recruiting and keeping good staff is hard but we find ways around those problems. The main thing is you can’t skimp on salaries. It’s worth paying 10% more for an employee that’s twice as good.”
The future for Clare and Dreams looks promising, and it appears his ‘fifth child’, as he describes it, is still growing. The company is now branching out into the international market through franchising.
“It’s not easy, and a lot of businesses do fail,” he admits. “But it’s not as complicated as a lot of people think either.”
He’s similarly undaunted by the threat of competition. “You have to accept it’s part of life. Sometimes they win the battle and sometimes we do, but there’s certainly space in the world for more than one bed company!”
