FEATURE


when I was doing my exams, Dad and Mum fell ill at the same time and were both in hospital.” This led Paul to join the business at 21. He told his parents


not to worry, that he’d be there as long as they needed him. He never left. But that’s not to say he regrets his choice. He brought a wealth of knowledge from his degree and updated the business website and systems, utilising contacts he made during his University years.


The advantage of being family-run? For Bob Elliot, the benefits are numerous, “There’s a lot of heart that goes into it, and a lot of common sense,” said Paul. The business runs with no outside investment, they fund everything themselves. If they make a profit, it gets reinvested back into the business. If they are at a loss, the directors make sacrifices before it impacts their employees. They’re proud that they’ve never


made anyone redundant in forty years. Looking after people is a huge part of how they run the business. They care about staff and customers, emphasising treating people as they’d like to be treated, “We don’t lose many staff, once we employ staff, they tend to stay. We have staff that have been here for quite a long time,” said Bob. Now at around 22 members of staff, most of them are employed through recommendation from existing employees. “We’ve got a lot of good people and we go a long way back with many of them. We tend to train people to do jobs, we don’t just look at qualifications or a CV,” Bob and Paul explained. Despite having 55 years in the cycling industry under his belt, Bob isn’t that interested in riding bikes. He may not cycle, but there’s not much he doesn’t know about the


www.bikebiz.com


March 2025 | 21


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