Q&A
PAULMcMENAMIN, BASSETTS
WE QUIZ INDUSTRY LEADERS ON WHAT MAKES THEM SUCCESSFUL AND HOW THEY ARE RESPONDING TO THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING THE PLUMBING AND HEATING INDUSTRY... Paul McMenamin, Sales Director
P aul McMenamin joined Bassetts at the start of his professional career, rising through the ranks to become Sales Director for Northern Ireland’s largest bathroom, heating and tile company. The award-winning plumbers’ merchant has been providing quality bathroom supplies and furniture to trade customers for over 40 years. Founded in Armagh, Bassetts now has a total of 17 trade counters and bathroom showrooms across Northern Ireland. What are the main priorities and goals in your role? My role is dynamic and requires me to be flexible and adaptable as circumstances arise. However, I see my key priority and core role as strategically providing the mechanisms and structures to enable our branch managers and sales team to provide our customers with the best product solutions, technical support and service available. What was your first proper job? I’ve spent practically all my professional life with Bassetts, initially joining a small team in the Omagh branch working on the trade counter and making deliveries. At that point, Bassetts consisted of three branches and around 30 people compared to where we are positioned today, operating across 17 sites with 150+ people in the company. What are your biggest challenges as Sales Director at Bassetts? This year aside, Bassetts operate in an incredibly competitive market. Our installer
customers are very knowledgeable, so it’s imperative we provide those customers with competitive, quality solutions, which are supported by industry-leading technical capability and stocks. We also aim to provide customers with a consistently high level of service across all our network of branches. What inspires you to go to work every day? We are fortunate over the years to have built up very good relationships with a lot of our installer customers. That experience gives us an understanding of just how challenging the installers job can be and if we can make that even slightly easier by supporting them with good quality solutions delivered on time and complete then that is very rewarding. This has been particularly evident through the pandemic, and there have been many late night or Sunday openings to provide parts for health care or nursing home emergencies. I have been very proud of how we have responded to support our local communities. How do you like to fill your spare time? Sport is a great therapy for both body and mind, so I vent any frustrations on football fields or doing badly at triathlons and CrossFit. As a business leader, describe your best three qualities. I hope our customers and my colleagues would say I am someone they can depend on, and that I have a positive,
enthusiast presence. I conduct myself in a straightforward manner. From my perspective, I feel that having worked right up through our company I understand our strengths and core values so I try to ensure we keep our focus clearly on our customers. And your worst? Impatience. I’m working on this, but I think the school report (and my wife) would say, “must try harder”. What has been the most satisfying moment in your career? I get a real buzz from supporting the progression and development of people inside our business. Helping people to progress into new roles and seeing them flourish is incredibly satisfying. If you could work in a completely different sector/industry, what would it be, and why? I have a lot of friends who are health care professionals and watching the selfless work they have done in 2020, in the most difficult of circumstances, has been humbling and inspiring. How do you keep your team/staff motivated? Bassetts are exceptionally lucky with the quality and dedication of people in our branch teams. They take huge pride in doing the best for their customers every single day, and this passion and commitment keeps us all on our toes.
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