Kevin on what inspired him to start Checkatrade.com...
“The company started as a result of freak weather event, a tornado, in Selsey [where he lives] of all places.
“Cowboys were coming from all over the UK. The local Neighbourhood Watch said the police had stopped 117 tradesmen from entering into the village if they didn’t know the name and address of someone who wanted some work doing.
Lots of people were ripped off during that period and that’s really how Checkatrade.com started.
On the business’s raison d'etre...
“The heart of most businesses is: how can we make money? That’s not how my business started, that’s not why it’s in place.
“Eleven years ago when that happened, I looked at the local government, central government, looked at the federations, and I just couldn’t see an answer to the rogue trader problem. There were one or two federations that did a little bit of vetting, but very little, and the marketplace was absolutely wide open. And at that, I thought someone should be doing something to offer people creditable tradespeople.
“So that was the birth of Checkatrade.com and is still part of what I aspire to. And I sincerely believe most of my staff have latched onto that and thought ‘yes, we’re making a difference’, rather than just making money.
“Mind you, I wish we were making money, but we plough it all back in.”
On where he targets reinvested profits...
“We’ve got quite a sizeable company now. We employ about 50 people and we’ve got all the departments you can think of.
“But we plough most of the money into making the consumer aware – so it’s marketing. We started a 10-month ITV1 advertising programme across Meridian. We’re on 11 radio stations continuously. We’ve got 5.6 million printed products which go into people’s homes.
“The cost of all our marketing is just over £1m a year. It’s a big budget.”
