Toyshop chain owner Gary Grant shared how his faith shaped not only the contents of his shop, but his whole approach to business in an interview in the late autumn.
Dyslexic, Gary Grant wasn’t interested in school at all, but said maths was ‘easy peasy’. He failed his 11-plus exam and hence went to what he calls ‘the failures’ school’, which he left at 16 with just one qualification – O-level maths. Now, however, despite having a finance director, he checks the weekly cash flow, signs every cheque and approves, or not, all outgoings.
His forensic attention to numbers has paid off. The Entertainer – named so they could switch sector if the toy idea failed – opened its first shop in 1981. It now has 110 UK stores, plus four overseas, and made a £7.8 million pre-tax profit for the year to the end of January – up almost a third on the previous year – on sales just shy of £130 million.
Determinedly non-commercial
Its success comes in spite of what appears to be a determinedly non-commercial approach to running a business. Mr Grant became a Christian in 1991, a decade after he opened his first shop. His faith was so strong he almost quit to become a missionary, but instead decided to make the business compatible with his beliefs.
As a result, the shops never open on Sundays, do not stock Halloween goods or some of the most popular toy ranges, including Harry Potter-related merchandise and realistic weaponry, and 10 per cent of the chain’s profits go to charity. ‘We just want to be comfortable with what we’re selling’, he says.
Before his conversion, when a religious customer told him he was ‘encouraging children to play with darkness’ and that if he stopped ‘the Lord will repay your business in other ways’, he admits he thought she was ‘a fruitcake’.
Now, like her, he says the firm’s continuing success is no surprise, noting that the Bible states: ‘Those who honour me I will honour’. When the firm faced its toughest time, at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, he called in a vicar and took the unusual approach of inviting head office staff to pray with them. He was astonished by how many people – around 30 – turned up. They met weekly for around four months – praying for the staff of collapsed rival Woolworths, for wisdom for the government and their own economic situation. In the end the firm – which at one point looked like it would lose £1million – ended 2008 no worse off than when it started.
A chance to rise
‘We didn’t make any money, we didn’t lose any money, but we survived’, is how he sums it up. The firm’s success – the business is owned wholly between his wife and four children, two of whom work in senior roles alongside him – has brought him plenty of material happiness, but one of the achievements of which he is proudest is that he has given lots of people a chance. Below board level many senior staff have come up through the company, and not surprisingly you can get a job at The Entertainer without any qualifications at all.
