BUSINESS INSIDER
What are your top tips for managing a team? Keeping a good morale even if it does mean having to buy them a bacon sandwich in the morning! Is there someone in business that you admire and try to learn from? I admire the owner of the business, Brian Callow, very much for all he’s achieved… even though he can be a workaholic and is known to email reps in the very early hours of the morning! If you could go back 10 years and chat with yourself, what business advice would you give yourself? It might have been a good idea to change our store location back then now that the bus station has moved however there may well be some regeneration of Endless Street now the flats are being constructed opposite the shop. And proudest business triumph? Being one of the very few independent photographic shops left in the country! Jim Bray manager of Salisbury Castle Cameras
PHOTOGRAPHY
SNAP HAPPY Castle Cameras is one of the few independent photographic shops left in the country
B
ack in 1974, Brian Callow started a business called Castle Cameras after getting a small photographic counter in his father’s chemist shop in Bournemouth. From there, he opened the main store in Winton in 1984 and in 1987, Castle Cameras came to Salisbury. Today, the man at the helm of the Salisbury branch is Jim Bray – he’s been there 22 years - and the shop stocks a wide range of photographic equipment as well as the support and knowledge to help the customer achieve the most from it.
GO THAT EXTRA MILE BECAUSE YOU CANNOT EVER BEAT WORD OF MOUTH AS A FORM OF ADVERTISING
How did you get to this place in your career? My parents were in the forces so I tended to move around a bit until I went to boarding school in Reading. I then went traveling to Australia and New Zealand and eventually ended up in Salisbury after being offered a job at Castle Cameras about 22 years ago. I started out as a salesperson but for the last 15 years I’ve been manager. What’s ‘the new big thing’ in your industry? More and more people are taking up photography from having mobile phones and then wanting to progress onto either a quality camera with a larger sensor and zoom or a digital SLR. Mirrorless cameras are the ‘new big thing’, which are much smaller and lighter than a digital SLR and often have the viewfinder removed.
What have you found to be the best tools for growth in your business? Good customer service. Go that extra mile because you cannot ever beat word of mouth as a form of advertising. We treat our customers well and show them that photography is fun. We encourage them to return! What are you usually doing at about 11am on a Sunday? Normally I’ve just come home from a round of golf and am ready to spend the rest of the day with the family. Away from the office, what’s your favourite way to spend your time? I love my holidays abroad with the wife and kids and tend to try and go away in October and February to shorten the winter months. Your most effective work-stress busting technique? Going to the golf range to hit a few balls! What’s your favourite places to eat and drink in Salisbury? Anokaa, which is Indian cuisine and The New Inn. What’s one thing about you that would surprise people? I’m very competitive. I don’t like losing – not even playing board games with my kids! My wife deliberately loses to them but not me.
Castle Cameras, 11 Endless Street, Salisbury; 01722 339909; www.castlecameras.co.uk
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