Name: Robert St.Barbe
Job title: Head of Distribution – Retail & Wholesale
Tell us a bit about yourself
The first question I normally get is about my surname, with less than 40 people with the same surname in the UK and all of them are family relations it is always a topic of conversation. My grandfather has traced the family line back to the Domesday Book, but from a UK perspective my ancestors came across in 1066 with William the Conqueror. They have been bishops and earls – one was beheaded in 1660 and one knighted by James I in 1620. So it is a very colourful and interesting lineage and in Lymington you can visit the “St.Barbe” museum, and, yes, when I visited the museum, I did get in for free…
I have two girls from my first marriage, one who is a primary school teacher in the Lake District and the other is in our industry but working on the renewables side and now lives in Essex, having bought her own house at the age of 21. I am immensely proud of fact they both have a great work ethic and have jobs they really enjoy.
I remarried two years ago. I met Emma on 10 December 2022 and we were engaged two weeks later and married within four months. Yes, I know what everyone is thinking, she’s lucky… But it is really me who is lucky. I am now the owner of four stepchildren – three boys, one of which is the twin to my stepdaughter. They are all still at school but having been through this phase with my own children it is easier to understand their needs and issues and my wife Emma and I are really enjoying life.
We also have three dogs, so the house is always busy and we try to go to our static caravan in the Lake District with them all as often as possible. Walking in the Lakes has always been a passion of mine, the fresh air, hills and lack of a mobile phone signal has many relaxing effects.
I have always loved cars and have owned a BMW Z3 for a number of years now, with a total of six kids and three dogs, a two seater sports car is highly recommended for creating a peaceful environment.
Everyone who I worked with would say I have a good sense of humour, I know many people reading this will think back on times that we have had together and the laughs we have had.
Describe your job to a five-year-old
My current role is to support the UK distributors of Villeroy & Boch, Armitage Shanks and Ideal Standard brands. Distribution is a key part of all manufacturers’ businesses; distributors need to be better than the manufacturer they support or they would not be needed in the supply chain.
We are first and foremost a manufacturer. Whilst we have the phenomenal supply facility at Armitage, a distributor can deliver a single item to a retailer the following morning anywhere in the UK, so to outperform the manufacturer they need to ensure they are quicker and have the product profile required by the market in stock and at the correct demand levels. Distributors complimentary products also allow them to be “first” choice over a manufacturer, for example the legacy V&B distributors also supply V&B tiles so a retailer has one point of supply rather and a number of suppliers with goods arriving at different times. I once had a meeting with Gibbs and Dandy before Jewson’s bought them and in one bathroom display area they had product from 16 different manufactures, so 16 orders to 16 different companies, 16 deliveries, 16 invoices, 16 payments, so just there is a total of 64 transactions. A good distributor keeps that to one order, one delivery, one invoice and one payment for the retailer.
What do you like most about your job?
The bathroom industry is the best; it has the best people. I am lucky that many people working within the group today I have known for a long time, we have been colleagues previously or known each other within the industry.
The most satisfying part of the job now is passing on knowledge and supporting the next generation of future managers and seeing people develop.
How did you get here?
Apart from the several years of working in fun pubs and night clubs I decided I needed a serious job, so I became a credit controller at Zenith Plumbpoint (now City Plumbing). The regional manager had a disagreement with the HR department about training future managers, and to prove a point he picked on me. I was tasked with working through the branch over two years; warehouse, driving stacker trucks, 7.5 tonne delivery vans and when I had learnt the products I was moved to the trade counter, from there I was meant to go “on the road” selling.
After many delays in this next step I decided to leave and joined Crangrove who were part of Wolseley at the time. Within a year I was head-hunted by the Deva Tap Company and spent seven years building a team from five people to 25, when I left to join Ideal Bathrooms as Sales Director in 2006. My time at Ideal Bathrooms introduced me to the Ideal Standard brand and over the next 11 years of selling Ideal Standard with them I have met all the showrooms and key players on the industry.
I left Ideal Bathrooms to join Villeroy & Boch in 2017, during my time here I’ve looked after the retail and project teams, northern and southern Ireland and the Channel Isles. So now it is nice to have a single dedicated role focused on distribution.
What motivates you?
I’ve always had a good work ethic, I am always early for meetings, sometimes very early. At Ideal Bathrooms, I was driving around 50,000 miles a year to visit customers and attend meetings. When I gave my notice to Ideal Bathrooms, most people would get three months garden leave, I worked every day over those three months and on the last night attended a PHG event at Carden Park where I was given a “sales person” award, from an account I’d been trying to pass to someone else for months. I enjoy the job, so I put effort into it.
If you could swap jobs with anyone, who would it be?
I’ve often thought a job working outside would be great. A friend in the Lake District walks the public footpaths and checks the safety of these paths for the National Trust. This would be a great job in the summer but also in the winter as there would be far less people around.
Your favourite song lyric or line from a film
I am an avid reader of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” trilogy which has grown from the original three books to 26 in the series now. Several key phrases stand out for me within these books, which relate very much to my work principles. The first phrase is “Show me a boat that doesn’t rock, and I’ll show you someone covering up mistakes”. Everyone makes mistakes, the trick is to learn from them and ensure they are corrected quicky and correctly and tell people you made them before they have to ask you about an issue.
The second phrase relates to all businesses and job roles, as sometimes we are so close to our work and immersed in our own product knowledge that we expect everyone to know what we know when talking about our products and service offering, we expect the terminology we use to be understood and that everyone knows what we do, how we do it and what support is available.
The second phase is “Marketing is like winking at a girl in a dark room, you know what you are doing but nobody else does”. We do so many good things as a business, not just in marketing… but it is our job to ensure that the message is delivered time and time again, and it is not the sole responsibility of the marketing team to promote the business and our brands it is everyone in the business. If we don’t tell our customer who will do it for us? A prime example of this is the “V&B app” which is a fantastic bit of kit but I expect many members of the team have never seen it or knows what it can do to make the customers life easy, including generating a “Augmented reality” 3D model of any V&B product and via your phone you can view it in situ.
Your favourite app?
I’ve been lucky to have had a Tesla for the last five years, so the Tesla app is my favourite. Whilst everyone has an opinion on the owner of a Tesla, the technology changes in the last five years have been astounding. The app is always open and I’ve never used the “key” to the cars I’ve had once in the last five years. Plus, who can complain when you have a 4am start on a freezing winter’s morning but your car has already heated the cabin, seat and steering wheel and sent your journey details directly to the satnav system?
Biggest facepalm moment at work?
Whilst at Ideal Bathrooms we were flying to Germany visiting “Bette Baths” with around 20 customers, looking smart in a brand new suit bought the previous day, I went through passport control at Manchester airport and had to remove my shoes. When I bent down to retie them the entire seam up and down both inside legs of my new trousers just fell apart and suddenly all I was wearing was the equivalent of a skirt much to the amusement of the customers and staff. I was saved by a pair of jeans in my rucksack but the walk from passport control to the toilets in terminal three is quite long and with 20 plus people laughing at my misfortune it seemed like the longest walk ever.