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Catching up with Tony
03 December 2020
We spoke to Tony from scotframes.co.uk to learn all about how he kicked off his career in the framing industry, and how he hopes his proactivity will help see the business continue to succeed.
In terms of the business background, scotframes.co.uk initially started off as a hobby for Tony to express his more practical and creative side. An Honours graduate in Physics and Electronics Engineering, he spent over 25 years in the Electronics sector, progressing to senior corporate roles due to his organisational and people skills.
Tony tells us: “In my 40s, after 20 years in electronics I really needed a change. I started picture framing at college with a good friend, mainly for family and friends, and we worked from my garage. It then progressed into a more serious hobby, so when I finally exited the corporate world it seemed an exciting challenge to turn my hobby into a business that provided a good living.”
Tony is an old friend of Larson-Juhl’s, and appeared in Issue 10 of 4walls! He tells us that since his last interview, a lot has changed in terms of his career. When the business was formally registered, he supported the early growth period by doing two other jobs. As an apprentice with a world-renowned life coach, he helped clients with life issues as well as working three days a week part-time with Royal Mail. He has always loved being creative and helping others, but after receiving a request for a framing quote from a UK hotel chain, scotframes.co.uk headed in a new direction.
After quoting for the hotel and being selected for the job, the business began picking up pace: “The first hotel I did in Edinburgh went incredibly well, and the client loved the work complimenting my pro-activeness, professionalism and many other skills I leveraged from my senior management experience.
“The first hotel struggled with resource to hang all the frames we had produced for them, so I offered to install them. Word spread of my services and I have been very busy ever since, working with this chain and other commercial properties simultaneously for the last four years, alongside general public commissions. With this increased workload, the other two jobs had to go, enabling me to focus solely on the framing business and to meet a previous goal of providing work by employing local students. ”
Over this busy period, Tony has not had to focus on attracting new business due to his increasing workload, however with commercial demand ceasing during the pandemic and unlikely to continue any time soon, he is still very keen to expand the scotframes.co.uk brand and tells us: “At the moment, I am working with someone who is teaching me all about online marketing and communications, including how to improve my social media presence to enable other revenue streams.”
When it comes to Larson-Juhl products, Tony struggles to choose one favourite range: “I work most frequently with the Coastal Woods range, as I find this to be incredibly popular with the majority of my clients.
“Anvil is a brilliant product to work with, and was very well received during a project I worked on with interior designer and TV presenter John Amabile. I was given a brief from John for decorating a bar and restaurant for which they were looking for a New York garage-grunge type of look, and Anvil was perfect for this.”
In terms of future work, Tony tells us that he continues to value customers, strives to exceed expectations and wants to modernise the perception of framing shops. He has just signed a framing deal with a successful local football club who have reached the Scottish premiership!
To see more of Tony’s work, visit the website or follow him on Instagram and Facebook @scotframes.co.uk/@scotframes
www.scotframes.co.uk
