Self-employed at the time, recently married, not enough on his books to secure a mortgage, a young Les Bunce left his business as a mechanic and re-joined the business he\u2019d started at as a Saturday boy when he was 13 years old. Originally, the deal was that he\u2019d return for six months, collect some capital, and get back to being a mechanic\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n 25+ years later, and he\u2019d become Travis Perkins\u2019 Group Hire Operations Manager for National Direct Hire and a pillar of the hire industry. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got the hire industry in my veins, I suppose,\u201d Bunce said.<\/span><\/p>\n He started off on the workshop side of the business, which he\u2019d initially found most interesting. But when his boss left shortly after Les returned to the industry, Les applied for that job and found his forte in the operational side of hire. <\/span><\/p>\n From there, he joined Travis Perkins, where he ran the first branch outside of central London to achieve <\/span>\u00a330,000\/month in hire revenue. As he made his way up the chain at TP, he became known for his ability to deliver on promises.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI had the mentality of just saying \u2018yes\u2019 to everything,\u201d Les said. \u201cSo I would say yes to every single hire, then regularly be panicking around where I was going to get the equipment from, what I was going to do…Part of my thought process with it is, if you\u2019ve sold customers properly, that customer will always come back to you. Sorting their problems is a good trait for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That trait also made him a great fit at Point of Rental.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cComing and talking to Mark and Simon…it\u2019s reignited my spark,\u201d said Les. \u201c How they want to build the company, grow the company, and develop the processes and product with the benefit of that industry knowledge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Les joined the team in December 2018 as the company\u2019s 150th employee. He\u2019s already enjoying life as an Account Manager, getting out and talking to customers, seeing what Point of Rental can do for them and how the company can develop its products to benefit current customers and customers in new markets. As someone who\u2019s spent his career in the hire industry, he\u2019s uniquely qualified to understand the issues companies are facing and to help them solve those issues moving forward.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been there, I\u2019ve probably suffered the same pain as they are,\u201d Les said.<\/span><\/p>\n The hire industry hasn\u2019t taught him everything he knows, however. <\/span><\/p>\n Les goes fishing as much as he can in his free time, and has an annual trip with a group of his friends from throughout the years. While he\u2019s not willing to share fishing stories beyond the time an overnight session resulted in one of his mates ending up in a hospital <\/span>(Note: and nothing beyond that, either)<\/span><\/i>, he\u2019s happy to share the lessons he\u2019s learned on the other end of the hook to his career:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith fishing, there\u2019s a lot of time thinking about what the fish are doing, tinkering with the bait, the rigs, etc., and there are a lot of times where you don\u2019t catch any fish at all,\u201d said Les. \u201cTry, try, try again. Eventually you\u2019ll crack the code. And once you crack the code, you\u2019ll catch lots of fish, or make lots of sales, or keep lots of customers happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cDo you want a job?\u201d Self-employed at the time, recently married, not enough on his books to secure a mortgage, a young Les Bunce left his business as a mechanic and re-joined the business he\u2019d started at as a Saturday boy when he was 13 years old. Originally, the deal was that he\u2019d return for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":25685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[674,675],"class_list":["post-25682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-biography","tag-les-bunce"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tFrom Shop to Ops<\/b><\/h4>\n
A New Challenge<\/b><\/h4>\n
Cracking the Code<\/b><\/h4>\n