Green by name, green by nature…
Lawrence Green is the third generation at the helm of Greens the Signmakers – and some of his earliest memories are of his grandfather painting, using the skills he learned while working on shop fronts.
However, it wasn’t until he had begun university that he realised he was in the family business for the long haul. “I worked in the factory straight after my A-levels, before I went off on a gap year,” says Lawrence. “Then I went off to university – and it was only that first summer that I made the decision to come back and join the business. In all honesty, it was probably just the first time I’d sat down and thought about it. And once I’d made that decision, I changed things around a bit so I could do more business modules that would be relevant to working within the company.”
From rejoining Greens as a production supervisor in 2008, Lawrence worked his way up from project manager and operations director before being made managing director in 2018.
His first major input into the progression of the business was in digital print. At the time, Greens’ widest-format printers were solvent-ink models that were about 1,600mm wide – great for window displays but not for larger signage. “We were buying in a lot of seriously wide-format print, and I realised that it was absolutely crazy the amount we were spending, so I might as well invest in some printers,” says Lawrence. “I put some options together, got them signed off, and we went from a nice little baby printer to one that can print five metres wide – the printer itself is over eight metres wide, so it’s a big beast!”
One of his main inspirations is his father, in whose footsteps he has followed. “I’m very fortunate that I get on incredibly well with him. I know some people wouldn’t be able to work alongside their dads, but I did for many years, and we worked very well together.”
Lawrence’s father was very hands-on, building on the work of his father before him. His “big push”, says Lawrence, was the advent of built-up acrylics in the 1980s, and we would do the drawings by hand and then use an overhead projector to scale the images to the required sizes. There are still some areas of the Brighton Street factory, off Hessle Road, where the roof lights are blocked out, a lasting reminder of the old processes.
Lawrence, though, was conscious that to be able to grow the business, he’d have to work more on it than in it. “My dad turned over probably 75 per cent of the work – whereas now I’m trying to oversee it all and run it from above. In the past couple of years I’ve had a good step back and review of what’s needed. I’ve joined peer-to-peer coaching groups to get external advice, which has been invaluable. Knowing what you don’t know is really important.”
He signed up to Vistage, a network tailored to senior business leaders, which has been “a fantastic help”, he says. “It’s such an old business, and there’s been a bit of modernising required. That’s all coming to fruition now.”
One of Lawrence’s main drives has been towards sustainability – and his company really couldn’t be better named for such an initiative. Challenge Green might be the brainchild of Lawrence – but he has his young daughter, Charlotte, to thank for the inspiration.
“One weekend she happened to write a poem, which basically called out businesses like us – saying, what will be left for children like me? I was like, right – I best do something, then!”
He started by moving some of the printing machines on to water-based ink, so that any material they print can be fully recycled. There are now 208 solar panels on the roof, meaning the company is self-sufficient in the summer, and all but one of the project managers drives an electric vehicle. “When we’re charging them from our own solar panels, it’s as about as green motoring as you can get,” says Lawrence.
Challenge Green has already seen the company notch up the Environmental and Sustainability Award at the 2022 Hull Live Business Awards, and in March it is up for three gongs at the Sign Awards in Birmingham, as well as being nominated in the Environmental Company of the Year – SME category at the 2023 Printweek Awards.
Greens is gearing up to mark its 60th anniversary this year, and the logo to mark the occasion takes in the font of the motorcycle numberplates that Lawrence’s grandfather used to paint. The company has been at its present site since 1987, and Lawrence was there from the start, not that he may remember much about it. “There’s a picture of me as a little baby in my mum’s arms as they did the ceremonial digging of the first bit of grass,” he says. “We were one of the first businesses down here.”
The weight of history brings both threats and opportunities for long-established companies; on the one hand, it suggests a strong brand reputation, experience and dependability – but on the other, they perhaps need to work harder to be seen to be moving with the times.
Under the motto, “Modern thinking, traditional values,” Greens’ strategy is to keep on doing what it has done best for the past six decades – national rollouts. “We like to think we specialise in that,” says Lawrence, “and that’s certainly being pushed in our marketing this year more and more. In 2021, we did 250 Howdens sites alongside doing about 200 Currys. We really are good at doing the big-volume rollout and that’s something we’ve always done. We’ve worked with Carpetright for as long as I’ve been alive.”
But, while Greens actively chases large projects, it is more than happy to accept individual local ones as well. “They require the same care and attention as major rollout projects,” says Lawrence, “but it’s always nice seeing a difference being made in your local area.”
There’s a fair bit of competition, Lawrence acknowledges – and he goes as far as saying that Hull is the unofficial sign-making capital of the UK. “I’m not that good of a thrower, but if I went out of the front door, I could probably hit five or six other sign makers with a tennis ball…”
They certainly have some very long-standing customers – but complacency never sets in, Lawrence insists. “I’m sure a lot of people think that it’s just a given that we always work with them, but it’s not – you’ve got to make sure they are looked after, that your pricing is right and that the service is there. Just being very honest and open – it’s what we do, and I think a lot of people appreciate that.”
This approach applies to the working culture, too. Over the past few years, Lawrence has been working hard on building his senior leadership team, some of whom have been with the company for decades. “I built the team to get a bit more structure and better communication, as well as to create progression for members of staff,” he says. “We have some good members of staff who are incredibly valuable, but they couldn’t see that progression through the business and were eager to see where their future was, which is exactly what you want them to be. So, we created that progression, which has been fantastic.”
And, as part of marking the 60th anniversary, Lawrence announced in January that staff would earn more holidays the longer they have been with the company. “It’s not just me who needs a good work-life balance,” he says. “And Richard, our operations manager, has been with us 40 years now – I was astounded when I put that column in on the spreadsheet.”
Lawrence is also a director of Livingstone Motor Group (Hull Mitsubishi) – something he says has been “educational and interesting”, despite his father’s initial reservations.
“My dad and the previous dealer-principal, Jim Clutterbrook, were directors,” he says. “And Mitsubishi literally dropped a letter on Jim’s desk saying, ‘We’re pulling out of Europe.’ And even though I had no financial interest in the company other than my dad was a director, and I’d helped out there over the years, I and head salesman Andrew Iveson started looking at options. After a while we went – hang on, why are we doing this? Jim and my dad are the directors! So we put a deal together, and effectively we bought out Jim so he could retire. Andrew became dealer-principal and I now work very well together with him in an advisory role. My dad originally didn’t want me to be involved, and wanted me to concentrate on the Greens business, but it’s been very good to get involved with a second business.”
Back to Greens, and Lawrence says he is confident about the future with his team of more than 50 staff. There have been worrying times over the years – he joined the company in 2008 just as the credit crunch was unfolding, and he’s since navigated Covid and the resulting financial turmoil. “It does sometimes feel like the economy’s out to get you,” he says. “But we’re in an incredibly fortunate position with how we run the business. We own the property. We own the vehicles. We own all the printers. If things do go a bit quiet we can bring the business back and reduce it in size, so we haven’t got a lot of outgoings every month if we don’t need them. It’s put us in an incredibly stable position – and we’ve run the business to make sure that happens.”
Lawrence says he won’t be putting his two children under any pressure to become the fourth generation of Greens the Signmakers. “If they want to join, they can. It almost is now too large a business for them to join as I did. If they made the progression I did, it would take too long because there’s too much to learn, too many processes. As I get older I want to make sure I have more time to go on more adventures with them. And Charlotte’s loving the fact that she’s had such a positive influence on the business already with Challenge Green.”
