Leisure World Group, owned by brothers Matthew and Christopher Kinsell, which operates sites at Catterick, York and Tyneside, have, after a successful year, brought in new talent and promoted successful staff to new roles.

A promotion has seen former Leisure World Ebor sales manager, Gary Boanas, promoted to branch manager at the York-based branch of the business. He has worked for the company for seven years and is passionate about both the job and the industry. "If you don't enjoy something you shouldn't be doing it," he says with his trademark enthusiasm.

A fundamental principle for Gary is to always go the extra mile for the customer. "I'll always make time for people, no matter how busy I am. I'll always say come and have a coffee with us if you're passing; and I mean it!" says Gary. "The customers are always really pleased and surprised when we remember them, but that is just natural to me."

Time to get off the sofa

Leisure World Tyneside also has a new branch manager. Nigel Cooney has a long background in sales and joins the company from SCS. He came to Leisure World Group looking for a fresh challenge, "And I've certainly got it," he laughs. "It's completely different to everything I've done before."

What is the same is the focus on developing excellent customer relationships and delivering a first class service. Nigel describes himself as passionate about customers and enthusiastic about driving sales, and says his team can expect him to lead by example.

Steep learning curve

The third appointment sees Neil Farwell join the team as caravan sales manager at the Catterick branch. Prior to this he worked at Sky as a regional manager and acknowledges the transition to a completely new industry has been a steep learning curve, "It's a really complicated industry, and there's a lot to learn, but it is thoroughly enjoyable" he says.

He'll be drawing on his previous experience to develop new processes and structure to support the team and help them become more efficient as they grow the business over the coming months.

Family values drive growth and success

All three agree that one of the major attractions of working for Leisure World is that it is a family-run business. Neil and Nigel both note the benefits having joined from much larger organisations, "In a large business you are just a small cog in a big machine," says Neil, "Here you work closely with the directors and can make change happen quickly, which is really positive."

Owner, Matthew Kinsell, commented, "Leisure World is committed to ensuring the brand qualities that our customers have come to love are maintained, ensuring we remain market leaders within the leisure industry. We are confident that our continued investment in good people will provide the group significant enhancements for the future".