Husband and wife David and Lucy Calland own and run a 2,000 sq ft Budgens store in Exmouth, Devon David on Lucy Lucy and I opened our store on 20 September. My family have always been in retail and own a Spar shop so Lucy and I have always wanted to run our own convenience store. I am the manager of the store. I work at the front of the shop meeting customers and making sure the store is always clean, tidy and fully stocked. I'll usually arrive at the store at about 5.30am each morning to sort out the newspapers and get the baking started. Lucy and I make a great team because I do all the donkey work and she takes care of all the paperwork. I'm better at front of house but Lucy's strengths are definitely behind the scenes where she organises everything on the administration side from pay roll and banking to cashing up. Lucy is genuinely one of those people who will excel when she puts her mind to it. Because we have only just opened the store, we are still getting used to everything. Sometimes we are so busy we don't speak to each other for the whole day. However, when we get home, we try and switch off and hopefully this will become even easier when we get into a routine. Lucy on David I am responsible for all the administration work. David is much more customer focused than me and is the face of the store. This is why we work well together because we have such separate and defined roles. David's strengths are looking after the customers - he has no interest in paperwork! He has better people skills and will go out of his way to source a specific product a customer has asked for. He also helps our older customers with their shopping and knows how to deal with anybody who may cause trouble. We have always worked together and it was a natural progression for us to run a shop together. We have three children aged seven, five and one, which makes running the store even more hard work. It has been a big change for the family but we are enjoying it. Although it is difficult juggling work and home life, our children help us to concentrate on family life when we are at home. We're are located just around the corner from a Tesco Express and although we can't compete with Tesco on price, we are good at customer service and our fresh food offer is especially popular with our older customers.

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