AFTER THE BOOM:DESPITE A drop in sales at his furniture business, Mark Walsh remains optimistic about the remainder of the year.

The trained engineer founded Montana Furniture, which sells affordable and well-made furniture, five years ago in Sandyford, Dublin.

Although sales are down about 12 per cent this year, he says results last month were better than in May 2008.

“It makes me feel very hopeful for the rest of the year – I attribute this to the fantastic deals we are offering and to our loyal customer base who know they can rely on us.

“These customers are telling their friends about us and we find that at this time word-of-mouth advertising has never been as important.”

Walsh employs four people but has cut his workforce by half since 2007.

“We have managed to hold wages steady for those remaining. I have a fantastic team and making sure they can look after their families is very important to me,” he says.

“The furniture business has been hit hard by the recession but I always made sure we had very low costs, so we could pass on savings to our customers.”

Walsh says that the greatest challenge facing the business is Dublin’s high rents.

“But with so much empty space in the market at the moment, I am hopeful there will be an adjustment.”

Another difficulty is customers being stung by the closure of other companies in the industry.

“I am on hand to reassure people that we are financially sound and of my personal commitment to ensure we meet all of our customer obligations,” Walsh adds. “The whole team here are working even harder every day at the nuts and bolts of our business.

“We will be here long after this recession is ended and we are ready to take advantage of opportunities that will arise because of the slowdown.”