About Charlotte 

Charlotte Forkes-Rees is a sales specialist and R-SQP at Mole Country Stores in Berkeley, Gloucestershire.

She said: “I’m not going to lie; I was shocked to win the Mastermind Award at the National SQP Awards 2020. I did not think I would stand a chance against Sarah Brooks (who was highly commended in the category).

“I was shocked to be a finalist and was going to be more than happy with being named highly commended, but to win it, I couldn’t believe it.”

Charlotte celebrated her win with a “socially distanced” viewing party in the store, where the manager broadcast the live stream via a projector onto a blank wall.

She said: “We watched it all together – there was lots of screaming and then straight back to serving; I didn’t think I’d win, but there’s no harm in putting your name forward.

“The team at Mole Valley Farmers has been brilliant and sent me flowers. I’ve had lots of well wishes from the board, and the executive team at Mole. Lots of customers have popped in to say congratulations, which was lovely.”

Ahead of the first COVID-19 lockdown, Charlotte held her first quarterly equine evening, which she described as being a great place for discussion with owners, where a number of topics were covered.

Although these events had to be curtailed because of the pandemic, the first one was based on nutrition.

“Zoetis attended and gave a talk on the importance of using the correct wormer at the right time, as well as a top professional rider who gave some light-hearted relief to the information heavy topics,” Charlotte said.

“These are a great way to establish a good rapport with customers and provide seasonally appropriate and up to date information in a relaxed environment. As soon as it is safe and sensible to do so, I would like to reintroduce these as the first event was well received.”

For customers who already know what product they want or who are focussed solely on what is the cheapest product, Charlotte said: “We all know that in farming the margins can be minimal, therefore as SQPs we should be challenged to find the best value treatment option suitable for our customers.

“There are lots of different medicines available on the market, and only a very small fraction of these are ever going to be held at store level. By giving a little more effort and researching other products that would be suitable for customers, it means that I don’t need to under-value the products that the store hold by reducing their price to gain the sale, or feel pressured into prescribing an inappropriate product.”

Charlotte, who qualified in April 2019 and achieved second place top student award in the ‘all species category’ for her exam results, said her thirst for knowledge is still there and she wants to build on that.

“I’ll probably see if I can develop my farm work more, as I’m already quite strong in equine and companion.

Winning awards at the National SQP Awards does open a lot of doors.”