Episode three of the BBC’s The Fixer had Alex Polizzi meeting a family who were partners in a furniture retail shop, Kettleys near Leeds.
As is normal with this kind of show, the program started by showing us what the business looked like before the entrance of it’s potential savior - Alex Polizzi of the Hilton family dynasty. As the camera panned around room after room of acres of beige geriatric furniture crammed into the uninspiring dingy shop - I was amazed that this family, these Business Owners, hadn’t seen for themselves years ago that their product was old fashioned and frankly had become irrelevant in todays market place!!
But I had to stop myself.
This kind of stagnation doesn’t happen overnight. So often when Paul first starts Coaching a Business Owner or a Guest visits one of our Clubs - they are so busy doing what they have always done, it doesn’t even occur to them to lift their heads up from the grind-stone long enough to even ask the question “is what we do still working?....Is it still what the market wants?”.
Of course this was a Classic case of Business Owners who had just fallen into the habit of working 100% “IN” the Business and had not worked “On” if for Years!
So back to the Kettleys Team. As seems to be the norm for The Fixer series - communication was again a major contributing factor to the disfunction of this Business, but this week it went a little deeper. There were four partners in the Business - and fundamentally, three were keen and excited to evolve the Business whilst one wanted to keep things just the same as they had always been (even down to hanging onto the most bizarre range of china and stuffed ornaments ever to have been assembled under one roof!).
When Paul or one of the Mentors of The Business Wealth Club starts Coaching a new Business 1-2-1, they will always begin the relationship with a Strategy Session.
If there is more than one Partner in the Business - the first step is always to make sure that all the decision makers have an aligned Vision for the future of the Business before you can ever get stuck into the tactical strategies for driving growth.
Once you get the whole Team pulling in the same direction.... your half way to achieving your Goals! Or as Jim Collins in Good to Great Says, “get the right people on the bus, in the right seats, traveling in the right direction!”
Alex achieved the same kind of Vision Alignment for the Kettleys Team - although she did have to employ a bit more of an “intervention” style coaching (Good for TV Drama) in a Pub, followed by banning the backward looking Owner from the shop for 2 weeks and insisting that he trust his three Business Partners to pull off a make-over for the shop.
Think about how you would feel being told to stay away from your business and baby for 2 weeks while the team you have not trusted to make small decisions is empowered to change everything! Not easy I would suggest...
To his credit he stayed away for the 5 days and when he came back - he loved the new look shop - and so did I.
By updating the decor and the making the show room more visually appealing, they managed to attract a completely new market sector - in this case, a younger audience with disposable cash (Key component of business success - your market must have cash and a need for what you offer) - without actually having to change or update their large stock holding.
How great is that! Admittedly Alex had made them dump all the old tacky nicks and nacks that had just been cluttering up the shop for years and years - what a relief.
She also had them Update their Logo and Branding as marketing moves on and you have to look like your business is relevant to todays world. She also revamped their “Negative” poorly photographed adverts and marketing messages so they would appeal to the new market they wanted to attack.
What marketing do you need to revamp or update? Logo? Website? Brochure? Again it’s one of those areas that does not get old over night but creeps up on your over the years. This is why our Club Mentors run regular Marketing training teaching our members the very latest in online and off-line marketing techniques so we ensure they never look out of touch as we know how much money this can cost a business.
The other great lesson for me in this episode was how Alex got the business focused on selling Bigger bundles of furniture rather than just thinking of selling single chairs. She also got them thinking a lot about what else they could Up Sell to customers already in buying mode.
What else can you sell your customers? This is a Key Business Question for Success as it’s easier to sell more to existing customers in buying mode than to keep finding more new ones.
Look forward to the next installment...
Sue Avins
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