Business growth assistance

[Cms100]

Hi everyone,

Looking for a little bit of advice from the business minded folk here, please.

Quick back story, I own a sports memorabilia company which I founded in June 2020, right in the thick of the pandemic. I started off from buying and selling authentic, signed football memorabilia to build a bit of a float. I started with £200, which saw my business grow from a couple of items to now £60,000 in stock valuation. We often complete our own private signings with ex and current sporting professionals, primarily from boxing and Liverpool Football Club.

This is where I need help, as I'm somewhat in a predicament.
We are now have a position where I'm wanting to seriously improve my sales and kick onto the next phase, but I'm not sure what the right approach for this is. Should I look at certain strategies for myself or bring in an employee... or look at something else? Right now we are selling solely on our solitary Facebook group which brings in an income of 15-20k a month. I guess the obvious would be to expand through the social media platform and into others but I'm a bit apprehensive as I'm relatively naive to all this.

I'm a lover for memorabilia first and am willing to admit that I'm not a natural born salesman. I'm sure there's plenty I should be doing but I'm not convinced on what to do or how to do it!

Advice is appreciated.

Thank you

 

[fisicx]

Why do you want to expand the business? What is is you want to achieve? Are you just chasing the money or is there some other motive?

Maybe you don’t need an employee, you just need help with marketing and to outsource the picking and packing.

 

[WaveJumper]

The first question you need to answer is what do you see as the next phase?

Expanding your online sales in which case you need more merchandise, can you sustain the supply
Or is the growth in the events.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Well done in getting to where you are.

Before you make any big business decisions, take a big step back and ask yourself what you want from your business in the mid term. Don't be taken in by gurus telling you that you have to grow, the best business decision I ever made was to cut things back to the bone.

Employing people, taking on premises etc will fundamentally change your role in the business. If that's what you want, great, start working on a strategy - and come back here with lots of questions.

Break you business into its component parts, EG

Sales
Marketing
Admin
Order processing

And think about how they interact, what can be outsourced, What skills you might want to employ etc.

 

[Cms100]

Why do you want to expand the business? What is is you want to achieve? Are you just chasing the money or is there some other motive?

Maybe you don’t need an employee, you just need help with marketing and to outsource the picking and packing.

Thank you for your reply and apologies for a delayed response.

I would say chasing money, but not really for greed. We are wanting to expand into other teams, such as more involvement with England Internationals and other sports.

We have a sister project which will eventually need funding, but it's a 5-6 year goal from now so isn't really a topic of discussion just yet.

Hope this response helps.

 

[Cms100]

The first question you need to answer is what do you see as the next phase?

Expanding your online sales in which case you need more merchandise, can you sustain the supply
Or is the growth in the events.

Thanks for the reply.

I would say the next goal is to progress into other teams and sports. For the current stock I have (I.e. boxing and Liverpool), I could certainly sustain a growth in traffic for these markets specifically.
Maybe I've answered my own question that I might need to expand a bit more first. What would your thoughts be?

 

[Cms100]

Well done in getting to where you are.

Before you make any big business decisions, take a big step back and ask yourself what you want from your business in the mid term. Don't be taken in by gurus telling you that you have to grow, the best business decision I ever made was to cut things back to the bone.

Employing people, taking on premises etc will fundamentally change your role in the business. If that's what you want, great, start working on a strategy - and come back here with lots of questions.

Break you business into its component parts, EG

Sales
Marketing
Admin
Order processing

And think about how they interact, what can be outsourced, What skills you might want to employ etc.

Thank you for the reply!

Sound advice. This sort of thing might come naturally to some, but I still work full time in the military and all my learning has been from trial and error along the way.

I was fortunate enough to find the group but was reluctant as I was concerned about being ridiculed for lack of knowledge!

We have a single employee thus far, with our sales director earning a full wage. He brings in the majority of the sales now as truthfully, he has a knack for it and I recognise he is better than myself at it.

Is there a book available on the growth from small to medium size business?
I could use a business mentor really, but again I wouldn't really know where to look!

 

[The Byre]

Is there a book available on the growth from small to medium size business?
I could use a business mentor really, but again I wouldn't really know where to look!

There are all sorts of books and bogus mentors out there, but they are mostly people who have not done this themselves - like a eunuch in a harem, they can only advise!

When it comes to all things HR (and that is the main stumbling block I see business people having) The One Minute Manager and The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, both by K.Blanchard (with others) is what I always recommend.

Mentors - stay here and ask the occasional question would be my 30 cents worth. With my journey in business, I pestered friends who were a bit further down the lane than I was (no Internet back then) and I was always amazed at how willing they were to help me!

It was sometimes as stupid as which fax machine or which printer or computer to buy. Then one day it became "Company X wants to buy us out, what should I do?" (The answer was to delay and get the company structurally ready for the sale!)

I would say the next goal is to progress into other teams and sports. For the current stock I have (I.e. boxing and Liverpool), I could certainly sustain a growth in traffic for these markets specifically.
Maybe I've answered my own question that I might need to expand a bit more first. What would your thoughts be?

This is normal and natural. You have found a niche and want to expand and exploit it. I did the same waaay back with a news agency feeding trade news to US and UK trade magazines from Germany. I would definitely go for it! If you do not, you will forever be asking yourself "What if I had only . . ."

But I found that I could only do this for so long and if I had to look at another article that was headed Sony looks to the Future or some drivel about some company making widgets, I would pick up an axe and murder a PR person!

The key is always delegation - as you have already discovered! Find someone who can do something better than you can and let them get on with it! The first tasks to offload (IMO) would be admin and dispatch. And it is with delegating that those two books will come in handy!

One day, you will just be overseeing the whole operation and others will sell, dispatch, administer, attend trade fairs, etc. Then will come the day when you are ready to either sell the thing or at least offer a management buy-out, or just hand it over to your kids - but you are a long way from that!

 

[Cms100]

There are all sorts of books and bogus mentors out there, but they are mostly people who have not done this themselves - like a eunuch in a harem, they can only advise!

When it comes to all things HR (and that is the main stumbling block I see business people having) The One Minute Manager and The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, both by K.Blanchard (with others) is what I always recommend.

Mentors - stay here and ask the occasional question would be my 30 cents worth. With my journey in business, I pestered friends who were a bit further down the lane than I was (no Internet back then) and I was always amazed at how willing they were to help me!

It was sometimes as stupid as which fax machine or which printer or computer to buy. Then one day it became "Company X wants to buy us out, what should I do?" (The answer was to delay and get the company structurally ready for the sale!)

This is normal and natural. You have found a niche and want to expand and exploit it. I did the same waaay back with a news agency feeding trade news to US and UK trade magazines from Germany. I would definitely go for it! If you do not, you will forever be asking yourself "What if I had only . . ."

But I found that I could only do this for so long and if I had to look at another article that was headed Sony looks to the Future or some drivel about some company making widgets, I would pick up an axe and murder a PR person!

The key is always delegation - as you have already discovered! Find someone who can do something better than you can and let them get on with it! The first tasks to offload (IMO) would be admin and dispatch. And it is with delegating that those two books will come in handy!

One day, you will just be overseeing the whole operation and others will sell, dispatch, administer, attend trade fairs, etc. Then will come the day when you are ready to either sell the thing or at least offer a management buy-out, or just hand it over to your kids - but you are a long way from that!

Super helpful! Thank you for the information.

I'll definitely stay here but I'll check the books our too.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[MBE2017]

I would advise trying to plan which clubs and markets you wish to be dealing in.
You mention your sales director is good at sales, does he also do the procurement?

Since you have done so well up to now in growth terms, I would concentrate on increasing your sources, try to get exclusivity deals, look for foreign associates who can market for you locally in their market. The Premier League is massive in most countries now. Outsource where you can, concentrate on the signing up of the top teams.

 

[MOIC]

Find more suppliers, see if you can get licensing rights and grow organically.

You’ll know when you’ve reached the point where you need to employ someone for a specific area.

 

[Cms100]

I would advise trying to plan which clubs and markets you wish to be dealing in.
You mention your sales director is good at sales, does he also do the procurement?

Since you have done so well up to now in growth terms, I would concentrate on increasing your sources, try to get exclusivity deals, look for foreign associates who can market for you locally in their market. The Premier League is massive in most countries now. Outsource where you can, concentrate on the signing up of the top teams.

I think after a bit of research, there's a good opportunity for England Internationals as we can combine a lot of the current players and legends signings. For instance, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordon Henderson, as well as John Barnes and a few others played for Liverpool and England. I'll keep looking over it incase there's a better opportunity. Manchester United sells well so I can look into this too.

My sales director is involved loosely with procurement in terms of what he thinks he can sell at the time, but right now it's mainly my role. I'll set everything up and he essentially brings the cash in, as well as the cash I can bring in too. Its still very much a micro business so I'm under no illusions that we are bigger than we are.

International selling is something I've been looking into. Unfortunately I'm not clued up on how to find those avenues so I'll have to keep working on it. America memorabilia is huge so that's a market I'd love to break into. Liverpool is literally huge out there, as it is in the Eastern side of the world but I wouldn't even know where to start in building those relationships.

 

[marydee]

First, congratulations on what you've achieved so far! That's pretty amazing. My thoughts on the marketing side:

I get jumpy when people say they rely on one social media platform. In your case, FB. It's like building a mansion on rented land. You are right to try and expand here.

Do you have your own website and email list? If not, then that's where I would be putting focus. Always, always focus first on your email list as it's the only thing that's truly yours alone.

You say you're paying a sales guy and he's doing a good job. Have you spoken to him about any of this? Can he give you some pointers about what would be useful to him in terms of marketing? You don't have to employ someone, there are plenty of freelancers. A good marketer can work out a 1 - 3 year growth plan for you in tandem with your salesman and your objectives.

Good luck!

 

[Cms100]

First, congratulations on what you've achieved so far! That's pretty amazing. My thoughts on the marketing side:

I get jumpy when people say they rely on one social media platform. In your case, FB. It's like building a mansion on rented land. You are right to try and expand here.

Do you have your own website and email list? If not, then that's where I would be putting focus. Always, always focus first on your email list as it's the only thing that's truly yours alone.

You say you're paying a sales guy and he's doing a good job. Have you spoken to him about any of this? Can he give you some pointers about what would be useful to him in terms of marketing? You don't have to employ someone, there are plenty of freelancers. A good marketer can work out a 1 - 3 year growth plan for you in tandem with your salesman and your objectives.

Good luck!

Hey Mary,

Thanks for reaching out.
The website is something we are working on. It's then more promotable across the various social media platforms and will be making use of emailing.
The website will be done by December (long time primarily because I'm wanting it to be perfect before rushing it out. Could well be done sooner).

I've had a good chat about what we need and what we are limited to in terms of what's needed. We've got pen to paper but it was a question of how to achieve that. I might have been hasty in looking to employ. As we are still a micro company, I probably couldn't keep someone busy for even 20 hours a week (again it's not my field so I may well need to do more research myself into what is involved from an employee perspective). Maybe freelancing is a better way to go?

 

[marydee]

Hey Mary,

Thanks for reaching out.
The website is something we are working on. It's then more promotable across the various social media platforms and will be making use of emailing.
The website will be done by December (long time primarily because I'm wanting it to be perfect before rushing it out. Could well be done sooner).

I've had a good chat about what we need and what we are limited to in terms of what's needed. We've got pen to paper but it was a question of how to achieve that. I might have been hasty in looking to employ. As we are still a micro company, I probably couldn't keep someone busy for even 20 hours a week (again it's not my field so I may well need to do more research myself into what is involved from an employee perspective). Maybe freelancing is a better way to go?

Oh absolutely. More and more businesses use freelancers (at least for marketing) these days. It makes sense.

 

[fisicx]

The website will be done by December (long time primarily because I'm wanting it to be perfect before rushing it out. Could well be done sooner).

It won’t be perfect. It may well fail to deliver on expectations because you are building it how you want it to be not how your potential customers want it to be. It’s a very difficult thing for business owners to let go of as they have a personal connection to the site but letting go it key. You need to do a lot of market testing right now way before launch as this will highlight all good and the bad. I’ve seen companies completely change their whole site based on customer feedback.

Remember, what you like is not what I like. Build the site for me not for you.

 

[Cms100]

It won’t be perfect. It may well fail to deliver on expectations because you are building it how you want it to be not how your potential customers want it to be. It’s a very difficult thing for business owners to let go of as they have a personal connection to the site but letting go it key. You need to do a lot of market testing right now way before launch as this will highlight all good and the bad. I’ve seen companies completely change their whole site based on customer feedback.

Remember, what you like is not what I like. Build the site for me not for you.

Really helpful advice. I have a good customer base so maybe I could launch a beta version for them to test?

 

[fisicx]

Really helpful advice. I have a good customer base so maybe I could launch a beta version for them to test?

Even better launch the beta for everyone to test. There are plenty of site where you can get a review including UKBF