“Play to your strengths”

Town Crier with

Justin Tunstall

Retail consultant, shares with us his cheese selling experience

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• “Myths and legends of Turophilia”
• “When ‘cheese’ is not cheese”

Small business owners need the versatility of Swiss Army knives. The variety of skills that we have to deploy during the average month is dazzling

But, as with the multiple blades of that knife, some we like to use more than others. In my case, that’s dealing with the public, developing the strategy, and refining the marketing for the operation. Unsurprising perhaps – my career was in sales and marketing for a number of years.

However, I was fortunate in receiving a broad business education in my degree and other vital skills are not entirely foreign to me – such as doing the accounts and HR (or personnel as it was known). As part of my studies I had training placements in a variety of disciplines. Later, corporate general management roles meant that although I was responsible for the profit and loss of large chunks of business, there were always resources available to cover those tasks on my behalf.

If I need to, I can make a reasonable fist of everything needed to run the business, save plumbing and electrical emergencies! But early on I made a decision to concentrate my efforts on areas that would be both enjoyable and that would contribute to growing the business.

A few weeks back I attended a discussion forum held by the Lyme Regis Business Group. During the evening it was asserted that the two areas that business owners neglect when they get busy are accounts and marketing. While we can let these two areas slide for a week or so, I think it unwise to leave both unattended for long.

I don’t enjoy the data entry of invoices and it doesn’t contribute directly to the growth of the business, so I don’t do it. The only accounts-related task that I undertake is to schedule payment for each invoice as it comes in – the invoice then gets put into a box file. Every quarter my accounts maven comes in and spends the day putting the invoices and sales data into a digital format – I pay him at a higher rate than anyone else involved in the business, but he’s swift, efficient, and frees me up to concentrate on taking the business up a gear or two.

I enjoy marketing and spend more time thinking about it than a consultant would be able to devote to a business of our small size. If I didn’t have that background, I wouldn’t hesitate to outsource that activity. If marketing is an area that gets relegated to the ‘pending’ rather than the ‘action’ pile, then alarm bells should ring. If we don’t work on the elements that’ll help grow the business, then the opposite will happen. The celebrated ad guru, David Ogilvy, used to send a Russian matryoshka doll set to newly appointed heads of the advertising agencies that he owned. Opening the nesting dolls, each smaller than the one before, every director found the same message typed on a piece of paper inside the tiniest doll: “If you hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If you hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.”

To keep a business standing still requires a lot of effort – if we’re not trying to grow, then we are liable to go into decline. The adage from Field of Dreams: “If you build it, he will come” doesn’t work in the real world of competitive business, and we need to be telling people constantly why they should check out our wares and spend money with us.

I think of my regular customers like neighbourhood cats – they probably have other haunts that they frequent – and although I can’t control them, I can make my place as attractive as possible so that this can feel like home for them. I do this via social media (I tweet as @millcheese), press activity – ads and PR – and the very occasional email to our database.

If you are not comfortable undertaking this activity, or you’re too busy (we all get side-tracked when staff let us down), I’d suggest getting some outside help to cover this. It can cost a lot less than you might fear and the rewards can be colossal.

In what state is your own Swiss Army knife? Don’t worry about the blades that get stones out of horse’s hoofs or gut fish – unless you’re a fishmonger. If it hasn’t got the blades and tools you need to grow your business, borrow them from elsewhere!