Kunle: My guest on today’s show is in his early 50s and he’s the cofounder of a UK based online retail business. He started his business selling whiteboards and notice boards just 5 years ago with a capital outlay of £2000, which is about $3000, and is turning over 3 million Pounds, which is just under 5 million Dollars, this financial year with no overdraft, no loans or external funding. He’s going to share how his business has managed triple digit growth year on year over the last 5 years. Stay tuned.
Hi 2Xers, welcome to the 2X ecommerce podcast show. I’m your host, Kunle Campbell and, as usual, this is the podcast where I interview ecommerce entrepreneurs and online retail marketing experts who will help you, my fellow 2Xers, uncover ecommerce marketing tactics and strategies to help you grow. We’re very much concerned about growth metrics that matter in your online stores. So if you’re looking to grow conversions, average order value, repeat customers, traffic, and ultimately sales, you are in the right place.
On today’s show, I have with me Paul Pinder. He’s the cofounder of BoardsDirect.co.uk, a Nottingham based online retail store that sells whiteboards and notice boards to the public through their website as well as directly supply numerous businesses and educational institutions across the UK. They actually even opened a store in New York for our US listeners. Paul’s background is in sales and marketing strategy. Welcome to the show, Paul.
Paul Pinder: Thank you. Hello Kunle.
Kunle: Could you take a minute or two to tell our listeners more about yourself and BoardsDirect?
Paul Pinder: Certainly. I’m in my early 50s and me and my business partners set our business up just over 5 years ago, and this was not a background, ecommerce, that was familiar to me before we began that business, so we kind of went into this from new with no real preconceived ideas, but I would say that sales and marketing applies across all different areas, so we kind of managed to get a grip fairly early doors with the business and it grew from there.
Kunle: Was it out of necessity or did you have a whiteboard patent and just going through business ideas?
Paul Pinder: It wasn’t out of necessity in that way although I could make a case for saying that from a psychological point of view, both me and my partner worked in different industries, I think there comes a point sometimes in your life when you really want to do something different and strike out in a different direction and so we both came to the conclusion, we were friends before we set the business up, we’ve been friends for 20 years, and we just looked over at each other over a beer and said “you and I could probably be quite a good partnership in a business”. No idea what that business would look like at all, we didn’t even start discussing that until 2-3 weeks later until we decided that we could work well together, and so that’s really been the fundamental for us.
Kunle: Very interesting. Getting the relationship sorted and sealed.
Paul Pinder: I would say that is the single most important thing. Almost more important than the product, crazily as that sounds. The way it does work for us is that we are interdependent and we don’t have a lot of crossover in our skillsets. So what I’m good at, David isn’t good at and what he’s good at, I’m not good at. I don’t just mean I’m average at it, I actually can’t do what he does and he can’t do what I do. So it works so well, we just fit together like tongue and groove.
Kunle: It’s like a marriage made in heaven.
Paul Pinder: Kind of. If you can get that right, anything’s possible.
Kunle: So you complement each other from a skillset standpoint. I guess you had a list of ideas, and maybe shortlisted it from the fog, 10 ideas here. How did you start to strike off and eventually get to the fact that you would be selling whiteboards and notice boards?
Paul Pinder: You’re right. Looking back on it, I’m quite pleased on the way we came to the decision. But we didn’t start looking at individual business ideas. What we decided was what kind of structure our business would have. We wanted certain facets. We wanted the business to be scalable. We liked the idea of a business operating while we’re in bed and while we’re on holiday and one day when we’re not even in the business, so that kind of excluded consultancy and other issues where it’s derivative of yourself, where you are an important part of what’s going to happen. So we came to the conclusion that was a non-starter. We ruled out investing in property because our conclusion was that you need some capital before you can start a business like that, so we wanted a business that would put us in that position and we wanted something future proof. So it was today’s and tomorrow’s technology, as we see it now and ecommerce ticked all of those boxes. And only when we ticked those boxes did we start to think about the product.
Kunle: And the fact is whiteboards can evolve regardless of technology, there could be electronic whiteboards and there could be the traditional ones. Education would always need whiteboards. So long as we seek knowledge, I guess it’s an ever green product.
Paul Pinder: It is. I would have to say, from our point of view, I agree with what you said, but the fact that we got that product ending up more on look than judgement, in that we found a supplier who could give us a good deal through contacts that we had, it just happened to be whiteboards. Literally as lucky as that. Once we’d established the product, you’re right, we decided this is a niche that’s probably under-exploited and can grow and will grow in the future, so it all came together.
Kunle: 5 Years ago, correct my math if I’m wrong, it was right in the middle of the credit crunch?
Paul Pinder: Absolutely, yes.
Kunle: How do you have that mindset to go through all the negativity to building the business right in the middle of a credit crunch?
Paul Pinder: The honest truth is this, we never gave it a second thought. The negativity that you describe is so true and it comes from all directions, from media, word of mouth and it’s just not been our experience. I guess we’re both optimists to a certain extent, grounded optimists. We never even discussed the economic climate, we just believed that if you can bring the right product on the right platform, pitched at the right price, a downturn in the economy, sometimes, can actually work to your advantage. You outmanoeuvre your competitors, the old type of doing business and gain a footprint in a new economy and that’s kind of what happened. The other beautiful thing for us, and for all of your listeners when you’ve got an ecommerce platform, it is very cash flow friendly as a business model. People are buying online most of the time and so the credit crunch angle, most businesses need to go and get some funding, we weren’t in that position. This business has never borrowed a single penny and has never been overdrawn for a single day.
Kunle: What was your initial capital outlay for the business back in 2009?
Paul Pinder: We each paid £1000 into the bank account on day one.
Kunle: And that was it? It sort of regenerated itself?
Paul Pinder: Every single growth spurt and investment that has come from the company has come through cash flow and not through any form of borrowing. That is a derivative of the business model of ecommerce. That’s the power it can give you. You are accessing your customers directly and most of the time, these guys are getting to your website and paying as they go.
Kunle: I think three conclusions we’re going to draw from here are 1, if you’re going into a partnership, making sure that the relationship is solid. The second is getting the right suppliers. And the third is the mindset, because some suppliers might have required you to open a big account with them. It’s having that mindset and being stubborn and positive to start the business, especially in the credit crunch, and even if you can survive the credit crunch, there’s no other time you can survive.
Paul Pinder: That’s a good summary, Kunle. I agree with all that you just said there.
Kunle: Ok, let’s move into your background. What’s your background like and what’s David’s background like? What do each of you bring to the table?
Paul Pinder: My background was in a completely different industry in electronics and electronic components, so I left university and went into a commercial role in purchasing for a large blue chip corporation in Nottingham, and kind of climbed the corporate route in business ending up director-level of an electronics company around 1999-2000, and at that point I then became self-employed and did work as a consultant and as an agent, so stepping out of that corporate role fairly early was a good preparation for what happened 5-6 years ago. It’s sort of a taster of starting on your own two feet. But as I say, nothing to do with these products or this industry. David has got more of a background in the office supplies business of which we are a niche player, notice boards is a small part of that, he worked in furniture and stationery dealership area right up until we started together. So we came together with David having an element of understanding of how the industry works and me coming in trying to put forward my views on how business should work from a different industry’s background. That’s great because it challenges all of the preconceived ideas about how things have to happen. Every industry has got that “that’s not how it happens in our business” and “the wholesalers do this”. Between us, we were able to challenge that, we just wouldn’t accept it. Why does it have to be done in this way? That’s when we had a nice clear vision of not having to do it the way that everybody else does it. My advice to anybody starting an online business is almost ignore conventional wisdom, don’t start with that. You have to take it into account, but you don’t need to start with it. We just said “let’s start with what people want, start where we want to finish” “How do we make it happen that they will receive this kind of product in this lead time at this price?” “What have we got to do?” “Who do we need to talk to to achieve delivering what they want?”. Start at the end and work backwards.
Kunle: There are so many nuggets there. There’s that fearlessness especially when you don’t know what to expect from your industry. The fact that you’re from a different industry going into this industry without, as you said, a preconceived idea, just you challenging them is just amazing and just ignoring the preconceived ideas and focusing on getting things done, it’s fascinating, really good stuff. Let’s talk about the size of the business at the moment. You’re 5 years in, what’s revenue looking like?
Paul Pinder: Our financial year was started 1st November and this is our sixth year of trading now. We should do £3 million this year and obviously that’s been significant incremental growth.
Kunle: Which is about $4.7 million for our US listeners. How quickly are you growing year on year basis? What does the last 5 years look like from a revenue standpoint?
Paul Pinder: The first year I think we turned over 67 000 pounds. The second year it went up to 270 000 and then real big jumps in those middle two years, I think we went to 900K then 1.3K. Last year was just over 2 million and this year is phenomenal, it’s pushed on again so we are hoping to come in at 3 million this year. So chunky growth. In the early years, 200-300%, but obviously now it’s settling down a little bit to sort of 30-50% growth rate.
Kunle: There’s a bit of gravity starting to set in.
Paul Pinder: As the numbers get bigger, the percentages get smaller.
Kunle: I had someone on the show, I think it was Episode 7, RJ Metrics, and he talked about the law of gravity as the bigger you get, the smaller the growth figures. Let’s go into the share, from the 2 million or 3 million you’re expected to turnover this year, what part of it comes directly online and what part of it comes from direct supplies to educational institutions and businesses? Because I reckon some organisations will send a purchase order, you send an invoice and then your supply and 30 days later you get paid. How does the business look from that standpoint in terms of supplies versus direct retail where I just grab my credit card from my small business and pay online on BoardsDirect.co.uk?
Paul Pinder: That mix is changing as we get bigger. We’re still almost exactly 2/3 online, with 1/3, as you described, corporate clients that require invoicing. But again, that is changing so that online percentage is shrinking because we are penetrating some pretty significant clients now as time goes by, we do move across to an invoice situation. But that’s not to say that the online business is shrinking. It’s growing, but it’s not growing as fast as the whole.
Kunle: And I guess you’d need to expand your sales team for account managers to actually manage clients to cater for the corporate accounts?
Paul Pinder: Where we sit at the moment, we haven’t got an external sales team at all. The way I describe it to the staff, there’s 9 staff, the way we operate is the website is the salesman for us. More and more, there is a need to communicate with customers and we do it very well internally and our plan is eventually to put external people out there, so it’s exciting for me because there’s lots of other good stuff that we still haven’t done yet that drive our sales. It’s not as if we used all the tools in the bag. But, yes, it’s 2/3 to 1/3 and it’s changing all the time.
Kunle: You mention the fact that niche in the office supplies industry, but I can see a wide range of boards on your website. How many SKUs do you have on offer at any given point in time through the website?
Paul Pinder: It’s about 3000, which sounds a lot. To put that into context, a standard office supplies dealer would probably have about 18 000 SKUs, and we did look at going through that route and thought “should we use our brand presence to become a mainstream dealer?” and we walked away from that a couple of years ago actually, for the reason that it’s a lot of SKUs to control, it’s no longer a niche and very difficult to give some kind of added value to your customer given that there are 4000-5000 other office dealers out there. So it sounds a lot, but with the whiteboards, each board has got a lot of size variants and each one’s a SKU, so individual products, probably you’re looking at 500-600, with all the size and colour variants, 3000.
Kunle: Ok, that makes sense. Let’s get into the midstage interview questions. What does the future look like for BoardsDirect? Do you envisage, for instance, bricks and mortar expansion or do you see the internet as your key advantage? And if yes, how do you see the future looking like for BoardsDirect?
Paul Pinder: We plan to maintain activity in this niche. I expect the business online in the UK will probably top out at about 10 million. The market isn’t going to go on forever and a whiteboard is a whiteboard, but we do intend to continue focusing online, there’s no bricks and mortar development likely to occur. One option that we will consider, currently most of our products are dropshipped, there is an opportunity down the line for us to take control of that supply chain and warehouse products ourselves, particularly for our own brand. We do a little bit of that now, bit the inclination to do more is not there yet due to the volumes, so that’s a possible investment in bricks and mortar. We’re committed to online and selling on ecommerce channels. At the end of the day what we see ourselves as is ecommerce marketeers. If someone asks me what I do, I market products online. I’m not a whiteboard retailer, I’m an online marketer.
Kunle: What about the opportunity in cross-border ecommerce? I learnt you opened a New York office, there’s the EU, hopefully with the referendum there’s a massive market out in the EU, but I know the challenge, boards are tough to handle. So are there any plans for cross-border ecommerce? What does your New York presence look like?
Paul Pinder: In terms of Europe, there is a huge opportunity, Kunle, but you are absolutely right, the distribution of whiteboards is my single biggest challenge actually, depending on which supplier you use, there are varying levels of damages that are received by customers which have to be responded to and improved upon. We are very demanding with our suppliers on packaging and on the companies that they use to transport the product to keep this to an absolute minimum. But to ship from the UK into Europe is not really an option for the products that we do. We are building very strong alliances now in Germany and in France and I would expect in the next 18 months when we will be launching, first of all in Germany, to distribute on exactly the same lines that we operate in the UK. But to do that, you need warehousing from your suppliers in that country of origin and secondly, you have to be very thorough with the couriers that you use. There are only 4 couriers in the UK that will even handle a whiteboard to be delivered, so you’re already negotiating in a very small pool. The same applies in mainland Europe. The rationale in the US was very different. We have our own range of glass magnetic boards called Casca, we manufacture this locally in Nottingham, it’s one of the few products that isn’t owned by a supplier.
Kunle: Well done on that, the fact that it’s UK manufactured and in Nottingham.
Paul Pinder: Thank you. We are proud of that and it’s difficult for Far East competition to compete because it’s a totally bespoke product, but what we noticed was that the most of the product for this glass was going to central London and we couldn’t understand it so we did some market research and basically corporate headquarters liked this product in their reception or their boardrooms so we thought “how do we grow? If we just locked into London, and that seems to be where people like this product, what do we do to grow?” and the solution became to look for other cities around the world that had a footprint similar to London, financial institution, corporate hub, and we landed upon New York. They speak English, we can converse together, then we replicated the business model. We found a factory in New York. We hired two guys in New York to be customer service people and so rather than having to ship the product across the Atlantic, we mapped it out to replicate what we do here, but only in New York city.
Kunle: Is that a bricks and mortar business or is it online?
Paul Pinder: It’s kind of a bricks and mortar business at the moment although, when I say that, it’s driven through the website, but it’s not an ecommerce site, so no one can buy through the website at the moment. They would contact us, and that kind of happens anyway with a bespoke product. And the factory is just a standalone factory that we use as a partner. We don’t own that business.
Kunle: I guess the domain would not be BoardsDirect.co.uk?
Paul Pinder: Because we’re only selling the Casca range of glass, the domain name is CascaGlass.com, but later this year we will be launching BoardsDirect in the US. We have now got the same suppliers that we use in Europe, we now have warehousing in the US and we launch as a website across the whole of the US, hopefully by October.
Kunle: So with all the expansion, does this factor into the 10 million pound you’re looking at ahead or is the 10 million exclusive to the UK?
Paul Pinder: The 10 million is exclusive to the UK. What’s really interesting is the relative activity online as etailers in the UK compared to the US, the UK is easily 5 year ahead of what’s going on in the USA. So there is a huge opportunity to launch an online business in the US if you are patient and if you can understand that the market is still catching up with the UK. You’re not going to get the same benefits straight away, but those who get in early, I think, are going to be able to establish a market position.
Kunle: When you say 5 year ahead, a lot of innovation comes out from the US, things like InstaCart, there are a lot of subscription ecommerce businesses going on in the US, some of them are going public like Warby Parker. You’re the second person saying it, but the first time, I didn’t really call him out as to why he though the UK was ahead of the US, but from what perspective, Paul?
Paul Pinder: It’s purely down to the mentality of the customer. You are absolutely right, the technology is driven by the US, our website is on a US platform. A significant amount of the technology is driven from the US, but the mentality of the customer, they are not used to buying online, they are reluctant to buy online. At the moment, people buy their whiteboards, for example, in a store, they all go to Staples and drive out to buy it. This is the exiting part. I think the UK has the highest proportion of online purchases in Europe per capita, as a percentage of the population. It is significantly higher than the US usage. My judgment is that’s got to change. 10 years later, it may never happen, but that’s how you make your decisions in life. My view is that the US will join the party, the customers will. The infrastructure in the US will continue to improve to deliver the products, bear in mind someone orders a whiteboard on our website in October, we could have to ship it from New York to Seattle, which is the best part of 3000 miles, so it’s a bit of a challenge to do all that and that’s probably why they’ve been a bit slower on the take-up.
Kunle: Excellent point in terms of the mentality of US shoppers as compared to UK shoppers. There’s more perceived trust in UK and it’s really driving the market and I guess also the land mass is smaller but there are many many other factors. Ok, really good stuff here, Paul. Let’s talk about marketing in terms of traffic and customer acquisition from the outside, because I use SimilarWeb.com. It looks like Google is the number 1 driver of traffic to your site. Does that translate to your business?
Paul Pinder: Without a doubt, yes. You are right, we know that Google is the dominant search in the UK, 92-93% of search. That is our main route to business. It’s not our only one and we are very active in trying to keep diverse. Some of our competitors focus only on Google, slowly it will decline, but AdWords is a big factor, SEO is enormously important. We’ve done that from day 1. We’ve constantly understood that we’ve got to become visible throughout the Google Search empire and we’re a long way from being where we need to be.
Kunle: Do you manage your search marketing activity in house or do you outsource it?
Paul Pinder: We do outsource it, although I do have a member of staff who is employed purely to liaise and work with our agency on SEO and Adwords and other forms of marketing. So we kind of work with them, but I can’t emphasise how important that is to anybody else. Get the right partner. Doing it yourself is a mistake. We did that, we tried it, I did it myself and it’s very expensive to learn how the internet works.
Kunle: Expensive in your time too.
Paul Pinder: Expensive in your time, yes, but the quality of your activity with AdWords will determine how much you pay. Google understand so well how traffic is driven and they are out to please their search customer, not you. So if you’re not pleasing the guy who’s searched, you will be penalised by Google. Focus on top quality search partners and pay that bit more for them because you will get your money back very quickly.
Kunle: Fantastic points there. What are your other two important customer acquisition channels, Google aside?
Paul Pinder: We have a presence on Amazon, we also sell through Ebay. If the truth be told, neither has been hugely successful for us. I don’t see Amazon as being, for us, an area of growth. The way that we run our business, we want to capture our customers through our website and then build a relationship with them. You can’t do that with Amazon. Amazon own that customer. You can’t even communicate with them unless you go through Amazon and that works against our style.
Kunle: Capture and retain.
Paul Pinder: Yes, and I do use that phrase “build a relationship”. We like to talk to our customers, we ask them if they’ve had a good experience through telephone, a good percentage of them, a month after they’ve had the order. It’s so important to get that loyalty form your customer and Amazon doesn’t do that. Also, you can do a lot of hard work on Amazon, improving your listing, great images, promoting the brand outside of Amazon, for someone else to come and jump on your listing and get all that benefit as well. So it isn’t a great platform in my view for companies that want to innovate with their own customers. We’ve not invested in it and probably won’t do for the short term.
Kunle: That’s quite interesting. I was going to ask you how would you compete with Amazon, but you’re not really interesting in going on Amazon really.
Paul Pinder: Just to put that to bed, we compete very well on price with other users on Amazon. The Amazon fees are significant.
Kunle: It’s ridiculous. Up to 30% sometimes.
Paul Pinder: Yeah, so you’ve got that to tie in there and if you can get the deals right with your suppliers, you should be able to undercut. The problem is customer traffic is driven to Amazon, so therefore that’s where your investment comes with your own website to make sure that your level of traffic is sufficient to fund what you need to do.
Kunle: Do you get a lot of phone orders? Do you complete orders over the phone or is most of the activity through your shopping cart?
Paul Pinder: We do get phone orders. For the first two years, we didn’t have a phone number on the website. Of course, Google then decided that it doesn’t like that and neither do I now, we want access with our customers. Customers do phone, they want to place orders, people don’t like credit card details going through computers and so on. It’s less than 10%, probably 5-6% of the orders, we call them “manual orders” are placed over the phone. It’s not significant but it does take resource internally, obviously you have to have someone there to respond to it. It’s a disproportionate amount of resource required to deal with, but it’s all a part of keeping the customer comfortable and happy with you and that’s the main message that I would give anybody.
Kunle: I’m just having a look at the website. Very clean homepage, and I love the emphasis on the delivery. There’s a delivery van, it’s a clickable carousel “free carriage for all orders over £25” and a very clear tagline there “we love boards”.
Paul Pinder: We came up with that, maybe it sounds a little bit corny or cliché, but it’s about feeling passionate about what you do and, believe it or not, we have to enjoy being passionate about the notice boards that we sell. If it doesn’t come across to the customer, they will go and just buy it on Amazon because they don’t perceive any benefit.
Kunle: I did notice something, I noticed there’s no product reviews. Is there a reason why?
Paul Pinder: It is coming. We’re fairly new to reviews. We only started with Trustpilot less than a year ago and we use that currently just on the search page to give authority to the listing so they can see your star rating and so on. But we are rolling that out on the webpage and it’s just one of those things that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a tricky one with reviews because we prefer to build up testimonials if I’m honest. We want to build up testimonials with more detail from customers rather than an anonymous review that comes on the site. So it’s on it’s way, and it understand that this is now how people are making their decisions, they want to read reviews before they purchase. We’ve not seen any impact yet, but I’m hoping when that comes, this will help the growth spurt that’s going to occur.
Kunle: Interesting. On the topic of customer retention and loyalty, how important are repeat customers to the business? Are you seeing a lot of activity from repeat customers? What’s the frequency of repeat customers?
Paul Pinder: Hugely significant. In any one month online, about 1/3 of our customers are returning customers, so that’s quite interesting because that’s what’s driving the growth of course if the new customers. But the returning customers are intrinsic and it goes beyond the initial financial benefit of getting second and third orders, it’s a sign of the health of your business and they go away and talk to other people. So we will do anything we have to do to keep our customers happy irrespective of the value of the order or what’s involved, we will put right anything that they have an issue with under any circumstances because that’s the lifeblood of an online business.
Kunle: Does email marketing drive this relationship post-purchase?
Paul Pinder: It does. We have a series of 4-5 standard emails that go out over a 6 week period just refreshing the experience, offering new products and new offers as time goes by, and we also have a sales follow-up process where we will call customers 4 weeks after they’ve received their order just to get feedback.
Kunle: On every single order?
Paul Pinder: Not quite every order, it is a sample. I would say it’s about half the customers which is a big investment in time, we’re processing a lot of orders.
Kunle: And proactive.
Paul Pinder: Absolutely. We want a relationship with them and we want them to feel that they are valued and, again, all of this sounds like something out of a textbook, but I can’t emphasise it, don’t let your customers down, and if it does happen and it’s going to cost you money to put it right, do it, do it every time.
Kunle: A big question I ask a lot of my guests is what’s more important: traffic or conversion rate optimisation?
Paul Pinder: I’m familiar with those metrics and my team gives me all three numbers and the experts tell you not to worry about traffic, but to focus on the conversions. Obviously conversions make your business and produce your revenue, but I’m very traffic focused because the way I look at things is the content on the webpage is my responsibility. If that content’s right, people will buy it, if the price is right and it’s a good product. So the more people I can get to look at that product, the more sales I’m going to make.
Kunle: It’s a numbers game.
Paul Pinder: It is and I’m very focused on driving traffic.
Kunle: And you could take your own conversions further down the line.
Paul Pinder: They will take care of themselves if you’ve got your offering right.
Kunle: Good answer there. Final notes in regards to customer retention. What parting piece of advice would you give to online retailers listening to this show about customer retention? What should they do right to get customer retention where it should be in their businesses?
Paul Pinder: The secret to all this, I’m finding, is to convince the customer that you really do care about the experience they had. Occasionally things go wrong, how you respond to that will determine that reputation. So many times I’ve spoken to people going “we had a problem with a customer and maybe they want a discount or whatever”, BoardsDirect often will just discount the whole order if there’s been an issue. You’ve got to show them that you care and you’ve got to mean it. That would be really the start point, and to challenge yourself and measure yourself as to whether you’re performing against that. As I said at the beginning, start at the end with a customer experience, sit yourself down as if you are the customer, what would be the perfect outcome for price, delivery, the way that you are treated to satisfy you? And then deliver that to your customers.
Kunle: Work backwards, ok. Fantastic answer there, Paul. Let’s talk about average order value. Does seasonality affect average order value? I guess there’s a lot of planning in January. Is January quite a busy period in the business?
Paul Pinder: Yes, seasonality surprised me when I came into this business. It wasn’t seasonal when I expected it to be and vice versa. A big market sector for us is the education so obviously schools, universities and all the rest. When we first started, I fully expected the summer holiday to be a very quiet period because we were locked into schools and it was exactly the opposite. That’s apparently when schools do the refits and put all their new whiteboards in. We got caught out big style the first year and we never did that again and we made sure our suppliers carried plenty of stock. January is a fantastic month and you’re right, planning. But any start of a new education term is a good time for us. So January and over summer.
Kunle: Do you track customer lifetime value at BoardsDirect?
Paul Pinder: What do you mean by that, Kunle?
Kunle: What a customer is worth, not basically on a first order, but throughout their relationship with you perhaps when they either switch to another supplier, if they’re no longer in business or they die pretty much. In terms of the value of a single customer over time.
Paul Pinder: We do. We’re kind of growing faster than our systems and it’s definitely not a good thing. We’re trying to keep systems ahead so that we can track pretty much everything in terms of the interaction with customers, but we do. We try and estimate at what time to return to a customer, what their busy times and time periods are, the best time to approach them with campaigns but, again I don’t want this to sound like some textbook thing, but we want each customer to feel as if their individual order is the most important order in the business and as soon as you start over-analysing what a customer is worth to you, then you will start to prioritise. We’re not at that stage where we want to prioritise yet. We want the whole experience for everybody to be as good as it possibly can be. So you can go too far with it. Maybe that will come later when the growth is significant.
Kunle: Ok. I noticed you’re on the Growth Accelerator Fund. Did it help you? For our US listeners, it’s pretty much a government backed consultancy for fast growth businesses in the UK.
Paul Pinder: Yes, it’s been a good experience. We only encountered Growth Accelerator a year ago so we were already probably quite a high growth organisation when we can into the visibility of Growth Accelerator. The main element that they offer you is like a mentor. It’s somebody that has worked and done what you’ve done in spades and moved on and now wants to give something back to industry and they will visit us periodically and they will sit down with our guy and we can talk about what we want to talk about with somebody that has been there and done that and that is, in itself, satisfying to be able to do that. I’m sure this is probably familiar to your listeners, certainly those who are pushing on ahead and trying to build their businesses. You do feel isolated sometimes, that no one else has done this, no one else that you know has done this. Those moments in the middle of the night at 4am when you wake up trying to make the books balance, who do I talk to about it? It’s hard to find somebody. Then you find somebody and actually you find out that they didn’t start the business from scratch and they moved in later. To actually be able to communicate with somebody who has been and done what you’ve done is reassuring and very useful. .
Kunle: That’s a good point. So five years in, coming to six, 3 million in revenue, you’re successful, what does ecommerce success mean to you?
Paul Pinder: It’s the single most satisfying thing that’s happened to me in my life for probably three reasons. One is it’s great to have created a sort of embryonic brand. Secondly we feel that we’ve innovated in some areas on our website, so we’ve sort of helped change the way that this business is operated. And thirdly, to create employment for people. Every day I go in the office and see everybody, it’s a wonderful thing and hugely rewarding. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
Kunle: Fantastic, and being responsible for those peoples lives. What one marketing channel would you advise ecommerce entrepreneurs to take seriously?
Paul Pinder: I’m a believer in forging your own path. So get yourself the best website that you can afford. Don’t be afraid to customise it. Don’t be afraid to ask silly questions when you’re talking to people who are going to build your site. If you want it to do something and they are telling you it can’t be done, talk to somebody else, because it can. The channel that I believe in is have your own presence, have your own website, find the best way to market it. Amazon is great and there are probably people out there going “I’m doing very well on Amazon” and that could well be true for a different product range. For us, we are on Amazon for brand awareness, but if you want to establish your business long term and have some level of independence, you’re better off having your own platform and getting it visible out there.
Kunle: Fantastic. There are so many quotables, because when we publish the podcast onto the website, we have a section called Tweetables and Quotables. This interview’s going to produce a very long list of quotables because you are on point there. Let’s talk about tools, books and resources. Anything that’s really been of significance to your success you’d want to share with us? It could be tools, books or any resources you think has really pushed you to where you are, your mindset, your business, your marketing, it could be anything.
Paul Pinder: It’s a good question, I wish now I’d thought about that one before we spoke. There is a book that inspired me, it’s not related to ecommerce or technical whatever, I can’t remember who it’s by, but it was called “Make It Happen Before Lunch”. It’s a business book and it’s message is basically: get on with things and do them now. That’s the mantra of David and I. I’ve never worked in an organisation or a business or with other people where decisions are made and implemented so quickly as between me and my business partner. That book gave me an insight into the power of “just stop prevaricating and do something”. It’s a very short book and maybe I’ll drop you a note in time for the Twitter sphere to kick off with the author.
Kunle: Ok, I’ll find it on Amazon and I’ll share it in the show notes. Finally, what is the best way listeners who want to get in touch with you, who’ve loved what you’ve been able to share with us today, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you? Are you on social media? Do you prefer email?
Paul Pinder: Yes, you’ll find me on LinkedIn. I’ll be welcome to communicate with anybody who wants to talk and discuss these issues or any other, come to that. That’s absolutely no problem at all. That’s probably the best way, or through the website. There’s an email address on the website paul@boardsdirect.co.uk, you’ll get through to me.
Kunle: Fantastic. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show, Paul, and thank you for sharing your insights.
Paul Pinder: You are more than welcome, Kunle. Great to talk to you.