Tag: whisky

Are you a business mentor?

The benefits to both parties of business mentoring.

Hello again,

This blog is different as it is all about other businesses.

A couple of years ago, I was approached by a local Chamber of Commerce to be a business mentor for a small local business. I was flattered and surprised. But mainly, I was perplexed as to why they had asked me. I did not consider myself as having any special talent for business and couldn’t see how my experiences could translate over to others.

Well, I was wrong on all of those ideas.

Several mentee companies later and I am happy to report that I really look forward to spending time with the companies I now see. It’s not really that I have experienced exactly what they are going through – all businesses have their own unique issues to overcome. I think it is more of a case of at least I have been going long enough to have survived all sorts of disasters and have come through it all with a sense of perspective that the mentees find useful. Or I hope they do anyway.

The other aspect that I find useful is that for an hour at a time, I have the opportunity to help someone out and when I describe how I am handling something similar to their struggle, it often happens that they too have ideas that I can bring to bear on the situations that I am handling.

Some business mentors have a very strict method of going about it. I prefer to chat through things and focus on one main issue at a time and then track it from meeting to meeting, checking progress as we go.

Why not help out another business local to where you live? Too busy? No time? Don’t know who to contact? All these and other excuses are just that. Give it a go and see how you get on. After all, what do you really have to lose?

Have a good weekend. Kind regards, Roy Lewis

Decluttering and progress for the new season

Suppliers and customers – sorting out whom to deal with this year and why.

Hello,

Another wintry week here in Argyll. Odd time of year this, with sales a bit quiet, but Easter looming. Being busy sorting out what we want to keep in our office and what to throw out.

The same applies to our suppliers and customers – which ones do we want to deal with this year? Well, it all comes down to dealing with suppliers that are aware that we rely on them to treat us well and not mislead us on delivery times and availability of their goods and services. For retail customers, it is having ones that are doing well and are willing to pay us in a reasonable timescale.

First impressions can be deceptive. Several years ago, I signed up a ‘very successful’ delicatessen chain of stores here in Scotland. All and sundry helpfully informed me that I had to be in their shops. They took our liqueurs alright but were very reluctant to pay for them. It took over a year and endless calls to get our money. Having done this, I decided not to supply them any more. At the end of the day, it was not worth it as I expected them to go bust at any time and it would be a total loss to us. As it turns out, they are still trading, but even now, I would be reluctant to supply them as they still appear to be very disorganised.

Nowadays I am happier supplying nice steady, but perhaps lower profile retailers, that have a good solid customer base and buy regularly from me with no hassle or tricks. For lots of small businesses when starting, up, they chase too many unsuitable retailers and customers. It does take a while to work out which ones are worth having and sadly, many of these small businesses go under because that have a poor selection of customers and can’t cope with the losses.

Having good suppliers is the same. I want them to look upon us as one of their best customers and that we are worth looking after. I tell them this right at the beginning of our business dealings because I want to be clear from the start that I am serious about doing business with them and want them to be keen to sell their goods and services to me. If they don’t, they will find that we will change suppliers until we find one that does look after us, has an interest in us doing well and shows it.

All the best.  Roy Lewis

 

 

Fuel price increases make mail order purchases even better value

Fuel costs and mail order business – one drives the other.

Hello again,

Like most of us, each time the price of petrol and diesel lurches upwards, I go through the angst of filling up while calculating that my expenditure per minute matches that of a footballers wife let loose in Oxford Street.

From January onwards, I limited myself to one day per week of driving about for work. This not only saved the fuel cost and time involved, but also forced me to plan better, just like we all should. Years ago when I started my first job, my boss schooled me in making each trip worthwhile. If I was going to Edinburgh, I had to try to fit in 4 meetings in one trip,  not plan four trips.

So using the same plan of cutting out trips this year, the result was that I got my fuel expenditure down from £200 a month to less than £100.

I now apply the same logic when looking at buying goods mail order and paying what might appear to be a high delivery charge vs driving, parking and buying it from a shop in Glasgow. To put it in perspective, it takes about 1 hour to get to Glasgow. The cost of this is £15-20 per trip, plus parking and the likelihood of buying more stuff that I didn’t plan to while I am there.

In comparison, buying an item online means that I get what I want and am not tempted by offers for stuff I do not actually need or want right now. It is almost always better buying online rather than wasting time and effort in getting the goods myself.

What I am really doing is paying other people to do things that I do not need to do myself.  It’s the old time and money issue. I am now totally used to having a quick look on Amazon and E-bay, working out the right price to expect, finding the item at that price and then just getting it. Instead of taking 3-4 hours and costing £20 to purchase an item, it takes usually less than 15 minutes to find it online and buy it.

Have a nice weekend – winter has returned to Argyll – keep warm and busy – all the best, Roy Lewis

 

Show Distributors

Booking events for the coming year…which ones to go for?

Hello,

The new season for consumer shows is almost with us. Our Show Distributors are busy evaluating the shows and fees for the coming year and booking up with the organisers. Working out the true cost of attending an event is one of the key factors in making it worthwhile. This sounds easy until you start to factor in the time taken to get to an event, the fuel costs, parking, time taken to get set up, overnight costs, meals etc.

What often happens is the when all the costs are added up, the more local, less expensive events are the more profitable in the long run. I can vouch for that too from my own experience here in last year.

I attended a number of high profile Shows in Glasgow – The BBC Good Food Show and The Country Living Christmas Fair being two. These are both ‘very prestigious  events’ according to the sales pitch, attracting masses of potential customers. They do, however, cost a lot to attend both as a consumer paying the entry fees and for the Trade Stand fees.

I am aways concerned if it appears to me that the consumers are being asked to pay too much for, when all is said and done, is just a different set of retailers. The more the consumer has to pay to go to the event means they have less to spend while they are there. In addition, the consumers can feel ripped off if the entry and parking charges are too high. Not good for business.

I also attended a local event here in Helensburgh. Easy to get to, easy to get set up, lower fees per day and low cost for the customers to attend.

The result? Well you can probably guess from the tone of the above – yes, the local event was more profitable once all the costs were added in. I sold fewer bottles but made more money.

About now, I am called by sales people selling space at the big, high profile events. Sadly for them, it is really not worthwhile us going to most of these as their fees, sometimes over £1000 for a few days, are so out of touch with reality that it is a waste of time even trying to negotiate with them. Perhaps these is a gap in the market for Consumer shows that do not charge so much for everything and that the businesses going to them , will all make a good margin and rebook for the next year. Now there’s a plan.

Have a good weekend – cold and wet here-horrible.

All the best, Roy Lewis

New delivery options

Mail order new delivery service.

Hello,

More new developments in our liqueur business this past week which will have a postive impact on our mail order business.

We have been using a delivery company for several years which has a depot near us. Locally, the staff are terrific. Sadly for them and us, their care and attention to looking after our goods does not extend to the other depots in the UK. What this means is that last November and December it seemed that we were constantly getting into difficulties with getting our mail orders delivered to the right address and arriving intact.

During January I investigated several Courier companies so that we could have an alternative service ready. The company that appears to have the best option for us and our customer is FedEx. So, from March onwards, I will be using FedEx for some of our orders and will see how they get on. There’s nothing like trying out a service to really work out how the process for delivering our orders actually works the way we and our customers expect.

Spring weather has arrived in Helensburgh – out for a bike run yesterday, the first of the year. Not long now until Easter and the real start of our year.

All the best. Roy Lewis

E-bay options

Selling Atlantic Gold Scotch Whisky on E-bay…..and an alternative.

Hello,

Recently I have been listing the Atlantic Gold and Calvay Mist whiskies on E-bay. This generated a few sales and a lot of interest, so I am going to list them on or main site too.

Selling on E-bay is a bit odd for this type of item. You are only allowed to list the bottle or decanter, not the contents and it has to be a collectible. Even so, there seem to be lots of items that are really quite normal and non-collectible there also. Have a look sometime and see what there is. The listings change all the time and occasionally there are some really unusual and very desirable items .

The next thing I am thinking about is putting our standard liqueurs on E-bay. It’s just an experiment but you never know what might happen. I have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the Atlantic Gold Whisky – 2 bottles sold already and another one going live today.

During my E-bay research, I have come across an alternative, but similar sounding site called eBid. The difference appears to be that on eBid, there are no listing fees. The charges come in if you actually sell an item – I think I will give it a go and see what happens.

Horrible winter weather here in Argyll – I think I prefer the cold and dry days.

Have a good weekend – all the best, Roy Lewis

New multi-buy options coming soon on our webiste

New liqueur combinations soon to be featured on our website.

Hello,

Last year we saw a big increase in the number of customers ordering a selection of different liqueur brands in one order. This was the case even after free delivery was offered on orders over £18.

On our website, we do not currently cater for this type of order. that is all about to change as I am going to have a number of the most popular combinations available online and offline, for you to order. The multi-buy option will now comprise 4 x 50cl bottles and will include free delivery.

By ordering a multi-buy, you will not only get a good deal on the price but also be able to order your favorite liqueur for yourself and some for birthdays coming up. Or you could just keep them all for yourself!

If you have any ideas on offers we can set up that would be attractive to you, please get in touch and I will see what can be set up.

For 2010, the top offer asked for was the Liqueur Cakes. They were priced at £5 each or free if you ordered several bottles of liqueurs at full price.

Running up to Christmas, I gave away some Christmas Puddings to our top customers who were ordering over £100 worth of liqueurs.

Easter is not far away so look out for our Easter Special Deals on our website.

Kind regards,   Roy Lewis

Customer Survey time

Customer survey coming soon to find out what else I can offer that will be attractive to our mail order customers.

January is normally fairly quiet for the Liqueur business. Most of the time, it’s just sorting out administration from last year. This year I’m thinking of ways to improve our mail order service and have decided to ask our regular customers via an online survey.

From about November last year, a paper survey was included with each order – a fair number have now accumulated and the results are very interesting. One of the most popular requests was for a ‘Free delivery’ option.  This was implemented in November and  resulted in more orders and happier customers, so that is top of the list for this year once I have worked out the best way offering this.

Another area I am looking at is how to ensure that the orders arrive in good condition. Some other mail order companies spend a lot of time and effort on this and I will be analysing what they do and then incorporating the best ideas for our own online and offline mail order business.

If you have any mail order experience as a customer that you think would be useful to me, please get in touch – all comments and ideas welcome.

From time to time I will be focusing on business tools that I come across that improve efficiency, cut costs or help sell more goods. Look out for these ‘tools of the trade’ especially if you too have a business like mine.

All the best. Wild weather here today – hope it calms down for the weekend as I’m off on the ferry from Oban to Coll.

All the best.   Roy Lewis

Coming soon…20 steps to starting a direct to consumer business

A New Year -the ideal time to start your ‘direct to consumer’ business – what you need to know in 20 blogs.

Well here we are at the end of the year and what have you done? How about getting that business idea you have up and running in 2011? Read on….

I remember years ago when I was an employee, I just couldn’t imagine how on earth anyone could start a business and get going. There was so much that I didn’t know about and when I eventually did have to get on and start a company, because I was no longer needed by my employer, I had to learn by making mistakes, how do do it.

I have been asked for years to write down how to get started in selling something direct to the consumer, so now I have done it. In January, starting from 6th, I will produce a blog each working day until I have it all down. The focus will be on how to start a business selling direct to consumers at events and then how to build a customer base. The same principles apply for an online business too.

Once the Startup blogs are published, I will then have a go at all the new ways to start a business on the Internet. I will report back on how I am progressing, what has worked and what has not and what I did about it. I am especially interested in trying out ideas that all the blurb that goes with it says they are ‘really easy to do’.

So, the objective of the forthcoming blogs is to provide you with some stepping stones, based on years of experience, in all the areas I will discuss. This is not just the same old stuff from textbooks, churned out by yet another wannabe businessman – I have created liqueurs, marketed, sold them and developed a mail order business, on and off line, so it’s all real. I will detail too, all the horrendous mistakes I made on the way, so you can avoid them, save time and money and get to your planned end point quicker and with less hassle.

For the up and coming blogs, you will be able to discover:

  • How to plan your new business
  • Routes to market
  • Building a customer base
  • Setting up a mail order system
  • Events – choosing the right ones for you
  • Setting up your stall – what goes where
  • Talking to customers – which words work best
  • Your year ahead plan and handling doubts
  • Selling or supplying – which is more profitable
  • Persuasive words and closing the sale
  • Things not do do in front of any customer
  • Deciding what to sell and why
  • Confidence boosting measures that work

That’s just some idea of what the blogs will cover and I’ll add more content as they go along too, depending on comments during the process.

So have a good New Year, write down some ideas for 2011 and look out for the first blog of the series starting on January 6th. All the best, Roy Lewis

YouTube video uploaded at last

YouTube video now loaded and working – hebridean whisky liqueur
Mail order ‘Free delivery’ option planned for 2011

What an effort that took. After hours of wrangling with YouTube and Google login pages, managed to not only upload my first video, but also add a title so that it can be found.

Making the video was really embarrassing-viewing it is even worse, for me anyway. If you want a good laugh, just go to YouTube and key in this:

hebridean whisky liqueur

This should take you to my video where you will see a half starved looking man, dressed in warm outdoor clothes while indoors, describing the joys of Hebridean Whisky Liqueur and doing so really badly. Hollywood has certainly not missed any opportunities with me. Perhaps I will get better with practice.

Once I had loaded up the video, I have to choose what category I wanted it listed under – Entertainment or Education? You can be the judge of that.

I will be doing other videos and will let you know when they are up on YouTube. I found the whole process of getting it uploaded fine the second time round. Like many other sites, YouTube assume that you are familiar with their site so don’t appear to explain things very well. This means that it is hard to work out what to do and what they mean by all their special terms.

Facebook, on the other hand, is still complicated , but their explanations are better and on the whole, quite helpful.

On the Internet Exploration front, I have set up a new Domain to tie in with the YouTube persona I have-before anyone else did so. It is:

www.theliqueurman.com

There is nothing on it right now, but I am going to use the set up of this new site as an example of how to do it right from the start. I am not a computer person so I will be able to write a blog telling you what works, what doesn’t, what I think has been helpful etc, and I will be building up a toolbox of sites and programs that I have used to make things work. I will only recommend something that I have actually used. Now there’s a novel idea.

On the liqueur mail order front, nearly all our deliveries have been made and still a few orders trickling in. The ‘Free delivery’ option I tried seemed to be a real hit and when all our prices are revamped with VAT going up to 20% in January, I plan to have free delivery as an option or at least as a special from time to time.

Minus 10 here tonight but went for a lovely walk up a nearby hill this afternoon with my two children. Everything iced up – brought back a 15 inch long icicle from a stream (it didn’t melt, even in the car) and at the end of the walk, stood under a group of massive trees and listened to the ice fragments breaking off the branches and falling over us.

More stuff next week-have a good Christmas wherever you are-all the best-Roy Lewis