Coyle's Concierge

2009-05-17T01:05:00.003+01:00

I’ve always thought “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. I guess this is a kind of negative attitude to have and if everyone believed in this, there would be little room for economics as we know it. Specialisation wouldn’t happen – we’d just do everything ourselves, believing we can do better than anyone else can. This isn’t the case.

I believe in specialisation. I think you only have to be good at one little thing to be successful. Donald Trump might be the world’s worst artist but it won’t ever matter, because when it comes to negotiation, he’s right up there. That boy Red something-or-other who specialised in putting out fires on oil rigs – he makes £5 million a pop at that, do you think he’d care if he couldn’t spell to save himself?

This being said, I think it’s good to be a bit of a Jack of all trades. Be competent at many things. But, be excellent at something.

When it comes to sales, I am very good. Not the best, probably because my hearts very rarely in it. But I’m above average, at worst. When it comes to telesales, I’m very, very good. But I hate it. I hate the thought of it, I had the process of it and I just find it a horrible experience. Whether it be my voice or how I have “mastered” how to persuade my way into getting the information or the appointment, I don’t know. But I’m good at it and it’s made me money in the past.

But as I mentioned – I hate it. I don’t like people phoning me uninvited and I don’t like doing it to others. Unless of course, it’s for something very, very interesting – but it rarely is.
As you’ll remember from earlier posts – my head has been on expansion. I want to be in as many clubs as possible. Economies of scale and all that.

So, instead of forcing myself to call the list of names/numbers I’d acquired, converting them into appointments and making a deal I thought “hey, I’m forever seeing call centres looking for work, I have a lot of spare cash in the business – 2+2=4, right?” Wrong, it equals a whole lot of hassle, effort and headaches... All over £50.

On retrospect (and if Chris Kayday is reading this – you were right) I should never have trusted someone else with a) my data or b) doing my work. I’ve basically cut myself out of a job recently, purposely, to free up time for my exams this June. Had I been less lazy – I’d have had a few appointments in the time it’s taken me to write this blog.

I hired Call Handling Services UK (http://www.callhandlingservices.co.uk/), for the sole reason that they did pay-per-appointment, as opposed to an hourly rate – or anything like this. I don’t trust telemarketers. In my experience, telesales staff are unmotivated by anything other than money – if the potential to earn a decent wage wasn’t there for the majority of telesales staff, they wouldn’t be there. It’s not a career and it’s not a profession. Anyone can do it to a high standard, even me.

Anyway, I thought “pay per appointment, how can I lose?”. You can lose by dealing with morons. That’s a fact. I take a lot of time over hiring my staff. They’re all I have. Without them I’d just be a 20 year old student with a pile of lollipops, some designer aftershave and access to some toilets. With my staff, I have a vehicle that makes me money week in, week out.
I won’t get into the nitty gritty today, it gets me angry just thinking about how much time and energy I wasted on these idiots – but the short story is... They got me an appointment, it didn’t go on but I spoke to someone else, I told them it didn’t go on but said I spoke to someone else and told them I’d pay them if the deal went through as a sign of good faith. The deal hasn’t went through as of yet, they say I tried to con them (I still don’t understand that) and publically made idiots of themselves by posting this on the UK Business Forums.

Perhaps after my exams I will post something that gives everyone a full insight into this issue, but I thought it would be worth addressing for some fundamental lessons I learned from the ordeal. I’d call it an experience, but ordeal sums it up a little more accurately.

1. I’m all for outsourcing. It’s what my business thrives upon. Don’t outsource activities that are key to your business’ function. Do them yourself, or by someone you can trust if that isn’t feasible.

2. Never be ‘fair’. If an appointment doesn’t go on, don’t pay the appointment maker even if you get a lucky break by speaking to someone else. They didn’t get the appointment, so they don’t get paid.

3. Don’t ever outsource your calling needs. The people calling on your behalf are representing your company. Probably very badly. If you don’t need something ridiculous like 10,000 calls done – then do them yourself. Don’t be lazy and don’t lose time and effort because you’ve been lazy.

Anyway, that’s enough about that.

We have got another club on the go – not the one I got the appointment with, funnily enough – and it’s in Aberdeen. We did a trial run last night and it went well, I’m advertising for more staff right now to get the operation up and running.

I’ll be expanding further over the next three months – through calling clubs, but I’ll be doing it myself!!

Other than that incident, things have been moving as smoothly as I could’ve hoped for. My supervisor is doing his job right and doing it well. My staff are happy and earning good, steady money for both themselves and me.

As I said before, my updates will be infrquent and short for the next little while – but expect them large and often after June 5th. That's a promise. And unlike Call Handling Services UK - I'll keep my promises and deliver on them too.

Take care and Don’t Trust Anyone!

2009-05-05T10:57:00.002+01:00

My apologies to the people who were religiously reading this blog - I've certainly neglected it recently.

I can't remember where we were last... But there has been lots of new developments recently.

First and foremost, I've not only been neglecting the blog - but to some extent, the business. I've compensated by delegating key tasks to ensure that it's still being run efficiently and effectively - but my personal input has been limited. Suprisingly, this has led to little change. A good lesson for anyone worrying about their "locus of control" over a business. I was always a "if you want a job done right... Do it yourself" kind of guy and it's led to me often working harder and less smarter than I ought have. Despite this, we live and learn and I've made good money this week while lying in my bed.

Firstly, I hired a driver. It takes a slice of my profits, admittidley, but it frees up so many man hours for me to be doing more productive things (which I'll talk about shortly) and has meant I'm not on a backshift sleeping pattern.

Secondly, I promoted one of my boys to "captain", he counts the cash, sorts the bags before the shift and does a whole lot of little tasks that I found eating my time before - again, it takes a bite into the profits, but has meant that I'm less stressed and can focus my attention elsewhere.

So, for maybe 10% of my slice - I'm saving 90% of my time. There's a name for this kind of distribtuion, but fuck knows I can't remember it.

So... Why the sudden decrease in work? Why am I, the 100 hour-a-week-holic, hates standing still male suddenly doing as little as possible? It comes back to Tony Soprano's methodology - worker smarter, not harder.

But I've been expanding too. I met another nightclub about potentially taking over their toilets... There were complications (its too far away from the existing club, its more nights, etc.) but they were all addressed before the meeting and a system developed to combat them. Despite this, the meeting didn't go great. Luckily, I know a man who knows the man who owns the club and hopefully that will give us a route to entry. This could also prove a seductive link into an array of other nightclubs... But this is only speculation - if it turns into action I'll start giving the details.

I have another meeting on Friday afternoon with a club that's maybe not as busy as the aforementioned club but doesn't have the same travel distance. It will be a nice supplement to our existing contractor and should boost my earnings to near enough double what they currently are - thanks for economies of scale, Adam Smith.

I'm confident that the new club will be a go-er and that I'll be earning some serious money. However, exams are looming and I'm overly-cautious as to how much work I take on with other, ultimately more important, priorities overlooking.

This being said, as of 12pm on 5th of June I'll be back to my 100hr week, working harder and smarter, at least for 4 months.

Here's a little summary for why I think we've been successful up until this point, it's important for me to remember and I guess you can benefit too - if you're thinking about starting a new business, already run a business... Or whatever:

Me - None of this could have happened without a bit of determination, elbow grease and having the balls to take a risk. Do all of these things, all of the time and you'll be rewarded, heavily.
Hiring good staff - Sometimes its luck, other times it's obvious. Either way, good staff make things 100x easier. I have reliable, hard working, money greedy staff who do their jobs to the best of their ability. Aye, they probably skin whatever they give me, but if they're making enough to do that then good for them.
Support: Family, a partner, experts, business contacts. Get everyone on board. I didn't think my mum would be any use to me in a business sense, but she gave me about half a dozen bottles of barely-used perfume (expensive stuff) when I first started out. Saved me an arm and a leg, especially when I was taking the risk to start out.
Communicate, commuticate, communicate. All of the time. Every day. Keep in contact. DO IT. You learn a lot, just by being accessible.
Flexibility - Keep yourself available and flexible. I saved £50 last week just by being "available", not a lot of money, granted, but I filled the beamer up with petrol for free - essentially.

Updates, as you can imagine, won't be as free flowing the next little while - but I promise there will be updates and they will be more in-depth than this. There's a lot of developments on the way - all of which I'll go into detail on at a later date. But there is also a lot of chapters to be read, theories to memorise and models to examine. So, be flexible, fuck off and read something else, then come back in a few weeks. :)

2009-04-13T04:19:00.006+01:00

I’ve never understood why businesses don’t expand. Sure, they’re complications and it usually means a lot more risk and work but if you enjoy what you do (and you should) why wouldn’t you want to double or treble that enjoyment – never mind the profit?

Bruce Lee once said: "Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential."

I believe that the same is true for a business - a quality business will have the urge to develop what it's got, expand and become more than what it currently is. When it achieves this, it will set new goals. The driving force behind his has to be the entrepreneur and small businesses who don't expand never will fufill their potential. Wasted talent is the saddest thing in life, as Lorenzo (Robert DiNiro) says in A Bronx Tale - my favourite movie, you've probably not seen it, go and buy it now.

Last year, I learned that they’re different motivations for starting a business – some people start a business solely to support their passion or hobby, others to maintain a certain standard of living and others simply for the kick and to expand the business. It made sense that not everybody starts a business to grow it and it answered my question somewhat.

I definitely would categorize myself somewhere between the latter two stages (a ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneur and a ‘serial’ entrepreneur). At the moment, my business supports the lifestyle I lead; I can afford everything I want, within reason. Without my business, I would struggle, to say the least and would be forced to work treble the hours (at least) to maintain my current living standards.

Despite this, my sole objective is not simply to fund my lifestyle. I want to expand my business to new clubs, new cities and even new countries, even if it means working treble the hours. I recognise the potential that this business has and that, with the correct business model, it could be successfully rolled out nationally or franchised. I have my strategic, tactical and operational goggles on, all of the time – I want to look after what I’ve got, but I want to make what I’ve got increase, ten-fold and I know it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do.

While it’s nice to be making weekly profits well in to the three-figure scale; knowing that by taking on a new club on the same scale as our current client would leave me with profits just a shade off £1000-a-week and that having ten clubs on the books would lead me into astronomical profits (for the sector we’re in at least) nearing the quarter of a million mark has got me thinking about expansion a lot recently. Which I guess is where the serial entrepreneur in me has been overtaking the lifestyle entrepreneur. I guess that’s probably because Serial is driving an Aston Martin and the Lifestyle a BMW... And the actual difference in my working week? After I’ve set up additional clubs (the real work for me), would be that I’d be working less mandatory hours, I’d be creating more jobs and I could empower and develop my staff; three of my founding objectives.

Anyway, there’s a process that I’ll need to go through before I’m happy to expand and make my billions. I want to make sure that our existing client is totally satisfied before I go off chasing other clients – for two reasons. Number one; if we were to lose this client, we’d be fucked in the short-term. Number two; a good testimonial from another nightclub will sooth any doubts in a new clients mind.

There’s a number three as well actually, everything has got to be spot on before I can start delegating responsibility to my staff. I want to hand over a faultless system, so that it remains faultless and I know the correction steps if my man fucks up. I have already picked my ‘captain’ for the club and informed him on my intentions. His responsibilities aren’t difficult, but they’re the foundations. Cashing up, ensuring that equipment is returned and replenishing supplies, that kind of thing. If he forgets to put the mints in, we lose money. If he gives the staff too much money, we lose money. If we run out of aftershave... You get the point.

Handing him responsibility will be a gradual process as I’m not 100% happy with the setup and neither are the club. Although minor, things I could change tomorrow, these are changes I’ll need to implement before I hand over my operational goggles. Regardless of this, I’ll never be handing over complete responsibility and I’ll still be around (though not as often) to ensure things are being done to the high standards I’ve managed to instil in my staff, which has led to a massive increase in profits since day one.

I’ll be looking at expansion in Aberdeen initially, although I’ll be moving home to Fife in just over a month’s time so they’re opportunities to be had there too. My connections in the nightclub industry are better in Fife too. I already have a man for the job in Fife, who I know can take care of things once shown how while I focus on Aberdeen – so it could be a matter of expanding across city-borders while still expanding in Aberdeen... Exciting stuff!

In terms of a business snapshot, things are moving along very well... I’ve taken on a new female member of staff, we’ve increased our average takings based on a week-on-week comparison by around 80%, our fixed assets were increased last night thanks to suggestions from customers, staff and the club, I’ve increased the amount of fragrances from 2 to 3 for every toilet - with a view to expand to 4 later this week and 5 in the very near future. One of our guys even sold a half-empty bottle of Jean Paul Gautier “Le Male” for £25, a full bottle costs only £22.02!

The lesson to be learned from what I’ve written today is probably a very simple one, but one that should be at the back of any leaders mind ALL of the time... SWOT Analysis. It might be considered an ineffective tool by most and something you only do in Management school... But the essentials are there for pretty much everything you need to do for long-term planning:
Identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business, use conversion strategies to turn weaknesses into strengths and threats into opportunities – or at least plan to.

Match your opportunities with your strengths and see what you can come up with:

I recognise that my strengths are my staff, so I’m empowering them with expansion.

One of my personal strengths is setting up a business, which is essentially what I’m doing every time I expand, which I matched with the opportunity of so many clubs without restroom attendants.

I recognised that one of our weaknesses was a lack of fragrances, once identified plans for buying more aftershaves were put into place. We’ve already increased from 2 to 3 and we’ll have 5 by the next time I write a blog.

One of our long-term threats is competitors entering the market and challenging for the same clubs as we want (or are already in)... I linked that up with the opportunity to expand into so many vacant clubs, which was linked into my strength in starting up businesses. The threat remains, but it’s been identified and as we build up a relationship with our clients – the barriers to entry will rise, removing the threat and creating a strength.

Now, I didn’t sit down and write this on a sheet of paper, drawing lines all over the place for the purpose of a consultancy report – it’s engraved into my head thanks to various business teachers/lecturers/tutors at St. Andrews High School and Aberdeen University – but it’s a simple, but very effective tool that can allow you to work on what you’re good at and perhaps allow you to foresee problems that if unidentified could kill your business. Never forget that. Sometimes the simple stuffs the most important.

Thanks to everyone for the emails and feedback. It’s appreciated - keep it up, email me at s.anderson.06@aberdeen.ac.uk. Although if you’ve got a blogger account PLEASE follow this blog, I feel like a total norman-no-friends on this!!

PS: If you're wondering about the kid with the massive balloon at the top- balloons expand to their maximum capability, a bad bit of symbolism! "Expansion" in Google Images didn't bring up much!

"Let me figure out how to take care of you."

2009-03-30T05:09:00.000+01:00

A complete copy of every episode of "The Soprano's" ever made is a must-have for any leader or business person in my opinion.

I've just this very minute purchased "Tony Soprano on Management" by Anthony Schneider (ISBN: 0425194949) which I have high hopes for... I'll give a short review of the book when I've read it - so there's something for you to look forward too. Although it's getting shipped from the States, so I'd imagine it'll take a week or two.

I would explain as to why I think The Soprano's is relevant to leadership and business in general, but in his sypnosis, Anthony Schneider does it so much more elloquently than I can at 6.00am:

"Economic uncertainty. Employee loyalty. Power struggles. Conflict resolution. Tony Soprano has to deal with management problems just like any CEO. Aside from "whacking" people, his strategies and tactics can work for you. He's direct, he's fast, and he's successful."

My point is not that you should whack every supplier that doesn't give you credit, or charge fifty points interest a day to your debtors... If only. But that there's lessons to be learned from a business that is 'recession proof'.

For any Soprano's watchers - the quote in the title should be familiar from the very first episode. "Let me figure out how to take care of you". This is something that I've been trying to do for the past week - trying to 'figure out' a fair wage structure for my staff - or to put it another way; 'how to take care' of them.

With my business it's difficult... Everything's cash. People drop a pound and it's up to the attendant whether or not I ever see that pound, which is what makes wages such a make-or-break issue. I need to make them want to give me that money.

Last week someone decided I wouldn't see very many of these pound coins and told me he actually only got twelve in a three hour shift. Unfortionately for him, the guys who had worked his toilet the last two shifts both made in excess of £50... And both had made what I would have expected them to that night - no more (whereby I could've assumed that people just used the other toilet) and no less (whereby I could've assumed it was a quiet night) - just the right amount (whereby I knew he was a theif).

So I came to a conclusion that a flat-rate, non-performanced-based wage is not the way to go. If I'm paying my staff say £7.50 per hour, what's their incentive for giving me 100% of what they've taken in? So what is the sollution? Well, I started doing some sums about how a performance related pay, linked to an hourly rate would work... £8ph if you take in over £60, £10ph if you take in over £80, etc. But it seemed a bit complicated and easy to abuse (if you were sitting on £79, you'd add an extra quid yourself to make an extra £6 on a four hour shift, for example - or ecen worse, just pocket the extra £19, you'll get the same wage anyway).

The sollution was, of course, in The Sopranos. Forget What Would Jesus Do?... What Would Tony Do? Tony doesn't work out hourly rates, or performance-related bonuses, or any of that stuff... He takes his cut out of what they make and he can assess their performance based on what they give him in the envelope every week.

So I decided on a percentage that I'll charge everyone. That way, if someone's not making money - they're not happy and neither am I and we can take steps towards addressing the situation... Whether that be through training, a pep talk or whackin' the schmuck!

In all seriousness though, all my boys are top salesmen as far as I'm concerned - who else, in what other scenario could take a bag of mints, a dozen lollypops and a selection of aftershaves and come back with 90% of it, 3 or 4 hours later and put in my hand £50-100? So I pay my staff well, because they do a good job and they do a dirty job too. Without them, I'd make nothing... But without me, there would be nothing - "Think. The big fucking picture!".

What's this all about then?

2009-03-30T01:29:00.000+01:00

This is always the long bit where I find most blogs which may have looked interesting from the off to get very, very boring. This will probably be no exception - but I'll try my best.

My name is Stephen. I run a small business, I employ six people not including myself.

If you're interested in me and what I do (assuming you don't already know) then check out http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=100825 - it has most of the nitty gritty details from when I first decided to take my plans from an 'idea' to a 'business'. No point in regurgitating it here.

I'll assume from here on in that you've taken the time to read at least some of that and you're up to date. If you can't be bothered, here's a really quick summary - I am an outsourcer of toilet attendants for nightclubs. Told you I'd be quick! Anyone who doesn't know what a toilet attendant is should Google "bog trolls" - I should put a parental advisory notice on doing that though... Turns out that although about 40% of the customers that all toilet attendants encounter use their services (and pay for it) at least once - the other 60% really, really don't like their existance! A topic which I will address soon - I guess I want to become a spokesman for the industry!!

So... I'm going to use this blog as an alternative to that thread I started on the UK Business Forums (great website by the way, anyone who has a business or is thinking of starting one - sign up and get reading) and hopefully keep anyone who's interested up to date. I'm fairly new to blogging and sharing experiences - so please leave comments if you are reading this with comments, suggestions, feedback. criticism, etc.

I'll leave it at that for now. Don't worry, I'll try and post something interesting soon and often.