Overview of the Situation
The business owner had an idea which related to providing a broker solution for tradespeople to purchase from wholesalers but benefit from cost savings through community buying processes.
The Problem They Faced
The owner of the business was at the concept stage and knew what they wanted to create, but had no experience of developing this type of business – their background was as an electrician so they were aware of who would use the process, and who the wholesalers could be, but didn’t understand how to connect either, especially in a way that Needing supplier partners, marketing to users, ensuring the pricing structure was correct to be sustainable.
The Causes of the Problem
The lack of knowledge of how to create effective business processes beyond working as a sole trader was a huge challenge for the business owner. Ideally, he had wanted a co-founder to share the burden of decision-making and planning but had no contacts that were experienced in this sector, or in this type of business creation.
The Impact of the Problem
The biggest challenge for the business owner was that he needed to maintain his work as an electrician to supplement the investment for this business, and then find the time to engage with customers and partners to create a revenue stream. As this was self-funded, any mistake would cause personal financial trauma.
The Promise / Plan
Our promise, based on our prior experience in creating this exact type of business previously was:
- To create the business offer for customers to benefit from
- Building an engaging process for wholesalers to be part of this programme
- To automate the process of taking a shopping list from a customer to the wholesalers and be able to negotiate the best price at unit and basket level
- To build a strategy that made the wholesalers want to offer the best prices to avoid competition
The Outcome
The business was able, after our coaching, to:
- Create simple processes to automate communication with wholesalers, ensuring quick turnaround and best prices for all trade equipment
- Identify local tradespeople to represent and save them money
- Build a list of over 50 regular customers within three months
- Increase customer focus to include consumers and not just tradespeople
- Become a well-known expert within the trades, especially in terms of purchasing
