How a start-up small business went international, in less than a year

It's every entrepreneur's dream to grow their small business and gain an international base of customers as well as a prominent media profile, wouldn't you say? ....... But what about achieving that dream within your first year of starting-up? 

Well, here's the story of a woman who worked in the corporate arena for many years and found a way to successfully commercialise her passion through establishing a career counselling business, Career Oracle.

Based in Queensland, Australia , Kate Middleton (no, not Prince William's wife) is the founder of a business that helps people to identify their skills, interests and strengths - and then go on to locate and land the role that is in alignment with these.

Kate has achieved a remarkable rate of business growth in a short period of time and therefore I was confident would be able to share some useful tips with us .....

• Kate, what was the motivation behind starting your own business earlier this year?

For me, starting my own business was about following my heart and commercialising a passion project. By way of background, prior to launching Career Oracle, I enjoyed 12 years’ experience, mostly in senior management level Project, Quality, Change and Business Development roles. I loved it and I was good at it. However, drawing from my own personal experience, I identified that talent that can excel in one company may not thrive at all in a new environment.

I wanted to help people find happiness and engagement in a job that they love by creating a tool that helps them not only assess their own personal value proposition; but also assess the companies that they are applying for jobs with. I wanted to help people determine how likely they are to thrive in their new environment and make an informed decision.

On top of my assessment tool, I started helping friends, family and colleagues to identify their proven achievements and then write amazing resumes, cover letters and complete detailed interview coaching catered specifically for the jobs they were applying for. My friends and I ended up achieving an uncanny record of success using my various models, so I decided to launch the website and social media channels earlier this year (2014) as a side business.

 

Within 6 months I had achieved so much scale that I had to leave my corporate job and start building a team. I now have market reach all across Australia and have serviced clients in Dubai, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Japan and the US.

• How would you describe your experience during your first year of business – and how does it compare to what you’d anticipated when doing your business plan?

I am currently at the 8 month mark and there have been so many wonderful surprises. In terms of all of the traditional elements of my business plan related to launching my website and social media channels and building an audience, this has all gone to plan. My expansion strategy based on marketing, PR and building strategic partnerships have also thankfully been executed to plan.

The two biggest things I did not anticipate were firstly the rate of growth and having to employ a team so quickly. And secondly the emergence of new customer segments that I had not originally accounted for.

I now know that it is really important to set ambitious targets so that you continue to achieve momentum and push yourself. Don’t be afraid to think big! 

The other element is, if the market opens up new opportunities for you and customers from a new demographic present themselves – seriously consider adapting some of your model to cater for them. This is what I have done for my international clients and it is definitely paying dividends.

• In a relatively short period of time you’ve succeeded in gaining quite a profile in the media – what have you found to be some of the keys to doing PR effectively?

Thank you; it has been a really fun ride. As with most effective business relationships there needs to be an element of mutual benefit. This is the approach I have taken with PR. Instead of just focusing on the hard and direct business plug, I have also contributed articles to publications that are representative of some of my core customer segments. This has been done to position myself as a subject matter expert in my field and provide some free of charge, value added information to the people who might typically use my service.

It really pays to sit down and have a think about which online, print and radio publications best represent your target audience. From there, review the articles they publish to understand some of the angles they prefer. PR does not just need to be about a direct grab on your business.

You could contribute tips around your area of expertise, pen an inspirational story about your entrepreneurial journey or participate as a business in magazine offers and giveaways. Do remember to request a direct mention of your business name and provide a live link to your website for inclusion in any online articles. Another great approach is to subscribe to media “Call Out” sites such as Source bottle. This will alert you to opportunities to contribute to, or be featured in various media stories and articles related to your product or service.

•  What’s been your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge has been replicating and scaling up a business model that was essentially built around my own core business acumen and personal insights into corporate Australia.

Even with the best systems, great templates, wonderful qualified staff and processes focused around service – there are some things that simply cannot be taught. That will continue to be my challenge and biggest opportunity to solve over the next year. I am now entering into a new phase where I will be pitching for fundingto create really innovative mechanisms and online tools that allow others to complete a client assessment as closely to what I would do as possible. This will also be crucial in achieving the international scale I am gunning for.

• So far, what have you found to be the most cost-effective marketing strategies for your consulting business?

I am a bit of a risk taker and am happy to go hard and invest hard to get the right outcome so am still assessing which mediums are most cost -effective. I have found the ROI on SEO quite good and that is definitely something I will continue to invest in as part of my expansion strategy.

The best, most cost-effective marketing strategies really will vary from business to business and across industries. I think the better question to ask yourself as an entrepreneur is; which marketing channels yield the highest conversion rate for me and what is the cost ratio of that converted lead?

For example, many business owners take a diversified approach and leverage social media and email marketing systems to send out offers and build brand awareness, however converting a Facebook, Twitter or email marketing lead into a paying customer is typically very low (1-2% uptake). For that reason, I would recommend thinking about who your customers are, what mediums they are most likely to be engaged with (online, email, print, radio, television) and then build your strategy and budget around that.

• What advice would you offer to budding entrepreneurs, the ones who are still undecided about whether the potential rewards are worth the risks of starting their own business?

What does your life look like in 10 years’ time? Do you dream of working for yourself or someone else? Do you picture having a family and therefore would you like more flexibility? Are you comfortable with a certain level of risk?

Be clear on what your life feels like and then you will have your answer.

Finally, it is a bit cliché, but you will never look back on your life and regret the things you did do, it will be the opportunities that you missed out on that will weigh on your mind. You only get one shot at life, if you believe in your idea, there is a market for it and it sets a fire in your belly, just go for it!

• Any final tips for our readers?

Be nimble, test new approaches, learn quickly, fail fast then try again. No one is going to get their business model perfect on day 1, but as long as you apply a continuous improvement mindset and always focus on great customer outcomes, you really can’t go wrong.

To that end, it also really pays to take a day out every few months to focus on strategy. Get away from working in your business and devote time to work ON your business. Look at your company / service through a critical lens. If you were an external business consultant looking into you and your team what would you change, optimise, systemise, get rid of or improve upon?

Many thanks to you Kate, for sharing with us your thoughts and experience on growing a small business. Although based here in Australia, your success in achieving an international profile and gaining clients across the Middle-East , Asia and the U.S within the first year of starting your consulting business, can be an inspiration to other entrepreneurs.

 

About the interviewer
Brian Carroll is the founder of Performance Development, a training business in Melbourne, Australia.  He is an experienced management coach with a passion for helping people achieve their goals in life and business. You can find out more about Brian at his Google + profile

Growing Your Small Business – Working on your business and not in it (well, eventually)

If you’re a small business owner, then chances are that you’ve heard about the importance of working on the business and not just in the business. 

But it does take time, self-awareness and some careful planning to reach this “higher consciousness” state in the evolution of your small business.

In the early days – it’s all about YOU

In other words, when you first establish your business you tend to be working in the business. You’re doing a lot of the operational work yourself – whether your business is plumbing or printing or baking or graphic design or hairdressing or selling insurance. It’s usually a frantic time, characterised by long hours and with you wearing a lot of different hats to help keep your expenses to a minimum.
 
In this start-up infancy stage, your business is typically dependent upon your technical skills and perhaps many of your customers only want to deal directly with you …... This might be because they see you as the “expert” and the one who is best suited to solve their problem. Or maybe because of the good history and relationship they have in dealing directly with you. But the problem with this business model is that you can’t afford to get sick or go on holidays - otherwise sales and revenue slow down without your presence.

However, it’s so easy to get stuck in this stage without realising it – ‘cause you’re so busy. It just seems like there’s not enough time to step back, take a deep breath and think about where you’re heading. Your focus gets stuck in just churning the work out and meeting the next deadline. You’re grateful there’s plenty of work – even though it can be overwhelming. But the reason it’s so overwhelming, is that so much of it remains reliant upon you.

Shift from being a “doer” to being a manager

Working on the business is all about building something that becomes less and less reliant upon your presence. In other words, over time you will have developed the right processes and systems, and recruited the right staff, so that the business can operate without you. It can sometimes take a while to convince customers who are used to dealing with you that they can trust the expertise of other people in your team – but again you ease yourself gradually out of being central to these client relationships and sell your customers on the experience and credentials of your staff.

Eventually, as you continue to coach and mentor your staff, you find there is no longer the imperative that you yourself be performing the operational or technical duties. You encourage your staff - who are becoming more skilled and confident - to take on more responsibility and make more decisions themselves. The investment you have made in the growth and development of your staff becomes one of the foundations supporting the growth of your business. Another foundation will have been your investment in learning how to manage and motivate staff.

You transition yourself to being more of a manager who oversees the planning, organising and timely completion of wok by your team. As you release yourself of operational duties, you then have more time to focus on business development – generating new business through expanding your customer base and developing new marketing plans (and possibly even new products or services). It should be said that not all business owners are able to “let go” of operations .... Some have a deep fear of losing control that prevents them from empowering their staff to step up and show what they are really capable of.
 

One small business owner, who started his business with one partner in the building industry and ended up employing more than 20 staff said this to me “ For me, learning to let go took years ….. It began by slowly letting go of the need to know all of the details ….  However the real impetus came when my doctor told me quite firmly one day that I had to take immediate steps to lower my high blood pressure, much of which was thought to be caused by stress. Then I realised  that my health was going to seriously suffer if I didn’t find a way to delegate and trust”

Grow your staff, so you can grow your business

Lance Hampton, CEO and one of the Directors of Hoepners Supply Chain Solutions shared some thoughts on this theme of growing your business through people.

“One of Hoepners greatest strengths is the quality of our people. Our employees become part of the family as they grow their careers within the company. We know it is their dedication to service and quality that keeps our clients coming back for more.

The care we have taken in recruitment and then investing in the training of our employees has been one of the key reasons the company has seen such amazing growth - but this doesn’t happen by accident. It is our company policy to promote wherever possible from within and to mentor employees to work their way up to supervisory and management positions. They are provided with career guidance and professional development to help them fulfil their potential.  This is why we have a history of retaining high quality employees, who are attracted by the rewarding work environment combined with the competitive pay structure the company offers.

My experience has taught me that for a small business to grow and be successful in a sustainable manner, it must have a strong ethical core that is based upon valuing its employees. Having said that however, let me also add that your relationships with suppliers and customers are equally critical. A business must cultivate collaborative relationships - both within, but also with trading partners. Only when all of the parties are achieving their goals and outcomes will relationships endure”

Engaging specialists in your business 

So let’s assume that you have recruited and developed the right people – and that you have learned to trust them ……  Now you should be able to start enjoying some work-life balance, spending more time with your family, because the operational work is no longer so all-consuming for you.

At this point, if the business continues to grow you might perhaps elect to contract out some of your marketing to “experts” – seeking advice on how to improve your online marketing initiatives, lift your search engine rankings, better engage with your customers through the use of social media and build alliances and partnerships with allied businesses. Alternatively, you may even do the calculations and assess that it will be more cost-effective to actually employ someone to head up the marketing function within your business.

Consistent, stable growth allows you to employ specialists who are now respectively looking after the operations, the sales, the finances and the administration within your business  

             

Grooming another to be “general manager” of the business

Surrounding yourself with good quality capable people who you trust, and whom you ensure get to share in some of the rewards of the growth of your business, is one of the keys to sustainable growth. A fair reward system for good staff is essential if you want to motivate your employees and retain them over time. So too is developing clear, efficient and documented procedures and systems that underpin the operations of your business

But developing a business that can genuinely function independently of you requires that you eventually start to groom a successor who can lead and manage the future of the business moving forward. This will ideally be someone from within your organisation whom you have identified possesses the right type of leadership capabilities, combined with the necessary drive to continue to grow the business. But you may need to conduct an external search to locate and attract the right person for this “general manager” role.

A company director who is no longer a manager

And once you have all of these building blocks in place – then low and behold there comes the day when you can enjoy the fruits of “semi-retirement”. As a hands-off director of the business, you have a capable general manager who is running the business and simply reporting to you.  You might perhaps continue to be involved with formulating and overseeing business strategy (perhaps thinking about franchising your business) – but you are no longer involved with the daily, weekly or monthly operations of the business.

Congratulations – your infant has grown into a young successful independent adult making their own decisions - although still consulting with you occasionally for a little advice and guidance during troubled times. This wouldn’t have happened unless you had learned how to delegate and could recognise when to start letting go.

Stepping back from the business

In closing, the point I hope you take away is this. In the same way that a parent can be guilty of holding on to their kids too tightly, the same mistake can be made by the small business owner.

Hold on too tightly and your business won’t grow. It will remain forever limited by the extent of your own capacity and your own expertise. But once you start giving good people in your business some genuine freedom to make decisions and take action – guiding them in their learning and judgement, then you really are building a strong foundation for your future business growth. What’s more, it’s likely you’ll be able to enjoy it too.

 © Copyright 2013. Brian Carroll is the founder of Performance Development - a leadership training and management coaching company based in Melbourne, Australia.