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Bubble Enterprises 5th Annual Enterprise and Mental Health Conference
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2. Definition of Entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is the “ creative mindset ” that drives individuals to create new ideas and bring these to the market in a way appropriate to create value for an external audience (Faltin, 2007)
19. Commissioning Perspective –Enterprise and Self Directed Support. The Stockport Experience Nick Dixon Joint Commissioning Manager, Mental Health Bubble Conference18 th June 2010 Individual Budgets
Good afternoon, my name is belinda barnard, I am going to talk to you today about Partnership Working, and I am going to tell you about a group that I was involved with for 14 years that brought independent hardware retailers together, under one brand right across the UK from the shetland isles to the south coast of england and in northern ireland. These retailers were in different communities, towns, villages, city centres, in different sized stores, and , at the time of joining had different product ranges ,
So why would they band together, the good with the mediocre, the wise with the foolish, the large with the small? What would drive them together, change theit ranges, buy from the group suppliers, change the name over the door and pay for the privellege? What did they all have in common that caused the group to grow to over 200 stores What they had in common was a desire to improve their stores, train their staff and raise their profits and a willingness to compromise in order to achieve their dream and to fit in with group activity.
Well, all over the developed world there are groups of businesses operating like this, in all different industries and the with owners from all walks of life, but all of these business are owned and managed by run by like minded people, people who want to improve, strive to do better, want to grow their business for the good of the customer, the good of the staff and to improve their own lives,
Anyone who wants to do better, be better and achieve more and are willing to participate, share and commit themselves and their business to the group. We had lots of members, some with one store, some with more than one store, they all had their own reasons for joining Mica, Mr Thompson from Radstock was 70 years old when he joined the group, he promised his wife that when they had increased their turnover by 20% that would pay for a manager and then they would retire, the business grew by 20% in the first year, but Tom was enjoying himself so much, he never retired, and I am sure that’s exactly what his wife expected. Joyce Hall from Chapel en le Frith, she joined because turnover was falling and she was worried that they would have to close the business, within a couple of years her turnover had risen 250% and expanded into the kitchen showroom forcing her husband to go and find another premises for his business, Others had a son or nephew who would inherit the business and wanted them to have a support structure in place for when the business became theirs, others wanted to sell up and needed to find a buyer and thought it would be easier if the business had more value and was part of a group that would help the new owner – We had large sucessful flagship shops who had seen the deesimation of the market place and joined the group to add their weight with the suppliers and help out the little guy, the fact that their own business grew by double digits year on year for the first 3 years was an added bonus. But I can hear you say, what’s that got to do with me, it’s an interesting storey but my business is different, bigger, more complicated, that really is an excuse, all like minded business can benefit from banding together, sharing the economies of scale, sharing best practice and supporting and being supported by your peers. There are many simillar oragnisations operating in this way, some with household names, others in the background and you will never know them. Here are just a few
Things that work well in a group; All the things that you pay less for if you buy a lot – leaflets, advertsing space, products, uniforms, carrier bags – in those days you were allowed to use them! Purchasing, group terms negotiations, price, service, information, cohesion Branding, Advertising and Marketing, point of sale, leaflet distributions, TV Advertising Systems, creation, improvement, identifying and adopting best practice
We introduced group standards, and people to police it, we had light meters and we upped the lighting to 1000 lux so the customers could see the products, we introduced mixed margins so we looked cheap on the products that the superstores looked cheap on and we could be just as expensive as them on the lines you didn’t know the price of, and you know what, we could compete, we could match their prices and we made more money, When we told people what we had we sold more products, we had dissention, Ted Ray Ted’s Mica Hardware in Stretford, told me I was an idiot if I thought he would sell log baskets, n-one has a real fire any more, all his cusomers lived in high rise flats, waste of time, a week later he phoned me up, do you know, Belinda he said, the first person through the door when the leaflets went out came in and asked for a log basket, have you got a log fire I asked her, no she said, but it’s just what I need to throw in the kids toys when they go to bed! The services here are too many to mention, let’s just say we provided a lot, a lot more than they had before and it worked, it was our dream to turn shops like this
Into shops like
We introduced uniforms so the customers could spot the staff, ask questions and make a purchase, we printed banners and posters to tell passers by that we had great prices and inform them about our ranges, we brought retailers together at meetings on a National and regional basis to keep informed, share experience, stop reinventing the wheel put your energy into proven improvements that are guaranteed to make a difference, What I didn’t know was we also supporting entrepreneurs from the Mental health arena, one lady explained to me that her husband had given up his job as a natioanl sales manager after a period of lillness, they had bought a hardware store, then another and really struggled even then to get the economies of scale, her husband slipped further into depression and would never have worked in 20 years if they hadn’t had their business, and she would never have been able to run the business if it wasn’t for the support of Mica. So quitely because he wouldn’t want anyone to know, she had broken the taboo and admitted that there was a mental health problem, they were dealing with it and the business is what got him up in the morning, and if he couldn’t get up it was still there for him when he could. Amongst our members was a wholle mixture of people, recovering alcoholics, current alcoholics, depression, anxiety, aspsergus sydrome, that I knew of.
Benchmarking – group information supplied anonymously to all the group so they could compare how their own store was performing relative to others. Sales per sqft Sales per employee Average salary for staff Rent Sales growth/contraction over 3 years Peer support, independent businesses can be isolated and have no-one’s relevant experience to draw from, always re-inventing the wheel. Visiting and sharing ideas and information with non-competing businesses in the same industry, brotherhood. Example; Homebase opening in same town as Mica store, patterns emerging, battle plans drawn up, thrive and survive, despair and capitulation avoided. New product recommendations We aslo mystery shopped the stores, we engaged a professional mystery shopping company and designed a brief and what we were looking for, what a shock it was for the members when we announced it at the national conference, they had no idea that they’d been mystery shopped, we annonymously presented some of the comments that came back, What were the staff doing as you entered the shop – sitting on the counter and smoking! Eating their lunch – chips and gravy Chatting Ignoring me We asked for the answer to a diy problem, did they have the answer? Some right some wrong, some embarrassed faces But it did add a lot of fun, the following month as one of the members wrestled a shoplifter to the floor and his manager sat on the man whilst the owner rang the police, one shouted to the other, “ I hope it’s not the bloody mystery shopper”
I have now joined Bubble Enterprises to help out cafes in the mental health arena to work together in the same way under one brand for the good of the business, the staff and volunteers and the supply chain who are made up of people from the mental health community many of whom have stood before you today.