- Hey gang. I'm back in business.
Welcome to the YouTube channel
designed to help grow your business.
I say that I'm back in business.
I'm back in the office for the first time in 4 months,
working with my team, I'm super-excited.
But I'm gonna tell you about the things
that I've struggled with over the last 4 months
so that you in turn can grow your business.
If you're new here, make sure you Subscribe,
Like and Comment below as we go,
'cause I wanna know what you're thinking. Let's go.
(upbeat music)
So guys here we are.
We're outside the Farm Shop,
which is our brand new business that we set up
during the pandemic, during the coronavirus.
And I had to do this,
because I wanted to keep my team in play.
And basically, this was an old barn that we had
that wasn't really doing anything.
We did run our pumpkin, picking patch from here
in October half term.
But we've turned it into a full shop.
Now we started just click and collect,
but now it's people can come in and shop.
And it's going really well.
Let me just give you a little tour 'round inside.
One of the biggest problems are these bad boys.
29p we're selling these for.
Costs us about 22p to buy in.
That's like 7 pence.
You've got to do a lot of 7p's to make some money
to pay for the staff, pay for the electric.
I mean, that fridge over there,
I think, is 3 pound 50 a day.
And you work out, you've got loads of fridges and freezers
and all of that.
Yeah, it's just so much, that's a margin.
That's one of my biggest struggles
with this type of business.
How can you protect the margin?
How can you get margin to pay for the Xs in the business?
I've got an idea and how we can do that
with my rewards card,
which I think is something that all businesses
should be doing. Come on.
So here it is, this is my rewards card,
the idea that I've come up with,
'cause I'm a big fan of making the customers
feel like members of your business.
Costco do this, Amex do this.
So when you sign up to the reward card, 6 pound 95 a month,
you get exclusive offers at 5% discount on everything.
But my feelings are, if we can get 1,000 members signed up
and that sort of 6,950 a month, times 12,
then there's a big chunk of profit there before you start.
I think I've got this idea.
Costco make most of their profits from their members,
from membership fees.
And I think it make people choose us
because they're paying to be a part of us
and we'll give them the best customer service, best deals,
better deals than anyone else.
So we're gonna start dual-pricing everything in the shop.
So, if it's 6.99 for non-members, 5.50 for members you see.
And that's one of my ideas of my increasing the margin
in the shop to be able to look after people.
Next thing is joint ventures to get customers.
One of my biggest struggles during the pandemic
was doing our traditional marketing methods.
So we like doing what I call very non-digital marketing,
like leaflets through doors, high street,
giving leaflets out, doing food tasting sessions,
because that's how people to really taste your stuff.
And I've thought, "Oh my God,
that's really difficult to do through this pandemic."
So what we looked for was to joint venture with people
that had followings like Cook, fantastic Kent-based company,
they do frozen food prepared by chefs
and then immediately frozen.
They've got a following.
So what they did on their social media following
were saying, "Hey, we're now stocking at Marsh Farm."
We went further, we also done it with Rossi Ice Cream.
Just stay here Chuds, have a couple of these bad boys.
Look at these.
See, this is Rossi Ice Cream of Southend-on-Sea.
If you're from Essex, like your big thing,
this is like, "Whoa!" it's an Essex staple part of diet.
So they're sending people to us, they're saying,
"Look we're stocked at Marsh Farm."
Now that's great. That brings customers to us.
So we've been looking at
loads of joint venture partnerships.
I don't think small business owners and SMEs do that enough.
Now you can do that through Instagram influences,
but it really helps to get customers
and get people through your doors.
And we've done that about 7 or 8 different products
in the shop that have driven customers to us for free.
Next thing I've really struggled with
is accepting that standards are not gonna be as good.
I mean, like these white poles up here
and not getting all the shop units in
and understanding that we didn't even have trolleys
when we started.
I think there was a big lesson here for entrepreneurs.
And with this pandemic,
we've all had to learn that things
can't always be as perfect as you want them to be
and I've had to accept that.
But we've improved, we've continuously improved.
I think that's the big message here.
Start now and improve and get better and better.
And then you're on your way aren't you?
And then you can start building a great business.
It's a big lesson for entrepreneurship.
And my last biggest struggle has been
not working with my team.
I'm a big believer that working with your team
drives innovation, drives culture,
drives the business forward.
These people here are our Head Office, our HQ people,
that are driving those ideas for them,
turning stuff into reality.
Now there's some big movements at the moment
saying that people are not gonna work in offices anymore,
that we don't need to work in offices anymore,
that we don't need to be around team members.
I completely disagree.
I think we're tribal people, human beings.
Yeah, there might be some bitchiness, not in our office.
We just won't accept it.
But that's bad culture in a business.
And that needs to be repaired.
So much so that I posted this little video on LinkedIn
where it's got quite controversial.
People haven't agreed with me.
Said, "James, I think you're wrong.
I don't think we do need to be in an office environment."
Well, I think they're wrong.
And I made this video here.
If you click it, that's my last video
where I'm talking about all the reasons
why working with people is so important.
Click it here, make sure you subscribe to the channel
by clicking here.
Comment below and let me know what you think,
and I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.
(upbeat music)