Albé, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much
Thanks for joining CEOwise
Very nice to be and thanks to the opportunity.
Awesome, now you started USN
when the supplement market was quite saturated, how did you find the gap in the market?
Well, I really saw an opportunity with, you know, between the
imported products in the local product at the time, you know, there were quite a
few international brands that came in to South Africa which were quite expensive,
but the quality was good because the market was already so developed in America.
and there were quite a few local supplement brands which at
the time you know the quality just wasn't great and they were very
inexpensive, you know, so that's basically where I positioned USN,
you know, a cost-effective price obviously not as cheap as the local
products, because it's produced in a, you know, in a pharmaceutical facility, but
much more inexpensive than the imported products.
In the beginning you didn't have
a clear strategy, it was more like just sell as many products as possible. Yeah.
In hindsight do you think it would have been better to have a clearer strategy or
you're happy that it developed as time went on?
A strategy probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, because I came from such a low
base and I had no, zero business background either, you know, so to figure
out a strategy and to work according to this stratedy would have you know
required me to have a lot of business experience which I didn't have.
I don't think a strategy would have made much of a difference because you actually really
just maneuver as the market moved, you know, and as other
opportunities arised, because it was really a matter of trying to get into
stores, there was a lot of resistance so yeah I would say a lot of other
businesses probably strategy and especially now strategy and growth
strategy is much more important than anything else, but at that point it
didn't make a difference.
So after being fully hands-on in the beginning
and then letting go of the reins a little in order to grow you
discovered some major losses, which now you've overcome them and put key
people in place do you think you still, since then, have gone back to
having a more hands-on approach?
I wouldn't start that I've got a very hands-on
approach, I've got a much more of a strategic approach at this stage of the
game, you know. I realized that it wasn't just a matter of handing over my
responsibilities or, you know, the hang on situation that how I was managing
the business at the time it was to the wrong people unfortunately. If I
were lucky enough to have the right people at the time, you know, that would
have been a good thing. So it was really just a lot of school fees and, you
know, making a couple of expensive mistakes by getting the wrong
people in the business when we went through growth phases. Obviously for a
business to grow I was realistic about the fact that I cannot have a very hands-on
and be involved in every division in the business as much as I wanted to like I
was in the beginning, but then again I'm also not the best financial guy, I'm not
the best market, I'm not the best at anything in the business. What I do know
is where we want to take the business. I see the opportunities in the market and I
see trends and, you know, I find more creative ways of delivering a
better quality product at a better price to the consumers and that's where a lot of my
focus lies.
You've had major success with USN in South African and now you've
expanded to UK, Belgium, Australia and now you've gone into the US market. What has
surprised you with the way the different markets operate and the different countries operator?
The UK for me was was obviously very challenging at first
because you're entering an environment where you're not familiar
with the culture, you're in meetings with people you don't really read between the
lines, because you don't know where the lines exactly are, and the moment that
you sort of get a grip for their culture and, you know, you sort of get a feel
for what it is they want to see in hear and, you know, what makes them tick and
what makes them want to do business with you it makes it so much easier, but that
takes a while and that takes being there, and that takes actually spending time you,
know, with the retailers and the manufacturers and really absorb, you
know, and digesting and putting that into a number and, you know, and develop
the brand according to that. What I realized quite quickly is that you
cannot duplicate what you've done here and what worked here just in other countries
it's not going to work. You've got to really zoom
in to where the differences are. From a retail point of view the differences in
the countries are really cultural differences, you know, and the way retail
works in each country is different and then again, you know, the entire
dynamics of retailers changed in the last couple years with online, you know, which
we got to continuously adapt to as well. And how did you define your goals for each
country. Do you say set a specific, want a specific market share in each country?
Well, starting off in the UK which is the first country we we launched into
it was really just to get the turnover up, whichever way we're going to
do it, you know, it's finding retail partners and really working it hard,
and once you've got the retail partners you gotta try and identify
what is it that the consumers are looking for. So it's never like we set
specific sales goals in place because you're either going to be
disappointed or you're going to undersell yourself and you're
not going to be reaching the sales as quick as you can,
you know, so there's often a danger in setting a specific sales goal I've noticed.
What do you think was the defining moment that turned your South
African business into a billion rand business?
One of the defining moments was definitely getting a good CA into the business,
who understood business and who understood finances very well.
So that was definitely the defining moment, you know, because
on a daily basis you could see where you're tracking, where your profitability
is tracking, where your GP is tracking, where your expenses are tracking and so
on, and we could eliminate unnecessary expenses to finance the growth of the business
So that was definitely the turning point.
Albé, where to from here with USN?
There's always so many challenges while you
want to grow while you want to go through your next phase. It's about
addressing those challenges and using the momentum of it in a positive way to
grow, because everyone's really facing the same challenges, you know,
the market's is becoming much more competitive and it's our responsibility to make use
of the resources out there to develop and produce the absolute best
quality products. So it's an ongoing innovation and, you know, and a
creative process. So where to from here? Well I would have said
this 15 years ago when I started the business, I just want to keep on growing
this business and do whatever it takes to grow the business as big as we can
grow the business. I want USN in every country in the world. Business is
an exciting game, you know, that's the thing that wakes us up in the morning,
I love the brand and I want the world to love the brand.
Awesome, well Albé, thank you so much. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it
thank you
Cheers Dan.
Cheers.