Every week a new episode of the life and times of Daniel. I have been gripped and watched all 204 episodes to date
Using an Asda self serve scanner with 50 items
Used this self scan at @asda today to buy 50 items. Between my slowness and the software lag we counted 12 customers served in the same time it took me with roughly same or bigger trolley. Not quite the future of retail yet #retail #retailtech
The focus of any business plan in the Cultural sector
There are only three states of any business:
- Not generating enough money to cover your running costs – Danger zone
- Meeting your budget by balancing costs so that your income covers your running costs
- Generating a net surplus above and beyond your running costs
The first means close up shop so that’s assume that isn’t us.
Option two is where most cultural organisations sit and should be the initial focus for everyone. Either generate enough money to cover your running costs before your reserves or line of credit runs out and/or reduce your running costs until money in/out match. Its not the most comfortable place to be but perfectly respectable. Most of the folks I meet have 2-4 years to get to this magic number. A commercial business would have 90-180 days. Apply the 80/20 rule. where you apply 80% of your focus on the 20% that will offer the best way to get to the magic number. For example 20% of our retail products deliver approx 80% of our revenue. Same with venue hire customers.
Once you are able to meet budget you can then consider option three generating a surplus. Option’s two and three should be running in parallel where possible (see my thoughts on Scale elsewhere). Option three is about using any surplus to build the future – reserves, continuous improvement (that lead to further surplus of money or resource) and enabling activity not possible under the other conditions.
Most folks in the sector don’t write a business plan to know which of the three states they are in. Write it down. Use Seth Godin’s “The Modern Business Plan“.
Notes from Andrew Jennings at the Bristol Distinguished Address Series
Wednesday 23 October 2019
Title: The Changing Retail Landscape and how to succeed
To succeed you must be inspiring, innovating and trying new things all the time. Examples of three business doing this well are Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Primark. Two words for success: “Be relevant”.
Ask yourself and your business to write four bullet points to show why you are relevant e.g:
- Do you know your customer – their wants, needs and desires?
- Are you innovating – what are you doing in all areas to make customer needs and improve the business?
- Do you hire talented people – give them training and then space to grow as people make or break the business. You need leaders to inspire, management to ruthlessly implement (failure happens) and exceed expectations
- Do you keep change at the centre of your business – always move forward and get the whole team to move together to avoid silos
Homework
- am I doing everything I can be doing to thrill my customer?
- what am I doing to make my staff go from good to great?
- is the business making positive changes to succeed?
His book is Almost is Not Good Enough ISBN 9781911195641
Sell what people are asking you to sell
At work we sell approx 50 types of goods or service. We sell goods in our shops for example and our services include permitting, steam train rides, educational workshops and much more. Transactions none the less. I regularly get asked how to start a new revenue stream. For me the answer is simple for a good proportion of the time: Start by selling goods or services that people are already asking us for. Simple.
Case in point are the studios at M Shed. The original purpose was for the delivery of education activity. When not in use, staff would use the space for internal activity, meetings and the like. There was wriggle room for different uses. Any use that wasn’t the original intention or primary purpose I call a “by-product”. Sometime during 2015 we started to get enquiries for hiring a space that was smaller than our event suite. The event suite on the top floor was originally the only space for hire. We soon agreed with the learning team that they and us would both have access to the booking diary and use the space for education or private hire aka a new by-product. Every year since 2015 we have seen growth in the booking of this space which generates something like 5% additional revenue at this point. We didn’t transform or innovate, we simply responded to a user need and make a healthy stream of revenue.
What are people asking you for that perhaps could be the start of tens of thousands of pounds?