We interviewed Colin Stevens, founder and managing director of Better Bathrooms, for this month’s “Business in the Spotlight”.

Here’s what we discovered about the business, the man behind the business and his journey as a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Business Academy.

Tell me about your business?

Better Bathrooms is a leading multi channel bathroom and tiles retailer selling bathroom suites, fixtures and tiles.

Customers can buy online at www.betterbathrooms.com, in in our three showrooms, over the telephone and through our mail order catalogue.

When did you set up your original business?

The business was set up just over 10 years ago from my bedroom. I was 21 years of age.

How did you come up with your big business idea then?

I was already selling clothes and golf equipment online and was looking to branch into as many channels as possible. My parents were working for a tap manufacturer and said “why don’t you try selling taps?”

The next day I gave it ago, 5 days later I was selling so many taps at a fantastic margin I decided to concentrate solely on bathrooms. 10 Years later, we now have over 100 staff, 3 stores, a huge website with thousands of customers daily and millions of pounds worth of stock.

What’s your USP?

Its quite simple: we deliver exactly what our company slogan states, better prices…. better service …. better bathrooms.

Our products are of the highest quality at the lowest prices, we stock all products which means we are in a unique place to deliver the goods on a next day delivery, or most importantly when the customer wants it. We are exactly the kind of company I’d like to buy from.

What has been your biggest challenge to date?

Honestly, keeping up with the growth and breaking through the barriers that growth creates.

What element of the business do you enjoy the most?

I love having a vision and buzz off making things happen.

Of late I’ve really enjoyed seeing career progression, especially with employees who have been with us for such a long time. We believe in investing in our staff, its great to see them progress and grow with the company. I’d have it no other way. I believe in my team and they demonstrate daily their belief in the business and the vision.

What is your favourite motivational quote?

“Were here for a good time not a long time” – I’m not sure who said it.

I think of this when times are hard and the pressure gets intense. At times running a business makes you blind to what life’s really about and what’s ALSO important. When I think of this quote I think of all the people who wish they were still alive and it makes me realize how lucky we are and it always puts me in better a mindset to enjoy the rest of my day whatever the day is like.

I truly believe that if you can make work fun…. its easier to enjoy.

What personal attributes do you think contribute to success in business?

Vision, planning, determination and hard work ethic, luck, communication, cash flow and profitability. In a nutshell! AND having the right idea for a business that people actually want!

How Important is social media to your business?

Very important for us, we use it to communicate with customers daily. Every day we check review websites to see what our customers are saying, we ask every customer to leave us feedback… good or bad, it’s a great way to get a good overview on how we are performing. Facebook and twitter is a very cheap way of gaining followers and we send company news and product information all the time – we get a lot of engagement this way.

What one piece of advice would you give someone thinking of starting a business for the first time?

Research your market, make a plan and make it happen, stop talking and take action today!

Where did you hear about EBA?

Funny enough, through social media (Twitter) – I then followed it up and attended a seminar in London and I’ve been going to as many EBA events as possible ever since.

Why did you join the EBA?

I felt I wasn’t polished enough as a leader and The EBA has definitely proved to be a fantastic polishing school for entrepreneurs.

What have been the core benefits so far?

KNOWLEDGE. The EBA has helped me to evaluate every situation and I’ve become a more educated (D PROFILE) – for those who don’t know about DISC profiling….check it out at www.bevjames.com

What would be the main reason for you to recommend The EBA to others?

Knowledge and understanding. It’s the things you don’t know that can get you in trouble and you don’t know what you don’t know!

Colin Stevens
Managing Director
Better Bathrooms

Telephone: 0844 484 7678
Website: www.BetterBathrooms.com
Twitter: @BetterBathrooms
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/betterbathrooms
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/betterbathrooms
Google+ Business Page: https://plus.google.com/110007083436828428438/posts 

IN SUMMARY:

Bev James says: “Colin is one of the most impressive business people I have met. From a young age he showed that he had the drive, focus and determination required to achieve great things in business. Colin has big plans for Better Bathrooms and I believe he will achieve anything he sets his mind upon ~ he definitely knows the power of the right entrepreneurial mindset!”

James Caan says: “Colin is a natural retailer and an impressive entrepreneur. It is very satisfying to hear how The EBA is supporting Colin, especially in terms of leadership skills, as these are essential for any business to grow.”

“The customer is always right” is a well-known mantra, because without customers you have no business, it is their needs that feed a business’s sales.

Getting business from your existing customers is less costly and unpredictable than attracting new ones, so retaining customers is vital for survival.

Customer’s reasons for leaving:

• 5% of Customers leave us because they die
• 5% of Customers leave us because they move-on, i.e. their business closes, they merge, etc
• 9% of Customers leave for competitive reasons
• 13% of Customers leave due to unresolved conflict
• 68% of Customers leave because they feel we don’t care; they feel that we are indifferent to them and so they move on to someone who does care about them and is keen to have their business

Source: How to Win Customers and Keep them for Life – Michael LeBoeuf

So how can we ensure that we keep our Customers for Life?

Our primary objective must be to ensure that the Customer Experience is outstanding – and this means, whether or not, the particular product or service meets or exceeds expectations. If marketing is the “promise” and operations is “the delivery of the promise”, then the customer experience is where marketing meets operations!

Customers have 5 simple requirements:

• Don’t waste our time
• Remember who we are
• Make it easy for us to order and get service
• Make sure your service delights us
• Customise your products and services

Above all customers want consistency of quality, approach, style and manner and this can be easily achieved by introducing a Customer Service Policy. It is of no use to simply have a Customer Service Policy – it needs to become a central part of your business – with its importance conveyed to everyone involved.

The larger your team and the more spread out you are within the office or geographical location, the harder it can be to ensure consistency but this is no excuse not to implement one.

Customer-centric businesses flourish and thrive

A Customer Service Policy should include:

2-way communication with your Customers

Ask your customers to critique your service and other elements of your business.

Listening to what your customer’s don’t like and what they would prefer changed allows you to make appropriate changes and turn a dissatisfied customer into a delighted customer.

A Customer Complaints Procedure

The way you manage and handle complaints can turn an unhappy customer into a loyal one.

Be sure that everyone within your organisations knows and understands your expectations. Give explanations and solutions – don’t make excuses. Excuses undermine your credibility (and your customer doesn’t want to be burdened with your problems).

You need to set down clear guidelines on timeframes involved for dealing with any problems – quite often, the faster you respond, the better the result.

Staff Training

First impressions are lasting impressions and if you want them to be positive impressions you need to ensure that your values are being transmitted throughout your company, at every level (and of course, throughout your marketing material and website).

You need to ensure that everyone understands what is appropriate and what is not in terms of courtesy, sharing information and behaviour with customers.

Does everyone answer the phone in a consistently polite manner and do they know how to field calls professionally and appropriately?

Under-promise and Over-deliver

Always go the extra mile and exceed expectations as often as you can. Develop a promise and keep it – don’t ever disappoint – it’s simply not worth it.

The Customer Experience

As business owners, it is easy to forget that the customer experience is probably the only thing that matters in your business. Customers would rather be treated well than treated badly. Customers remember exceptional service and tell others – they can become your No.1 fans – so it is vital that every single step of their journey is remarkable.

When was the last time you looked at your business through your customer’s eyes?

It is important to spend a day walking in your customer’s shoes – so you can really see what is involved.

• Phone in with an enquiry – see how you are spoken to, how long did it take for the phone to be answered, how knowledgeable was the person on the end of the phone?
• Complete an enquiry form on the internet – how easy was it to complete? How long did it take to receive a response to your enquiry?
• Make an order online – was it easy? How long did delivery take? How was communication throughout the process?
• Make an order over the phone – was it easy?
• When the goods arrive – do they arrive in good condition? Are they on time?

The London 2012 website is steadily counting down the days to the London Olympics, and already the dissenters have started to grumble about the disruption it will cause.

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has gone so far as to say that he can foresee some theatres closing for the duration of the Games because (apart from for musicals) advance ticket sales are so low for this time of year.

I love the theatre so I must admit this piqued my interest as I thought it was a surprisingly defeatist comment.

None of us really knows how the Olympic summer will affect business, because we haven’t hosted a Games since 1948. The Olympics could be one of the greatest marketing opportunities – especially for Londoners – that we have had for years.

But what may bring good fortune to one business can mean disaster for another.

Each business owner will be considering the potential impact on their own sector.

The important thing is not to put your head in the sand – and to either work out a strategy to maximise the potential that the increased footfall might bring, or work out a plan to minimise any potential negative impact.

Lord Lloyd-Webber is quoted as saying that current hotel bookings are running at 10 per cent of normal tourist levels.

Based on this knowledge, his assessment is that theatres will experience ‘a bloodbath of a summer’ compared with figures year on year. But of course, this isn’t a normal year.

Yes, hotels will be difficult to book and many have increased their prices. But on the other hand, most will be full, with people seeking some kind of evening entertainment.

You could argue that as people are already carrying the cost of accommodation and transport they may as well take the opportunity to go to a show too.

There is a common assumption that people interested in sport are not necessarily interested in theatre but what about the increased number of other family members and overseas visitors?

Because there are two schools of thought. One would be: ticket sales are down, so the theatres won’t be busy. The other would be: London is going to be busier than ever – how could we get more people to the theatre?

Now of course, I know nothing about the costs or realities of running a theatre production, and Lord Lloyd-Webber is a talented man with years of experience – but several ‘what ifs’ went through my mind as I read the interview:

• What if – he is being defeatist at the wrong point? The sales peak may happen at a different point this year.
• What if  – the theatres jointly funded a press campaign to remind people that British theatre is in a class of its own, and that there will be extra demand this year – so get your tickets early?
• What if – the theatres partnered with the Olympic organisers to sell theatre tickets and to make British theatre part of the Cultural Olympiad that is running alongside the Games?
• What if – the theatres partnered with restaurants and hotels to offer more incentives to their clients to pre-book tickets?
• What if  – instead of seeing the Olympics as a negative, the focus was instead on the increased number of people who will be visiting the Capital – including the families of diplomats, sportspeople, volunteers and others – not all of whom will be sport-focused?
• What if  – closing some theatres during the Olympic fortnight turned out to be a missed opportunity? After all, there are overheads that need to be covered irrespective of whether a business is trading during those weeks. What could have been a bumper year can’t become so, if the peak months are taken out of the equation.

The bottom line is that Sir Andrew knows his business, is assessing the situation and will have to make some difficult decisions.

That’s what being a business leader is all about.

Besides – he knows that in the big scheme of things, the Olympics will put London back on the map and draw more theatre goers next year.

BUT, if it was your business, would you make the same decision?

What can you do differently to make the Olympic Games work for your business?

What steps are you willing to take to ensure that ‘the show must go on’?

By Bev James

If there is anyone who knows how to grow a business it is James Caan.

As well as being co-founder of The EBA he is a serial entrepreneur and runs his successful private equity firm, Hamilton Bradshaw.

We asked him to reflect on his success stories so you can learn from his lessons.

Has the value of your portfolio continued to rise despite the tough economic conditions?

We’ve doubled the value of our portfolio. I’m genuinely quite surprised because in the current climate it shouldn’t really happen.

So why’s it doing better? I think it’s because our model is quite unique. Most private equity and venture capital firms are essentially financial specialists- bankers, lawyers, and accountants. That’s great when they market is doing well. But there’s a journey between doing a deal and exiting. Regrettably, private equity firms don’t actually do a great deal during the journey.

So they’re learning from the mistakes you’ve made in the past?

I’ve lived through two recessions. In 1992 I nearly went out of business, posting our accounts we’d made £1,500.

We were technically insolvent and there was a period where I got to Friday and didn’t have the money to pay the wages.

Why was I in that position? I didn’t cut fat enough because I didn’t know how, I hadn’t faced it before.

In practical terms how do you offer the value the businesses require?

This is not about turning up once a month at a board meeting.

I work seven days a week, which is why I’m in the office on a Saturday and Sunday. I’m in the office at 8am and don’t leave until 10 or 11pm at night.

People might think that’s mad but I am really passionate about what I do so I am eternally motivated.

Describe what you do with each business

We track what they do scientifically. We’ve redesigned all the key performance indicators (KPIs) of all the businesses we’re monitoring.

The drivers for your business will always change so it’s good to review your KPIs regularly.

Give us an example

Webrecruit is an online recruitment business we invested in last year.

When we came on board it was making £100,000 net profit. But while it was doing that its free cash flow was negligible. It was literally living hand to mouth.

A year later, we’ve taken the business from £100,000 to £1m net profit.

So how did you turn the business around?

It’s the same business, it has the same management. In a market when we should have reduced headcount we’ve increased it by 50%, by getting them to focus on the markets that were performing.

It’s a bit like going into a shop and they’ve got too much stock. Sometimes businesses don’t listen to their customers.

The only person I’m interested in listening to is the guy that’s going to buy my product and write my cheque. I’m not interested in anyone else because it’s free, it’s cheap and it’s worthless.

Is this something you see with a lot of the businesses you come across?

A lot of businesses have customers that they’ve had historically and don’t make any money out of – key accounts, with low margins.

We’ve  looked at improvements in productivity, customer margin, customer concentration, improvement in focus on sectors that are clearly doing better than others.

We’ve  looked at the productivity levels within the workforce and the people that are not productive that we physically couldn’t afford to keep.

What have you learnt in the last two years about yourself, business and investment?

I’ve learnt that people are afraid of risk, because a risk is only a risk if you don’t understand it – it becomes a calculated risk if you understand it. If you can’t take risks, you’ll never move on.

So I’ve become obsessed with understanding risk on every level. I analyse it to death because once I’ve got to the root of it, I understand it, which means I can take it. It’s had a profound impact on my mindset and how I think and manage my business.

Finally, what rules should the businesses you mentor abide by to move forward?

There are two things.

Firstly, the skill in business is not to know the answer, but to know the right questions to ask.

Secondly, the thing I’ve taught any entrepreneurs or EBA members I’ve had the pleasure of meeting is that it’s not all about winning the battle; it’s about winning the war.

Too many entrepreneurs become obsessed with the battles – and then they lose the war.

When we first start businesses many of us, leap into the fray without much thought for what’s going to happen next month or next year because we are concentrating so hard on the here and now and the challenges that we face on a day to day basis.

However the only way for any business to be successful long term is to focus on the long term, and that means giving some thought to the future strategy, direction, plans and objectives for your business overall as well as for the detailed tactic you want to employ for your products, services, customers, reporting, marketing and so on.

To be a truly successful entrepreneur you need to not only see the future of your own business but also to have some concept of where your business fits with the broader economy and to create some contingency plans of how to flex your business when the markets or economy changes.

Very few businesses have this level of planning but it is vital for long term success, growth and profit that you get a broad understanding of these issues.

Without a doubt this long term view also provides you with motivation and if you keep focusing on this end picture it clearly shows you the direction in which to go, together with giving you the impetus to constantly keep driving towards that success.

Getting Started

Most people now accept that in order to become wealthy you have to do more than one thing.

Isolated and extreme one off investment or business opportunities do occasionally create massive returns but in order to obtain long term, secure and continual wealth we need to make sure that we plant ‘wealth creating seeds’ in a variety of places and we need to do it OFTEN!

Now this repetitive investment approach can clearly be understood when we look at investments such as property or stocks and shares, but it is just as relevant when looking at business – as long as you view business as an asset itself, and look at it as a discreet and identifiable separate entity.

That means looking at the system of business creation!

But before we do that let’s consider business as an opportunity – why would we want to do it? Well we have evidence that business works as a wealth creating tool:

Of the working millionaires in the UK 63% (39% own their own business and another 24% are “self employed”) own or work in their own business

So if you want to be wealthy, just copy what wealthy people do and get involved in businesses!

However, one important thing to do is to do a check up on yourself! What kind of entrepreneur are you cut out to be?

In all successful business start ups there are two things to consider, the business itself and the person doing the starting – or the business founder.

And although we ideally want a passive business, where the founder eventually takes a back seat, we have to acknowledge that initially the founder needs to inject the passion and ideas and kick start the opportunity – so are you capable of giving that kick start?

The writer Joseph Heller once said:

“I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy”.

….please makes sure it isn’t you!

Almost certainly, anyone can start their own business, but people have to create businesses in the way that suits them in the first instance.

For example, let’s consider an international entrepreneur that most of us will know – Richard Branson.

Richard Branson is such a highly developed entrepreneur that we could give him any one of our business ideas, and he would make it work. But was that true in the beginning for him – of course not. If you read any of his books you will see that his early business ventures were slightly haphazard and unfocused – and we all start off that way.

So that presents you with two personal issues:

What sort of entrepreneur are you now and what sort of entrepreneur do you want to become?

Very few of us are natural entrepreneurs so it helps to discover how we are likely to react to the situation and how we can plan for our personal strengths and weaknesses – remember that none of us are good at everything!

Make your life easy for yourself and build your initial business around who you are and what you have, and not what you’re missing!

So a fundamental lesson is this: understand yourself before you start to understand either a business or the other people in it.

Of course, if your plan is to be truly wealthy over the long term then you need to ensure that over time you get practiced at business start up and creation, and develop the necessary skill sets so that like Richard Branson, you will ultimately be able to start any business anywhere in any area and make a good profit.

Business economics, ideas and objectives…

Your skill as a major business creator is to be able to set up a system where cash flows to you with the least effort, and the bigger the return from the smaller the effort, the better the business creator you are.

Now if you approach business start up with this concept you can see that really the product or service that the business is involved in, doesn’t really matter because it’s your skill as a wealth creator that is being tested for success rather than say, the turnover or sales.

The big profits come from any business that ‘fits’ best with the economy and with the marketplace and with the customers – so this is about being able to watch the world and identify opportunities, rather than just exploiting any of your particular skills.