Euan: Welcome! And hello to everyone here today. Most of you would have likely joined for one reason: you want to innovate or have a new product idea, but something is stopping you. That something is highly likely to be fear of the unknown and unknown and understandably so. Today we bring to you ready, set grow a webinar with the renowned speaker and business coach Roy Newey.
There are attendees from Great Britain to Australia and most places in between attending today. In fact, I believe the numbers registered on onto this event are well over 1000 and climbing so a very warm welcome to you all. This is a great honor for recording will be made available to all after the event. So if you need to jump off early, no problem at all, except I will just say we do have the consultancy package giveaway at the end of the webinar in which five lucky companies will win an exclusive one-to-one consultation normally purchased at £1500 with Innovolo’s experienced consulting team. This is something that as a business owner I certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on.
I think I should now make some introductions. My name is Euan Pallister, and I’ll be your host for this event.
Firstly, it’s great to see Roy.
Roy Neary has joined us today, the renowned global executive business coach, who within his extensive success portfolio, has taken companies from the early millions annual turnover to £185 million plus in a very short period of time, I think you’ll agree it’s a phenomenal achievement. I’ll also take this opportunity just to draw attention to his new book about to be released, which this webinar is actually named after: “Ready, Set, Grow”.
Also joining us today is Clive Saltmarsh who is in a very close, highly experienced, and senior client consultant. It’s also great to see you, Clive.
For those of you who may not be acquainted with Innovolo: Innovolo is an established company based in the UK that has responded to the recent increased global demand for the diverse expertise and resources that are required in new product development and research and development projects. Innovolo’s unique process means that companies no longer need to consider internal investment into the unknown, they can have immediate access to the resource with a clear and accurate prediction of return on investment, and the peace of mind that the product and the budget will meet the requirements.
Roy is highly experienced in tackling the various business challenges associated with this growth. So, I’ll now be handing you over to him to present some solutions for you. And his views on innovation. Clive will then be coming in to discuss with Roy the different aspects of research and development related to growth, as well as breaking into new markets through new product development.
We’ll take some time towards the end to answer any questions you may have. So please, if you have any questions or comments throughout the event, please feel free to leave them in the chatbox and the Q&A box below. And speakers will answer as many as they can live for you today.
Over to you Roy.
Roy Newey: Okay, thanks very much Euan.It’s a real pleasure to be here. I hope the sun shining where you are certainly shining here today a little bit cloudy, but the sun’s peeking through. And I hope for everybody that’s going through the COVID-19 that that for all of us, people are safe and well today. So, it’s a great opportunity to come together particularly within overload. Brilliant organization. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to last couple of months. And an outstanding team, internationally drawn people that can help you develop your business and take for innovations. But what I want to do today is look at what’s the problem.
And the problem, in reality, is that our USPs, our unique selling points, unfortunately, are no longer unique. What was fantastic six years ago, what was brilliant three years ago, what was eye turning six months ago, in fact, what was relevant three months ago? …in fact, what was relevant three months ago, is now no longer of any use today.
Organisations need USPs that are fit for purpose and give confidence to the other organizations that we’re seeking to trade with that we are delivering the best value for them. The market is tired or saturated, competitors that come in or market share has been attacked. The service model that was amazing, you know, Yes, yes, it’s Tuesday. Yes, you want to place an order? Yes. That’s fine. Great. We can have it with you for the end of the week. Well, actually, yes, we can have it with you in two days flat. Well, okay, then we can certainly do this for you tomorrow. You want it today. You want it within the hour. You want it yesterday.I mean the service model that we’ve prided ourselves on being amazing, now is mundane. My daughter will come home she’ll order a dress off next for you know, 11:30 in the evening, by 7 o’clock in the morning, it’s outside the door here. Now another reason why she doesn’t have to do laundry. So, you know, the service requirements, all of us you probably started before 10 o’clock, it’s delivered to you by 1 o’clock.
Service requirements have really moved on a pase and that has educated the mindset of our customers. And so, they have an expectation when they bring us that we can respond in that same sort of timeframe. Margins are reducing or service was wearing our product is not unique anymore. It’s a conversation is increasingly about price, price, price will get driven down and low margins lead us to a commodity market to being undervalued and under development affects staff morale, and how do we compete in our in a marketplace where our products being depressed and all this money for reinvestment in the future, the staff get demotivated, the lack of any sort of, “huh” because we’re trying to sell an also-ran thing, a product or a service, and leadership becomes stagnant and confused and, and not sure which way to go and sends different messages to get confused because there’s a lack of vision in the business. And you sit there, and you spend all day staring up at this glass ceiling. And all these tales about how the business next door or the booths across the street, or the business over there has smashed through the glass ceiling with amazing ease in your sight here, clumpy looking at the grass, thinking how to do that.
So, Bronwynne, going on with the next slide, it’s okay… because we’ve got a solution for you. There are things that you can do.
And there’s a process and a system that you can follow. And I’m going to take you through that today. I don’t think it’s about dashing about like a headless chicken and try and do this and try and try and do everything. Because that leads to confusion and the malpractice of the teams, they’re trying to work to us who don’t know which direction to go in next. And the only way in which we can make business happen is to, discount and discount, and that’s not selling anymore. It’s called giving what we do away.
And we don’t want to be doing that.
So, over the last few years, I’ve been asked lots of questions about how I’ve managed to achieve the business growth and the companies I’ve been involved in. And what I decided to in the end was to put it all down in a single book, ready, set grow. And it’s a system. So, I wanted to say is let’s take you through the system with an emphasis at looking at innovation.
So, what I’ve put forward here is a tried and tested process. I’ve had a number of businesses myself, which I’ve led to growth, and I’ve been able to sell and exit successfully from. I’ve also sat on the border of 100 countries, not just here in the UK, but in 15 countries around the world. I’ve chaired organizations, I’ve led specific growth periods and an exit strategy to maximize the return for shareholders. And actually, all of these things start to fall into a set process, that if you follow the process, good things are going to happen. So, if we turn over to the next slide, we can start to see the first stage.
The first stage in any business is to defend the core. So, there’s splodge that you see in the amoeba as it’s called in posh places, that splodge that’s clear to represent the shape of your business or businesses different shapes and sizes. And the example I’ve given here is, yes, that’s based on the type of products or services, you’ve got the type of customer base that you’ve got the type of staff that you’ve got. And all of this is coming together to give you the shape of your business. So, the first thing we’ve got to do, we want to grow. If you want to innovate, if you want to be small user ahead of the market is defend the core. There’s a simple process to follow. You wake up in the morning, and if you’re like me, you pop to the loo. Then you have a shower, you get dressed, you go downstairs, you eat porridge. And then when you get into work, the first thing you’ve got to do is defend the core business.
This is the goose that’s laying the golden egg. We can’t look at all the green pastures over there and all the exciting things that Harry’s doing, and all the amazing ideas that Celia’s got over there, and less we’ve defended the core, we pull carriers around, we defend the business. So, let’s look at some of the things that you can do to defend the business. You take us on to the next slide, please for me?
And what I’ve done is I’ve used innovation as the key here. And it goes without saying, I have a firm belief that Innovolo, and the team that they’ve got around their international team of consultants, they are going to be experts at being able to come in and look at your business objectively, and make an objective assessment of what you’ve got, and help you more quickly, more expertly and more successfully. Take forward some of these innovations. Because the first thing we got to do is we’ve got to look at innovating the service level. Is it still exciting, is it still different, is it still best in class, or have we fallen back on our haunches where we’re saying, well, you know, what, if we’re doing next day delivery, which is what our competitors are doing? Brilliant, let’s do same-day delivery. Let’s find out a way that we can manage our logistics so that we can get ahead of the crowd. Let’s re-look at some innovations. I’ve been doing some work recently with our guys and they… the investment, the innovation, the creativity, they brought their logistics management, so much so that they became a ripe organization that Sainsbury’s wanted to purchase just for the logistics and service delivery side. Let’s look at a technology offer. How are we using technology? Yes, we know we’re using that payroll and we’ve got the dreaded ERP system. We’ve got procurement, we’ve got finances. But are we using innovation? Are we using technology in an innovative way to enhance the quality of what we’re making a search report specifically to enhance the expectation the value that the customers get from working with us?
Then let’s look at innovating your USPs. Let’s make them super special. Let’s make them unique. Let’s not make them also-ran but the end of the tale is in the phrase there isn’t a unique Selling Proposition, you have to stand back and ask yourself, is what we’re doing unique, or is it the same as everybody else? As good as everybody else? We’re one of the best. Well, Apple don’t enter the mark by trying to be one of the best, do they? Ferrari trying to be one of the best cars, you think of some of those fantastic brands that are out there. We’re trying to be the very, very best. No matter whether you have this size or this size or this size, you have the opportunity to develop something which is absolutely unique to you. Let’s look at innovating our supplier base. I’ve done some work recently with suppliers where we brought them together. We’ve shared our forward plans with them, we’ve sat down and looked at their foreign investment strategy, because yes, it’s interesting to know what they’re going to be doing in 2020. But what’s much more interesting for me is what are my suppliers thinking of launching in 2021, 2022, and 2023? What telescope are they using to look ahead into the market? What do they see? That might be able to be bringing new products or services, my way that I could benefit from this. If it sounds tactics, we look at us today. You know, I’ve seen some horror stories when it comes to selling on Zoom recently. You know, it’s not just the phonies of the cats and the dogs and the kids coming in, whether it’s a laundry in the background, or the inappropriate poster on the wall, or the people walking past the window eating pasties, you know, I mean, come on, if we’re going to sell via Zoom, let’s do professionally, let’s really up our game. Let’s get really innovative. Let’s bring in the managing director. Let’s bring in the sales team in San Paolo. Let’s look at bringing in our innovation team in Australia to join the call. Let’s utilize this new medium in a really exciting and innovative way and steal a march because our competitors are doing this. Let’s look at the innovative people strategy. How are we investing in people, how are we engaging with them? Are we incentivizing them for inputs or incentivizing them for outputs? Are we incentivizing them for tip the target? Are incentivizing them for growth? As the number of business owners that have been working recently, and I’ve been dumbfounded as they’ve told me, well, this is our incentive package. But of course, we cap it once it gets to 105% of sales Roy.
Euan: [inaudible].
Roy: Why would you do that then?
Euan: By the way! Do you agree with this? Well, we don’t want the bonuses running away with themselves, do we?
Roy: Yes, we do. That would be brilliant, wouldn’t it? You know, so let’s get innovative with the sales that LinkedIn learning with the udemy.com. But there’s a whole raft of online learning, we are topping up our skills every day and increasing our knowledge base. I’ve got a son at the moment, Tom, and he’s consuming three audiobooks a week. I’ve thought of taking him to doctors about it, but you know, good for you. And in the conversations I’m having with him, he’ll say yes or no, but it isn’t. How I said was [inaudible]. Well, yes, but McCarthy’s point of view on that was, I’m thinking, I’m your dad, your 19 year old son, I’m the one that supposed to be educating you and I’m learning more from him from his download of all these audiobooks he’s learning.
So, the mediums are there, the audiobooks, the learning the role plays, the video learning the online learning. He really enjoys talking about skill base and become really fantastic experts in our field. And finally let’s innovating the core of the business, let’s look at doing something exceptionally different for when we’re defending the goose that lays the golden egg so that we really know that we can rely on the business that we do out there.
Once we’ve done that, only once we’ve defended the core, then we can move on.
Now, what we want to do next is what some people do once they’ve got a little bit of money and they’ve defended the core and things are looking a bit brighter. They’re still feeling motivated. Repeat businesses coming in with stronger profits have lifted margins have lifted sales, uplift to the bit is it do something daft like they go off to pastures new, the pizza parlor, never to cook pizzas before even a secondhand tire selling, you know, organization never sold second-hand tires. My view is the second thing you do after you’ve defended the core is let’s look for adjacent markets. Let’s look at things that are close to what we already do that don’t need a significant capital investment. Don’t take additional risk, and a nestled in the wrong fat straw that are cheap that we’ve got close to it, maybe someday we can use an existing product and existing service. And that’s actually if you take us on to the next slide Bronwynne. Let’s look at the innovation areas about how we develop interface of markets. So, we can look to extend our customer base. We can look to encroach into other areas, with people with our product and its people to take our product in a new area. But then it’s close to what we already do. We look at innovating to sell to existing customers. So, you take our X179/B, have you ever thought of taking our X179/C? Are we taking the pre product or the post product, or the valuation product, or the data set that goes with that? The software can deliver it quicker. So, let’s look at our existing customers see, what is the opportunity to sell more to our existing customers? Let’s innovate to extend the product range. I mean, the best example is the Mar’s bar. The Mar’s bar small the large Mar’s while the dark chocolate Mars bar. Those of you in there we will know why we have an option for Mars bars, having a sweet tooth, Mars bar drink, the Mars bar ice cream, the Mars bars boiled sweets and the Mars bars the hang on the Christmas tree. The Mars bars you can give in boxes, the Mars bars were given bags. I mean, those guys, those Mar’s bar guys, they deserve credit. They have extended that program to stay relevant to their market share. When we look at our product right range, have we taken all the opportunities that we can to extend it into new areas without extending capital investment without taking additional levels of risk? And finally, our geographic coverage if we’re doing everything that we can possibly do in Cheshire. Well, maybe we should look at Manchester we’re doing already we’re doing Manchester. Well, let’s do London. We’re doing London. We’re not Scotland. Now, come on, why everything you’ve heard about Scottish people is true. You know, Hadrian’s Wall has been removed. Maybe you look at Scotland as a market or Wales or Scotland. Northern Ireland is a market, the Republic of Ireland market France, Germany, Israel, Poland. I ended up developing my business in 15 countries around the world. When I used to go back to the board and I’d say I’ve wanted some new contracts in Pakistan, and it’s a Pakistan. I go, yes, Pakistan, great market opportunity. 408 million people really want what we’ve got to sell. Pakistan, fantastic market opportunity for us. And it was with France, Germany, Israel, Spain, Poland. Germany, France is a fantastic market. So, let’s look at can we take the same thing, or almost the same thing out to these other geographical markets to extend the business.So, just to recap, we’ve defended the core, we’ve made the goose that laid the golden eggs, absolutely brilliant. The profits are good, the margins are good, the future’s looking really good. Then we’ve moved on to close to home opportunities to develop into adjacent markets. Next slide, please Bronwynne.
Now comes the exciting bit. So if you think about it, if we were looking to make half a million pounds in defending the core, if an existing business could reduce a net profit of half million pounds or £5 million or £50 million, whatever it is. And we’ve got that pumping away. Previously Delta additional profit through the adjacent markets. Now we’ve got a little bit of a development budget. In my business, we use a development budget for grants and invite bids from our staff from, from our shareholders, or stakeholders, from our suppliers and from our customers work with us to use this development budget to enhance what we’ve got. And the great thing is that because we defended the core, because we made some additional money in the development of adjacent markets, now we had some money to go to the races with. So if I go to the Grand National, which I may do if it’s ever on again, and I take £500 in my back pocket in cash, if I go to Grand National and I place a few bets and I have a couple drinks, I mean my friends, if I lose £500, it’s okay. Because I can afford to lose £500. If I come up with £600 pounds, happy days, but come up with £200. It’s okay It’s good. But I wouldn’t take £50,000 pounds, I wouldn’t take the crown jewels to the races because I wouldn’t want to lose £50,000, I can’t afford to lose £50,000. But what I can afford to do is I can take the additional money and profit or a portion of it that we made by developing adjacent markets. And I can use that as a development budget. Now to do some really exciting. Cost we’re looking at a merger, cost we’re looking at an acquisition, a more risky piece of business, a business that extends beyond our natural customer base beyond our national conference or beyond the skill base that we’ve got. But they’re the big, hairy, audacious goals. And then we run them, and we run them with full hearts. And if they don’t work, we still have the celebration. And if we run at them with that sense of Glee and excitement, then they’re more likely to deliver the results we’re looking for. Because we’ve defended the call. We’ve secured the shareholders comfort with the profits that we’ve delivered from it, if we’re there to address the market, adjacent markets, and produce additional money. And if we then use that to do the big, hairy audacious goals, now we’ve got a real business that’s really starting to turn. Take me to the next slide, please, if you would.
So, we would innovate, look at market movements. Where has the market move to create a new opportunity that we’ve never looked at before? Is there an opportunity to innovate around new pain points? With COVID-19, we’ve seen a whole new set of pain points pop up, that customers have got that need to be addressed. Are we innovating around those? Talk to these guys. These guys are the experts. Don’t try and muddle your way through it. Are we looking at the new technology solutions? Are we aware of new technology? Or are we using new technology? We think about how we build it into a service delivery, we think about how we enhance our competitive position by using the technology and it might need an investment I’ve never invested in in technology and not cost me fortune. So that’s where it’s the big hairy audacious goal for me. If I were looking to address the statutory requirements, the terrible Grenfell fire disaster, that the terrible situation with families and the trauma it caused, and all the new legislation, it’s going to lead to all the new requirements in construction materials and building systems are innovating now to take advantage of those opportunities come out of that Grenfell inquiry when it’s printed. And are we looking to utilize the waste materials in a time of real sustainability? And Gretta is watching our every move on all we are taking advantage of the opportunity to think about a new use for the sawdust. What could you do with the feathers on the floor, what could we do with the data that we collect from our customers, and does that give us a new product something that so might be prepared to buy? So, these are the more difficult ones. These are the ones where we might need a degree of capital investment. These are the ones we’re taking a bigger level of risk. But we do it with the system, we defend the core, the goose is happy. She’s laying in loads of coordinates. We’ve looked at the adjacent markets. We’ve iterated into new parts, but close to our existing business. And now with a capital that we’ve developed with a portion of that shareholder funds, now we can start to throw it into these big, hairy, audacious goals. And this is in particular, where you’re going to need the likes of a Innovolo, who can come in, walk alongside you help you develop that those new techniques, that new innovation, and help you do it in the time skills that are required. We used to have be able to do it, you know, in seasons, you know, yeah, we’ll have this ready for next year. And now we know that McLaren can develop a ventilator in the space of four days Dyson can invent a ventilator. The British army can build 17-18 hospitals in eight days. So, the period for innovation is squashed. And therefore, we must keep pace, with the new customers’ needs for innovation and the speed at which they want to go up. Next slide, please Bronwynne.
Once we’ve done that, now we’ve got the opportunity. There’s your original shape in the middle, we develop the adjacent markets, we’ve done some beehives as well. And then every three to five years were sucking all into the middle, sucking up all back in to form a new core of the business. And if you take me on to next slide, please Bronwynne.
Then you’ve got the cycle here. So, at the top, you’ve got your original core business that you feel, you know, really polished up and it’s fantastic. In fact, the goose is laying more golden eggs do you know what to do with. You’ve developed your adjacent markets; you’ve tackled a few beehives with the extra capital you’ve developed. And the final stage we’ve sucked it back in and we go back around the cycle again. That’s the system, if I have utilized that system repeatedly last 40 years to grow business, a significant level. And I’ve got some case studies right at the very end that we’re going to look at in a second. And if you’d move on Bronwynne, please.Great. So, when I’m accounting for this, how do we do it? Well, I’ve just put some figures in here of an example of an
organization, perhaps turning over £5 million at the moment. And there’s a three-year cash flow projection. So, they’re expecting income to stay at static level, nothing new, nothing, you do nothing great. The stat looking up at that glass ceiling, the next line above, that’s the business that we’re going to create by going to the adjacent markets. That’s the business development. We’re going to win some we’re going to lose some but it’s going to be on top of the existing business that we’ve got. It’s above the glass ceiling. And then if you’re working for shareholders, in the way that I was a shareholder, and I’ve worked for shareholders, shareholders, once they see that things are getting sorted, they start to increase the target. And so, the blue line meets the shareholder’s aspiration, where they would love to see sales go over the next few years. So, this level, we’re taking businesses, we’re taking the turn of this business from £5 million to £15 million over the three-year period. But how on earth do we fill the hatched area? That’s where the trauma starts. That’s where the cold sweats in the middle of night come. That’s where they’re waking up in the middle of night with a notepad at the side of the desk thinking, you know, I’ve got to come up with some new ideas. So, take me on to the almost the final slide Bronwynne.
That’s where the big hairy audacious goals go. So, you’ve got existing business, adjacent markets, and then to meet shareholder’s aspiration, we’re reinvesting some of that money from adjacent markets to develop those big hairy audacious goals, those riskier, more capital-intensive projects. Next slide, please, Bronwynne.
All of this sounds great. All of this sounds really interesting. You know, but what he really wants to know is, you know, how does it actually work in practice? So, what I wanted to do is just a couple of case studies here. I’ve got three case studies. First one is a manufacturing company, they manufacturer, a niche product for the construction sector, they quote, time would say, yes, we’ll give you a quote in two to five days. But in reality, the quotes were often suppressed in two weeks. And when you talk to sales staff say, well, yeah, sales are down because we got a backlog of quotes to do. And you know, and that leads to conversion rates by the time we were in the back of the price. They don’t want our product anymore. They’ve got it from somewhere else. And we’re way behind to the point where the quoting we have to stay here all night, you know, whoa, is those. Okay. So, pressure on price, then the only way we could we’re in business is to offer cheap prices. The sales team constantly missing targets. What did we do? Well, what we did was we used innovation. We looked at it really, really tough. When just give a cursory glance, we looked at it really, really tough. So, we come up with a new solution for how the organization could quote immediately on the phone call they were doing. So, people drink up. They say, “hi, I’m bringing up for a quote.” Okay, yes. What is it you’d like? [inaudible]. Is that a quote Jessica.? Alright. Brilliant. Welcome, place the order. And sales have increased massively because this petite product was protecting your premises. And when this were attacked with a fire or flood or burglary, whether this item was removed, the premises were vulnerable. And what the customer hadn’t thought the manufacturer hadn’t quite reconciled with was that therefore the building was having to be protected by security guard 24 hours a day. Until the new item it appeared, it could be making the building secure. So, if we’re working on say £10, or £15 an hour, 24 hours a day, we’re in £240 a day. By the time that quote came through, the customer had spent four to six to £20,000 in security, just keeping the building secure until the new product returner. So, whether the price was £1850, and or £2000 pounds or £1700 or £2300, it was actually immaterial to the customer. What the customer really wanted was he wanted a reject, quote, placed the order and delivery in two days. And back that innovation has brought about a massive increase in turnover. Let’s go to the next slide, please.
So, the next slide, here we go. We’re looking now at an adjacent model market development. So, this is a company that sells products into the public service. developed a great opportunity in the public service did really well, they got up to 38.5% of the market share. And then at that point, the public sector said, actually, that’s it, you can’t have anymore. And so, what they started to do then, was they started to realize that actually, they’re going to enhance the turnover in business. So, they’re going to take it up to a higher level. What they needed to do was they need to look at new client groups where could take the existing service to a new client group, they needed to look at new geographical focus. And in fact, this business developed an international market that resulted in sales increasing by £110 million in nine years. [inaudible] with innovation. They’ve sat there but accepted the market saturation and spend the rest of their business time looking at the glass ceiling above them.
So next slide, please. So last case study. And this is the BHAG. This is a company was turning over £3 million, providing business services to local companies. The problem was glass ceiling price tariffs, everything being driven down to a commodity level, little innovation. What they did was they big tag that they went for was the developer a national offer. They found ways to tackle the systemization of what they were doing. So, it could bring the cost down to enhance the value that they’re bringing. They secured the IPR, they got a USP so that this small business could see it as a real added value. And as a result of that, they secured a three-year £80 million contract to deliver a national support system across the UK. And this company went from a £3 million £turnover to having an £80 million, three year a £2 million contract with three years. But that’s innovation. And that’s something that I needed, you know, to bring some support to, Innovolo can bring that sort of support, the drive, they’re innovating all the time, and they can bring that specialism to us. We know when we have a business that we need our specialists to our finances, we know that we need a specialist to manage HR for us. We know we need a specialist look at our operational problems. But sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking we can do the innovation ourselves. But it’s a specialist tool. And I would strongly recommend looking at bringing some support some new observer status, somebody with the ideas that’s doing this all day, every day that can really help you particularly in the market we’re in now look at addressing new market opportunities. I think Bronwynne that’s my last slide. I’m done.But I think that’s a link in its own it’s £12.95. If people want to pre-buy and buy an early copy, it’s £9.99. And there’s a link there where you can place your order for an early copy. I’ve interested if anybody wants to take you up on that, and to speak to people ongoing – based upon how you can use this system to really accelerate the growth of your business sustainably. Thank you very much. I’ll hand back to Bradley, to Euan, sorry.
Euan: Thank you, Roy. That was absolutely great. I think Clive, you’ve probably got some questions to fire Roy.
Clive Saltmarsh: Yes, we’ll Roy does actually love your style. by the way. It’s great content you brought in as ever, I think probably one of the key areas is going to be the aspects of R&D related to growth. And obviously breaking into new markets. It’s probably typically recognized that R&D growth relation is typically thought of as moving new products for new markets, new market sectors. However, there’s hidden areas that you might want to plant but not assume or think was actually a new development such as a complete change of vision. So, you can go to becoming an authority in your industry. And you can go obviously from supplier to manufacturer. Now, supply to manufacturer can mean product change, but not necessarily. If you want to become a serious manufacturer, you can obviously reinvent the wheel as it were, we can actually reformulate. That’s not always necessary, but becoming an authority is something that is often overlooked. And it is in fact possible in any marketplace. And what’s interesting is not particular field of development, it generates significant revenue. However, it also significantly lowers the competition. If you’re the authority in your industry, you have not got any competition at all. Depending what industry the clients in, it can take up to five years sometimes more to get to that point. But the space is the speed of time. Now, that’s not very long. It’s just a little bit of a chat, Roy. Because this is an area where clients don’t see as many innovations however, it can cost very little to get to a very elevated position with a lot of increase and the competition always gone. What do you say?
Roy: Big example I’ve been working with a company that supplies hygiene products, a year ago. I said to them, wow, so you know you supply hygiene products into the into the market. Yes, yes, great. That’s fantastic. I know you experts, “well, ah, whenever we buy the stuff wrong, we knew to flog it to and you know, we’re doing quite well.” I said, “okay, but if you’re selling hygiene, should you not be the hygiene specialist, I mean, what qualifications do you have as a leadership team in hygiene what papers you’ve written what blogs you read, what’s your perspective on this issue or that issue?” And anyway, after a degree of, “you know we don’t move on,” they went, “alright.” And so, they found some online courses and they got some certificated and actually the whole leadership team in the end entity, certificates in chemical hygiene and products why that was fantastic.And then COVID came along. Oh, my goodness, how fortunate to be able to promote yourself as the qualified expert. When we tell you that safe you can take it forever that safe because here’s our qualification background to back it up. And I’m working with organizations that promote themselves as the specialist in the area. And I say, “gosh, that’s fantastic, I didn’t realize you were such you know, such great people.” And they’re like, “yes, yes, we are the specialist” I say, “what makes you special?” It’s on our website. Okay, so right so I get that you’re telling everybody special, how are you special? We’re special because, dad with apparently, we’ve always been special.So why are you special because you can manage cost more effectively you can deliver it yesterday your specialist, because the government refers to you for advice or, you know, come on, if you’re going to be special I absolutely agree with you, being the industry specialist is really important. I was growing my business; I was delighted to be one of David Cameron’s advisors in particular field on international work. And as a result of that, the business secure lots of additional business that didn’t relate whatsoever to the international islands. But if you consider to be one of the peoples into government, and one of the people that they sought advice from, then that really built the credibility of the business that I had. So, I strongly support that, you know, if you’re not an expert, become an expert. If you’re not an expert, don’t tell people you’re an expert, but become an expert, and then promote that really strongly. And that will draw the good people in and then price starts to drop off the conversation. Because when you’re talking to the best, we’re not talking about price.
Clive: That’s very, very, very true, right. Its price vice is federal. It’s absolutely federal. Another thing is actually getting out of the comfort zone. Now you’ve just used a few times. But when I see a comfort zone is obviously it’s a place of stagnation. And today, it can develop into a killer zone actually, if you can’t out your comfort zone sooner or later it will paralyze your USPs. And it’s something that keeps you from seizing opportunities. It’s it just becomes a habit of if something’s on unfamiliar or I’m a bit fearful, I’ll just draw back.
Roy: Yes, I think comfort zone is a real is a real dangerous place to be, isn’t it? And we’ve got to fight that all the time. And therefore, we’ve got to be putting ourselves outside of our comfort zone. And one of the ways of doing that, I find is to get in front of customers on a regular basis. Absolutely, we get into customers and ask the awkward question. Do you think we’re good, what could we be doing better? What is it you wish you could ring up and ask us for a solution for when you’re looking in the market? What are you failing to find? What the solutions you think you might want next year or the year after? And that takes us outside of our comfort zone. Because, you know, I’ve seen a lot of account management a shadow account manager, people and they go along and they say, you know, hello, hello. How are you doing? Yeah, fine. Great. We’re looking after you. Okay, fine. Fine. Everything’s fine now. Yeah, everything’s fine. Cup of a coffee. Yes, fine. Yes. How’s the family? Fine. Yes. How’s the weather? It’s been fine, isn’t it? We’re not learning anything, you know, in this context, we’re going to do is go in and ask it. What would you like our staff to be doing differently? What would you like us to do? what’s in the catalog, that’s missing, you know. What’s the product or service, what’s the tweak or the or the differential that you’re looking for? Now those conversations, make you feel uncomfortable, that’s a great place to be. Because then we take all that information back to the business and sit down and start to work through what’s important, what are the trends? What can we do and take advantage of these this goal just that customers have given us to make what we do for the future.
Clive: Yes, that’s great. That’s great. I’ll see you at the end of this with the consultancy package, which will give away five free of this. If anyone feels there, they can’t exit a comfort zone. They need a coach or see that’s ideal, but it’s absolutely ideal. If you get one of those free, you’re going to get goalpost the another area is often the fear of failure, and focusing on ROI as opposed to the cost, from experience, the cost is a brick wall in front of you which you must get over and if you don’t, you will not see the ROI. It’s a for instance, it just got a job with a client last week where the cost was £183K. A backlog or what that’s crazy, which is quite typical of fear. But obviously the ROI for that job for the whole project is 2% to 6%, 7% over two-year period based on the UK revenue alone. So that client, but what he’d seen first was that percentage basis and essentially, the cost meant nothing too. So see this is just to try and get this point that the we have an exceptional in house resource cabinet and loss which we can tell you exactly what it’s going to cost you exactly what you’ll get back over how long it’ll even tell you how long and how much you’re going to lose. For every month you don’t take action.And if you try to get the idea that cost is not the focus it tends to come first, which is understandable, it’s the human brain.
Roy: That’s brilliant, that’s a great tool to people should be contacting you to take advantage of being able to use them. And if you think that the system should have before, people worry about putting money into RMD, when they’re worried that the existing business they’ve got isn’t going to be able to afford it hasn’t got that money to invest. They’ve left it too long, they’ve sat in that comfort zone, margins are diminished, the conversations will become about price, and then they haven’t got the money to invest future. That’s why I always advocate is, make the goose that lays the golden eggs really safe and secure, because that will produce the money that gives a sense of common countenance and enables the owners of the business to return to a strategic perspective about where the future might be. While we’re worrying about whether we can pay the bills or not. We can’t think about investing money in innovation. So, they’ve got to get that bit right. And they get that bit right, then they do some small scale iteration close to the market that produces the extra capital, then they can take that capital and sit down with guys like you and say, “Okay, we’ve got this money, we’ve got this idea, we’ve got this customer insight, we’d really like to” look at a feasibility look at how we could take this forward. But whilst they’re worrying about this, there’s not going anywhere. Now, it’s interesting. One of the examples is, if you and I know it sounds strange, and desert Island, beautiful desert island, and we’ve been shipwrecked, we’ve got palm trees and, you know, lovely water and coconuts and whatever and we’re all great. And I said to you, “hey, look at the island over there, you know, would you be interested in swimming from here to over there.” And because it looks a lot bigger and it looks a bit nicer. And the interval is the quarter-mile between the two islands is filled with shark-infested waters. I suspect that [inaudible] you’re going to go. I’m sure what Roy, the invitation was really tempting. But as soon as part of the shark-infested waters, I think I’ll stay on the desert island we’ve got now that will be the new normal view. However, it’s at that point, if I tell you, the only thing is I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a volcano on this one. It’s about to go off in five minutes, then you may be more prepared to take the chance, and swim through the shark-infested waters to get to you and on the other side. Unfortunately, Clive, what I’ve seen in far too many businesses, is they sit on the beach, they accept the status grow. They think their business is protected for a long time. I think they USPs will always be unique. The customers look like, we love this, we love this, also love you. Until of course, the volcano goes off. And it’s only when the volcano goes off. And they’re on a burning platform, then they’re prepared to make the challenging thing because all innovations won’t work, all customer growth won’t work. But if we don’t take those risks, if we don’t have the capital to invest them in the future, then actually we have to stay on the desert island, you know, with a volcano that erupts and certain death. And that’s not the volcano to go off. Let’s develop some capital, feed the goose that lays the golden egg. Get some money out of that. Use that with you guys to help you on a product or service that take us into the future and secure our business long term.
Clive: Yes, something great. That’s great. It’s not to say that everyone’s got hundreds of thousands of pounds of innovation because they haven’t. But if a customer genuinely hasn’t got the funds, but they’ve got the commitment, they’ve got the drive, then we can help with that as well. I mean, we specialize in bid writing we can get, we can get granted appliances, gift baskets we help with. So yes, it’s just to get there. I think there’s a couple of questions which would probably be the audience would like for you to answer as a true [inaudible] professional point of view. In your opinion, why should anyone use us in terms of Innovolo, in your world what?
Clive: So, I’ve done quite a lot of business in India to 250 visits to India with a business that I do over there. And one of the amazing things that went to see was the hospital that does the eye cataract. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but the patients get brought in on a bus thing. They address it with a gown on, they lay on what’s effectively a conveyor belt as they go along. You know, one nurse clamps her eye open along 10ft the next nurse puts the anesthetic in the eyes. The next surgeon he just makes one slit on the eyes. The next surgeon, all he does is he takes out the old lens. The next surgeon, he just puts in the new lens. The next surgeon, he just stitches the eyeball back up. The next nurse removes the clamp. The next nurse puts a wash in. The next nurse puts the patch back on the eye and the next nurse lifts the crate. I don’t if I’m able, I will give you a close back. You give you close back; you get back on the bus and you go home. The cost is my new compared to what it is in the UK, the success rate is better than it is in the UK. And the reason is that the only thing that surgeon does is he makes one cut. He does it 500 times a day. And the reason for saying that’s, I don’t know Clive, you might be a great guy, you might be a massive all-rounder and you might make great ham sandwiches and you might be able to do the bat and you might be able to get the VAT up and you might also be able to do brilliant marketing in a social media campaign and you might be in a rounder for the people I like to associate with the people who are really, really good at this one thing that they work on. And what I’ve why understand about you guys is, your team of specialists. You might not make great ham sandwiches, your warehouses might not be the tightest, your VAT may not balance, but you’re good at the innovation. And that’s what’s critical, particularly during this COVID-19 when so much has changed. There are so many opportunities in finances, and so much risk if we don’t innovate and take our businesses forward. That’s good. One final question.Is there any benefit as to in house versus external?
Roy: Well, I think as my family would tell you, I might like to kid myself occasionally that I’m a very bright chap. But the reality is I my family would tell you I’m not that at all. So, you scratch your head, how is it that I can, or you can or Euan and can Bradley or Robin? How is it that we can walk into a business and see things that the business owners can’t see? And that’s because we’ve got the gift of being fresh to the perspective. We walk in and we say, and why is the sales area why can morgue you know, in some sales areas like I have seen more life in a morgue, or what well I would like to keep it as quiet as we can, you know.
Okay, and we all take a vow of silence or something or you know, the warehousing or logistics is chaotic, or, you know, we’ve still got early taking stuff out as soon as we can, you know, and to an outsider walk in these things jump off the wall. Whereas if you’re in a business, it’s really quite difficult. It’s inevitable that the blinkers come on. And you accept certain things. I went to a hygiene company that will remain nameless. And when I walked in, they said all sales are really flat. In fact, that started deteriorating. And, you know, we’re finding more and more difficult and the conversation is more and more into a discussion about price. I said, right, okay. And I said, any ideas why we haven’t got clue? No clue. I said, okay. Look, I’ve got some really big quest difficult questions, and they’re going to sound confrontational, but they’re not meant to be confrontational. When you sent me this email with the address to get on to get here. Did you notice you included a photograph of your premises? Oh, yes. Yes, we did. That’s the one on the website. I said, okay did you notice there are three sets of weeds permanently in the gutters? Did you notice there are four tiles missing from the step on the front door? Did you notice the cigarette ends, and the lighter and detritus in the carpark? And did you notice that rather nasty stain, which I suspect is coming from a toilet overflow that drips all the way down the wall the front? That’s got the moss on it. And then oh yes, yes, we’ll get round to that. But the trouble is visitors dying at the moment. Not gentlemen, your hygiene company. You know, gentlemen, you’re selling hygiene products. And that’s how you’re promoting yourself on the internet. Now, these people that own this business are decent, lovely mums, dads, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunties, uncles. They’re lovely people. But every day they go in another building and you start looking to the value of working with you guys or me or another outside other business coaches because we come in we have a fresh, completely fresh look at it, and that there’s enormous value in that. By the way, don’t come and get in my house because there’s rubbish in the garden. There’re weeds in the gutter. And there’s nasty stains on the toilet overflowed on the front wall.
Euan: That’s an awesome value there, Roy, thank you for that. That’s awesome. Certainly, a lot to points there. And it’s a real common sense. It’s brilliant, actually brilliant. So, we’d like to move on, if that’s okay to the giveaway. So, this is the chance for businesses to get their free consultation. So, I’m guessing you’re ready to innovate. I’m guessing you’re ready to smash that glass ceiling and take your business to places you never thought possible. So why us did you join this webinar, and of course, you’re ready. So, it’s time now to roll them out. And just to reiterate what we’re offering today for five lucky winners to walk away with an exclusive consultation with a select few of innovators highly qualified consultants worth over £1500 just for the one consultation. So only you count to, three, I’m going to start a 32nd period in which you need to type if you’re interested, and you want to have a chance at winning one of these consultations, you need to type into the chatbox. The phrase, “yes, I am ready.” So that’s after the camera three, I will start a 32nd window for you to type that in the first five that arrive in the chatbox. Get them free. Anyone that typed in thereafter, we’ll get it 50% just unique to this webinar. So, on the count of three, we’re going to have a 32nd stint. So, get your mouse and your keyboard ready. So, 1, 2, 3 go
I’m going to be busy.Cool man – got 10 seconds left. If you don’t get it in the chatbox today, for any reason, technical or otherwise, feel free to contact us directly. I’m sure we can work something out. And that’s our time out.
Clive: Well done.
Euan: That’s awesome. Look at that look.Excellent. So, we’re going to quickly do now is if it’s okay is read out the first five names and I’m just scrolling all the way back up to the top again. Just bear with me a second.So, first up, we have J. Jackson is number one.
Clive: Number two is B Haughton.
Euan: This one’s an interesting one. The next one is A. Turner.
Clive: Number four is M. Gillmore.
Euan: And lastly, number five is a G. Temple. So what are the five companies and we’ve got free consultations and the other 40, 50, whatever number it is, we will be in touch with you directly to arrange the offer of the 50% off that’s unique to this webinar. So that’s awesome. They’re certainly a quite a number of companies there that are ready to crack on with success.
Clive: Very well, doing just fine.Euan: Excellent. We’re going to do we’re kind of running quite short of time. We’ve had some awesome value there. We’re going to move on to questions and answers now. That’s okay. There’s been a number come in during the webinar, which is absolutely great. So, I’d like to thank you, Roy, especially for the exceptional, valuable content that you share today.
Roy: You’re welcome.
Euan: So we’re just going to quickly move on to the chat box in the Q&A box now this and just start working through them we may not get through them all as we don’t have very long left but, perhaps I could just start with the I think this probably goes back to right at the beginning of your what you spoke about Roy, and the question is, how do you think that skills and tech learning go hand in hand? How can companies innovate? How should we learn?
Roy: Great. And there are some fantastic resources out there. Now, I mentioned earlier the LinkedIn Learning Series available for LinkedIn purchases of subscription fantastic quality of tech technology online learning available. There’s another website which I really like to pass on to people this website called www.udemy.com. So, 100,000 online learning courses, the cheapest is £1.99 the most expensive at £199.99. But a great way to learn. But let’s remember, just think about a really innovative way. I was in the business recently, and they said, Oh, you know, we need to get the staff you know, good. And if only they could all be like Harry, you know. Alright, why was Harry? Harry is just great that we’ll see Harry he does this and Harry he does that and Harry closes and how his engagement his account manager but he’s a brilliant hunter, and he’s a farmer. Oh, Harry. That’s a great said. So, should we get him to do a, like a Learning Series? What do you mean? I said, Well, everyone’s got a mobile phone, when he’s out and about when you get him to do 2, 3, 5 minute drops onto with various camera about how he’s going to approach this customer or how he’s just secured. This upsell or how he’s developed this account management process, or how he’s got this new system in delivery, or I said, get him to download that, put it onto a short video, and then on your intranet, link it up for the staff so that all these bite-sized learning chunks from the staff who are great at the different things to event can be shared. So, the in-company learning, because I expect the wrong times when you need to get an expert from outside who’s going to teach something. But more often than not, there are people within your own business, who are specialists and experts at a portion of the job. bring that together, share it, and let’s upskill everybody workforce. I think the other final thing is that customers increasingly want to know, what is the skill level, what is the expertise level, what’s the credibility of the people who are serving us with what they are giving us, or they just post them passing is something on or how they got integrity. They know about it. I went to a branded sports shop, you know, and I was trying to buy some training shoes for something. And I said to the guy, excuse me. Are they new shoes there? They’re only good for running at all. They’re blue mate. I said, sorry?
He said they’re blue. I said, oh, yes, yes, sorry. I know that they’re blue. I’m just wondering, are they a tennis shoe, or are they badminton or will they be running when the blue you’re buying them or not. Now, that diminishes my confidence that I’ve got in buying shoes maybe because, you know, I’m not going to be Federer or anything a but actually wanted a shoe that was appropriate for the sport. I was going to push you. And I think we’ve got to think about that on our delivery driver’s competence. Are they or do they pass boxes in they go? I don’t know, mate. I’m just delivering it for you. The receptionists. The people that answer the phone. And they’re saying? Yes, it does it. Yes, it does not it doesn’t do that is our technical support team. Regularly ringing orchestras and checking all right, not just the account manager, it’s a technical support team ringing going out and visiting and checking that we’re doing the right stuff. So, I think skills and the technology that’s available for learning the moment is really giving us many, many opportunities to get in front of our competitors.
Euan: That’s an excellent answer. Thank you. Right. I think that’s covered it very, very well. Excellent. I’ve got another question popped in. Clive this. I think this is probably relating to something that you mentioned a few minutes back. The question is to innovate companies may think that will cost them a lot of money, money that they don’t have. How do you tackle this challenge?
Clive: As previously explained, we can locate funds for clients to get money does cost money. However, obviously a bid is generally a fixed figure. So, if a client wants X amount of funds, we can obviously we can go through proper consultation with them and then actually apply the bid. We wouldn’t, we would, we’d make recommendations based on what they were trying to get at the amount they were trying to get versus the project. There’s a lot of criteria that goes into a bid, particularly for grants. There are very small grants which are quite often locals with any clients who are around the Birmingham area in the Birmingham catchment area, or Manchester. There’re small grants which are given out pretty freely and pretty easily. And you don’t need any professional to go and get them you can get them quite easily. There are other areas we can take clients to crowdfund, we can do crowdfunding bids, so there’s a lot of things we can do. Just to get a bit of, it can typically cost around four to five grants for a grant bid. And you can expect to get out of that up to a million up to one and a half million depends on what the actual project is.Roy: I think Clive, if I may one of the things that you said before, which I thought was brilliant, and that is, can you afford not to innovate. That’s the real, the real question. You know, if you sat down with blockbuster now and said, you know, I believe you were offered Netflix for 50 million, you know, you turned it down, no, to Kodak who didn’t want digital cameras, you know, to Marks and Spencer’s who said, Oh, no, we don’t do deliveries. And we don’t open on Sundays and you can’t bring things back. We don’t have changing rooms. Now walks us fences are closing 100 stores down, you know, the only thing that people want Marks and Spencer’s, unfortunately, these days is the food. So, it’s, you know, run away from innovation. Don’t make the investments, you know, if you dare.Euan: Very sound advice, yes.Roy: The battleground is littered with companies that couldn’t afford to innovate. And now they can’t afford to open the doors.
Clive: Yes, it comes back to me it goes after the fear, right. And it’s up to you. It’s the big what if it goes wrong? What if it doesn’t work? What if it falls back, but in terms of cost, if there’s is an issue as long as a client has got the drive, we can find a way around it. Come on, man. I mean, you take the likes of – there’s a number of – think of Dyson Hoover’s, I mean, James Dyson, he failed 1500 times something it was and he’s now in was he worth 6.5 billion and you think of Elon Musk, he fails three times seriously. And he’s now worth an excess of 60 billion. He’s only 49. So, if you’ve actually got the drive, we can get you there. We can do whatever it takes.Roy: I think he made a good, very good point that Clive and I’ve [inaudible] some customers, and I’ve got to this point of discussing it with them, and they go, yes, but what we’ll do, we’re worried and this and that, and the other. When they pile up all the objections, I say, you know what? I think you’re right. I actually think you’re right, that this could fail. And it could cost a fortune. So why don’t you just leave it to the competitors? Oh, no, no, no, because unless I’m sitting in front of a business and absolutely determined and demonic and driven and resolute about the fact that they want to take their businesses forward. If they’re looking for an opportunity, why won’t fail, they’ll find it. They’ll find it. You know, the great thing for somebody who is negative is, they’ll always find other people to be negative with them.
Clive: Yes, well, I mean, if you hear so often people will say, oh, I’ve had this idea for years, and now someone’s brought it to market. Well, in fact, if that’s the reward you want that’s the reward you’ll get.Roy: Fantastic.
Euan: Yes, we have a little bit maybe just one last question, then we will we better move on. This question is around a specific product from the attendees. Our product is used on construction sites and has been fine with all the government guidelines we had found. However, some new HSE guidance has been uncovered, which says that it needs certain additional features. This means our product is fine for a site compound but not in some other applications. How can we get HSS official view without risking our product being officially rejected? It sounds to me like a typical challenge. Go for it.
Clive: Well, my advice would be to let us check it first because we can normally get the advice of HSE without going to HSE.
Roy: Yes.My view is, I’ve never fought shy of talking to the regulators. I’ve usually found I mean, okay, you get a kind of, you know, parking meter type regulators. But the vast majority of regulators want people to be safe. They want people to buy the right product. They want people to, you know, reduce the amount of sugar they’re eating, or they want well in the world. And so if they meet companies that are positively committed to enjoining that spirit and taking things forward, I found talking to the regulators, always a joy and they will often go out of their way to advise support or accommodate something that I’m trying to achieve. And I can think of many examples that I’m particularly in the HSE. The team up at Buxton, the research and development team, they’re, you know, they’ve still got the escalator from the horrific fire in the London Underground, they still got the Braga ferry locking key, you know, that they are experts in wanting to protect and keep people safe. If you go to them with a problem, nine times out of 10 they will work with you to find a solution. And then you get their blessing. So, for me, you know, go talk to them, say, think you got debt problems and talk to the bank and talk to them. Don’t keep them in the door.
Clive: Very helpful. Very helpful indeed. That’s great. It’s been brilliant advice coming in from those questions. I think we’re probably going to need to wrap up now if that’s okay. I would love to go on answering all the questions as previously mentioned, but we will be following up with each one of you answering your questions directly and via social media. In the meantime, if you can’t sit still and really feeling the urge to crack on, please do get in touch with myself or any of them in our team at any time. We will be excited as you are to be part of your success journey. Our next event will be advertised in the coming weeks. So please be sure to keep an eye out for the invites.Thank you for your time and thank you for your active contributions. And a special thank you to our guest expert here today, Roy and Euan. Thank you. We look forward to seeing you all again soon.
Goodbye.
Roy: Thank you. Bye, bye.