My company, DJM Direct, are celebrating 20 Years of online selling.
How? How has the company managed to survive the great recession of 2008/09? How have they managed to grow during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020?
“Success is achieved through a plan that is 80 percent psychological (your beliefs about yourself and your business) and 20 percent strategic” – Tony Robbins.
The state you’re in equals your life. Your emotional home, values and energy follow you in everything you do. This includes in your business. The way you present yourself, coach your staff, and deal with your business all comes down to how you are feeling. To be at your best, you need to make sure you look after yourself before anyone else, which includes reaching out for help. We all need guidance to continue to grow, running a business is no different. Remember, success leaves clues.
It’s easy to be in the right state when everything is going your way, true character comes when you keep in a great state when everything and everyone around you is falling apart. The bigger the challenge, the bigger you grow.
Here are some tools and tips of my own personal experiences and learnings:
1. Change
The world is constantly changing, now more than ever. Resisting change is never going to end well. “Why change something if it’s not broken?” some of the older timers say. Well, it’s quite simple: if you stand still, you will get left behind. Keeping up to date with you and your staff’s knowledge is key. Having an open mind to learning new skills and listening to the right people, constantly trying to improve your business and seeing as early as possible when the changes need making, so you are being pro-active instead of re-active.
DJM Direct has that done that through:
i) Sales channels – from a face to face shop, to an online store.
ii) Stock – choosing more popular items, adapting to what the market wants, concentrating on items that are higher valued in both revenue and profit.
iii) Premises – Moved to a warehouse with more internal storage space and easier outside access for loading and unloading.
iv) Running cost – From the bulbs we use, to our insurance providers, we are always looking and comparing renewal quotes and ways of lowering our running cost without affecting our service.
v) Customer service – Adapt our rules and policies to follow that of other leading platforms, making our customers’ needs our priority.
vi) Branding – Changed our branding from Timothy Wood Limited to DJM Direct. With new products and premises came new branding. We are no longer an Ironmongers that supplies the local area, we are a family-run online retail shop that supplies around Europe.
vii) I.T – Staying up to date with the latest CMR – Anything you buy through our shop is delivered next working day delivery.
2. Training
Keep yourself and staff up to date to keep improving your service – logistics, customer service, sales and maximising profits. Listening and being open-minded to new information.
a: Simplicity: Keeping it simple – Who are your company? What do they do? Is it obvious from the outside exactly who you are and what you do? DJM Direct import products from around the world and sell them directly to the end user, guaranteeing the best value for money on the goods we supply. Furthermore, we sell factory returns stock again at the best money can buy. This isn’t some sort of sales pitch, it’s fact. We have created a demand for the factory returns stock we supply. Our customers know we are a brand that they can trust. We have made buying online an easy, pleasurable experience at an unbeatable price.
b: Valuing Staff: For any business to succeed you need good staff, which can be found or trained. It’s important that all staff understand the company’s goals and what role they play in achieving those goals. Looking after your staff, caring for their wellbeing, making sure they know they are appreciated and sharing rewards them is all good practice. DJM Direct has long term staff. It is important to help develop your staff along with the company. Make your company a place where staff want to come into work.
c: Knowing your place within the business: Business owners can’t be the talent, manager/leader and entrepreneur. Unfortunately, a lot of start-up and smaller business owners try to do all three and more. This leads to burnout, overload, making bad decisions, and blaming others for the failures on things that aren’t going right. It’s so common to see business owners not letting go, not trusting staff and feeling that they are the only ones that can get the job done. This just isn’t true. If the owner shares the company’s vision and goals, coaches their staff and ‘directs’ them, you will usually find the staff can do the job better than you. It’s up to you to put procedures in place and then make sure staff are following the procedures. If something goes wrong, is it the procedure that needs changing or the staff need more understanding? Blaming doesn’t get you anywhere. If there are repeating problems, it’s you who is at fault for not fixing them.
Delegate the work, so you can concentrate on the next project to keep pushing the business forward…
If your business is more than a few years old, ask yourself, “How long can the business run without you in it?” If your answer is not long, then you are your business, so you haven’t actually got a business. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki a number of years ago and one of the main takeaways was that a lot of business come to an end, so it’s advisable not to have all your eggs in one basket. If you can get your business running without you there, you can start a new venture. Not all businesses succeed, and some may not fulfil your needs. Having multiple businesses can help you find your true calling and give you something to fall back on, should one of them fail.
At DJM Direct, our sister company had run its course. Closing the doors after over 100 years of servicing the locals (public, trade people, contractors, schools, hotels, hospitals, etc) in the Huddersfield area was a hard to swallow, but in the background, we had built a successful internet business we could fall back on.
3. Know and listen to your customers
Knowing your customer’s needs. What problems do they have that you can solve? Do you customers choose price over quality? Is the speed of the delivery more important? Are they willing to wait? DJM Direct have a backlog of customers that are willing to wait for their factory returns stock. The customers know that the savings are that high and they are willing to wait for non-essential products.
4. Business action plan
Without a clear vision you and your business can end up going forwards, only to then take two steps back. It’s good practice to have a longer-term plan and then work backwards. So where does the company want to be in three years’ time? You then work out what needs to be done in the next year to work towards that plan.
DJM Direct have a short and long-term plan, but these are not set in stone. In fact, changing direction quickly has helped us survive the more challenging times. Don’t keep your vision to yourself, share it with your staff and customers.
5. Looking at the correct figures
The two main ones are your nett/gross profit and cash flow! In sales it is easy to slip into chasing turnover. Revenue without profit is leading to closure, you need to know your margins. At DJM we know what we make to the pence on everything we sell. That is the selling price minus the cost minus any seller fees minus the carriage. This gives you your gross. Minus your running costs then gives you your nett. It’s amazing to see companies that don’t know their true cost. It can be easier to cut running costs than to chase sales and still come away with more profit. Know your assets, know your liabilities, and forecast your cash flow.
6. Hard work and a willingness to do things that others aren’t
Ordering and stocking extra packaging to ship out irregular products that our competitors find too much hassle. Working 7 days a week, 15 hours a day during the Pandemic. Keep moving forward when circumstances out of your control knock you down. At DJM we keep going when the challenges become overwhelming.
Gordon Ramsay’s autobiography Humble Pie shows why he is so successful. He was working two jobs, giving him only a few hours’ sleep a night. He would work his way to the top of a restaurant, only to leave and join another at the bottom again. He was willing to do anything to be the best. You’ve got to really want it and work for success.
7. Take risks
You are never going to win on all the decisions you make. But making the wrong decision is better than making none at all. This might sound crazy, but you have to be willing to spend and lose money. We learn just as much from our failures as we do our wins. As long as we take responsibility, act, learn and move forward from our failings.
8. Set your standards
We learn to discipline our disappointments, but this does not mean we lower our standards. Leading by example and constantly reviewing and improving the business in all areas. After reading Alex Ferguson’s autobiography, this was something that stood out for me. His standards where known by everyone at Manchester United. From the scouts, to the groundsman, to the cleaners.
You either stepped up or you were out. It’s the attention to detail on everything that you and your business does, from how you answer the phones to always being on time. Presentation and first impressions matter. Sir Alex’s influence literally flew through Manchester United. His standards plagued the club into a winning mentality where everyone gave it 100%, and even more impressive was that everyone wanted to be a part of it.
9. Know your why
Why are you doing what you are doing. The 5 why exercise can give you a deeper meaning on why you do what you do. Understanding this can give you more grit and determination when those feelings of giving up come to mind or it could send you down a completely different path.
10. Limiting beliefs
“We can’t increase our prices, we can’t offer such a low price for that stock, our staff will not work those hours, our customers won’t wait for that product, staff can’t do it as well as me”. It’s endless and these limiting beliefs could be holding you or your work-life balance back.
During my time as a Director, I have let go of ego, changed to an open mindset and given others the responsibility they so well deserve. It’s been much more rewarding seeing others grow and succeed, rather than trying to do everything myself and taking all the credit. Changing the ‘I’ into ‘We’. It’s much more fun to share your wins with a team than polish up your own ego.
11. No quick fix
“Hi, look at me! I take my kids to school in my Ferrari, go for a swim, I’ll tell you how to make a six figure some in a short space of time”… blah blah – bollocks! Sorry but it just is.
There could be a small minority that are in the right place at the right time, but generally, running businesses is an ongoing long-haul project. It’s never a straight line and can be like riding a roller coaster. One minute you’re on top of the world, the next you’re at the bottom.
That is business, and that is life, not everything goes to plan. Everything changes and it doesn’t always work in your favour. DJM lost £500k in yearly revenue when Brexit happened, due to the Amazon PAN system. We have had loyal staff leave us, steal from us, become terminally ill. We have had Amazon Vendor holding back payment affecting cash flow, we’ve run out space, run out of money, run out of products. We have suppliers break contracts, and customers too! Our premises have been flooded, they have been broken into repeatedly. Our vans have been stolen, we’ve made some costly mistakes. Carriers have stopped taking our irregular products with no notice leaving £1000’s of stock sat on our shelves. We’ve had both eBay and Amazon suspend our accounts, nearly sending us into liquidation, the list goes on.
Life isn’t always fair, and this definitely applies when running your own business. Running my own business, I have been personally worn out, done, can’t go on, fighting panic attacks, suffering with insomnia, taking to alcohol and just really suffering. Pain is unavoidable, suffering isn’t. Suffering is when we think there is no way out, but actually there is.
Don’t suffer; reach out for a coach. It doesn’t have to be me, but I’m always here if you want to get in touch.
A special mention to thank my brother Dean McFadden, the joint Managing Director of DJM Direct. Our Process and Sales Manager, Chris Bird, and our Online Manager, Johnny Thurston. My good friend, Mick Clarke, and, of course, my wife Beccy, who is always there to support me.
Without the help of these people, DJM Direct wouldn’t be the successful business it has become.