After just 3-months, Tim was spending 1-day a week less at work. He re-evaluated the team and introduced testing and measuring, as well as sales training. The company conversion rate increased from 50% to 70%. Discounting is now a thing of the past. Prices have actually been increased, and profit has gone from negative to +11%.

After 6 months, cashflow forecasts indicated an inventory challenge. This was tackled with new contracts put in place and ‘dead’ stock cleared. The conversion rate was now better than 80%. A 10% increase in profit per month became our target. A new key team member was employed when an existing salesperson was promoted to General Manger, freeing up the owner. 500 people were enrolled in the VIP program.

At first, Tim, like most business owners needing help or seeking outside advice, was very skeptical.
However, he was in such a situation that he was willing to give business coaching a go.

To begin with, he found the initial telephone coaching call not as effective as a face-to-face meeting (he’s a real people’s person) but soon realized that personalized, one-on-one business coaching was more focused and productive.

It all changed one fateful night in September. The center management had invited a representative from ActionCOACH do a free seminar on sales and marketing to show us how we could improve our businesses.

I thought I would go along just to see what these “consultants” were on about and what ideas they might have.

I thought it was all very weird when one of their representatives started trying to balance about ten helium balloons all at once.

I was actually going to get up and leave.

When I left school in 1989, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would end up in retail, let alone owning a business that sells menswear. In fact, before I bought The Club Shoppe in 1999, I knew absolutely nothing about menswear.

I actually started out as a school teacher and although it’s a noble profession, I discovered real early that it was not for me, and that it would not take me to where I wanted to go.

When Tim and Natasha Roberts bought their business, they set themselves a few goals that they thought were reasonable.
First, they wanted to make the business profitable, and to increase turnover by 50% and profit by 70%. To put this in perspective, they thought that if they could make a total profit of $150,000, they’d be more than happy.
They also wanted to pay $150,000 off their business loan and to be in a position to hire a new team member.
Of course, they also set themselves some personal goals such as being able to spend more time with the family, to earn enough to landscape the backyard, and to get focus and direction back into their lives.
So how did they feel on purchasing the business?