Growing a Business - A Real Life Case Study

Donate It Recycling Ltd has been established 7 years. We were initially approached by Collin Moss, the MD and Owner of the business, with general business queries about Finance, VAT and Regulations. Over time our conversations led on to what Collin wanted to achieve with the business. Donate It was being run ultimately as a lifestyle business; profitable and stable but not developing or growing. As with a lot of business owners, Collin had a short-term vision, but was not sure how to achieve that vision, and had no medium or long-term plan.

Pinpoint Business Advisory was tasked with developing and delivering a short-term plan (1-2 Years) for Donate It to grow. Collin had the classic problem of being over reliant on one customer, and needed to mitigate that risk by developing new customers and new markets. We set about looking at how the Company had traditionally developed new business, which was very much about relying on referrals and good old leg work - literally stopping off at prospective customers sites and knocking on doors, cold calling campaigns and emails. Pinpoint Director John Humphrey advised that Donate It needed to try different strategies and target new types of customer.

How we did it: We looked at new ways of marketing, embarking on several social media campaigns. This was not an easy task, as Donate It had virtually no on-line presence apart from it’s web site. We worked on the messaging of the company, targeting the green community, and then moved on to developing the brand online, as well as targeting potential customers based on their desire to be green, whilst earning cash for the community and/or themselves. The message varied depending on the type of customer and what their needs were. This was very much a balance of targeting whilst also appealing to a wide audience – a difficult thing to achieve.

Results: A 40% increase in business in the first 6 months which is continuing to grow. Our latest campaign (off-line) is showing early promise and we have an ambitious target to grow the business another 60% in Year 1. This will effectively double the size of the business this year.

The Future: We are working on a mid-long-term plan for Collin and the business, which takes into account growing the business significantly over the next 5 years. This also includes a 10 year plan and a contingency based on Collin’s age: bringing in extra resource, investment, new markets, new expertise, succession etc.. An exit plan.

“Very professional and great to work with. Pinpoint think outside the box, especially around new ways of doing/getting business. Pinpoint always produce a good outcome and they get results.” Collin Moss – MD – Donate It Recycling Ltd

Foot-note: Sometimes two heads are better than one!