Jan Cavelle's Formula for Spotting Market Gaps and Creating Profitable Ventures

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur and I'm really excited because we've got an amazing story. An amazing lady who's built a business over 20 odd years built it from a kitchen table into a brand, a multi-million-pound brand that she could sell. And Jan Kavell is joining me from Sussex in the southeast of England. Jan, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Jim, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Well, I'm thrilled because your story is inspiring on so many levels and you're going to tell us really how necessity meant that you were a pioneer of dropshipping and how you defined an avatar, not through some fancy sort of workshop, but just really through practical mother's needs. But you built one of the country's leading furniture suppliers to businesses and were able to sell it 20 odd years later. Wonderful story coming on to you, jan. Tell us a little bit about the business that you built and then we'll talk about some of those other learnings we can all take from you.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Surely, jim, I'd be delighted to. The business I built was, as you say, very much out of necessity. I was a single mom and I had these two young children. I knew virtually nothing about business, but I had got bits and pieces of sales experience. If I scratched my head and I thought, what can I do that will enable me to feed my children, which was a very urgent thing, and that will keep me at home, it struck me that, therefore, buying something in and selling it out certainly hadn't heard of dropshipping at that point in time, but buying something in and selling it out would be a good thing to do, and preferably never hitting the house because we didn't have much room to start with. Then I thought what I don't want to do is have customers at the door because with small children, that sort of interference would be horrendous. Equally with my sales experience, I got some degree of business to business experience recruitment, for example, where you are selling people sorry if I'm going to be called to recruiters, but roughly was selling the services to people and getting a fee for it. Therefore, you've got, hopefully, if you do a good job, you've got people coming back all the time, and that struck me as very, very sensible. I had limited ways of making money. If they were going to buy from me once and buy from me again, then that was going to be a helpful thing. So I thought about that and then I thought who could I sell to and what could I sell? I was in East Anglia at a point in time. There were lots of craftsmen around, so I thought craftsy things and I knew a bit about the interior design industry, a little bit, a little bit about furniture. So I thought that's certainly one option and I can see bits and pieces would go. But would it be enough? Would it actually keep us regularly in food? Wow, I thought about this a bit more and I thought you know, along this regular business route, what are they actually needing? What would make their lives easier? What is their problem in supply of bits and pieces that they need? Because of course, people like designers are often selling on to somebody else. So they just want to do a good job and to have that done for them as easily as possible. And I felt instinctively there might be a gap in the market for supplying interior designers with things on a regular basis. And if they knew, if they could have them over and over again for me, whatever it was, of any size and description, then they would come to the same person each time, hopefully. And that was the sort of principle that evolved and it was very much feeling my way over making my life easier. Something would suit my lifestyle and design a customer to match, if you like.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yeah, jan, I love that, and you know we're talking about the 1990s here, when you did that, and you know I was also just commuting to university. Then I mean, we were all free internet. So if anyone listening now, it seems like, well, you, of course you can find things on Amazon and you could do drop shipping and you could put on to on to Etsy and charge a premium right, but you were doing this from a kitchen with a four and a seven year order, if I'm not mistaken, jan. So let's just break that down. How did you then first of all start to approach those customers? How those those businesses and interested you chose businesses instead of consumers because they have repeat need, which is very smart of you. How did you approach them? Because they are kind of turning up offering to be an intermediary because they could go and find those products themselves. Why would they come to you?

Speaker 2: 5:41

Well, this was it. I mean, we needed or I needed, should I say, because it was just me, so it's a little pompous thing we at that stage, and it was a question of really cutting their work down somehow, and that was where I felt the more I could supply them with, the more problems I could solve and the flexibility of my suppliers would come into play, because if they could get a bedside table in white from me and yet an oak dining room table from me, they would just go tick, tick, tick and use me for as much as possible. It didn't quite work like that, but it started definitely giving me an edge of ease as people got to trust for reliability and of delivery and service and like and make it. You know, it was important to make it a pleasure that they dealt with you as well, and so, you know, became became a better experience for people to use me rather than to go shopping.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Jen, I love that you've got a few things in there. First of all, I'd love to talk about what did you use? Because in pre internet days you'd have to go out and visit companies and you know, I used to work in a company selling food to Tesco's and Sainsbury's and so on and you had to go visit the key account managers. Tell us how did you sort of package all the products? Because actually we still need to learn that skill, what you're doing about really essential business skills.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Well, there was certainly no skill involved at the start, I can assure you being very modest. I sketched up some bits and pieces as a trial basis. I could not afford any prototypes. I have no cash. I had a tiny little gap on my credit card left and persuaded a printer to do me a short run of these awful, awful brochures. But they gave me something to send out to people and the time, as I say, being extremely cashless, I was getting a little bit of income score when I went and cashed my income supporting. I would buy one yellow pages in those days, because of course there's no internet research potential clients, so, so one. You want Trade directory every every week and then I would hit the phones and I would ring furniture companies, interior designers, furniture shops, anybody who might buy what was in those lists and then in the trade directories every week.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Jan, that is impressive. So you are designing your own brochures going out. What about the other end of the equation, these, these craft people, these providers of the products? How did you approach those and do the sourcing?

Speaker 2: 8:38

Well, it was difficult for small suppliers. They want they. Were beautiful craftsmen, many of them. But I have a time I don't remember but it was probably about time of lawrence who went and changing rooms and suddenly they were coloring houses and people were considering buying things which want the. You know it was a repro furniture that was around in every high street. But equally, not only were quite a lot of shops resistant to the idea of anything that wasn't a repro, traditional and hadn't been sold for 50 years, but actually the craftsman was very resistant to it too. You know you'd say, would you like to make something in mdf for me? And you know I'll get it finished and sprayed. We're not doing that tap. You know what do you want to do that for? I'll make a nice table. You know, and it was. It was quite tricky to match contemporary needs to craftsman locally. But you know, if you haven't lunch, to some extent the nice thing about that set up is that Supplies have nothing to lose. You're not asking them to make anything for free. You're only gonna go to when you got an order. So you know it's, it's the bright one. See that it's a moderate win, win.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Yeah, okay, so it's perfect. Just for those of us not in the trade mdf. What does that stand for?

Speaker 2: 10:02

Medium density fiberboard. It's it's a smart version of chipboard right, so fantastic yourself very good to paint.

Speaker 1: 10:11

So you are basically getting people to be on standby and not hold stock, and this is the point about it being really a your precursor to what we now call drop shipping, where you really arbitraging or broken between a customer and not building anything until it needed to be made which is great way of doing business if you've got no capital, which was exactly my problem. Yeah, but I love how you've managed to turn necessity into a business model, and that's a very humble about very modest about it, and so you did mention earlier on as well a couple of things about how you identified what customers would look for and that you wanted it to be a pleasure for them to do business with you. I'd love for you to expand more on that, because in this day and age of the internet, where people are not meeting a jank of Ellen there in their showroom, for example, in their offices, how have you, how do you define making doing business with you and your business a pleasure?

Speaker 2: 11:15

Well, this came down to very much to telephone sales because of course I couldn't go and meet people, I didn't have the cash for one thing, for either for transport or for babysitters or one thing and another, and it just it was too big a gamble at that point in time. You need to take a train or drive to Glasgow me off chance of making an order. I just couldn't do it. So it had to be fun and you know that was very much a question of perseverance. In essence it was hard selling because I was just cold calling them, telephone chatting and selling this thing which they hadn't seen. It's very hard to sell a product which they can't touch. But I did it by perseverance thing, if you like. With the telephone sales and I never had pushed it I would talk to them and build up a relationship and find out a bit more each time. I'm copious notes about everybody, find out more about their family, more about their needs, more about their business. Never push it and say you know, I'll give you another ring in two or three months, and sometimes it would take me four or five calls before eventually they would say I'm stuck on. Could you help me out? Yeah, absolutely, I'd be delighted to, but it was all about relationship developing, which most people didn't, didn't and indeed still don't do. In telephone sales I got sufficiently good at it, just as wincing. So I don't like to say I'm good at anything. As you gather, the people would say I'll see you again next time you're in and I would never, never, ever met. But you know, we have that sort of relationship.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Yeah, you're. You're amazingly modest for the, for what you've managed to accomplish. So you had people, but what about? You were selling them something that hadn't been built in many cases, and you're doing illustrations, not photographs. I have to ask you 1990s, we didn't have iPhones, of course you know, and photography was quite expensive. Actually, was that why you didn't use photographs?

Speaker 2: 13:28

or something. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't afford. You know, if we had photographs I'd have had to buy the pieces. I'd have a prototype pieces and then pay for photography and the bro to would cross more. There's no chance of me having.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Yeah, no, I know, and I used to, you know, work in advertising in a day shoot was was a small fortune, and then all the yeah and then a color color print and so on. Did you have to offer some kind of a money back guarantee then?

Speaker 2: 13:56

because if you're offering a sort of site unseen product, I mean, we were very, very hot on service, particularly in the early days, and I bullied anybody who did any work for me. I'm mercilessly, but you know it. I knew it was crucial to the designers to have some stuff in the right quality and on the right day and I was never going to get off the ground if that didn't happen. So you know, if I mean that's your time, I stayed up all night and attempt to finish something myself, you know, if need be, but whatever it took, they got it.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Jan, I love that, that commitment and I guess also born out of your domestic situation there was.

Speaker 2: 15:18

there was no plan B, you couldn't walk away and I got so scared looking back, but at the time I just have to keep going.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Yeah, yeah, no, I can see that amazing Jan, you did manage over time to build the business and transitioned into being more and more of a brand. So I'd love to start to move on to that journey where, in over 20 years, you built this into a multi-million pound business and sold the brand and not the manufacturing. So that's brilliant. Tell us, how did you start to build the Jan Kovell brand?

Speaker 2: 15:51

Well, gradually we got bigger for one thing and started selling to more people and we were in a moderately niche area. So and also a fairly high turnover. I mean interior designers turn over in the people, the companies they work for, quite fast and you know so. If you've got a good supplier in a business that's like that, you don't dump them because you're going to work for another company. You retain the supplier, so they become your best brand ambassadors if you're serving them well, which is one thing that is so important, I think, in building a business. But also we did in the latter days when we got a bit more established. We did things like one of our most successful campaigns was running advertisements in House and Garden and we would take a whole page which was staggering expensive because all those glosses are. If you've been in advertising, you know what it's like. You're talking five figures a page, easy. But we would talk up to some of the people who bought from us and say would you like to be listed as a stockist and therefore it will cost you. You know we're going to have 50 stockists or 40 stockists on there and therefore it will bring you business because you can be the stockist for Hastings or whatever, but equally it will cost you 300 quid, but once you put a whole lot together it's a mini investment for them but maximum exposure for us, and that worked in establishing us as a brand. That worked beyond belief. You know, suddenly we were with the big boys playing little money, so that was excellent. In many ways it was also a challenge.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Very, very clever. Jan, you mentioned that's a challenge. Do you want to just tell us, in all the successes that you've had, one, just one thing that you think kind of didn't go according to plan? From a marketing point of view?

Speaker 2: 17:55

That was a challenge because of course, as we were selling to order I don't know whether I'd overlooked it or just leapt ahead, but people assumed the general public assumed they could then go to somewhere. And if you just design us and find stock which of course is designers only bought to order was a little bit tricky. So we got one or two of the general public ringing up and spitting blood, but on the whole it worked really well.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Yeah, I guess, if you call them a stockist, technically they've got stock and actually some of them fell through the crack of it, but you managed to overcome that. So would that then have been sort of, I guess, from a I said of a, something not working quite as well, potentially risked your reputation for service and delivery by by offering something at scale when the business was not that scale yet?

Speaker 2: 18:54

I think it was. Yeah, it was borderline. I mean, I think also, you know the people who came in and they were paying very, very little money relatively to for the exposure, suddenly expected far, far more in the way of service, and you know we're expecting just superb treatment when they've got excellent anyway, which really wasn't any justification for the money involved. I'm and we also find that one or two of them because they got discount for stock so that they could have something, if you wanted to actually supplying all their clients with discounted pieces which never actually have a show and floor. That was just.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Yes, yeah, there are a few challenges involved okay, so we sort of managing that sales promotion is something we need to think about if we're going to go into that space.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Yeah, you want to be sure that nobody's actually going to take you for a ride.

Speaker 1: 19:50

Can you mentioned? Of course, at the beginning we talked about you made to build and sell this brand is we only have 20 minutes of the cost? An amazing life story there, and you've written books as well. How did you make a cell the brand? Because that's the ultimate right. You made to build a business, sell the brand and then carry on with your life after. How did you manage to do that?

Speaker 2: 20:13

Well, I've been thinking about selling for a long time, as you've got a lot of so ignorant. When I started off your vision of selling a business something right over my head but I had started by that time going to courses and things, which I think is it's really necessary to encourage anybody thinking about setting up a business to understand how the buying and selling works, because you are creating something that could be of capital value. And I certainly didn't understand that and I would have done it in different ways had I known that at the beginning. But that's a whole new Set of information and stories there. But yeah, I mean, I debated whether to sell it for about five years and then the day came and I just thought I cannot face one more day doing this. I'm, you know, the business I did love and joke that people would have to carry me out of, you know, suddenly become something I didn't want to be in anymore. I think you don't expect Necessarily that you can fall out of love with your business, but it does happen. Definitely Another good reason why you need to know how to sell it. So you know it was at that point, having turned down Many offers, some very good offers, I suddenly thought I don't care about actually the money anymore, I just want to get out before Christmas and was. It came down to you and by that time it was autumn and I knew a competitor was interested in the brand and so we talked to him and I probably should have spent more time in in actually seeing who else was interested, because I think I'm right, because he's closed now and I think he sold it on somebody else and I keep on meaning to look. Different companies selling turn kevalper sides. The other day I thought, hey, what's going on?

Speaker 1: 22:07

So I think the key point there for me is that, for all the supply of the product, in the end the brand Survives. Yeah, was the value. Of course people, apple and co co actually the product changes, but the brand, the continuity of promise to the customer of your service and your reputation is really what people are buying, right?

Speaker 2: 22:28

I think so. Yeah, and some of the designs you know over years and this is a good sort of trick to remember if you're building a business and you've got limited scale and knowledge Is, I was so very obsessed with sales marketing, which was the bit I did best, but I would look at all these specials that people would order and be able to use my own form of market research, because they were buying a lot of Tables with square legs or something and we didn't have one in the brochure. I would take all right, next time, put a table with square legs. And so you know, I had this regular flow of information, which was one for me with very devoted to follow that. So we were considered quite strong on design side, which goodness knows, with me not being able to draw we were not, but I could do was say to the makers you know, hold on a second. You know, you've seen those square legs floating all the time. How about we do something like that?

Speaker 1: 23:28

And I love how you use sort of market intelligence for building things. That final question, jan if there's one piece of intelligence you'd like to share with my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs About getting noticed, what would you say to?

Speaker 2: 23:42

us. I would say definitely, be absolutely, fearlessly authentic, because unless you stick to that, a, you're going to be very unhappy and, b, you won't be able to blow it up, which you have to be a bit if you're developing a brand. So be fearlessly authentic.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Wonderful Jan. When you say blow it up, what do you mean?

Speaker 2: 24:05

sorry, yes, sorry, I should have put that slightly better. You have to be a little bit larger than life. You have to make your brand a little bit larger than your next door neighbor you know it's blowing the picture up to be larger, bigger than the next door one.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Jan, I love that, as someone I heard the other day called it living out loud.

Speaker 2: 24:30

That's much better we're putting it.

Speaker 1: 24:32

No, but no blowing up your brand and living out loud and, but being authentic. And, jan Kovell, what an authentic and inspiring story that you shared today. And so modest and yet you've accomplished so much, just intuitively, as an entrepreneur. So thank you for sharing that very much today, my pleasure. So you joined myself and Jan Kovell over. Actually, she's in Hastings in Sussex, on the east side of England, and, jan, if you want to get hold of you, how can they do that?

Speaker 2: 25:01

Thanks, Jim very much. They can get hold of me through my website, it's just wwwjamkevellcouk.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Great, that's C-A-V-E-L-L-E. Absolutely right, jim. Thank you, you're welcome. So thank you for joining Jan and I today. I'm sure you've been as inspired as I have with her story and if you've enjoyed it too, please share this with a fellow, a noticed entrepreneur, and until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you for listening.