THE GO-TO MAN

2020 has been a great year for ALISTER HALL. His business is thriving - at a time when many are floundering - and he is growing his team, and the divisions within his business. How has he pulled off this miracle?

Alister puts his success down to how he fosters close partnership-like relationships with customers, something that has been at the heart of what he has done throughout his professional life, and it is a philosophy that has brought him success for 25 years, whether as a telesales agent or running his own business.

Currently he runs product supplier go2 Ltd, a new name in the industry, but one that has made significant progress this year, thanks in part to developing good relationships with customers, but also listening to these customers and what they need to grow their businesses. Alister also partnered his business with Office Power earlier in the year, and this has had a huge impact on productivity and streamlining processes.

Developing customer relationship is something Alister learned when he started out in the industry as an 18-year-old telesales agent for a dealer. “That was all via the ‘phone using the Spicers catalogue, a record card box and an ashtray on the desk,” he laughs. “I really enjoyed that. I have always enjoyed talking to people in a consultative, friendly way, rather than having that supplier-customer relationship, and seeing it as more of a partnership. I have always been into the partnership element.”

After success in that role, Alister moved up to managing a telesales team, along with his own roster of premier clients. This later developed into a field role, which again he took to easily. “It was natural for me to sit in front of people and talk to them.”

However, despite the dealer being successful, and developing significantly during Alister’s time there, by 2014, he felt he had plateaued. “I wanted the opportunity to work for myself rather than for others,” he says. “I was coming up to 40; I was a director, and in a good position, but I considered that in five, 10 or 15 years’ time there was no possibility they were going to give me a share of the company. I would just be expiring, and not having anything to show for the years I had put in.”

TAKING THE GAMBLE

So Alister decided to take the gamble and strike out on his own – and really did put his money where his mouth is. “The first thing I did was to make big personal lifestyle changes to significantly my reduce outgoings to take the pressure off myself financially. “That gave me the freedom of not having the pressure of having to replace my salary with immediate effect.

“I effectively gambled on my own ability to replace that salary. Within three years I had doubled it.”

In the beginning, Alister joined a couple of old schoolfriends who supplied cleaning and janitorial products. He set up his supply chain through an office dealer services provider and started selling under the name Nu Office. Initially, he was successful but, before long, he became frustrated with the arrangement,

Alister felt that the provider was aligned more with smaller clients, while he had more experience managing a smaller number of large clients, where he could develop relationships and provide a more personalised experience.

This frustration incentivised Alister to make another move, this time into a partnership with Office Power. “I now have access to all the Office Power tools - suppliers, support, credit control, marketing, invoicing and scale,” he explains. “I get paid on any invoice we raise. Even though there is a slight elevation percentage-wise in terms of fees [compared to previous arrangement], the cost of the products in my basket is cheaper, so my cash margin is higher.

“It also means I can effectively cash flow forecast because I know what I would get at the end of each month. The system means that I am no longer credit controlling for two weeks a month. I now spend just two days carrying out admin, while the rest of the month I get to do what I am really good at -helping clients get their business-critical supplies, whatever they may be, wherever they maybe and whenever they are needed”.

NAME CHANGE

Alister set up a new company, Go2 – so called because his customers think of him as the ‘go-to’ person for supplies. The name was chosen to avoid the company being thought of as ‘just an office products supplier’.

“I used to get pigeonholed because of the Nu Office name; a lot of companies in the industry make the client feel like they are dealing with an office furniture supplier OR an IT supplier OR a stationery supplier - and so they miss out on other projects. I thought, if I have a neutral brand, we can be like a chameleon and suit what the clients want us to be, rather than trying to change their perception all the time.”

LIKE-MINDED PARTNERSHIPS

Since joining with Office Power Alister has sought to create partnerships with likeminded colleagues and through an agency contract agreement. “They all own their own business as consultancies and have an agency agreement with me,” he explains. “Once they sign that agreement they have access to all the products, services and marketing we provide. They then go out and bring on all the people they know, and get an agreed profit-share every month.

“We also have a specialist promotions business, which offers marketing goods, and procurement business that tackles items that are not necessarily day-to-day but, nevertheless, are still high value and important for our clients to be able to access. Each division has consultants who are specialists in each area. We are always adding new divisions so please get in touch if this is of interest; we’re currently looking at recruitment and property divisions.

“The model I use works so well because the self-employed agents are being paid a large profit percentage, so motivation levels are high and, because everyone knows where they stand there is no man-management required as everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet and I basically lead from the front.

“Our supply chains are locked-in and automated; we are effectively a stockbroker. Clients come to us and have a login and account; they can input, or we can do it for them, and they can order whatever they want, whenever they want, and have it delivered to wherever they want.

“The most challenging task was setting up the business, but now it is like a polished machine! I owe a lot of credit to Office Power for enabling me to launch Go2, and to work from their platform. “They have transformed my business. I had some conservative estimates of what we could achieve in the first year and we smashed these in the first four months.” Considering that most of those four months coincided with the first COVID-19 lockdown only makes this more impressive.

TAKING THE CHANCE

When the lockdown came Alister saw it as an opportunity. “We found a lot of our competitors were closing, and furloughing staff, which presented a huge opportunity for our business,” he says. “The first thing I did was speak to my clients. Fortunately, many were businesses that needed to continue to work throughout the pandemic. I asked what they needed us to do to become a supplier to help support them. I then set up supply chains with established suppliers of PPE, masks, signage - any supply they would need to keep their business running.

“Our turnover quadrupled within the first two months of the pandemic. Our clients switched their purchasing over to all these products they needed, and it was in huge volume.”

Another reason for Go2’s success is that throughout the pandemic Alister continued to meet his clients and suppliers – socially distanced, of course. “Before the pandemic I would meet a finance director or head of procurement at their office, suited and booted. There’d be handshakes, and I’d give them some statistics, and set some objectives for the next month.

“But COVID-19 changed this arrangement; this summer meetings would be in a client’s garden, their husband/ wife making me lunch, petting their dogs, meeting their children, and talking about planning their return to work and what they could do with their home working staff.

“It created some beautiful relationships that I would never have been able to achieve in a normal environment. It also meant the client knew that we were doing everything to support them through the pandemic, while a lot of suppliers had closed.”

MARKETING

Marketing is also responsible for the growth of the business. Alister was keen to develop a marketing model not seen in the industry and used a marketing strategy that involved both email marketing and social media.

“The pandemic meant that we were adapting both our business and the supplies we offered and this needed to be communicated to existing and new clients. Home working assessments with qualified physiotherapists, PPE, branded face mask, home office kit-outs were just some of the ways we pivoted to provide for our clients, and we needed to let them know. I decided to invest in a marketing strategy that would inform clients of our services, and that would be visible on all the relevant social networks. Now the conversation is twoway; not only are we communicating to our clients through email and social media, but they are also talking back. Social media and email marketing are helping us to develop more leads and grow relationships.”

The sales and marketing teams work closely together so that the right messages go out to clients regularly, and in a personalised manner - personalisation being key to everything that happens at Go2.

WHAT WILL 2021 BRING?

Looking to the future, Alister wants to build on this initial success and is looking to take on more agents – although he is seeking quality, rather than quantity. “We cherrypick who we work with. Anyone we bring on we ask, ‘Are you going to add value to the team? Are you going to work with us to get us where we need to go as a collective?’

We value teamwork, shared goals adaptability and forging great relationships; this is the secret to my success”.