Getting to greatness

From nearly leaving the industry in 2018, to winning the Dealer Excellence award at the most recent Boss Awards, we speak to ALISTER HALL, Go2 MD, about the fascinating journey he has been on - including the lightbulb moment that changed it all

You’ll realise, as you read on, that Alister Hall is an incredibly energetic and positive person - and his ideas on growing a successful, happy business will certainly help other dealers on their own journeys to success.

CAN YOU START BY TELLING US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY TO BECOMING GO2 MD?

I went for a sales job in 1993 selling stationery. They gave me a Spicers catalogue, a record card box, a Yellow Pages, a diary, and I cracked on. Within five years of starting that job they moved me up to running a telesales team and then, five years after that, I was made sales director there.

At this point I was going out into the field more, meeting with clients, growing the team and growing the business. Even back then I could see that the market needed to diversify, because I was getting asked more and more for different things. The company was leaning towards products that didn’t really reflect what the client wanted to buy, and we were missing out on opportunities. I felt that we were hitting walls, and we still needed to evolve more, but my boss didn’t really want to diversify to the level that I did so I left when I was 39.

I then went into business with two school friends who already had a successful commercial daily office and events cleaning management business. We created a group company with all the different products and services, and that was very successful - but, again, within a fiveyear period I’d hit the ceiling in terms of the amount of business I could process on my own. At this point it was 2018 - it was a year of hell. I didn’t know where the next pound was going to come from, or whether I wanted to work in this industry anymore.

Eventually I decided I did want to stick it out. I called Office Power and I set up a new company. After the Office Power meeting I was reinvigorated, and I thought, ‘Do you know what - I’m going to have one last crack at this!’ I started off with one lady, that then became two ladies, and we’ve now got about 10 of us!

SO, WHERE DID THE NAME GO2 ORIGINATE FROM?

We supply a big law firm in Wardour Street and in 2018 (the year of doom) I was sitting in the room with the financial director when the IT guy walked in and said, ‘Who do you go to for laptops?’ and the FD said, ‘I go to Al’ and then he walked out.

I said, ‘That’s the name!’ So, I went home and said to my son, ‘Knock me up a ‘Go2’ logo please.’ He came up with a few concepts and we went with the one that we’ve got now!

WOW! IT JUST SHOWS THAT SOMETIMES IN THOSE MOMENTS, WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE GIVING UP, ALL IT TAKES IS THAT ONE LIGHTBULB MOMENT TO CHANGE EVERYTHING!

Definitely, and it’s been such an exciting journey. We recently won a BOSS Award for Dealer Excellence, which was an amazing recognition of what we’ve achieved and, to be honest, I’m so into my day-to-day stuff that I didn’t take stock of how successful we’d actually become.

I guess that’s also due to my motto which is, ‘Keeping it in the day.’ One thing I’ve found is that a lot of companies in the industry are always looking too far back, or too far forward.

For us at Go2, we keep everything in the day. We have a framework that sits in the background but, ultimately, we keep everything in the day, so we don’t beat ourselves up for a mistake that we made yesterday - we’ll learn from it, but we don’t project into the future and think about things like recession. At the moment the recession presents a massive opportunity - the companies still around are lean and healthy, and I’d like to think we are too. I’m not saying that we’re immune to recession, because we’re not, but we certainly don’t spend all our time talking about it.

SO, ON THE THEME OF ‘KEEPING IT IN THE DAY’, WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON AT THE MOMENT?

We’re currently having a brand new website built, which will go over the top of the webstore and will become a mini shopping centre for the company. So, I could say to you, ‘Hi Eleanor, I’m going to show you the Go2 business shopping experience,’ and you could log in, and there will be a dedicated webstore for promotional merchandise, PPE, workwear, print, stationery, business supplies, office furnitureand everything in between. It’s all going to be in one neat little place, and the Go2 platform that you already use will be within that.

The other thing is continuing to focus on diversification. In the summer we went into partnership with an events and waste management business after one of our agents said he was looking at a commercial events management cleaning company to partner with. He wasn’t looking for us, but when I explained to him that Go2 are effectively a solution for procurement and services - and it doesn’t actually matter what the goods are, or what the services are - he bought into it. We set up a meeting with Office Power and from that we set up all of his suppliers, did the recruitment, and we ended up doing the commercial waste management for huge events like All Points East and Summer Series.

We did four events in total, which generated about half a million pounds’ worth of turnover, with a healthy profit margin as well, and we did it all under the Office Power banner. We did such a good job that they’ve already re-ordered, so that half a million is going to come in again, and it might be even bigger this year.

DO YOU FEEL, NOW YOU’RE DIVERSIFYING TO SUCH A LARGE EXTENT, THAT YOU’RE MOVING AWAY FROM THE TRADITIONAL DEFINITION OF A DEALER/RESELLER?

Yes, but I would say it’s almost the same as what I’ve always done, which is we’ve got a platform, we’re utilising it to the maximum amount, we’ve got the ability to purchase anything from anywhere, at any time, from anyone, and the whole world is open to us in terms of what service we can provide.

Go2 as a brand means that we’re not pigeonholed into any area. When I speak to other dealers and they say, ‘Why is Go2 doing so well?’ I say to them, ‘The first thing is that having the name ‘ABC Stationery Limited’ is not going to help - before you do anything else, change that name and become some sort of brand, and make a big thing about it. Bang the drum and say, ‘We’re diversifying. Out with the old - in with the new!’

We don’t tie ourselves down, and we’re certainly not like a traditional dealer other than we’ve got all the same functionality and access, but our communication is very different.

I say to people, ‘Go2 are effectively Amazon for businesses.’ You can go on and you can get anything you want for your business - the only difference is that we’re more dedicated to tailoring it to what you want. You don’t have to buy what they sell; you can buy what you want to buy, and we’ll make it happen. You’ll have an account manager that really cares, and they’re going to come and see you every quarter, or every month. You won’t get that from Amazon. So I say we’re like a mini dedicated Amazon for business. That’s my elevator pitch, and people get it.

WHAT ARE YOUR LONG-TERM AMBITIONS FOR GO2?

We’re going to keep moving forward, step-by-step, doing what we’re doing, which means continuing to refine the procurement process, partnering-up with successful trade businesses that support what we’re doing, making sure we are visible, making it extremely easy for the client to order from us, scaling the business up - and, when we hit a certain level, ensuring we’ve got the right support staff in place.

At the moment, like I say, we are keeping things in the day; today is a nice day and we’re all happy but, in the future, I think it would also be nice to have a business that’s scalable, so that the staff who work within the company have the opportunity of acquiring shares and have a career path within the business as well.

I don’t want to be going on a mad mission to grow the business just to sell it; I would rather it be an ongoing legacy so that, when I expire, the right people will grow into it and take over, and the mechanics of the business will be set up so that it happens. I’m quite open about the fact that I want everyone to work together, and that we’re going to do well together. We want the Go2 ship to sail into the sunset, but the destination is genuinely not just my beach.

THAT’S A NICE WAY OF LOOKING AT IT.

Yeah, it’s for all our beaches. That’s the plan.