Wealthsavvy: Branding

Grow A Home Business:

In my last column, we proved that the average housewife practices world class management practices instinctively. In most cases she would not be highly educated either. The means there is a hidden wealth generator in almost every household.

Some years ago, the crash of the airbus 320 in Bangalore was the beginning of the end of successful Company. The founder died in the crash and soon things went from bad to worse. The professional CEO of one of the divisions was soon out of a job where he had spent many years. Unqualified family members were introduced, an occupational hazard for any professional.

The CEO's wife till then had been a home maker, bringing up the two sons while the CEO kept the home fires burning. When the CEO lost his job, his wife instinctively decided to help out and support the family. She began by trading in sarees. A simple formula, buy good quality low priced saris from an acquaintance in another State and sell for a small profit in Mumbai. The selling would today be called direct selling chain marketing style. Except that in those days there was no chain and neither were there any training sessions.

She leveraged her skill at choosing a good sari into a business proposition. Buying a sari is something every indian housewife would be comfortable with. She leveraged her appreciation of the "value for money" concept every housewife swears by. Finally she leveraged her network, her acquaintances on the bus to the market, other mothers at school, the neighborhood and voila she had a business going. Since she offered a value for money proposition, the word of mouth marketing ensured a steady stream of customers who came searching for her. Initially she brought in cash and as the quantity increased, she increased the volumes by picking larger stock on credit. This reduced transportation costs, enabled her to offer a better variety and she was on a roll. She was a business woman and a home maker to too.

The husband soon moved to another city to start his own business. The wife had to leave her thriving business and move, she did this readily as her primary goal was to provide for her family. In the new city, with the kids out of her hair having enrolled in professional courses, she decided to assist her husband in running his factory. Her stint as a business woman and home maker was an asset. Home makers have tremendous intuition.

You cannot keep a good man down, modified it can read you cannot keep a business woman down for too long. She saw opportunity when a leading cosmetics company offered beauty parlous on the franchise model. With her prior business experience an new found operational/administrative stint, she was soon doing well enough to pick up a second franchise. It was all the way up from here.

If we look at the situation, we will see that almost anyone can venture into an entrepreneurial space and the housewife is very well positioned, based on her multitasking abilities performed everyday. No big project no heavy investment, yet the goal is met.

The lady in our story leveraged what to my mind is her network. We will look at what she did and try and draw a frame work and add some features so that this story which just happened into a story that could be written time and time again.

While the business was small when the lady moved to another city she could not capitalise on her hard work. She closed the business and moved. What if she could actually sell her “business” to another like minded lady? She would have made her money selling each piece of sari but also when she transferred her knowledge to someone else she would have what can be termed as capital gains, To do this she should have taken a small step at the start. She should have sold the sari's she brought under her own brand name. Let us say "Champa", her customers would then relate every sari they purchased from her with the fledging brand name. When she decided to quit the new owner would buy from the same source and the old customers would be assured about the quality because of the brand name.

This is a common mistake many women in a small business make, no branding. They make masalas, or chocolates and rarely have a brand name so recognition is near impossible. There is no way a customer can be assured he is buying the same quality in the absence of a brand name. This is pretty strange behaviour for a housewife who generally swears by certain brands. Branding Branding Branding is the key even for small businesses.

The other factor is scale. Why did the lady not enlist more housewife's to sell, She would buy larger quantities and farm them out to other ladies who wold then extend the network, The advantage is that for any business to survive over the long term scale is important. What would happen as it did in this case if the lady had to leave town for an extended period of time. The business collapsed. Had she sub agents in place they would have kept the business running and she would continue to coordinate sales and purchases. The same logic can be extended to pickles and chocolates or what ever, the idea is to grow to survive. Growth is imperative to survive.

So ladies if you are already running a small business home business go ahead, BRAND & EXPAND, you have nothing to lose but your small business, you will gain a bigger business though.