Recovo

Background

During many successful years as a Sales Director in the office furniture sector, Greg Aspinal had built an extensive network of contacts and customers, as his roles had required him to access all levels of the supply chain. Following his redundancy in 2009, Greg decided to realise a long-standing ambition to set up his own business in the belief that he could provide a more focused and targeted service to clients – something he felt that was sadly lacking in the market place.

Having thoroughly researched and sourced an excellent product range, Greg set up Recovo and started trading in September2009, initially sourcing new furniture and related products from UK distributors and selling into the UK dealer base. In addition to offering traditional interior design services, Greg knew there was huge market potential in recycling and refurbishing quality office furniture, which would also help to differentiate Recovo in the market place. His growth wish and business plan was to build the company quickly and achieve a sales target of £1m within the first 3 years.

The challenge for Recovo was to quickly establish itself as a truly ‘customer service’ focused company and offer quality products with a very strong element of a ‘green’ refurbishing service. Greg’s target market is the larger office based companies who are considering relocation or expansion, as he knows he can offer very competitive pricing and exceptional levels of customer service that in his experience are not currently offered.

Whilst Greg was extremely confident in his ability and market knowledge, he was also mindful that setting up and establishing anew business was new territory for him and actively sought some external assistance to provide support and guidance in the early days of his company’s development.

 Support

Greg signed up to the High Growth Programme in November 2009 to receive 5 days of coaching support,specifically focused on business planning and marketing.  The support received from the High Growth business coach included;

• Someone to challenge the business plan
• Personal mentor to Greg
• Developing the strategic plan for the business using the Vision Orbit and Single Page Plan
• A coach who was an excellent ‘sounding board’ and listener
• Assistance with profit & loss and cashflow projections
  
  

 Outcomes

• A well defined business strategy and plan
• Bank funding secured following presentation of the business plan.
• Recovo has now moved into new City Centre premises
• Regular orders coming through and sales well ahead of initial targets
• Now working with top industry designers and developing own product range
• New web site & brochure about to be launched
• Plans  to recruit administration and sales staff in the next few months

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“although I had many years of experience within the office furniture trade and even more in sales, nothing had prepared me for the shock of not having a PA...... joking apart, setting up a business from scratch wasn’t such a daunting task as I thought it would be.

The biggest shock was that I was on my own with no one to bounce an idea off, check the quote was right or just something as simple as sharing a problem.

Having the support from Winning Pitch and the High Growth Programme gave me that extra person I needed.

Having worked for many years within a team, I felt I had this via the High Growth coach, not only with the face to face meeting but also at the end of the phone  - I had someone to guide me through the set up of the business. Together with P&L’s , business planning and just a clear focus on the direction I wanted to take the company, the High Growth Programme has definitely helped me through to the stage at which the business is now”.

Thanks


Greg Aspinal
Director