A little while ago, I interviewed Tony Nash, the CEO of Booktopia. Tony provided fascinating insights into the beginnings of Booktopia and its phenomenal growth over the past eleven years.
Booktopia is Australia’s fastest growing online bookstore with an annual revenue of $52 million. They commenced operation in 2004—incidentally on the same day as Facebook. Booktopia is the only company to have made it on to the Australian BRW Fast 100 list of fastest growing companies SIX years in a row—an amazing achievement.
Here are the eight key business lessons I took away from our discussion. These are relevant whether you are in business now or are contemplating starting your own business.
1. Start small
If you have a business idea, how can you start small, trial it and see what works?
Booktopia started as a side project on a marketing budget of $10 per day. Tony and his family were working on other businesses at the time.
In the beginning, Booktopia didn’t hold any stock. They were essentially a website storefront that employed another company to fulfil the orders. They did not start fulfilling their own orders for three years. This enabled them to start in a way that was manageable and achievable and that didn’t require a huge investment.
Key takeaway: You do not need to make a huge upfront investment to make a start.
2. Test and get feedback
You need to take action and learn from it. Test and get feedback about what works. You won’t always know what will work.
Booktopia started as a side project—as a test project. If it hadn’t worked, we wouldn’t hear about it today.
Booktopia continue to test and get feedback every day. They launch a product and learn quickly—what works?
Key takeaway: Take action and see what works.
3. Focus on growth
Focus on the growth of your business. If you’re constantly growing, that becomes the status quo and people accept it. This allows you to continue to hire people—people who can allow you to focus on growing your business and not get burnt out.
At Booktopia, they ask themselves each month, what do we need to do to be 40 per cent more successful than this same month last year?
Key takeaway: Define what growth looks like and stay focused.
4. Focus on the cash
To make the point even more clearly, Tony suggests focusing on the cash. He hears people talk about business ideas and his question is “will people keep paying money for that?”
He also talked about how it is easy to get distracted and focus on systems and other areas of the business. But without a focus on the money, the business does not grow. It’s the cash growth that has also allowed Booktopia to implement a significant philanthropic program.
Key takeaway: Money enables growth and keeps you in business. Stay focused.
5. Go with what works
You won’t always know what will resonate with people, but if you listen carefully, you will work it out.
Booktopia is promoted as the Australian alternative to Amazon. Buying through Booktopia supports an Australian-born, Australian-owned company that employs 90 Australians.
This was a point of difference compared with Amazon—the dominant player in the online book market. But it wasn’t what motivated Tony to start Booktopia.
However, Booktopia found that is why Australians chose to buy through Booktopia, rather than Amazon. I know it certainly works for me! And this is now how Booktopia is marketed.
Key takeaway: Find out why people do business with you and focus on it.
6. Work out what motivates you
This was my observation and not something Tony said, but I think it is important.
Tony is a numbers man. During our interview, he could tell me his revenue in his every month for the first few months of his business – which he started 11 years ago!
He could tell me how many books stocked in his warehouse.
He could tell me how many books are available on his website.
He could tell me the percentage in growth of his business, year on year and month on month.
The lesson here is to work out what motivates you and keeps you going. For me, it is about people. About helping people. Inspiring people. For Tony, it was about the numbers.
Key takeaway: Work out what motivates you and reinforce it.
7. Build trust
This was especially important as an online business, but there are lessons in this for everyone.
Tony focused on building trust through the Booktopia website. The website provided a phone number you could call and a physical address. He incorporated what he calls ‘trust icons’ into the website. These trust icons included the Telstra Business Award logo and the Australian Booksellers Association logo (which is a whole other story in itself!).
Key takeaway: Trust is essential in any business. How can you build trust?
8. Promise more than you can currently deliver
Okay, this one scares me too—but these are Tony’s lessons, not mine. Tony told a story of pre-Booktopia days when he submitted a proposal to a company in New Zealand for $18,000 to help them attract visitors to their website—essentially to get them to the top of Google.
The only problem was that he had basic knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The company accepted the proposal so he worked from daybreak to midnight to learn more about SEO—and his company quickly became a leading SEO consultancy.
By setting his own ‘stretch assignment’, he found what was possible.
Key takeaway: Set your own ‘stretch assignments’ by offering beyond what you can currently deliver.
Tony generously and frankly shared his insights into the establishment of Booktopia as one of Australia’s most successful businesses.
There was much more to our interview. However, I’ve tried to distil it down to the eight key takeaways.
Tony Nash has also generously provided a $50 Booktopia voucher for one lucky reader of my weekly newsletter.
If you would like to go into the draw to win the $50 Booktopia gift voucher, subscribe to my weekly newsletter here or use the subscribe box at the top of this page.
The winner will be randomly selected on Tuesday 26th May and announced in the Find My Niche newsletter on that day.
Note: I am an affiliate partner with Booktopia. If you buy a book from Booktopia after clicking through from my website, I receive a small percentage of the sale.
I purchased books through Booktopia long before I began this website and I continue to do so. I only support businesses that I truly believe in.
Comments
Point 1/ ...start small:
by
Point 8/ ....promise more than you can deliver,
now that takes courage and belief!!