There may come a time in the life of your business when your business may experience an opportunity to grow, and when this happens, your business has to be prepared to financially support that growth.
Now, growth comes in all shapes and sizes, it’s not always about expanding office space or expanding warehouse space or even about buying large pieces of equipment.
Sometimes, growth can happen with something small
Alberto is a small convenience store owner who is competing against the BIG national convenience store chains.
Now back in 2016, Alberto’s business was profitable for sure, and he had been in business for 20 years at the time, and he engaged in a lot of research that helped him to stay ahead of what was trending and to also get an advantage over the competition of the BIG CHAIN stores.
He took his business very seriously and the research that Alberto did was akin to NASA.
Now, I would never reveal Alberto’s strategy, that would be like revealing McDonald’s secret sauce.
But I can tell you that he discovered an ‘upcoming trend’ that, in his opinion, was about to explode.
Remember the ‘fidget spinner’ craze?
It was insane when it happened, Alberto was ‘mentally’ ready, but far from ‘financially’ ready for the spinner craze to begin.
Just a brief history: the ‘fidget spinner’ was invented in 1993 by a woman named Catherine Hettinger.
Catherine had patented her design, but the fidget spinner was not very popular and did not catch on at the time.
As the patent was nearing its expiration date in 2005, Catherine could not afford to renew the patent, and since the fidget spinner did not ‘take off’, she didn’t really try.
Since the patent was not renewed, it allowed other manufactures to re-create the fidget spinner, giving it their own ‘spin’.
Alberto, after his research in 2016, had a gut feeling that this little ‘fidget spinner’ was about to become very popular.
I can tell you this, Alberto read an ADHD article in a medical review journal and he connected the ADHD information to the fidget spinner.
I will admit to you, that I would never had made that connection myself, but that is what research is for.
Alberto believed, after all of his research, that the fidget spinner would catch on and sell fast, but he did not have the cash-on-hand to take advantage of this opportunity.
Alberto had a very good business credit profile and he did qualify for a substantial business loan, but the bank would not process the loan fast enough within the time frame that he needed, so he turned to alternative funding.
After crunching the numbers and finding an Asian supplier, Alberto was able to purchase 100,000 thousand fidget spinners ranging from $0.99 cents to $1.25 per unit (wholesale), which he then sold in his store for $4.00 to $8.00 per unit (retail).
Included in this order, Alberto also purchased a few of the high end premium spinners that cost him $10 dollars per unit (wholesale), and resold them for $40 dollars per unit (retail).
In the end, catching the ‘fidget spinner’ trend just at the right time, Alberto sold out of every spinner in 90 days and made a very nice profit.
You can be sure that Alberto has capitalized on several other trends since then, and today, Alberto continues his research while still looking for that next hot trending item.
Small Business Owners never cease to amaze me, SBOs are truly incredible people, and if I can ever be of service to the growth of your business, I really hope that you give me the honor, and the privilege, to try and help you with the funding that you need to grow your business.
