How John almost lost his business but got back on track

A few years ago, a business owner, we’ll call him John, came to see me. He was desperate and needed my help. Up to then, he had a good running tourism business which he had grown nicely over the years. He had a steady stream of customers and he wasn’t too worried as it all seemed to happen quite easily.

Suddenly – shock, horror! - John’s business dropped by 40%. What happened?

Well, his biggest supplier of customers stopped using him. And as he received over 40% of his business through this supplier, he suddenly had a big problem. This supplier decided to start competing with them. John had never looked at his distribution strategically, i.e. analyse where his bookings were coming from and how he could work smarter. It was time he did.

Distributing your product more strategically could include the following;

• Ensure you have spread your risk. If you have one very large supplier, like John had, you can see that this poses a big risk to your business. So, have a look at how you can increase your business from a range of distribution channels.
• With the rapid rise of OTA’s (online travel agencies) and their market share of your bookings, it’s important to also focus also on getting more direct bookings. A great way to do this is through keeping in touch with existing customers.
• Set clear goals of where you want your business to come from, through what distribution channels and decide what you need to do to achieve these goals.

Oh, and John is ok. He managed to get his business back on track again through strategic distribution planning and runs a successful tourism business.

Till next week, Marijke

---