BBF157: Building Australias largest retail party supplies with Dean Salakas

This week we find out how Dean Salakas built up his company, the Party People from a AUD 500,000-per-year business with 3 employees to the powerhouse it is now, turning over AUD 4m per year with 40+ employees.

You might know Dean from his appearance on the Aussie entrepreneur TV show, The Shark Tank, where he actually turned down a AUD 400,000 offer for a share of his business, The Party Store. Dean learnt a lot from the experience and shared some great insight with us.

See below for some of Dean’s best advice:

**  Don’t throw everything at online. In retail, online sales currently account for 6-11% of overall sales, and at current growth rates it is forecast to be only 20% in 10 years.

**  However, you need to be good at both online marketing and conventional marketing. A lot of people start their buying journey online but end it in the store.

**  Plan plan plan! If you don’t have a long-term plan, when you hit a problem it’s harder to cope with it.

**  Understand your cycles. In Dean’s case he has to plan for the spikes in demand around dates like Halloween and Christmas… what are your spikes in demand?

**  Learn how to talk investors’ language. If you want your business to grow to a serious degree you’re probably going to need outside investment, but if you don’t fully understand what they want, you won’t get their money.

**  If you’re a small business with ambition, be prepared to do everything. You won’t have the resource to outsource the majority of your tasks.

**  Dean’s quickest path to growth is to master your marketing.

 

In this episode of Business Brain Food you will learn:

**  Is digital so important for retail?

**  The benefits of being open to change

**  Dean’s incredible journey

**  Why Dean turned down a AUD 400,000 offer on Shark Tank

**  The best strategies for raising funding

**  What didn’t work for Dean

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

**  Ben’s Business Exceleration conference. Special VIP offer here

**  Dean’s Party People website: http://www.thepartypeople.com.au

**  The Business Brain Food Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/businessbrainfood

**  All previous BBF episodes & show notes can be found at http://www.businessbrainfood.com.au

**  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bfewtrell

 

Call to action:

Dean made his business, the Party People, grow exponentially with some very simple common-sense business methods. Listen to him!

Also, if you are enjoying these Business Brain Food podcasts, then make sure to share them via social media sites or email the links to family and friends. A lot of time and effort goes into producing each of these podcasts with the goal in mind of the more people we can inspire about business the better. You can help us do just that!

Until next time, have a profitable day!

Cheers,
Ben Fewtrell
[phone]