TECH UNLIMITED PROFILE
CONTINUED
easy for people, because anyone we’re talking to, the chances are they’ve got a route they already take.” Getting resellers on board has been an “interesting” journey, Tony says. “They would say things like ‘why do we need to set up a new supply? They’re brand new, they only have three brands. What is it about them?’” But by talking to resellers, Tony and his team could convince them of their credentials, and the quality of their products and service. And it is often the latter that is the differentiator, he says. “Ultimately, we have proved ourselves over time,” Tony says. “For instance, with one big reseller, they bought some product from us and came back saying one was faulty, what do we do? I replied saying; ‘firstly, sorry one of them was faulty. And secondly, just let me know where you want the replacement and it’ll be there tomorrow.’ They asked if they needed to go online for that? I said there was no need - I just needed the address of where they wanted the replacement sent to. We didn’t need a returns number, or the product back. It’s moments like that which are worth their weight in gold to customers.” Tony adds that customers have said that other distributors can take weeks to send out a replacement because of how their systems work. Likewise with samples, Tech Unlimited’s size means they can be dynamic and send them out within a couple of days to a customer. “This is crucial because when you’ve got a key salesperson saying they have a great opportunity, but they know that if they can get the end user to hold the product in their hand, that will be the tipping point. “That fast response and giving that added value to customers is the differentiator now. We can do this, and we can do it quicker and be more responsive than others.” Space to grow It is a model that is proving successful: Tech Unlimited is moving to a larger warehouse facility, having outgrown their existing site. In addition, they have taken on another member of staff to deal with demand. “That is our second new starter of this calendar year,” says Tony. “It doesn’t sound a lot, but for a business of our size, that’s quite significant. We are growing all the time.” Another way that Tech Unlimited differs from its rivals – and has helped its profitability – is that its team has worked from home
“
This is crucial
because when you’ve got a key salesperson saying they have a great opportunity, but they know that if they can get the end user to hold the product in their hand, that will be the tipping point.
predominantly, rather than having a physical office – although the company did have office space that could be used on an ad hoc basis for meetings. This has helped to keep costs down. Even now the company has grown, Tony has resisted the temptation to invest in traditional office space, instead taking membership of a co-working office space. “We’ve bought co-working memberships and the team now can meet,” he says. “If we were running the business at any stage in the last 20 years, we absolutely would have taken the cost on the chin and had an office. But we have found we don’t need a full-time office, we can hybrid work, but we do need somewhere that we can meet on occasions a a co-working space is perfect for us and from a budget point of view, it’s brilliant.” While the company has been growing, Tony is not one for getting carried away with its success. “We constantly remind ourselves of what has got us to this stage and don’t try to take the world on,” he says. “That said, there are new areas and categories that we can move into, but the timing of those will be critical. In the future, we’ll expand the areas of product that we work in and the sectors that we work in, but we’ll only do that without compromising anything that we currently do. What we’ve got now is resellers saying that they’d like to work with us because they have heard we make a difference.”
”
26
Powered by FlippingBook