Running the Bases with Small Businesses
Running the Bases with Small Businesses
Booze-Up - On Demand Alcohol Delivery
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Running the Bases today with Ashleigh Fletcher the CEO & Founder of Booze-Up - an on-demand alcohol delivery service from London, U.K. Booze-Up is the pioneering company for on-demand alcohol delivery in the U.K. Born out of the question “What doesn’t exist?”, Ashleigh Fletcher started Booze-Up 12 years ago and has been going strong ever since with 20 team members - and still growing.
Ashleigh shares his story of growth, advanced use of technology, and his complete commitment to the customer experience and team member development. So committed to service - that they have delivered an order in 40 seconds - on three different occasions! It’s an incredible story capturing the growth of an industry that had been untapped until 2003.
Selecting the right team member, investing in development, and building the team is crucial to delivering the customer experience that is demanded by Ashleigh. As he states “We provide a service. If we don’t get it right - we don’t have a business.”
It’s an energetic show as Ashleigh rolls through his challenges and successes running 365 days a week business while maintaining his focus and competitive drive. You might even learn about the next British Invasion!
Learn more about Booze-Up and Alcohol Delivery in London at https://www.booze-up.com/
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[00:00:07.440] - Randy Rohde
Running the bases with small businesses. I'm Randy Rohde and I have a passion to work with small businesses and I love baseball. So I thought, hey, let's bring them together. So every episode I sit down with local entrepreneurs, business builders and small business owners to talk about their wins and whiffs, tools of the trade and to give actionable tips to other business managers.
[00:00:37.380] - Randy Rohde
We'll cover the bases with entrepreneurship operations, sales, digital marketing, innovation, plus a little fun baseball.
[00:00:48.420] - Randy Rohde
Thanks for joining us today. Settle in. Grab your Cracker Jacks and you know what they say.
[00:00:57.420] - Randy Rohde
OK. It's a great day for a ball game! I'm Randy Rohde. And you are listening to running the bases with small businesses. All right. There we go. The little flare at the end of that. Very good. Hey, today I am really excited. We have our very first international guest joining us all the way from London, UK, Ashley Fletcher. Hey, Ashley. How are you doing, man?
[00:01:27.540] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Hey, Randy. Very well, thanks very much. Good to be on the show as well. Really appreciate it.
[00:01:31.860] - Randy Rohde
Yeah. So let me I'll just give it a little further. So Ashley is the CEO and founder of Booze Up, which is n on demand alcohol delivery service located right there in in London. OK, Ashley, so I want to get into your alcohol delivery service business here in a minute. But first, I've got to ask you, I am sure you've got some crazy delivery stories. Give me one that you've encountered thus far. Sure. I mean, our business is obviously slightly different from most businesses.
[00:02:00.720] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So much so. We might be a bit, if not literally. This is going probably back to about 10. Eleven years ago when I was actually on the road doing the deliveries myself and building the business. I had a friend in the car with me. That was actually out doing deliveries. And we were sort of exciting. I was driving. He was doing a delivery. I'm going up to the door. And I was still serving the customer, but we arrived at one particular delivery.
[00:02:22.410] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And he just didn't want to get out. So we had a big argument in the car. You know, we're I'm saying, hang on a minute. I'm running around all night, you know, driving.
[00:02:29.990] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You know, you said you're going to do the deliveries. So it looks that way. So I lost I jumped out the car, went to the door, rang the doorbell. And lo and behold, a woman answered the door, which was quite normal. However, she was completely stock naked from from top to bottom, which which I was. He shocked me because I hadn't I hadn't come across that. I mean, I'd say I've got a plethora of different stories that I could tell you, but I've certainly not come across this before.
[00:02:55.890] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I've had brawls and knickers and all sorts thrown at me in the past, but never encountered anything quite like this. So I was obviously completely amused. She then wanted to invite me in. So she shouted down to one of the guys, I think it was in the lounge. She said, Come in. I'm getting all excited. Think brilliant. And he said, no. So that was the end of that. I went back to the car, got back in the car and said his name was actually as well, strangely.
[00:03:19.000] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And I said, Ash, you just completely missed out there. And he just couldn't believe it. He was out. What?
[00:03:23.560] - Ashleigh Fletcher
What? So, yeah, I mean, it's it's quite common. You know, we've obviously got drivers that join us, so I often tell them when they join. Just just be aware that you will have girls running up to you screaming, shouting. Of course, you can go back into parties that sort of see when sponsorships and that because your customers that you need to deliver.
[00:03:42.150] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So, yeah, I mean, that's just one storthat's, once they were. But there are there are many anything that obviously combines alcohol and intoxicated people.
[00:03:49.390] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Obviously that that's the sort of true selves really come out to play. And it's very interesting. Those very interesting.
[00:03:57.220] - Randy Rohde
Oh, all right. So now I'm sure everybody's wondering who in the world is this guy? So go ahead. Give us a little bit of your background. Who are you? How did you end up building an on demand alcohol delivery service?
[00:04:09.330] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It sounds quite interesting, really. Just I get it quite often. My background is is actually sales. I spent around I think it's about 18 years in property doing various things from the developing land and renting property, selling properties, all sorts, really. I left the company that I was working for for for quite a period of time. I think it's about six and half years. I worked for them and they taught me a huge amount in that time.
[00:04:35.580] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I left the company. I went into becoming a developer for a luxury builder, and then after six or nine months, they invited me back as a partner, which was fabulous. So I went back in as a partner. And then unfortunately for me here in the UK, this was around the 2008 period. So about ten, eleven months after I became a partner, the market decided to crash completely overnight, as most people know. And it left me sad.
[00:05:00.810] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So my sofa. One day I remember it very, very well, sitting there thinking, okay, I've got X amount in the bank. Am I going to throw that at the estate agents in and hope pray that everything gets resolved? Or am I going to go and do something new? And after a lots of deliberation, that decision took me three months. But it was one that I'm very pleased I took my time in making because I made the right decision.
[00:05:24.000] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I then sat on my sofa thinking, well, okay, cool, what am I going to do? And it just suddenly came to me. I sat there and I said the words, we are becoming lazier and lazier. What is there that doesn't? And then it was a light bulb moment. I know people talk about this, and I think until you've actually experienced something like a light bulb, you sort of sort of think, wow, what what are you talking about?
[00:05:47.520] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It literally was like a light bulb going off above my head. And I just suddenly saw alcohol. Alcohol. Brilliant. The law, it changed here in the U.K. in 2003. This was, as I mentioned earlier, 2008. But nobody it jumped on the bandwagon of actually delivering on demand. And I thought about all those policies that I've had because I was 28 at the time, seven, and I was a little policy animal in my early 20s.
[00:06:12.000] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And I thought about all the policies. I'd had it all finished at three o'clock in the morning because we've run out of alcohol. It's time to go, everybody. And we we problem solve that basically. So now we deliver to all sorts of people. I mean, it could be could be hotels, businesses that run out of alcohol. We often serve hotels and stuff like that, or people just literally having a drink with their partner or lots of people having policy.
[00:06:34.260] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I mean, see, that scenario has changed a little bit recently with the ghasted COVID. Those party calls haven't been in such volumes that they have. But I can tell you that the policies are still going on showing during this, unfortunately. Yeah, especially the first week.
[00:06:48.610] - Randy Rohde
I have to ask this. While you were sitting on your couch contemplating what your next step. Were you were you happened to be drinking at the time?
[00:06:58.420] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yeah. I mean, when again, alcohol is the irony of it from a very young age, I, I just I didn't have much tolerance to drunk people. So what I decided to do was go and set up an alcohol that starts at a business. Businesses so serves alcohol to people. It is very, very unusual because of that, no experience of working in a bar or selling alcohol or anything like that.
[00:07:20.550] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Don't have a huge interest in alcohol. Obviously, I drink it, but that's that's about the level of my expertise. So I was going into a new business that I had no idea about, but on top of that, nobody else was doing. So I suppose that gave me a little bit more room to maybe make mistakes because there wasn't a competition that, you know, we were the first one in the UK to do it. So it gave me that that buffer zone to make mistakes if we did make any.
[00:07:45.960] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And it was very interesting seeing, you know, because I used to go out and promote, say, on the streets as well as sort of online marketing, et cetera, et cetera. And very interesting. We used to hand our business cards to people and we had the same mistakes. But someone tried to give you a leaflet on the street. You do everything you can to avoid them. And that's what most people were doing. And then I'd say, look, listen, is alcohol delivery.
[00:08:06.780] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And they sort of take confused. And then they'd read it and then they'd run off to me and come back and say, Are you kidding? You actually deliver like in Iowa?
[00:08:15.540] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I'm like, yeah, like, wow, you know that the reaction was so interesting and it still happens. Now we have a small team that goes out and it's amazing how even today people are still, you know, none the wiser that exists, which I find quite, quite amazing when I get back. Year 10, 12 years ago, you know, people were just like dumbfounded that this could actually even be possible.
[00:08:36.750] - Randy Rohde
I think that is amazing. And, you know, we just have such a in this particular industry, it's very limited here in the States. Only a handful of states are allowing kind of this on demand. Lot of states will do where you can essentially where it gets mailed to you. And more so wine as an opportunity. But now you know and you mentioned, Covidepending. So we've had the lockdown's and it's expanded a little bit where restaurants are now able to to some degree and again, depend upon what state, you know, we're here in Ohio.
[00:09:11.580] - Randy Rohde
And so in Ohio, if I were to place a dinner order with a restaurant and they're going to deliver it or I could pick it up, actually, they would allow I could also order a drink and and take it with my dinner order as well. But otherwise, it really is. It just has now kicked in here. And then it amazes me that it's, you know, what you're talking, what, 17 years or something like that, that the law has been in place there in London to be able to do that.
[00:09:37.990] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yes, 2003, indeed. I mean, there were there were, you know, some companies that were because prior to that, that license changed. There was a loophole. And that was if if you sold in bulk wholesale, so you had to do more than two cases of beer, you could get round the legislation. But nobody was really so taken advantage about because it wasn't it wasn't a straight law, as it were. You you're taking something slightly, slightly dodgy and you don't really still gonna build a business around something that's of that caliber.
[00:10:05.940] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You know, my father was the one that always taught me actually that America was six months out of the UK pretty much on everything. But on this occasion, you guys really all quite behind. I mean, I've noticed recently that I come based in the UK, here in the Netherlands, they've got big, big base in the Netherlands called Justy has just bought a company called GrubHub. Now, just the on their platform, it's it's very similar to like post mates and all that we can order products, restaurants, and then they'll deliver it to you.
[00:10:33.720] - Ashleigh Fletcher
They've got a number of alcohol delivery companies on that site. Wouldn't surprise me if, you know, once they get their fingers into corrupt leaks. It only recently happens that, you know, you might you might start seeing a few more companies pop up over there because you got companies like drizzly housemates that they're doing. But as you say, it's, you know, is in my state, you know, because a lot of them it doesn't cover.
[00:10:53.730] - Ashleigh Fletcher
But it is you know, I've seen that the last three or four years really starting to grow in America, that that whole sector is worth an incredible amount money. And there's some big key aggregators like post mights and companies like unjustly that are coming in because just they don't have any foothold in America at all. And that's going to be their way in so they can really dominate the world. Here in the U.K., we had another similar aggregator called Hungry House, just a came in and out about four or five years ago, four years ago, and then subsequently shut them down, which I was amazed about, absolutely amazed about that they actually killed the competition rather than just adding it is another string there.
[00:11:31.320] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So very interesting watching how they behave, but they literally are looking to take the world on. So hopefully with their arrival, you might you might benefit from some on demand elco yourselves.
[00:11:41.790] - Randy Rohde
We might see. Hopefully will enjoy a little bit to tell us about the operations that you have. So are you, do you do this 24/7, seven days a week. What's the size of your team, that kind of stuff?
[00:11:53.490] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Well, we at the moment where we're around the team of about 20, 22, and that's from EPA administrator office staff, drivers, team leaders, all that kind of stuff. I mean, I still have a very, very active role in the company because I like to make sure that, you know, I'm constantly there, you know, approachable, you know, for any member of staff with regards to opening, we're seven days a week, 365 days a year.
[00:12:17.190] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We even open on Christmas Day. Whilst I talk about actually, it's quite interesting because whenever people ask me out. So this must be really busy for you. It's not my industry. It's the absolute opposite of what you would think it would be. So whenever my customers have a chance or an opportunity such as Christmas, they know it's coming along. It's the 25th of December. Every year they'll go to the supermarket, they'll stock up on alcohol.
[00:12:39.150] - Ashleigh Fletcher
The same with bank holidays in the U.K. Here we have several weeks, three or four bank holidays. So we'll have a Friday, Saturday and Sunday or Saturday, Sunday and Monday off. So people tend to pass your lot over these those bank holiday weekends. And, you know, most people's expectations is that booze up must be phenomenally busy. Instead of us having, you know, three phenomenal days, we'll have three days to average out the same as our two days, which normally on the weekend.
[00:13:05.280] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So whenever anybody has a chance to prepare, we're not as busy. And it's the complete opposite to what people think. But, yeah, we work every single day. We try to be as convenient and as consistent and reliable for our customers as possible because they do depend on us during the course of it. We had to open earlier. We were absolutely inundated with with orders because obviously people were on lockdown. We also had a charity that works under the NHS, actually contact us direct because something that I'm sure you haven't even thought about, Randy, that I hadn't thought about, that the pandemic was there are alcoholics out there and they don't actually get alcohol.
[00:13:43.050] - Ashleigh Fletcher
They will die. They will have a seizure and they will die. So those people to get alcohol. The NHS is charity contacted us and said, look, please, would you be a supplier to us for these customers because they can't go out. And if we don't get them alcohol, they will die and we don't have a delivery network. They normally come to us and collect it. So we work with them as well just to try and help them.
[00:14:03.780] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And it's been very interesting for us because because if you actually take a look at our website. Oh, come on then. Look at prices. Obviously you can. I think it will take you guys in America and you'll see our prices are astronomical. I mean, a bottle of Smirnoff is going to set you back roughly about thirty dollars, I presume. Thirty six dollars, something like that, which is incredible, I presume, where you guys.
[00:14:23.250] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It's normally about 20, 22. I'm not really sure for a 700 CL bottle. So obviously we don't attract everybody because they look at the price to think well, but we have to justify our price. We command those prices purely because people don't think actually we have to pay somebody to drive. It's you. And then there's a petro as well. Then there's VAT the cost of the product, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, I mean, very interesting seeing how many new customers that we've had off the pandemic and now we're pretty much through it.
[00:14:52.290] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I mean, the last two or three weeks here in the UK, it's it's gradually got lifted more and more to the point that this weekend or perhaps reopening, which is great news. So it's it's just been an interesting episode for us because, you know, we've gained these new customers from these customers now are in some sort of routine with us and they're continuing to order through us, which is fantastic.
[00:15:11.920] - Randy Rohde
Yeah, like here in the States we've had. I've read some stats somewhere. This is maybe about a month ago even. But that alcohol consumption where people going into the state run liquor stores is what we have here in Ohio. You know, that sales were up 20, 25 percent year over year because, you know, people are sequestered, you know, and they're like, well, I'm going to stay home. Drink, I guess? That's right.
[00:15:37.740] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I remember we had we had a paper newspaper. Contact us at the start of the pandemic. It was probably about week three, I suppose, just for comment. Then they called us back. I think it was week five for further comment. And those are the questions they were asking now says is, you know, what's your website? This is like, what's the traffic? And I said, what's it's up by a thousand percent at the moment.
[00:15:57.790] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Wow. What's your sales like? Up by 300 percent. Other name, interestingly, ask me about Corona, because I don't know whether you guys have had news of this in in America, but in the U.K.. Here in Brand Corona. Yeah. The brands. Yeah.
[00:16:12.730] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It's been reported that they saw their sales struggle hugely as a result of this because people put two and two together and getting 53. But for us, the complete opposite, actually. It was it was quite a good promotional boost for Corona and our sales actually they went up by 300 percent for Corona as well. But I don't think that is the case across the board, unfortunately, which is very, very sad.
[00:16:33.640] - Randy Rohde
Well, maybe we'll walk out of this and gathered together and have it could be a real boom for Corona. Maybe they'll do Corona parties, right? Yeah, I hope so. And it's good for us. You own this business. So this is incredible. I mean, you literally are the cutting edge. You're the pioneer in the UK for this on demand alcohol delivery. I'm sure you have competitors that competitors have popped. So what's your unique solution? What's the value proposition that you can provide and offer to your clients that the competitors just haven't or don't? Or maybe it's still what makes you unique.
[00:17:16.580] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Again, good question, because this is something that I focus on hugely. I am from a background, as I said earlier, the state agency, real estate property.
[00:17:24.970] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So it is always from facing. So, you know, you'd need to deliver outstanding levels of customer service. I for large period of my career was a failure. So whenever I go on somebody's house, I would have the attitude before I walked or I'm going in for a cup of tea and they're going to become my best friend within 45 minutes. And so long as I achieve that, I'd get the instruction. And I've taken a lot of that into interviews.
[00:17:47.980] - Ashleigh Fletcher
At the end of the day, we do not manufacture anything. We only provide a service. Therefore, we don't get that aspect right. We don't have a business. So whenever we go and recruit anybody, our recruitment system is is very, very tough for a start. We don't take on anyone. You have to have boodles of character, personality. You have to be incredibly organized. You have to be, as we call it, in the UK on point.
[00:18:10.180] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So that means very, very focused alert. I'm ready to crack on. And we also look for can do attitudes where we don't have any attitudes in our company. It's something that I will not put up with. We come to work. Can you work hard if you do that? I'm a really nice guy. So we focus on the on the customer experience and there's lots elements of that. The first one is obviously to do with the driver and also the members of staff or on the phone.
[00:18:33.970] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We're an on line business. However, 60 per cent of our business is actually still via the phone. You got to understand it from a buyers perspective. They're ordering it and they want to instantly. They're not used to that. You know, that's only been something that's probably come to their life the last couple of years. So they're still concerned. Is it actually going to sign up? So a lot of people actually like to hear a human's voice that promises that, yes, we'll be there in half an hour.
[00:18:57.640] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So there's there's there's that aspect as well. But we we really focus on on getting it there quickly. We've got two types of customer. We identified that very, very early on in our business. We've got two types. The first one is how quick and how much. The other one is how much and how quick. However, how quick ones don't tend to worry about how much, if that makes sense. We've got customers that will spend 400 pounds.
[00:19:21.880] - Ashleigh Fletcher
They won't even ask what the prices. They'll just list off the products that they need. And then the next words will be, when's it coming? They don't want to know what the price is, whereas we've got other customers that are very price focused, but they're also very time focused. So everything comes back. So one thing time. So we need to get it there as quick as we can and with the best experience that they've had. And the way that we draw on a good experience is obviously from the outset when when we're taking the order, obviously, you know, the delivery time, how quick we're going to get there, but then the experience they receive whilst the goods are on the way.
[00:19:56.110] - Ashleigh Fletcher
What happens is the order gets assigned to a driver. The driver then calls the customer and says, hi, my name is Ashley, I'm calling from Booze up just just to let you know I'm your driver for the evenings delivery. Time for you. Looking at twenty five minutes. I'll give you a call as soon as I'm outside. They then set off the customer will then receive an estimate and they can track their driver life. Fifty percent of our customers use that service and love it.
[00:20:17.210] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We often, if they don't get the tracking text within seconds, they're calling us back again, saying, where's my tracking text based tracking text?
[00:20:23.710] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So they really, really love that. Once the driver arrives, he calls them tour against say hi. Just to let you know I'm outside of grabbing goods. Would you like me to come to the door? Or would you like to come out? Because 50 percent of our customers, again, will come running out. Screaming, shouting, Yay! The alcohol guys here. So then they go to the door. Then again, they need to have character, personality, friendliness, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:20:43.870] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Once the driver leaves, the customer has an opportunity to review them via estimates. And we get around about 30 percent, 30 percent response rates on that. They also get to follow up e-mails allowing them to review our service again. So we all very, very focused on feedback and as we say to it, so every customer, whether it's good or bad feedback, and we you know, unfortunately, we do have bad feedback on occasion. We had one literally a couple of days ago where the chip and pin, our drivers have mobile chip and pin system so they can take payment card payments.
[00:21:14.560] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And his chip and pin wasn't connecting with his phone properly. And this poor chap actually had a bit of a spine problem. And within his email. You know, I said, you know, the guy left me waiting at my door. I've got a spine problem for 10 minutes because the chip and pin wasn't working. So we do get complaints and we always reply to those and always make sure that I say to the customer, I really appreciate you giving us this feedback, because if I don't get this, we're never gonna to we're never going to improve.
[00:21:36.940] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You need that negative feedback in order to become become a better company. We also have conference calls with drivers. So once every three weeks, everybody jumps in a conference call with me and has listen to my dulcet tones for half an hour just while we talk about new products, new procedures, complaints, commendations as well. And another little thing that we do, we have a little team group. We utilize a piece of software. Viber is very much like WhatsApp.
[00:22:02.740] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You might've heard of that. And we have a group within it just to keep in touch, make everybody feel like they're part of something. And again, inside there, I might release some news or what have you, but once a week we'll compile all of our customer reviews. We put it into a video. Are we on our social media? And we put it into that group so the drivers can actually see that they're doing a good job.
[00:22:25.000] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And it keeps their morale high. But, you know, in order to enforce these things, you have to have excellent Landi bonuses like Kepi Eyes just to keep the drivers entertained. They get some they get a bonus if they if they hit a certain amount of deliveries for each shift, they do as well. You know, there's there's a big aspect. You know, you can't just focus on the customer. You need to focus on your team as well because your team aren't actually delivering the great experience to the customer.
[00:22:50.140] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And you're getting complaints from your customer. Then it starts with the team. So you constantly need to motivate you to keep the morale high, commend them when they've done well, but also pull them to one side where they haven't quite hit the mark.
[00:23:02.500] - Randy Rohde
I tell you what, you throughbuilt that response. There's like so many great things that you could pull from that. Just as fabulous business lessons. But, you know, one, I think absolutely. You're wrapping yourself around customer service and the customer experience, and you do that in so many different ways through the constant contact, constant touch and the interaction with the customer. Plus, I'm sure and in my mind, because in doing with digital marketing and thinking about, you know, various kinds of things, you've build in automation.
[00:23:34.010] - Randy Rohde
So this triggers this. And then when that's completed, it triggers this. And so it allows you to do at a greater scale.
[00:23:40.960] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I think those it's interesting you say that because of our technology, we had we did some filming with the BBC. It was about two years ago. And even they when they came down with that crew, they were like amazed. God we didn't realize you guys so much technology. We do. We know execution has to be absolutely streamlined because we get a period of of literally 30 minutes or less in order to organize the delivery, get the driver there, get the payment and make sure the customers happy.
[00:24:08.080] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And that's quite a lot. You know, if you if you think about most delivery businesses, they have maybe six, maybe 12, 24 hours to get something together, get it passed or get it sent out. We've got we've got minutes. I constantly monitor my staff in the office with regards to how quick they execute deliveries. Our average execution time is around a minute and a half from the point that the customers clicked. Order that to the point there's actually at the drivers app and they started the job.
[00:24:34.660] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I'm making the call to the customer know to put it in perspective. Our fastest deliveries that we've ever done, we've managed to hit 40 seconds, three times some of our 42 seconds, 43 seconds.
[00:24:47.110] - Randy Rohde
Even somebody in the warehouse saying, hey, I need a beer.
[00:24:51.700] - Ashleigh Fletcher
To be honest, you know, sort of sends shivers down my spine now, just talking about it, because 40 seconds, you know, and that's from a telephone order or an online order. You put the phone down to the person, put in a sit back down on the sofa, turn the TV back on, and then the drive is actually outside your door.
[00:25:06.670] - Randy Rohde
I was going to say and then there's a knock at the door.
[00:25:09.800] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It's just I mean, it's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, we've only managed that three times in the 12 years. But, you know, fantastic. Let me say, I'm very, very privileged. I've got a I've got an excellent team.
[00:25:21.340] - Ashleigh Fletcher
The work around me. And you are only. Yeah. You're only as good as your team. You can't take all the credit.
[00:25:27.280] - Randy Rohde
So while that is a great that's one of the other lessons that I think in response to this whole thing is thus far has been, you know, you've really invest. As well in your team and you recognize, listen, I've got this high touch point with my clients. We're going to really survive on repeat business.
[00:25:45.490] - Randy Rohde
And I need to have a solid team, not only from high performing, but in engaging, customer focused, responsible. I mean, all of those things in you then in turn recognize that you invest in it, right? I mean, you're spending a lot of time trying to focus and being sure your team is is on point. I think to use your gear.
[00:26:06.670] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yeah. I mean, you're quite right. But, you know, I learnt that from a very young age, you know. You've got to have a strong team around you. If you do, then. It's amazing when the first time it happened to me was probably when I was about 24, 25 and I was running an office. Was only a small team, be about five of us. And I identified the strengths and weaknesses and just put them in the ropes.
[00:26:26.020] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And then three months later, to see it all just steaming. It's it's amazing the power that you have when you've got a team that's incredibly strong and everybody has the same vision and the same goal and they're working hard towards it. Any advice that I give anybody? Is it stop the team first? Remove the stress? That's that's one little sort of cliche saying that I have in my head. Anybody that's causing me any problem, just remove the stress.
[00:26:50.740] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You don't have to put up with it. Just get rid of them, get somebody else, because you'll soon see the fruit, fruit, your labor. The harder you work at finding the right people, the less hard you have to work after.
[00:27:00.940] - Randy Rohde
It's actually at this point here in the show. I'm going to say, hey, you know what time it is and it's time for the stretch.
[00:27:12.890] - Randy Rohde
So, Ashley, this is one of these things that we do where I get to ask you some fun baseball conversation, y'all don't really have baseball in the UK. I know some of our MLB has gone to the UK to play some exhibition games, actually regular season games, and they're not going to do it this year. But so don't worry, I'm not going to ask you some crazy baseball question and actually test my research team to kind of pull together a question that maybe it's something that you could relate to.
[00:27:48.320] - Randy Rohde
So would you happen to know? What do you think is the most common beverage that served at baseball game?
[00:27:56.320] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Well, got to be beer. Yes. I can't imagine anything else.
[00:28:01.130] - Randy Rohde
Yes, you're absolutely right. So about 48 percent of all fans who attend a game buy a drink. And 70 percent of those folks drink beer at baseball games. Average price of beer at the ballparks here in the States is five dollars and 97 cents. That is for cheap beer. Right. And the the least expensive beer, three bucks at a Colorado Rockies game. And so we're here in Cleveland, by the way, Ashleigh. And you can get a good cheap beer.
[00:28:38.360] - Randy Rohde
Actually, the Indians is our baseball team. They have the second cheapest beer in the league. And you can get beer for four dollars and 60 cents. Most expensive beer, added Shea Stadium, going for eleven dollars. And that's their team. So there you go.
[00:28:53.660] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Gosh. Yeah. I mean, in the U.K. here, a pint now is going to set you back five fifty. So dollar wise, you're probably looking at about seven dollars, 25 some. A lot less. Wow.
[00:29:06.630] - Randy Rohde
So I thought you would enjoy that would kind of stay in the drinking beverages. It might make you feel a little more at home with baseball.
[00:29:14.500] - Randy Rohde
All right. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. All right. So being in business for the last 12 years or so, I am sure you have had your challenges that have come upon you during the duration at this point. If you could share what has been one of those significant challenges thus far in the industry. And how did you face it? How did you overcome it?
[00:29:36.890] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Gosh. Very good question.
[00:29:38.770] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I'm not quite sure about how to answer this one. I mean, it's something that we did too many years ago. We noticed that when I when I first set out these, that we actually set it up in a place called Croyden, which still is London. But it's literally right on the very edge of the boundary of London. And something that we we did was to mistakes that we made was pitching ourselves in Croydon. And secondly, not loading up drivers so that we wouldn't have to know that because as I explained earlier, we were doing something completely new.
[00:30:09.590] - Ashleigh Fletcher
But once we asked you now you can decide to get some good regular customer customers properly. After about six months, we realized we're in the wrong location. We need it to be more in town in the center of of London. A second mistake that we made was we wouldn't actually load our drivers up. These days, all drivers actually have quite a bit of stock in the back of their vehicles that allows us to to get the delivery times right down.
[00:30:32.660] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Whereas before they were travelling all the way from Croydon into London, which journey time was about 45 minutes, and then coming all the way back again, another 45 minutes to get another load to then go back into London. And and that didn't really make any sense. So, I mean, those are those are two two key areas that some that we definitely could have I could have done better from the outset.
[00:30:57.450] - Randy Rohde
But you you saw it and you resolved it. I am kind of curious to you supply your drivers with special vehicle potentially. So if you're loading them up, as you say to you, are they driving a BOOZE-UP vehicle?
[00:31:10.880] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We looked at we looked at doing that. The straight answer to that is, no, we don't. And there's two reasons for that. The first one is, obviously, vehicles cost money. They also cost money to maintain and our business model wouldn't really suit. Secondly, we we had plans to get them all, you know, wrapped, as we call here in the case of vinyl wrapped began. That made it a bit of a target because Utes and parked the car or the van on the road had gone to to deal with a customer in a big mansion block.
[00:31:44.290] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You go up to the ninth floor, you've left your vehicle there for 10 minutes and we'll come back and the windows smashed in under we alcohol's gone.
[00:31:51.650] - Randy Rohde
So you've got a business. You've run this thing seven days a week. And I didn't catch what are the hours of operation.
[00:31:58.910] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yeah, I mean, not so touched on it earlier, briefly, because we've extended all our coverage. But at the moment, are ours a six till six, seven days a week. So that's six p.m. until six a.m. Saturday. The problem with London and most cities is that the traffic during the day is crazy. So that's typically why we we don't do a daytime operation.
[00:32:22.980] - Randy Rohde
24/7 so no, 12 hours a day, seven days a week all year long? I mean, that is intense. And how do you stay engaged in the business? Meaning that you're not, you know, either getting discouraged or just getting tired or burned out with it? I mean, how do you as the leader, the CEO, the founder, the man, you know, the people are looking to you, right, to steer the ship.
[00:32:48.240] - Randy Rohde
How do you stay engaged and where do you find kind of your energy and that support structure to keep you going?
[00:32:55.070] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You know, it's interesting because I've had two friends recently that have become slightly less engaged in their businesses. And it's because they've had those businesses for a while, you know, similar to me over 10 years. And things can become a little laborious, bit routine. But what you have to do is, is you have to give yourself new projects.
[00:33:16.380] - Ashleigh Fletcher
For me, I love a challenge. I mean, obviously, everybody's different. I love the challenge of taking something that I haven't got a clue about and trying to become good at it. A classic example, setting up an alcohol company, but specifically want some insight? Our concern for business, how my continually keeping it interesting. I do think, you know, at the moment, Froglets, like in my business, I'm spending a lot of time on marketing, building up brand.
[00:33:42.450] - Ashleigh Fletcher
The quality of the brand, the way the brand looks up. I've done a sort of SWOT analysis on on all my competitors, as you do, where the smartest brand. And I want to continue to be that small brand that does everything before everybody else. So frankly, I think at the moment we're working on a lot of videos, but obviously explaining our core, our core business. But that's the advice that I give it to anybody. And that's why I said to both of these friends, I mean, one, he he he works in osteopaths and he's an osteopath and he's lost he's lost the drive, you know, especially in recent months because of the whole Covid saying, you know, he hasn't had a business for the last four months and he's thinking, do I really want to do this?
[00:34:19.110] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And he's looking to sell it. And I said, well, hang on a minute. Why don't you just try and diversify slightly? Stay involved in your business. How about why don't you go and make some software for your business, outsource that project, manage that because it will benefit your business in the long term. It's going to make your business more efficient, more organized. And also it might actually give you a new opportunity with a new business.
[00:34:39.560] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You might be going to sell that. And because you've got an interest in and a big background in osteopaths, you can actually go to osteopaths and actually talk to them properly about the products. So that's what I'd say to anybody that's getting slightly bored with their with their day to day job is look at your job, look at your business and just think, okay, so how can I slightly diversify this, but not so that I'm now on focused on my business.
[00:35:04.110] - Ashleigh Fletcher
What can I do to bulk something onto it? Are there any you know, is there is a niche that I can bolt onto the side of it? Is there is there something that I can sell it? Are there some some processes that I can focus on? Maybe I could focus on the recruitment aspect and have a better feel Trace's filtration system for my for my recruitment process. It doesn't have to be you know, if you're selling houses, it doesn't have to be about selling houses.
[00:35:26.310] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It could be about marketing those houses. It could be creating videos for those houses. And I could be talking to developers, you know, just diversify slightly so that you're not doing the same mundane tasks day in, day out, week in, week out.
[00:35:38.700] - Randy Rohde
Right. That's terrific advice. I think so. And just add sum that up is like, listen, if you find yourself getting bored, then go create something that you can do within inside the business.
[00:35:49.370] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yeah, you might you come back to the business, you might disappear off for that for three months, have some fun and then actually hang on. I mean, now I've got a bit of new new energy for my business and just drive this through for another six months.
[00:36:02.490] - Randy Rohde
And I'm similar to you in that regard, actually, because often then when I start doing that and then when I kind of come back to the core business, I'm actually more energized. And then I apply more creativity then to my core business that I'm like doing something like, oh, I should be doing it this way. And, you know, I've become more and or more effective, more productive or something as well. So it usually comes back and actually provides a real nice dividend when you do something like that.
[00:36:31.830] - Randy Rohde
So, yeah. So you touched a little bit on some things that you're doing with marketing, and I'll kind of be transparent, actually. Ashley is one of our clients here at 38 Digital. But what are some of the other strategies or tactics that you're employing from a marketing standpoint?
[00:36:47.850] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Well, it's something that we're sort of looking at the moment, well not looking at. We're doing at the moment is content marketing. I mean, we've we've always been sort of 70 focused on it. We've got a huge amount of location pages within our business location page trying to say we've got an area in London called Mayfair. So we'd create an alcohol delivery Mayfair page for that. And. Index, the index, very well at the moment, what we're doing is we're focusing on our blog because what we want to do is actually raise up our domain authority.
[00:37:18.620] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It's taken a bit of a dip, as a lot of Web sites have done over the last 18 months, but it's taken a bit of a dip. So we want to try and build it back up again. But what we're doing is we're focusing on on on the local element rather than just talking about wisky or talking about wine or whatever you want.
[00:37:33.800] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We're talking about wine. Wine bars or cocktail bars in Mayfair or whatever. So we'll dedicate in its high blog page to that. And then in the background, link it all up nicely and get it indexed. And the reason for that is to bring more local relevancy to to our website so that we index a little bit better insight inside Google. And that's to drive more traffic through to our Web site. Increase our base it. Make people aware of our business.
[00:38:01.240] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And what we do. And then off the back of that, hopefully gets more customers. Yeah.
[00:38:05.030] - Randy Rohde
Yeah. It's all about expanding the brand. I tell folks it's about expanding or creating a larger digital footprint. The bigger that can get, the better it's going to be because you'll be more relevant. Google, the search engines are going to, you know, know, like and trust you and be able to offer your brand and your content up on top pages of Google. So, yeah, it's perfect. What do you see around the corner for your industry? For you specifically with Booza? And you know, the next steps. And how are you planning for it?
[00:38:37.250] - Ashleigh Fletcher
It's a tough question and it's one that I get asked probably every every three or four years, I suppose. It's very difficult to answer that question because I'm a niche that we carved out twelve years ago. And just like every other business, it never saw it coming. But I was quietly confident that we would survive it. We were lucky in the UK. Key workers or delivery businesses were allowed to continue to operate. So we kept going, which was fab.
[00:39:03.740] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We also built the business during the peak of the recession. That's why I felt it. So cockily, I would say we're almost recession proof because we've been through a recession and made it out. No problem. We've also been through this Kovar thing and it's been very interesting to see how people have reacted. And luckily, it's it's swung to our favour, which I'm very, very grateful for. But to look for the future, I honestly don't know at this moment in time which which sounds probably a bit crazy.
[00:39:31.310] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Being a CEO of a company and you don't quite know what direction you're going in. And the reason why I say that is because we're looking at a number of different avenues at the moment because of what's happened with pandemic. What it will have done is knock out a lot of alcohol distributors that distribute to restaurants, to bars and all this because they just have not the revenue coming in. So we're expecting potentially a bit of a gap in the market that we might be able to enter.
[00:39:59.450] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So that's something that we're considering at the moment, and that would be to become an on trade supplier. But with regards to us being on demand, you know, we're very focused on that. We we don't like to come second. We're a company that's been at the very beginning of it, and that's where we we aim to remain. And we do that through obviously the various ways of our details. You earlier with regards to customer experience, et cetera, et cetera, and execution, so that that's what we're at the moment because of the whole Covid thing.
[00:40:30.620] - Ashleigh Fletcher
We do want to come into that on trade, which would be a completely different avenue for us.
[00:40:35.300] - Ashleigh Fletcher
But we're very focused on remaining number one, whether that's through through the experience the customer gets or or through the Google rankings, because it's very, very important to us that we index across every single keyword in our industry. And just to keep driving forward, just keep keep delivering outstanding levels of customer service. I mean, my staff are probably sick of hearing outstanding levels of customer service. Those you know, those few words because I bang on about them all the time.
[00:41:02.000] - Ashleigh Fletcher
That is enough to an not on the tip of my tongue every time I talk about our customers, because if we don't get that right. I've said this before. If we don't get that right and then our customers are up sorry, our competitors, they're just going to take over from us. And the beauty with us is that that's not happening at the moment. If anything, it is the opposite, which is great. You know, they have quite got the execution right or they might get their execution correct.
[00:41:24.890] - Ashleigh Fletcher
One in three deliveries, whereas we try and be consistent and reliable every single time.
[00:41:30.110] - Randy Rohde
Well it shows, so the investments that you've made early on and the focus on both that customer interaction, the ability and in utilising technology to deliver effectively, efficiently for you your constant focus on customer service and with your team and supporting and developing your team, you know, it's paying off for you from that standpoint. I think you're right in regards I think there's a lot of companies are privately saying - I'm not exactly sure the direction now through the pandemic and what that's going to do for us.
[00:42:03.410] - Randy Rohde
You know, it's kind of jostled there, you know. Yeah, I mean, probably. Yeah. So I. Feel like you're out in the dark there, because I think there's probably a lot of companies that are thinking we have to rethink this a little bit. What are we gonna do or what what are the opportunities maybe that are out there similar to you and thinking about the distributors that, you know, that hadn't been there maybe three months ago?
[00:42:28.890] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So, yeah, I mean, you're quite right there. I mean, this is it. I didn't I didn't say this earlier. We are we are looking for other opportunities as well. I mean, we'd love to get into food. But, you know, we were talking about it three weeks ago and it's just too early at the moment to say. I think that there's going to be almost a domino of companies that are going down.
[00:42:48.450] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I mean, over the last 48 hours, a couple of big, big boys. I'm 40 going into administration here in the U.K. So we're keeping our eyes peeled because we'd love to get into the food industry as well. Combined, the whole, you know, alcohol and food together. But we need the right opportunity. So it's all about timing. If something comes, I think it will come over the next two to three months. You know, I hope it does for my great and for the success of the business that, you know, my heart goes out to all those businesses that are currently struggling or have some big struggles to come because it's nation really struggling.
[00:43:23.840] - Randy Rohde
Right.
[00:43:24.420] - Randy Rohde
You say it's all about timing. And I agree. I was just having this conversation with my kids at dinner last night, actually. We were. And I know my son said something about luck. They were lucky or something like that. And I said, no, I think you don't quite get it. You know, success and luck really is preparation meets opportunity and, you know, you used the word timing. But it's all of what you've done to prepare and position your company and get ready for something that you don't even know is there yet.
[00:43:54.570] - Randy Rohde
And then when it comes along at your doorstep, you're ready you're ready to take advantage of and you can jump right into it. So what I would say, like for you, all of the investments and the experience that you have in technology and the way that you've developed your company now is going to land a solution for an opportunity that very well could be, you know, just the way it also left it at that.
[00:44:17.580] - Ashleigh Fletcher
There's also a luck element as well, you know.
[00:44:20.590] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You know that there's plenty of businesses that I look out that we might deal with on a daily basis. I just think, well, how how are you still in business when you're offering such a terrible service?
[00:44:30.210] - Ashleigh Fletcher
But they are you know, they get lucky. I mean, set to give an example of our luck. I took the decision. It was about eleven months ago that I was pulling on our office and our office staff were basically going to be remote working and then blow me down. Seven, eight months later, the world goes into remote working. So we again had some luck there in the sense that we were organized. We were already remote for seven or eight months.
[00:44:52.260] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So we had our systems in place. We knew what we were doing. And a lot of these companies just, um, you know, it took three weeks to sort of make the decision that they were going to go remote. So I think, you know, you're quite right. Prep makes makes a big difference planning. So I do a lot of thinking, an incredible amount of thinking. I'm always thinking about stuff, but also that there is that element that obviously is literally just sheer luck.
[00:45:15.400] - Randy Rohde
Yeah. All right.
[00:45:16.230] - Randy Rohde
So, Ashley, we are in the bottom of the ninth, and that means that the bowl games just about over. Last question for you, though. What kind of advice do you have as a as a great veteran in business to those maybe who were either just starting out or thinking about opening up their own small business? What kind of words of wisdom do you have for those folks?
[00:45:38.580] - Ashleigh Fletcher
I'd say don't procrastinate. That's the most important thing. It's very, very easy to make up excuses. I'm not about to do that tomorrow. The calls don't go along with it now. Do it now. The second thing I'd say is, is when you're first starting out. Don't try and affect things. I've got I've got a level of OCD in me where things have to be perfect and everything has to be lined up and all this kind of stuff.
[00:45:58.400] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Well, in a spreadsheet or this kind of stuff, when you're first asking, don't seek perfection, seek that there's a market for it, that it works. Then once you've once you've definitely confirmed. Yes, I've got something here. Then you can take the time to fine tune things. I'd also say trust your instincts as well. Whether that be, you know, you recruiting people or walking away from a decision, you know, sometimes you do, you know.
[00:46:21.350] - Ashleigh Fletcher
You know, it's seem like a really good deal at the beginning. But then, you know, you're thinking about it. You think, actually, no, I need to walk away from it. Trust your instinct. Listen to yourself inside and never regret a decision. That's the last thing I would say. If you have to walk away from that deal, then question yourself first. Am I going to regret walking away from this or not? Because the last thing that you want, no regrets.
[00:46:41.520] - Ashleigh Fletcher
So don't procrastinate. Don't look for perfection at the outset. Trust your instincts and never have any regrets.
[00:46:47.410] - Randy Rohde
Very nice. Great words. Great words of advice. All right. So how do people connect with you, Ashley? How can they connect with Booze-Up?
[00:46:54.720] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Sure. I mean, they connect with Booze-up at www.booze-up.com. You can head to our Instagram. We've got a LinkedIn page or call us direct unfortunately we don't cover. We don't cover the states yet, but hopefully in the next decade we might well, very well have all the.
[00:47:10.030] - Randy Rohde
We'll have all of those Links in our show notes that they can go to as well, so they'll see all of that stuff. Any special promotions that's rolling at Booze-Up this month?
[00:47:19.510] - Ashleigh Fletcher
Yeah, I mean, we've we've got a very, very nice. Company over here. I'm not sure that it's I think they got a little bit of state's exposure is called Sipsmith. We've managed to negotiate an exclusive, exclusive deal with them on their new release of Chile in Line Gin. So we've got exclusive until the 19th of July. It's not even in the supermarkets. We've also only asked if you need that on demand. We're your guys.
[00:47:42.200] - Ashleigh Fletcher
And also a new product that we just launched, Bacardi Spice started. You guys have is called Bacardi Okok Spiced, but it's now been renamed here in the U.K. It's just Bacardi Spice is flying off the shelves.
[00:47:53.410] - Randy Rohde
Nice. All right. Cheers to that, I guess. Right. Well, that's it. Well, that's the ballgame. Ashley, let's appreciate you being on the show. It's been a lot of fun and really an incredible experience learning about on demand alcohol delivery. So a really thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. And for those listening, we really appreciate if you liked her show.
[00:48:15.670] - Randy Rohde
Please tell your friends subscribe. And of course, we would love your reviews and we'll see around the ballpark.
[00:48:24.160] - Randy Rohde
Running the bases with small businesses is brought to you by. Thirty eight Digital Market, a digital marketing agency committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions and increased sales. Connect with us today at 38 digital market dot.com.