HOW do you find the perfect business idea? One way is to take a tried and
tested model and give it a twist. The best business ideas are not the most
complicated ones, they are the ones that look at a problem from a different
angle.
That is exactly what Robin Barrasford has done. After years of selling new
property overseas through his website, he has opened a high-street estate
agents’ shop in Tavistock, Devon, which is devoted to selling new
developments overseas.
Like any other estate agent, there are pictures in the window of properties
for sale. The only difference is that these properties are in Bulgaria,
Greece and the Caribbean.
Barrasford, 37, got the idea for his bricks-and-mortar shop after realising
there was a gap in the market. While there are thousands of traditional
estate agents on every high street across the country selling local
properties, there are virtually none devoted to selling property overseas.
Instead, customers have traditionally had to find what they were looking for
at property exhibitions or on the internet, which can be a bit risky.
“The big problem with my industry is that everyone buys a property over the
phone or after falling in love with something while on holiday or at a
property exhibition,” said Barrasford.
“They are often handing over a huge amount of money on the basis of a magazine
advertisement and a conversation on the phone, whereas this way people have
somewhere to walk into and meet someone face to face.
“They can pop in for an informal chat on their way to Tesco and there is no
pressure.”
Even better, instead of being limited to one country, customers at his estate
agency, Barrasford and Bird, can check out properties in 12 countries.
The response to the shop has been so positive that Barrasford now plans to
have a chain of 15 across the country within the next three years. The shops
will also offer aftercare for those people who have bought property abroad.
“I want to build a brand,” he said. “If people want to buy a television set
they may think of going to Dixons. If people want to buy an overseas
property, I want them to think of us.”
Another entrepreneur who has used a traditional business as a starting point
for an idea with a twist is Tiny Deol.
She has created Curryslim, a range of fat-free curry sauces, which go on sale
in a leading supermarket chain early next year.
Deol, 43, who was born and brought up in India, came up with the idea of
making fat-free curry sauces after trying to find a way of losing weight
following the births of her three children.
She said: “I tried various diets and exercise programmes but nothing worked
because I missed my chicken tikka masa-las. So without telling my family and
friends I started taking all the fat out of the curries I was making while
keeping the flavour.
“When they couldn’t tell the difference, I knew I had cracked it. I lost more
than two stones and realised there was a niche in the market.”
Her Curryslim range now includes five different fat-free curry sauces. She
said: “People like to eat tasty Indian and ethnic food, but when they are
full of oil and fat it puts them off. People who want to stay slim say they
can’t eat Indian food, but I want to change that. I am going to establish
the Curryslim brand for people who want to eat healthily.”
Tom Talbot, managing director of the business improvement consultancy Talbot &
Associates and chairman of the northeast branch of the Institute of Business
Consulting, said that for most budding entrepreneurs finding a new angle was
the key to finding success.
“Me-too type companies are very difficult to make any kind of great success
with,” he said. “There has always got to be that edge. Companies have to be
able to do something slightly different, slightly better, slightly faster.
“It is not so much about inventing a new wheel, it is about taking an existing
wheel down a different pathway. In a world of me-too products, anything that
stands out as being just a little bit different can be sufficient to make it
a huge success.”
Talbot said that the big advantage of creating a business that is a slight
twist on an existing one is that you already have a potential pool of
customers to tap into. “You have got what is in essence an established
marketplace.”
Another advantage is that it is likely to be easier to persuade banks and
investors to come on board.
“Where somebody has got a new and innovative idea, the difficulty they face is
having to go through some kind of feasibility-proving period in order to
raise finance, whereas if you have the core of an established idea then the
market research information is already there and that gives you a
strengthened position should you need to raise finance,” said Talbot.
He advised: “You can save yourself a lot of heartache if instead of trying to
push yourself to find something brand new, you look at what you are good at,
look at where the expertise lies inside you and how you can apply that in a
slightly different way to create something that doesn’t exist in the
marketplace.
“Make it better, not in a huge way but in a slightly different way,” he said.
