Adventure Bar

Client Pain

Adventure Bars approached the Directors’ Centre just after they had bought their first large West End cocktail bar to supplement a series of smaller suburban bars they already owned

Tom Kidd, Adventure Bars:

“Business growth to date had been random and without great purpose and direction. We were learning by making mistakes and we felt convinced that there must be an easier way to grow a business.”

What We Did

The process was a mix of one-to-one conversations, deskbound and market research (the industry, market, customers and competitors) to understand the options, possibilities and appetite for business growth. A strong business plan was developed, with a mentor to guide strategic planning, business development and facilitate business growth.

Key questions had to be addresses by the directors (as a team and as individuals):

• Just how good is the business?
• What is our potential to grow the business?
• What is the business strategy? Where do we want the business to be in three years’ time?
• What is possible? Is the risk-reward ratio acceptable?
• What are the steps on the way? What must we keep? What must we lose?
• How will we track our performance and hold ourselves accountable?

Through a process of discussions, debate and argument, a plan emerges that literally ticks all the boxes, and more! Something ambitious, sense-checked, practical, realistic, tested and deliverable.

Results

Tom Kidd, Adventure Bars

“The Directors’ Centre’s original role was to come in and help us to understand how to structure our business more effectively in order to achieve our financial and personal goals.

At the time we had very little formal structure and even less business strategy. Objectives throughout the company were mixed and the board was fragmented. Robert Craven and the Directors’ Centre helped us firstly to understand the importance of organising ourselves in a way that would make us more productive and ultimately more happy with what we were doing.

Once this stage of re-organisation was complete, The Directors’ Centre coached us through the strategic process of introducing boardroom process and board level KPIs and the associated issues that come with this.

We have been helped with the more grey areas such as board dynamic and understanding each other which in turn ultimately allows us to work more effectively together. This has helped us to bring forward the values we feel most strongly about, such as culture, work place satisfaction and delivery of brilliance to the fore.

Whilst I have distilled the activities into rather small paragraphs I feel it necessary to iterate how important many of these activities have been.”