{"id":46959,"date":"2023-10-20T15:51:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/ripe-and-ready-for-more-success-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:51:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:51:55","slug":"ripe-and-ready-for-more-success-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/ripe-and-ready-for-more-success-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Ripe and ready for more success – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Janine<\/div>\n

\"Janine\u201cRunning your own business is great, but be careful what you wish for,\u201d warns Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice. \u201cI wanted a part-time job so I could spend more time with my kids. I ended up working 17 hours a day.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis may have somewhat inadvertently created a brand that is now has 240 franchised stores stretching from Melbourne to Portugal, covering many places in-between, but she is no stranger to radical career changes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prior to starting Boost in 2000 with her husband Jeff, Allis had a variety of jobs, none of which could be called dull.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not the standard entrepreneur<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether it was being a cinema manager in Singapore, an ad executive in Melbourne or, brilliantly, head stewardess on David Bowie\u2019s yacht, Allis had a meandering route to Boost that, she says, aided its foundation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis, who left school at 16 and is now the head of a $130 million turnover business, is proof that there is no conventional path to entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMy life has almost been in clumps, really,\u201d she says. \u201cAt 21, I wanted to travel and have an adventure and at 29 I thought, \u2018Right, I\u2019ve got to start a career.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has helped, I think, is that I\u2019m a person who says \u2018yes\u2019 a lot. I\u2019m a sponge for drawing in new information and experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI think anything you do in life can give you skills for business. My travels taught me all kinds of things, whether that be problem-solving, conflict management or emotional intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giving the career a Boost<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Given her prior 180-degree career changes, it\u2019s perhaps not surprising that Allis doesn\u2019t view starting Boost as a huge, terrifying leap into the unknown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While in the US, she noted the established market for healthy juice bars. She felt she could not only replicate the offering in Australia, but also do better.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a number of big players in the US and while I liked the category, I didn\u2019t like the players,\u201d says Allis. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to just rip them off blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI used a bit more commonsense than that, as well as some the marketing skills I had. I just picked up a pen and paper and started sketching how I\u2019d like the stores to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The look and feel that Allis went for is evident 10 years on \u2013 fresh, colourful and little ambiguity about the product being sold.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLook at Jamba Juice (US juice chain),\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s timber everywhere when you go in. There are no pictures of fruit and you wouldn\u2019t know what it was from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe tell you what we are. We have pictures of apples 20 times the size of actual apples. I had a clear vision for the business and that is a vision of what I\u2019d like to see as a consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Building the brand<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After pulling together $250,000 from friends \u2013 \u201cThey believed in me, rather than just the concept. I think that\u2019s what you invest in \u2013 people,\u201d Allis says \u2013 Boost opened its first outlet in Adelaide in 2000.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So how did Allis turn the business into the success story it is today?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure I was a success for years,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea of failure or success. It was just a big learning experience. It was just about solving problems as they came up, then understanding the cyclical nature of the business, then trying promotional activities and seeing what worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we had stores to open in order to grow, I\u2019d focus on what we had to do today to get there. So, if you have a store to open in December, start planning in May what you need to do. Always work ahead of yourself and then you will be ahead of your cashflow.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the early days, I knew that we had to be first in mind for consumers. We had to be the leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was achieved through a blanket radio marketing coverage \u2013 aided by the fact that Jeff had a 22-year career in the radio industry \u2013 and a large PR component. The bright colours and youthful feel of the brand stood out so well that it had 94% market recognition in just four years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis holds strategy meetings every six months to ensure the business is on track and, in the business\u2019 formative years, soaked up as much information as possible from mentors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis turned to Geoff Harris, co-founder of Flight Centre, and Roger and Lesley Gillespie, founders of Bakers Delight for advice. \u201cThey were great people to chat to along the journey,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can\u2019t be arrogant and pretend you know everything. You need to be honest about what you don\u2019t know and use teachers who know more than you.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A reoccurring theme with Allis is people. The conversation on how Boost Juice made the grade invariably ends up centred on its people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This focus on the flesh and blood of the business has been trumpeted in high profile ways by Allis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not only has Boost Juice run TV ads that espouse its virtues to Gen Y workers, Allis even appeared on Channel Ten show Undercover Boss last year, donning a wig to work in a Perth store before dishing out feel-good help to the outlet\u2019s struggling franchisees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cStarting a business is great, but it\u2019s all about the people you do it with,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s so important to have the right people in the right roles. You are always learning about your employees \u2013 they may be great for five years and then something happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had account people who stuffed up the books.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to know what you want and set clear outcomes for everyone. At interview stage, we have questionnaires that we get people to answer in a six-minute telephone conversation, to work out their attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be intuitive to work out if people fit into a group or not. At the same time, you don\u2019t want just one type of person working for you. You need to work out your weaknesses and hire around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gen Y cheerleader<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis has no time for employers who bemoan Gen Y staff as feckless and workshy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got 5,000 people working for us and 4,590 of them are Gen Y,\u201d she says. \u201cThat youth and enthusiasm is what the business is built on.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had enough of people slamming Gen Y. Good God, they were better than we were at that age. In the 80s I was driving around in an open top Beetle with Lifesavers hanging out of the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get the culture right. At the moment I\u2019m wearing torn jeans and a top I wore to yoga. The finance guy is probably in board shorts right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allis may seem like she takes a relaxed attitude to business, but the reality is somewhat different. She calls herself a \u201ccontrol freak\u201d that has ensured that Boost has well-regimented back-end systems, allowing her to spin off a second business, Mexican chain Salsa\u2019s, two years ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The focus on people doesn\u2019t come at the expense of the cold, hard numbers, either. Further international expansion is planned for Boost after a sell off of shares to US private equity firm The Riverside Company last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou should read your financial numbers like you read a book \u2013 that\u2019s where all your answers will be,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have casual dress here, but it isn\u2019t casual performance. You expect customers to get a certain experience and so you fix the training and incentives to get that. You don\u2019t settle for mediocrity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cRunning your own business is great, but be careful what you wish for,\u201d warns Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,25,28,11,17,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}