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Guest: Jan Cavelle, Founder of Jan Cavelle Furniture.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
From First Product Sales to a Scalable Company
Jan Cavelle explains how founders can win early product sales through direct outreach, then build the people, processes, and priorities needed to scale. You will also hear practical guidance on early sales, growth planning, leadership priorities, operational readiness, partnerships, and scalable commercialization.
Episode transcript
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Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learned from the founder of a massive international furniture company on how to sell your first units, then scale your product business.
Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product developers,
Narrator: manufacturers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your product on store shelves.
Narrator: We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses.
Jan Cavelle: Now, on to the show.
Jan Cavelle: Welcome back, everyone.
Kevin Mako: Today I'm very excited to introduce Jan Cavelle to the show. Jan was the founder and CEO for 20 years of Jan Cavelle Furniture Company, which designed, manufactured, and sold their own furniture to wholesalers all over the world, starting with just one piece.
Kevin Mako: She's also the author of Scale for Success, a book that helps startups go from their first sales to becoming a multi-million dollar empire. Today, Jan is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors startups and small manufacturers can make their first sales by just picking up the phones.
Kevin Mako: She'll then go into some tips on how to actually scale your business from there and how to learn from some of the best sales techniques in a very old industry. Now, on to the episode.
Kevin Mako: Jan, welcome to the show.
Kevin Mako: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to do this. We really appreciate you spending the time.
Jan Cavelle: but I know that you just finished and are in the process of launching your first book.
Kevin Mako: I know. So exciting. I'm a big child, budget, I'm afraid. You know, it's great because you were telling me the story beforehand where you thought you were going to retire. You know, you built this massive furniture business and other businesses
Kevin Mako: and you went into retirement. And then I guess it was an afterthought. You said, I really need to bring this knowledge out to the forefront, bring it to the public and help
Jan Cavelle: people essentially the title of the book, scale for success. That's right. Absolutely.
Jan Cavelle: There were so many things that had come up between me and chats for other entrepreneurs that I just made sense for if I could share it. And there was a need for it. And I didn't think there was anything quite liked on the market.
Kevin Mako: And so if it helps one or two people along the way, it's a lovely thing to do. Well, I really look forward to it. I understand it's out already in the UK. And it's coming on July 6th. That's the US market to scale for success. So I look forward to reading that. Let's jump into the subject matter.
Kevin Mako: that led you to the book, which is building essentially a furniture company empire and talking about sales because that's so critical. So many hardware startups are always thinking,
Kevin Mako: how am I going to sell the product? What are the best ways and really how do I do it? And I'm excited today to dig in about the methodologies that you used when you started with the furniture company to really achieve sales and then how that evolved so that you
Kevin Mako: could really scale and grow to be a massive multi-million dollar business. Why don't you give
Jan Cavelle: us just a bit of a background of the history of the furniture company. Then we'll jump into the sales tactics that worked. Sure.
Jan Cavelle: When I started the furniture company, I had not that much experience in starting businesses. Quite a lot of experience working for myself and doing odd,
Jan Cavelle: strange jobs, which necessarily in those days certainly tended to be selling something, sometimes only on commission or on pretty lousy pay, but nobody expected you to stay there very long,
Jan Cavelle: So, you know, it was fine for a filling.
Jan Cavelle: Therefore, sales wise was my sort of main experience, but in a fairly hard sale way, I mean, I'd flogged, you know, sort of sandwiches around offices and wine on the phone and, you know, that sort of thing.
Jan Cavelle: So I knew what it was like to do phone sales.
Jan Cavelle: And I found myself on my own with two small kids when I was a single mom. after a divorce,
Jan Cavelle: very broke. And the only way to survive was clearly going to be to sell it on the phone again because I could do it while I looked after them.
Jan Cavelle: And so my ex-husband and I had done a bit of furniture very vaguely.
Jan Cavelle: So I thought, well, you know, if that's something I know a minuscule amount about, and I mean a minuscule amount, honestly.
Jan Cavelle: And we lived out in, the children and I lived, out of my country, you know. There were lots of nice little craftsmen around.
Jan Cavelle: And I thought this is great. I can buy in, you know, lots of furniture and sell it to interior designers. Because I'd worked out that, and this is something that's relevant to your listeners, you know, I went the B2B route
Jan Cavelle: because I thought, you know, all that effort in building a product like that, you're going to have to do so much work on the sales side to sell directly to the customer.
Jan Cavelle: Whereas if you've got a returning B2B customer and you do it well, you know, then it's far less expense and it makes a lot more sense and everything else.
Jan Cavelle: Now that was an initial problem because, of course, I didn't have any money and as they all pointed out to me, they really wanted to see a glossy brochure and scrape together enough
Jan Cavelle: on a credit card to do what can only be described as a very nasty leaflet.
Jan Cavelle: But it got me started and I literally built it up from those early years on the phone hard selling.
Jan Cavelle: It was pre-computer days and so I had to do it buying trade directories on a Friday when I could put some
Jan Cavelle: money together and I'd buy, you know, sort of Bristol and London, Northwest or something and add them to my mail shot list.
Jan Cavelle: and I telephan sold this stuff and that was tricky
Jan Cavelle: because of course with a product people want to see it
Jan Cavelle: which is fair enough you'd think I didn't have the money to go out selling you know and I didn't have money for childcare while I went out selling so I had to look at it that I had to devise a way
Jan Cavelle: of convincing them to buy without saying it being so blown away that they wanted it anyway. And to me, that meant, and it was very cynical, and we were talking about service earlier on,
Jan Cavelle: and I know we'll talk about it a bit more, but I'm afraid it was purely as a means to an end of a way to promote this stuff, but I started off thinking of this idea of service, which really hadn't got into fashion then.
Jan Cavelle: But I started saying to the designers,
Jan Cavelle: what would make your life easier? What are your pain points? and it was pre-talking any of those days and it was very easy to discover that they were doing
Jan Cavelle: houses, show houses
Jan Cavelle: and stuff wasn't turning up on time they couldn't get custom-made stuff to fit that place properly all these things they couldn't get special colours because it was pretty all the sort of high fashion
Jan Cavelle: and they were beginning to want high fashion and they could only buy in you and Morgany traditional, like, you know, the sort of repraised off people's parents had.
Jan Cavelle: And so there was this huge gap in the market, which was lock, more than anything, but lock and listening.
Kevin Mako: So, you know, all of a sudden I was going, well, you know, I can, you know, if this is me talking to you, you know, I can personally guarantee, didn't I call you again today? You know, I am a reliable person. I am a trustworthy person.
Kevin Mako: I will take care of your business and your furniture needs. That's amazing. There's three really big things that stand out for me, just in that part of story, especially very important for hardware startups
Kevin Mako: when they're thinking about their journey. First and foremost, there's a lot of ways to sell. Today, I would say much more than back then,
Kevin Mako: a lot of hardware startups don't really actively pursue or even consider the B2B approach. But the B2B approach is a very powerful, Avenue. Now, I'm not saying one way or is better than the other or whatnot, but it's always
Kevin Mako: important to consider all your options. One thing that you mentioned to a B2B is that it can scale quickly, reoccurring revenue customer, reliable, all these sorts of things that come with B2B. But the second thing, which kind of highlights that is you worked hard without
Kevin Mako: almost any assets to back it up to start selling direct. You just picked up the phone and went for it. And again, that's something that is still very powerful today. We got caught up on
Kevin Mako: on crowdfunding and all these things, which are very phenomenal platforms, you know, direct sales, lots of great stuff. But remember, you have many options as a hardware entrepreneur. There's many different ways to sell. And here, somebody who built a multi, multi, multi, multi, million
Kevin Mako: dollar furniture empire just through picking up the phone and calling, even with limited knowledge of the subject matter. And that leads me to a third thing, which I think is very important
Kevin Mako: that you touched on, too, is asking customers, those B2B customers, but it can be real customers, what their specific pain points are.
Jan Cavelle: And that's an incredible way to, first of all, have them open up, second of all, build trust with them. And third,
Jan Cavelle: potentially land that sale if you can figure out a gap. And as you said, you then identified the gap. So how did it grow and scale from that point when you did those three things well, which is something I heavily can, you know, suggest that most of our listeners that have a hardware
Jan Cavelle: startup think about as another option beyond many of the fancy options that are out there today for say absolutely i'm a you know just as a side point i mean i'm a huge fan of bootstrapping on a
Jan Cavelle: you know minimal viable product actually and you know you can still do it and and then you end up with the whole company at the end of it without having to go um fancy funding routes and everything
Jan Cavelle: else but uh yeah um from there i started i mean this is you know you would like to do of all these things in this day and age but all that time ago but we started
Jan Cavelle: A friend of mine started spraying furniture because I couldn't get it finished because it was just at the tipping point of everybody wanting lacquered furniture.
Jan Cavelle: And so a friend started spraying it in another friend's barn, just a corner of barn. And so we grew the finishing operation.
Jan Cavelle: I could buy it in that it took a bit of convincing because most of these local makers were. used to making the repro furniture and they were going you know what do you want to use to mdf that's
Jan Cavelle: chipboard we don't want to touch that you know so so yeah it was it was challenging to talk them into it but but we could get it made but we could not get it finished um at all where you know in
Jan Cavelle: england at that point and so the only answer was to spray at ourselves which wasn't very good quality it must be said um but of course equally it was fairly unknown at that stage so nobody really knew what good quality to expect or not.
Jan Cavelle: So we got away with it.
Jan Cavelle: And gradually,
Jan Cavelle: that side of things built up to a tiny farm building all of our own and two people spraying all day and one person's sanding. And, you know, I thought I'd hit big business.
Jan Cavelle: And it was all a lovely cottage industry, actually. I mean, kids were small and it was a lovely way of life.
Jan Cavelle: but of course things don't go to plan and by that time I was buying the furniture in from mainly one person one company and the guy who was running it was a little bit eccentric and decided to stop
Jan Cavelle: running it one weekend one Friday afternoon and so that you know I'm out I've had enough I'm going to retire and unless you want to take it over and you know just thinking I won't be able to
Jan Cavelle: to do anything next week. I won't have a business next week if you does this. I said, okay, I'll take it over. So I brought it on my never, never this thing.
Jan Cavelle: And therefore, had two farm buildings and this making place. I mean, it was another barn.
Jan Cavelle: And, you know, for roofily, the machinery was old, you know, it was a junk and a half. But, you know,
Kevin Mako: that was the start of my making side as well.
Kevin Mako: Wow. But then, of course, it got expensive because we had to put it under one roof and, you know, which is the only logical thing to do.
Kevin Mako: And I didn't realize how expensive that would be.
Jan Cavelle: And, you know, it's sort of cost of moving machinery alone.
Jan Cavelle: And so we had to all of a sudden go serious. I mean, the only way I could dig myself out of that hole and that commitment was to far, far more,
Jan Cavelle: an awful lot more. is to sell a lot more just to keep, keep that machine going. Absolutely. So what worked? What worked in selling, you know, in the early days and how did that evolve?
Jan Cavelle: And, you know, what tips can you derive from that to pass on to folks who are just beginning that journey themselves today as our listeners? Absolutely. Well, I think the one thing I had learned by then, a few things I'd learned by then.
Jan Cavelle: But one thing I'd learned by then was that if I wasn't going to go out face to face with the customer and I wasn't any way, going to get access to the end user.
Kevin Mako: An awful lot was going to rely on your brochure. So while I was borrowing money busily to pay for the factory unit that I'd taken on and couldn't afford, I borrowed extra to get a much better quality brochure.
Kevin Mako: I mean, now, of course, it's all online. It's a lot easier. But people judge you on your website in the same way. You know, it is your shopfront. And I think
Kevin Mako: that's really important when money's tight when you're starting up it's it's very tempting to save on everything but you know really that's not a place to save within reason well one step
Kevin Mako: one step almost further from that especially in today's day and age is the video and it's something i haven't i don't think i've talked about on the show but one of the big things when you're showcasing a product especially in today's age you'll notice that all the main all the biggest
Kevin Mako: Kickstarter, crowdfunding, you know, Indigo campaigns. They have a great video. It doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to really clearly articulate what your product does, what problem it solves,
Kevin Mako: all this sort of stuff and essentially convince somebody to buy it. Now, that video essentially
Jan Cavelle: is a modern day brochure in attaching to the website and whatever else. So, you know, a big thing for startups. I know it costs money, but find a good company that, and we're happy to make
Jan Cavelle: referrals if somebody wants to know who good companies for the sort of stuff are feel free to reach out to us tobacco design anytime and ask but we're happy to make the connections to folks who do really great web work really good video work all that sort of stuff not at a super high cost
Jan Cavelle: just stuff that's reasonable for startups yeah but it's an investment that you really need to
Kevin Mako: consider even though you have other things you're paying for development you're paying for manufacturing don't forget put your product in the best light to those potential buyers otherwise the whole thing's not worth it if you can't make any sales, right? So right.
Kevin Mako: I mean, you know, because I was so sales-oriented and sales-obsessed, because usually
Jan Cavelle: in those early days, I was in so much debt, you know, so I was even more sales-obsessed than normal. But, yeah, I mean, I would say it comes really high on your list because for that reason, you
Jan Cavelle: know, no sales, no business,
Jan Cavelle: you know, no point in investing in hugely complicated product stuff if you're never going to sell it. That's great. So what else worked? I mean, talk about picking up the phone and calling. I know that's something that a lot of people are
Jan Cavelle: afraid of and they think you have to be some sort of, you know, magical MBA student,
Jan Cavelle: you know, graduates with tons of experience. But, you know, speak about picking up the phone and just making that call, especially when you have something to sell when you've built something. I know. I know.
Jan Cavelle: It was pretty scary at first because I felt so much rested on it. I felt much more exposed to because it was my company and my name and everything else as opposed to, you know, selling somebody else's stuff for six months,
Jan Cavelle: which I really couldn't care about. But I've got to say, but, you know, when I was very young.
Jan Cavelle: But yeah, it's a tough gig initially until you get the hang of it. You know, it comes down to lots of things. I think it's a lot of old-fashioned rules.
Jan Cavelle: You need to find out who the right person is to talk to. But firstly, but that means making friends with whoever is on the line at every single stage.
Jan Cavelle: So many people go into it and, you know, go, oh, you know, put me through to so and say, and, you know, they miss the major trick of the fact that, you know, whoever they
Jan Cavelle: first speak to you is going to report back up the line and say, I've got this awful person on the phone or I've got this lovely person on the phone. And you can just change the way the
Jan Cavelle: conversation goes by making friends with every single person you speak to. I think that's really important from the first moment on. Perseverance is terribly important because people aren't going
Jan Cavelle: buy from you for you know straight off on the first call that they might buy from you you know on the
Kevin Mako: third call and i believe the average on telephone sales is still on the seventh call so you know you have to
Kevin Mako: hang in there and be really pretty gritty about it um to to really get those sales in but you don't have to sell all the time you know you view it as a new friend you're making you're making
Kevin Mako: that you're going to ring up and chat to, find out lots of stuff personally about them. You know, their birthdays, their kids, where they've been on holiday, you know, so that you make the moment you ring them next time just after they've had a holiday.
Kevin Mako: Oh, hi, did you have a nice time in wherever it was? You know, get all that personal stuff. So your relationship building all the time. And then you can almost get off the phone without having sold, but just that much nearer to a sale.
Kevin Mako: You know what's amazing about what you're saying is that none of the tips that you've suggested have anything to do with being some sort of crazy expert at selling on the phone. And that's the thing that I've seen with many of our clients who've taken that approach
Kevin Mako: of just trying the direct sales method, whether it's getting a wholesale or a distributor, even a partner or an investor.
Kevin Mako: The same feedback always comes back. They say, oh, you know what? After I started doing it for a bit, after I, like you said, put in the persistence, was friendly to everybody up the chain, right? know what your product is as well.
Kevin Mako: I said, well, it's actually surprisingly,
Kevin Mako: surprisingly easy, or you can start seeing the results. It doesn't require some sort of fancy degree. And really, it just comes down to just doing it, right? The Nike slosh. Just do it.
Kevin Mako: And that's, especially when you've built a product or you're in production or you're about to be in production, you've already got your magic.
Jan Cavelle: Your magic is the thing you've developed.
Jan Cavelle: And now all you need to do is tell that buyer, these are sophisticated. folks. They know what they're doing. You don't need to have the best pitch in the world. If you can show them why your product is better or unique or, you know, a differentiator or whatever else,
Jan Cavelle: it's somehow, some way it's going to potentially make them money, they'll figure out all the
Kevin Mako: rest. And they know you're early stage in your startup. You don't, you don't need to come across. In fact, that might even hinder you, right? I think it's coming across too slick. Yeah. Be authentic, believe in your product. Just make the calls and magic starts to happen. And I also really
Kevin Mako: like what you said as well about, yeah, you might not make the sale, but you have that comfort that you got a little bit closer. And of course, it's not going to happen with everybody, right?
Jan Cavelle: A lot of people are going to turn you down. That's where the persistence comes in. Don't worry about it. It's okay. You only need one yes and every 50 knows. And if you make 50 calls, that means you got to say.
Jan Cavelle: Yeah. And you know, you've just got to bear in mind, they may be having a really off day, you know, so just for fact that they've been pretty poisonous to you want.
Jan Cavelle: You know, it's still worse trying again in three months time and, you know, seeing how they are and hopefully you'll hit them on a better day and they'll be a bit nicer to you. They might even feel a bit guilty. Right. So what, what helped you then scale from this part?
Jan Cavelle: So you've got, you know, you start selling some units. The phone sales thing is working for you, starting to make sales. You're building this joint facility now.
Jan Cavelle: How did you then, you know, what are some of your best practices that you used to then start scaling to start selling better, more efficiently and really? really building in, you know, customer value over time to scale into the massive company that it became.
Jan Cavelle: Well, you know, there's sort of various strands of because we had to really concentrate on developing things that people wanted, you know.
Jan Cavelle: And that's in a way, though, it was also a huge disadvantage for the fact that I was so ignorant by furniture was a plus in a way because I had to listen to what the customers wanted.
Jan Cavelle: because I didn't know any better.
Jan Cavelle: But the good thing about it was I didn't have any ego because I knew I couldn't design. You know, so there wasn't some, you know, oh, look at me, look at my fabulous product. You know, it was how can we develop this
Kevin Mako: because the customer's asking for it, which was a really good way to go about it. And in some ways it always made me laugh that when we did customer comparatives to see what they thought,
Kevin Mako: which is something I really recommend. I'm sure you do too on bringing up, asking your customer how they view you in comparison to the competition because it's what the customer thinks, not what you think that matters.
Kevin Mako: But that's just as an aside. But, you know, what made me laugh always was, you know, we had what its weaknesses and so did everybody else were in the customer's eyes. But what they was ranked us on was design. And all the others were designers.
Kevin Mako: And yet it was me who got the harm. as the score on design, but it was simply because I developed stuff based on what the customer wants. And of course, that is what they want. You know, they don't want some fancy product that
Kevin Mako: somebody thinks is clever. They want actually what they need. And that also comes back to the principle that, you know, just build a great product for your customer. Focus on the product,
Jan Cavelle: which is the main effort. And then again, sales becomes easier. Yes, absolutely. You know, a phenomenal, Guy Kawasaki said it. He said, you know, if you build a great, great prototype, you have a phenomenal product, you'll never have to worry about another spreadsheet or business
Jan Cavelle: plan or anything ever again, right? So start first with creating a great product. And then that'll very much lubricate the sales process or the fears even, or, you know, maybe some of your inefficiencies or your inconsistencies or whatever else is you're relatively new. But Jan, you
Jan Cavelle: started, again, like you said, with very little experience in the furniture industry. He had some experience in sales, but really that just trickled down to having the courage. You just do it and it worked. So how then do you use these principles to help scale the business?
Jan Cavelle: So you're starting to make some sales and now you really want to amplify that. How does that, how does that change or what other things are there, you know, other tips that you'd have for folks that are looking to go, let's say, from selling their first few hundred
Jan Cavelle: units to then selling a few hundred thousand units and does just do things change or are there other things you have to keep in mind?
Kevin Mako: or the things you can plan for in advance to smooth that process? I think, obviously, you could start looking at patterns. You know, you get to know things like, you know, sort of when your peaks and troughs are in a year,
Kevin Mako: all those sort of things which helps you plan, even if it's on to a planning of machinery maintenance or whatever, you know, it, you know, all people's holidays, it all gives you a minor bit of control at least.
Kevin Mako: but I you know we obviously had to we've we got computers that was exciting you know so we went digital but you know that I suspect most of your clients would have got there by now
Kevin Mako: but no I mean you know so a good CRM base obviously is a huge asset you know providing people
Kevin Mako: use it that's the only danger in a sales office with sort of a lot of people who are who may be transient or on first jobs or whatever, you know, they don't necessarily put in the right information.
Kevin Mako: Yeah, let's unpack CRM a bit, just for the audience that hasn't dealt with. The CRM stands for customer relationship management software. And essentially, it's just a breakdown of who your customers are and where they are in the sales funnel
Kevin Mako: or sales pipeline or whatnot. And I really like the fact that you brought up the adoption internally, and that is key. to any CRM system, making sure that every one of your employees who are on it are using it and then
Jan Cavelle: putting the data back in. Otherwise, it doesn't work. If the data is not there, you can't analyze it. If the data is not there, things are getting lost. So it's really important that you build those systems. And one of the easiest ways, I just think back in early days of macrodesignor, of course,
Jan Cavelle: like everybody, when we started this business, you know, we're dealing with inventors. I was pretty much just one-on-one. And I'd have a basic word document that had their information so I could keep track of our call notes. But of course, as you grow and as we bring on sales folks, and as it got
Jan Cavelle: more complicated,
Kevin Mako: I was very, very early on adopting a CRM system, having that software, even though I remembered every single one of our customers and what they were doing because I was dealing with them directly, even in the early days, I still put this in place because I knew at some
Kevin Mako: point I won't be able to do that. And it would be important for remembering things, but also for finding efficiencies and improvements. And that's where doing it early, and there's so many pieces of software there, they're so
Kevin Mako: cheap, they're so easy to use now, user-friendly. There's really no excuse, even if you only have a dozen customers, just to start putting information in this, essentially into this database. And that really is a big part.
Kevin Mako: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, I'm not sure to date on them now, of course not. but I think even in those days there were some but I mean sage did a manufacturing one
Jan Cavelle: which granted more you pay for it but they would actually you know sort of work out your stock levels and anticipate thing based on your sales and all sorts of fancy stuff you know which can make
Jan Cavelle: your life hugely easy from a production point of view as well it's a big thing in scaling doing it early when it's easier the later you leave something when you're scaling the labor
Jan Cavelle: Because one of the biggest complaints that people says, oh, man, for me to integrate a CRM system right now, do you know how much effort that'll take? That'll be impossible. It'll be costly,
Jan Cavelle: whatever else. Well, I can tell you in a year or two years when you're twice a size, it's going to be probably triple the complexity, the headaches, the problems. So the sooner that
Jan Cavelle: you start, the easier it is to flow. And that was one big thing with Mako Design. As we scaled from two people to 30 people, it was never really difficult. You hear all these horror stories of, you know, having growing.
Jan Cavelle: the team. Well, for us, because we always were being proactive about it. Of course, you have your little speed bumps here and there, but it was relatively smooth because we were constantly building in systems before we needed them so that once we needed them, they'd already been,
Jan Cavelle: not only had they been built, but they'd been tested and refined to the point where you really need them then.
Jan Cavelle: That is so right. And it's, I mean, certainly on some of the systems, it's, it's absolutely singing from my hem sheet. And I could have so done with you on the manufacturing,
Jan Cavelle: aside back then people are so lucky that you know a company like yourselves exists because
Kevin Mako: you know I had so little to help but sometime in as I tried to scale on the actual production side I went looking for help and the stupid answers came back that you know you wouldn't
Kevin Mako: believe you know unfortunately you know from the you know sort of we help manufacturing type companies in those days you know so it wasn't easy to do, but systems, yeah, I agree.
Kevin Mako: Very important with scaling. And I think that that again is quite tricky because if you're in something creative, you need the systems, but you can't afford to stamp out all the creativity.
Kevin Mako: I remember getting very excited about Six Sigma. And it made perfect sense. Of course, you should stand there with everything in reach and, you know, minimizing all the work and everything, you know. But these were guys who liked, you know,
Kevin Mako: they were used to working for senior ones in their barn. And chaos was a dripping roof. They didn't want to be in a sterile atmosphere with everything in reach, you know.
Kevin Mako: So it's a little bit of a compromise to keep our creativity going, I think. I don't know what you think about that. I'd be interested. Well, for sure, it's a balancing act because one of the things, like, And I think this is important.
Kevin Mako: I'm glad you brought it up when it comes to processes. Processes don't necessarily need to mean rigidity. In fact, it can mean the opposite. You can have a process built in to ensure that the creativity that worked within your firm continues to be so as you scale.
Kevin Mako: They can be used in both angles. And I think that's one of the big misconceptions. First of all, with business owners or startups or managers,
Kevin Mako: they're concerned about the increased rigidity and whatnot of processes. but especially within team members thinking, oh, no, a new system, well, that means it is more rigid.
Kevin Mako: But if you think more strategically about it and you really start and try early, the key is to balance both those things, to have rigidity when it's necessary, but also using that same system to create creativity that may not have been there, right?
Kevin Mako: Maybe it's certain time slots that you have booked, which are just specifically for thinking. Maybe it's a way that it's programmed and to make sure that designers have enough time to understand things. Maybe it's having reach to a library, like you said, the Six Sigma,
Kevin Mako: right? Everything within reach. Maybe it's reach to creative tools or other assets. So for instance, at Mako Design, right? Like our designers, we work as one big team across four offices. But at any point in time, if one of our designers wants expertise from another designer, that's actually
Kevin Mako: built into the system, into the processes that are built so they can immediately reach out,
Jan Cavelle: get something scheduled onto the books, or if they're at the office, just, you know, we've got a process for how you either are allowed to tap someone on the shoulder or not if they're in
Kevin Mako: the zone as you will, right? So they're in the zone. Leave them alone. Right.
Kevin Mako: There's a, we even used to have a when we're in office, you know, now it's coming back. But we had a little essentially light system where you would say, okay, if the lights on, like they're in the zone, don't bother them. They're doing hard for engineering or whatever else. Like, unless it's an
Kevin Mako: absolute emergency, let them be. But then as soon as that's off, it knows while they're doing some
Jan Cavelle: stuff, but they're also, you know, open to collaboration, whatever else. Now, all those things, they can upfront sound, okay, well, that seems a bit rigid. But what you actually find is many of these systems are actually encouraging that growth, that creativity, that collaboration, all those
Jan Cavelle: things you're actually afraid that won't happen. And I can tell you, as you scale, if you don't have those in place, you'll lose a lot more of the good stuff and you'll get a lot more of the bad stuff. So you're better to put the systems in place at first to make sure that you're, and then
Jan Cavelle: the beauty of systems, too, is they can be improved and refined. If let's say that light system isn't working, well, we can look at it as a systematic approach and say, well, why isn't it working? We've tried it. Here's the data behind it. Okay, let's scrap it and move on to something that we think is better.
Jan Cavelle: Well, without that data, without those systems to understand how it's working, then it's kind of just all up to opinion, which, again, can be built into the system as one of the pillars of it, right?
Jan Cavelle: That's fascinating. And I absolutely agree with your original point that, you know, do it early for systems, you know, the earlier, the better.
Jan Cavelle: And all that plays into sales, right? Because sales is a system in a place, right? What are the best things to say at the right times? What, you know, how do you get
Kevin Mako: your lists? How do you approach certain situations that occur? And you build a lot of these things in, especially as you scale, when you go from selling yourself to your first salesperson to
Kevin Mako: then a whole team of sales folks, and building all these things into play will help you manage the most efficiency out of your sales team.
Kevin Mako: And like you, I remembered luckily, you know, every. all the details of my main clients because I remember getting you know, there's this awful temptation to employ cheap people when you're starting out
Kevin Mako: or sort of, you know, people on lower salaries and of course you get what you pay for within reason. Yep. And I remember, you know, I was on, all my information was stored on card index boxes because
Jan Cavelle: of course it was pre-computer originally
Kevin Mako: you know, and I got copious notes on, you know, our eldest daughter's called January and, you know, they love to go to Tenerife every summer or whatever, you know, or every little bit.
Kevin Mako: And, you know, I gave it to the sales office at that point of which they were two or three of them and one person in particular to put it all into the system gradually every month.
Jan Cavelle: And they were going, yeah, it's going fine and we're on B and, you know, everything else. And that's what this girl's doing. And, you know, now it's finished.
Jan Cavelle: And I started to look for something. and I think she was about three-course the way through.
Jan Cavelle: And I said, well, I can't find it.
Jan Cavelle: And she hadn't bothered to it. And she'd torn up the codes and thrown them away.
Jan Cavelle: All right information gone. Wow.
Jan Cavelle: Got you. Yeah, and that leads to another point. Like, make sure that as a manager, you're actively working to build these systems, a part of it, and then understanding how they work and testing them and refining them.
Jan Cavelle: You know, set it and forget it. with pretty much anything in business, it doesn't work.
Jan Cavelle: So it set it and then work with that division or department or person or whatever else to make sure that it's on track, on schedule, all that. That's a tough lesson to learn. And we all go through those sorts of things where we wish we had to kept a closer eye on something or whatever else.
Jan Cavelle: But yeah, good thing you remembered those details. And I imagine next time you built that system or put it in, that stuff was certainly in there, right? I checked a lot.
Jan Cavelle: Yes.
Jan Cavelle: Well, that's great. Now, your book that's coming out completely about being successful in scaling, talk a bit about it and when can we buy it, where can
Jan Cavelle: we buy it, both worldwide. And I know it's being released in the US shortly as well. Give us a bit of a kind of overarching review of that. And then we'll say goodbye. Well, I discovered that it was quite tough to scale,
Jan Cavelle: you know, not least because of a lot of the things that I hadn't been able to be. put in place because I didn't know enough or because of the challenges of the changing markets and development and wanting in another.
Jan Cavelle: And I think like many entrepreneurs, you know, you think it's your fault when things don't go right. You know, so the more I had the issues, the more I became convinced that I was absolute useless at this and, you know, I should just start to sales.
Jan Cavelle: And then I got to talk to other entrepreneurs as I sort of bounced along the same level, not being able to
Kevin Mako: go any further up and realise that actually this is quite a common problem that people get stuck between sort of maybe one mill turnover and five mill turnover particularly that they can't
Kevin Mako: get out of that sort of situation because they haven't put foundations in place mostly which is why I was so excited when you you know you immediately said that about systems
Jan Cavelle: I mean that's that's one of the points that is so vital but it's it's it's It's so much setting yourself up right to scale. And of course, with me drifting into it in ignorance, you know, I survived for a very long time.
Jan Cavelle: I mean, I ran the business for 20-odd years before burning out altogether. But, you know, I was always fighting like crazy when it should have been so much easier by doing it right from the beginning. And, you know,
Jan Cavelle: it's interesting to find so many people struggle with the same thing.
Kevin Mako: So I thought, yeah, this is something I can really help with. I can,
Kevin Mako: you know, put something together that will help and guide entrepreneurs, make more aware of the need to prep, perhaps most of all,
Jan Cavelle: but in various areas, and how to go buy shit and build their businesses if they want to scale. But be more aware of it and how you're dealing with a very different entity,
Jan Cavelle: you know, as you're found from going to one to 30 people, you know, you just have to create a whole new being, don't you?
Jan Cavelle: Well, that's great. And your perspective on this is amazing because you really, you know, it was a school of hard knocks. You did this by learning the hard way on many of these
Jan Cavelle: elements and now now can help entrepreneurs, you know, avoid a lot of the pitfalls that you saw, but also sees a lot of the opportunities that ended up making you incredibly successful at it as well.
Jan Cavelle: what's the what's the title of the book is there a website or download link or a pre-order what's what's the best way for us to get it absolutely if there is uh the name of the book is scale for success
Jan Cavelle: you can go to my website which i know it was very kindly in the show notes below so you can leap on there and you can download the first chapter which is sitting there for free for you to have a
Jan Cavelle: taste of and see how you get on with it and it's also available to pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and all good booksellers because it comes out from Bloomsbury Publishing.
Jan Cavelle: So you should find it in wherever your favorite haunt for buying books is. Much appreciated. And I know that comes out in the U.S. on July the 6th. So I'll look forward to reading it then. Jan, thanks again for being on the show.
Jan Cavelle: And I really appreciate all the insights in terms of selling and scaling through selling. Loved it, Kevin. Loved every minute. I was fascinating to listen to you. Likewise. Thanks. Take care.
Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success.
Narrator: This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in-to-end physical consumer product development
Narrator: to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to Mako-design.com.
Narrator: That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-designs for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
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