WHEN Kate McLoughlin joined the family business McLoughlins Craft Butchers two years ago, her father told her that just because things had been done a certain way in the past, that did not mean they were right.
Part of her job was to find fresh ideas to help the 50-year-old, third-generation business survive the next half-century.
McLoughlins started with a butcher shop in Ballyfermot. Eight years ago it began wholesaling to eateries, including Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. Today, wholesale accounts for 70% of turnover of a business which employs 25 staff.
“When you are an employee, you typically have colleagues you can vent with,” said McLoughlin, a 26-year-old DIT business graduate. “I found myself out here in an industrial estate in Clondalkin, not knowing anyone else who was doing what I was doing, and not meeting anyone I could really talk to about issues that arise when you’re running a small business.”
This unexpected sense of isolation prompted her to join Plato Dublin, a development programme for small-business owners.
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“The other Plato members in my group came from really diverse businesses but all had faced the same issues and challenges,” she said. “So for me, it really was a great source of fresh ideas.”
A simple, effective change wrought from the programme was weekly management meetings. “Previously my father and I had a very informal system of communication, which is not uncommon in family businesses,” McLoughlin said. “Scheduling dedicated time to discuss the business formally has proved much more productive.”
Plato groups are peer-to-peer support networks made up of small business owners, with typically 10 to 15 owner-managers in each. Up to 95 owners have joined each year.
Each group of small-business owners is facilitated by a leader from a multinational company which hosts the monthly meetings. This year a record 18 large companies have joined, including Microsoft, IBM, Pfizer and Dell.
New research from DCU Business School found 93% of small-business owners who participate believe they emerge better equipped to plan specific management practices.
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McLoughlin’s group met in the offices of Pfizer. “I learnt that, just because I run a small business, doesn’t mean I can’t adopt systems and processes that are effective for large businesses.”
Some 83% of participants surveyed by DCU said they had improved business productivity as a direct result of the programme, while 79% of small-business owners who responded said they also increased sales.
Each group decides at the outset the learning outcomes the members most want to achieve. According to Marion Walshe, who runs Plato Dublin, the goals have changed in recent years.
During the boom, participants were most keen to learn how to recruit and hang on to staff. In the recession, emphasis was on survival. “Now it’s primarily about finding best practice in sales and marketing, how to promote their business effectively,” said Walshe. “We are also seeing a demand to upskill in cash flow management, stemming from a desire to avoid the risks of overtrading as the economy grows once again.”
Plato programmes are open to any business that has been trading for more than two years. Many have been trading for much longer.
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The programme has been running in Ireland since 1993. Traditionally an 18-month initiative, uncertainty about local enterprise office (LEO) funding during the recession resulted in the programme being cut to 12 months. The full 18-month schedule has now been restored — a sign of economic recovery, said Walshe.
It costs €600 to join and participants have the option of taking a further six-month advanced course. Participants are exposed to three different “resources”: peer learning; the expertise of host multinational executives; and guest speakers who are invited to talk on topics of interest.
“Owner-managers often have a particular technical skill, usually the reason they set up in business,” said Walshe. “Typically they don’t have a broad range of business management skills. This is a very practical way of broadening your skill set and identifying the tasks you should be doing in your business.”
Nicky Kelly, who founded surf travel company surfholidays.com in 2008, signed up for a Plato programme last year.
“You can’t always tell your staff when you’re thinking of taking the business in a different direction because it can spook people,” he said. “So it’s nice to be able to sound out an idea with someone who has done it before.”
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Participants tease out goals for their companies, which get put up on a board. Each month they relay their progress.
Kelly used the time to help get his company investor-ready. Most surfholidays.com customers are in the UK and Ireland, but Kelly wants to open up the northern European market and then on to the US and Australia.
Sole trader Cathy Soraghan set up Women on the Run, her personal fitness training and weight loss business, 23 years ago. She joined Plato as a result of the downturn.
“I needed to start thinking about financial planning — just learning to manage money better,” she said.
She experienced the age-old entreprenuerial problem of working in, not on, her business. “You need to have a strategic vision,” she said. “Now I have a vision board in front of me and I have continued working with some of the expert coaches who came in to speak to us, to help me grow my brand further.”
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She is now ready to take on her first employee. After 23 years, that’s a big step. “It’s a huge commitment but not nearly as daunting to me as it was before I did Plato,” she said. “Now I realise it’s the only way to grow the business.”
Bill Sheehan & Sons is a family car dealership entering its third generation under David Sheehan, who enrolled onto Plato.
“We changed from Seat to Mitsubishi and moved into larger premises in 2013, which gave us scope to grow,” said the 35-year-old Sheehan. “I needed more of a business head, as opposed to [specialising in] car sales or mechanical issues, but I didn’t have time to go back to college.”
His group met at 7am. “I’d come away with real-world ideas [that] I was able to discuss with my father,” he added. “We’ve implemented quite a few, including changes in internal structures and communications.”
The recession was all about survival. “Now we can afford to look more long term, to think about where we want to be in five years,” he said.
In the past month the business has hired three people, taking the workforce up to nine. “I still miss being able to run something I’m struggling with by the group, to get their take on it,” said Sheehan.
“But my wife and I have just had our first child, so the time is tight. As soon as I can, I’ll be back to sign up for the advanced programme.”