How has being an actuary helped me with running Oz Fair Trade?

I get asked this question a lot, and I didn’t really know the answer until a recent revelation. I was reading an article on Renegade Collective, my favourite magazine, about a ballerina turned business owner, when it occurred to me that I, too, have transferred skills gained from my professional training to the launch and running of Oz Fair Trade.

According to Strengths Finder 2.0, my current top strengths are:

Input
Restorative
Intellection
Relator
Activator

I was not born with these strengths. They are a direct result of my experiences to date. I might have always been inquisitive (i.e. Input), able to relate to others (i.e. Relator) and a thinker (i.e. Intellection), but Restorative and Activator? I would hardly see them as my strengths ten years ago.

I’d say that my actuarial training can definitely take credit for my problem solving skills (i.e. Restorative), and my passion for poverty alleviation and human rights pushed me to become an Activator (i.e. I cannot not act).

I suddenly realised that I founded Oz Fair Trade because I wanted to solve a problem that I witnessed i.e. extreme poverty, and this problem solving instinct was a direct result of my actuarial training.

I suddenly realised that all my ideas steam from my desire to solve a particular problem, and my Activator instinct pushes me to make these ideas happen.

It’s a New Year’s Revelation.

In the past, I have always focused on improving my weaknesses, with little understanding of my strengths. I couldn’t see how being an actuary helped me with Oz Fair Trade or any of the other activities that fill my life right now. But now I see it. It’s not just that I can do numbers. It’s more that I have learned to think analytically, and learned the right process of problem solving.

So yes, it is true that anything you learn can be useful, and any job can teach you valuable lessons.

Happy learning!

1st Year Anniversary

It’s hard to believe that it has been a year since I founded Oz Fair Trade (initially known as Global Handmade). What a year! I still remember coming back to Australia from Southeast Asia with a burning desire to help the kind and talented people who lived in such poverty. The images of bare footed children selling things on streets were popping up in my head over and over again during Christmas, when my own nieces and nephews were spoiled with endless toys. I felt depressed, and I wanted to cry. Nelson Mandala once said that

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”

I have been donating. I have been volunteering. But I felt that I could do a lot more. How? How can I help these people? I read widely and brainstormed. It didn’t take long before I came to the conclusion that I could help these people to find a market for their products in Australia. I would source from fair trade suppliers and sell their products in Australia via e-commerce.

I’ve always loved Oxfam, and my research has introduced me to a few other fair traders in Australia. However, most of them are quite small, and over the years Oxfam has scaled back its retail operation. In contrast, fair trade has flourished in Europe, America and New Zealand. I strongly believed that Australians are kind hearted and generous. There is no reason why fair trade can’t flourish here! I wanted to introduce fair trade products to people who normally wouldn’t have thought of buying fair trade. I wanted to help to expand the fair trade market in Australia. I believed I could do it.

So there I was, setting up a website and a business with no relevant experience or knowledge whatsoever. The first version of the website was horrible, but at the time, it was a great achievement and I was really excited when I got my first order. Over the next 12 months, I read widely and learned a lot about website development. Then in October I made the move to rebrand and launched a brand new website (www.ozfairtrade.org). I have been working very hard, managing both a start-up and a full time job. I have made mistakes along the way, but I have learned so much. Looking back, I am very proud of what I have achieved in the last 12 months, and I already have great plans for the next 12 months. The best thing that happened in the last 12 months is the number of people who have kindly supported Oz Fair Trade and made me believe in myself. The next 12 months will not be easy, but it will be great!

Thank you all for supporting Oz Fair Trade, and I promise that you will never be let down!

How to rebrand an e-commerce store (Part V)

People matter

No matter how the technology changes or where the business operates, online or offline, the ultimate relationship between a seller and a buyer has not changed. The most important thing to be mindful of during a rebranding campaign, in my opinion, is to keep customers happy.

At Oz Fair Trade, one of things that set us apart from our competitors is our full commitment to providing the best customer services. We are passionate about fair trade, and we know that ultimately it is the consumers who have the power to push forward fair trade practices. For this reason, we want our customers to have the best shopping experience so that they will continue to support fair trade. We not only offer free express shipping on orders above $50, which is one of the most generous in the market, but also offer 365 day free return and exchange. This is unmatched by any other fair trade businesses in Australia. As a result, we have many happy customers, and any customer who has an issue will see it resolved quickly, because he/she only needs to deal with one person who really cares instead of some random employee who doesn’t care. All these earned us WOMO’s 2013 Service Award, which is shared only by the top 5% of the businesses listed on WOMO.

We were very mindful of customers’ reactions and needs when we decided to rebrand from ‘Global Handmade’ to ‘Oz Fair Trade’. One of the first things we did was posting on all social media platforms about the upcoming changes. Immediately after the new website was up and running, we emailed all our past customers about the change and the new features of the website, and invited them to visit the new site and give us feedback. We also offered them a permanent 10% discount on all future orders for supporting Global Handmade, a start-up fair trade not-for-profit. Some customers immediately responded and we were very happy about the positive responses that we received.

Through the process, we learned that people is the most crucial part of rebranding. All these website changes, social media update etc. all serve a single purpose: keep past customers happy and attract new customers. It is easy to forget the role of people when running an e-commerce from a home office, when the person responsible is faced with an endless to-do list covering web building, graphic design, photography, accounting, stock purchasing, stock labelling etc. But losing that focus would be a fatal mistake.

This is the last post of ‘How to rebrand an e-commerce store’ series. We’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences!

How to rebrand an e-commerce store (Part II)

How much does your name matter?

One of the very first steps once we decided to rebrand was to evaluate whether we needed a new brand name. A new brand name is not a necessary element of a re-branding exercise, and it’s certainly not suitable in some situations. We needed a cost benefit analysis. This was where my actuarial analytical mind came to be handy.

Generally speaking, a new brand name can cause confusion to existing customers and undo past marketing efforts. However, the younger the brand is, the less it has to lose. In our situation, Global Handmade was only 10 month old, so it was definitely a young business. On the other hand, we were certainly aware of the implications of a name change, and the amount of work that this would create. So it all came down to this: could we come up with a brand name that’s significantly better than Global Handmade?

Looking back, I think “Global Handmade” failed at least one crucial test. It didn’t imply what the organisation stood for. When I attended networking events, people often looked at my name card and asked what ‘Global Handmade’ was. Their first guess would be some crafty business. They were certainly right because most of our products were hand crafted; however, the name said nothing about what we stood for or that the products were fairly traded. When I first chose the business name, I picked something that described what the products were. But after 10 months of business experience, I came to the realisation that what we stood for was far more important than what we were selling. People bought from us not because the products were hand crafted, but because they supported our values and they supported fair trade. In other words, a lot more people were interested in fair trade practices and ethical products than the method of production. I realised that the brand name had to be changed.

The length of time that it took me to decide on a new name was about 10 hours. By now, you might have realised that I’m the sort of person who jumps on things. In less than 24 hours, I had registered a new business name, bought four new domains, set up two new email accounts, and set up a new private company.

Why did I choose ‘Oz Fair Trade’? Because it was available, it implied exactly what we stood for, and it implied that we were a locally owned business. It was also very important to check the availability of domains. I wanted to get four domains i.e. ozfairtrade.org, ozfairtrade.org.au, ozfairtrade.com and ozfairtrade.com.au. There were some other names that could have worked, but at least one domain was not available. Once the decision was made, I quickly registered all four domains. The default domain at the moment is www.ozfairtrade.org.

A new brand name also meant new business cards, new promotional materials and a new logo. Have I mentioned that I’ve learned so much about Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator in the past 10 months? It took me a few late nights to finish the design of all new marketing materials, and then they were off to the printer. Could I take a rest now? No…the fun has just begun…

Coming soon: How to rebrand an e-commerce store (Part III) – How much does your website matter?

Do you know how much that annoying ad cost?

Before I started Global Handmade, I was just another office worker who’s annoyed with any form of advertising. It never occurred to me how much they might cost. So it came as a shock to me. A full page magazine ad can be over $7,000, and it’s not even the most popular magazines. Obviously TV ads are out of the question, so are newspapers ads. Even local paper ad can cost a few hundred dollars.

Shocked as I was, I decided to give advertising a miss. Instead, I wrote to journalists of local papers and got lucky. The two newspaper articles really helped to promote Global Handmade to the Canberra community. But then the effect wore off, and I faced a quiet period.

I used the time to improve the website and to promote Global Handmade on various social media channels. They worked…more or less…and sale were slowly coming in. I also tried weekend markets in Canberra and a couple of Fair Trade markets in Sydney. Out of desperation, I also tried letterbox drops (me and my dad were doing it to save some money) even though I’ve read that it didn’t work.

Again, out of desperation, I decided to run an ad. I chose Peppermint because I love this magazine and the price was cheaper than others. I saved on graphic design costs by designing my own ad. The Peppermint team was really helpful, and my full page ad was at the very front of the magazine. I was happy with it, and I thought, even if only 1% responded, I would get my money’s worth. It was exciting to see my ad printed on a magazine I love, but…sadly…it didn’t seem to work. According to marketing experts, it takes a long time for advertising to work, which means that I need to continue pouring money into it if I want to see any return. Inevitably I felt a bit let down…but I’m the kind who takes risks and then moves on.

Anyway, my point is, now I don’t think ads are that annoying any more (apart from Harvey Norman’s…). I always remember that, behind each ad, there is a real person’s hope and desperation.