Growth on growth

Toss Grumley has quickly grown a successful consultancy by helping other young entrepreneurs set-up, market and grow their own businesses.

This magazine first covered high-school ‘dropout’, Tosswell (‘Toss’) Grumley and his Wolf & Fox SME consultancy in 2016 when he was mentoring and then helping university student Aryaman Taore launch his ‘deliver-anything’ answer to Uber in Auckland. 

A year later Grumley is a dissertation-short of an MBA at Warwick University, UK (which involves flying back and forth for week-long seminars). 

Remarkably, his business is booming. He will also shortly become a father.

Not unexpectedly, the 27-year-old only has one client over the age of 40. He describes his approach as “modern, specialising in growth” and his clients as “open, with no rigid thoughts or strategy; responsive and passionate about their customers” and his major source of new business. ‘Passion’ is a word which frequently bounces off the walls in his Albert Street premises.

“I don’t put pressure on anyone,” Grumley says, “and have no set formula or process I impose. 

“I try to meet at least monthly with clients to review the progress made on an agreed plan, or discuss adjustments.”

Assisting him are a funding and capital-raising expert (“who has already been involved in deals worth over a billion dollars”); a lawyer experienced in capital-raising and comfortable with young entrepreneurs; his own separate marketing company called ‘Unnamed’; designers and copywriters. 

Grumley sticks to his ‘speciality’ which seems to incorporate most of the above. He’s also a qualified member of the Institute of Directors.

Diverse clients

Wolf & Fox is an NZTE-approved business partner and has formal links with ATEED. Currently Grumley has 23 clients, ranging through beauty, retail, e-commerce, wholesale (he was GM of a major wholesale supply company by the age of 25), ‘tradies’ and a physiotherapist.

So what happens with clients who aren’t “killing it”, as he puts it.

“I’ve worked with a client whose business wasn’t making money. We did a full health-check, changed charges for services, adjusted staff hours and added extra services and add-ons to bring the business back into profitability. 

“Through taking time out to think about the business, many owners find they know all the answers; they just needed the tools to map it all out and come up with a solution.” 

Naturally, he wants NZBusiness to focus on a couple of ‘killers’.

“Olivia Scott started The Raw Kitchen just over four years ago, bringing healthy treats, smoothies, salads and breakfasts to the Auckland market. She’s the author of The Raw Kitchen book which was released just over a year ago.

“The business is going from strength to strength growing more than 20 percent in the last two months. They’ve just released their new juice cleanse range and are opening a new store on Auckland’s Elliot St.”

Lash Noir, started by Rebecca Hutchinson in a Franklin Road house eight years ago, has grown from three to 15 staff in the past three years, to dominate the local brow-and-lash game. It operates from three units in City Works Depot. 

“After launching ‘Lash Noir Ink’ with business partner Britney Ackland, more than a year ago, they have recently launched a wholesale business, ‘Lash Noir Pro’, supplying Yumi Lashes to the New Zealand market,” says Grumley.

“Sales are doubling year-on-year so they now have a collective social media following of 35,000 across the main platforms. The girls have firmly established themselves as industry leaders both well before the age of 30.”

Grumley regularly works with clients looking to open new stores, so they can “run the figures and make a clear business case for or against the opening of a branch”. 

“We do robust cashflow analysis, projections and then sensitivity analysis to ensure the right decision is being made. We then work together to work out how to make the new branch have sufficient business to meet and exceed growth targets.”

Grumley says a service provider came to him with the idea of launching a business and going out on his own. “We set up his business practices and systems; made a great marketing plan, which I executed, and he was making $40,000 profit in his third month as a one-man-band.” 

Grumley began working with Shay Lawrence, earlier this year, to take her Caliwoods Eco from a market brand to an established business. 

“She had the vision, motivation and skills, so we sat down and made a clear and concise plan for how to get her product in stores; get her online offering cranking; and grow the business. 

“Since we’ve worked together, Shay has got her products from four stores into 80. The business is growing by the day, a testament to her hard work.”

7 tips from Toss

Here’s some advice from Grumley for anyone looking to start a business:

1. Do something you know well or are passionate about. “The best results we see for clients are generally businesses where they are an expert in the field and/or extremely passionate about it.” 

2. Think about what you’re doing and how it could be done better. Innovation isn’t about always doing something new and grand. Quite often huge success can be had by improving something already existing – a service, a process, even your marketing.

3. Marketing is king. An average business with great marketing will do well. A great business with average marketing will have average success – or will take a lot longer to achieve. 

4. Everything is about the customer. If you haven’t thought about who your customer is – their needs and desires and what they want – how do you know what you have suits them? 

5. Identify your ideal customer. This is who you should be relentlessly chasing. 

6. Get help and read. Don’t be afraid to get external help on the ‘tough stuff’ and mentorship. But everyone learned what they know from somewhere; most of it’s from experience and reading. A whole heap of the help you need can be found in books and specialist magazines.

7. Know your numbers. I always teach my clients how to read a P&L, a Cashflow, and the difference between the two.
I recommend you always have a financial dashboard or reports run weekly, so you know what’s going on in your business. Often with some simple analysis we can find issues with expenses in the P&L and improve profitability with some simple steps.