As the success of Nakamichi continued apace, I was very aware that as a business, we did not want to become too dependent on one brand or customer. So BBG started to add other more exclusive brands to our stable, including Jamo and Waterfall. We started to diversify into a wider range of key retailers via careful channel management of these brands.

 

Jamo was a fantastic brand addition at a key time. Not only did Jamo have some really nice traditional hifi speakers, but they also did some really top quality home cinema systems and i-pod products. Having been to CES and seen the amazing impact that the i-pod was having on the audio market, we again invested heavily. We designed and manufactured some very small, but effective display stands and managed to get these new i-pod products placed in all the major UK retailers by demonstrating just how good they sounded. 

 

Waterfall was another fantastic brand. A range of ‘see through’ glass speakers, that sounded as good as they looked. The specialist press liked it because it was so different, but still sounded great. The lifestyle magazines absolutely loved it because it was so cool looking and many celebrities bought it as well. Among the celebs who bought the product was Carl Fogarty, which proved to be a very expensive sale for us, as BBG ended up sponsoring the Foggy Petronas World SuperBike Team. I was lucky enough to meet Carl and found him to be a very quiet and humble man, especially considering the amazing success of his racing career. As a keen biker myself, it was a true honour to meet the man and I have to say he has the most piercing eyes I have ever seen and nerves of steel, as anyone who followed him or watched him on I’m a Celebrity would have seen.

 

It was just as well that BBG diversified into more brands as, out of the blue and despite all of our success, Nakamichi suddenly announced that they had decided to come into the UK directly. As Nakamichi were part of a much larger Chinese parent company at the time, there was very little we could do about that… So almost overnight, we lost our biggest brand…

 

Shortly after this, we signed Audio Technica as an exclusive for retail in the UK and not only did we do amazingly well with their fantastic range of headphones, getting them into all the major UK retailers and department stores, but they also did turntables and so we caught the very front of the re-birth of vinyl. As Audio Technica had a great name, we were able to sell some fairly high-end products, alongside huge numbers of their mid and entry level USB turntables.  

 

I then moved the business into more 3rd party ‘non-exclusive’ brands such as Onkyo, Mission and TEAC who all wanted to use BBG to access major retailers outside of the Independent specialists for a select range of high-volume products. We were back on track and growing quickly again.

 

I hope you have enjoyed part 4 of my personal blogs and the lessons learned from them. These experiences can really help our Re-Sauce clients avoid some of the pitfalls that can occur through no fault of your own in business. 

 

If you need someone to take a fresh look at your business, then just reach out to us here via hello@re-sauce.net and we will be only pleased to help.

 

See you next week, as we move the BBG business into AV accessories on the next chapter of our journey.