Growth Tips from Kings Domain: “Do It For You”

Meet the all-authentic Italian food truck navigating an expansion during COVID-19. The evolution from popular mobile food truck to permanent bar, deli and cafe seems a natural progression for Bar Positano . After a successful eighteen months serving paninis, cheese boards, and other Italian delights from the bay window of their highly instagrammable van, co-owners Anthony Porra and Luca Andolfo decided to put down stumps in Sydney’s Surry Hills and shift their focus to the sit-down dining experience. Although a sudden citywide lockdown threatened to derail the grand opening of Bar Positano’s new brick-and-mortar location, the duo were quick to adapt. Celebratory spritzes were swapped for takeaway cocktails and the deli was stocked with take-home pasta so locals could dish up their own cure for those holiday cravings. We spoke to Luca and Anthony about the challenges they’ve faced so far, and why now’s the perfect time to bring a slice of the Amalfi Coast to Surry Hills. Tell us a bit about how Bar Positano first started. We first started out in the events industry, providing event hire and styling services for many weddings and other events. A lot of clients use pop-up food and drink vendors for a more casual style, so we decided to add a mobile bar to our offering. Being of Italian heritage, we thought we could offer a unique and authentic food truck, focusing on quality products and service for weddings, private and public events. Then we were in Surry Hills one evening and saw the vacant shop, which had a nice unique style and a sunny corner position. Many Australians travel and love the Italian summer atmosphere, when it comes to alfresco dining and aperitivo. We’ve always wanted to bring that experience to Sydney, and thought this would be a perfect location to test our idea. What was the biggest challenge you faced, establishing a permanent site? Being a food truck, we always tailored our menu based on the event or location we were serving. We also kept to a limited menu, as it is always a challenge working within such a small space! Moving into a physical location made us really think about our target market and demographic, as well as a gap in the market which we wanted to target. It is always challenging establishing a new business in a niche category, as you don’t know whether it will work or not. But we believe in it and really love it ourselves, so we just hope that everyone else does too. How has COVID-19 impacted your business? COVID-19 is a huge challenge to all businesses, but we decided to open up anyway as we wanted the community to see what we have to offer — albeit with a limited menu at the moment. We also sell smallgoods from the deli and pasta, sauces and other Italian products, which are a benefit to locals during lockdown. It’s the right time for us, particularly because we are opening in winter — at a time people normally head off overseas for a summer holiday. Despite the current restrictions, we’re giving customers a feeling of being overseas on holiday, or eating and drinking what they normally would if they were in Italy. We have been lucky enough to receive support from the locals, grabbing something takeaway and supporting our new business. What inspired you to make the switch to Zeller? How are you finding it? What we were looking for was a reliable system that was simple to use in a fast-paced environment. We love that the terminal not only looks good and suits our decor, but it is so simple to use with extremely low rates. The customer service and support is really great, the onboarding simple and straightforward, and the general daily use is so simple and reliable. Really happy we chose Zeller! What have you learned about running a business, with everything going on this year? To really think about our business concept, and how we can still be true to our brand and offering while remaining versatile so we can adapt as situations change.  For instance, instead of sitting down to an antipasti board and Aperol Spritz — which is what we initially envisioned — we decided to advertise takeaway deals on our social profiles and package everything up, including the alcohol, so people can enjoy the same product at home, or wherever they may be. It is so important to stay in touch with the community by communicating on social media, the website, and as best you can in store for anyone who passes by. What’s next for Bar Positano? We are really looking forward to opening our doors and having people sit down and enjoy the space. At the moment it feels like a bit of a tease, as we have only been offering takeaway coffees, panini, and a limited menu from the deli. It will be great to be able to operate at full capacity, for both our customers and staff. Do you have any advice for other business owners at this time? Stay positive, be creative and hang in there! The community is really supportive and tries to support as best they can. Restrictions will eventually lift, so just take it day by day and be flexible with your product, trading hours, and how you operate your business.

Discover 5 expert tips to grow a successful, memorable brand for your business. July's journey from a nascency to luggage scene domination is nothing short of remarkable. Just four years after the business was born, the Melbourne-based luggage startup was appointed the official luggage supplier for Australia’s 2022 Commonwealth Games team and Winter Olympics team. July’s skyrocketing success hasn’t happened by chance. Behind the scenes, the importance of brand is emphasised throughout each arm of the business. The July team has made a conscious effort to keep its brand values front and centre, ensuring everything is smooth and purposeful – from the custom-designed wheels through to the payment experience. We sat down with General Manager Zhoe Low to talk about developing the July brand and her five top tips for developing a strong business identity. How important is brand identity for July? To us, brand identity is just as important as making an excellent product. We are a design-first business and we see brand identity as a key pillar of the elements that make up July’s design. We know our customers are proud to be seen gliding through the airport with our luggage because they know the product is second to none and they know they look good holding it. That experience is part of the brand identity and something we are really proud of. Where did the business idea come from? July is the most popular travel month for Australians — a perfect time to escape winter for the European summer! The Founders, Richard Li and Athan Didaskalou, are both frequent travellers, and started July to provide a better offering in the broken travel accessories industry, from product to aftercare. They took an Aussie approach to luggage. Tough to break, beautiful to look at. After reading over 4,000 reviews of existing cases, they designed our first and signature product in 2018, the July Carry On suitcase. Its standout features include aluminium bumpers, a sturdy multi-stop handle, and the smoothest and quietest wheels. Our edge is our minimal and beautiful designs, backed by a lifetime guarantee and in-house customer service. What you see today is a result of our ongoing concerted efforts to achieve excellence in all that we do as a design-first business. What are July’s brand values? We go above and beyond for our customers, and it’s one of our defining brand values. Many of us have worked in hospitality or retail as frontline staff, and we take this mindset consciously to July, a direct to consumer ecommerce business. Our priority in building great products backed by great service is best showcased by our lifetime warranty for luggage, our 100 day refund policy and local in-house customer service. When someone buys a July, we become their travel companion for life and continue to provide above and beyond service. It comes back tenfold through completely organic word of mouth, referrals and reviews, our best and most efficient marketing channels yet! How do you want your customers to feel when they buy and use your luggage? As a direct to consumer business, we exclusively sell through july.com or our retail stores. We don’t wholesale or distribute. This business model ensures we can provide an incredible product at a fraction of our incumbents, as we don’t pass on the typical markups that they do to account for the middlemen. I am particularly passionate about our ability to design our customers’ experience with us, from discovery all the way to referrals and customer service interactions. A perfect example is our in-store experience — senior retail team members only, beautiful interiors, extra time on visual merchandising, all the way to the most seamless payment experience possible. We want our customers to leave all interactions with us feeling more excited about their upcoming travels. How does your branding inform product development? We are a design-first business, and our design ethos is to create beautiful travel products so that our customers can focus on the parts of travel they love. That is our ultimate goal, and it requires a lot of design thinking, research, testing, sampling and so many heated conversations! We only launch products we would be proud and excited to use ourselves. And your top 5 tips to create a strong brand identity? Some of the learnings we’ve had at July are: People matter a lot, and we have a simple but structured approach to ensure we hire team members that understand and are excited by our brand and our purpose. Brand belongs to everyone, not just the creatives! Our Head of Tech is one of our fiercest advocates for our customer experience. A brand is not a static thing, it evolves over time. Be conscious of what you allow to influence that. Surprise and delight. There are some core moments that your customers will remember you for. If you can preemptively identify these, double down and amplify however you can. We are the official luggage partners for the Australian Olympics and Commonwealth Games teams. It was a huge moment for us and we shared about it everywhere we could! Be yourself. People know when you are being authentic (or not), and building trust and reliability over time has a multiplier effect on your business. By sharing your details with us, we may contact you from time to time. We promise we won’t bug you — and you can unsubscribe from communications at any time.

Meet the duo determined to beat the salon stereotype and reclaim balance. Bendigo-based hair stylists Paris and Matilda are first-time entrepreneurs with big growth goals. Hairdressing is a tough gig; long hours and weekend work is the norm, as Matilda points out. It’s a stereotype the duo are keen to kick with the opening of their first salon. With years of experience under their belts, Paris and Matilda know what it takes to keep a team of stylists engaged. The business partners have climbed the ranks — from sweeping cutting room floors, to now calling the shots — and know exactly how they’ll grow the business with strategies they’ve learned along the way. We spoke to Paris and Matilda about what sparked their leap of faith, and how they're managing to achieve work/life balance while growing a new business. Why did you decide to open your own salon? Paris The pandemic hit everyone differently. We were both bored at home and unable to work during lockdown, so we thought — why not take the leap? Neither of us had ever owned a business before. Some people thought it was a bit risky doing it while going through a pandemic, but it was something we were both so determined to do. We wanted to have the ability to grow a business for ourselves, that was ours, and to create a better work/life balance. The hairdressing industry certainly isn’t easy and it can be quite tough to find a salon that really cares about allowing their employees to have that balance. It’s been really rewarding being able to do everything exactly how we want to do it, and being in control of our workload. Matilda For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to push myself and try to give myself the best opportunities to be as successful as I can be — and doing so knowing that I have provided my clients the best possible service. I was starting to lose the love of hairdressing due to working in environments that did not value their staff, and how to keep them happy. So I wanted to create a space that was fun and creative to work in whilst also giving me financial independence and better work/life balance. What makes Hair & Halo different? Matilda One of our main motivations is to break down the stereotype of hairdressing being a hardworking environment with not much reward. The technical expertise required in this creative industry should be acknowledged as it is in other sectors, and we want to create an environment that does this. The pandemic made a lot of people realise they want more balance in their life, and that is something we want at Hair & Halo. We are passionate about our salon being a place where other hairdressers can pursue their talents and careers, whilst enjoying balance in both their work and life. Owning our own salon also means we can provide and deliver the best training, products and work space for our staff — which ultimately leads to the best experience and results for our clients. Having both worked at other salons, we appreciate what works and what makes staff happy. We’ve seen firsthand how this strategy helps produce the best results. How has COVID changed the hair industry? Paris People were forced to stop and slow down, and now they are used to this which means they are more flexible. I've found that a lot of clients would prefer to have their hair appointment throughout the day, or in the evening. A lot of people can work from home now, which means our clients can bring their laptop in and work from the salon — as opposed to having to get their hair appointments done on a Saturday or their day off, outside of working hours. Because of our clients’ flexibility, we have been able to reduce our weekend work. To compensate for this, our trading hours consist of more late night hours throughout the week, which we prefer, and we think our clients do too. Matilda People definitely have more flexibility now, which means we have adapted our service delivery to accommodate these changes. There also seems to be a bit more focus on self care and people taking time out to indulge in things for themselves and we love being part of that experience. Tell us about choosing a payment services provider. Matilda When it came to finding a payment provider we wanted to research it as much as we could, so we knew we were making the right choice for our business. There are so many terminals out there but lots of them have hidden costs to them. We knew we didn't want to rent and that we wanted to purchase one, and that's what we loved about Zeller. We also thought the fees were incredibly reasonable compared to other companies out there. Not only is it super efficient, it also provides us with real time accurate information. It's also super sleek and modern-looking, which is exactly the style of our salon. Where do you see the business in 5 years’ time? Matilda I have great aspirations to expand the business both in Bendigo and in other parts of Victoria. I’m passionate about creating an experience for clients through using the best techniques and latest trends, and continuing to develop my skills through industry training. I understand the hard work required to make the salon the success I know it will be and to this, I see myself having a team of highly skilled and hard working staff who share the same passion and love for hair that I do. Paris We have very high hopes for our business. Our goals are quite big! We want to become one of the leading salons here in Bendigo, and keep growing to the point where we are able to open up another salon in a different location. Although we have only been open for a short amount of time, we are already planning on expanding our team here at Hair & Halo. We would love to have an array of employees including freelancers, apprentices and qualified hairdressers. We believe that the only way we can grow as a business is to have an amazing team behind us who love doing hair as much as we do. In 5 years’ time, we hope to have a successful business here in Bendigo that is one of the leading salons. We do have room in our current space to grow, but not as big as we would like. Our plan would be to find a bigger space that allows us to have a bigger team of amazing hairdressers. We would hope that within this timeline we would be considering, if not already have, a second location where we can grow even further. By sharing your details with us, we may contact you from time to time. We promise we won’t bug you — and you can unsubscribe from communications at any time.