Jolyon M'Bei, Franchise Owner Leonidas Chocolates

70% increase in sales within 1 year

Jolyon M'Bei owns a franchise of renowned Belgian chocolate company Leonidas in Bucharest. He attended one of Ozana’s free Master Classes and understood immediately that he’d need to do more than sit behind the till to drive his business forward.

Jolyon realised that he needed to think strategically, understand sales and marketing, and focus on activities that contributed to increasing sales.

He then attended our Smart Business Accelerator™ and Smart Online Sales Bootcamp™, which reconfirmed the need to approach his business differently.

Within a year, his turnover had increased by 70% and his personal cash by 40%.

A major shift for Jolyon was to understand that his true business was not his product (chocolates and confectionery) per se. Rather, he is predominantly in the gifts market – most of his clients give the chocolates to someone else.

He started communicating appropriately with his clients. Via a series of structured questions that Ozana asked him during the Accelerator, he better understood clients. As a result, his positioning today is very different to what it was when he opened his first shop. He has moved away from a message centred on “buy our delicious, refined chocolates” to one of “buy a special but inexpensive gift and be appreciated by the recipient”.

This targeted and more relevant message – often communicated via Facebook – combined with a few other strategies led to him taking his business to the next level.

What is interesting is that even though he had an ongoing contract with a marketing agency, it was he who brought this mindset turnaround to them.

Other strategies he learned from us and implemented included:

Gift with purchase

With every online order, Jolyon started to include a complimentary chocolate coin. This small gesture, highly appreciated by surprised clients, did wonders for sales. Clients returned the favour and bought more.

Understand the client

Jolyon made it a priority to understand his clients, making personalised offers to them, which again led to more and bigger orders.

Over deliver to build raving fans

Here Jolyon experimented with various tactics. For example, if a family came into the shop, the kids were allowed to try something for free. Pleased parents would often buy more, feel positive about the shop and recommend it to others; i.e. he got referral business without having to seek it out.

Sell via events

Jolyon organised his first event – a tasting session of Leonidas winter collection chocolates – in October 2017. About 700 people registered, via Facebook Ads, of which 400 showed up.

During the event, he applied the above-mentioned strategies, and also offered a 16% discount in celebration of his business’s 16^th anniversary. 150 people bought in just three hours! This was 10 times more purchases than what he made on a regular Saturday.

While we worked on building his Smart Online Sales Funnel, Jolyon got to understand various aspects about his business. Some of the key elements included:

really understanding his client
moving the focus from his product to what the client needs
This led to one of the biggest shifts for him, which was to ask himself: “How can I help my client?” Not many entrepreneurs ask this very simple, game-changing question. If they do, they rarely take it any further.
using Facebook to communicate with his potential and existing clients, as well as taking out paid ads for specific promotions

Watch the video to discover in detail what he did.

Jolyon continues to come to Ozana’s events, including repeat events. When asked why, he stated that he gets something new out every time. On the day of filming the interview above, he explained that a familiar idea presented from a different angle had given him something else to tweak in his business to achieve smarter profits faster.