A down on his luck salesman turned his fortunes around after five failed business attempt and now he’s sharing his secret

James Hopkins had taken started many ventures in the past from recruitment companies to tanning salons which all fell flat after a year or two which made him question his own abilities. After some time working for himself he went back into employment to work for a business selling office products and talked his bosses into increasing his basic salary, one day they ordered him to leave the office and not return until he had a sale.

Instead of quitting, he decided to tough things out and turned his fortunes around within months after coming up with a clever technique.

James had been cold calling businesses, but they would slam down the phone as soon as he had finished his pitch – but he soon realised why.

It quickly dawned on him companies were not interested because they were tied into existing contracts – so he made note of the renewal dates and called them back at the right time winning order after order

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He told us: “I was 200th out of 200 members of staff on the sales list, then all of sudde I was 100th, then 50th, then number one.” After raking in commission payments, he treated himself to a flash car on his birthday and was headhunted by a rival firm.

But after becoming “burned out” in the London rat race, he quit the sales world and started his own business in Devon ‘The National Association of Building Contractors’ which recently underwent a rebrand and aims to help stamp out rogue tradesmen and looks to supply consumers across the UK with selected vetted tradesmen.

Although there are competitors offering a similar service, James hit major success after offering additional services to members via a custom designed cloud-based software.

James told us ‘’Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command. The most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product and customers will pay that higher price’’.

He said: "Everything was stacked against us. You never know if you are going to be successful, but you just have to make a real run at it and overcome any problems."

James is now raising additional investment into this new tech start-up via an equity based EIS model and hopes to expand in the coming months to a more financially viable office in an expat region of Spain

www.nabc.org.uk

National Association of Building Contractors