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With the event industry shuttered, Jeremy Fleming, Managing Director of Stagekings, and his talented team quickly developed new and innovative ideas to keep the business afloat.
Within a few short days of the COVID-19 shut-down, Jeremy Fleming and his team were able to shift from being reactive to being proactive, and unlocked a new chapter for his small, family business, Stagekings. Below, he shares what led to his success in transitioning his B2B theatrical set design offering to a B2C home furniture solution — called IsoKings — all at hyper-speed.
Making a pivot from your key offering — in this case from designing theatrical sets for corporations to selling desks directly to consumers — can often feel confusing or overwhelming to customers. However, Fleming found success in humility and vulnerability with his customers by communicating the entire process — the situation, the solution, and even the failures.
“I think it's all about just being open and honest and really having that communication. I wrote an open letter and said, this is what we're doing to try and keep our lights on and try to keep people busy. We don't know what we're doing. We've never done it in retail before, but this is what we're trying to do to keep alive throughout this time. Every time we mess something up, I write a letter again; I just say to people, this is a problem, but we're going to try and fix it. People really connect with that.”
Stagekings’ — and subsequently IsoKings’ — innovation and evolved offering stems from soliciting feedback from customers and listening to and understanding their needs.
“We are not trying to tell people what it is that they want. We’re letting them tell us what they want and then find a solution to their problems. We've been asking people, what problems do you have? What is it that we can do to help you? Then they're coming up with the suggestions; the majority of our new products are coming from our customers.”
Fleming recognized the power in making decisions and moving quickly; resulting in a fail fast, iterate quickly business model.
“We try something and if it works, great. We'll push harder with that. And if it doesn't work, we'll very quickly drop it and move on to the next thing. There are a lot of things that didn't work well, and we left a lot on the table, but mistakes are part of it. And making those mistakes has allowed us to get to where we are and to be as successful as it's been.”
Fleming was able to move quickly by utilizing the trusted resources that were already at his disposal.
“We did what was going to be the quickest and what was going to be the best for us at that stage, because we needed to move quickly. We work with people we trust and we wanted to do the things that we trusted ourselves. So, we put on the payment options that we trust: PayPal. It's such a quick and easy process, and everyone else trusts it as well.”
Pivoting to a new offering may leave a gap in employee skills that may require re-training or hiring new people. Fleming recognized the power of transferable skills, was able to bring back his out-of-work employees, giving them the opportunity expand the skills in their toolbox, but also and take ownership in the new offering.
“We’ve now got the crew all back, and they've all learned new things. We've got set builders that are now building standing desks, and our head carpenter is now running dispatch and writing dispatch systems that are amazing. So completely different things to what they normally did or used to do, and they’ve taken complete ownership as well. In giving the people that bit of ownership, telling them this is what we're doing, and asking them what we can do to help, we've gotten the full support of everyone. And it's actually quite an amazingly positive place to be working because otherwise, there was no work.”
Fleming’s success is owed to an idea he acted quickly on, but he didn’t operate in a vacuum. His friends, family, and colleagues offered advice and ideas along the way, helping both Fleming and IsoKings reach their full potential.
“I'm always looking for ideas. Always be on the phone talking to people all the time, be open to ideas, to talking to people, and trying to find your idea. But an idea is only as good as what you do with it as well — you got to get out there and do it. And make a start. Learn along the way.”
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