North East entrepreneur and outgoing TV Dragons’ Den panellist Sara Davies has hailed her staff – and customers – for coming together to help the turnaround at her crafting business.
The Newton Aycliffe businesswoman and TV presenter announced at the start of the year she was stepping in to save Crafter’s Companion, the company she had launched in as a university student, when its directors placed it into administration following two years of losses. Despite growing to become one of the biggest businesses of its kind over the last 20 years, selling crafting kit and supplies across the world in more than 40 countries through its website and shops, the business has been impacted by challenging trading conditions and rocketing costs, which led to backers at Growth Partners putting it in administration.
That paved the way for Ms Davies’ return as CEO, having been relegated as a minority shareholder a year earlier, after a two-week race to assemble the capital to take back the business and save more than 110 jobs. Two months on from striking the deal with administrators to buy her “third child” in a £425,000 deal, with support from an undisclosed backer, Ms Davies has spoken of the work she is carrying out with workers, suppliers and customers to rebuild the business.
Last week she announced she is stepping away from Dragons’ Den “for now”, to ensure she can focus on Crafter’s Companion. Ms Davies, who is currently on TV as host of The Big Idea Works and who was recently announced as the host for new ITV quiz show Time is Money, told of her excitement for the future of the business.
She said: “It’s been an absolute whirlwind couple of months. I now understand what turnaround looks like, but I am loving it, loving the positive energy, the vibe. I’ve got a brilliant workforce. I’m just leading – it’s the staff who are doing the work. And our customers have welcomed us back with open arms too. I’ve gone out with my heart on a sleeve, being really honest with them, telling the customers: ‘These are challenges we’ve had, this is what is being done and this is how we going to do it’.
“We are putting the customer right in the middle of every decision we make as a business. And they have lapped it up.
“I had some customers in America who reached out to me, crafters who didn’t know each other but were customers of Crafter’s Companion and who met on one of our communities online. They became friends and now meet up every month to teach each other crafts.
“They said when you’re next in America, we’re going to come to you and will take you for lunch. So last Tuesday when I was in America, they took me for lunch! It was so wonderful to see their passion, for the products, and for the business.”
Ms Davies told in January how she wanted to go back to basics, and to become more agile, just as the business had been in its smaller, early days. She is holding regular meetings with suppliers while also actioning change within the company’s operations. She has also been holding meetings with key suppliers and is due to fly to China soon, to talk about how to build the business.
She said: “When I wanted to save the business, it wasn’t just about our business here, but the businesses that have formed as a result of us on the supply base that comes with all of those.”
She highlighted how staff are stepping up to help with the plan: “We’ve done a lot of work in our warehouse and what’s really lovely is we’ve got three young lads who’ve worked with us for many years. They came forward in the first few weeks and said: ‘Sara we’re not running the warehouse as efficiently as we could be, but we can fix that. Would you support us?’
“To have three young lads come knocking on my door wanting to drive positive change made me so proud.”
View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/showbiz-news/dragons-den-star-sara-davies-31178609
