Husband and wife team Anne ACMA and Roland Stringer FCMA met while working in the finance team for Eastern Electricity. Since then they have both had successful careers working in finance, training, and HR for a variety of companies. When looking for a fresh challenge in 2006, they took the bold move of buying a dating agency, RSVP. Insight met them to find out how it was going and to get some matchmaking advice. By Tim Cooper, editor, e-magazines, CIMA.
So - why dating?
Anne: I wanted to do something leisure related and use my interpersonal skills. So you can see that you're putting something back.
Roland: Previously, we had mostly been involved in business to business. We wanted to do something that touched the public.
Anne: We were on businessesforsale.com for two months, looking and researching. I shouted out one day (because we have separate offices, that's a necessity!) ‘What about a dating agency?’ And laughed, then we started thinking about it.
Roland: One of the reassuring things was RSVP’s consistency of financial performance over the years. It was formed in 1992, before the explosion of online dating. Yet the turnover and profitability have hardly altered. Also, it wasn’t reliant on the owner to do huge amounts of work, which lots of small businesses tend to.
Why did you buy a company instead of starting your own?
Anne: I wanted something of a reasonable size that I could get my teeth into and turn around. I didn't have an idea that I could build up. We are both good at turnaround, so it seemed a natural thing to do.
Roland: We had been looking for something with annuity-like characteristics. You invest a sum upfront and you get a return over the long term. Having got it how we want, we will be able to withdraw gradually.
A lot of people are looking for a turnaround investment to wash its face in three years, but if you can do it over a longer time you have more freedom to experiment.
How did you finance the purchase?
Anne: We used a vendor loan. This kept the loyalty of the previous owner, because he still had his money tied up. It's quite an unusual way in a small business.
Roland: Particularly in knowledge based businesses, where it has grown up with one particular individual. There is a risk that they will go off and replicate it elsewhere.
Anne: The vendor loan showed that he was confident enough in his business to continue investing in it.
Roland: It also means he gets the money with good interest over a period of years which is good from a tax perspective, so it’s wins all round. But it does show a lot of trust on the part of the vendor because most people want to take the money and run.
Are you glad you bought the business before the credit crunch?
Roland: We got an amount from the vendor and also from the bank which was relatively easy. But we’ve since been back to the bank to talk about expansion and they don’t want to know. So I can’t imagine that we would have been able to raise that kind of money now.
Neither of you went to university, but you both have MBAs…
Anne: Because I didn't go to university, I had to prove to myself that I could do it. We both did our MBAs with Open University because it had a creative management module. That combined with the strategic management training from CIMA forms a really useful combination.
Is it true that dating agencies fare well or even better in a recession?
Anne: We’re doing as well as we did last year so far. We are enjoying using our skills a lot!
Roland: I’ve even acquired some new ones by becoming marketing director. It was intimidating to start. But it has been particularly useful to bring an accountant’s training to marketing. We probably look much more rigorously at the return on each channel - geographics, demographics, times of the year etc.
Anne: One of the first things we did was put in a management information system.
Roland: I’d be surprised if there was anyone in this industry and size of company who knew as much about their data! We’ve automated it so that each day the number of enquiries drops into my inbox. I can see how many enquiries we’ve had and make sure they are converted into meetings. We know what happens before the employees do, but it gives them confidence that we’ve got time to act if something goes wrong.
Anne: And if staff are doing well, we can recognise that straightaway and give praise quickly. This is crucial. A good management accountant should be able to turn their hand to anything and understand all functions of the business and the information they’ve got. I do feel that CIMA is still the best qualification. You really can do anything once you have it.
Roland: Absolutely. It also helps when the business manager from the bank comes here. She jokes because we are both accountants, but beneath that there’s a level of confidence. She thinks ‘if these two can’t run it, then nobody can.’
What advice would you give to anyone buying a small business?
Roland: Your research can never be too thorough. The example we came across was marketing to the over 50s. We spent a lot of time, effort and money pursuing this market using a different brand and different advertising which we thought was well adapted to that market, but we just didn’t get the response. So there’s no substitute for actually going out and asking people what they want.
Anne: Another tip - just because you can’t get a bank loan doesn’t mean you can’t get finance. Be creative.
Roland: The vendor loan was useful, but you could even ask friends or family. There are plenty of people with money sitting in their bank account who would be happy to take maybe a 10% stake and contribute 10% of their time to it, perhaps as a non exec, adviser or whatever.
Have there been any low points?
Anne: Culture change – the changes in process that we brought – didn’t sit happily with all the existing staff.
Roland: January should be the best month. But the first January we faced, our turnover was derisory. One person who was interviewing new enquiries was rebelling. She didn’t like the level of knowledge we had – stemming from our management information. We were fortunate to find a good new candidate and put her into place quickly, and changed the way appointments were made. You take most people with you, but you can’t take them all.
What about high points?
Anne: There have been many. For example, on new year’s day, one of our platinum members called me. On her first introduction, they’d just hit it off and he’d proposed on new year’s eve. I just knew – sometimes you do. When you get those it’s a real high point.
We have a ‘happy board’ with all the good letters we get. It’s seeing people change from such a low point and grow.
Roland: It’s much more rewarding because it’s ‘you’ve changed my life’ rather than ‘I liked your training course’. As marketing director, my high point is getting the brochures back from the printers.
Anne: Yes yours are a bit more practical, mine are more emotional! That’s what makes it a good partnership – I’m heart and you’re mind.
Do you have any tips for professional people in the dating game?
Anne: Very high up senior people can go to pieces when they start thinking about their personal life. We try and get them to take a networking approach, with their business hat on - maybe then it's not quite so intimidating. It does work.
I attend lots of the events - skydiving, festivals, llama racing, and lots of fun things. That photo of me skydiving sums up how I feel about it. It's been a hell of a ride and I have loved every minute.
Do accountants make good dating partners?
Anne: Yes very good. We think so certainly because we are married! CIMA accountants are even more eligible. They have that all round experience and… ability to talk to non-financial managers!
Roland: We agree with the article in Insight that accountants are quite popular. We do have a lot of them. They are pretty fussy though. They are used to a level of precision…
Anne: …that perhaps isn't applicable when finding a partner!
Roland: The risk is to come with a checklist that he or she must be like this or that. But the person you end up with is usually completely different.
Anne: That's why events are so effective, because you meet all sorts of different people.
Roland: For example we had one client, who said he was looking for a woman with no children no more than 20 miles away. He went to an event and met someone who was five years outside his age range, with three children and who lived 50 miles away. He fell for her, then asked us 'Why didn't you introduce me to her?!'
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July 2009