Chapter 11: Influences in establishing a small to medium enterprise
Sublime Greengrocer & Juice Bar and Boost Juice
Living with your business
ELES-0839
worksheet
Juice bars are the latest craze and they are popping up everywhere. Melbourne fruit and vegetable
shop owner Steve Collins wants a slice of this action, but he does not know where to start. Steve
has one store with just two employees and a turnover of $500 000 per annum. In the video clip,
Janine Allis — a potential mentor who owns 71 Boost Juice stores — is asked to give Steve a few
tips. Boost Juice has 262 employees and an annual turnover of $40 million.
As both manager and owner of the business, with only two young members of staff in his employ,
Steve gets up well before 4.00 am each day to go to the fresh produce markets for supplies and
works long hours in the store. Janine comments that starting work so early is odd for an Australian,
but Steve informs her that he is half Greek so he’s ‘got a leg in’. Janine laughs and says, ‘Just half
a leg’.
This will be Steve’s first summer in the store. He has been told that the area is quiet during the
summer holidays, so he is thinking about closing the shop and taking a break. After all, he is the
boss. Janine is worried that Steve might lose some of his loyal customers to competitor fruit and
vegetable shops if he closes up for a while. However, Steve feels that he has to have a life. Is he
going to run a business or is it going to run him, he asks. Janine, in turn, queries whether he has
‘bought a job or a business’, to which Steve replies that he likes to think that he has bought a
business. Janine believes that when you purchase a business, working long hours is a given, but
she understands Steve’s need for a life and suggests getting someone in to run the business while
he is away.
Boost Juice opens a store per week. Its policy is to employ and train a manager immediately, so
that he or she is in the store right from the outset. Janine admits that you can lose hundreds of
thousands of dollars if you get it wrong, but if you get it right, it can make you a fortune.
Steve offers Janine the house special – a juice made from only fresh produce. She likes it. He
explains that he has a large display of cut fruit that he rotates through the store like a big
production line.
Steve wants to diversify from his core business of fruit and vegetables and juice into a smoothie
option. Janine is sceptical. She believes that if you are famous for something, then that is where
you will make your money. Fruit and vegetables and juicing have synergy but when you throw in
dairy products it becomes a different business. The special equipment required to make smoothies
is also very expensive.
Janine takes Steve to one of the Boost Juice outlets to show him what it takes to achieve the right
business mix. Smoothies are 70 per cent of Boost Juice’s business. Working to a system, it takes
just a couple of minutes to make a smoothie. Boost Juice runs a loyalty card program, and if the
© John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
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Chapter 11: Influences in establishing a small to medium enterprise
customer has to wait more than 10 minutes, he or she is entitled to a free card. The business is all
about customers.
Janine takes Steve outside to show him why the location for this particular Boost Juice outlet is
excellent. There are thousands of people walking around outside the shop, which is also one of the
reasons that particular shop is so noisy. Janine knows that the rent is high, but she feels that the
right spot is everything. She tells Steve that the sales for this shop increased by 250 per cent in
just one year.
Steve asks whether customers return regularly and Janine informs him that ‘80 per cent of your
business comes from 20 per cent of your customers’. Steve notes that others have also mentioned
the 80:20 rule to him. He feels that if you look after a small segment of happy customers and ‘love
them to death’, they will remain loyal and help your business become strong and healthy. For that
reason, Janine suggests that he should not close his shop for a couple of weeks because those
loyal customers may feel cheated and start frequenting a competitor’s shop. Steve had not planned
on getting a shop manager for a couple of years but, after hearing Janine’s sage advice, he will
have to consider it.
Steve feels that Janine is a brilliant woman who certainly knows how to run a business using all the
tricks of the trade.
Topic: Business planning
Students learn about:

Influences in establishing a small to medium enterprise
o personal qualities — qualifications, skills, motivation, entrepreneurship, cultural
background, gender
o sources of information
o the business idea — competition
o market — goods and/or services, price, location
o human resources — skills, costs (wage and non wage)
Outcomes:
 P3 describes the factors contributing to the success or failure of small to medium
enterprises.
 P8 evaluates information for actual and hypothetical business situations.
 P9 communicates business information and issues in appropriate formats.
1.
Identify the personal qualities Steve possesses that have led to the success of his
business.
2.
Identify two burdens of entrepreneurship that Steve alluded to in the clip.
3.
Describe an area of human resource planning that Steve should attend to in the near
future.
4.
What potential business opportunity did Steve identify in the clip?
5.
Why was Janine sceptical about this new business opportunity?
© John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
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Chapter 11: Influences in establishing a small to medium enterprise
6.
Recommend two sources of information available to Steve to help him make a decision as
to whether or not to pursue the business opportunity he identified.
7.
Outline the location of the Boost Juice store shown in the clip.
8.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this location.
9.
If Steve decided to pursue the new business opportunity identified, recommend a pricing
strategy he could adopt.
10.
If Steve decided to pursue the new business opportunity identified, he should undertake a
market analysis. Propose four questions that Steve should investigate as part of his market
analysis.
11.
Recommend two methods of market research Steve could use as he conducts his market
analysis.
© John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
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