CAROLYN CRESWELL - CARMAN'S MUESLI
WHY CAROLYN NEVER AIMS TO GROW HER BUSINESS MORE THAN 25% YEAR ON YEAR
Carolyn Creswell is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs.
She’s the founder and visionary behind Carman’s Kitchen - the muesli business that dominates the supermarket aisle.
At the age of 18 Carolyn bought the business where she worked part-time for $1000, and over the last 20+ years, has grown it into an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In this power chat on the lady-brains podcast, we asked her how she approaches new product development in a category that is always changing, why customer research forms the backbone of all of her decision making, and how a recent revelation about her leadership style has transformed the way she works with her team.
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“Our customer research started with me doing a survey on ‘Survey Monkey’, which cost $500. I wrote the questions myself. You can conduct research in a way that’s not super expensive. Our Carman’s Kitchen Table is not particularly expensive to run, compared what other companies do. Don’t think you can’t do customer research – I literally started standing at a farmer’s market and seeing what sold.”
“I place an enormous priority on brand. Because particularly as the world gets crazier, [customers need to be able to trust] a brand. To me brand is multi-dimensional, and you need to make sure that you care about all different aspects of what your brand stands for, how its behaving, what it would do and what it wouldn’t do. Customers then go, they’ve never let me down, so I will be more loyal to them. Because over that period of time they’ve always delivered what they’ve said they’re going to deliver. ”
“15 years ago I got deleted from one of the supermarkets in a very traumatic period of my life. That left me with a healthy paranoia, and I learnt you can never rest on your laurels. My business must be radically different in 5 years’ time. Other brands have copied us, but we’ve already moved on to the next thing. That’s what I would say to everyone. It’s not rocket science. It’s hard work. It’s constantly pushing and evolving.”
“The hardest thing ever is firing people, but sometimes it has to be done. You cannot have passengers. You must have an A team. At Carman’s we don’t just have anyone doing sloppy work. That’s just not who we are.”
“Don’t die wondering. If you’ve got a burning idea, or the desire to do something more, give it a crack. We never regret the things we try but we really regret the things we don’t. Hunt for the bravery in your life, don’t shirk from it.”
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