CHAPTER 12THE CALL FROM COLES
We were running fast, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and growing quickly. We were hiring people at a rate of knots, all of them united by our culture and commitment to our purpose. We knew what we were capable of, but we just needed to make sure we brought everyone on the journey with us so they could embrace the vision too. Our goal was to help the team see their own potential so they could fully express that and be of service to the business, the culture and, in turn, one another.
At this point, we had already achieved our goal of beating Centrum to become Australia's number one multivitamin brand, and we were stoked to achieve it! We were never one for sitting on our laurels though, so we then set our sights on the next goal, which was to become Australia's number one natural health brand, a much bigger, more prestigious and more valuable category than just multivitamins. To achieve this, we needed to beat the market leader, Blackmores, and to do that, we needed to go into the major grocers, and, in particular, Coles. Blackmores were five times bigger than Centrum, and turned over around $300 million to Centrum's $50 million in Australia, so taking them on was a David and Goliath challenge.
Blackmores and Nature's Own had five to ten times the shelf space we did, and we knew that if we had that same amount of space, our sales would surpass theirs by a significant margin. The key to unlocking our full potential and achieving remarkable sales ...